Theodore "Quintus/ Ted" Dreier, Jr.

Theodore “Ted” Dreier, Jr. was born in Albany, New York, near where his father worked for the General Electric Company. He came with his parents to Black Mountain College in the fall of 1933 at its founding. He was four-and-a-half years old.

He felt closely connected to the Black Mountain College community and enjoyed being invited to play children’s parts in various plays. His initial schooling was local. For high school he attended the Putney School in Putney, Vermont. He attended Black Mountain College from September 1947 through the spring of 1949. He took classes with Josef Albers, Charlotte Schlesinger, Erwin Bodky, Max Dehn, Theodore Dreier (his father), Mary Caroline Richards, Merce Cunningham, and Charles Olson.

In the fall of 1949 he transferred to Harvard where he majored in music and graduated cum laude in 1952. He studied cello in Detmold, Germany for a year but decided to remain an amateur musician. For a profession, he pursued an interest in psychiatry.

He studied at Temple University 47 Medical School in Philadelphia; Internship at San Francisco General Hospital; then, in the Boston area, psychiatric training at Massachusetts General Hospital, McLean Hospital, and Children’s Hospital. He obtained certificates in General Psychiatry, Child Psychiatry, and Geriatric Psychiatry.

He and his wife Katharine “Kit” live in Belmont, Massachusetts. They have four children who have grown up and moved on. Ted, now retired, still enjoys writing poetry, some of it tuned into his Black Mountain College experiences. The Dreiers both enjoy singing in the Harvard Radcliffe Chorus.

Biography written by Mary Emma Harris for the Black Mountain College Project.

A great obituary was written about Theodore, sharing other aspects of his life.

Relationships

Parent: Theodore Dreier

Parent: Barbara Dreier

Brother: Mark Dreier

Brother: Edward Dreier

Black Mountain College Project

Mary Emma Harris interviewed Ted in 1997 and the transcript is available from Appalachian State University under The Mary Emma Harris and Black Mountain College Project, Inc. Oral History collection.

Topics: Children – Childhood atBMC – YMCA assembly buildings and grounds – other BMC children – education in Black Mountain area – Asheville Farm School (Warren Wilson College) – Putney School – meals at BMC – BMC children and BMC students – French family and Cambridge School – Camp Alamoosook – Dante Fiorello – John Andrew Rice – memories of Josef Albers and house they shared at Lake Eden – Albers garden and cactuses – Roadside Cottage – Studies Building construction – Mary “Molly” Gregory – importance of refugee faculty to BMC – death of brother Mark Dreier at college – death of Frank Nacke at BMC – summers at Lake George – as student at BMC – Max Dehn – Harvard University – Ati Gropius – Buckminster Fuller – Cunningham dance class – John Cage – music curriculum – study of psychiatry – BMC as community – college finances – Charles Olson – M.C. Richards – Charlotte “Bimbus” Schlesinger – arts at BMC

Courses Taken

Fall 1947: Latin (Rondthaler), Music II (Schlesinger), Drawing (Bolotowsky),Chorus (Schlesinger), Voice (Jalowetz).

Spring 1948: Music II (Schlesinger), Design (Albers), Beginning Calculus(Dreier), Chorus (Schlesinger), Elementary Latin (Rondthaler), Voice (Jalowetz).

Summer 1948: Color (Albers), Dance (Cunningham), Cello (Davidoff).

Fall 1948: Math Seminar (Dehn), Drawing (Albers), Advanced Music(Schlesinger), Physics (Goldowski), Math (Dreier), Dance (Jennerjahn), Chorus(Schlesinger), Piano (Schlesinger).

Spring 1948: Drawing (Albers), Harmony (Schlesinger), Counterpoint(Schlesinger), Dance (Jennerjahn), Piano (Schlesinger), Writing (Olson), Chorus(Schlesinger), Elements of Movement (Jennerjahn)