1954 Column -- Reprinted from the Smith Alumnae Quarterly Winter 2009-10
Judy Schupper Hozore, writes from New York City. She retired as head of the planned- giving program at the Metropolitan Museum of Art four years ago, is still at it. “I do appreciate the opportunity to serve as planned-giving chair for our class,” she says. “It is a great strategy for making meaningful contributions to Smith.” Her biggest problem in the city? Making choices between all the cultural riches of theater, music, lectures, and museums. Competing with those are her five grandchildren!
Speaking of NYC drama, board member Margot Fineberg Adams is involved with the production at the Signature Theatre Company of nine plays Horton Foote finished adapting just before his death in March. Foote is Signature’s featured American playwright this season. Margot’s late husband, Mason Adams, had appeared in two of Foote’s plays there.
Nora Johnson writes, “We left Florida and came back to New York a year and a half ago. The city, my old home, is a good place for geezers. Our neighborhood, Carnegie Hill, has everything: the 92nd Street Y, five museums within a few blocks, every kind of restaurant and takeout place, easy transportation. After totaling two cars in Florida, it seems obvious that I’m better off not driving. My three children and nine grands are widely scattered between Los Angeles, North Carolina, and Dallas. And I am a very good customer of American Airlines. Since the publication of Coast to Coast in 2004, my only professional news is a short story in the summer 2009 edition of Confrontations, the literary journal of Long Island University. It’s about Americans in Saudi Arabia 50 years ago. Other projects are in the works.”
Susan Winslow, a dedicated New Yorker, shares this: “After retiring as an editor (encyclopedias and global education materials) I am far from computers, happily teaching watercolor classes and painting house portraits.” Susan co-chairs a big venerable art show for her church in Connecticut and enjoys dancing and travel. Most recently, she visited Barbara Antell Silber-Weinstock and her husband in the Adirondacks, enjoying the mountain vistas, theater, and canoeing (“something I never learned in college”).
Elizabeth (Betty) Skerritt reports a post-55th mini-reunion lunch in Boston with Helen Bohn Jordan, Rosamond (Reggie) Horton Lownes and Reggie’s daughter, Grace, a PhD candidate.
Mary Jane Brown Anderson attended the National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. with contestant granddaughter Eleanor last summer. Some 283 students (fourth to eighth graders) participated. Mary Jane proudly reports Eleanor tied “with many others” for 17th place.
Across the country in San Francisco our new class treasurer Doe Coletti Mechem nothing reports going on a short trip for a Mechem family reunion in Colorado last summer.
Judith Martin Dorsett from Dorset, VT, attended a reunion of her mother’s family last summer at Lake George, N.Y.
Marcia Brown Stern says that much to her delight her son’s wedding on Martha’s Vineyard last June ended up being a big family reunion. Marcia adds: “My grandson Adam – son of Sara Stern ‘81 – entered Yale last fall. He happily inherited his grandfather’s science and math smarts – which had obviously skipped a generation!”
At our Reunion in May a number of us gathered in the art museum on Saturday to hear from Joan Lebold Cohen, donor with her husband of 32 Chinese art works. How to explain her background and knowledge? Joan says: “We lived in China from 1979 to 1981. As a teacher of Asian art I saw exhibitions and visited art schools all over China giving lectures about contemporary American art. Through this cultural exchange I interviewed artists, which was the basic research for my book The New Chinese Painting 1949-1986. Some artists gave me paintings, according to the Chinese Communist custom of that time, and I was thrilled to give these and other works that I bought to the Smith Museum to create a collection of contemporary Chinese art. It was a treat to talk about the exhibition ‘Post-Mao Dreaming’ with reunion classmates at the museum.”
And did you ever wonder how Jane Runser Evans became webmaster for the Class of 1954? Now hear this. In an unguarded moment Jane wrote me: “This whole website thing came about before our 45th Reunion when I got a call from Nat Levine Brenner (who knew I had been involved with computers) saying that the Reunion committee felt that the class needed a website and please do one. I answered that I had not the foggiest idea of how to do anything like that, and her reply was, ‘So, learn!’ Fortunately I had access to some Web- design programs and have been in a learning curve ever since.”
Speaking of great achievements, Joan Cowen Bowman’s oldest son received a major commission from the Vermont Symphony Orchestra just five months after the premiere of his first classical piece of music in 2008. Derrik Jordan (the composer’s pseudonym for Derrik Hoitsma) was selected to be the featured composer for the fall 2009 Made in Vermont Music Festival held in September and October. He created a 12-minute piece for chamber orchestra performed in 10 venues around the state.
She has attended every Reunion, but for reasons of health, Mildred (Mud) Mooney Davey was unable to come to the 55th. In one sense, she had already been there. As house rep for Laura Scales Mud had written every housemate urging her to come back for the big get- together. At the class headquarters during Reunion weekend many signed a card to let Mud know how much she was missed.
Sec., Anne Hoerner Ribble
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1954 Column -- Reprinted from the Smith Alumnae Quarterly Spring 2010
Jane Porter tells us that she’s living alone in Washington State’s Spokane Valley ( “Fabulous climate). She was a junior transfer to Penn, where she did graduate work in anthropology, but says, “I have a lot of memories of Smith.” Jane’s mother was Rosalind Bement Porter ’20, and Jane’s aunt was Dorothy Bement ’12, who founded the Northampton School for Girls. We’re sorry to learn that Jane no longer has border collies, a lifelong focal point of her research.
Sharing memories of their friendship, Joan Lebold Cohen writes about the late Jeanne Hawes Faulkner, who died last August: “Jeanne and I were brides in 1954-55, working at the Yale art museum. Both of us married Yale graduate students. Jeanne’s husband, Winn, was a Washington,D.C. architect; they were a golden couple.”
Wish I could have seen the photographic exhibition of Elsie Trask Wheeler’s work at the Darien Library in Connecticut from Sept. 11 to Oct. 12 ’09. Bravo, Elsie.
Pauline Bucknell Wood keeps in touch with Nancy Eaton, Ann Ericson Coleman, and Natasha Lutov Hymovitz. Pauline enjoyed a fall foliage tour to Vermont last October.
Far- flung correspondent Maria (Mignonette) de los Angeles Saavedra reported on her extended trip to Europe and the States last summer. “In the States I visited Sylvia (Knobby) Knoblock Brown and two others from New Jersey and Toledo, OH. We went to Maine together. Besides that I visited my professor at Yale, who directed my thesis. I really love your country; it’s like a second home to me.” Mignonette retired as chair of the psychology department at the University of Chile in 2007, but she is still teaching both undergraduates and graduate students.
Sarah Cassidy Haughwout moved from Lewistown, Pa., to Madison, WI., where she has a daughter, grandson and granddaughter. She is hoping to make some Smith connections and generously sent an infusion for the class treasury.
From Santa Fe, NM, Mary Henoch Mackintosh reports that she intends “to remain on my very rural acreage – more than 30 years here, dogs and cats for companions, daily tramps, sporadic tennis, tai chi, rough landscape maintenance and an ever-deepening kinship with the spirit of our natural world.” Mary has volunteered at Santa Fe’s main public library for almost 28 years. Her last trip, in 2008, was with her daughter, Felicity, and grandson, Ben, to Madison, WI. to celebrate the blessing of a new Midwest Tibetan monastery and participate in teachings with the Dalai Lama – “all wondrously inspirational.”
Nancy McChesney Kessler has retired as an adult education teacher – a career that kept her from many Reunions because of the length of the school year. We hope to see her at one in the future.
Betsey Blanton McGrath writes: “With sorrow I report the sudden death of my husband, Greg, last August. We had just celebrated our 55th wedding anniversary. I met Greg on a blind date at an Amherst football game in 1950. After having him as part of my life for 59 years, I find it a big challenge beginning life as a single.” Betsey is glad of the support her three children, two sisters who are also Smith women, friends among the Five Colleges Book Sale volunteers, and Fairlee, Vt., neighbors.
From Honolulu, Judy Robinson Parrish writes that she is still substitute teaching history, math, and physical education at local high schools. She once worked as a protocol officer for the government and still volunteers at the Hawaiian Supreme Court. She keeps fit doing one or two hours of Vinyasa yoga every day, but is no longer rowing outrigger canoes for sport.
Janet White Selzer and her author-surgeon husband Richard still run a Bed and Breakfast in New Haven, CT. They are in good health and spirits.
Last fall, Doe Coletti Mechem and husband Kirke traveled from San Francisco to Yale to attend a conference there on abolitionist John Brown, commemorating the 150th anniversary of Brown’s pre-Civil War raid at Harpers Ferry, WV. Kirke was involved because of his opera about John Brown’s life. In Boston, Kirke met with the Brookline Chorus, for whom he has just completed a choral work.
Fell Bothwell Wilford still plays tennis. She and Edward recently moved from Bryn Mawr to Newtown Square, PA. She regretted missing our 55th Reunion—it coincided with Edward’s reunion at West Point.
Charlotte Kennedy Ehrenhaft writes that she and her husband still love life in Washington, D.C. which is “struggling with issues of education and governance, and still without full representation in Congress. The cultural life is grand and we enjoy living by the river, right next to the Kennedy Center.” Charlotte still plays four-hand piano and records books for Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic.
A story by Nora Johnson appeared in the summer ’09 issue of Long Island University’s prize winning literary journal Confrontation.
Sybil Schless Steinberg, a participant in our Reunion program, is a contributing editor at Publishers Weekly, reviewing fiction and nonfiction, and also reviews for the Washington Post. She’s on the advisory board of the Westport (CT.) Public Library, where her annual talk is podcast and “Sybil’s List” is on the library Website.
Mary Wainwright Lelewer not only celebrated our 55th Reunion in 2009 but also Stan’s 50th at Amherst.
Gail Cameron Wescott visited Roo Herty Brown in Lewes, Del., last October. There as the introit to Evensong, Roo’s newest anthem premiered as the introit to Evensong: “I thank God for this most amazing day,” at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, with David Flood, master of choristers at Canterbury Cathedral, conducting. Gail: “Gorgeous piece. Wonderful occasion.”
Webmaster Jane Runser Evans tells us: “You may not feel savvy about the Internet, but you can get to our class Website (www/smith1954.org) in a flash, where you can look at news and pictures, and submit items yourself.”
Sec., Anne Hoerner Ribble |
1954 Column –Reprinted from the Smith Alumnae Quarterly Summer 2010
Joan Strong Buell and Tom reunited with Maria Cristina (“Chiqui”) Orive in Antigua, Guatemala last December, after 52 years! Chiqui is retired, having been a photographer, editor, and publisher during years divided between Paris and Buenos Aires. Joan was happy to have convened by mail and e-mail friends of our deceased classmate Susie Knott Komondouros with Susie’s daughter Laurie and son Stelios. Betty Skerritt visited Susie’s husband, Takis, and Laurie last summer. Margaret Joss Stathopoulos ‘70 who is Joan’s cousin was instrumental in starting the series of connections.
The Buells had a joint art exhibition in Portland, Oregon, last fall, in Kempton Hall at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. It was a fine place to exhibit Tom’s work “that will hang on a wall and Joan’s drawings, paintings, journals and other pieces she’s made over a long period of years, including quilts, carvings, and stitched and woven pieces.”
Our 55th Reunion year stimulated a number of gatherings. In New York City Robin Hansen Withington and Ted had supper with Beese Dennison Craigie and Walter. The Withingtons also saw Nancy Crawford Thornley and John in Truro, MA, “at their newly built house on top of a hill with a 360-degree view of their surroundings. The sunset on the water from their terrace is truly magnificent.”
Mary Lusk Ughetta wants the class to know how grateful she is for their contributions to Smith. All 21 classmates she asked for donations over a ten year period came through with support by last year’s Reunion.
Jane Gunn Fox and Joan Cowen Bowman motored to Hot Springs, VA to witness the nuptials of Jane Graham Champ’s son William and Cynthia. “It was a very festive weekend in a beautiful setting,” reports Jane F.
In November, Beese Dennison Craigie and Diana Dodge had breakfast together preceding the Hunt Races in Montpelier, VA -- a happy reunion.
Mary (Chris) Parker Morrison and John relocated to a retirement community in Falls Church, VA. Chris reports, “It’s located a few miles from our present home, where we lived for more than 42 years. No doubt that by this time next year we will have gotten to the other side of this great divide and will be promoting the virtues of life care communities. I hope so, anyway. In some ways it seems a little like going back to dormitory living.”
Nancy Dickson Newcomb and Barbara Antell Silber Weinstock got together for a concert at the newly renovated Alice Tully Hall last December. Another get together took Nancy to Westport, CT. on New Year’s Eve for a four-day rendezvous with Mardy Reker Durham: “It was cold and snowy so we spent a good deal of time sitting in front of the fire talking about politics and books. We also did some interesting local sightseeing.”
Virginia (Ginny) Burnett Jordan writes from England: “We are planning a move up near Leicester closer to my son, Michael,” which will lessen the 2.5 hour drive to see him and grandchildren--17-year-old Alec and 12-year-old Genevieve. Ginny adds, “I’m still the great gardener looking after both my own garden and my son’s.”
Virginia (Tito) Gay Findlay is working hard at painting and teaching portraiture. She was one of three art panelists at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, this winter, where her work was on display.
Minerva (Mickey) Heller Neiditz’s son Robert, who has Tourette’s syndrome, has not let that interfere with his talent. Encouraged by a painter mentor, Robert’s works will be shown at the Julie Heller Gallery in Provincetown, MA, this summer. He has produced oils, acrylics, etchings, and pastels. Bravo, Robert!
Mary (M.B.) Derr Knox’s eleven-year-old grandson, Stevie, produced the painting on her 2009 holiday card. “He loves creating videos, animation, and works of art,” M.B. says, adding that he was written up in the Florence Griswold Museum Website. He is serving as one of three judges for a video contest for children. M.B. is combating the effects of Lyme disease.
Libby Bradley Hubbard reports, “For the past few years, Rex and I have been spending most of March (an endless ‘nothing’ month in New York) in rented houses on various coasts of Spain.” But in 2010 they ventured south to explore recommended parts of Brazil where their “years of work on Spanish weren’t too helpful, unfortunately.”
Elaine Wright Brophy and Jere have clocked a few miles of their own, holding an East Coast Thanksgiving family reunion in New Jersey and spending three weeks in January visiting daughter Jenny Brophy Paduan ‘83 and her husband, Jeff. Elaine’s Princeton-resident daughter, Caroline, and Anne Hoerner Ribble’s Helen worked together on the recent Princeton University 25th reunion committee
Ann Pearce Roberts sends a bounty of tidbits: “I just finished Nancy Becklean Tobin’s book H.E.A.V.E.N.( she writes under the name Nan Becklean). It is funny, sweet, with new ideas on every page, a story about life in the future, and options.” Ann reports on winter travels of Barbee Lease Crutcher and Jim to Chile, Patagonia, and Buenos Aires, and of Marianne Glasel Koerner and Richard to Mexico, where they spend five months annually at San Miguel de Allende. Ann plans to see Marjorie Fatt Chester this summer. In 2009, Marjorie lectured on her many collections on display at Guild Hall of East Hampton, (NY) and at the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton.
Marjorie (Mari) Wedin Ulmer says she writes from a Spanish point of view. A 32-year resident of Los Cruces, NM, Mari has a rich past to draw on. From “Story Lady” for the CBS Kansas City affiliate in her youth, to attorney, to Taos, NM resident in law partnership with her husband, to breast cancer survivor. Her book titles include the unpublished memoir Secret Silences, and the Taos Festival Mysteries series. Mari says that the 40-year-old Dragon series has been republished a number of times, and the last incarnation won the Franklin award. rd.” Widowed in 1998, she has a son, a daughter, and four grandchildren.
Sadly, Barbara Antell Silver-Weinstock reports the death of her husband, Solomon, from pancreatic cancer last November, “ Sol happily attended our 50th and 55th Reunions, and we enjoyed many travels during our more than 11 years together.” |
1954 Column –Reprinted from the Smith Alumnae Quarterly Fall, 2010
The death of Katy Parsons Smith last September galvanized Wendy McAneny Bradburn to organize an Albright House mini-reunion in April at her home in Arlington, Va. attended by Gerry Friedenn Kraus, Angie Schaeffer Schneider, Carol Raybin Sirot, and Barbara (Toby) Traub Woodward. Wendy writes: “Our visit to D.C.’s lovely Kreeger Museum was enhanced by discovering that our guide was a Smith alum about to attend her own 50th reunion, Virginia Dieckman Lezhnev ‘60. Iceland’s volcanic ash delayed Angie’s return to Germany, giving us a happy extra eight days together during which we saw Mary (Chris) Parker Morrison and her husband, John. Our fourth grandchild arrived last September in New Zealand, where we spent a summer month with Laura, an acupuncturist, each US winter. Two grandsons live in Blacksburg, VA, where Isabel and her husband are at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and our son, Andrew, is an archivist at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Hollywood.”
Congratulations to Hermine Fuld Nessen and Maury on their 57th wedding anniversary last February. They celebrated amid “the snowy activities of Aspen, Colo.” Two granddaughters were accepted early decision at their first-choice colleges: one at Northwestern University and the other at Amherst, where her father went many years ago.” Hermine keeps in close touch with Liane Fredricks Ocasio and Barbara Antell Silber-Weinstock (high school classmates) and Marianne Glasel Koerner, who enjoys spending winters in San Miguel d’Allende, Mexico.
Goldie Gendler Silverman says “I’m very pleased that my backpacking book is now back in print and Camping with Kids is still selling. Thank you, Nancy Cook Donigan for the gracious endorsement on Amazon.” Goldie and Don are “as healthy as two 77-year-olds can be.” They spent four weeks in Australia in March ‘09 and went on an African safari last fall. Daughter Judy celebrated her 50th birthday by biking from Mobile, AL, to Owen Sound in Ontario. The Silvermans feel very fortunate that their son John and his family, including two-year-old Nina, live near them in Seattle.
We Texans were surprised last winter when a chilling stretch compromised outdoor plants as far south as Lake Jackson. Joan Tracey Davis reports, “My poor hibiscus did not fare well [and neither did] these old bones.” With three grandchildren in college and two involved in high school sports Joan finds it hard to get the group together. She still does some volunteer work in Lake Jackson, her home of fifty years.
Thirty-six years of association with Atlantic Gallery keeps Sally Rosenthal Brody’s oil paintings and monoprints periodically on display in New York City. A new show opened in April. Sally wrote in our 50th yearbook that becoming part of this co-op gallery has given her “the support of artist friends and a professional and elegant venue to show my work.” She has had solo shows at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the Garrison Art Center, and Home Box Office, bas been part of group shows and is represented in corporate art collections. Sally lives in Brooklyn and in Ancramdale, N.Y. We’re proud of you.
Gail Cameron Wescott reports on her experience at the ‘Smith Women in the Media’ conference in March:Nora Johnson was a panelist in the fiction-writing session and I spoke about magazine journalism. When keynote speaker Gloria Steinem ’56 suddenly cancelled at the last minute to be with a dying friend, I was unexpectedly catapulted onto center stage. J.Courtney Sullivan’03, author of the novel Commencement, and I double-teamed for a lively dialogue. We are 50 years apart in age, yet we shared an identical passion for the ever-shifting world of journalism. I loved the whole event.”
Nancy Northup DeMarrais and John took a trip to Spain with friends in April to go bird-watching, followed by a May trip to glimpse songsters in Baxter State Park, Maine. Her granddaughter Sarah is studying to be an opera singer, Ashley enters Temple University this fall.
Marcia Brown Stern and Ernie are also avid birders.They own a place at Cape Porpoise, ME, and spend time there whenever possible, walk the sands at Goose Rocks Beach looking for shore birds.
May was a time for multiple reunions for Dorothy Peterson Randall and Charles, who set out from Taos, N.M. in their motor home. After Charles’ marine get together in Philadelphia, the Randalls drove to Connecticut to see class of ’54Scales house-mates, first visiting Nancy Hirth Oravetz and Jim in Rowayton, and then Lee Milligan Dietzer and Walter in Westport. They connected with Mildred (Mud) Mooney Davey in Shelton. From there, the Randalls drove to Plymouth, MA to visit the Dietzers again at their new permanent digs near their daughter Dana. After driving to Maine they ambled home, adding approximately 6,000 miles to their vehicle’s odometer.
Maureen Hayes O’ Brien and companion Craig Bell (Amherst 1951 and brother of Katherine Bell Murray) split their time between Craig’s Lazy RR Ranch in Patagonia, AZ., and more temperate climes in summer. Maureen says: “Summers we go to a 1904 two-story log cabin on Crooked Lake, 25 miles south of Mackinac Island, MI. I also still have my house in Granville, N.Y., on the Vermont border.”
Our class president Elaine Wright Brophy had a tough decision to make in May: Granddaughter Kristyn’s graduation from Brown took place on the same day at the same hour as granddaughter Rebecca’s graduation from the Lawrenceville School.She says the resolution was easy: “Kristyn had her other grandmother and her Dad, a Brown alumn, in attendance. We became the cheering grandparents for Rebecca, along with her mother-- our daughter, Carolyn –who was celebrating her 25th reunion at Princeton on the very same weekend.”
Nancy (Becklean) Tobin’s son, Richard A. Conn, Jr., has been nominated to be deputy president of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, with the endorsement of the United States Chess Federation. Nancy herself isn’t standing still. She took a tap dancing class at a senior center in Connecticut and writes: “My daughter and granddaughter came to watch our class and said they were impressed. I think they were surprised that I could do it at all.”
When you read this Frances (Frankie) Updike Simonds and Scott hope to be at their new address in Ann Arbor, Mich. Frankie wrote: “We are moving from our house of 40 years to a condo – one of 15 on a ridge overlooking a hidden lake. This is ideal as we can live on one floor if we need to and there is a built-in moving chair on the stairs leading to the lower level. We already know several people who live there.”
Looking back over 2009 Sue Swenson Woods and Jack reflect on a year of significant travels “to see kids in Phoenix, Vermont, Milwaukee, and also a wonderful trip to Egypt and Jordan. Snorkeling in the Red Sea was the best ever.”
Life is good, says Doe Coletti Mechem. “Kirke is still writing music and getting performances. He has very encouraging leads for premiers for two of the four operas he has written which have not yet been performed.” Exercise is a must for them: “He swims half a mile three times a week, while I do a one-hour water aerobics class, strenuously.” |
1954 Column –Reprinted from the Smith Alumnae Quarterly Winter, 2010
In late April, I called Georgia Hertzman Pampel of Rockford, Ill. She was our classmate for only a year, but remained engaged in Smith activities. Georgia died peacefully in May in the presence of her children. It was Georgia who suggested a jogging tour of campus during our 25th Reunion in 1979, and by gum, we did it. Long a resident of New York City and later Mamaroneck, Georgia moved to Rockford in 1995 to be near her sister. There, with her musical education from Smith and the University of Michigan, she became the local music critic and wrote lively and popular columns for the Rock River Times. Typical was her concluding comment on Verdi’s Requiem: “I treasure memories of a performance with my college choirs many years ago, and my only regret Saturday was that I couldn’t be up there on stage reliving that experience. But then, how would I take notes to write this review?”
From Providence, RI, Sunny Sturtevant Toulmin writes that she accompanies a senior citizen orchestra on piano. “ Our venues are 50 weeks of the year and include elementary schools, senior centers, nursing homes, assisted living, and independent living [communities].” She adds, “Happily, I do get time off. We still go to Maine for the summer, where we see our eight grandchildren, ages newborn to 18.”
From Maryland comes news from Barbara Millens Gaynes: “I retired as a Realtor after 30 years and now do some volunteer work.” Sadly, she reports, “My husband, Martin, died of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in March 2007.. We miss him very much. The golden retriever and I still live in Chevy Chase.” Barbara’s son, Brad, is a professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine. Her daughter, Lisa, is administrative director of cancer clinical trials at the New York University Langone Medical Center.
Katharine Edgar Fleming says, “New York City continues to be my home year- round.” This means she often sees many old friends, such as Robin Hansen Withington. “The greater part of my time is devoted to St. James Episcopal Church,” Kathy says. She chairs the Mission Committee and the Healing Prayer Ministers, and is a team leader of Neighborhood Network. “This year St. James is celebrating its bicentennial as a parish with several extraordinary events, including a panel that was on ‘The Church and Global Reconciliation,’ with Archbishop Desmond Tutu.”
While attending a talk on the art dealer Leo Castelli, New Yorker Nancy Dickson Newcomb was delighted to find that Barbara Petchesky Jakobson, who had known Castelli well, was a panelist in the discussion that followed. Barbara says: “Meeting Leo at exactly the moment he opened his gallery in 1956 allowed me to be a player in what was an incredible period in the history of 20th-century American art.” And Nancy notes: “I had not known anything about Castelli and was very interested in his background. He was the first to recognize young American artists such as Jasper Johns.”
Fancy the surprise of Mary Bahr Turino to find that her next door neighbor, also vacationing at Florida’s Hillsboro Club last February, was none other than Elisabeth Congdon Mason. Betsy had been, Mary recalls Betsy had once been “an item in the life of my Yalie brother, Fred .” Betsy was there with her sisters, Barbara Van Dusen ’49 and Jean Congdon Adams ’48. Betsy’s six grandchildren keep her globetrotting when she’s not home in Duluth, MN.
Jean Butler Dean tells us that she and David “continue to live in Buffalo, NY, and enjoy all the city has to offer, including music, theater, sports and wonderful quality of life. David still practices medicine and cardiology, although he sometimes mentions retirement.” Son Bruce, the oldest, is an attorney in New Orleans; Keith works for the Department of Defense in Washington, DC. and daughter Laurie is director of technology partnerships for Turner Broadcasting in Atlanta. Their oldest granddaughter graduated from the College of Charleston and is taking preliminary vet school courses, while her sister is at George Mason University. The youngest granddaughter is a college-shopping senior at St. Martin’s Episcopal School in Metairie, LA.
The Power of The Place is the evocative title Joan Cowen Bowman gave her new memoir, available on Amazon. The place is her grandfather’s estate on the North Jersey shore, the venue of her childhood. -- “a magical kingdom” whose ongoing influence is key in her life and development as a writer. Joan has been an interior designer for 35 years, and a newspaper columnist and essayist, who at age 72 received her master’s in writing from Sarah Lawrence College. Her home is Short Hills, N.J. where she raised five sons and a daughter. An admirer of all the arts, Joan is the board secretary of the Paul Taylor Dance Foundation and says dance can convey the most profound emotions “through movement and music without uttering a word.”
Sydney Webber Eddison’s seventh book, Gardening for a Lifetime: How to Garden Wiser as You Grow Older was recently published. Sydney says many people had written to her following a 2006 piece in Fine Gardening magazine, “especially those who, like me, had reached the age of painful joints…Those letters gave me the incentive to write [this book]. This is my story and it is for my late husband, but there are so many people in the same boat that I thought it worthwhile to share my experiences and those of friends.”
Barbara Barnitz Acton’s home is in Huntington Valley, PA, where moving into a condo has permitted her to travel easily. She retired from the civil office of the county courthouse a dozen years ago and says “Like most of you I’ve had some health issues, the hardest being two knee replacements.” But she “thinks young,” and she still swims and plays golf. Her three daughters are a lawyer, a doctor, and a politician who have produced six grandchildren: Twin boys are Harvard Business School graduates; the four girls include a junior at Emory, a first-year atNew York University; a high school junior, and a fourth-grader at Moravian Academy in Bethlehem, PA. |
1954 Column –Reprinted from the Smith Alumnae Quarterly Spring, 2010
Yolanda (Yo) Astarita Patterson writes that her husband, Guy Patterson, died last September“at 94 and seven months, not long after we celebrated our 49th anniversary.” Yo had hip replacement surgery three weeks later, was conscientiously doing rehab and hoping to play tennis again. She had presided as long-time president at the Simone de Beauvoir Society’s 18th international conference in Cagliari, Sardinia, last June, and then taught for the 21st time in the group’s summer program in Paris. She’s grateful for ongoing support during the roller-coaster months that followed.
Michelle (Mike) Myers Florence recalls the flawless Tanzania safari for children and grandchildren she and husband David organized in 2008, and tells us about their three sons: David, at 46, had a marvelous reunion with his biological mother in 2009; Robert created an award-winning Hurricane Katrina play for the New York International Fringe Festival (with New York Times coverage); and Mason heads an organization in Bangkok to promote tourism in the Mekong Delta. She and husband David, who recently retired, play duplicate bridge, seeing Mary Bahr Turino often.
Deborah Stoddard Harper says: “My focus is dogs. I have seven: five Pembroke Welsh Corgis and two Swedish Vallhunds. [The Vallhund] is a very old breed only recognized by the American Kennel Club in 2007 after some effort. The world of purebred dogs has its own structure, a host of events/activities, clubs, and even its own lingo. I’ve bred, trained, and shown these dogs since 1960.” Deborah has authored books and written articles in dog magazines, including an editorship of New England’s Mayflower Corgi Club publication, which she says has consistently won top honors in the national dog-writers’ competition,” Although she is no longer a singer, Deborah says “Classical music constantly surrounds me and enriches my life.”
Carol Traylor Henderson writes that she and Bob bit the bullet in fall ‘09 and sold their Boston apartment, moving to another “in a lovely continuing-care community in Westwood, MA., about 25 minutes outside Boston and only 10 minutes from three of our four sons…Most of the year, however, we are either in Vero Beach, FL (January to May) or in New London, NH (mid-June to mid-September). Our four sons and their families spend lots of time with us there.” This includes the Hendersons’ 10 grandchildren ranging in age from 10 to 18, including two sets of twins.
Jan Salter Rosenberg writes: “Let me tell you how I located my roommate and best friend during our college days, Shirley (“Gus”) Gersumsky Robinson .” Shirley’s husband had died in 2008, and Jan lost contact despite best efforts to locate her or her daughter. Resourceful Jan Googled the Hartland (VT) Four Corners church and its minister, who sent the telephone number for Shirley. Jan explains: “Gus was spending the winter with her daughter, who had moved to New Hampshire. A long story! I am completely sold on Google.”
Julie Gempel Lindstrom shared the news of Nancy Teed Shears’ retirement last June as a senior vice president of the First National Bank of Hutchinson, KS, after 33 years there. Julie had a congratulatory lunch with Nancy en route to Colorado. Julie had attended a Smith Club of Chicago panel discussion in April. “Smith Worldwide: Voices in the Global Conversation,” moderated by President Carol Christ, and featuring a Smith drama professor, its art museum director, an orchestra conductor and the director of the Richmond, VA Ballet – all graduates of Smith.
Jane Nichols Fogg writes to call attention to Ruth Wolff Bloom ‘53’s book of nine full length plays, Notable Women and A Few Equally Notable Men. “The playwright and I have been friends since Sessions House days. My portrait of Ruth, done earlier on, is on the cover.” Broadway Play Publishing brought out the book last year to enthusiastic reviews.
Good news from Cleveland: Jane Graham Champ’s son William and his wife, Cynthia, welcomed baby Elise on June 12, ‘10. Congratulations to all.
Minerva (Michie) Heller Neiditz produced two poetry books last year. “Fluid Poetics was inspired by the mercury sculptor Ronald Mallory.” Michie wrote poems suggested by the images he sent her. The Mama Llama and Other Animal Tails includes sketches by Ethan Emery. From Miguel d’Allende, her half-year home, Michie writes:“I am relatively healthy, in spite of diabetes and a quadruple bypass five years ago. I am grateful for these years, and always to Smith.”.
“Quilting, both Hawaiian and traditional, has become my passion,” writes Nancy Cook Donigan from Waimea, HI. “I belong to three quilt groups on the Big Island and have made many friends through quilting.” The Donigans travel: Son Peter, a neuroscience professor at Harvard, takes Nancy out for lobster when she visits “so he can watch me enjoy it. Polynesian lobsters don’t come close!” Daughter Sue, a pediatric nurse practitioner, lives in Dumfries, VA. Sue’s daughter is a sophomore at Virginia Tech. Nancy and Bob had one other jaunt – last October to Evanston, IL for the 60th reunion of Evanston Township High School where they had been classmates.
A lot of us marked celebrations of “the great class of 1950.” Jane Graham Champ attended hers at the Hathaway Brown School in Cleveland (still her home). Goldie Gendler Silverman went to the October gathering of Central High School in Omaha, NE, and Nancy Dickson Newcomb attended the Graham-Eckes High School reunion in Palm Beach, FL. Joan Strong Buell organized a subset of her group from The Putney (VT) School and Sunny Sturtevant Toulmin attended her 60th reunion at the Holton-Arms School, now in Bethesda, MD. Sally Ramsey Chapline headed back to Oklahoma City for her 60th at Classen High School: “It’s always a hoot! |
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