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Our Wonderful 55th Reunion Weekend
by Joan Buell Strong
(Click on either picture or its caption for a slide show in a separate window)
Put yourself down in any of the sessions, meals, presentations, strollings along paths, and try to imagine how you’d describe not only details, but the feel of it. Here we were, about 100 of us out of a group that still numbers a little more than 500, returned to Smith College for our 55th reunion. Anne Backus Wanzer and Marcia Brown Stern, along with many helpers, had planned and corresponded for months to get us there. The first day was hot, good Connecticut River Valley muggy hot. Some had been back regularly, about every five years. Jean MacMillan Doelling M.D. was there for the first time! Commencement had already taken place the week before, along with its Alumnae College.
And Alumnae College on Friday with courses on the environment, Muhammad, poetry, Sherlock Holmes, you name it, gave some of us a chance to renew ourselves in the classroom.
By Friday afternoon most classmates had arrived at Chase-Duckett (the old Mary Burnham School across from the Art Museum) and could be found (or lost!) wandering around the halls looking for the elevator. Once we figured out how the two buildings went together, we quite enjoyed the place—homey, inviting public rooms with enough bulletin boards to remind us where our pals were sleeping, mementos of days gone by, and two tables with BOOKS written by our classmates…fiction, poetry, how-to, biography, and Joan Lebold Cohen’s large tomes on Chinese art. We also enjoyed Sally Rosenthal Brody’s help with decoration, including her oil paintings which graced the mantels.
In fact, the theme for the reunion, BOOKS, was woven into the whole fabric of the weekend. Only when I got home did I open the packet of cards with envelopes that was in our red reunion bag, and find it consisted of lovely reproductions of paintings of women reading books. Martin Antonetti, head of the Mortimer Rare Book Room, gave the talk at the Friday dinner, telling us where the Neilson Library is headed in its second one hundred years.
That dinner was the first of two wonderful feasts. We had gathered before it for drinks in the beautiful garden behind Capen House. And as we sat down in the conference hall of Alumnae House with chocolate books and Neilson bookmarks, President Carol Christ came and gave us an amusing run-down of the popular books, movies, songs, happenings of 1954, once again mentioning Alistair Cook’s commencement address in which we were urged to go out and marry Ivy League men. She also gave us some interesting facts about Smith; e.g. 40% of the student body now consists of women in whose families they are the first to go to college.
Saturday morning—fifty-five years out—we realized we were getting toward the “olders”. Those celebrating their 60th made a big group above us, as we gathered for the parade, but beyond that there was a very small and valiant group, only a few, who led the parade, folding in and gathering us up that morning. I wept. And others did, too, not enough to keep us from clapping in time to the band and smiling, but with immense pride and understanding of our place in the world, and with gratitude. The oldest women were five! graduates of the class of 1934 celebrating their 75th. Figure that math! We were resplendent in our red hats from the 50th reunion with a few new ones thrown in for variety…and we were proud when our class fund agents Connie Seidel, Kathy Edgar Fleming, Barbee Lease Crutcher, and Jan Crimmins Meagher received bouquets for their two record breaking efforts. This picture of Elsie Trask Wheeler in her role as photographer is one to be preserved.
There were times when we missed beloved friends especially. We missed dear classmates who couldn’t come because of its being Memorial Day, or because something held them back. Were they wondering if they could manage a huge group of women all in one place? Did they think they wouldn’t get enough time to see good friends? We missed those who have died, some recently, some years ago. We remembered their gifts, and their laughs, both at the Service of Remembrance at the Helen Hills Hills Chapel in which we sang again Roo Herty Brown’s beautiful song Never Gone and in the Mortimer Rare Book Room where Enid Epstein Mark’s work was displayed. Her husband Gene was there, and her son, and we listened to a very fine informal presentation by a staff member who had worked for years with Ruth Mortimer, Enid and The ELM Press.
At the same gathering in that amazing place, Marcia Brown Stern spoke about her collection of Sylvia Plath letters, now given to the Mortimer Rare Book Room and on display. People other than those from our own class were there, and one was outspoken about how important it is to be able to meet people who knew Sylvia—grateful for the collection that is so revelatory about her work and life.
On Saturday, at our Box Lunch in the College Archives (the old Alumnae Gym handsomely made over), three classmates spoke about their worlds in books, allowing us to view their varied lives as editor, novelist, translator, reader of manuscripts, in different combinations. Nora Johnson’s, Linda Wofsey Asher’s, and Sybil Schless Steinberg’s talks were stimulating, touching, funny, honest. You will soon find them at our website if you’d like to know what was actually said. They left us with both admiration and a desire to know more about what others of us have been up to. There was talk of feeding into our class Website—www.smith1954.org—(generously built and run by Jane Runser Evans) short bios about many of the exceptional women in our class. Please look at the web site and “nominate” more of these outstanding classmates.
Inevitably, and interestingly, all these focused talks and our discussions afterwards delved into many aspects of “what is going to happen to BOOKS?” now that Kindle and The Web are becoming such an easy and accepted way to gain information and pass it along to others. I was left encouraged by an understanding of how librarians like Martin become teachers of students in the realm of ethics and intellectual property, of how beautiful books will always be beautiful books.
The Art Museum was an exciting place to be on Saturday afternoon. I only had time to absorb a little of that as Joan Lebold Cohen spoke about the astounding collection of modern Chinese art she and her husband have given to Smith. She holds a unique place in the nurturing of artists in China, and it was a tremendous joy to see the collection displayed.
Saturday’s dinner at the Smith College Club started on the porch overlooking Paradise Pond and the river flowing out from it, a happy spot for cocktails and conversation. We were interested to hear from Jennifer Walters, Dean of Religious Life, after dinner, as she spoke of the decisions being made by current graduates: some of them are feeling the pull to bear children before they start a career, or at least concurrently. The pendulum swings, as ever, and the college is making time for students to ponder some of these factors while they’re still in school.
Many of us migrated downstairs after the dinner and sang…Roo, and later Carol Traylor Henderson and Marcia Dines Strickland were at the piano, with words provided for some Rally Day songs and old favorites. And Roo did a repeat of her very funny Broadway monologue. Then off to bed, exhausted after a jam-packed and exhilarating day.
Sunday breakfast at Chase-Duckett ended it all. The College certainly provided us with plenty to eat—great variety—much more than we all remembered from our breakfasts fifty-five years ago. We all vowed to come back, God willing, for our 60th, with those same big red hats that most of us had kept since the 50th in 2004. |
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