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Alumnae Quarterly
Winter 2007-08
A PROFESSOR’S
PILGRIMAGE
Floyd Cheung and
his students travel to
a World War II–era
Japanese internment
camp and learn
an important
history lesson
HIGH-WIRE ACT
Krin Haglund ’99 wows
crowds as a ‘new
circus’ performer
A PLACE FOR POETS
Smith’s Poetry Center
marks a milestone
Keeper
of the
trust
Enforcement chief Linda Chatman Thomsen ’76
does more than ensure the integrity of the nation’s
stock exchanges; she protects people’s lifestyles
WINTER 2007-08 Volume 94 Number 2
Features
Departments
20 SHE WON’T BACK DOWN
By Jennifer Maddox Sergent ’91 Some say she’s too
tough, but Linda Chatman Thomsen ’76, head
of enforcement for the Securities and Exchange
Commission, remembers the lessons of Enron. Her
aim is to safeguard the integrity of the U.S. investment
market.
3 SMITH MIX
Krin Haglund ’99 runs off and joins the new circus;
posture expert Mary Bond ’64 has us sitting up
straight; class of 2002 scores with two award-winning
documentary filmmakers.
9 FROM THE BANKS OF PARADISE
Quantitative Learning Center helps students make
sense of math; Poetry Center celebrates a decade; one
student’s dual personality; recitals help pianist Monica
Jakuc bid farewell; Iraq veterans have their say.
26 A SITE OF SORROW AND STRENGTH
By Floyd Cheung Sixty-five years after nearly 120,000
Japanese and Japanese Americans were incarcerated
without cause, a Smith professor and his students visit
one internment camp and learn a lesson no textbook
could teach them.
17 PRESIDENT’S PERSPECTIVE: A generation of
women leaders shaped culture and the way we educate
young women today.
30 MOMENTUM ON HER SIDE
By Debra Michals Efforts to undermine women’s
rights have inspired Kathy Rodgers ’70, president of a
leading women’s advocacy group, to educate women
about their history and encourage them to harness
their collective power on election day.
2 READERS WRITE
36 ALUMNAE UPDATE
76 OBITUARIES
80 ALUMNAE EXCHANGE
30
82 BEYOND THE GRÉCOURT GATES
Janice Carlson Oresman ’55 gets a surprise honor;
alumna designer dresses up a historic Boston club.
84 SMITH SEEN
7
12
WWW.SAQONLINE.SMITH.EDU
only on our web site: Read more about Smith
people in full-length versions of stories from the
magazine. In Stories from Our Past, learn about
the early days of Gold Key guides, and read college
warden Laura Scales’s 1925 musings about how to
address class differences on campus.
ON THE COVER
Linda Chatman Thomsen ’76,
photographed in her Washington, D.C. office
by Chris Hartlove
[opening notes]
after reading through the fall issue, a few readers contacted me,
wondering what’s happened to what one called the “intellectual integrity” of the
Quarterly. Their concern stemmed mostly from our cover story on Devin Alexander ’93, a rising chef who recently published a best-selling book in which she
offers recipes that re-create healthier versions of high-fat fast foods. Readers
questioned whether this story—in which Alexander discusses weight loss and
healthful eating habits—along with other recent stories we’ve done on infertility, stress, and dating, was appropriate for a magazine that they believed should
reflect the intellectual vibrancy of the college, not mainstream issues that might
be covered in, say, Ladies Home Journal or Self magazine.
Their letters prompted me to take a careful look through the past year’s
worth of issues. Though I think we could beef up our faculty coverage in some
ways, I feel that we’ve done a commendable job of reporting on not only campus life but the lives of Smith women in general. Naturally, college news is a
vital part of our content, but our primary focus is on alumnae. With each issue,
we aim to celebrate alumnae accomplishments and tell stories that examine
how Smith women at every stage of life are responding to the world around
them. Alumnae experts and leaders in their fields provide insight into topics
important to women, whether it be their careers, health, motherhood, or financial well-being. What’s more, we strive to show the diversity of experience that
exists in the alumnae community, ensuring that there’s a place for everyone,
from the young woman just starting out to Devin Alexander to this issue’s cover
subject, Linda Chatman Thomsen ’76, who is shaping national policy.
In telling these stories, we keep you—our readers—close to Smith and, I believe, promote the intellectual vigor for which all Smith women are known. I’m
proud of the work we do, and I encourage you to keep writing. Your comments
only enrich our content.
Editor
John MacMillan
Managing Editor
Elise Gibson
Associate Publications Editor
Cheryl Dellecese
Student Intern
Alexandra Neale ’08
Student Editorial Assistant
Lindsey Nguyen ’10
Design Director
Ronn Campisi
Editorial Advisers
Linda Kramer Jenning ’72
Judith Glassman Daniels ’60
The Smith Alumnae Quarterly is published by
the Alumnae Association of Smith College. The
Quarterly exists to report on matters relating to
the college and to provide a forum for alumnae
comment. The contents of the Quarterly are the
responsibility of the editors and the board of
directors and do not necessarily reflect the views
of Smith College.
O F F I C E RS AND D IRECTORS OF
T H E A ASC
President
Charlotte Kea ’82
Vice President
Audrey Paek ’92
Treasurer
Lynn Steppacher Martin ’75
Clerk
Diane Hessinger Dukette ’87
Quarterly Liaison
Linda Kramer Jenning ’72
Chair, NAAC
Jacquelyn Woodworth ’92
Chair, RCC
Adrianne Todman ’91
Chair, Classes Committee
Caroline Soleliac Carbaugh ’66
Chair, Nominating Committee
Susan Goodman Novick ’81
Chair, Smith Fund
Debra Romero Thal ’77
Lillian Agapalidou-Panagopoulou ’70
Caroline Walsh Holt ’97
Katya Wilson ’82
Norma A. Melgoza ’92
Cecily Hines ’73
Alice Schlegel ’56
JoAnne Lyons Wooten ’74
A LU M NAE T RUST E ES
Nancy Keebler Bissell ’61
Elizabeth Mugar Eveillard ’69
Susan Komroff Cohen ’62
Lisa Ferrell ’85
Annie Steeper Morita ’90
A LU M NAE ASSOCIAT ION
Carrie Cadwell Brown, M.Ed. ’82
Smith Alumnae Quarterly is published quarterly
in September, December, March, and June.
Sent to all alumnae of Smith College.
Offices: Alumnae House, Smith College,
Northampton, MA 01063. Copyright © 2007 by
the Alumnae Association of Smith College, Inc.
Printed by The Lane Press, Burlington, VT
05402.
*
Alumnae Association at your service
The Alumnae Association of Smith College
offers a lifetime of benefits designed to
keep alumnae connected to Smith and to
one another. Here are some of the things
we can do for you.
SMITH ALUMNAE QUARTERLY
Keep informed of campus events and
alumnae accomplishments through this
award-winning publication. Send letters, story ideas, or comments to SAQ@
smith.edu.
SMITH TRAVEL The Smith Travel Program offers alumnae first-rate trips to exotic destinations, world-class accommodations, and expert hosts, including Smith
faculty members. For information, call
(800) 225-2029; [email protected].
REUNIONS Fun abounds for two weekends every May when nearly 2,000 alumnae converge on campus to celebrate Reunion. Visit old haunts, learn something
new at Alumnae College, or simply catch
up with old friends. For information about
Reunion, call (800) 526-2023, option 4.
Or visit alumnae.smith.edu and click on
“Reunions and Classes.”
ALUMNAE EDUCATION Just because
you’ve graduated doesn’t mean your
Smith education won’t continue. The
Alumnae Association offers regional and
national educational symposia on a variety
of topics that draw on the talents and
expertise of Smith faculty and alumnae.
For information on various programs, contact Betsy Baird at [email protected], or
(800) 526-2023, option 4.
CLUB CONNECTIONS The first Smith
club was established in Boston in 1887.
Since then, Smith clubs have formed in
nearly 50 states, Europe, and Asia. For
club information, call (800) 526-2023,
option 4. To find a club in your area, visit
alumnae.smith.edu and click on “Clubs
and Affinity Groups.”
VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES
The Alumnae Association values your
input. If you have a particular area of
expertise that would benefit your class
or the Alumnae Association, there are
plenty of ways to volunteer your time. For
information, call (800) 526-2023, option
4. Or visit alumnae.smith.edu and click on
“Volunteer Resources.”
CAREER SERVICES Working with the
Career Development Office, the Alumnae
Association helps keep your career on
track. Benefits include career counseling,
networking, and skill-building seminars.
Contact the CDO at [email protected], or
call (413) 585-2582.
FINANCIAL SERVICES The AASC has assembled a range of products to meet your
financial needs at every stage of your life.
Benefits include life insurance, short-term
medical insurance, and an AASC credit
card. For information on all of these programs, go to alumnae.smith.edu and click
on the “History and Mission” button and
follow the links to “Benefits and Services.”
ONLINE COMMUNITY The Alumnae
Association offers a full-service Web
site—alumnae.smith.edu—where you can,
among other things, look up friends in
a searchable alumnae directory, find out
about upcoming events, and connect with
your local Smith club. Also visit the Smith
Alumnae Quarterly online at www.saqonline.smith.edu. There you can submit
class notes, read past issues, update your
address, or submit a story idea directly to
the magazine.
For details on all of these benefits and
services, visit alumnae.smith.edu, or call
(800) 526-2023.
Winter 2007-08 Smith Alumnae Quarterly 1
READERS WRITE Mountain Day memories
President
Carol Christ declared
Monday, October 1,
Mountain Day this year
and, through an e-mail
message, encouraged
alumnae to take a moment
to catch their breath
and recall their favorite
Mountain Day memories.
Here are a few of the
responses left on the
Alumnae Association’s
Mountain Day message
board.
mountain day always came at just
the right moment—when stress had
started to escalate and one needed a
break and reminder to recalibrate to
balance. I’m looking at my day today
and wondering if I can’t honor this tradition. Perhaps a Starbucks coffee on
the way to an appointment, enjoyed in
the sun reflecting.
Juliet Roney Johnson ’80
every mountain day was beautiful,
but I especially remember going hiking
with Morrow House during senior year.
We knew it was our last Mountain Day,
but we had a great time meeting all the
new first-years.
Gillian Econopouly ’02
it must have been 1985 when Jennifer Tai Chin ’87 and Veronica Moore
Bartlett ’87 and I took advantage of
Mountain Day to borrow my parents’
car in Springfield and drive to the Berkshire Mountains. We went to my uncle’s
cottage on a beautiful lake, but having
lost the key through the porch steps, we
had no way of warming up on that cool
day. A neighbor happened to be home
and she invited us into her kitchen,
completely decorated in red, and gave
us matches to make a fire in the outdoor fireplace. After we warmed up and
JIM GIPE/PIVOT MEDIA
EDITOR’S NOTE:
had our picnic, we had to head back to
Northampton, since a professor had
seen me on the way out and told me
class was on for that evening! Bummer
end, but beautiful day!
Kerry Gaffney Nappi ’86
the days leading up to Mountain
Day were filled with theories: can’t be
on that day, there’s an art history exam;
won’t be on a Friday. Then when we
heard the bells, Park House had a tradition of marching over to the President’s
House in our bathrobes to say thank
you.
I don’t remember the specifics of
what we did with the day, except for an
image of lying on green grass somewhere, under bright blue sky framed by
autumn leaves, feeling the warm sun
and cool air. I can do that today.
Meg Hanna House ’84
i have such fond memories of Mountain Day. I think it’s a day that all businesses should have, too. It would lead to
many happy employees.
Rebecca Johnson Gorham ’97
*
2 Smith Alumnae Quarterly Winter 2007-08
my only memory of the day is from
my first year. We all knew that it was
coming, but no one knew when, so
there was that awesome feeling of surprise and relief when it finally came. I
lived in maid’s quarters in Comstock,
so we had our own little party as soon
as we found out, taking pictures of our
groggy selves, giddy with relief that
there were no classes. Being new to the
school, new to college, it was a great
way for me to bond with my fellow
Smithies.
Anastasia (Stacy) Guerasseva ’97
how i wish I could have heard the
bells in Northampton this morning. I
can remember them clearly, starting
off quietly, eventually washing across
campus (much like the pre-exam campus scream). The bells would soon be
followed by the joyous shouts of my
Talbot housemates—at least until some
senior yelled at them to pipe down so
she could go back to sleep. Whether
it was the geology department’s hike
or wandering around Prospect Street
and vicinity, I really enjoyed all of my
Mountain Days.
Maria Honeycutt ’95
i have fond memories of every
Mountain Day, but my senior year
is my fondest. Six of us piled into a
classmate’s car and drove to Quiche
Gorge on a perfect crisp autumn day.
We spent the afternoon in Woodstock,
Vermont, and had dinner that evening
at a restaurant that a former Smith
friend was part owner of. I miss Mountain Day, and I miss New England as I
sit here in hot Florida.
Sara Erickson ’84
F READ MORE LETTERS AT: http://alumnae.
We welcome letters to the editor. Letters should be typed and no
more than 200 words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. All letters reflect the
opinions of the writers and not necessarily those of the Quarterly, the AASC, or Smith
College. Contact us: Letters to the Editor, Alumnae House, Northampton, MA 01063;
800-526-2023; [email protected].
INSIDE:
A multimillion-dollar
deal; standing straight
and tall; a tale of
two filmmakers;
goodbye to a beloved
children’s author.
smithmix
alumnae on our radar
After Krin Haglund
’99 went to the circus
for the first time at
4 years old, she told
everyone she wanted
to be a trapeze artist when she grew
up. Although it would
be years before she
actively pursued that
dream, she never let
go of it—not at Smith,
where she made the
seemingly unlikely
decision to major in
chemistry and East
Asian languages and
literature, and not
even when a high-wire
accident threatened to
derail her circus career
in its early stages.
She recovered from
that accident and went
on to spend five years
in Rain, a production
of the Montreal-based
Cirque Eloize. Now >>
ENTERTAINMENT ::
With the
greatest of
ease
Photograph by Solomon Kruger
Krin Haglund
’99 is at the
forefront of the
“new circus.”
smithmix
device] snapped when I was waiting on
the platform and I was catapulted into
the floor. I broke both wrists, my jaw,
and cracked my skull. I was hospitalized for two weeks and I had external
fixators and my jaw wired shut for two
months.
Your academic program at Smith
doesn’t seem suited to a future circus
performer.
Cirque Eloize is a “new circus.” What,
exactly, is that?
Good circus is much more than acrobatics. Excellent directors push your
creative abilities. Majoring in East
Asian languages and literature and
chemistry turned out to be a great education in creative thinking. An unlikely
example is organic
chemistry—I loved the
required diagrams for
chemical reactions. I
understood them spatially; to me, it was like
a dance.
Where did you learn
your circus skills?
[After graduating
from Smith] I took
acrobatics and aerial
classes at San Francisco’s Circus Center
and attended its Clown Conservatory.
However, the best training has been on
the job. At the New Pickle Circus and
Cirque Eloize I have had extensive acting, clown, voice, music, and juggling
training, along with specific acts such
as the Cyr wheel, teeterboard, and high
wire.
You were the first woman to use a Cyr
wheel. How does it work?
The Cyr wheel looks like a giant hula
hoop. I balance myself inside, like da
Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. And then I spin.
Fast. When I rotate upside down I have
to quickly lift my fingers. The challenge
of the Cyr wheel, and it takes years to
master, is to learn to spin in many ways,
along different axes, while at the same
time dancing inside the hoop.
How did your accident occur?
After a year at Cirque Eloize my highwire rig collapsed because of a rigging
failure. The carabiner [rope-connecting
“New circus” is a bit of a misnomer
because it embodies hundreds of years
of tradition. Generally it refers to circus
without animals. Physical skill makes
circus circus. New circus draws from
any type of clown, acting, music, dance,
and technical design lashed together
with acrobatics or juggling into a compelling theatrical performance.
What has Cirque du Soleil done for new
circus?
Laurel Touby ’85 created
mediabistro.com
as the ultimate
media networking
Web site.
JOSHUA PAUL
appearing in Melbourne, Australia, with
a burlesque cabaret called La Clique,
Haglund plans to direct her own circus
production for the first time this spring.
Here, she discusses her training, her
(unusual) talents, and the phenomenon
known as the “new circus.”
AMANDA RUSSELL
<<
They have opened the eyes of North
Americans to the artistic potential of
circus. And people understand that
even if the tickets cost a premium they
will get a fantastic show.
BUSINESS :: Laurel Touby
’85 hits the cyber jackpot with
mediabistro.com
Describe your current project.
to the shock and awe of industry watchers, mediabistro.com
founder Laurel Touby ’85 (“Networking on the Net,” Spring ’06
Quarterly) sold her company—an
on- and offline-“community center”
for journalists and media professionals—to the Jupitermedia Corporation for $23 million in July.
Her first priority since then? To
buy a “new swank pad” in Manhattan. The media maven is also thinking of writing a book about her
experience starting, running, and
selling a business.
Not that she’s retired. On the
contrary, Touby now holds the title
of senior vice president of mediabistro.com, and she’s busily brainstorming ways to expand the site’s
services. “I’m just doing what I’m
doing,” she says, “and I do it well—
taking over the world of media!”
—Christina Barber-Just
When I first saw La Clique a year and a
half ago, I knew immediately I wanted
to work with that company. It’s a cabaret housed in a beautiful historic mirrored tent, The Famous Spiegeltent.
The intimacy of the venue requires that
your character and acts are both exaggerated and generous. I am doing wig
juggling, comic aerial silks, playing the
saxophone, and singing a song with my
new ukulele.
What’s next for you?
I am launching a company of my own,
Heady Gait, with the goal of creating
new and innovative circus while incorporating traditional vaudeville and oldcircus styles. I will direct my first fulllength show, the Heady Gait Vaudeville
Circus, in the spring of 2008. I plan to
keep performing Cyr wheel, aerials, and
clowning.
F READ the extended version of this
interview at saqonline.smith.edu
F MORE: Raintheshow.com
Spiegeltent.com
Media queen
F READ the full story at saqonline.
smith.edu
F MORE: mediabistro.com
FIVE TIPS :: Banish back and body pain and look
better at the same time
Posture perfect
You probably already know the old rules
of posture: hold your shoulders back,
stick your chest out, straighten your
spine. But in The New Rules of Posture: How to Sit, Stand, and Move in
the Modern World bodywork specialist
Mary Bond ’64 advocates a more nuanced, holistic approach. “These new
rules apply to our whole experience of
living in our bodies as we move in relationship to the world around us,” she
writes. So if improving your posture—
and maybe even giving your bad back a
break—is among your resolutions this
year, these are Bond’s suggestions for
getting started.
1)
Sit up Raise the seat of any chair
in which you sit to work or study.
Your hips should rest an inch or more
above the level of your knees. This
establishes a forward curve in your
lower back that supports your upper
spine and chest.
2)
Stand your ground Distribute
your weight evenly between the
heel and front of each foot. This gives
you balance between the front and
back of your whole body, automati-
cally reducing pressure on your spine
and lifting your posture.
3)
Loosen your grip Grasp the
computer mouse lightly. The
pace dictated by electronic devices
loads tension in your hands, arms,
shoulders, neck, and even jaw. Such
tension prevents good posture. Relaxing your grasp of things relaxes your
whole body.
4)
Breathe! The motion of your
rib cage elevates your torso and
massages your spine as well. Practice
breathing slowly, moderately, and low
in your rib cage. A habit of holding
your breath produces chest, shoulder,
and neck tension that sabotages elegant carriage.
5)
Feel the rain on your skin Taking in the pleasure of the moment releases tension and leads to an
open, graceful use of your body. This
counteracts stiffness caused by time,
pressure, and hurrying.
F MORE: newrulesofposture.com
[in remembrance]
Good night, Madeleine
Celebrated author Madeleine
L’Engle (Madeleine Camp Franklin
’41) died September 6. Her classic
tale for young adults, A Wrinkle
in Time, was published in 1962
and was awarded the prestigious
Newbery Medal for best children’s
book. In 1986, Smith awarded
L’Engle an honorary degree, and
she returned to campus often
over the years. In a discussion
with students in 1997, L’Engle remarked that honesty is the most
important quality for successful
storytelling: “If my readers don’t
believe it, then it’s not true.”
[books]
CHILDREN’S
A Mezuzah on the Door
Amy Meltzer, EdM ’97
Kar-Ben Publishing, 2007, $17.95
How the Jewish tradition of putting
a mezuzah on the door helps a little
boy adjust to his new home.
FICTION
Liszt’s Kiss: A Novel
Susanne Dunlap ’76
Touchstone, 2007, $14
A young pianist in cholera-ravaged
Paris, and her infatuation with
composer Franz Liszt.
Mercy
Lara Santoro ’89
Other Press, 2007, $23.95
A powerful first novel about two
women seeking justice and hope in
Africa.
HUMAN RIGHTS
A Long Day’s Dying: Critical Moments in the Darfur Genocide
Eric Reeves, professor of English
language and literature
The Key Publishing House Inc.,
2007, $37.99
An unsparing account of the Darfur
genocide and the global community’s inability to take action.
Illustration by Monica Hellstrom
smithmix
FILM :: Two from the class of ’02 make their mark in the world of documentary filmmaking
Cinema for social change
The class of ’02 can claim two award-winning documentary filmmakers as their own. Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
already has an astonishing twelve films to her credit, tackling subjects like the repression of women in Afghanistan
and Afghan refugee children. Socheata Poeuv made her debut in 2006 with a first-person Khmer Rouge survival
story that promptly won cinema’s highest human-rights honor and led to an appointment as a fellow at the
genocide studies program at Yale University. Here, the two young filmmakers—both of whom lived in Talbot
House as sophomores—reflect on early success, their varied motivations, and the allure of documentaries.
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy ’02
BACKGROUND Born and raised in
Karachi, Pakistan, I was a feminist at
the age of 10, a political animal at 12,
and an investigative journalist for a local
Pakistani newspaper at 16. Then came
Smith and two master’s degrees from
Stanford University.
FILMS Reinventing the Taliban? (2003),
Women of the Holy Kingdom (2004),
Pakistan’s Double Game (2005), The
New Apartheid (2006), Lifting the Veil/
Afghanistan Unveiled (2007), Birth of a
Nation (2007).
AWARDS Twelve awards worldwide,
including the first non-American recipient
of the Livingston Award and the youngest
recipient of the One World Media
Broadcast Journalist of the Year award.
INSPIRATION I find inspiration in
everything: newspaper articles, ordinary
citizens, human-rights activists.
SMITH MAJOR Economics and
government.
GOALS OF FILMS To be a catalyst for
change—bottom up or top down.
WHY DOCUMENTARIES Documentaries
are a raw, effective way of exploring
reality. They let ordinary people tell their
story to a global audience the way it
should be told—in their own words.
TOPICS Issues that others shy away
from: the Talibanization of Pakistan,
female suicides in Afghanistan, Saudi
Arabia’s treatment of women, Sweden’s
far right, Canada’s treatment of aboriginal
women.
PHILOSOPHY OF FILMMAKING Be
honest about life, and in the process,
remind people of what it means to be
human.
Photograph by Derek Shapton
New Year Baby
tells the story of
one Cambodian
family’s survival under the
Khmer Rouge,
and is slated for
broadcast on
PBS’s Independent Lens.
Birth of
a Nation
examines the
unrest in East
Timor, and
originally aired
as part of the
U.K.’s Channel
4 series
Unreported
World.
Socheata Poeuv ’02
BACKGROUND My family survived the
Khmer Rouge genocide of the 1970s in
Cambodia. I was born in a refugee camp
in Thailand after my parents escaped.
We came to the United States two years
later and settled in Dallas, Texas. After
graduating from Smith, I worked in
network news in New York City for four
years.
FILMS New Year Baby (2006).
AWARDS New Year Baby has won seven
awards at national and international
film festivals, including Amnesty
International’s Movies That Matter
award, the highest human-rights honor a
film can win.
INSPIRATION Film is a very powerful
medium to make possible human
intimacy. Films have a way of getting
inside you and staying with you.
SMITH MAJOR English literature.
GOALS OF FILMS To move, entertain,
and inspire.
WHY DOCUMENTARIES Nothing is
more compelling than real life. I can
watch a documentary about almost
anything—as long as it’s authentic.
TOPICS The nature of love, how the
truth can heal.
PHILOSOPHY OF FILMMAKING Always
lead with emotion.
FREAD the extended version of this article
at saqonline.smith.edu
FMORE: newyearbaby.net
sharmeenobaidfilms.com
Photograph by Yoko Inoue
SP still S
RI av pa
N aila ces
G b a
20 le o re
08 n t
TR hese
IP
S!
Traditional and
Modern Women in Tanzania
January 18–30, 2008
Indochina Unveiled: A Journey
to Vietnam with extensions to
Laos and Cambodia
Treasures and Traditions
of South India
January 15–24, 2008
February 18–March 1, 2008
Smith Travel
Make plans now for
your 2008 Smith Travel
adventure!
CONTACT US
| SMITH TRAVEL
Tel:
(800) 225-2029
Fax:
(413) 585-2015
E-mail: [email protected]
Web:
http://alumnae.smith.edu/travel
Why travel with Smith? The answer
is simple: Smith Travel gives you
unique access to Smith faculty and
scholars, expert local guides, and
extraordinary venues. Every detail of
your trip is taken care of by highly
trained tour managers, so you can
spend your time taking in the local
culture and enjoying the company
of your fellow alumnae travelers.
For 2008, we’ve planned an array of
cruises, land seminars, family adventures, and service trips.
For a full list of trips and itineraries go
to http://alumnae.smith.edu/travel.
Empires and Explorers
February 20–March 13, 2008
London Theatre
Cruising the Canary Islands,
Madeira, Gibraltar, and the Algarve
March 16–22, 2008
April 23–May 1, 2008
Inside Morocco
April 12–23, 2008
INSIDE: The Poetry
Center celebrates its first
decade; student’s room
expresses two sides of
her personality; seminar
considers food, water,
and energy policies.
paradise
from the banks of
ACADEMIC SUPPORT
Do the math
New Quantitative Learning Center
aims for gaps in students’ number skills
news of the campus
two students who seem to have little
in common academically are heading for
the same destination in Neilson Library.
One, a government major whose last
math course was high-school algebra, is
struggling with a data-analysis paper for
her gender studies class. The other took
honors math throughout high school but
needs help solving a tricky chemistry
problem. Despite their differences, both
will find help at the new Quantitative
Learning Center.
The center opened this semester with
two goals, organizers say. One is to assist
science and engineering students with the
math skills needed for their courses. The
other goal is to reach out to math-anxious
students who thought they could get by as
long as they stayed put in the humanities.
Keneil Anglin ’10, left, and
Sharnique Beck ’10 get help
on a physics problem from
Catherine McCune, director of the
Quantitative Learning Center.
Photograph by Kathleen Dooher
Catherine McCune, a member of the math department
for five years before her appointment as director of the new
center, notes that the old refrain, “I just won’t take a math
course,” doesn’t add up anymore. “With faculty in every department increasing the quantitative content in their courses, more understanding of math is necessary,” she said.
A gander at 100-level courses in the catalog bears this
out. James Miller’s course on economic game theory requires calculus. Howard Gold’s “Empirical Methods in
Political Science” includes descriptive statistics, sampling,
and correlation and regression. Albert Mosley’s logic course
covers probabilistic and statistical reasoning. And, of
course, math-dependent technology weaves its way through
courses from digital art and music to computational linguistics.
In fact, faculty members are encouraged to introduce
quantitative material in their courses as a means to broadening students’ exposure, noted government professor
Howard Gold, who chaired a quantitative skills subcommittee that came up with numerous strategies to increase
number literacy. Surveys of recent alumnae showed that a
significant number of them felt
they didn’t get enough math at
“With faculty
Smith, and that for the sake of
increasing the
their careers, they regretted it,
quantitative
Gold said.
content, more
Math assistance at Smith is
understanding
not new. Tutors have long been
available within the math and
of math is
science departments. And Mcnecessary.”
Cune herself teaches a catch-up
math course, which is recommended for students who enter
Smith with less than a 500 on their math SAT, or who took
fewer than three years of high-school math. A three-week
refresher course during interterm is designed to bring science students up to college level in algebra, calculus, and
trigonometry.
Still, there was no single place to go for a wide range of
math assistance. That’s where the Quantitative Learning
Center comes in, joining the Jacobson Center with its focus
on writing skills, and the Educational Technology Services
group, to create what McCune calls “a growing web of support.”
The QLC is just beginning, but McCune envisions a place
where individuals can come to get questions answered, or
for longer-term instruction, either one-on-one or in small
groups. Master tutors and peer tutors (both are work-study
positions) will be available.
For McCune, the QLC plays a larger role than supporting
academic coursework. Getting past the fear of math is an
important life skill. “If students leave here without quantitative literacy, they won’t be able to understand mortgages,
credit cards, or how their student loans work. It’s crucial
when a doctor is explaining health risks,” she said. “I don’t
think that you can understand information and make decisions effectively without it.” —EG
MILESTONES
Writers in focus
Poetry Center marks decade of readings
and meetings with poets
If “poems have their own
faces,” as former U.S. poet
laureate Robert Hass told a
capacity crowd in Weinstein
Auditorium, then it might
be informative to look
closely at the faces of the
poets themselves. Photographer Margaretta Kuhlthau
Mitchell ’57 has done exactly that, and this fall her
striking black-and-white
photographic portraits of
dozens of contemporary
poets hang in the Book Arts
Gallery in Neilson Library.
Hass and Mitchell were
on campus in October to
celebrate the opening of
the exhibition and to launch
the tenth anniversary of
Smith’s Poetry Center. In
some ways, Mitchell’s photographs, which are part of
her 2006 book The Faces
of Poetry (University of
California Press), provided
the framework for the Poetry Center’s tenth season,
noted Poetry Center Director Ellen Doré Watson. Most
of the poets coming to campus this year are featured
in Mitchell’s book, including
Hass, Aleida Rodriguez, and
Elizabeth Alexander, who
is founding director of the
Poetry Center.
Alumnae also are playing a prominent role in the
anniversary celebration. An
alumnae reading in November featured Gail Beckwith
Mazur ’59, Eve Grubin ’92,
and Gina Franco ’97, and a
“Back to Our Roots” reading in December included
alumnae poets Meredith
Martin ’97 and Abe Louise
Young ’99, as well as Elizabeth Alexander and Karl
Kirchwey, a former Conkling
Poet at Smith.
To recognize the importance of poetry in the lives
of alumnae, the Poetry
Center Web site has put out
a call for poems written by
published alumnae poets.
More than twenty poets
have contributed so far. The
anniversary year will culminate with an all-alumnae
reading on April 22.
The Poetry Center began in 1997 as a proposal
by Annie Boutelle, senior
lecturer in English language
and literature, to create a
program to bring an ongoing
stream of poets to Smith.
Since then, renowned poets like Seamus Heaney,
Adrienne Rich, Billy Collins,
and Mary Oliver have come
to campus to give public
readings and to meet with
students.
In reflecting on the role of
poetry, Boutelle writes, “We
humans know that poetry
is mystery, that it speaks
what cannot otherwise be
spoken, and that it connects
to our deepest selves.”—EG
VIEW OF MY ROOM
Don’t box me in
a pink canopy
hangs over Cassie
Chao’s bed, a
growing collection of Hello Kitty
dolls fills a shelf,
and posters of
beaches around
the world cover
one wall.
Cassandra Chao
’10, longtime figure skater and occasional model, is
a girly girl, right?
Well, yes, but
that’s only half the
story.
Look at the
other wall of
her Park House
room and a more
complete picture
emerges. Hockey
jerseys—some
from her favorite
team, the San Jose
Sharks, and some
that she’s worn on
various teams in
the United States
and Taiwan—are
draped like wall
hangings. She
also displays a
puck with a handwritten message
that explains a
lot about her:
“Hockey Barbie.”
“My room is a
place that reflects
my passions and
outlooks on life,”
says Chao, an
economics major
who plays forward
and serves as vice
president of the
A study in
contrasts,
Cassie Chao’s
room is
dominated by
Hello Kitty
on one side,
hockey gear on
the other.
Photographs by Bob O’Connor
JUDY ROBERGE
Cassie Chao ’10 defies categories–and her room shows it
Smith ice hockey
team.
She may be
passionate about
hockey, but she’s
just as enthusiastic about her Hello Kitty collection.
In addition to the
dolls, including
one in pirate garb
that she got on
the black market
in Taiwan, Chao
displays a string of
Hello Kitty lights,
a Transformerslike Hello Kitty
fan on top of her
dresser, and an
inflatable Hello
Kitty airplane
hanging near her
bed. “I’ve been
collecting since
childhood,” she
says. “People see
[Hello Kitty gear]
and get it for me,
so my collection
keeps growing.”
At heart, Chao
sees her room as
a place where categories fall by the
wayside.
“People don’t
see me as someone who plays
hockey because
I wear makeup
and high heels,”
she says. “But I
didn’t want to
prove myself to
others. I wanted
to prove to myself
that I could play
hockey and still
keep my girly side
intact.”—AN ’08
OF COURSES
Consider
the source
Seminar examines resources
from different points of view
one bottle of water, two vastly different perspectives. Maybe even an
argument or two. That’s what transpires
as sociologist Leslie King and biologist
Paul Wetzel bring their own disciplines
to bear in their first-year seminar, “The
Science and Policy of Food, Water, and
Energy.” Consider it another breach in
the boundaries between academic
disciplines.
“One goal of mine with this class is
to introduce students to the idea that
different fields have different ways of
After collecting
the food waste,
the next step is to
weigh it.
thinking about things,” said King, an associate professor whose expertise is in
population policies and environmental
sociology.
“We disagree quite a bit, and in front
of the students,” said Wetzel, a wetlands
ecologist and lecturer at Smith. “Some
students don’t like that at all, but I want
them to know there isn’t just one right
answer.”
The course takes its main topics—food, water, energy—and examines them from a number of different
First-year students
Kelly Pyle, Darcy Dwyer,
and Tess Zinnes survey
diners at King/Scales
about food choices, and
then measure how much
they throw away.
angles. For instance, in the case of
bottled water, as the instructors write in
the course catalog: “A geologist might
wonder about the underground aquifer
where the water originated. A chemist
might muse on its chemical composition or the process through which petroleum products were turned in to the
plastic used to make the bottle. And a
sociologist might ask who benefits from
the sale of a product that was formerly a
public good.”
The class came about as King was
considering an intro class to a potential
major in environmental science and
policy, which is now offered only as a
minor. A three-year National Science
Foundation grant gave her the funds to
launch the class last year.
That first class, Wetzel and King
noted, had several activist students who
took what they were learning about
the environmental consequences of
America’s love affair with bottled water
and combined it with their growing
skills in persuasive memo writing. The
result was a strongly worded memo
to President Carol Christ, urging her
to reduce the amount of bottled water
Photographs by Kathleen Dooher
[campus notebook]
distributed on campus.
“The one small step of
switching from disposable bottles to reusable
coolers and bottles will
stand as a symbol to the
students and college as a
whole that Smith is serious about sustainability
and that they should be,
too,” the students wrote.
[See below.]
“A big theme of this
class is ‘where do water,
food, and energy come from, where do
they go, and what are the consequences
of our use of them?’” King said.
This year, the class took on the issue
of food waste in Smith’s dining halls.
Working in teams of three, the students spent one dinner hour weighing
the amount of food discarded both by
students and the kitchen staff. Results
from their study, and perhaps some
recommendations, will be shared with
Dining Services.
“Studying issues like this helps
ground them here at Smith, and helps
students become citizens of this community,” King noted.
“I want students to think about the
choices they make,” Wetzel said. “Whatever they do, it ripples like a stone in
the pond, from their lifestyle to the
natural environment.”—EG
ON TAP:
REFILLABLE BOTTLES
With throwaway bottled
water the latest object of
environmental scrutiny,
a new accessory has hit
the campus: blue, hardplastic refillable bottles.
Smith’s Dining Services
handed out the bottles—emblazoned with a
Smith logo and dangling
from a carabiner—during fall registration and
encouraged students to
Illustrations by Jackie Besteman
Sociologist Leslie
King and biologist
Paul Wetzel look at
resources differently.
FYS 147 READING LIST
Books for this course trace
the history of our use of natural resources.
Odds-on minor
The math department has changed
its name to the Department of
Mathematics and Statistics as a way
to recognize one of Smith’s newest minors. Statistics may have its
roots in math—its director is math
professor Katherine Halvorsen—but
it is an interdepartmental program
that can be applied to such varied
disciplines as biology, economics,
social sciences, and engineering.
Coal: A Human History, Barbara
Freese (Perseus, 2003)
Cod: A Biography of the Fish
That Changed the World, Mark
Kurlansky (Walker & Co., 1997)
Oil on the Brain: Adventures from
the Pump to the Pipeline, Lisa
Margonelli (Doubleday, 2007)
Water: A Natural History, Alice
Outwater (Basic Books, 1996)
refill them
with tap water.
The effort accompanies the
renovation of
Chapin Hall’s
Grab-and-Go
lunch site,
where bottled
water was part of the
lunch selection. Now the
dining room is equipped
with new filtered tap-water faucets so students
can fill their own.
According
to students
in last year’s
seminar on
“The Science and
Politics of
Food, Water,
and Energy,”
Smith was buying about
5,500 cases of bottled
water a year, and would
save more than $32,000
by replacing it with tap
water.—EG
Media artists
A forward-looking new minor, arts
and technology, aims to create leaders in the emerging field of media
arts, in which computational skills
are blended with a student’s interest
in visual arts, dance, music, theater,
or film. Faculty in the program’s advising group come from the fields of
computer science, art, engineering,
and music.
Five medals
The campus will pay tribute to five
accomplished alumnae on Rally Day
February 20. Receiving the Smith
College Medal will be advocate for
female prisoners Irene Cebula Baird
’45, priest and health-care pioneer
Anne Clayton Brower ’60, American Chemical Society president
Catherine Hunt ’77, early-childhood
educator Lella Gandini ’78, and U.S.
Rep. Tammy Baldwin ’84.
WOMEN’S HISTORY
Power of the past
KATIE GEIS
Gloria Steinem ’56
joins Sophia Smith
Collection’s 65th
birthday party
Who better to lead a conference titled “The Power of Women’s Voices”
than one of the most recognized
voices for women’s rights? Gloria
Steinem ’56 was on hand to help
the Sophia Smith Collection (SSC)
celebrate its sixty-fifth birthday in
September.
As she spoke about the future of
feminism, Steinem acknowledged the
critical role of the collection in capturing and documenting the history
of the women’s movement. “Knowledge of the past is the first necessity
to knowing its future,” Steinem told
a capacity crowd in Weinstein Auditorium in September. Conversely, she
noted, “the loss of
memory is the root
of oppression.”
The theme of recalling the past also
encompassed the
debut of the Voices
of Feminism Oral
History Project, a
new archive in the SSC that documents the histories of activists in
previously underdocumented areas,
such as labor and anti-poverty activism, lesbian rights, and anti-racism.
“All ethnicities, working-class women, lesbians, women of all categories
have taken part [in the women’s
movement], not just elite white men
and women,” said SSC director Sherrill Redmon. “We wanted to correct
the record.”
The oral history archive joins 575
collections of primary source material, including the newly processed
YWCA Records, the Living U.S.
Women’s History Oral History Project, and the newly received Women’s
Music Archives.—AN ’08
FACULTY OF NOTE
Grace notes
Retirement is music to this professor’s ears
Pianist Monica Jakuc ends her Smith
career with a series of recitals.
pianist Monica Jakuc,
the Elsie Irwin Sweeney
Professor of Music, is
celebrating her final year
at Smith by performing
the music she loves on
the kinds of instruments
that have become her
trademark.
Jakuc retires this June
after a thirty-nine-year
career at Smith. Early in
the fall, she performed a
series of three concerts,
all intended to showcase
an 1819 Graf replica fortepiano, which was made
for her in 2003. The
Sage Hall performances
included an all-Schubert
concert featuring the So-
nata in C minor. In November, she performed
on solo piano with the
Smith College Orchestra.
Her official retirement
concert on February 24
will feature Jakuc on
fortepiano and modern
piano along with music
department colleagues
playing the Dvorak
Piano Quintet, a yetto-be-named piece by a
woman composer, and a
meaningful tribute. “The
special work on the program will be my first performance on fortepiano
of Morningside, a musical
portrait of me by Scott
Wheeler, one of the first
students I taught as a
young faculty member at
Smith in the days when
we also taught Amherst
College students,” she
said.
Jakuc regularly delivers lecture-recitals on
women composers and
has been a featured artist
at International Association of Women in Music
concerts. Her latest CD,
Fantasies for Fortepiano,
features pieces by Mozart, C.P.E. Bach, Haydn,
and Beethoven.
In retirement, Jakuc intends to continue playing
with the Arcadia Players,
an early music ensemble,
Photograph by Leah Fasten
Sculptor’s honor
Elliot Offner, the Andrew
W. Mellon Professor in
the Humanities Emeritus,
received the National
Sculpture Society’s Medal
of Honor, its highest
award, last spring during a
celebration at Brookgreen
Gardens on Pawleys Island, South Carolina,
where a sculpture center
was dedicated in his name.
The Elliot and Rosemary Offner Sculpture
Learning and Research
Center at Brookgreen
Gardens will house and
display a large sculpture
collection and will also allow public research access
to the works.
Lifesaving research
A vaccine and new drugs
to wipe out a tropical parasite, one that is responsible for infecting more than
150 million people, are
possible outcomes of an
eleven-year research project undertaken by Smith
biologist Steven Williams.
In 1994, Williams, the
Gates Professor of Biological Sciences, began sequencing the genetic code
of the filarial parasite, a
worm that spreads the
deadly virus elephantiasis
in tropical countries. Solving the worm’s genetic
code eventually involved
seventy-one researchers—
twelve with connections
to Smith—whose names
appear at the top of their
paper in the September
21 issue of the prestigious
journal Science.
Distinguished
alumna
President Carol Tecla
Christ received Yale University Graduate School’s
highest honor, the Wilbur
Lucius Cross Medal, on
October 9. The medal is
presented by the school’s
alumni association to a
small number of alumni
in recognition of their distinguished achievements
in scholarship, teaching,
academic administration,
and public service.
Christ, who earned her
doctoral degree in academic administration and
English literature from the
graduate school in 1970,
gave a talk titled “Mapping
a Career in the Academy.”
[smith time]
PHOTOGRAPH BY GABRIEL COONEY, COURTESY OF SMITH COLLEGE ARCHIVES
and teaching on a smaller
scale. “I look forward to
playing concerts in living
rooms, as dinner concerts,
at museums, in salons, and
in large and small halls,”
she said. “I very much
look forward to having
more time to pursue these
special interests, and also
to enjoy my new husband
while we’re still both
healthy and strong.”
THE YEAR: 1984
a robust american economy lifts the campus as plans
proceed for several major construction projects. The Sophian
also reports:
Big names visiting campus include author Madeleine L’Engle
’41, who speaks at second-semester convocation; presidential
hopeful Jesse Jackson, whose message at Helen Hills Hills
Chapel is “to retire the repressive Reagan regime”; and the
Dalai Lama, who speaks on education and enlightenment at
John M. Greene Hall.
Focus on teaching
Glenn Ellis, associate professor of engineering, can
add U.S. Professor of the
Year to the growing list of
awards that pay tribute to
his innovative approach
to teaching. Ellis, whose
scholarship includes developing effective teaching models, received the
award November 15 in
Washington, D.C. from
the Council for the Advancement and Support of
Education and the Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching.
“We want our students to
take control of their own
learning,” he said.
In 2006, Ellis was honored at Smith with the
Sherrerd Prize for Distinguished Teaching.
A dramatically improved job market will greet the class of ’84,
especially in the fields of engineering, education, and finance.
Students stage a sit-in to protest the college’s decision to
convert Hover House, a coop, into an annex of Parsons House.
Elsewhere, the dining room closes in Dewey House, and Oak
House closes, with plans to turn it into a house for Ada Comstock Scholars.
President Jill Ker Conway announces her intention to resign in
1985, saying, “Ten years is about as long as anyone can do this
kind of job creatively.”
Trustees approve plans for an indoor track and tennis facility
to be built on the site of existing outdoor courts.
Students Margaret Broenniman ’85 and Maura FitzPatrick ’85
[in photo, above] are hailed for successfully swimming twentyfour miles across the English Channel.
One student describes a Mountain Day Quad riot, in which
trees are strewn with toilet paper and music blares late into
the night, as “a nice release of tension.” The college bills the
Quad houses for the cost of cleanup and a case of TP.
STUDENT LIFE
Alternative Friday night fun
Group creates weekend events for ‘non-big-drunken-party’ people
Pumpkins get a makeover during a
Friday night slumber party.
one friday night in September,
Paulina Do ’10 was walking through
the Campus Center when a room filled
with dozens of students working with
bright fabrics caught her eye. Not quite
an hour later, Do was putting the final
touches on her masterpiece—a padded
bulletin board decorated with intricate
fabric designs and red ribbon. It was a
good thing she acted quickly because
within half an hour, all the craft supplies were gone.
All semester long, students have
come out to the novel activities offered
by Smith To-Do, a Student Affairs–
sponsored organization that provides
alternative late-night, non-alcoholic entertainment on Friday nights, said Kelly
Johnson ’08, who heads Smith-To-Do.
“Pat [Connelly, assistant director of
student activities,] said students always
came up to him, saying, ‘There’s nothing to do on campus,’” Johnson said.
“There were wild things, like a ‘Sex and
the Beach’ party, but those are things
some people don’t want to be a part of.”
Johnson, a self-described “nonbig-drunken-party person,” thinks up
imaginative and sometimes off-the-wall
events, including a cookie bake-off, a
singing bee, a zen garden workshop,
and a Halloween slumber party. One
event, a pajama party, complete with
milk and cookies and bedtime stories
read by President Christ and other administrators, garnered so much buzz
that Johnson has planned another one
for the spring, with professors as storytellers. She’s also planning a Little Mermaid party at the swimming pool.
“Smith students are really creative,
but that creativity is usually poured into
writing eight- to ten-page papers,” she
said. “Here, they can be creative without doing the work. We provide everything.”—AN ’08
DIVERSITY
Arts through the lens of race
Otelia Cromwell Day focuses on contributions and obstacles in American culture
Aaron
Dworkin
JUDY ROBERGE
what if the label for a
museum painting included
not only the title and artist but also what previous
viewers thought of the
piece? Would it change your
opinion of a painting of a
colonial-era merchant and
slaveholder, for instance, if
the tag had bold-faced letters
within it that spelled out
“D-I-R-T-Y M-O-N-E-Y”?
That’s what studio art major Sophia LaCava-Bohanan
’08 added to one label as part
of the Museum of Art’s I.D.
Tags project, organized for
the Otelia Cromwell Day celebration of “The Arts in Col-
or.” She was part of a committee that wrote alternative
tags that reconsider artwork
through a lens of racial identity. LaCava-Bohanan focused on portraits of wealthy
colonialists. “It was important to me to recognize that
although they were upstanding in their time, they took
part in practices that I don’t
agree with,” she said.
The Otelia Cromwell Day
celebration in early Novem-
ber also included dance,
music, film, and theater. At
Sage Hall, the color barrier
in classical music was addressed by violinist and MacArthur fellow Aaron Dworkin, who described the work
of his Sphinx Foundation in
bringing music education to
underserved schoolchildren.
“Our mission is to increase
the representation of black
and Latino musicians and
audiences,” he said.—EG
Photograph by Tanit Sakakini
Q&A
A lesson in objectivity
Student documentary puts spotlight on Iraq veterans
Last year, Meaghan Nanson ’08 ran a Google
search for a journalism internship with the
Portland Mercury, an independent community
activist newspaper in Portland, Oregon. What
ultimately caught her eye, though, was a link
to a fellowship with the Northwest Institute for
Social Change, a summer documentary filmmaking program in Portland. She took a risk and
joined the fellowship program; that leap of faith
changed her from aspiring journalist to dedicated documentary filmmaker.
Nanson, an American studies major, explains
her summer project, a film about Iraq war veterans titled Yellow Ribbons: What It Really Means
to Support the Troops, and her thoughts about
social change.
What was your background in
media and film before the fellowship?
I had a background in journalism and I was convinced that
was what I wanted to do. [For
the fellowship], I had a choice
between writing or documentary filmmaking and I saw
filmmaking would include
writing, so I decided to have
some fun with it. I fell in love
with it.
Was this documentary a collaborative effort?
n In Yellow Ribbons,
Iraq war veterans and
their families talk
about the effects of the
war on their lives.
I worked with three students,
which is probably the bare
minimum I’d feel comfortable
going into something like this
with. We all learned as we
went along. I don’t know what
I would have done if I didn’t
have someone to fall to pieces
with; we had no idea what we
were doing.
Did your preconceived notions
change during filming?
One notion was shattered after
Photograph by Jacob Sherman
I interviewed [one officer in
particular]. I went in thinking he’d be a total jerk, not
on the ground and not caring
about lower-level soldiers; we
wanted to make him a bad guy.
But when we talked to him, he
turned out to be a genuinely
nice man. I still don’t agree
with everything he said, but
I learned that people will act
based on what they think is
right. He really came from a
good place. I struggled with
that, with not letting my views
into the film and just letting
the audience decide. That was
really hard for us to overcome,
being antiwar and trying to be
as apolitical as possible. A war
supporter could watch the film
and want to help as much as a
liberal would.
Some say Iraq war veterans
have received less attention
because of the lack of a draft.
Do you think this is true?
I do. This is such a high-profile
war, but no one is focusing on
the people involved. All vets
have a fear of being forgotten.
John, the main veteran in the
film, started crying when he
talked about the vets begging
on the side of the road. It’s the
only time he broke down. You
can see it in their faces and
hear it in their words; they’re
so scared this will happen to
them.
What do you want people to
get out of Yellow Ribbons?
I’d like people to realize that
enacting social change doesn’t
need to feel overwhelming.
Sometimes it’s as simple as
keeping a group or event in
the public consciousness to
prevent the tragedy of more
forgotten members in our society. I hope we can all learn
to separate issues from the
people who get caught up with
them. We forget that humans
are out there witnessing travesties and they will need help
dealing with the repercussions
for years to come.—AN ’08
PRESIDENT’S PERSPECTIVE CAROL CHRIST
Their moment in history
A generation of women leaders
shaped culture and the way we
educate young women today
with the presidential candidacy of Hillary
Clinton, a great deal of attention is focused on issues
of gender and leadership. But equally interesting is
the intersection of gender and generation, a potent
combination if you look at prominent women on the
American stage today.
Heading many of our most powerful institutions and
corporations and shaping our arts and culture are a
number of women who began their postcollege lives in
the 1960s and the 1970s:
• Speaker of the House NANCY PELOSI (Trinity ’62)
• U.S. Representative JANE LAKES HARMAN (Smith ’66)
• Television anchor and journalist DIANE SAWYER
(Wellesley ’67)
• Brown University President RUTH SIMMONS (Dillard ’67)
• Harvard University President DREW GILPIN FAUST (Bryn
Mawr ’68)
• Ogilvy and Mather President and CEO ROCHELLE
(SHELLY) BRAFF LAZARUS (Smith ’68)
• Senator HILLARY CLINTON (Wellesley ’69)
• University of Pennsylvania President AMY GUTMANN
(Radcliffe ’71)
• New York Times President and CEO JANET ROBINSON
(Salve Regina ’72)
• Xerox Chairman and CEO ANNE MULCAHY (Marymount
’74)
• Secretary of State CONDOLEEZZA RICE (University of
Denver ’74)
• Secretary of Labor ELAINE CHAO (Mount Holyoke ’75)
• CARE President and CEO HELENE GAYLE (Barnard ’76)
• Oxfam America Chair JANET MCKINLEY (Smith ’76)
These women shared a formative historical moment. They came of age, as I did, at a time of social
activism, in which college students played pivotal
roles. They experienced the civil rights movement
and the movement to end the war in Vietnam.
They were the first generation with the opportunity
to join the Peace Corps. As
young adults, they felt that
they could have a powerful
voice in shaping history.
Those of us who entered
the working world in this
period also belonged to the
first generation of women
to realize the benefits of the feminist movement.
When we left college, we had greater access to
the graduate and professional degrees that our intended careers required. Between 1965 and 1975
the number of women in law school increased from
2,500 to 27,000. In 1962, fewer than 300 women
received MBAs; twenty years later, female MBAs
numbered 17,000. In 1963, only 991 women were
awarded PhDs; by 1983, that number had increased
tenfold.
Degrees and credentials in hand, educated women in the ’60s and ’70s entered a professional workplace whose gender composition was changing
rapidly. Even as they disavowed labels—a woman
writer, a female law partner—they knew themselves
to be members of a new cohort.
Within a decade—roughly from 1970 to 1980—
women’s expectations about the role of work in
their lives evolved dramatically. They—we—were
the audience for Gloria Steinem ’56’s Ms., the purchasers of the dozens of re-printings of The Feminine Mystique that followed its publication in 1963.
“It changed my life,” Newsweek columnist Anna
Quindlen [Barnard ’70] writes in the introduction
to the most recent edition of the book. “I am far
from alone in this.”
Many of today’s women leaders—far more than
one would expect from simple proportionate rep-
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Alumnae Admission
Coordinators and many
other Smith alumnae
volunteers enjoy helping the
Admission Office recruit the
best and brightest class for
Smith every year.
International
volunteers worldwide
are particularly sought.
To volunteer, or for
further information
on how you can help,
contact: Laura Matta,
administrative assistant,
413-585-2512, or e-mail
[email protected].
Smith relies on alumnae
to interview prospective
students, administer book
awards, and attend college
fairs. Operating within local
Smith clubs or alone in areas
without clubs, this volunteer
force spans the globe. And,
of course, Smith provides
the necessary training and
support.
PRODUCED BY THE OFFICE OF ADMISSION
I n s p i r a t i o n
e v e r y w h e r e
Produced by SCMA
resentation—are graduates of women’s
colleges, and of the Seven Sisters in
particular. In the late 1960s and early
1970s, the students at the nation’s leading women’s colleges experienced a
heady mix of an institutional philosophy that gave exclusive emphasis to
women’s aspirations and potential and
a historical moment at which opportunities for women were expanding. It
provided a unique crucible for women’s
leadership.
The world our women’s college
alumnae are creating—whether as
CEOs, university presidents, acclaimed
authors and playwrights, Cabinet members, members of Congress, and, possibly, as president of the United States—
is the world for which we, today, are
preparing their daughters. It is a world
far more welcoming to women leaders
than that of the 1970s—and yet one in
which, as a 2007 Catalyst study found,
gender stereotyping in corporate workplaces continues to foster the mindset
that the default image of a leader is the
image of a man.
During Family Weekend 2007, three
pairs of mothers and daughters reflected on the paths of women’s lives
in relationship to a women’s college
education. Chilton Davis Varner ’65, a
senior partner at an international law
firm, was joined by her daughter Ashley
(Bryn Mawr ’94, Smith MSW ’99), an
oncology social worker at Johns Hopkins University. At the conclusion of a
rich discussion that ranged from topics
of friendship and family to ambition,
independence and self-reflection, a parent of a current student asked the panel
for advice. How, she said, could she best
convince a doubting grandparent about
the relevance of a women’s college education today. Chilton’s response, echoed
by Ashley, was unhesitating: “Anyone
who thinks that women have fought
and won all the battles to have equal access and equal opportunity is just mistaken,” she said. “A Smith education will
make your daughter, her granddaughter,
so much more competent and confident, more inquisitive for all that life
can offer her and all that she can be.”
“And I still feel that,” she emphasized,
“after forty years.” Q
interested in contributing?
Below are just a few areas that need
Alumnae Admission Coordinators:
From
Classic
& museum shop
to
Classy
413.585.2760
Elm Street at Bedford Terrace
Northampton MA
w w w. s m i t h . e d u / a r t m u s e u m
By Jennifer Maddox Sergent ’91
Photographs by Chris Hartlove
Shewon’t
back
down
Some say
she’s too
tough, but
Linda Chatman
Thomsen ’76,
head of
enforcement
for the
Securities
and Exchange
Commission,
remembers
well the
lessons of
Enron. Her aim
is to safeguard
the integrity
of the U.S.
investment
market
when linda chatman
Thomsen ’76 became
director of the
Securities and Exchange
Commission’s enforcement
division in 2005, news
reports hailed the woman
who led the department’s
Enron investigation for her
brilliant mind and grace
under pressure.
Both qualities have
served her well, especially
this year, as the SEC has
come under attack from
top business groups and
Congress for creating
an overly litigious and
regulatory atmosphere
Linda Chatman
Thomsen ’76
reviews
documents
in her office
at the SEC’s
Washington
headquarters.
21
that they say is destroying
American competitiveness in
world financial markets.
Indeed, these days Thomsen
finds herself navigating a political mine field. Three major
reports—sponsored by the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce;
Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY)
and New York Mayor Michael
Bloomberg; and the bipartisan
Committee on Capital Markets Regulation—all called for
reforms to securities litigation.
Meanwhile, Congress is trying
to roll back financial auditing
requirements for small companies under the Sarbanes-Oxley
Act, which was passed in 2005
to keep corporate accounting
in check.
It’s a surprising shift from the
early days of Thomsen’s tenure,
when her office was on a high,
having spearheaded several
successful fraud investigations
against huge companies such
as WorldCom, Enron, and
Adelphia Communications [see
sidebar, p. 25]. “It’s a difficult
time to be in [Thomsen’s] position,” admits Barbara Roper,
director of investor protection
for the Consumer Federation of
America. “After everything that
followed on the heels of Enron
Smith bio
Name: Linda Chatman Thomsen ’76
Major: Government
House: Tyler
Most influential professor: The late
constitutional law professor Leo Weinstein. “He’s always been a rock star. Hands down.”
A lesson I learned at Smith: “You can get stuff done.
You can do anything if you want to—with a lot of help
from your friends.”
and WorldCom, the SEC was
encouraged to be very aggressive. All of a sudden, the rules
changed. The business community sees this as their last opportunity to reshape regulatory
policy and rein in enforcement,
rein in litigation, before President Bush leaves office.”
To her credit, Thomsen
hasn’t given in to the pressure.
Rather, she’s remained steadfast
in her commitment to ensuring
integrity in the corporate community. “It’s very hard to find
an enforcement director who is
more dedicated,” says Jim Cox,
a securities law professor at
Duke University. “She’s a tough
enforcement person and she
doesn’t back down.”
Thomsen’s appointment
two years ago made her the
first woman to lead the enforcement division, a feat she
accomplished after spending
ten years working her way up
through the ranks of the division, which is the SEC’s largest. Under her direction, the
enforcement division monitors
the activities of a complex and
vast web of investors, brokers,
and corporate CEOs to ensure
they comply with the nation’s
securities laws. Thomsen’s staff
of 1,000 investigates reports
of fraud, and she has the final
say whether there is enough
evidence to file a civil lawsuit
against the companies and individuals who are accused. The
Justice Department steps in if
criminal charges are involved.
Though Thomsen, as the
public face of the enforcement
division, has been at the receiving end of barbs from the business community, she welcomes
the discussion and considers
the public debate an opportunity to get her message of corporate responsibility across to
a larger audience. She does that
by using familiar references
Thomsen doesn’t
get a lot of free
time, but when
she does she
enjoys reading,
walking, and
cooking.
that bring the complex and divisive into a more neutral zone.
For example, in June, when
Thomsen spoke to the Stanford
Law School’s annual Director’s
College for corporate board
directors and senior executives,
William Shakespeare was her
muse. Reassuring the group
that the recent uproar was not
unique, she cited the bard’s oftquoted Sonnet 59: “If there be
nothing new, but that which . . .
hath been before.”
Earlier, in March, after the
publication of the business
groups’ critical reports, Thomsen invoked Dorothy and the
Wizard of Oz as she spoke to
the Corporate Counsel Institute. “Like most of us, [Dorothy] had a hard time coming to
terms with her own role and
responsibility for the jams she
found herself in,” Thomsen
said. “What do these reports
have to do with Dorothy? First,
it does seem there is a bit of
blaming everyone else for
business’s issues and looking to
anyone else to fix them.”
Thomsen’s technique is
highly effective, says Joseph
Grundfest, a former SEC commissioner who teaches law and
business at Stanford. “She relates abstract and difficult legal
concepts to everyday life. She
has a gift of being able to speak
in a straightforward and direct
manner,” he says. “She has the
capacity to relate to just about
everyone. Being charming apparently doesn’t hurt.”
When asked about her colorful analogies, which have
also included references to
the film Jerry Maguire (“Show
me the money!”), Thomsen
laughs. “I’m not funny. I can’t
do the classic ‘tell a joke’ in my
speeches. This is what I do,” she
says. “We’re talking about big
themes, and you want people to
remember the big themes.”
inspiration for her own
law career struck early, when
Thomsen was a high school
student in Long Valley, New
Jersey. A history assignment
required her to use original
source material for her report,
such as old newspapers, deeds,
“Investing in
securities is how
people build their
dreams. It builds
their houses. It
pays their college
tuition. More
households are
investing in the
market than ever.”
and town records. In doing her
research, she says, “I discovered
the Warren court and decisions
about free speech and civil
rights and criminal rights. I
read the cases and was hooked.”
At Smith, she took a class
with the late Leo Weinstein,
who taught constitutional law
and would become an important figure in Thomsen’s life.
“He not only introduced me to
Socrates but became my personal Socrates,” she says.
Yet, securities law in particular never crossed her mind,
even at Harvard Law School,
where she studied under the
“legendary Louis Loss,” who
had worked on the SEC staff
during the agency’s early years
and personally wrote a landmark rule governing the enforcement process. “I was going
to do deals. I didn’t see myself
going into government. I didn’t
see myself going into securities,” she says.
But in 1995, after two tours
at the law firm Davis Polk &
Wardwell, interrupted by a
stint with the Maryland attorney general, Thomsen found
herself looking for a job that
would allow her to litigate more
cases. Connections through
a friend and former colleague
led her to the SEC, a place that
she says has provided her with
the kind of interesting, complicated, and substantive work she
was looking for. “[The SEC] has
a mission I am proud to be part
of,” she says.
ensuring the nation’s
trust in its financial markets
hasn’t always been easy. She
bristles, for example, at complaints that her division is filing
too many lawsuits and maintains a meddlesome regulatory
framework. The fact is the SEC
brings about 600 cases a year.
That is in the midst of 6,000
broker-dealers, 660,000 registered representatives, 10,400
registered investment advisers,
8,000 mutual fund portfolios,
9,000 hedge funds, and 13,600
companies that file reports
with the SEC. “Against those
numbers, it’s hard to say 600 is
too many,” Thomsen says.
Indeed, despite the uproar
from the business community,
enforcement cases are down
this year, and there are doubledigit declines in the number of
securities class-action lawsuits
being filed, according to Jim
Cox, the Duke professor.
The reason for that trend,
Thomsen argues, is that the
penalties for fraud have become sufficiently harsh to deter
companies and individuals
from committing it in the first
place.
For Thomsen, who lives in
Chevy Chase, Maryland, with
her husband, Steuart, and
two children, Martha, 22, and
Will, 17, that kind of oversight
speaks to the larger concept of
protecting people’s lifestyles.
Investing in securities, she
says, “is how people build their
dreams. It builds their houses.
It pays their college tuition.
More households are investing
in the market than ever.”
The indelible image of scores
of Enron employees leaving
their offices for the last time,
boxes in hand, retirement accounts obliterated, brings home
“the reality of the harm that
this [fraudulent] conduct can
cause,” she says.
Looking ahead, Thomsen
expects her division to focus
on an alarming rise in reports
of insider trading, which hasn’t
garnered much attention since
the “greed is good” days of the
1980s. “Many of these new
insider traders are literally too
young to have learned the lessons of Ivan Boesky, Dennis
Levine, and Michael Milken,”
she says. “We in the enforcement division will remind
them.” Also on her radar are the
extensive actions brought recently against companies for illegally backdating stock options
to enrich top executives.
In the meantime, though,
Thomsen continues to defend
the controversial Section 404
of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act,
which requires companies to
audit and certify their yearly
financial statements. “[The act]
will prove itself to be seminal
legislation,” she says.
She’s just as optimistic about
the long-term effects of her
division’s work in enforcing all
the other securities laws under its purview. In a speech at
Smith earlier this year, she reminded her audience, made up
mostly of alumnae in the law
profession, that the country’s
regulatory and enforcement
strategies are being adopted
around the world. “If imitation
is the sincerest form of flattery,”
she said, “then our securities
regulation and enforcement regime is being honored with the
highest possible accolades.” Q
Jennifer Maddox Sergent ’91
edits specialty publications for
Home and Garden Television.
GETTY IMAGES
« the sec’s investigation into enron,
which was led by Linda Chatman Thomsen ’76,
resulted in the prosecution of former Enron CEO
Kenneth Lay and nearly $440 million in settlements
to defrauded investors.
Making
their
case
Here are a few
of the highprofile cases
the Securities
and Exchange
Commission’s
enforcement
division has
prosecuted in
the past five
years. Thomsen
led the Enron
investigation.
She was not
necessarily
involved in all
the cases.
» Enron, 2002
Under Thomsen’s
leadership, the SEC
brought actions
against more than two
dozen Enron officials
for participating in a
massive fraud to mask
hundreds of millions
of dollars in company
losses by falsifying
financial reports and
lying to investors and
analysts about the
company’s financial
health to prop up the
stock price. Former
chairman and CEO
Kenneth Lay knew the
truth about the losses
and sold $90 million
worth of his stock at
inflated prices that did
not reflect the company’s true value. Former president, CEO,
and chief operating
officer Jeffrey Skilling also sold stock at
artificially high prices
to make about $63
million in unlawful
profits.
All told, the SEC
has a fund of $440
million worth of settlements, and in April
a distribution agent
was named to distribute the money to
defrauded investors.
misrepresented financial results “to thereby enrich themselves
and keep their jobs.”
A final judgment ordered HealthSouth to
pay $100 million in
civil penalties.
» Adelphia
Communications,
2002
» Tyco Interna-
The SEC said the
cable television provider illegally excluded
more than $2.3 billion in debt from its
financial statements
by hiding it in off-balance-sheet affiliates.
Company founders,
the Rigas family, and
two senior executives
were accused of lying
to investors about the
number of Adelphia
subscribers and the
health of its operations.
The accounting firm
Deloitte & Touche was
charged for improperly auditing Adelphia
during this time, and
it later paid $50 million into an SEC fund
to compensate victims
of Adelphia’s fraud.
» HealthSouth
Corporation, 2003
In four separate
actions, the SEC
charged HealthSouth
former CEO Richard
Scrushy and eight
other executives for
overstating company
earnings by at least
$1.4 billion over four
years. The SEC said
Scrushy and his colleagues falsified and
tional, 2005
Tyco was charged with
overstating its earnings in the late 1990s
and early 2000s by
at least $1 billion.
In addition, former
CEO L. Dennis Kozlowski and two other
top executives were
charged with dealing
themselves hundreds
of millions of dollars
in secret low-interest and interest-free
loans, which they
used for personal
expenses, such as
buying multimilliondollar vacation homes.
The executives then
“covertly caused the
company” to forgive
tens of millions of
dollars worth of those
loans without disclosing that fact. They
were also accused
of selling millions of
dollars worth of stock
while the self-dealing
was going on.
Tyco ultimately paid
$50 million in civil
penalties.
» Insider trading
ring, 2007
In March, the SEC
announced the largest prosecution of an
insider-trading ring
since the days of Ivan
Boesky. The agency
charged ten people,
three hedge funds,
and a day-trading firm
for exchanging and
trading on thousands
of insider tips over six
years, generating at
least $15 million in illegal gains.
Michael Guttenberg, a managing
director for UBS Securities, was at the
heart of the alleged
ring. Also implicated
were Randi Collotta,
an attorney in Morgan
Stanley’s compliance
department, and Erik
Franklin, a portfolio
manager for a hedge
fund at Bear Stearns.
Guttenberg was
accused of stealing
information about upcoming UBS analyst
upgrades and downgrades and sharing
that information with
others in the ring,
who would then give
him kickbacks from
the resulting illegal
profits.
Collotta was accused of stealing
confidential corporate
acquisition information and sharing it, in
return for kickbacks.
In arranging the
transactions, Guttenberg and Collotta
were said to have
used disposable cell
phones, secret codes,
and discreet meeting
places to conceal their
actions. Some of the
cash was handed off
in snack bags.
—JMS
A site of
sorrow
and
strength
Sit dolorperos nim
velenim vent adit, con
venis nullandreet velit
do enisse ming esed
tat vel dolobor
By Floyd Cheung
top: A memorial stands
in the cemetery of the
Manzanar War Relocation
Center, where 10,000
Japanese and Japanese
Americans were interned
during World War II.
GETTY IMAGES (2)
bottom: The first group
of 82 Japanese Americans
arrives at Manzanar on
March 21, 1942, carrying
their belongings in
suitcases and bags.
ALISON YUM ’10 (2)
Sixty-five years
after nearly
120,000 Japanese
and Japanese
Americans were
incarcerated
without trial, a
Smith professor
and his students
visit the Manzanar
War Relocation
Center and learn a
lesson no textbook
could teach them
it was : on a Saturday morning last April. Yet even at that
hour, as our bus sat parked in front
of the Japanese American Community and Cultural Center in a
section of Los Angeles called Little
Tokyo, a student of mine turned to
me and said, “It’s already worth it.”
I knew what she meant. Before our
journey to the Manzanar National
Historic Site had even begun, we’d
already learned so much.
The previous night, my students and I had flown nearly 3,000
miles to join other travelers on a
pilgrimage to Manzanar, where
sixty-five years earlier more than
10,000 people had been incarcerated without trial in the middle of
the desert in eastern California.
We had imagined that this twoday, long-distance field trip would
deepen our understanding of this
event in American history, but
we could not have guessed that
so much would have been accomplished before our bus pulled away
from the curb.
The nine students with me
were taking my class “Narratives
of Internment.” Throughout the
semester, we had been studying
the history, politics, and prejudices that led to the incarceration
of nearly 120,000 Japanese and
Japanese Americans living on the
West Coast and Hawaii. As part
of the seminar, we examined the
conditions of camp life itself, the
resettlement process, the redress
movement, the literature that came
out of the experience, and the possible connections between World
War II America and post–9/11
America. Every student had conducted research on a topic of her
own choosing that related to the
internment. Some discovered Eleanor Roosevelt’s attitude toward the
internment, which diverged from
that of FDR; what special rules affected biracial Japanese Americans,
for instance that having a Japanese
father increased one’s chances of
being interned; and which collegeage women were able to leave the
top (left to right):
Elizabeth Seaton ’08,
Huelo Dunn ’07, Floyd
Cheung, and Thuy Le
’09 at the entrance to the
Manzanar camp.
bottom: A marker for
where a garden once
thrived under the care of
internees.
FLOYD CHEUNG (3)
top: Alison Yum ’10
and Elizabeth Seaton ’08
help Thuy Le ’09
get through a barbedwire fence.
middle: Selena Moon
’09 and Emma Thomas
’10 were among the
participants in this
year’s pilgrimage.
bottom: Students
from “Narratives of
Internment” with
Angela Myers-Rackleff
’02 (in hat), who hosted
a tour of the Japanese
American National
Museum on the day after
the pilgrimage.
camps to study at Smith—for example, the writer
Yoshiko Uchida ’44, author of Journey to Topaz:
A Story of the Japanese American Evacuation.
In class one day, we were discussing the ten
camps and the fact that pilgrimages to some
of them take place annually. Thanks to former
internees and lifelong activist Sue Kunitomi Embrey and her allies, a pilgrimage to Manzanar has
taken place on the last Saturday in April every
year since 1969. Immediately, my adventurous
students wanted to go. Knowing how much this
trip would enhance what we talked about in the
classroom, I told them I would look into it, but
privately I wasn’t confident that I would be able
to find the money for such a trip. My concerns
were allayed, though, when Smith’s American
studies program, along with the dean of the
college’s office, agreed to finance our travel and
lodging. So, on a chilly morning last April, we
boarded a flight from Hartford and landed in Los
Angeles, where a bus would take us the remaining 210 miles to Owens Valley, near the Sierra
Nevada.
Before boarding our bus, I pulled my students
aside and reminded them that while we had
learned a great deal about the internment, that
knowledge might only have begun to prepare us
for this journey. In all probability we would meet
former internees and others who were on this
pilgrimage for less academic reasons than the
ones we had. I urged them to be respectful, to
engage with fellow travelers when appropriate,
and to listen to the stories they might hear along
the way. And there were so many stories.
Almost immediately, our fellow travelers
began to question us: who were we, why were
we there, why had we come so far? One of my
students must have said that she was from
Smith because the woman next to her soon began telling her how her grandson had wanted
to attend an East Coast school but instead had
been persuaded by a full scholarship to enroll at
Whittier College, a small liberal arts college near
Los Angeles. This piqued my personal interest,
because I had graduated from Whittier myself.
Soon, my student’s new companion offered that
she, too, had gone to Whittier, but under very
different circumstances than I or her grandson.
At the beginning of World War II, she had been
attending the University of California at Berkeley. Two months after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered all
Japanese and Japanese Americans to “evacuate,”
as the government put it. This included retirees
in the twilight of their lives, men and women in
the prime of their lives, and young people in college or just starting out, as well as children and
infants. All were deemed potential enemies and
saboteurs. Two-thirds of them were U.S. citizens.
For this woman, life was “interrupted” (her word)
by internment. She described the living conditions at the camp, softening the harshness of
some of the details with humor. She told us how,
after the war, she got married and fast became
caught up in the work of raising a family and rebuilding her community. Later, she managed to
finish her education a class or two at a time over
a twelve-year period at Whittier College, which
she said allowed her to attend classes for free.
Her perseverance awed us and taught us that the
value of an education isn’t always measured by
how much you pay but rather by how hard won
it is.
Of course, I engaged with anyone who
approached me. Some wondered about my
heritage. Was I Japanese American? “Floyd?
Hmmm. That’s a good Japanese name,” said one
man. “No, I’m actually Chinese American,” I
responded. “I came to this topic as a professor
of Asian American studies.” If someone looked
vaguely interested in talking, I would ask, “So,
is this your first time on this pilgrimage?” This
question always started fascinating conversations
about their motives, memories, and experiences.
On the drive, I spoke to a former internee who
had volunteered in the U.S. Military Intelligence
Service (throughout the war, Japanese-speaking
soldiers were needed to translate and do other
work, in spite of the fact that their relatives were
sent to camp—a painful irony). I listened as he
told me that a uniformed Japanese American
soldier could not walk around alone without
a Euro-American escort, lest he be mistaken
for an infiltrator. I silently doubted whether
similar measures had to be taken with German
American or Italian American soldiers. At
another point, I struck up a conversation with
a former internee who had left camp when he
was a young boy. He told me that he had buried
his marbles at Manzanar and intended to try
to find them on this, his first trip back. His
wife, meanwhile, teased him about losing his
marbles. My student was right, these simple, but
extraordinary stories had already made the trip
worth it.
when we drove past a sign that read
“Manzanar War Relocation Center” and into the
camp, the bus, which for the past four hours had
hummed with conversation, quieted. Near the
entrance were two stone sentry buildings, among
the few surviving buildings from the internment
era. I could only guess what this portion of the
journey was like for former internees. As we
passed dozens of parked cars and pulled in next
to six or seven other buses, I realized that no one
had chartered a Greyhound bus, the company
that had been employed in 1942. No one wanted
the layers of memory and experience to overlap
in that way, at least.
In spite of discomfort and pain, the pilgrimage did raise opportunities for confronting the
many complicated and conflicting meanings of
Manzanar. Our host, Vicky, informed us that the
Manzanar site had once been home to Paiute
and other native peoples; that European settlers
established apple orchards there; that “Manzanar” means “apple orchard” in Spanish; that
the orchards were ruined when the city of Los
Angeles diverted water from the area; and that
the government hastily built barracks to hold
about 10,000 internees there. After the war, the
government used some of the buildings for storage and sold off others. Eventually, the site was
abandoned. Over time, very little remained on
the site save for a few foundations, the sentry
houses, and a memorial obelisk at the camp
cemetery, whose Japanese-language inscription
reads, “Soul consoling tower.”
On a makeshift stage near the cemetery,
veterans and resisters, internees and their descendants contributed their own memories, and
music and performances deepened our experience. Taiko drummers and bagpipers played
first. A one-man band with harmonica, guitar,
tambourine, and voice led us in a rendition of
“Sukiyaki,” a surprise hit in America in 1963,
since its lyrics were all in Japanese. An interfaith
service combined Buddhist, Christian, and Muslim rituals. We felt thrice blessed. And more than
one speaker linked the incarceration of Japanese
Americans without charge in internment camps
with the incarceration of alleged terrorists without charge at Guantanamo. “This should give us
pause,” said one speaker, before adding, “No, this
should make us shudder.”
As a final gesture, all of us joined in an ondo
dance, a Japanese folk dance normally performed
in unison. The novices among us did our best to
imitate the movements of others. Picture us, out
in the middle of the desert, in 91-degree heat,
dancing to the sounds of taiko drums.
on the way out of the site, my students
and I took time away from the main group to talk
and reflect. We walked along a camp road, noted
the locations of firebreaks, and thought about
how many internees had used this road to enter,
traverse, and ultimately, leave the camp. We recalled in particular the story of Ko Wakatsuki,
the father of Jane Wakatsuki Houston, author of
Farewell to Manzanar: A True Story of Japanese
American Experience. When the camps were
ready to close after the end of World War II,
Ko Wakatsuki drove his car up and down these
firebreaks and this very road, kicking up dust. To
keep his dignity, he spent precious money on a
used car to spirit his family away from Manzanar
rather than take government-provided transportation. “No bus for us,” he had yelled.
My students and I also resolved to take a picture by the entrance sign. When we got near the
sign, we realized that we would have to climb
through a barbed-wire fence. Full of exuberant,
youthful energy, my students helped each other
get through, and we took several pictures before
running back to the bus.
Later, I hoped our blithe movement through
the barbed wire wasn’t seen as a disrespectful
gesture by those who remembered the fence as
a restriction on their freedom. Almost immediately, however, I recalled that near the end of internment, the photographer Toyo Miyatake took
his son and two other boys out to the fence and
had them climb through for a photograph titled
“Boys Behind Barbed Wire.” By this point, camp
administrators knew that their Japanese American charges were not a threat and Miyatake
in particular was to be trusted (though in the
beginning he had to smuggle in a camera lens,
since it was considered contraband). Miyatake
positioned his camera on the camp side of the
fence and photographed his subjects on the other side looking in. One of them grasps a wire on
the fence. It is a picture about reflection on both
what was lost—freedom and innocence—and
what was lived—almost four years full of good,
bad, and mundane events.
That early picture already began to play with
the border of internment in terms of space and
perspective. The pilgrimages that take place
there annually also transform the meaning of the
site. While the program certainly brings back
painful memories, it also builds unity, strengthens resolve, and even fosters joy.
America itself is a palimpsest of contradiction—loss and gain, injustice and opportunity.
The pilgrimage reminds me that we can either
ignore the past or choose to face it in all of its
complexities, draw strength from any source that
we can access, and, most important, through our
participation in public life transform the present through the stories we tell and actions we
take. For me, from beginning to end, the trip was
worth it. Q
Floyd Cheung is an associate professor of English
language and literature and American studies.
READING LIST
‘Narratives of
Internment’
CITIZEN 13660 BY MINÉ OKUBO
An artist, Okubo was
interned at Topaz in
Arizona, where she kept
a sketchbook and journal,
which she revised into
Citizen 13660. Published
in 1946, Okubo’s book
integrates wryly drawn
images and understated
prose, giving us one of the
first personal accounts of
the internment experience.
NO-NO BOY BY JOHN OKADA
While his family was
interned at Minidoka in
Idaho, Okada voluntarily
joined the U.S. Military
Intelligence Service,
working as a radio
interceptor and Japaneselanguage interpreter. With
remarkable empathy,
Okada’s novel, No-No Boy,
tells the story of a Japanese
American man who had
refused to serve in the U.S.
military and who, after the
war, must find a way to
reconcile his choice with
society and himself.
FAREWELL TO MANZANAR:
A TRUE STORY OF JAPANESE
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE DURING
AND AFTER THE WORLD WAR
II INTERNMENT BY JEANNE
WAKATSUKI HOUSTON AND
JAMES D. HOUSTON
Interned as a young girl at
Manzanar in California,
Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston
recalls in this memoir—
with the aid of her coauthor and husband—the
consequences of
internment for her own
identity formation and her
family’s economic, social,
and psychological wellbeing.
WHY SHE LEFT US BY RAHNA
REIKO RIZZUTO
Rizzuto, the daughter of a
Japanese American mother
and Italian-Irish American
father, learned about the
internment when her
mother invited her to go
on a pilgrimage with her
to the camp where she was
held as a child. Inspired by
this experience, Rizzuto
wrote the novel Why
She Left Us, which traces
the effects not only of
internment but also the
silences that surround it.
Momentum
on
her
side
he past several years haven’t
exactly been friendly to the women’s movement. For starters, in
2001 the Bush administration
closed the White House Office
for Women’s Initiatives and curtailed funding to the Women’s
Bureau in the Department of Labor. Not to mention the ongoing efforts—some of them
successful—to chip away at reproductive rights, curb women’s ability to file claims for discriminatory pay and hiring
practices, and gut the safeguards provided under Title IX
of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits gender discrimination in federally funded educational institutions.
Recent efforts to undermine
women’s rights have inspired
Kathy Rodgers ’70, president
of a leading women’s
advocacy group, to educate
women about their history
and encourage them to
harness their collective power
on election day
By Debra Michals
Photographs by Joshua Paul
The women’s
movement
is alive and
well, says
Kathy Rodgers
’70, shown
here in Legal
Momentum’s
New York offices.
Mention these setbacks to Kathy Rodgers ’70,
president since 1995 of the highly visible women’s
rights and advocacy group Legal Momentum, and
she’ll admit that these have been troubling times for
women’s rights, but she doesn’t let that fact overshadow the immense progress that has been made
in the past three decades. “I prefer to take the long
the needs of immigrant women. “We’re the only
women’s organization involved in immigration reform and the only ones thinking about domestic
violence and sexual assault in terms of immigrant
women, who don’t always have access to, and may
fear using, the services provided to other domestic
violence victims,” Rodgers says.
“Many of the barriers women face are intrinsic to
our government and institutions. But the arc of
history is reaching toward something better.”
view and focus on the successes—and there have
been enough of them to keep us going,” says Rodgers, a self-proclaimed “eternal optimist” who makes
it a point every quarter to note with her staff where
the organization has helped make a difference.
And that it has done in spades. Since its founding in 1970, Legal Momentum, which was formerly
known as the NOW Legal Defense and Education
Fund, has been one of the most visible forces advancing women’s legal rights, especially in the areas
of employment, Title IX, and reproductive rights.
Legal Momentum, which has offices in New York
and Washington, D.C., works to broaden perspectives and set policy agendas through legislative reform. The organization played a
major role in the passage of the landmark
Violence Against Women Act (1994) and
the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances
Act (1994), which virtually stopped violent demonstrations at reproductive health
clinics across the country. In the past eight
years, it has fought hard to hold on to rights the
Bush administration sought to eviscerate, namely
Title IX.
In addition, Legal Momentum takes up to seven
cases a year—free of charge—that address employment and housing discrimination affecting victims
of domestic violence; discrimination against women working in male-dominated fields, particularly
firefighting and the skilled trades; and sex discrimination in government-funded programs. The legal
team selects its case list from nearly a thousand
requests a year, often referring those that don’t fall
within their focus to other legal resources. Staff also
act as advisers, writing briefs and offering technical assistance in other gender litigation as well. As
of late, the group has been a leader in recognizing
As president, Rodgers has created a stronger
identity and wider support base for the organization. That was partly what drove the name change
in 2004. “We did some research and discovered that
nobody born after ’74 knows what a ‘legal defense
and education fund’ is,” she explains. “We also knew
that while we have a historic connection to NOW,
we’ve always been a separate organization.”
Adopting the moniker Legal Momentum not
only ended the confusion and brought in younger
supporters, but put the focus on forward motion:
“advancing women’s rights,” rather than simply
holding ground.
hat rodgers, who was president of
her senior class at Smith, ended up on
the front lines of the women’s movement isn’t all that surprising. She may
have wavered between a career in law or
chemistry during her early Smith days,
but a job in a research lab as a student—
where she witnessed pervasive sexual discrimination—quickly pointed her in the other direction.
She majored in American history, then headed to
Columbia Law School. In the mid-1970s, Rodgers
became a labor law attorney on the management
side in an era when sexual discrimination cases began to test the promises of Title VII, which prohibits employment discrimination. “Part of my job was
not just to defend management, but to make them
aware that they had to obey the law,” she recalls.
From there, she spent fourteen years as the general
counsel at Barnard College from 1981 to 1995, before becoming president of Legal Momentum.
“I absolutely feel shaped by the times in which I
grew up,” says Rodgers, who was raised in Boundbrook, New Jersey, the youngest of three children
Milestones of a movement
Women: A Celebration of Strength is no
ordinary book; it’s actually a mini-museum, complete with pop-ups, pullouts,
documents, and
other exhibits
that offer a
walk through
the milestones,
leaders, and
events that have
marked progress
for women since
the first women’s movement
in 1848.
The book is
part fundraiser
for Legal Momentum’s efforts to advance women’s
legal rights and part call to action about
the work that remains to be done.
Written in clear, simple language and
beautifully illustrated and designed, the
book seeks to reach women and girls
of all ages, which explains the use of
pop-ups and other “realia”—reproductions of documents and letters like
Lucy Stone’s Marriage Statement of
1840 arguing for more equality in marriage and the Declaration of Rights and
Sentiments, considered the spark for
the women’s movement in 1848—that
you can pull from sleeves within related sections. There’s also a brochure,
“50 Key Cases for Women’s Equality,
1973–2006,” and a pop-up of a corset
that marks milestones in fashion and
the arts.
Despite all of the book’s graphic bells
and whistles, its underlying mission
is fairly straightforward: to illustrate
how women advocated to change the
restrictions and
laws that kept
them from gaining an education,
competing fairly
for jobs, participating in sports,
finding a place in
the military and
politics and the
justice system,
and living free
from violence—all
issues that Legal
Momentum directly addresses in its work.
“We see the book as a way to brand
our organization and start a conversation that tells women that we’re out
here, and if you
care about these
issues, we’d
like you to join
us,” says Kathy
Rodgers ’70,
president of Legal Momentum.
The idea for
the book began to take shape after
a conversation about how Legal Momentum could have an impact on the
2008 presidential election. The staff
saw the answer in telling the story of
how women have come together to
make change. “We wanted to celebrate
that history but also point out what’s
left to be done and encourage younger
women to get involved,” Rodgers
notes. That’s why, front and center,
the book’s cover bears the message,
“Women, use your vote.”
Lynn Hecht Schafran ’62, who
shelved her usual duties as national
judicial education program director for
Legal Momentum, worked as primary
writer and coordinator to get the book
out quickly. She and her team started
researching in fall 2006 and writing by
year’s end. “We wanted the book to be
fun and inspiring,” Schafran says. “It’s
empowering to see the women who
have come before you, and that you can
be a part of that legacy, too.”
Adds Rodgers, “It’s not just a history
book; there’s a message, which is that
there is more to do, and you, reader,
have to help if you want progress to
continue.” —DM
Women: A Celebration
of Strength is available
for $49.95 at www.
legalmomentum.org.
with a stay-at-home mom and corporate executive
father who commuted into Manhattan. (Her sister
Nell Rodgers Beaumont is a member of the class of
1967.) In particular, she remembers being inspired
by John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, in which
he gave his famous call to action: “Ask not what
your country can do for you, ask what you can do
for your country.” “I was in high school when he
gave that speech, and it really resonated,” Rodgers
says. “You thought about how you were going to
Smith bio
Name: Kathy Rodgers ’70
Current occupation: Lawyer and president of Legal Momentum
Smith major: Art history
Smith house: Talbot
Most memorable Smith professor: Peter Rose, Sophia Smith Professor
Emeritus of Sociology and Anthropology. “He shared his research from his
travels about other cultures and how they work. It really got me thinking
and made me understand that everything doesn’t have to be the way we
do it now in the United States.”
Smith taught me: “That I had to go after what I wanted, and if I did, I
could probably get it.”
34
make this country a better place.” Her Smith days
reflected the political tumult of the times. She recalls anti-Nixon protests on campus because Julie
Nixon was a member of her class. Also vivid are
memories of the clandestine systems that existed
for finding abortions for students who needed
them when it was still illegal.
These days, Rodgers continues to heed President
Kennedy’s call as she attempts to counter the attacks on women’s rights in the legislature and the
courts. “When the ’06 elections happened, we said
we’re tired that women’s issues and priorities are
not even part of the public conversation,” Rodgers says. The solution: LM’s own campaign—Legal
Momentum 2020—to put women’s issues front
and center in the upcoming presidential election,
through both a speaking tour and publication of a
book, Women: A Celebration of Strength, meant to
inspire women and girls by showing in vivid detail
what women have achieved in spite of the odds [see
sidebar, p. 33].
“We did major national research and tested the
issues that men and women care about, and lo and
behold, they are the issues we’re working on: violence against women; equal pay for equal work; access to higher-paying jobs for women, such as in
construction, which can pay $25 to $30 an hour;
securing the health of women and girls,” Rodgers explains, adding that while Legal Momentum
is pro-choice, she wants the media to broaden its
understanding of feminism beyond simply linking
it to abortion rights.
When she thinks about the future of the women’s
movement, she has high hopes, especially given the
current research, which she says shows that while
some people may shrink from the word “feminist,”
most people believe in equal rights and equal
treatment. “The movement is alive and well, even
if we’re in a time of transition. We’re discovering
that many of the barriers and stereotypes women
face are deep-rooted and intrinsic to our systems
of government and institutions,” she says. “Our
challenge now is to find new approaches and new
solutions. But the arc of history is reaching toward
something better, however slowly.” Q
Debra Michals, Ph.D., is a writer living in
Massachusetts. She is currently working on a
history of women entrepreneurs and a novel about
love and madness. Her profile of Devin Alexander
(Renee Simone) ’93 appeared in the Fall 2007 issue
of the Quarterly.
*T4NJUIPOZPVSUPEPMJTU
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TODOTODAYTHISWEEKTHISYEAR
#ONSIDERTHEIMPACTOF3MITHINYOUROWNLIFEANDHELPOFFER
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update
alumnae
Your classmates want to hear about
you. To share your news, write
to your class secretary; she must
send her column to the Quarterly by
February 15, May 15, August 15, and
November 15. Members of classes
without secretaries should send their
news directly to the Quarterly.
1930
ELIZABETH OLNEY MILLER writes, “I
am alive and well and live in a retirement home with many delightful
and interesting friends and a great
variety of entertainment and activities. I have two sons, both physicians
(one whose wife is a Smith graduate);
several grandchildren (one a fourthyear student in medical school); and
three great-grandchildren. I am very
blessed.”
Quarterly Office, Alumnae House,
Northampton, MA 01063
1933
MARGERY DAVIS BOYDEN writes, “I am
very happy to be a member of Mary
Woods, a retirement community.
We are a very congenial group from
all over the United States—mentally
active and enjoying the beauty of a
large campus adjacent to the Willamette River. I am still involved in my
Portland reading club, which meets
weekly. We take turns reading aloud
and discussing affairs. I have given
up driving; I am still painting and
exhibiting. Life is still full of exciting
opportunities. I can still get to my
beach house in the summer.”
For myself, I have never forgotten a
lesson learned from Philosophy 101
at Smith: Always think of things in
terms of the whole. This is the greatest
lesson Smith gave me, and my guiding
light in all my thinking all my days.
Thanks, Smith!
Sec., Alice Brown McDonnell, 286
E. Calle Herboso, Green Valley, AZ
85614
1935
My husband, Bill, died peacefully
here at Wake Robin, in Shelburne, VT,
with his family by his side.
Our son and his family, who live
in Charlottesville, VA, now own our
old house in Malletts Bay, VT. They
bought it from us when we moved to
Wake Robin, and spend a part of the
summer there, easily renting the rest
of the year. It was wonderful for my
Bill and me to be able to go out to our
old house that we built in the ’60s,
and be together with all the family.
Betsy Ferries, delightful daughter of
my dear friend ELIZABETH ANN MCGAFFIN FERRIES, is very much a part of my
36
Alumnae in the Monterey/Carmel, CA, area gather to celebrate the
90th birthday of Barbara Bevan McGowan ’38. From left to right
are Kathleen Boscardin Morrison ’68, Barbara Anderson Johnson
’50, Gay Fowler Reimann ’78, Karen Dunn-Haley ’78, Hannah
Kirby Priestley ’58, Michele Grogan Williams ’87, and Barbara.
life and visits often. She is married
to Burlington’s former mayor, Peter
Clavelle, and we all worked together
when he ran for governor.
While I have enjoyed being your secretary, I find I must resign my position. Please send your news directly
to the Quarterly office.
Written by Barbara Southall Dunnington
Quarterly Office, Alumnae House,
1936
You may not remember HELEN SAPIR
LARSON, as she didn’t finish at Smith.
Instead, she spent a semester at the
experimental Black Mountain College before its artist-alumni became
famous, then finished her BA at the
University of Chicago. She reports
that she took a trip to San Francisco
to visit her son John and his wife. She
says air travel makes her dizzy, so she
probably won’t try it again! One of
my best memories of Helen includes
a view of her standing at the end of
a railroad track atop a mountain—
Mount Tom? Mount Holyoke? Do any
of the rest of you have memories of
Mountain Day? How about sharing
them?
JUNE BETTS LYMAN, our quite faithful
correspondent, admires New Hampshire’s beauty. She would like to volunteer as class secretary, but says, “I
am too busy writing another book (at
93) and painting for an art show.”
Smith Alumnae Quarterly Winter 2007-08
As for me—no news. My health
stays stable. Motorized wheelchairs
(like the Jazzy) are a great invention!
I have enjoyed some visits from nieces and nephews. I have added a few
reminiscences in this column—send
yours in, too! Although I’m no longer
class secretary, I’ll relay any news you
send me, until (and unless) someone
else volunteers.
Written by Kathryn Parke
Quarterly Office, Alumnae House
1937
Here is some catch-up news on
those who registered for our 70th
Reunion but were unable to join us on
campus to celebrate that remarkable
event. Not being peas in a pod, we recognize that we are experiencing these
nonagenarian years differently one
from another. Unanticipated changes
in plans frequently do occur.
JOAN WISE KAUFMAN’s son had emergency surgery early in Reunion week,
so her daughter-in-law had to take
care of him rather than drive Joan to
Northampton and serve as her aide.
Her son recovered quickly, but Reunion was over by then. Joan plays a
lot of bridge and still enjoys painting.
She used to work in oils, dropped that
for drawing, and now has shifted to
watercolors, which she loves.
BETTY KINGSBURY RIPLEY’s life got back
on track in June after a very difficult
four months. It went awry in Febru-
ary with her appendix bursting, which
kept her in a coma for two weeks in
the intensive care unit. While in rehab, she had a mini-stroke and a gall
bladder attack. Since Betty couldn’t
care for husband Rip, her son and
three daughters moved him to Langdon Place, an assisted-living center in
Keene, NH, where Betty’s brother and
his wife live. Betty was well enough
to join us for Reunion, but Rip died
unexpectedly May 23. Then Betty had
to have her gall bladder removed on
May 29. Meanwhile the Ripley children removed all the accumulated
treasures left at what had been the
family homestead for 27 years and
moved Betty into a ground-floor
apartment with a garden at Langdon
Place. Betty’s looking forward to clear
sailing from here on out, and playing
tennis again with her son.
MARY CADLEY BURKE and daughter
HELEN BURKE ’62 both missed their Reunions to spend three glorious weeks
in Wyoming at the ranches of Mary’s
other two daughters and their families. They all went for a long weekend into the Big Horn Mountains, an
area devastated by huge forest fires in
August that forced the evacuation of
many residents. Mary keeps herself
in shape with daily aerobic exercise
in the pool; crossword puzzles, Sudoku, and bridge exercise her mind.
In Mary’s bridge group, three of the
players are over 100 (one is 103), and
they always end their games with a
glass of wine.
DEBBY DAVENPORT WHEELER had her
heart set on joining the Clark House
gang of NANCY BROWN JONES, NICKY
PHILBRICK TUCKER , WIGGY WEATHERS
GRASSI, and BAR LYMAN MUSSELLS at
Reunion. Although she had sent in
her reservation and her picture was
posted on a King House door, her
doctor felt that Debby wasn’t strong
enough yet after a hospital stay to
attend. I didn’t catch Debby when I
last phoned her, but a family member
happily reported that she is doing very
well now.
At our class meeting during Reunion, we voted to retire all class officers and let the college take over whatever remains to be done. However,
WIGGY WEATHERS GRASSI volunteered to
continue the very successful memorial gifts program that she started at
the time of our 50th Reunion, as she
feels the personal touch of a handwritten note is very important. I also
volunteered to continue as class secretary if you all continue to send me
news items for our column!
Sec., Nancy Merrick Gilbert, 3374
Meadow Ridge, Redding, CT 06896,
[email protected]
1938
MARION (TOMMY) THOMPSON FULLER
BROWN writes that she and her chil-
dren have enjoyed 62 years at their
beautiful Ram’s Head Farm in Maine.
They have just donated their treasure
to a land conservation trust. With the
use of a walker and a cane she manages to get around. All her family visit
frequently. Tommy continues to attend meetings of her favorite organizations: the York Land Trust, Old
York Historical Society, Strawberry
Bank in Portsmouth, and the Travel
Advisory Commission. She says she is
fortunate to have a young woman live
with her who “does everything.”
JANE ALLEN GOODWIN had a lovely
90th birthday celebration with family and friends. She says it was “a last
hurrah!” She is experiencing macular
degeneration. Other than that, she is
doing well and sends her best to “all
us old ladies!”
DOROTHY KAUL LESLIE writes, “My
faithful cleaning woman for eight
years retired. The man who kept my
house in repair for 23 years also retired. My gardener of 28 years died.
These devoted people can never be
replaced. So I know it’s time for me
to make a change. When I find the
right retirement community I’ll let
you know.”
BARBARA SALMON LONGFELLOW is still
blessed with good health. Eighteen in
her family will gather in Nantucket for
her 90th birthday. In Vero Beach, FL,
she continues to play golf and bridge.
She also goes to lectures, the theater,
concerts, and the beach, and is active in the Vero Beach Art Museum.
She continues to be a director of the
Minneapolis Museum of Art, and she
travels a lot.
HELEN SHAPIRO MAISLEN says she is
blessed with fairly good health. She
has her own home in a retirement
complex. She is proud to have 12
grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren. She is fortunate to have a
daughter living nearby.
HARRIET EARLE O’DONNELL has given
up her home and moved to a retirement community in Philadelphia, and
is happy to have no stairs! She also has
given up driving.
LUCY DANFORTH PARKER lives in a retirement home near enough to Boston
that she can attend Boston Symphony
concerts. Sadly, she lost her husband,
Brownie, in March. Her wonderful
daughters live nearby. She plays in a
string quartet occasionally and plays
croquet and bridge often.
JEANNE REIFF PECK lives alone in her
home. Her main problem is an arthritic knee, which she hopes to have fixed
soon so she can travel.
ELEANORE AFFELDT PERLICK says all
the family except three grandsons
(who had to work) attended her 90th
birthday. They all went to church and
then gathered for brunch at a nearby
restaurant in Milwaukee’s famous
Whitnall Park, a huge flower exhibit
park. Son Perry is a lawyer; daughter
Linda just retired from teaching; Susan is still teaching English. The whole
family loves the woods and lakes and
summers in northern Wisconsin.
EDITH BLAKESLEE PHELPS’s daughter,
JUDITH PHELPS FELTON ’65, writes that
her mother is in a long-term care facility and is in poor health and very
frail.
CATHERINE (PEGGY) POLK RABUT is fortunate to still be living in her home
of 58 years, and to be surrounded by
her husband’s paintings. She sees her
family often but has a busy life of her
own—string orchestra, violin lessons,
yoga, beach walks, gardening, folk
dancing, and French conversation
lessons. Peggy came out of retirement
to do one more project with Global
Citizens Network in Kentucky, working with 11 much younger women!
Every October, Peggy attends an Elderhostel orchestra program in Hidden Valley, CA.
CLARA TAPLIN RANKIN has moved
to a small 1836 house four miles
from her old farm. She says she has
changed from a country mouse to a
city mouse. One of the joys is having
her eldest granddaughter next door.
As her narrow property goes down to
the river, she is able to have a small
planned garden with evocations of her
old Shipman garden. Clara, too, celebrated her 90th birthday surrounded
by her family.
ELIZABETH REED is one of the few not
yet 90! Her village decided, after she
served more than 60 years as their
physician, that she was “The Most
Prominent Citizen.” They gave her a
big celebration.
Over last Thanksgiving, NELL ANGLE
RICHMOND’s whole family, 42 strong,
gathered to celebrate her 90th. She
says, “All goes well with me in my continuing-care facility. New friends and
new activities—I like it!”
JOAN HARVEY ROHAN still lives in the
home where she was born in 1916,
on the shores of Lake Michigan. Last
June, her daughter Marcia was married in Racine. It was a wonderful
family affair. Last Fourth of July, two
loyal friends pushed Joan three miles
in her wheelchair; they represented
the Racine Coalition for Peace and
Justice. Their T-shirts said, “Peace
begins with us.”
MARY WENTLING WALSH celebrated her
90th birthday will all of her seven children and many of her grandchildren.
She sends greetings to all.
Sec., Natalie High Loomis, 110 Preston Terrace, Marshfield, MA 02050,
[email protected]
Sec., Bertine Niles Willis, 1103
Grove Street, Framingham, MA
01701
1939
ELIZABETH BROWN FIELDING is living
in a retirement community after a career as a gerontologist and university
professor. She is writing a novel concerning neo-Nazism based on her experience of living in Greece. Another
interest is how to achieve peace and
unity of religions. She even preached
a sermon about it in her Episcopal
church in September.
ROSALIND LOUTREL JONES still lives
in her house but doesn’t drive. Her
favorite hobby is calligraphy. She has
a granddaughter who started her first
year at Smith in the fall.
FRANCES BROWN TOWNES has published her book, Misadventures of
a Scientist’s Wife, which explores
her exciting married life of 65 years
spent in many fascinating places with
her scientist husband, a Nobel Prize
winner. Her book is available through
Amazon, or you can contact her directly. She has also been involved in
many other interesting projects.
Pres., Mary Cary Rea, 15 Piper
Road, J201, Scarborough, ME 04074,
[email protected]
1940
JANE GURLEY DENKER writes from her
home in Wake Robin, a retirement
community in Shelburne, VT, where
15 Smith alumnae currently live. Jane
had a visit from the granddaughter of
our late class president, JO BUCKINGHAM CANEY, who lives in San Francisco
and works for Yoga Journal.
PEGGY ERVIN CHILTON enjoys reading
news of classmates. She continues to
volunteer at the library in Coronado,
CA, and sells used books in Secondhand Prose. Son Randy is head of the
English department at St. Francis
University in Joliet, IL; daughter Kate
does production editing for Sage Publications and lives in Memphis, TN.
SALLY WATERS FISHER’s 89th birthday
was joyously celebrated with her family in Vermont. She suffered an unfortunate fall, however, which fractured
her writing arm. Sally would love to
hear from classmates.
With sincere regret, I report that ALICE DUFFY RINEHART’s daughter called to
inform the class of her mother’s death
in June. Her obituary appears in this
issue of the Quarterly.
BARBARA HENDRIAN, who lives in Glen
Ridge, NJ, is busy, content, and enjoying a wide variety of events in nearby
New York City.
I, BARBARA MELLITZ KRENTZMAN, celebrated my 88th birthday with friends
and family in Natick, MA. My guests
first participated in an informal reception at the Morse Institute Library,
site of a retrospective show of my
paintings, drawings, and poetry. Most
of the work was gathered from the
collections of my 10 grandchildren
and other family members. Later, everyone enjoyed a delightful luncheon
at a local bistro. It was great fun, and I
was euphoric for days afterward.
Sec., Barbara Mellitz Krentzman,
22 Lakeview Gardens #614, Natick,
MA 01760, bkrentzman2005@
yahoo.com
1941
I, SIDNEY SMITH WALKER, your class
secretary, attended a meditation retreat led by Vietnamese monk Thich
Nhat Hanh. In September, I hosted
the wedding of my granddaughter at
the summer home where I was married in 1945.
CHARLOTTE BREST SIEGEL’s husband
died four years ago. After selling
their home at Stanford University,
she moved to the Hyalt Retirement
Center. In the fall she closed her clinical social work practice.
MAL RICHARDS WATSON still cuts four
acres of grass and cares for her pool
and tennis court. She has 13 grands
and seven greats.
NANCY KRUIDENIER SHEPARD enjoys
her book club and investment group.
She took a Riviera trip in August and
plans another circumnavigating
South America in January.
KATHARINE HOBSON STURTEVANT lives
at the Village in Duxbury, MA.
CAROLYN COLWELL PALMER keeps busy
quilting and making teddy bears to
donate to firefighters and police, who
give them to kiddies in stressful situations. Water aerobics and gardening
get her outside. Her husband is still at
home but is struggling with Alzheimer’s. The rest of her family is fine and
happy in New Hampshire.
LOUISE COOK SAWYER volunteers at
the Whaling Museum Library in
New Bedford, MA, and is active in
the Funeral Consumers Alliance of
Southeastern Massachusetts, whose
board has worked to establish a green
cemetery.
SUE WESTHEIMER RANSOHOFF has been
an oral historian for three years, interviewing people about their life stories.
She writes, “I am quite a good interviewer but a so-so businesswoman. I
keep forgetting to carry my business
cards.”
NANCY MARSHALL STREBEIGH enjoys
life at Whitney Center near her son
Fred, who teaches writing at Yale. She
visited me on Mishaum Point in Massachusetts last summer.
Sec., Sidney Smith Walker, 105 RiverMead Road, Peterborough, NH
03458, 603-924-4241,
[email protected]
1942
Twenty-seven gallant members of the
class of ’42 attended our 65th Reunion
last May. ANN (POOH) MILLSPAUGH HUFF
reports, “We had a delightful, but too
small, Reunion weekend despite the
inclement weather. (No need to worry
about tennis!)” They were housed in
Winter 2007-08 Smith Alumnae Quarterly
37
alumnae update
Lamont, which she describes as “the
perfect house, close to the center of
campus with an elevator, a piano, and
lots of dining space.” FREDERICA WOODALL ANDERSON, in charge of hospitality,
came on Thursday to set everything
up and welcome arrivals, with most
classmates arriving on Friday. LUCILLE
CHARRON RECORD brought flowers and
hats. President Carol Christ welcomed
them at the dinner that evening, and
the class sang a special song to her to
the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little
Star,” composed for the occasion by
DOROTHY DOSTER FERGUSON. Ann continues, “Saturday morning dawned
drizzly, and there was no possibility
of a parade. We assembled indoors
for Ivy Day and the festivities. After
a picnic lunch at Lamont, our president, NANCY LAWSON BROWN, presided
at the class meeting and JANE KOCHMANN BROOKS led our class service of
remembrance.”
The nominating committee, CLARE
BEIRNE DEWART, chair; HARRIET BIXLER
NAUGHTON; HILDA BOLSTER MASON; HELEN BROCK TOMB; LOUISE HUNN BARKER;
and RUTH HIRSCH SILVERMAN (not all
of whom were present at Reunion)
had drawn up the following slate of
new class officers: co-presidents, EDWINA GOLDING LATSON and HELEN BROCK
TOMB; secretary, NEAL GILKYSON THORPE; class Fund agent, POLLY BENEDICT
BOBROFF; special gifts, SALLY KINGSBURY MAYNARD and DORIS LOW HIRSCH;
planned gifts, ANN (POOH) MILLSPAUGH
HUFF; and memorial gifts, DOROTHY
WATSON. All were elected.
SALLY MAYNARD, our campaign chair,
reported that 59 percent of our class
contributed a grand total of $204,983
to the college. She thanked MARGARET
KEELER WALLACE for suggesting that
some of our annual contributions go
to establish an Ada Comstock scholarship because the Ada Comstock
program got its start during our years,
and our class had played an encouraging role in the major social changes
that the establishment of the scholarship program reflected. Of this year’s
total contributions, $26,386 went toward the scholarship fund. The fund
has gotten a late start, and she invited
us to keep it in mind in future contributions.
Others attending Reunion, in addition to those above, were HILDA
BOLSTER MASON, ELIZABETH BOUGHTON
NOLL, DORIS BRODER KOREY, LILY (NAN)
BUCHANAN AGAR, MARGARET HELM LIGHT,
NANCY LOWE BORNHOFFT, JANE MOORE
LYONS, JANE NEWHALL LYONS (who came
all the way from London), BARBARA
RAUSCH DEELY, SUZANNE REED NEWTON,
BETTY ROGERS RUBENSTEIN, CAROLYN
SCOTT/DEJANIKUS, MARGARET STEWART
MOSS, DOROTHY WATSON, and ESTHER
WINN KREBS.
Yes, there is other class news besides
Reunion.
BETTY-ANNE DAVIS SUNDERMAN, although not present herself, had
thoughtfully sent presents of soap
38
for everyone at Reunion.
was
awarded the prestigious St. Olaf ’s
Medal in recognition of her outstanding contribution to promoting Norwegian culture in the United States.
ELSE HVISTENDHAHL LEVERING
MARY LEAVELL JERMAN TOMPKINS
moved into the same Richmond,
VA, retirement community where
her mother, who reached the age of
108, had lived for 15 years. May Mary
Leavell live as long! In her note, she
recalled our Reunion back in 1952,
when a student modeled a bathing
suit from 1903 that had belonged to
HILDA BOLSTER MASON’s mother, also
a Smithie.
SARA PECK BOUCHER, who prepared
an interesting questionnaire for the
class, wrote a summary of its results,
“The World at 86,” which was sent
to all. Classmates anonymously but
vigorously responded to the questionnaire from Hawaii to Alaska to
London to Switzerland. To sum up,
yes, we are still a lively bunch, both
mentally and physically. Sara writes,
“Your replies reflected our diversity,
yet possessed a consistency of values
and interests.”
Our renowned classmate, physician
and oncology researcher JANE WRIGHT,
was the recipient of two honors this
year. The American Society of Clinical Oncology, which now has more
than 19,000 members, honored the
seven specialists who founded the
organization in 1964. Jane was one
of those founders, served on its board,
and was its first secretary-treasurer.
Also, the American Association for
Cancer Research established a minorities lectureship in her name.
Congratulations, Jane!
Your new secretary, NEAL GILKYSON
THORPE, welcomed her first greatgrandchild, a girl, born in Philadelphia, in August.
Please send me your news! Let’s keep
track of one another: changes in lifestyle, changes of address, new greatgrands, and what you’re up to.
Sec., Neal Gilkyson Thorpe, 109
Grace Street, Mont Clare, PA 19453,
[email protected]
1943
GRACE BEEHLER joined a retirement
community in Timonium, MD, six
years ago and still enjoys it.
ROSE BIRD WATERMAN sees BARNEY
POOLEY MILLER frequently, as they both
live at Crosslands. She lunched with
MOLLY FAIRBANKS STAINTON, who lives
nearby. Rose has three daughters, two
in Arizona and one in Maine, as well
as three grandchildren and one greatgrandchild. Her beloved husband, Ed,
died two years ago at age 91, a great
loss after 59 years of marriage.
PRISCILLA BUCKLEY still skis in Gstaad,
Switzerland, every winter, courtesy
of two new hips, one new knee, and
“lots of foolish pride.” Her latest book,
Living It Up at National Review, is
doing well.
In 2006, CONSTANCE BUFFUM COX
moved from a retirement home in
Milton, MA, to a different one in
Providence, RI, where she is in the
assisted-living section. Her vision is
severely limited by macular degeneration. Her husband, Andrew, died
in Jan. ’07.
After teaching history at Dowling
College for 20 years, YING-WAN CHENG
has retired. She is doing some editing and has been to China four times
with some Ginling College graduates.
(Ginling was Smith’s sister college in
China.) Having given up driving, she
finds her activities are greatly limited.
SALLY GAVIN SEE claims she gets older
every day! Is this unique? She still
plays Scrabble and bridge and reads
a lot, and she is still in her big house
on the beach. One granddaughter is at
the University of Rochester; another
spent last summer in Japan.
In September, KATHERINE (KAY) GILLETT MCCLINTOCK and her husband
marked the 14th year of their residence in their retirement village in
Wallingford, CT, where they are
happy and well cared for. Brower suffered congestive heart failure in 2001,
and flunked hospice in 2002! Their
children come to visit when they can
from Maryland, Pennsylvania, and
Massachusetts. Brower maneuvers
the endless corridors in his electric
cart and uses a cane in the apartment.
So far, Kay walks on her own. They are
proud of their six grandchildren and
one great-granddaughter. Kay wishes
we could turn the clock back—“1943
was a nicer era.”
MARTHA-LOUISE GODFREY MACDONALD and BARBARA BRANDT WOOD met
at the Met in Jan. ’07 at the “American
Painters in Paris 1860–1900” exhibition. Recent travels for Martha-Louise include Nevis, West Indies. Her
youngest granddaughter was married
in June. She reports good health, so
far.
PATRICIA GOSS RHODES has five children, their spouses, 14 grandchildren, three stepgrandchildren, three
grandchildren-in-law, and seven
great-grandchildren. Two artificial
hips limit her activity.
MARTHA GREGORY TOLLES and husband
Roy have been living with their widowed daughter and her 15-year-old
son most of the time. “It’s like going
back in time,” she writes. “Suddenly
we are going to games and matches,
discussing homework, and watching
American Idol!” Martha had two more
stories published in the Los Angeles
Times kids’ page. There is not much
time for writing now. Because of the
death of her son-in-law, Martha is especially conscious of our mortality,
and she is glad to serve as chair of
planned giving for our class. Putting
money into a Smith fund that pays
you until you die or leaving money
to Smith in your will is such a great
way to help our alma mater.
ANN HAMILTON ANDERSON enjoys very
good health for her age. She really likes
living at Bedford Court: good friends,
good food, and good concerts. Her
grandsons are 13 and 11, and she says
it’s fun to watch them change.
After 17 years on the awards committee of the New England Wild
Flower Society, BEVERLY HUSE RYBURN
has retired. Grandson Blake graduated magna cum laude from Colby
College.
ADELAIDE (TORCHY) PATTERSON COUCHMAN lost her dear friend and golfing
partner to a stroke. She still does real
estate, volunteers for Smith, and is
an airport ambassador at Palm Beach
International Airport. She also still
critiques movies with BARBARA DAWLEY MACDOWELL.
BARBARA (WEBI) WEBSTER BROWN
spent her 52nd summer in Isle au
Haut, ME.
MARY (MAC) WHITMIRE BROWN writes,
“At the old folks home, we go early to
golf and tennis in the hot weather.”
She is a docent at the Telfair Museum
of Art.
Does anyone in our class have a copy
of our 45th Reunion questionnaire? If
you do, please send me a copy.
Sec., Ellie Del Mar Revill, 460 Old
Main Street, Rocky Hill, CT 06067,
860-529-9254,
[email protected]
1944
Greetings, everyone! Here’s this
issue’s collection of your news.
RUTH CHALMERS, our friendly and
diligent fundraiser, sends warm wishes to you all as well as notes to pass
along for this column. Ruth summers
in Oroque, NY.
ELSIE ANN LOCKE CHIVINGTON’s two
dogs and two cats get her up in the
morning. In addition to her animals,
she finds it is good to have younger
friends around to keep her equilibrium.
BETTY FORT GREIG has an apartment
in the Knollwood Retirement Home
in Washington, DC, and has found
“three Smith ladies” there.
HELEN KAEMMERLEN LAWRENCE is
“planting roots, staying in the same
place” (Park Forest, IL). Helen’s
granddaughter is a schoolteacher in
Seattle.
A book of essays on various aspects
of the sculpture at the Abbey of St.
Denis, co-edited by PAMELA ZINK BLUM
(her specialty for years), is finally in
print (Penn State Press). Congratulations, Pam!
JEAN ALVORD continues to play viola
with the Portland (ME) Symphony.
She says that with this 47th year, she
is “the last of the old ones.” Jean is
delighted that her grandniece is now
a Smith first-year.
NANCY SMITH BREWSTER ’s fourth
grandchild is now at Princeton.
CHRIS CLAPP NAFF enjoys her retirement home in San Mateo, CA. She
attends the symphony and is in a book
club. Chris has also started a weekly
joke club!
MIMI BLACK SAINT JOHN has had to
give up tennis and golf, but she still
plays bridge.
HELEN FORRESTEL SPINK has 15 grandchildren (12 girls and three boys). She
is copying photos of her six sons for
albums to send to them. She goes to
Chautauqua in the summer.
ALICE MURRAY WARD and Ned are in
a semi-retirement home on a reservoir—Springton Village in Media,
PA.
ANNE HOWES TENNEY loves living in
Castine, ME, where she has been for
many years. She writes, “I count my
blessings—a productive life in a beautiful place where I can welcome family
visits, do useful volunteer work, and
play some golf and bridge.” She adds,
“Reach out and make new friends all
along who are 10 years younger than
you are to keep in touch with the
world.” Anne has two sons and four
stepsons (one in Washington, DC,
and the rest around New England),
one grandson, and seven granddaughters. The whole family vacations in
Castine in August every year.
KATIE GINDELE SCHMIDT writes, “I am
still living alone in East Middlebury,
VT, and keep busy with yoga, bone
builders (weight lifting), and AAUW,
and have just gone off the board of
RSVP.” Katie volunteers for the local
museum, but is most involved with
Homeshare Vermont, which matches
home seekers with home providers.
Katie adds, “It’s a great service for
older people who want to stay in their
homes and younger people who can
offer some services for an affordable
place to live.”
JEAN HARRIMAN PORTER says to say
hello to everyone. She doesn’t get out
much but thinks about us and would
welcome news.
From Lowville, NY, LILLIAN MOLLER
BECKER writes that she enjoys staying
in touch with people. Her interest in
foreign policy and public affairs continues unabated, reinforced by public
radio’s coverage of what goes on in the
world. Lillian has a new grandson in
Connecticut; her actress granddaughter is studying at McGill.
ELLEN SAFFORD GOODWIN and George,
now settled into their cozy Cape after
years in their old colonial, are concentrating on the outdoors. A wonderful
backyard with a meadow behind it
and a conservation area behind that
invite them to study (and add to) the
flora and fauna at their doorstep.
And, Ellen adds, “There’s the formal
garden in front, and gardening is our
thing.” She and George spent a week in
London visiting CAROL TUTTLE CHRISTIAN and saw the Hogarth exhibit at
the Tate.
JANET MARCUS GINNS writes, “After
having lived in Philadelphia for 54
years followed by nine in Princeton
(during which Jay died), I’ve moved
back to Boston (Chestnut Hill). My
health so far is OK for my age, so I’ve
opted for a condominium instead
of assisted living. I have family and
friends here, one of whom is DOROTHY
BRAIDY RUDMAN.”
FRANCES THOMSEN NYE and Bob,
now married 59 years, still live in
their comfortable 50-year-old house
in the middle of Norwich, VT. Fran
writes, “Life is quiet here, uncomplicated, and I really enjoy stacking
wood!” One son is a geologist, one a
neurologist, and a grandson works for
Pixar movies (his latest is Ratatouille,
about a rat who wants to be a chef ).
Fran volunteers at the school library,
which she started 50 years ago, and in
winters takes an ILEAD course. Sister ELLEN THOMSEN WEISS ’41 has eye
problems, but lives near enough for
Fran to help her when needed.
BETTY ROY MONTORI lives at Applewood, a CCRC in the midst of the Five
College community, with numerous
opportunities for recitals and lectures. Betty also takes a watercolor
class.
MARY-LOUISE KLIPSTEIN SEE and
Alonzo still enjoy quiet retirement
in Greenwich, CT, and keep up with
their four granddaughters. In her absence, I talked about this with Alonzo.
Mariana is still at Hockaday; Victoria is at Carnegie-Mellon; Perrin is
at BU; and Megan, out of Harvard,
is at Dataw Island, SC, with Turtle
Watchers, rescuing endangered turtle
eggs. There is now a great-grandson,
Alonzo, 3.
ANNE BIDWELL MINAFRA enjoys the
Italian atmosphere of her apartment
complex in Naples, FL—the Italian
decor and the Italian food. She plays
bridge and bingo and stays in touch
with her large extended family of
nieces and nephews as well as with
MARY JANE ENGLISH SCHMITZ.
Two updates of last year’s news:
The scars left by Hurricane Katrina
on BETTY HARPER CLAGGETT’s hearth
and home (and community) have
slowly healed. Her home has been
re-sided, the roof repaired, the utilities restored, and community life resurrected, including the golf course.
Betty still marvels at the tireless efforts of the many volunteers from all
over the country who “put my town
back together.”
And SYLVIA BALCH THOMAS’s Olympic
granddaughter, Margaret Hoelzer, in
vigorous training with America’s A
team for Peking, is now first in the
world in the 200-meter backstroke.
A special note from president LOUISE
SEE BINGHAM: “We enjoyed spending
the summer in the Maine woods surrounded by the beauty of lakes and
mountains. Our big family event was
our granddaughter’s wedding by the
ocean in New Hampshire. Now as
2008 arrives, we have been reminded
that we are to start thinking about our
65th Reunion. You will soon receive a
letter with whatever we know at that
time, encouraging you to stay healthy
and plan to come. In the words of Garrison Keillor: ‘Be well; do good work;
keep in touch.’”
That’s all for now. Please check the
“In Memoriam” section in this issue
because some of us may be there.
Thank you for the news you so willingly share; you are what makes this
column what it is!
Sec., Barbara Wiggin Gent, 3 Vinal
Road, Harpswell, ME 04079,
[email protected]
1945
MIRIAM FREEMAN BLICKMAN lives in
Advance, NC, near Winston-Salem.
She recently returned from a Caribbean cruise and enjoys reading and
playing bridge when at home. She has
been reading the great Russian novels,
and now is into Life and Fate.
ANN GILDERSLEEVE SLOAN writes from
her summer home at Lake Sebago,
ME, that KAY WUERTH LYNN visited her
at the end of June: “It was so good to
see her! We had a delightful lunch in
Naples, ME. I also had a wonderful
visit with SHIRLEY CASS SMITH not too
long ago. The last time I saw her was
our graduation day! She is as beautiful as ever, and lives in Wallingford,
CT.”
MARY COCHRAN MOULTON lives in a
Quaker retirement community in
Sandy Spring, MD, where all those
physically able are engaged in a variety of good causes. She writes, “Last
summer, I downsized to an apartment
from a large duplex. I have a rare condition called erythromelalgia, causing
my foot to swell and burn. I get around
in a motorized wheelchair and need
to employ outside help.”
ALICE GILMAN MARZLUFF writes that
she and Bill have been married for
63 years, and are well and involved
in civic and library activities.
BARBARA CLEMENT BREWER’s husband
died in March ’07. She lives in Brewster, MA, with live-in helpers for her
arthritis. Her children live nearby.
Her daughter works for a program
for those with disabilities, and travels
a great deal; her son works for Northwest Mutual Fund in Concord.
MARY MCLAUGHLIN WELLINGTON lives
in Chevy Chase, MD, with a son and
four male children near, and a daughter who works in New York but owns
a house nearby.
LOUISE BULL CLARKE is still in the same
house after 55 years, and has a lovely
view of the Hudson Valley area. She
enjoys the concerts in New Paltz, NY,
and volunteers at the library.
NANCY MOORE is still making music and enjoying her cello, which
she took up at age 60—“to see how
it works! The tone is beautiful!” She
plays in ensembles with some of our
classmates and goes to the Boston
Symphony, where she sees MARJORIE
COLLINS JACKSON.
ELIZABETH HERRMANN COWIE is still in
the house they bought in 1968. She
retired this year from the Ramsey
County Conservation Board after 20
years of service (she decided not to
file for re-election). She says it has
been interesting dealing with water
quality and conservation. She now has
a new puppy, a Cavalier King Charles
spaniel, a toy breed. Her other dog is
a 12-year-old English setter. She has
eight grandchildren ages 2 to 24, and
she and her family spend time at her
cottage at the lake in Wisconsin, and
use the cottage for skiing in the winter,
and Christmas and holidays. She has a
daughter in Minneapolis, a son in Los
Angeles, and a son in Chicago.
HENRIETTA HERNDON TWEEDIE teaches
art history and painting at the College
of DuPage Older Adult Institute in
Glen Ellyn, IL. She takes many tours
of seniors to enjoy opera, symphony,
and art in other cities. She recently
took 45 seniors to Seattle to see the
Chihuly exhibit there. Her next trip
is to Boston in the spring.
BETSEY CONVERSE LEWIS, KAY WUERTH
LYNN, and your secretary had a good
time at lunch in Scarborough, ME,
over the summer. It was such fun to
get caught up.
Do let me know what is going on
in your lives!
Sec., Carol Sibley Wolfe, 39 Babcock
Drive, Rochester, NY 14610,
[email protected]
1946
HELEN BULLOCK PORTER recently
moved into Eskaton Retirement Village, not far from her previous home
in Fair Oaks, CA. It was a relatively
easy transition since she already had
friends and acquaintances there. “The
hard part was clearing out surplus
furniture and stuff before moving into
much smaller quarters,” she says.
ELAINE LAVAGNINO writes, “I succumbed to the Alumnae Association’s
Smith Travel brochure and had a great
two weeks in West Africa in February.
Two younger Smithies were along,
plus one professor, and the others
were all Auduboners.”
A letter from another Californian,
MARY-BROOKS (BROOKSIE) LINTON, reports that she had another hip operation on the same leg. This worked in
time for her to go on a trip to Slovenia and Croatia in May. “Beautiful
countryside, mountains, seacoast,
and energetic younger generation,”
she comments. Brooksie ran into PRISCILLA ROBERTSON DIVINE in Concord,
NH. She asks, “Do you all know that
Julia Stiles in the movie The Bourne
Ultimatum is the granddaughter of
our recently departed RANDY HUNSAKER STILES?”
I noticed a nice letter to the editor
of our Maine Portland Press Herald
from ALICE IGLEHART MCADAMS, who
let me quote from it. The headline
was “Kindness of a Stranger Shows
Maine’s Quality of Life.” Alice was
returning home from Boston by bus
to Damariscotta and tried to call a taxi
to no avail on her cell phone. She de-
39
alumnae update
cided to attempt to walk the mile to
her apartment, despite the fact that
she has two artificial hips and, at 83,
had not been doing much walking.
As she started out dragging her suitcase behind her in a light drizzle, “a
wonderful lady stopped and asked if I
needed help. She did a U-turn, loaded
my suitcase, and drove me home. She
refused money, took my bag out of the
car, and gave me a hug. Only in Maine
would I have such an experience.”
M. ELIZABETH (BET) HARRIS HILLI has
been in a newly built retirement home
for three years and says that it feels
like a resort, with a swimming pool,
etc.
MARION THOMPSON KERWIN writes
that she had a nice visit with MARIAN
JACKMAN WARE when she was in Washington for her grandson’s graduation
from medical school. She sees SUSAN
DRIVER NICKERSON when she comes to
town to visit her daughter.
MARILEE RUMPF ONDRUS writes of receiving a copy of “A Celebration of
Life” (via MARY LOWE PRICE), which
MARILYN PIERSON PATTERSON had written as a tribute to recently deceased
JEAN PETERSON RHODES , her Smith
roommate.
A happy great-grandmother is ESTELLE GLATT SOSLAND. Julia Brown was
born in Sept. ’06, making Estelle’s
daughter, AMY SOSLAND BROWN AC
’90, a grandmother. In May, Estelle
became chair of the board of trustees of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of
Art, which has a new addition called
the Block Building designed by Steven Hall. She encourages all who are
interested to come to Kansas City
and visit.
Sister ELSIE PENDLETON REID writes
that she isn’t doing much outside
ministry anymore, but spends time
at home preparing breakfast and making chocolate chip cookies. She helps
out a 99-year-old sister by reading to
her, most recently the 900-plus-page
autobiography of Bill Clinton. Elsie
hopes to be at our next Reunion.
In Vermont, ARAXI ALLALEMDJIAN
PREVOT had a visit from her eldest
granddaughter, Misha, her husband,
and their 3-month-old daughter,
who is Araxi’s first great-grandchild.
In April, Araxi returned a visit to
the French Alps, also checking up
on Misha’s three younger siblings,
for whom Misha has been a “great
substitute mom” since the death of
Araxi’s daughter in an avalanche
in 2003. Her son and family have a
second home near her, with three
teenagers attending nearby Burke
Mountain School. Another daughter
moved nearby. Araxi writes, “I keep
busy maintaining this farm property
and keeping physically fit. Mentally?
I do a crossword puzzle every day and
read as much as I can, though it’s slow
going because of deterioration of my
close-up vision. All in all, I feel very
fortunate.”
After attending Reunion and the
40
Harvesting cider apples in Whately, MA, are, left to right,
Suzanne Rykken Medlicott ’49, Allison Bell ’79, Susan Medlicott
’84, Carol Berkley Hillman ’49, Jan Stenson ’72, and Ann Barker
’81.
college graduations of three grandchildren, AUDREY WAITE ASHLEY continued to have a very busy 2006. She
saw six plays in four days at the Shaw
Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake
and attended an Elderhostel in Williamstown, MA, on the arts in the
Berkshires. Summers she visits children: first son Stanley, a professor of
surgery at Harvard Medical School,
outside of Boston; eldest daughter
C. CHANDLER ASHLEY CLARKE ’79, near
Belfast, ME; Lucy at their cottage
on Lake Canandaigua; and Debby in
Ellicottville, NY. Audrey took a trip
to Jordan and Egypt in the fall. Last
March, she went to Boca Raton, FL,
and had a fascinating visit with LAURIE STEVENSON CAMPBELL and her two
daughters, who run a huge farm. She
adds, “I am saddened to see how close
to the front of the class notes 1946 is
getting to be.”
BETSY FOWLER WARRICK writes about
LAURIE STEVENSON CAMPBELL: “Distinguished as many of our classmates
are, not many can claim the title of
colonel. However, Laurie has been
made a ‘Culpeper Colonel’ thanks
to her past and ongoing activities in
Culpeper, VA. Two other awards she
has received are Outstanding Forage
Producer and the June Sekall Media
Award for the Virginia Soil and Water Conservation Society. Hats off to
Colonel Campbell of Culpeper.”
Many thanks to all who responded
to my pleas for news. Keep it coming!
Sec., Jeanne Caswell Clampitt, 25
Thornton Way #207, Brunswick, ME
04011, [email protected]
1947
Herewith the first column from your
new secretary. I love e-mail and will
use it instead of the costly postcards
for anyone whose address is in the
AASC file. I would love to have you
use it at any time, even if you have not
heard from me. A cautionary note,
however, based on personal experience: A year ago I e-mailed news to
Nancy, and somehow she never received it so, if I do not reply to your
e-mail letter, I suggest you follow up
in some fashion.
MARY (SIS) LENT AYER and John have
moved to a condo in Skaneateles, one
block from the lake and village, and
urge you to visit that lovely part of
central New York. Sis was very impressed with our class at Reunion: “So
many vibrant, interesting ladies ages
80, 81, 82—all vivacious and friendly
and fun to be with! And what fun we
had singing around the piano and putting a show together!”
SUZANNE BELCHER BUNZEL has recently
been south to the Amazon and north
to view the polar bears in Canada,
which she says is a sad trip these days.
Volunteer work with charter schools,
gardening, and tennis keep her busy
at home.
JULIA BRUCE COYLE reports that her
name should be added to the large
group of us who winter in Vero Beach.
She and Charlie have been going there
for the past 10 years.
CAREL BERRY LAPORTE writes that she
and Cloyd are in good shape, still playing golf and traveling, and that she has
a new granddaughter.
Since 1953, GRACE GRIFFITH HOAG has
lived in the same house, where she and
Dave hold big celebrations with their
five children, eight grandkids, inlaws, nieces, and cousins on holidays
and special occasions. She does lots
of crossword puzzles and takes yoga
classes. She reports that her husband
is doing well and keeps busy. Grace
says, “We are blessed.”
BETTY JANE HANNON JEROME has
downsized to Stonington, CT, near
kids and grandkids and Mystic Seaport, where she is a volunteer.
MARGIE WILMORE JENKINS was sorry to
miss our Reunion but avers that travel
today is too much of a hassle.
NANCY MCGOVERN WILLIAMS greeted
her fourth great-grandchild in Colorado last June. While there, she visited
Estes Park and toured Rocky Mountain National Park with two of her
daughters.
JOAN LEIMAN JACOBSON says that she
is happy and well, but that her vision
is poor. She serves on a number of
boards in New York City. Jack is no
longer doing surgery, but is busy, too.
They recently traveled to Cyprus,
Greece, India, and China.
SHIRLEY REESER MCNALLY writes that
life continues to be interesting. She
attends Santa Fe Opera and visits
MARY WITT WYDMAN at Mary’s summer home in Michigan. Shirley is still
involved with church work, as well as
several nonprofit organizations, and
is looking forward to again working
in language preservation with Native
American groups.
Last June, FAITH WILKOFF NUSBAUM
and Sidney moved to a retirement
facility on the Elizabeth River in
Norfolk, VA. The river is part of the
Intracoastal Waterway and is used for
commercial shipping, Navy vessels,
and pleasure craft, as well as cruise
ships, so there is something of interest
going on all the time. She says, “It’s
like being on a perpetual cruise!”
SALLY WALLACE RAND has moved from
Pownal to a smaller house in South
Freeport. She says that the house is
perfect, and only a few blocks from
MARIAN MORTON WHITE.
JEAN LORD JONES’s granddaughter
writes that Jean is “doing well but is
not terribly social.” She is trying to
keep Jean involved.
Our condolences to ALLIE BERNSTEIN
LOW and KAY GILLESPIE SACHS, who lost
their husbands last spring.
Oh, yes, my news that was mislaid
last year: During summer ’06 I had
a tiny but highly visible role in the
Glimmerglass Opera production of
The Pirates of Penzance. Elegantly
costumed and crowned, but unbecomingly bewigged, I poured tea for
the major’s daughters and waved from
the royal box as Queen Victoria. It was
a once-in-a-lifetime regal experience!
Keep me posted with all your news!
Sec., Barbara Harrison Mulhern,
P.O. Box 746, Cooperstown, NY
1948
It is not too late to sign on for our
60th, May 22–25, ’08. Come for a few
hours, days, or the entire event. Our
chair, SHIRLEY DUSINBERRE DURHAM
([email protected]), and her committee have a grand time in store for
us all. Make every effort to come by
car, train, or plane; you won’t be sorry.
We all need to reconnect; it will be
good for our souls (my favorite part
of Reunion). I’ll be that person with
a pad and pencil in hand throughout
the weekend. Bring pictures, items
you’ve made, stories to share about
the good, bad, and whatever: marriages, children, the grands, volunteer
work, political gripes, and business
experiences.
To start this off, here’s my latest venture into the unknown: I have a paid
job (started in July) as monitor at the
local senior center two afternoons a
week. I have the distinction of being
the oldest person on the Hanover, NH,
payroll. I love what I do, which is to
initiate new, more interesting pro-
grams to attract the likes of all of you
to join in. A serious challenge!
At Reunion, I need your input on
this subject, so be prepared. All suggestions more than welcome. SALLY
THOMAS DEATLY, events chair for our
60th, writes that our motivation to
return has been enhanced by PATRICIA
BLEVINS TILL’s anticipated production
of Full Gallop, a play that is relevant
to our time and curiosity. Patricia’s
acclaimed one-woman show will
follow the class dinner on Saturday
night. Full Gallop is the story of the
reinvention of Diana Vreeland after
she was precipitously fired from her
beloved Vogue magazine. Those in
class who have seen the play give it
top marks.
TERRY LACY is also invited to speak
to us about her remarkable accomplishments in her adopted Iceland,
teaching and writing, including two
Icelandic/English dictionaries. Due to
a former appointment in Latvia, we
will have to settle for a video, which
describes how understanding another
culture and people has brought her
personal growth and pleasure. At this
writing, Eeyore is our mascot; vote
pro and con at a daunting tie, 2 for, 2
against. Need more opinions before
fate of Eeyore decided.
I failed (due to too much stuff piled
up in a corner—anyone else have this
problem?) to pass on news in my last
column from MARJORIE JAMISON DOUGLAS in Orangeburg, NY. Her dear husband of 55 years died in June ’06 after
a 14-year battle with Alzheimer’s.
Marjorie is still working full-time,
assisted by her daughter, in their
television commercial location house
business. She has also just finished
editing and printing out 318 pages
of letters written from France by her
mother, MARY CARR JAMISON 1909, during World War I, when she served in
the Smith College Relief Unit. Travel
plays a big part in Marjorie’s life: Italy
and Greece in April ’06 with sister
LEIGH JAMISON GIFFORD ’42, Egypt and
Jordan, and Norway.
In August I had my annual summer get-together with SALLY THOMAS
DEATLY at Rockywold-Deephaven
Camps. Her granddaughter CAITLIN
DEATLY-PELUSO ’07 graduated cum
laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and is in
graduate school at Tufts for art history. Sally could not attend graduation due to a second knee replacement
on the same leg. Caitlin’s mom is ANNE
DEATLY ’77.
SALLY BENHAM ALDEN reports that her
great friend MARY SNEED PHARRIS died
in March ’06 in Freeport, ME. Mary
left Smith after sophomore year to
continue her education at Cornell.
NANCY LUDINGTON HUME reports that
daughter Diana lives in Philadelphia,
and son Alex is the New York director
for the National Parks Conservation
Association and lives with his family
in Riverside, CT. Nancy celebrated
her 80th in Las Vegas.
Eileen Rooney Driscoll drops in to visit Priscilla Whitehouse Rand
at Panther Pond in Maine. Both are class of ’49.
SUSAN MCKNEW CASKIN’s family had a
large get-together in Williamsburg.
Perhaps the last in our class to make
the turn, MOLLY POTTER SCHEU celebrated her 80th in July on Cliff Island, ME,
with a big family gathering.
The results are in from our 47th
Five Colleges Book Sale, held in the
Hanover area in March ’07. Equal
shares of the $46,500 in proceeds were
given to Wellesley, Vassar, Simmons,
Mount Holyoke, and Smith ($9,300
each), designated for scholarships
for young women from Vermont and
New Hampshire.
Look for my daughter Cindy Pierce’s
new book (co-authored with Edie
Thys Morgan), Finding the Doorbell: Sexual Satisfaction for the Long
Haul.
Keep in touch. You’re a grand group!
Until we meet in Northampton soon,
cheers.
Sec., Nancy Crawford Pierce,
[email protected]
1949
We have a truly amazing classmate: Swiss-born JACQUELINE MILLER
DUNNINGTON, who came to college via
Europe and South Asia, and who has
had an active career as a scholar in
art history and religion. After Smith,
she earned a master’s in philosophy
at the Sorbonne in France, and subsequently earned several other graduate
degrees, including a PhD in Sanskrit,
in India. She is fluent in several languages, including Tibetan, French,
and Hindi, and mentioned she was
leaving soon to lecture in New Delhi
and Hanoi. An accomplished author,
she has written several books, and is
working on two academic nonfiction
books, Global Guadeloupe and Tibetan Prayer Boxes, and a novel, The
Tattooed Baby, about an immigrant
girl, partly based on her own experience. We wish her good luck, and we
think Santa Fe is lucky to have her.
Another distinguished class member with a wonderful story to share
is SABINA GILDEMEISTER COURNOYER of
Amherst, MA. She runs a charitable
foundation with her daughter as executive director. The Hampshire Foundation supports sustainable goals in
education and agriculture in the villages of Peru. Sabina remains busy as
well with her research on a biography
of the first member of her German
family to come to South America. His
mode of travel, in 1850, was sailboat.
Sabina was raised in Peru with German parents. In addition to German,
Sabina spoke fluent English and Spanish when she came to Smith. Sadly,
Sabina’s husband, a UMass professor,
died last year. Her son is an investment banker in London.
A telephone chat with MELISANDE
CONGDON-DOYLE of Wilton, CT, revealed an extraordinary lady with a
number of fascinating stories. She
was in the original cast of My Fair
Lady, which opened in 1956, and
toured with Tom Bosley in Fiorello.
After a decade in the theater, she left,
and in 1965 went to work for Harpers Bazaar, the first woman to sell
advertising for any magazine in the
country! She married Harry Doyle,
president of a Revlon division, and
in 1971 became the first woman vice
president of Cartier. In 1972, George
Jensen and Mark Cross made her a
vice president as well. Ten years after
her first husband’s death, she married
Paul Forsman, who remains active in
the insurance business. She spoke
with pride of her nine stepchildren,
15 stepgrandchildren, and three stepgreat-grandchildren. For the last several years, Melisande’s passion has
been environmental causes.
On a sadder note, we were informed
that SARA SMITH ROBERTSON has died.
Please see “Obituaries” in this issue for more. Also, Melvin, beloved
husband of JOAN FLETCHER LANE, has
passed away. On behalf of our class,
we send our deep regrets to both
families.
We know that most of us are facing
(or have already faced) that looming
milestone (shhh—the big Eight O).
Let us know how you are coping. Denying it totally? Sliding over it as just
another day? Gathering the troops?
Taking a trip somewhere to forget?
Having a real blowout bash?
LOUISE DEITZ CRAWFORD celebrated
hers in August in New Hampshire,
where her entire family assembled at
her daughter’s home. Her son came
from Paris, where he owns a computer company. Louise shared her
story about traveling to Istanbul after
graduating from Smith to teach English at Robert College (one of the first
American colleges outside the United
States). A philosophy major, Louise
pursued a teaching career in English
at both Hunter College and Columbia
University. After 16 years, she made a
dramatic switch and began an exciting volunteer career at the American
Museum of Natural History in New
York City. Her work involved taking
the remains of dinosaur bones, creating molds, and shipping the replicas
to museums around the world.
Caught BEVERLY BAIRD WOOD , of
Stowe, VT, in July, dripping in a wet
bathing suit, on Owatonna Island, in
the St. Lawrence River, on the Canadian border. The island is a longtime
rallying point for family that now includes grandchildren ages 4 to 26. Her
husband visited there “before he was
born,” and Bev went there first as a
bride in 1950. As for her 80th, she has
decreed “nothing public,” but since
she’s planning a move to a retirement
community in a year or so, she’s told
the family that it could be an “occasion
to gather at her house and divide up
the furniture.” In the meantime, she
says, “All’s well.”
A report from EILEEN ROONEY
DRISCOLL via CALLY FRENCH JUDSON tells
us that SOPHIE CHANDLER CONSAGRA
“had a lovely party in New York with
a charming video of her life made by
one of her talented children.” We also
caught Eileen midsummer, packing
her car for her annual family get-together—this time in Blue Hill, ME.
What she’d really like for her 80th
is quality time with each of her children, “doing something we especially
share.”
JEAN GUTHRIE BODINE gave her own
birthday party in Philadelphia in
August, inviting family and friends
for a cruise on the Schuylkill River,
followed by a low-key dinner at a riverside restaurant. Son-in-law Randy,
master of the quick epic poem, wittily
summed up her 80 years in rhyme.
CONNIE THAYER LATSON’s four children
(from Los Angeles; Tarrytown, NY;
Wisconsin; and Long Island) threw
a cocktail party at a local restaurant,
with a cast of—if not thousands—a
lot of people. But then, you only
celebrate one 80th birthday! Connie
and her husband live in Greenport,
at the end of the North Fork on Long
Island, where they relish their rural
surroundings and frown on efforts
to make the place trendy.
SESALY GOULD KRAFFT honored another old Capenite, JANE THOMAS NOLAND, your Minneapolis co-secretary,
by stopping by from Maryland with
her daughter Susan for a catch-up on
Lake Minnetonka. Sesaly was visiting
a cousin and a son in the Twin Cities, after a trip to Carleton College in
Northfield, MN, for a granddaughter’s graduation and a daughter’s
reunion.
Chatted with NANCY SMITH DURKEE of
41
alumnae update
Marblehead, MA, who made it clear
she has plenty of time to prepare for
her 80th. In the meantime, she continues to enjoy life, is active in her
church, and manages to get in a golf
game now and then. Her husband still
goes to work every day at the familyowned Marshmallow Fluff factory,
now headed by her son. Nancy reads
a lot and recommends In the Heart
of the Sea, by Nathaniel Philbrick,
based on a true story of the Essex, the
famed 19th-century ship rammed by
a whale.
So that’s the story for this issue.
Please call or e-mail us. We welcome
any news from you. What are you
reading? What is your favorite travel
destination? Why? Any new hobbies
or career moves?
Sec., Joan Rawitser Stormont, 2990
East Avenue, Rochester, NY 14610,
585-381-1418, [email protected]
Sec., Jane Thomas Noland, 1395
Orono Lane, Wayzata, MN 55391,
952-473-8002,
[email protected]
1950
Regretfully, this column must begin
with three deaths: JANET MCAFEE WEAKLEY, as reported in “In Memoriam” in
the Fall ’07 Quarterly; ROSALIE (RODY)
HEFFELFINGER HALL, whose obituary
appears in this issue; and FRANCES
(FRANNA) LARRABEE LOW. I was actually
preparing these notes when I learned
that Franna had died unexpectedly.
NANCY WOLFNER BAUER writes, “We
have moved to a retirement community, which gives me more time
to work and teach—my 57th year as
a teacher, my 30th at Penn, and the
eighth year of WomenMatter. Check
out the wiki and the widget on the
Website, the only place where you
can not only get un-spun information on the life issues you care about,
but you can use the latest technology to tell your story and recommend
policies that you want government
to adopt.”
SALLY ANDERSON KITT CHAPPELL’s latest book, Chicago’s Urban Nature
(mentioned in the Fall ’07 Quarterly),
is out, and she writes, “After years
of lonely work, the response is very
gratifying. I’ve been on TV and was
astonished when I saw the tape that,
even though I look my age, I looked
pretty good. I have had lots of invitations to give talks. Thanks to Smith,
where I learned the discipline necessary to be a writer.” She signs herself as
long of tooth and long of name!
ROSEMARY JACOBS EDELMAN and Paul
celebrated the 56th anniversary of
their marriage. Their granddaughter
ALITA EDELMAN ’10 finished her first
year at Smith and had a wonderful
time; she is doing well and has many
good friends.
SALLY (MARIE) CARSON GORSLINE sent
an announcement of the opening of
the Musée Gorsline in Paris for its
14th season.
42
CHARLOTTE ROTHBERG KAUFMAN still
teaches a little at the New England
Conservatory, but is very active producing and directing cabaret performances of American pop classics with
her group, Boston Musical Theater.
Her three children are doing fine and
have produced seven grandchildren,
who are a tremendous pleasure. In
August, after 23 years of widowhood,
Charlotte married Ronald Stillman of
New York and Lenox, a stockbroker
and avid music lover. The wedding
celebration took place in Lenox for
three lovely days, with 27 children
and grandchildren, culminating in a
burst of fireworks when the cake was
cut. “We showed all those unmarried
grown grandchildren how much fun
it could be,” Charlotte says.
ELAINE (KOBY) KOBYLANSKI BYRD was
hospitalized in July for a series of
blood clots and mild strokes. JEWEL
ADLER GUTMAN reported in August
that Elaine was at home and doing
quite well. She had limited use of
her right hand but hoped to resume
driving soon. She would enjoy hearing from us.
JANE THOMSON MACCOLL and Stewart
attended their grandson’s (first grandchild) high school graduation in June,
and added a good deal of other travel
to this trip. She writes, “We are old
to have such young grandchildren,
but maybe that’s why we are in good
health. We have nine more graduations coming, so, if my logic is correct, we still have many good years
ahead of us.”
CYNTHIA OWEN PHILIP plays tennis and
writes “like mad,” including articles
and essays, and she finished a book
about the riverfront hamlet where she
lives, Rhinecliff, NY.
MIRIAM (MIMI) SCHOENBERGER PUDER
and her husband moved to Palm
Beach Gardens, FL. They are enjoying lectures, concerts, reading, golf,
bridge, seeing family and friends,
and good health “until the dart board
calls.” They hope it doesn’t and that
they won’t be a concern for their
children. Son Doug is a pediatrician;
daughter Kathy is an epidemiologist,
with two grown sons; other daughter
Robin died 20 years ago—they feel
healed but miss her a lot. Mimi adds,
“I send my regards to my classmates
and hope they all will keep on trucking for a long time.”
MARGARET (PEG) LYNCH TOMLINSON is
chair of the Law of the Sea Committee of the American Bar Association
and writes, “We hope that at long last
the Senate may act to ratify the treaty.
Unfortunately the atmosphere in the
Senate is not conducive to expecting
much of anything.”
Sec., Ann (Fuller) Field Coxe, 125
Clover Leaf Lane, Asheville, NC
1951
LOUISE FORTIER APPELL tripped to Belgium and the Netherlands, enjoying
perfect weather while cruising rivers
and stopping at little walled towns.
She spoke recently at Forbes Library
about her second book, again set in
Northampton. The last of the trilogy
is in the works. She also spent time
in Florida, seeing PATRICIA FAULKNER
VARGAS.
Also enjoying perfect weather (except for the Veneto region of Italy) was
ANITA BRADSHAW BARKER. Her Smith
Travel trip included art, architecture,
gardens, excellent guides, and other
Smithies for company. She lives in a
retirement community in Williamstown, MA, but reports sadly that
her husband suffers from Lewy body
dementia (similar to Parkinson’s) so
her travels will be limited to closer to
home. She is involved with affordable
housing, county planning, and golf.
At the same time Anita was in Italy
ALICE (DEDE) BROWN was based near
Lucca, traveling to Florence, Pisa,
and the Cinque Terre.
Franklin King classmates celebrated
the Oklahoma centennial in Oklahoma City with JEANNE HOFFMAN SMITH,
DEBBY BRIN TUCKER , JUDY LEVENSON
CLAPP, ELIZABETH CANNON SIMMONS,
BARBARA KING MEIER, ELIZABETH KOHN
MOSER, VIRGINIA (GINGIE) PFEFFER ANDERSON, and JANICE SCHICK CLAUSER.
They visited a large collection of Chihuly glass, sculptures at the National
Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, the National Memorial commemorating April 19, 1995, and the
state history center. It was a very busy,
fun time for all.
MARGARET HINCKLEY WISE and husband John are still farming in Virginia
November through April, when they
transfer to innkeeping in Maine.
Their two daughters are single moms;
one, joint master of Old Dominion
Hounds. Two grandchildren are shining at Hobart and Avon Old Farms,
the rest showing promise. Margaret
claims she and John are slowing down,
but I doubt it.
NANCY HEYNEMAN FRIEDLANDER continues playing tennis, and taking
Russian studies and other courses at
Sonoma State University. She leads
the American Association of University Women’s book group, and
writes two columns for the monthly
AAUW Grapevine. As with many of
us, she reports that she is not traveling
at present but “has lots of closets to
clean at home.”
ELLIE WOLFSON PILGRIM sends word of
the death of her husband, Kurt, in July
’05, after a long bout with Parkinson’s
disease. Now she is busy substitute
teaching in state preschools and
child-care centers, often challenging
her long-ago Smith Castilian Spanish.
She also plays tennis and volleyball.
JOAN DUNAKIN SCOTT moved three
miles from her home of 40 years in
Shaker Heights to a new retirement
center. With severe osteoarthritis
that precludes travel, her one-floor
Cape Cod house makes living there a
treat. She says hi to Laura Scalesites
and thinks Mrs. Chandler would approve!
MARY ANN FREEDMAN HOBERMAN was
honored with a Smith Medal in February. She has won numerous awards
for her writing, including a National
Book Award and a Poetry for Children Award. She volunteers extensively in programs promoting literacy.
Her interests also include children’s
theater and a drama/poetry/reading
group. Her most recent book is Very
Short Scary Tales to Read Together
in the You Read to Me, I’ll Read to
You series.
MEREDITH BARNES BABBOTT, like many
of us, has celebrated her 60th high
school reunion, hers at Greenwich
Academy, a girls’ day school. The
school honored her by naming her
the distinguished alumna of the year.
Her second grandson graduated from
Amherst, her husband’s alma mater.
Another cruise report was received
from BARBARA SALINGER FORNSHELL,
who traveled with husband Bob, JOYCE
JONES BOUCHER and husband Bud, and
BARBARA BARRY STRAUT ’52 and husband Barney. Their trip took them
from Egypt to Rome with many stops,
tours, and wonderful meals along the
way. She is still active with her local
women’s club and choirs and piano
programs in church. Her children
and grandchildren live in Connecticut, and the closeness allows for many
visits.
ANNE-MARIE OSTLING NASSTRAND says
the two years she spent at Smith were
the most rewarding in her life, and
she remains deeply grateful for them.
She continues to reside in Uppsala,
Sweden.
Deer Isle, ME, is the home of E.
BRENDA GILCHRIST after years in New
York as a senior editor in art book
publishing. She has a collection of
five illustrated booklets, gathered
under the title Opuscula, offering
a lively assortment of puns, poems,
and wordplay, including poems and
stories about a Welsh corgi (“Paws
for Peace”).
ANN TURNER LUSCOMBE still lives at
8,000 feet in the Mammoth Lakes,
CA, area. She travels little but did go
to Palm Springs to attend her son’s
latest art show.
PATRICIA IVINS MOODY has been traveling with Williams College groups,
including trips to Vietnam and Kenya.
She sees MARGERY (GERRY) ARZONICO
CLEMENT and GRACE EAMES HINRICHS in
Maine in the summers. Her Florida
roommate, RUTH FLEET THURMAN, continues as a law professor at Stetson
Law School in St. Petersburg. Pat remains busy with conservation issues,
several book clubs, church, tennis,
gardening, and enjoying retirement
after 30 years of teaching.
KATHARINE STEVENS PRINCE and husband Ted moved to a retirement
community in Mitchellville, MD,
and are delighted with it. There are
other Smith women there; she is the
youngest, and one is the class of ’34.
She volunteers in the library, and Ted
runs the movies—a sybaritic life, to
quote Katharine.
BARBARA GOLDSMITH BLAU has finally
moved out of her Staples boxes and,
with furniture, is settled after a year of
moving. Her son was accosted in his
office, and later his family was threatened. She is very happy to report that
the disgruntled trial loser was apprehended and life is much calmer.
Dogs are important to several of
us, particularly to LOIS GODDARD ,
who shares her retirement with two,
and JEANNE (HOLLY) MILLETT BELL, who
watches over a yellow Labrador. Lois
enjoys the ballet, concerts, the Asiatic
Art Association, and the Chromatic
Club. Holly, like others, enjoys walks,
watching the sun come up each morning, and birds. They both record being
grateful for being alive!
JO MACDONALD reports that she has
enjoyed several mini-reunions with
high school and college friends and
finds that bodies may change but
personalities remain the same. She
claims to be retired but continues as
a part-time therapist.
Vero Beach must be full of Smith
women. Another who spends seven
months there is FLORENCE MEURLIN
CAMPBELL ; the other five months
are spent in the mountains of Colorado Springs, CO—the best of two
worlds.
NANCY COONS TEICHNER also moves in
the summer, going to Lake George.
She keeps busy playing cello for
three orchestras, singing in a church
choir, and being near her 4-year-old
grandson.
Remember to continue sending your
e-mails, letters, and clippings to me.
Sec., Paula Secor Paterson, 1815
Millbrook Road, Salt Lake City, UT
1952
Two weeks after Reunion, ALMA
and Frank marked their
40th wedding anniversary with a
huge family reunion at their house
in Maryland. To celebrate, they got
a new boat, an 18-foot outboard
runabout; she thinks she will name
it Ruby. They still divide their time
between Colorado and Maryland, and
enjoy visits with their seven kids and
14 grandkids. Alma was just elected
a trustee of the Stanley Museum in
Kingfield, ME. Congrats!
SUZANNE SPENCER GARVIN and husband Jay live in a small, easy-to-carefor house, not far from where four
of her grandchildren live. The other
two grandsons are in the Philadelphia
area. Suzanne can walk to the train (to
Chicago), to Walgreen’s, and several
good restaurants, so even without a
car she could manage! Besides taking
care of house, husband, and dog, her
main activity is duo-piano playing.
She just finished a duo-piano festival
OTLEY HIX
A class of ’53 Jordan House mini-reunion included, left to right,
Phyllis Hyde Howard, Janet Grabosky Demuth, Kitty Ockenden,
Priscilla Roessle Grayson, Anne (Nancy) Smith Smith, Betsy
Goldsmith Forbes, and Susan Lynn Weitzman.
with the Music Institute of Chicago,
with five different partners. Lots of
fun, and very challenging, she says.
If you plan a visit to her wonderful
city, please let her know, as she enjoys
showing off Chicago with its new Millennium Park.
BETTY WISWALL CONLEY loves being
back in New Mexico after nine years.
Corrales, west of Albuquerque, is really beautiful, and the Balloon Fiesta
in October is a big event she can see
from her patio. Her view overlooks
the Rio Grande, among other Albuquerque landmarks. Her middle
son coached a swim team in Brazil
in 1987; their oldest child was born
there and has dual citizenship. He is
starting his sophomore year at the
University of Oregon, having lived
in Kuwait, Bangkok, and Singapore.
Her son learned a little Portuguese in
Brazil and is fluent in Spanish. Betty
studied French for years, but arriving
in New Mexico in 1968, she would
have found Spanish more useful. She
has learned some just living there.
MARIANNA LUBOW LEE moved to
Washington, DC, recently, having
become a grandma for the first time.
Her daughter teaches at Georgetown
and Marianna is the newest babysitter (Charlotte is 22 months old). She’s
retired and doing freelance editing
to fund her travels and greed for culture, in which DC abounds. She lived
in Paris on and off since junior year,
which began so auspiciously there,
and she spent eight months in 2005–
06 in her favorite arrondissement,
le cinquième. She’d be very pleased
to get together with any Smithies in
the area.
WAYNE TALBOT HARBAUGH didn’t
spend most of the summer in Chaplin, CT, for the first time since she
retired because Charlottesville was
pleasanter in the summer than she
ever could have imagined. Her daughter, LYN HARTRIDGE HARBAUGH AC ’95,
lives with her, and they were going to
Bloomington, IN, where her family
will gather for the first birthday of her
twin granddaughters. Their father is
an economist at Indiana University;
her other son, also an economist,
teaches at the University of Oregon.
MARGARET PERKINS SKALLERUP lived in
Virginia in a house she built overlooking the Potomac River, which she felt
was now too large and a bit far from
city life, so she bought a 10-foot-wide
house in Georgetown called a “spite
house.” She is the grandmother of six
outstanding grandchildren. Her son
lives in Washington and both daughters live in Santa Fe, where she visits
often. She is on the women’s committee for the Washington Ballet and on
the board of the Society of Sponsors
of the U.S. Navy. Her late husband was
the general counsel of the Navy, so she
was asked to christen an Aegis cruiser
named Bunker Hill. Her sad news is
that she lost her wonderful identical
twin sister, when she died a year ago
on vacation in France. That loss has
left a huge vacuum, and as a result,
she did not attend our 55th Reunion.
With a little luck, hopefully she will
be there for our 60th.
MARY CURLEY VOS does a lot of volunteering, a lot of bike riding (when
the weather is good), and, in the summer, a lot of chauffeuring of granddaughters back and forth to various
activities. Sounds as though she keeps
plenty busy!
TRIG NORSTRAND COOLEY writes that
Reunion went very well and she was
delighted with the terrific job that our
author classmates did at our Friday
night and Saturday lunch panels. She
adds, “We were pleased that MARCIA
MOORE HALL’s granddaughter could be
with us at Friday night’s panel.”
One of our former secretaries, BARBARA CUTCHINS REED, writes that she is
“enjoying Vermont’s short and beautiful summers by fitting in as much
golf, tennis, running, gardening, and
hiking as we can do.”
ELLEN (CANDY) TUFTS, another former
secretary, is immersed in writing an
article for the San Diego Writers
Guild.
DOROTHY (KIM) QUIMBY GREENE writes,
“I continue to spend four months at
my Cape Cod home and the other
eight months in Larchmont, NY—a
schizophrenic lifestyle I thoroughly
enjoy. I function as an Episcopal
priest, part-time, at churches in both
places, and have become an activist
for gay marriage through my lesbian
daughter, who is legally married in
Massachusetts.”
JOY SLONIM GLASSMAN asks you all to
please contact her if you would like
a copy of the pre-summary of our
55th Reunion. Cost is $3.50 to cover
mailing expenses. Contact her at 30
Ferncliff Drive, West Hartford, CT
06117 or [email protected]. It’s
really interesting to read how we reacted to the questionnaire!
MARNIE FRANKS HENSEL writes, “I
skydived from 13,000 feet and loved
every minute of it. One of the really
fun experiences of my life.”
JANICE JOYCE DAL PRA in Vicenza, Italy,
writes, “In April, Paolo and I were invited to meet the Smith Travel tour
of the Veneto at the Rotunda in Vicenza, and afterwards to an elegant
luncheon at the Castello di Thiene.
PAT MOORE ASHTON ’53 and the Alumnae Association’s Smith Travel assistant director Elizabeth Bigwood put
their heads together to make possible
the most marvelous day for us. JOYCE
PETERSON THURMER and Rare Books
Room director Martin Antonetti and
his wife were also part of the group.
A week later, I helped guide a British
contingent here for the annual Andras
Schiff concerts held at the Olympic
Theater in Vincenza—so that meant
three more days using English as my
main language!”
SUE GRAHAM MINGUS was among several women featured in an excellent
article, “Still Married to the Music,” in
the Sunday New York Times (July 29,
’07) Arts section, regarding their work
on behalf of their husband composers/
musicians “keeping the flame alive.”
Sec., Marleigh Morland Baratz,
3641 Worcester Lane, Keswick, VA
Sec., Robin Rauth Purcell, 106
Tantumorantum Road, Lyme, CT
06371,
[email protected]
1953
Well, here we are, poised to take
Northampton by storm during our
55th Reunion, the theme of which is
“On the go … not so slow … ’53 at 55.”
Mark these dates on your calendar:
May 22–25, ’08, and break out the yellow ribbons and the white shoes!
Now, on to other news. JUDITH MILLER
CHILDS feels affection and respect for
her French major because it has taken
her many places, including junior year
in Paris and considerable time spent
in France. It shouldn’t surprise you
that Judith would choose French as
her major today. Her reading choices range far and wide, from all-time
must-reads such as Madame Bovary
and Moby Dick, to The New Yorker
and journals and essays concerning
art. Judith is the manager of the work
of her late husband, the artist Bernard
Childs, and much of her time is spent
arraying and overseeing exhibitions
featuring his pieces; the most recent
43
alumnae update
show took place last June at the Jason
McCoy Gallery in New York.
SUE MCKEE WIERENGO was an economics major and would make the
same choice again, because she thinks
economics helped her generally over
the long term. She ran for and was
elected to a four-year term as city
commissioner of Muskegon, MI.
She participates in all the planning
sessions concerning a wide variety of
city issues. Her reading tastes center
around history and biographies, and
some of her recent choices are Team
of Rivals and No Ordinary Time, both
by Doris Kearns Goodwin, and One
Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled
Hosseini.
STUART HOOPER PECKHAM ’s news
focuses on baseball spring training,
where you’ll find Stuart and her husband almost every March, joined by
DUSTY CAREY SMITH and her husband.
They are loyal fans of the Colorado
Rockies.
CAROL CUSHMAN STRATTON and her
husband spend four months of the
year in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where
Carol researches, writes, and lectures
on Buddhist art history, while her
husband pursues his many interests.
Back home on their farm in Vermont,
she enjoys her horses, fox hunting,
trail riding, and eventing. Last year
she and her special horse (age 26) became “centurions,” where the combined age of horse and rider is 100 or
more. They successfully competed in
dressage, cross-country, and stadium
jumping. Of course, she enjoys having
her three children and six grandchildren come for extended visits.
SUSAN (NANDINI) LYNN WEITZMAN majored in studio art and remembers Mr.
Cohen with admiration, and so too
Mr. Sinton, who taught printmaking.
What she would choose now she’s not
quite sure, and that may be because
her life has taken so many different
directions. Nandini spent extended
periods of time in an ashram in India, and was the director of an ashram in Manhattan for several years.
Now Nandini is definitely not retired;
she has a New York state license in
nutrition, an alternative health practice, a business in therapeutic-grade
essential oils, and, the latest, a network marketing travel company, Your
Travel Biz. With all this activity, her
reading tastes are designed to get her
mind off other things, and so mystery
writers are her favorites, such as Dick
Francis, Elizabeth George, and Tony
Hillerman, among many others.
CHRISTINE VON WEDEMEYER BESHAR
was a government major. Ultimately,
she became a lawyer specializing in
tax, trust, and estate cases. Without
hesitation, Christine said she would
major in engineering if choosing now.
She was one of the early supporters of
the engineering program and encouraged JEAN SOVATKIN PICKER ’42 and her
husband, Harvey, in their financial
support of engineering and other
44
projects as well. Some of Christine’s
recent reads are What Is the What, by
Dave Eggers; The Reluctant Mr. Darwin, by David Quammen; The Angle
of Repose, by Wallace Stegner; and
July’s People, by Nadine Gordimer.
Christine will continue to work for
the class as Fund agent.
CYNTHIA OLSEN SMYTH was an English
major, would repeat the choice, and
was yet another admirer of Miss Randall. She also wishes she had known
Miss Chase. Jane Austen has always
been one of her all-time favorite
authors. Other more recent revisits
are Margaret Atwood’s The Edible
Woman and The Handmaid’s Tale,
and most recently, Dreams From My
Father, by Barack Obama. Cynthia
had a visit from SHIRLEY WALDBRIDGE
HANCOCK, and keeps in touch with
BLOSSOM WILLINGER MILLER. Cynnie
also made a visit to her aunt GERTRUDE OLSEN PORTER ’33, still robust
in health and with clarity and sharpness of mind.
Our class can boast readers galore;
authors, too. Read on.
LEBA GROSS WINE has written Stitches
in Time, a novel that is also the biography of a quilt made by Leba’s greatgrandmother and grandmother in
the 1890s and handed down through
generations to Leba’s daughter. Leba
herself says she “majored in Mr. Page
and Mr. de Nood, who happened to
teach sociology,” a subject she found
“interesting but not terribly challenging.” The carrel Leba had in the
library was located near the Ws, so
she became very familiar with Edith
Wharton and Evelyn Waugh. She
counts Patrick O’Brien and Barbara
Pym among her favorites, and she recently rediscovered Ann Tyler.
RUTH WOLFF BLOOM sends word regarding readings of three of her new
plays: The Ardent Philanthropist at the
HB Studio in New York; The Sky Pool
at the New Jersey Repertory Company
in Long Branch, NJ; and The Shakespeare Road, presented by Guild Hall
and the East Hampton Playwrights’
Theater in East Hampton, NY—“this
last happily reviewed as a ‘highlight
of the theatrical season.’”
VIRGINIA ROBINSON EVANS is also completing work on a historical novel, The
Last Shipment, which takes place
during the French Revolution. It is a
version of what happened to the last
dauphin of France. Virginia majored
in English and philosophy and can
be added to the champions of Miss
Chase and Miss Randall. She has long
enjoyed Dickens’s Tale of Two Cities
and Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Ginna
loved the study of Latin, so she has
always admired the Aeneid.
And now some parting words: Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift—that’s why we call
it the present. Stay well.
Sec., Joan Ford, 261 Newbury Street
Lot 3, Peabody, MA 01960, 978-5352478, [email protected]
1954
Since the last deadline, my mailbox
and e-mail have been void of messages from Smith ’54. I’m grateful to
my Laura Scales association for the
news in this column.
In May, JOAN COWEN BOWMAN organized a lunch and theater outing
in New York, with MILDRED MOONEY
DAVEY, JUDY MARTIN DORSETT, NANCY
HIRTH ORAVETZ, LEE MILLIGAN DIETZER,
NANCY DICKSON NEWCOMB, JANE GASSAWAY BONNER ’55, and myself, JANE
GUNN FOX. We all enjoyed a performance of Deuce, which starred Angela
Lansbury and Marian Seldes as former champion tennis players. There
was humor and pathos in the play; the
stars were perfectly cast.
In July, JANE GRAHAM CHAMP and I
spent several days with JOAN COWEN
BOWMAN at her house on Martha’s
Vineyard, an annual event. MILDRED
MOONEY DAVEY was unable to join us
due to a hip problem (diagnosed later
as a dislocation) but the Janes spent
a night en route to the Vineyard and
a night on the way back with her at
her house in Connecticut and were
grateful for Mud’s hospitality in spite
of her ailment.
That’s it for past news. In the future,
JOAN COWEN BOWMAN is entertaining
her family in the Berkshires for a long
weekend in celebration of her 75th
birthday. Since we’re all reaching that
milestone, I’d like to hear how others
are celebrating.
JUDY KING BINNEY planned to meet
her daughter in Paris in September,
and to go on to Berlin for a few days.
Judy says she hasn’t been there since
before the Wall went up in the ’50s.
Please send me news of family, travels, accomplishments, etc. Anything
is of interest!
Sec., Jane Gunn Fox, 17 Bridge Hollow Road, Califon, NJ 07830,
[email protected]
1955
Was it just yesterday that the class
officers met at DIANE NEAL EMMONS’s
home in Manchester-by-the-Sea,
MA? Probably not, as our house rep
chairs, ADRIAN AUSTIN SHELBY and GAIL
WARD POWELL, could not have revitalized and energized our house reps
network overnight! Our newsletter
went out to you via the U.S. Postal
Service, and JOAN BUTLER FORD has
waved her wand over our class of ’55
Website, www.smith55.com (your
suggestions for our Website are encouraged!). For the latest updates on
addresses (home and e-mail) see the
AASC online directory and doublecheck that all your information is
correct so that my electronic nudges
are on target!
From Mystic, CT, CAY ANDERSON
BARRES writes, “Peter and I had a
wonderful time with MARY FLOOK BUTTRICK and her fun-to-be-with family
on Cape Cod in mid-July. Had an an-
nual four-day excursion to the Vermont Quilt Festival with a quilting
friend and hope to use the winter days
to work on some of my quilting and
calligraphy projects. Peter continues
his tutoring during the summer, as
he has more free time allowing him
to putter in the garden and pick the
tomatoes and beans!”
JANE CANNING ELLIS writes from California, “Tony and I just returned from
the Tauck tour you recommended to
the Baltic States and Moscow and St.
Petersburg. It was a terrific trip and
intriguing to see the changes since we
had been in ‘Leningrad’ and Moscow
some 15 years ago when Tony ran in
the Moscow marathon—no marathons this time!”
“I am having a great time in my
retirement after teaching Latin at
the Dalton School in New York for
32 years,” reports CAROL BROWN FARBAR. (Carol and I exchanged other emails as I wrote back that my mother,
ROSE MARY MCGINNESS CALDWELL ’15,
also taught Latin.) “In the past year
I have been to eastern Europe, a second trip to that area in the past few
years. I rented a house in West Palm
Beach in March with a friend and just
returned from a trip to England. All
the lectures, museums, and concerts
in New York make it such a pleasure
to live here. I read several books a
week, go to the gym every day, and
do some tutoring, so I have not had
to let go of the pleasure of teaching
altogether. My daughter in the fashion
business suggested I do some modeling—whole new world! I also have
more time to spend with my granddaughters, 4 and 7, who live in New
York and in Amagansett.”
JOAN BUTLER FORD vacationed in
Maine on Squirrel Island, about
three miles out from Boothbay Harbor, where her grandkids are sixthgeneration, and she has been almost
every summer of her life. She writes,
“I had lunch and a good visit with ANN
JONAS MALPASS in late July in Portsmouth, NH, at our favorite meeting
place and seafood restaurant. Will
do a service and baptism here at the
Island Chapel. It is a real privilege to
be able to perform the (so far very
few) occasional memorial service
for lifelong friends and weddings
and baptisms for their children and
even their grandchildren. Back to San
Diego mid-August to resume duties
at St. Paul’s Cathedral and Dorcas
House, the cathedral’s foster home
for children whose parents are incarcerated in Tijuana, Mexico.”
ANNE ELMENDORF IMPELLIZZERI enthuses, “Last summer I relished
perfect grandparent travel to ‘The
Lands of Gods and Heroes,’ with my
almost 13-year-old granddaughter Julia, Laura’s eldest. Abundant friends
and special experiences for her plus
interesting lectures with parents and
grandparents for me. It was a great
combination of small-ship cruising
complete with swimming off the stern
and visits to Athens, Greek Islands,
Delphi, Taormina, Pompeii, and
Rome. We even crossed paths with
President Carol Christ and the Edith
Wharton trip in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens!”
“We have been in Sherborn, MA,
for six years, after living most of our
married life in Houston,” writes JUDY
ETTLINGER COHN . “We love it here,
though the two kids we moved here to
be near have since taken off for Minneapolis and Houston, taking seven of
our nine grandkids with them. Sigh!
The other two are in Vermont. We
tragically lost our beloved 14-yearold Vermont grandson in a traffic
accident in Nov. ’06, and we are all
reeling from our unthinkable loss. We
had our 50th anniversary in May and
remain healthy and active. Hug your
families and come see us.”
MEREDITH FULLER SONDERSKOV muses,
“My life is so full of community boards
and committees (this is retirement?)
that I should have a personal secretary. I started as a community activist
here in Chestnut Hill, PA, when I was
15 and renewed my interest when I
returned in 1996, after 42 years living in other places. Husband Bob is
still working occasionally in New York
City; sons Brian and Steve and their
families live two hours away in Maryland so I get to see them once a month.
Grandson James, 3, is the love of my
life. We read a lot and play with his
Thomas trains. A trip with him to the
Philadelphia Zoo was priceless. Special good wishes to all the Northrop
House classmates.”
“Perhaps a cliché, but so true—after
being treated for breast cancer last
year I delight in every single moment
of life,” writes GAIL GARFIELD SCHWARTZ.
“In April I visited 12 artists in their
studios and homes in Japan, collecting
far more than a dozen new friends, as
well as some lovely works of art. In
New York City, I’m busy with volunteer work advocating evidence-based
treatment for breast cancer. Visits to
six thriving grandchildren, ages 3–14,
and their six parents in Boston, Providence, and San Francisco add spice.
Although I am engaged in various
events with other Smithies, I haven’t
seen many classmates lately; do hope
to remedy that soon.”
ENID JOHNS ORESMAN writes, “One of
the year’s highlights for Steve and me
was travel to the former Russian republics of Central Asia (Kazakhstan,
Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan,
and Turkmenistan). The site of the
old Silk Route is now the bureaucratic
remains of 150 years of Russian rule.
One of the 20 participants on the tour
was a ’56 Smithie. In June we took
a 14-year-old granddaughter on a
small-boat tour of the inside passage
in Alaska. Fishing, hiking, kayaking—
America is a wonderful country!”
BETTY KENNEDY GOODWIN writes, “Our
two sons and their families will join
Queen Elizabeth II to Williamsburg
(OK—we just waved back to Her Majesty as she rode by!) and joined in the
celebration of the 400th anniversary
of our nation. A final history lesson:
Jamestown, VA, not Plymouth, MA,
is where it all began!
Sec., Mary Rose (Pattee) Caldwell
Schlatter, 137 Highland, Williamsburg, VA 23188,
[email protected]
1956
LEANNA YOUNG BROWN and JANE BIRD
NISSEN caught up at the newly reno-
A recent class of ’55 mini-reunion included, back row, left to right:
Winnie Hitz Lumsden, Nadine (Dee) Neuburg Doughty, Laurie
Nath Reinstein; middle row: Nancy Anderson Stevenson, Mary
Ingalls Mathewson, Virginia (Ginger) Owen Schoder; front row:
Barbara Stein Scott, Alice Wayland Cruikshank, and Allie Hoag
Kurland.
us in Williamsburg for five days to
celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary and to tour historic Jamestown,
Yorktown, and Williamsburg. Our
older son and his family have lived in
London for many years. We hope to
present a true picture of the American Revolution to his London Ladies.
(These girls were happy to meet the
Smith College rep calling on their
school, Marymount International in
London.) It is going to be great fun for
the uncles, aunts, cousins, and grandparents to be together—a perfect way
to celebrate 50 years!”
MARY-KAY LENT FLUCKE in Michigan
reports that ROSWITHA LEUTHOLD MCINTOSH published her second book,
The Madman & His Mistress.
A fast-paced update from ANNE MARSHALL TARBELL about her busy Maine
days: “A moment before subbing at
a frame shop: My many hats include
docenting at a museum; painting sets
at a community theater; making polar fleece hats for oncology patients;
teaching handicapped skiers downhill (in February had a great week as
a guide for blind cross-country skiers
with PATIENCE PLUMMER BARNES ’54);
doing mailings for chamber music
and opera groups; hosting on a train
to Boston and back; working at craft
fairs and in a studio for a jeweler.”
Back in Vermont, ELIZABETH PARKER
ROUSE described her spectacular July
rafting trip through the Grand Canyon for 187 miles with 28 women on
an AdventureWomen trip. She writes,
“We rode in two motorized rafts fitted with outriggers and storage space
for our needs for a week, including
ice for water coolers used all day in
the 115–120 degree heat and for our
evening cocktails. The scenery was
magical as we traveled through geologic time. The rapids weren’t scary
even though two are considered class
10 rapids; the short hikes were challenging scrambles, usually over rocks
and often to cool grottoes where we
splashed about in lovely clear pools;
and the food was gourmet.”
PATRICIA PETERSON MCCURDY spent
last summer in Blue Hill, ME, with
children and grandchildren. She
writes, “Sandy and I have been sailing a good deal and going to many
concerts at Kneisel Hall, a summer
music camp for gifted Juilliard, Curtis, and other students. Attended a
benefit for the musicians with ALIDA
NICHOLAS LOVELL ’57 and saw JUDY EVANS THOMAS and husband Tim. I am
working (pen name Patricia Tyson
Stroud) on my fourth biography (this
one on Meriwether Lewis) and have
written a chapter for a book of collected essays on Audubon.”
Patsy’s and my Gardiner friend, MARGARET REED MORAN, an avid, diligent,
and knowledgeable bird-watcher says
her “literary effort is contributing
articles to our Audubon newsletter!”
She planned to take off from Michigan to Texas in November in pursuit
of birds and butterflies.
After visiting JOAN SHUTTLEWORTH
RUSSELL in Ohio, MIGNONETTE DE LOS
AN SAAVEDRA ’54 met JANET CURRY in
Phoenix for a whirlwind tour of the
great Southwest that included the
Grand Canyon (Mignonette’s dream
to see “before she dies”), Monument
Valley, Mesa Verde, Taos, Santa Fe,
and Sedona. Joan adds, “Janet, a frequent visitor to that locale, acted as
the tour guide, and Mignonette was
the interpreter, as she heard almost as
much Spanish as she hears in Chile.
The highlight was the helicopter flight
over the Grand Canyon.”
Last summer in Williamsburg was
enhanced for your secretary as we celebrated our 50th anniversary year with
family visits and a weeklong gathering
of our four children and their families
on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. We
were 15 out of a possible 16—unusual
attendance rate as our children live
in California, Nevada, and Luxembourg! In May, David and I welcomed
vated Paddington Hilton in London
last spring. Leanna was en route
to Amman, Jordan, and a conference sponsored by the International
Women’s Forum. In May, President
Bush appointed Leanna to the commission on White House fellowships,
and she participated in selecting the
2007–08 fellows.
PHYLLIS NAUTS and husband Hendon
have an old stone farmhouse in Vaison-la-Romaine, north of Avignon in
Provence. They spend a month there
in the spring and fall. Phyllis says, “We
look out over a Roman theater, and
have a small vineyard. Our neighbor
is the vintner. Once a year he comes
over with a huge vat on the back of his
truck and we bottle the wine with a
friend—500 liters or so.” Phyllis and
Hendon paint in the huge studio that
once stored hay. Their two children
live in New York, where daughter
Jenny does freelance development
work. Jenny’s son is at Vassar. Phyllis’s
son, David, is a psychiatrist in private
practice and teaches at Columbia
Presbyterian. His two children are
both at Dalton. Last July, Phyllis had
an art show in Cornwall, CT, where
she lives.
I was so sad to receive the news
from CLAIRE HENDRIXSON CLYDESDALE
that her husband, Tom, died unexpectedly following surgery in May.
Before he died, Tom and Claire had
been planning to visit Tom’s sister in
Crieff, Perthshire, Scotland. In June,
Claire and her family made the trip
together, spending two lovely weeks
in Tom’s home country.
PATRICIA WYERS GAMMON’s daughter,
Carla, was deployed as base commander of the Al Dhafra Air Force
Base in the United Arab Emirates in
May. She was scheduled to return in
October to serve as the base commander of the Grand Forks AFB in
North Dakota. Carla has two children,
John, 10, and Emma, 8, cared for by
her husband and the children’s father
while she was overseas. Pat and her
husband plan to join all four of them
in Maui for two weeks at Christmas.
Last June, LEE SULLIVAN BORN and her
husband joined cousins from Paris for
a barge trip on the Seine from Paris
to Auxerre. They explored the Chablis region, stopping along the way to
visit chateaux, vineyards, villages, and
marketplaces. Lee said the cuisine was
45
alumnae update
exquisite, prompting them to walk
whenever possible. In July, they flew
to San Francisco to join her brothers, their spouses, and her nieces for a
special trip, sharing a private Amtrak
railway car to Chicago. Lee said it was
a wonderful experience and a most
comfortable way to see the country.
Best of all, it was a fabulous family
reunion.
Several months after their exciting
2006 trip to Africa, DARYL MASLOW
HAFTER and her husband (a Hispanist
retired many years from the University of Michigan) took a sentimental
trip to Spain, where they had lived for
many months in the ’60s and ’70s when
their children were quite young. They
had planned to visit friends in France
in the fall, and attend a silk conference
in Como, Italy. Penn State University
Press recently published Daryl’s book,
Women at Work in Pre-Industrial
France. Daryl had a reading/signing
party in June at a local bookstore in
Ann Arbor. She said about 40 people
crowded into the little shop, and all
the copies were sold.
MARGOT BRADY GORDON spends winters in South Beach, FL. She and
husband Leonard still travel for his
medical venture capital projects and
have particularly enjoyed trips to the
Pioneer Valley to attend the Massachusetts International Festival of the
Arts, which is directed by a friend of
hers. Margot says she still sees HELENE
(NIKI) KULUKUNDIS YEKTAI ’57 and FLORA
SCHNALL.
NANCY GODFREY SCHACHT and her husband went on the Smith Travel cruise
based on a voyage taken by Edith
Wharton in 1888 and chronicled in
her diaries. The trip was based on
ancient centers of culture and learning in the Mediterranean. Because of
her expertise in Victorian literature,
Carol Christ was one of the lecturers
on the trip, along with a professor of
anthropology from Bryn Mawr, and
Stephanie Copeland, president of The
Mount, Edith Wharton’s beautiful
estate in Lenox, MA. Participants
included alumnae from Smith, Bryn
Mawr, Wellesley, and Vassar. Nancy
says, “President Christ did us all proud
and brought Edith Wharton and the
Berkshires to life for all of us.”
JANET KELLOGG HUME and her sister took their second Smith Travel
theater trip to London last March.
Nancy said it was great fun and very
well organized.
JOAN KRAMER HOLT is working on a
new book about superhero costumes
and is a bit puzzled about Wonder
Woman as our Reunion choice for
the 50th. Joan’s research has turned
up interesting interpretations of the
persona and characterization of Wonder Woman and other well-known
characters. Joan recently took a trip
to China.
JANE TOWER FREY and husband Charlie (Amherst ’51) celebrated their 50th
wedding anniversary in July with a
46
luncheon at Lake Tahoe for their children and spouses, five grandchildren,
and 45 friends. Jane says life has been
good to them and they feel lucky to be
here to enjoy all that they have.
BOBBY WEST WADDELL is still hard at
work as a writer and editor. In June
she took her granddaughter home to
Bali from her school in Connecticut.
Through the miracle of computer
technology, Bobby managed to continue her editorial work at her daughter’s home in Bali, and on the return
trip, she brought her grandson back
here for camp.
BETSY MCKINLEY ZINK and husband
Ben have moved from their longtime
farm in Casa Grande, AZ, and are now
farming avocado orchards in Montecito, CA. Betsy writes, “They say new
challenges keep you young. We’ll see!”
Betsy’s daughter Kim and her husband have a daughter, Michaela, who
joined big sister McKinley in July ’06.
A few months later, Betsy’s daughter
SALLY ZINK HARVEY ’92 gave birth to
Betsy’s first grandson, Jack. Much to
Betsy’s delight, the Harveys will move
to San Diego very soon.
Sec., Jean Bradley Mooney, 34
Clough Road, Dedham, MA 02026,
[email protected]
1957
The following class officers were
unanimously elected at the Reunion
class meeting: president, MARGARET
BESHORE BOONSTRA; co-vice presidents
and 55th Reunion chairs, JUDY SNOW
DENISON and MARILYN JOHNSTON MARTIN; secretary, KATHY O’BRYAN CANADAY; treasurer, MT TORRENS TOMPKINS;
class Fund agents, FLO MACK KELLY
and BETTY GAINES EWING; special gift
chairs, GINNY VERRAL WELDON and VALERIE VERGOBBI GROENEVELD; memorial
chair, LINA HOLSCHUH COFFEY; planned
giving chair, BETTY HAYS TERRY; class
Webmaster, VAL GREENMAN CASTLEMAN;
and nominating chair, CLOVER MORRISSETT WELLER.
Special thanks to CYNNIE CRAWFORD
BERNE , retired class secretary, for
splendid service in passing on notebooks and albums filled with news
clips, announcements, and photographs. The class of ’57 archive is
enviable.
LEA BARNES ISELIN regrets that she
missed the 50th, but she plans on
attending next Reunion. The Iselins
have a new home in Ghent, NY.
Two amazing trips for TIA BRACKETT
DRISCOLL and Todd: the whaling island of Bequia in the Grenadines and
with Elderhostel from Edinburgh to
Svalbard, Norway, 400 miles from the
North Pole.
Our Reunion co-chairs, HILDY COHEN
FLANIGAN and JUDY JACOBI LEVINE, would
like to say thanks for everyone’s help
and enthusiasm. Our retired class officers had such fun that they plan to
continue their get-togethers.
“Finally, after two years, I am returning,” writes CORNELIA CREE. The col-
lege in China that originally offered
her employment abruptly withdrew
its offer, but another job in Chifeng
City came through for September. She
is a language specialist with a good
knowledge of American history and
politics, so she plans to lecture at
other colleges on modern American
life. She hopes to stay in China until
2014. A summer trip west allowed
her a visit with her daughter in Los
Angeles.
CYNTHIA CRAWFORD BERNE and Tom
celebrated their 50th anniversary
in June with family and friends who
were at their wedding. In August, they
took the whole family to Kauai to continue the celebration. At home in Los
Angeles, Cynnie teaches a class for
USC foreign grad students and their
spouses, sponsored by the office of
international students.
VALERIE GREENMAN CASTLEMAN has
seven grandchildren, ages 5 to 12.
The anticipated arrival of twins in
2002 prevented her from attending
our 45th Reunion, but she thoroughly
enjoyed our 50th. Val is a Photoshop
instructor for SeniorNet in Armonk,
NY. She also creates, designs, and
updates Websites for nonprofits. Remember to check our class Website,
http://smith.alumnae.net/homepages/classes/class57, to view 50th
Reunion photos and comments.
Smith recognized BETTY HAYS TERRY
with the planned giving volunteer
award at the volunteer conference last
fall, for her extraordinary service and
support to the college.
LINA HOLSCHUH COFFEY enjoyed a
family gathering when her son was
married on Lake Champlain last
summer.
The California fires delayed the
summer visit of ADELLE LEEDER GERSTEN
to her Lake Tahoe house. Ten days in
115-degree Las Vegas were brutal for
a native New Englander.
JANE LOFGREN PEARSALL and Hank
took their 11-year-old granddaughter on the Smith Travel family trip
to Alaska.
ROSEMARY POLLACK MILD extends
heartfelt thanks to all who attended
our 50th. She enjoyed reconnecting and making new acquaintances.
Publishing news from the Milds: a
short story in the e-zine Crime and
Suspense; an essay in Chicken Soup
for the Coffee Lover’s Soul; and their
third Paco and Molly mystery will be
published this year.
“Getting old is not for sissies,” reports
SALLIE MITCHELL BASS, who missed Reunion because of a multiply fractured
ankle. Grandchildren, gardening, and
bridge provide pleasures.
PENNY POPE LEATHER and Dick had a
wondrous time at Reunion, then went
home to Denver to entertain a crew of
10 family members, attending Cirque
du Soleil and the Cheyenne Frontier
Days rodeo. A Baltic cruise in August
provided a welcome respite.
SUE RADWIN ISAACS is an educational
therapist now in private practice after
14 years of working with students at
New Canaan Country School. Three
of her seven grandchildren are classmates at the school and friends of
the three Stevens grandchildren of
BARBARA GOW YEAGER. Sue also serves
on the Greenwich-Stamford Smith
club board coordinating alumnae
seminars.
MARIAN SEIDNER DEL VECCHIO, who
had a five-year stint as cartoonist for
the Miami Herald, has been in South
Beach for the past decade.
JACQUELINE BAKER PRATT says she
thought Reunion was great, classmates wonderful, campus fabulous,
and the new engineering program
really exciting!
SUSAN SEIDNER ADLER is still painting,
mostly portraits, and living in New
York City, where she has a full-time
psychotherapy practice.
A cheery note from FIFI WALCOTT MACMAHON: “A day doesn’t go by without
a ’57 face beckoning fond memories.
Reunion brought such tales, smiles,
and incredible accomplishments to
the forefront. I will long recall its
delight.”
Sec., Kathy O’Bryan Canaday, 1
Brooklands, Apt. 2B, Bronxville, NY
1958
SUKEY BARBER GROUSBECK is looking
forward to Reunion. She recently traveled with her sister, BO BARBER WELLES
’53, to Antarctica and also went hiking
in Provence. In June, she went with
three grandsons (4, 7, and 10) and
their parents to Scandinavia and Russia. Sukey and Irv enjoy summers on
Lake Winnipesaukee in Wolfeboro,
NH, where she sees JUDY OLIN HIGGINS
and NANCY DREIER DAILEY.
JODY BENJAMIN HOY quit teaching
French and French literature in 2004
and moved full-time into her second
career as a professional photographer.
She had a show in August in Deer Isle,
ME, and was featured in the October
issue of Rangefinder magazine. Her
son is a bronze sculptor and was juried into the Florence Biennale. They
both live in California.
EDNA BROWN HIBBITTS went to the
Third International Women’s Peace
Conference, which she found an
amazing learning experience. The
emphasis was on peacemaking as a
process and the influence of women in
civil society. The keynote speaker was
GILLIAN MARTIN SORENSON ’63, a senior
adviser to the United Nations Foundation. Edna came away with renewed
hope for the future coupled with a real
sense of the hard work ahead.
LOUISE CLARK SMITH was widowed in
1995. Since that time, she has taken
several trips with PEGGY MCNEIL BOYER;
they’ve gone off the beaten track to
Papua New Guinea, Madagascar,
and the Galapagos for phenomenal
snorkeling. Louise is very active in
Community Bible Study and work-
ing on the local Smith club’s annual
book sale along with GENIE SHERER,
SUE SCOTT PATTERSON , and ISABEL
GOFF BUNGE. Her three children are
all married and have given her five
grandchildren.
SANDRA DUNBAR PAUL graduated from
Butler University in Indiana with a
degree in French and a minor in
education. She married a Navy man,
had four children, and taught at the
secondary level in California. They
lived on both coasts and later went
their separate ways. She and her second husband, Ed, live near Lake Tahoe
and enjoy golf, kayaking, tennis, and
hiking, and they volunteer with the
Reno Symphony Guild. She reports
they are healthy and “hopefully, aging
gracefully.”
CAROL FINEBERG-WILSON and her
husband had two weeks sailing
along the Siberian coast on a Russian icebreaker, studying the science
and policy issues of climate change
and global warming. The trip was
co-sponsored by the Alumnae Association and several other universities and institutions. Carol reports
that even the skeptics on board were
willing to admit we have to change
our behavior if we want to reduce the
CO2 emissions contributing to the
extremes of climate change. In addition, Carol completed her threeyear term as board chair of the New
York State Alliance for Arts Education
and enjoyed helping this organization
grow to become a major voice in arts
education policy and practice.
MARCIA FLASTER VOLPERT and her
family have begun a year of celebration. Three grandchildren’s bar/bat
mitzvahs will take place between
September and January. (Seven down,
three to go!) Then, after Reunion, they
plan to celebrate their 50th wedding
anniversary by taking the entire family to Tuscany.
For three years in a row, MOLLY
GAYLEY GNICHTEL has had artwork exhibited in the National Juried Small
Works Show at 80 Washington Square
East Galleries in New York. Her work
was accepted in two other national
juried competitions in Colorado and
in Georgia when all three works she
submitted were selected—an unusual
honor. Congratulations, Molly!
MARY HOLMES BLUME and Henry
spent two weeks in Paris with middle
daughter Kate and her family, including three children 7 and under. She
has a new perspective on Paris having visited unbelievable playgrounds,
including the Jardin du Dragon with
stratospheric slides emerging from
dragon heads! Their lives are busy
around Stanford University, interrupted by visits with multiple grandchildren from Evanston, IL, to the
Boston area.
MARY ANN GOODMAN QUINSON has
a private psychotherapy practice in
New York City. She works three days
a week, which leaves time for other
activities, including traveling with
her husband and tending to their
11 grandchildren, ages 1–21, who
live in Colorado Springs, New York,
Stockholm, and London. She is board
president of the thriving Barrington
Stage Company, which just completed
a renovation of an early 1900s theater
in Pittsfield, MA. They have a second
home in the Berkshires, not far from
Northampton.
SALLY HUNT FAY writes that she lives
a “slower but full” life of tennis, flute,
singing, walking, yoga, and, best of
all, grandchildren. She hopes to get
to Reunion—it will be her first!
MEREDITH MARTINDALE FRAPIER co-directed a film, Benjamin Franklin: Citizen of Two Worlds, which appeared
as a complement to the Benjamin
Franklin 300th anniversary exhibition that has been at five venues in
the United States and will be shown in
two Paris museums. The Metropolitan Museum of Art called it a “most
beautiful and informative portrait of
this great man.”
BARBARA JENKS HAACK retired from
teaching Spanish (language, literature, Latin American history) in
1998. Since then her days are more
than full. She is a potter/sculptor/artist with a studio in her barn. She is
also an activist, wanting to end Bush’s
war of choice, and she belongs to a
number of peace organizations. Every
Sunday, she is at Market Square in
Newburyport, where a large group
convenes to show its disapproval of
the administration’s policies. She and
Peter live in a charming 1750 Cape,
known as the Daffodil House due to
the thousand or more daffodils she’s
planted. The three kids are in Seattle,
Colorado, and Boston. In February,
they go to Morelia, Mexico, where
they helped to catalog an important
historical library, and now have many
Mexican friends.
HANNAH MILDE MARKS ’s daughter,
Georgia, was married in May in North
Carolina, with brother Michael as
her master of honor. The Unitarian
Church of All Souls, Hannah’s church
in New York City, honored her with
its deacons’ award for exemplary volunteer service.
MAGGIE NEAL STROHBEHN KENT writes,
“In 2005 NANCY WILCOX SMITH and I
went to Spain for a long visit with our
familia in Madrid. They were busy,
fun, active, eccentric, and in all ways
a huge and lingering memory for both
of us. Saw Jose Mari (that Spanish romance from 1957).” Maggie is still a
practicing therapist in San Francisco
and Marin. Daughter Eliza adopted
a Guatemalan boy, and Maggie says,
“We are beside ourselves with love!”
LIBBY RHEA VAN DUSEN looks forward
to seeing lots of us at Reunion. She
has three sons (all married) and four
grandchildren. She’s retired, her husband is semiretired, and they travel
more than they used to, mostly to
see family.
SUE SAFFORD ANDREWS is looking forward to Reunion. She and Bob went
to his 50th at Dartmouth, which was
great fun. Sue finally retired, so now
she’s trying to catch up on 40 years
of stuff—with time to try to improve
her golf game.
LILOT SCHUELLER MOORMAN’s son and
family (four children under 8) have
been living with Lilot and husband Jeff
since their return from New Caledonia, much to Lilot’s joy. Jeff retired in
July. They plan to spend more time at
their cabin in the Cascade Mountains
in Washington State and in Seaside,
FL. Lilot would love to connect with
Atlanta classmates.
NANCY SMITH WHALEY married Bill
Whaley in Aug. ’06, in Watch Hill,
RI. Bill was president of marketing
and sales for CTW (Sesame Street)
for 20 years. They live in Greenwich,
New York, Windsor at Vero Beach,
and Watch Hill, and manage to go
on golf trips to Spain and California.
Nancy’s daughter lives in Dubai and
loves it; Nancy visited last May and
found it awesome and challenging.
VIRGINIA STEIN GREENE writes that
she, AUBIN ZABRISKIE AMES, and JOANNE
FREYBERG BLATZ met for lunch at Jo’s
new home in Scotch Plains, NJ, to
reminisce about their time together
in New York after graduation. Jo had
recently married Frank Blatz and
moved to New Jersey from Michigan.
Gingie is very happy to have her back
on their side of the country. Gingie is
still playing lots of tennis, gardening,
bicycling, and doing a couple of parttime jobs, as well as helping her husband, who hasn’t been well for three
years. She, too, is looking forward to
Reunion.
CAROL STEVENS KNER recently spent
two weeks at their retreat in the hills
above Cummington, MA (only 25
miles from Northampton), with her
husband, daughter, son, daughterin-law, and 15-month-old granddaughter, Charlotte. She introduced
Charlotte to the delights of Joe’s Cafe.
Carol enjoys retirement, though she
is busier than ever writing poems and
singing with the New York Continuo
Collective, which recently presented
a short opera by Francesca Caccini
as part of the Boston Early Music
Festival.
LINDA STONE KAPLAN and Ed went
to China, and what an experience it
was, she says, an amazing and varied country. Linda wants to urge as
many as possible to attend our 50th.
She says it’s heartwarming to reconnect with friends and meet new ones
who shared the Smith experience 50
years ago.
ANN WHITMAN HACKL spent a wonderful two weeks camping with her whole
family on their island in Lake Winnipesaukee (10 adults and five kids,
2–11). A tiny one-room cabin, which
her father built in 1939 with salvage
lumber from the Hurricane of ’38,
has the original propane fridge and a
gas range, no electricity, no running
water, just an outside hand pump and
an outhouse. Four tents on platforms
serve as bedrooms. It’s primitive, but
no one wants to change anything
and everyone likes getting together
to enjoy one another and the beauty
around them.
ALICE WOODWARD FUNNELL is still traveling while she has the will and wherewithal. Last year they went to Vieques
for their winter getaway and in the
fall to San Tropez and to the Cezanne
centennial in Aix. Earlier, they went
to Norway to see BIBBY BOCK DITLEVSIMONSEN and to take the spectacular
coastal voyage. They spend summers
enjoying their grandsons at the family
cottage in Chatham.
When she turned 70, MARTHA ULLMANN MAY thought she’d retire from
volunteering and tend to her garden
and needlepoint. But she joined two
more boards and has embarked on
working to raise $27 million for a local
hospital. More fun than retiring!
In Oct. ’07, SALLY SZOLD BOASBERG
received the LaGasse Medal from
the American Society of Landscape
Architects for leadership in conservancy of natural resources and public landscapes. She has been fortunate enough to work as a volunteer
with organizations in related fields,
including the Cultural Landscape
Foundation and Green Spaces for
DC, which she established six years
ago. She writes that there is so much
rewarding work to be done with both
the preservation and establishment of
green infrastructure, and she encourages everyone to get involved in some
way. She has a garden-design practice
and keeps busy with 11 grandchildren
(including three pairs of twins!).
See you at Reunion!
Sec., Fran Beekley Ames, 3630 SW
Patton Road, Portland, OR 97221,
[email protected]
1959
We extend our condolences to the
family and friends of DI ANN SMITH
RIGGS, whose death in March was reported in the “In Memoriam” section
of the Fall ’07 Quarterly. Her obituary
appears in this issue.
SHIRLEY LIU CLAYTON decided some
years ago to go to Stanford Business
School, after 12 years of raising her
family. She then had a procession of
top management jobs, ending up in
the biotechnology industry for the
latter part of her career, working as
either CFO or CEO of start-up biotech companies. ANNE NORRIS BALDWIN
introduced Shirley to her last company (recently purchased by Merck),
and Shirley writes, “It seems the
good-ol’-girls’ network is functioning
well.” Shirley lives with her husband,
an emeritus professor at Stanford, in
Palo Alto. They have two children
and two grandchildren. In retirement
Shirley serves on the board of a bank
in Houston and its subsidiary in Cali-
47
alumnae update
fornia. She also is involved in helping
a couple of early-stage biotech companies. A few years ago she went on
a Smith Travel trip to Normandy and
enjoyed a mini-reunion while on the
trip with CHARLOTTE BURKHART KELLER
and MARJORIE LAMBERTI.
Writing from England, where she
and her family live, CLAIRE DAVIDSON
PEPPIATT reports that she and Hugh
“are enjoying a retirement of sorts.”
They have five married children.
Claire and Hugh love and feel blessed
in all their children, their in-laws, and
in their 19 grandchildren, ages 2 to 16;
Claire greatly relishes the teenagers,
whom she finds a lot of fun. She has
worked for four years as a bereavement counselor on the chaplaincy
team at a men’s prison. She writes that
this has been “a very steep learning
curve. The stories some of the men
have to tell are truly terrible, and it is
no wonder they have turned to drugs
and crime.” Claire hopes to get to our
50th Reunion. We all hope so, too.
Last June, ELLEN GLEITSMAN TROKEL
attended the AASC symposium on
women’s health and well-being held
on campus and recommends returning to Smith for these events. While
Ellen was the only ’59 alumna there,
she thoroughly enjoyed the company
of the women from their 20s to their
80s who attended. She reports that
the campus looked beautiful.
MARGARET WOODHEAD KATRANIDES
gave the Jonathan Plummer Lecture
at the summer session of the Illinois
Yearly Meeting. She writes that her
stepson is serving in the Navy in Iraq,
and that, while he was on duty there,
his daughter was born.
SHEILA BODINE helped arrange a
gathering that took place in July at
Mystic Seaport. It included Sheila,
KATHERINE (KINKY) ECKFELDT COWLES,
NANCY NEWTON WEST, ALICE WATSON
HOUSTON, MARY CHRISMAN ANDERSON,
and KATHLEEN PARKER O’BEIRNE. They
enjoyed sharing ideas about our upcoming 50th Reunion.
Last spring AN CLARK SOKOLOVSKA
took a three-month exploration of
parts of Europe. An invitation to
speak at the Expertissues Meeting
at the University of Trento in April
inspired the trip. She gave a social
science lecture to cell biologists and
reports that all went very well.
A lovely celebration of her 70th
birthday and husband Bob’s 75th
birthday is the news from ANN LOZIER
VON DER LIPPE. She and Bob spent a
month in Italy and brought their
children and grandchildren over to
join them for a week in a wonderful
spot outside of Todi. They visited
churches, ruins, and museums and
feasted on wonderful Italian food.
Ann and Bob spend summers in
Little Compton, RI, and the rest of
the year in Boston. Ann would love
to know how others celebrated their
70th birthdays. She is enjoying staying
in touch as we plan for our 50th and
48
The Town Point Club in Norfolk, VA, was the site for a class of
’60 mini-reunion that included Kit McCally Ober, Lucille (Honey)
Rundin Evans, Jane Yolen, Minette Switzer Cooper, and Nancy
Grant Sloan.
hopes everyone is planning to come
to Northampton.
NANCY GUNTHER STEGER is finding
retirement from full-time work a
combination of trying to clean out
mountains of clutter acquired over
the years, doing volunteer work, and
sailing around their end of Long Island Sound. John pines for a bigger
boat but has not yet succumbed to
temptation. Nancy says, “Our most
embarrassing nautical moment occurred last summer when we managed to capsize our rather tippy dinghy in the middle of the harbor in New
Rochelle right in front of the Harbor
Police Station. Most amusing for all.”
Their daughter is in her third year of
a psychiatry residence.
LOUANNA OWENS CARLIN and ROSALIND
TUPPER MAIDEN made a trip together
to France. Roz writes that Louanna
swapped her lovely Brooklyn Heights
apartment for a beautiful country
home on the outskirts of Toulouse,
then invited Roz to join her and her
daughter and granddaughter on the
trip. They had a wonderful time, Roz
says, “thanks chiefly to Louanna’s adventurous spirit, which took us into
homes of total strangers and justified
years of courses in French taken by
Ms. Carlin!”
LEE ROBINSON TURNER lives in Falmouth, MA, with husband Lou. They
are busy there with many activities
and some travel, and she is active with
the Smith College Club of Cape Cod.
CAROLYN FOSTER MCNAUGHT attends
meetings with her. Lee has two granddaughters; one is also the grandchild
of DIANA PIKE HARDING ’58. The Robinsons recently had a family reunion on
the West Coast, which included Lee’s
sister, MARY ROBINSON WHITTEMORE ’62.
Although unable to see former roommate CAROL LAVENSTEIN WIRTSCHAFTER
due to too little time and too much
traffic, Lee greatly enjoyed seeing
CAROL TURTLE in Oregon. She and
Carol had many years to remember
and did not get into politics until the
end of the visit! Lee’s daughter married in June, and lives in a yurt that
she and her husband built five years
ago. Lee would love to hear from any
of us visiting Falmouth.
ANNE BATES LINDEN continues her
work in Ukraine. The former minister of family, children, and sport,
Yuri Pavlenko, has agreed to sponsor a gathering of individuals working with orphans, orphanages, and
street children. Anne has been trying
to find someone willing to do this for
several years, including writing many
proposals, and reports, “Convincing
Pavlenko took three minutes.”
One of our inveterate class travelers
is AMANDA NYCE MCINTYRE. She and Jim
traveled to Germany and England in
June, and Amanda had a very pleasant trip with a Smith Travel group to
Guatemala earlier in the year.
LOIS BURRILL is recovering well from
hip surgery last May and hopes to be
traveling soon again.
Sec., Alice Wieland Harrison, 50
Ferson Road, Hanover, NH 03755,
[email protected]
1960
Your secretary spent the summer in
Kirkcudbright, Scotland, where Britain had the wettest weather on record.
Extensive BBC coverage of Wimbledon and the golf Open at Carnoustie
kept me happy, however. Question for
this column: What do you find most
satisfying as you approach age 70?
JUDY SYKES ARDIS reports complete
recovery from a nasty lung infection,
and has moved from Greensboro, NC,
to Sturbridge, MA, near her son and
3-year-old grandson.
JUDY BEEBE GUMMERE finds satisfaction in the happiness and health of her
children and grandchildren, her longrunning marriage, volunteer activities
with several boards, First Tee, a singing group, and continuing part-time
work as a reference librarian. Travel
to Peru, South Africa, Costa Rica,
the Normandy Coast, and Tuscany
complete the list. “Body may betray
but my mind still works!”
SUSAN LIVINGSTON believes this age
is the prime of life, and continues to
run a bed-and-breakfast and compete
in masters swimming. She recently
spent an evening overlooking the
Charles with PAT HANSON RODGERS
and NANCY BASSETT SMITH. She took a
week’s tandem bike tour from Memphis to New Orleans, using the Delta
Queen paddle wheeler as her moving
hotel.
LEE BALDWIN DALZELL downsized to
a one-bedroom condo in New York
City, in the same building as BENITA
BRYANT TRINKLE. She sings and performs at Carnegie Hall with the Oratorio Society, whose maestro’s eyes
lit up at the mention of the legendary
Iva Dee Hyatt. She and her husband
have just published their second book,
The House the Rockefellers Built: A
Tale of Money, Taste, and Power in
20th-Century America.
MARNA HAYDEN finds her professional
and community work very satisfying,
is proud of her family, and enjoyed a
recent cruise with them to Australia
and New Zealand.
KIT MCCALLY OBER lives in Williamsburg’s Ford’s Colony, where she regularly sees HONEY RUNDEL EVANS and ANN
HARRISON-CLARK, who serves on the
colony board, as well as MINETTE SWITZER COOPER and HELEN TOWNSEND REED
nearby. Their calendars remain full
with the many activities there.
ADELAIDE SUGARMAN-GREENBERG insists, “I’m just 68. Don’t rush me!” She
loves being able to do what she wants
with her time, feels more comfortable
in her own skin, less at the mercy of
societal expectations, and cherishes
longtime friendships because they are
so full of history, loyalty, and mutual
acceptance.
JUDY TUTUN EBBY hopes 70 is just
a number, and finds grandchildren,
with their curiosity, creativity, and
humor, most satisfying; least satisfying—our government. She has great
gratitude for her Smith education.
HARRIET STEVENS TURNER works at the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, both
as office of international affairs director and as Hispanic studies professor.
Focusing on 19th-century Spain, she
enjoys using electronic teaching tools
for analyzing and appreciating the
liveliness of texts, that elusive space
between reader and words.
ELIZABETH HERRICK WHITE divides her
time between California and Idaho,
and enjoys numerous outdoor activities. She serves on the board of
Whirlwind Wheelchair International
and volunteers for Idaho’s land trust,
while continuing her drawing and
painting.
MAUREEN RELLAND RIGGIO continues her Manhattan ophthalmology
practice, socializing with PATRICIA
ANDREWS STEFFAN and BENITA BRYANT
TRINKLE. She weekends and summers
in Southampton.
LYN GILLESPIE BRAKEMAN aspires to
retire, or “reschedule,” and hopes
soon to publish her memoir. She
now has nine grandchildren and
sees LLEWELLYN PARSONS SMITH, SUSAN
WHITTLESEY WOLF, and SUSAN GRAY on
Cape Cod.
ALICE LINEBERGER HARNEY recently
moved to a Charlotte, NC, condo,
which she enjoys and finds less stressful. She has also seen several classmates there.
ELIZABETH BLUMENTHAL, a retirement
and leadership coach, finds life has
wonderful opportunities at this age.
Both KEVYN UNGEMAH GARDELLA and
her daughter have recently faced serious illnesses. Kevyn continues her
piano, golf, and tennis, however, and
volunteers with learning-disabled
children, the Save Darfur movement,
and raising awareness for early mammograms.
ANDREA WRIGHT is busy with Hampshire College women’s Life-Work
Planning workshops and Northampton’s Gay Pride march with other Raging Grannies, a group that sings irreverently to promote peace and justice.
She also enjoys quieter activities such
as reading and area cultural events.
TINKER JENNEY SALTONSTALL recently
drove around the country, visiting
LYNN BURROWS DONALDSON and LAURA DAMON in their environmentally
friendly homes. With their downsized house in Marion, MA, they
are now free to travel and see nine
grandkids.
ANN LINEN PROBERT played in Bermuda’s Mid-Ocean Invitational Golf
Tournament, and watched tennis at
the Coral Beach Club, near where she
and your secretary spent a memorable
family vacation years ago.
CAROLYN MILMOE POMEROY finds most
satisfying the time to enjoy family,
friends, and good books, with the
added benefit of having a husband
who enjoys doing the cooking! Her
husband, three daughters, and grandchildren are all active in the Episcopal
Church in New Jersey, Maine, and
Maryland. Vacation time is spent on
Maine’s Sheepscott River.
SUSAN WHITTLESEY WOLF returned to
Japan, where she taught in a private
school 47 years ago, visiting with her
Japanese family, traveling with her
daughter, and seeing her son at his
State Department post. She sees societal change for women having just
begun there, but finds overall culture
and traditional ways much the same
as the ’60s and before.
JACKIE GARDNER ROLAND celebrates
being a grandmother; is proud of her
son, a jazz musician who does State
Department tours to Asia; and continues to teach history at Pace University
in New York, traveling to India and
Asia with her work.
VIRGINIA COCHRAN RUSCH took a Smith
Travel trip to Siberia and Mongolia,
where she extended her stay. She
returned to a Peace Corps reunion,
having been with the first group to
the Philippines in 1960. Her ancestors were also from Kirkcudbright,
Scotland!
Sec., Barbara Newberry Lindsley,
P.O. Box 881, Millbrook, NY 12545,
[email protected]
1961
I’m happy to report an outpouring of
interest in attending our 50th. Many
have expressed sadness at the news of
PAGE NEVILLE PYLE’s death in May; her
obituary was in the Fall ’07 Quarterly.
Contact me for a copy of a wonderful
New York Times article about her.
On a much happier note, BARBARA BROWN GREGORICH LOTT married
Charles Lott in Nov. ’06. They met
many years ago in Buck Hill Falls,
PA.
PHYLLIS BENFORD KROLL and husband
Alex celebrated their 45th anniversary
in Dec. ’06. Son Alex is a writer in
New York City; son Michael works
for Microsoft in Seattle; and daughter Alicia lives in Vermont near them,
teaching part-time high school and
raising a daughter and son. Phyllis
continues to raise and show English
pointers. She and Alex travel and enjoy life on Lake Champlain.
IRINI-NIKE SARLIS has devoted much
effort to ecologically and culturally
sustainable building and planning issues, co-founded nonprofit organizations, and been active in nongovernmental activities. She hopes to work
on Friends of the Campus with other
alumnae.
MARTHA YOST NEWCOMER is still actively involved with skating, primarily
as a music technician and announcer
at the Detroit Skating Club. She spent
five weeks on Skate Detroit last summer. Daughter Juliet works for the U.S.
Figure Skating Company in Colorado
Springs. The family spent the holidays
in England last year, where son Andy
was working. Son Jeff is a full professor at Western Washington University
and is president of the faculty senate.
Martha sings in two choral groups,
does water aerobics, and gardens and
sews when time allows.
SARA MACK is retired from teaching
the classics full-time at the University
of North Carolina, though she still
teaches two courses. She had a large
family reunion in Maine last summer
that included her son and daughter
and their families. Sara does yoga and
volunteers and suspects she won’t do
research anymore. “Who needs another book on Latin poetry anyway?”
she says.
CAROL JOHNSON DENT and her daughters are still in California. One is a
tenured professor at UC Santa Cruz,
one a Hollywood writer, and the
youngest has an art gallery in San
Francisco and designs theater sets.
Carol is a full-time ESL instructor at
City College of San Francisco with no
plans to retire yet. A cousin’s passing
caused her to reconnect with family
on the East Coast.
LUCY NOYES had a reunion in Placitas,
NM, in honor of husband Dick’s 80th,
with 32 family members and lots of
friends. She wrote from her casita in
San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, where
she and family go several times a year.
Renters are there the rest of the time,
including Smithies. San Miguel is aesthetically beautiful, interesting, and a
delight. Lucy’s real estate business in
Placitas thrives.
ELIZABETH TARLAU WEINGARTEN reports that daughter Jo is an attorney
in San Francisco, having clerked for a
federal judge in Houston, and then an
appellate judge in the second circuit.
Liz had a mini-reunion in Pittsfield
with LEE ELLISON ADINOLFI and MARY
WOODSON CROWELL. She summers in
Norwich, VT, and winters in Houston.
ANNE GAGNEBIN COFFIN is still busy
full-time at the International Print
Center in New York, a nonprofit exhibition space in Chelsea, now in its
eighth season. Anne enjoys the art
world and loves friends to visit at the
center on West 26th Street. Anne and
husband John moved back to Greenwich Village three years ago and are
having a great time with three grandchildren, two in New York and one in
London. She writes, “Looking back,
I’m not sure how any of us navigated
the young-children stage.”
JOAN WANOUS D’AOUST continues
very satisfying work, part-time, at
the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research
Center in Seattle, though she summers in Helena, MT, and winters in
St. George, UT. She hikes and bikes
in her free time. In May, she floated
the Colorado River in a dory boat
through the Grand Canyon—14 days,
280 miles. Each year Joan travels to
and treks in the Himalayas. Her two
sons are doing well in Boulder and
southern Missouri.
JUDI JOHNSON SCHWEIKERT enjoys retirement with Dan, skiing many days
at Park City during the season. They
returned to England for the first time
since 1962 and were planning a trip to
China. She added two new grandchildren this year, for a total of four.
LESLIE COLLINS DANIEL writes from her
new loft in Astoria, OR, “We overlook
the Columbia River and spend our
days watching freighters, tankers,
and navy ships ply their way up and
down the river.” This is their summer
retreat from the desert heat. They are
getting to know Astoria, “the oldest
settlement west of the Mississippi.”
Their children are dispersed all over
the country, but they try hard to stay
in touch.
JANE LEE WOLFE does resident relations at Twin Pines Housing Trust,
located in White River Junction, VT,
which builds and maintains affordable housing in Vermont and New
Hampshire. She also runs Bog Chapel,
a nonprofit that does spiritual health
and training seminars, workshops,
and one-on-one work.
JULIE PEARCE continues as a psychotherapist with a private practice and
adjunct professor of psychology and
women’s studies at a community college. Living in Orange County, CA,
she thinks “driving the freeways alone
here is a good anti-Alzheimer’s workout.” Gardening—a wild one—is one
of her spiritual practices. She loves
friends and pets and “just taking the
time out for fun in all the different
forms it comes in.” Julie had to be
rescued from a riptide in the ocean,
which was humbling, but a reminder
that it is “OK to reach out to others if
I need to.” She finds it a bit scary to be
nearing 70. What do you all think?
ELLEN BARTLETT NODELMAN has retired
three times in the past seven years,
and once again finds herself unretired
with two jobs. Ellen has been commissioned to write a history of the school
at which she taught for 32 years, and
then was persuaded to take on college
guidance again. She finds she can do
this from Connecticut, with a little
pied-a-terre in Rockland County, NY.
She plays the cello and sings in local
choral groups. Grandsons 14 and 8
and granddaughters 8 and 16 months
are growing apace.
MARILYN CARLSON NELSON continues
as chair and CEO of Carlson, and
writes, “These are exciting times. Our
corporate travel company, Carlson
Wagonlit, is the largest in the world,
our hotel company is growing globally, and our restaurant company is
now represented in 57 countries.”
MARY KILEY NEWMAN is enjoying her
role as class treasurer, especially hearing from us all as dues roll in. Mary
and husband Fred joined a Smith
Travel tour to Japan in June, and it was
a wonderful cultural and social experience, with alums and a few spouses.
They visited temples, shrines, castles,
and museums new and old with both
Eastern and Western art. “Everything
really does run on time and all the
clocks agree,” Mary reports, adding
that the organization and leadership
of the trip were outstanding.
Another class officer, ELLEN STOVER
EDDY, writes that after a busy spring
featuring her mother’s two hospitalizations (she’s OK now); husband
John’s hospitalization with multiple
pulmonary embolisms caused by
plane travel (“Take aspirin and move
around while airborne,” Ellen says);
and two weeks in Maine with four
generations, she and John headed to
Lisbon, then cruised for 10 days in the
Mediterranean, ending in Malta. September began Ellen’s busy but enjoyable pre-Christmas retailing season
selling fashion and home accessories
at Patchpoint Ltd.
In Brunswick, ME, ELIZABETH MARR’s
gardens were on the garden tour
sponsored by Midcoast Hunger Prevention. Elizabeth and her sister, who
live there with their two rescue dogs,
enjoy doing all the gardening, which
was much admired by visitors. Elizabeth hopes “all of you who are free
from the ravages of aging appreciate
your good health.” In her late 50s, she
49
alumnae update
was diagnosed with blepharospasm
and ocular apraxia, and now painful
lumbar stenosis has arrived.
More news from midcoast Maine:
JOYCE GEIGER SPENCER and her husband
have moved into a house on a point
of family land near Bath. KITTY NORCROSS WHEELER is close by, and POESY
BARLOW and WENDY VOLLERTSON MALLORY are not far (nor am I in the summer). Their first houseguest was NINA
YOUNG BIRD, who came from England
to attend the 50th reunion at Hopkins
Grammar in New Haven. SARA MACK
joined them there. Jim and Joyce had
an amazing opportunity to tour South
Africa with the Yale alumni chorus.
They sang with 700 South African
musicians and “came away deeply
touched by the kindness and hopeful spirit of reconciliation among all
we met.”
Yet another Mainer (Portland) is
BETH STODDARD, who is a licensed Brain
Gym instructor/consultant. Beth ran
a conference in the summer at which
30 people learned a unique specialty
of “neurosensory motor and reflex
integration into whole body movement.” Individuals treated after the
conference experienced significant
change, she writes. Beth introduced
the specialty to the Maine Medical
Center in Portland. She and husband
Doug camped in the summer near
Boothbay and highly recommend
the new botanical garden there. Their
granddaughter, a sophomore at Bates,
will spend a semester in Japan, bringing back memories of Beth’s favorite
course, which was Oriental art with
Mr. McSherry.
LIZ SMITH WITTER spent a week at the
New England Historical Genealogical Society working 12 hours a day
on research, with a few lectures interspersed. Her mother was a Smith
and married a Smith so she had her
work cut out for her. She and Sophia
Smith both descended from a Plymouth John Smith, but sadly not the
same one.
SALLY SCULLY and husband David
McNeil are enjoying their retirement—“time to work on the book!”—
spending half a year at their home in
Italy, half in San Francisco. She takes
her inspiration from HELEN HARDEN
CHENUT’s publishing achievements.
She and her husband were planning
a trip to Bhutan via Singapore. Sally
was practicing high-altitude hiking
at Lake Tahoe in preparation. At our
50th, she would love a seventh-grade
reunion with Helen, JILL RUSSELL BENEDICT, and TERRY TROWBRIDGE GAGNIER.
Sec., Betsy Carter, 2475 Virginia
Avenue NW, #922, Washington, DC
1962
The following is a special note to all
from our new president, JUDY TUCHMAN RATZAN: “It still seems hard for
me to believe that it’s been 45 years
since graduation and that our next
50
Alumnae and former faculty gather at the Morgan Library in New
York City to celebrate the birthday of Patricia Weed, professor
emerita of French language and literature. Pictured are Elisa
Barsoum Losada ’86, Linda Rose ’63, Patricia, Professor Emerita
Josephine Ott, Professor Emerita Marie-Jose Delage, Timmie
Birge Vitz ’63, and Susan Wetchler Wei ’79.
Reunion will be our 50th. Just yesterday we were in the Quad for graduation looking forward to whatever life
would bring us. After meeting with
classmates during this last Reunion,
I appreciate that we continue to look
ahead and that 66 has become the
new 50. Our previous team of class
officers did an outstanding job during the past five years, and I want to
thank them for all their efforts on our
behalf and for making Reunion the
fantastic success it was. I also want
to thank the nominating committee
and the members of the class of ’62
for the confidence they have placed in
me as the new president. I look forward to working with the wonderful
group of women who comprise our
new officers—JULIE KEITH, vice president; SUSAN TEOMMEY RYDELL, returning secretary; and PRISCILLA JENKINS
BENSON, our veteran and much-appreciated treasurer—and representing all the wonderful women in the
class of ’62.”
NANCY GOODMAN SIMON says Reunion
was great fun! She saw old friends,
met new ones, and noted that we
definitely get more interesting as we
get older. She hopes everyone who
can, makes it to the 50th. She is still
busy with the Washington, DC, Smith
club and its school partnership, and
they have been very involved with
their library renovation. She tries to
see her granddaughter, 2, as often as
she can.
ANDREA RICE sends some Reunion
quick notes: “Some of the Scales ’62ers
ate at Wiggins on Thursday night:
JOANNE FOSTER, FRANCIE GARBER PEPPER, JUDY BOWMAN, and I. Art gallery
was great. Staying at Gillett/Northrup
showed a new side of campus to Quad
dwellers; it was easier getting around!
Alumnae College very fine, quality
food in Seelye basement. Rare Book
Room session very enlightening. Followed with a Smith Travel trip on the
Trans-Siberia Railroad and Mongolia
and Gobi Desert.”
LURA MYERS BROOKINS sends an update on her radical move from Man-
hattan to Santa Fe to begin a landscape-design business. She is now
a part-time design consultant and
full-time artist—a plein aire pastel
painter. It is totally unimaginable
living on the edge in her own adobe
house. Both adult children have their
own businesses: daughter Lindsay
lives on Long Island with three sons,
and son Body lives outside of Boston
with a son. Lura’s art is now shown
in Santa Fe and East Hampton. She
wishes everyone the best.
LOIS BLITZER BERNSTEIN plans to attend our 50th Reunion; a friend’s wedding prevented her from getting to our
45th. She played last summer for the
first time ever, but got back to work
as a fundraiser in the fall. Retirement
is not yet calling, and her husband is
still working. She loves being a nana;
her son’s children are 11 and 5 and live
nearby. She is busy working out; walking with friends; going to the theater,
movies, and concerts; and enjoying
the excitement of New York, with East
Hampton on the weekends.
ANNE CLARKE GABEL was sorry not
to be able to get to Reunion, but she
has had some great times with Gillett
friends she hadn’t seen for a while:
SALLY ROSS SCHROEDER ’61, who visited
Boston with her husband; JULIE JOHNSON LINDQUIST on her way to Maine;
and DIANE CAMINS SIEGEL, who was visiting with JILL GREENSPAN SCHIFFMAN in
New London. Jill prepared an elegant
luncheon for her and Diane, and they
chatted for hours. It means a lot to
stay in touch and realize how lucky
we are to have enduring friendships.
GINNY REX DAY was sorry to miss
Reunion. As a parish priest, her
weekends are full. By the 50th, she
will be retired, and able to attend. In
the meantime, she is looking forward
to a mini-reunion on Cape Cod with
FREDDY COBEY, SANDY BENSEN CALHOUN,
JANE CHRISTIE , and SHIRLEY SLATER
CROSMAN. Life in parish ministry is
a blessing and a challenge. It is like
being a CEO with multiple bosses—
much responsibility and many folks
with ideas about what is to be done.
Life is good. Her husband, children,
and grandchildren thrive.
BETTY BYRNE writes, “I’ll try to be
off to Phuket twice this winter, [but]
I want to spend Christmas at home.
Symphony work is expanding to yearround. Jacksonville, FL, is a really
booming metropolis. Love my small
1921 home!”
Editor’s note: Due to a fact-checking
error at the Quarterly offices, BETTY
BYRNE was incorrectly identified in
the Fall ’07 Quarterly as BETTY TURNER
BURNE. We apologize for the error.
Sec., Susan Teommey Rydell, 4422
Gaywood Drive, Minnetonka, MN
1963
Greetings to all you busy classmates!
I can’t believe that we have no news
for this edition! I will add my own
proud announcement: Granddaughter number two, Katelyn Elizabeth,
arrived on Aug. 16. Mom JENNIFER MYERS WELLS ’94, dad Jacob, and sister
Emily are all very excited.
Get your bags packed for our 45th
Reunion coming up in May!
Sec., Nancy Tipton Myers, 7 Sheffield Court, Beaufort, SC 29907,
[email protected]
1964
Vice presidents GINNY HAYMAN COHEN, LILE RASMUSON GIBBONS, and TONI
GROTTA WOLFMAN are at work on our
45th Reunion in May ’09. They tell us,
“We have plans to make the Reunion
creative, meaningful, and fun, and we
hope that many of you will attend. If
you are interested in helping out in
any way, large or small, please contact
Ginny at [email protected].”
SUZANNE WOOSTER WILSEY and JENNY KELSEY attended a beautiful 97th
birthday celebration for BETTY ROBINTON, MA ’42, given by DELIGHT WING
DODYK ’59. Suzie reports, “Betty was
remarkable and had wonderful conversations with her many guests. She
wants us all to know how very much
she appreciates the flowers we sent as
a class and the many notes and messages she received.”
NORMA TODD DODGE comments,
“Even though I may not have known
you, I could relate to most of you
who contributed to the Summer ’07
column. I am happily retired from
a job I loved, and I am traveling the
world and enjoying my children and
grandchildren. I have been widowed
for four years. My husband was given
seven wonderful years due to a kidney transplant. I am among the few
not dealing with health problems of
the older generation. My parents died
young, and my mother-in-law (my
best friend) is going strong at 93. I
do disaster recovery work through the
Methodist church. I worked locally
when Pittsburgh flooded and tornadoes hit nearby and also traveled to
the Gulf Coast. I have spent time in a
Moscow orphanage as well. God has
richly blessed me.”
MARGIE BARCLAY writes, “I continue to
divide my year between summers in
New York City and winters in Oaxaca,
Mexico. Ignore the overwrought news
stories about Oaxaca—it’s safe and
a wonderful place to visit. I created
a Website in English that is a daily
events calendar of Oaxaca City.”
KATE ALDERMAN RUBY retired two
years ago after many years as a legal
research librarian; husband John has
his eyes set on retirement later this
year. Daughter Susannah is a horse
trainer in Wilmington, NC, and Becca
is in vet school in New Zealand.
GRACE KAUFMANN writes, “Several
years ago I gave up my practice in psychotherapy and moved to my house in
Cutchogue on the North Fork of Long
Island. I was in the midst of a debilitating depression and could barely function. Fortunately, I’ve found wonderful help out here and am doing much
better. This is a beautiful and peaceful
area, which I find very calming. I’ve
done some literacy tutoring, sing in a
choral group, and belong to a wonderful quilt guild. I’m currently doing a
lot with glass, especially fusing and
jewelry; it’s a fascinating medium. I
see KATHY KEHOE RUHL often and went
to the premiere of her daughter’s play,
The Clean House. Wonderful!”
EVELYN WOLFF reports, “After working for 42 years, most of them in the
affordable-housing finance field, I
decided the time had come to shift
gears. I left my most recent position
at Centerline Capital in May, took the
summer off, and plan to get involved
on a part-time basis (voluntary and/
or for pay) in a challenging and fun
endeavor. Am open to new ideas and
adventures—bought a kayak, an iPod,
and a red sports convertible! I feel free
as a bird and love it.”
MARY LAWRENCE TEST writes, “SUSAN
WHEELER and I met in Paris for three
days around my birthday in May. It
was a lot of fun to celebrate turning
65 in the city in which I spent junior
year (where I celebrated 21) and also
to explore Paris with Susan. I go fairly
often, but she had not been back in
years. Last year we were together in
Rome and Malta.”
JEAN HOWELL says, “I’m still married to my wonderful husband, Rudy
Knauer. As a board member of the
Phoenix affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, I attended
the organization’s annual convention
in San Diego in June.”
CAROL SUDHALTER comments, “Since
2002 I have made several tours of Italy
as a jazz saxophonist/flautist, giving
more and more concerts and eventually doing a recording with a label in
Rome. My last trip was a big first for
me. Besides a month in Italy, I was
hired to play in Paris, and then in
England at Birmingham Festival, Swanage Festival, and a series called The
Friends of Upton Jazz.” Carol received
top billing and paired off with several
saxophone greats, and plans to return
soon. She adds that she was stranded
for two days by floods in Great Malvern (the home of Edward Elgar).
LINDA ROSENBAUM BUSCH retired a
year ago as an environmental planner for Middlesex County, NJ, where
she worked to preserve farmland.
She writes, “I love retirement and
do all the things I could not do previously. I take courses in New York
City on global politics and attend art
lectures in galleries and museums. I
joined a book club, take bridge lessons, play golf, and travel. Our youngest daughter was married this year,
and our older daughters are married
and have three children each. They
all live within an hour of our home,
and I spend a lot of time with each
family. Bert plans never to retire, but
he does take time off to travel and be
with family and friends.”
SUSAN SCHLANSKY KEITH reports that
her husband, diagnosed with chronic
myelogenous leukemia in Feb. ’07, is
responding well to an investigational
medication he is receiving through
the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Susan marked her
sixth anniversary of kidney dialysis
in July. She says, “We are indebted
to our lovely friends for support and
encouragement.”
JOAN MCLAUGHLIN BOUCHARD left the
day after her 65th birthday to fly to
San Pedro Sula, Honduras, where
she teaches middle school science in
a bilingual Episcopalian school. She
writes, “I’ll be away for a total of 30
months. I have good tenants, who are
letting my dog, Buddy, stay at home
with them while I’m gone. As much
cycling and bird-watching as can be
arranged will fill school holidays. I
tried for the Peace Corps but was
disappointed that their view of me
seemed to be of some future healthcare liability—their loss! Sadly, I won’t
be attending our next Reunion—the
first one I will have missed since
graduation. Someone else will have
to gather French House together.”
ANGELA DANIELS CARTER writes, “I retired twice and am on another mission
as family life consultant at the Wake
Correctional Center, a minimum-security prison in Raleigh, NC, under
the auspices of Lutheran Family Services. One of my interests is to obtain
my CTM, Competent Toastmaster
Award. There are so many stories to
tell, I have no problem finding topics
for my speeches. My greatest joy is
my family, especially my two granddaughters, 11 and 8. My husband,
John, and I moved to Raleigh from
Trenton, NJ, in 1999.”
JUDITH TICK reports, “I served as
the consulting scholar in residence
for this year’s Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood in Lenox,
MA, the summer home of the Boston
Symphony Orchestra. The festival,
directed by composer John Harbison,
was devoted to the generation of 1938,
a remarkable year that yielded many
important American composers of
contemporary classical music. I had
a great time interviewing 19 of them
and being around so many young
amazing virtuoso orchestral players
and singers who study there.”
WENDY OSSERMAN writes, “The
Wendy Osserman Dance Company
is in residence at the Chelsea Art
Museum. After appearing there five
times last season, we look forward to
continuing to respond to their exhibits. The company will appear at the
Hudson Guild Theater in New York
City, March 26–30. Daughter Liz will
complete her MFA in fine art at Columbia University next spring.”
Sec., Arlene Stolper Simon, 200 East
90th Street #27E, New York, NY
1965
Last summer was a busy one for
She visited her
Sessions roommate SUZANNE HICKMAN PRATT at her parents’ memorial
service on Maryland’s Eastern Shore,
and with PAT KEREN MANNING at her
mother’s memorial service in Washington, DC. Diana retired from the
stage and moved with husband Bob
to Texas Hill Country to enjoy Lady
Bird Johnson’s wildflowers. Daughter
Anne was married in July in Houston,
and son Woody, his wife Karin, and
their 7-year-old daughter and new
baby live in Denver. Stepson Chris
teaches in Germany. He brought his
two sons for a visit, and all of them
went to the Grand Canyon.
In June ’07, JONA BURGESS HAMMER
attended her 45th gymnasium reunion in Iceland. The gymnasium
is similar to our junior college, and
people identify with their gymnasium
forever, which makes reunions great
fun. Jona had hoped to see SVANFRIDUR LARSEN, but Svanfridur was busy
with her granddaughter, visiting from
California. They talked at length on
the phone. In 2006, Svanfridur published an interesting book, Af erlendri
rot (From Alien Roots), based on her
master’s research into 19th-century
translations of foreign texts into Icelandic. The book has been favorably
received and is considered an important contribution to the field of
translation studies in Iceland. Jona
heard an interview with Svanfridur
on Icelandic radio: She spoke very
positively about her Smith experience and how important it had been
to her even though she was only here
one year. Both Jona and Svanfridur
entered Smith as sophomores and
both are published authors.
ANN CLARK still teaches philosophy
at Saint Mary’s College in Indiana. In
fall ’06, they had a great time reading
Elizabeth Spelman, who at the same
time was mentoring Ann’s niece KATIE ANN CLARK ’10. Ann thanks Smith
for giving Katie such a wonderful
first year. In March, Ann and CharDIANA BLAND LINDER.
ley had a wonderful time with MARTI
in San Francisco. Ann has
become a registered yoga teacher and
loves teaching age 50-plus students.
“We have fun and feel lighter and at
home in our age.”
PRISCILLA (PIXIE) EAVES REISS reports
that the impact of Katrina in New Orleans is still enormous and in 2007
they were still repairing damage
caused by Katrina. “Nothing is as it
was,” she says, “but life goes on and we
are working to make improvements.”
Women of the Storm and Citizens for
One are two organizations created by
women to address all the issues. Her
son is a junior (a scholar and a football
player) at the University of Virginia.
Last spring, MARTY ENSEY CARNEVALE
purchased a condo in San Diego as a
getaway to visit family and friends.
During the summer in Sun Valley, she
enjoys hiking, biking, and tennis.
Since moving to Manhattan more
than six years ago, JOANNE (CHICHI) FOX
BRUMBERG has become immersed in
life there. ADELE SCHWEITZER REBELL
helped her take advantage of so many
things; it is hard to believe Adele
passed away more than two years ago.
Chichi has reconnected with SUSAN
JACOBSON EPSTEIN, and one day a week,
Chichi volunteers for the Paley Center
for Media. Another day is spent with
her daughter in Westchester and her
two boys (2 and 5) and “the light of
our lives!” Len and Chichi celebrated
their 40th anniversary. He works for
an REIT, which was purchased by an
Australian company. Their son continues interpreting for the deaf.
On July 4, ’06, SALLY HANFORD DAVENPORT became a grandmother to
Elsa, born to Sally’s daughter and
her husband. “Being a grandmother
is all it’s cracked up to be and then
some!” says Sally. Her son, Luke, is
in his second year of graduate school
at Columbia.
JANDY JONES BIRD and Jim continue to
enjoy their snowbird life, with winters
in Florida and summers in New Jersey.
Nov. ’06 brought the arrival of twin
granddaughters. With the twins’ 6year-old brother, they now have three
grandchildren. “We are busier than
ever in retirement,” she writes.
PAT KEREN MANNING’s mother passed
away in April just two months short
of her 96th birthday. She requested
that her life be celebrated at a party,
which DIANA BLAND LINDER , PAULA
FERRIS EINAUDI, NAOMI LYNN HURWITZ
GERBER, and WILMA (WILLIE) RICHLIN ANTMAN attended. In September, daughter Sarah entered UCLA’s School of
Public Affairs in urban planning.
Now everyone (including Jay, Maria,
and the two grandchildren) is in Los
Angeles.
In July, GLORIA MISHURIS BUXBAUM
and Larry Brand traveled to Alaska
to celebrate the wedding of her son,
Evan. They were married at their
home in Eagle River overlooking a
beautiful waterfall and river scene.
LITCHMAN
51
alumnae update
Evan is a pediatrician in Anchorage;
new wife Valerie has three children
(10, 7, and 5). Gloria is crazy about
her new daughter-in-law and instant
grandchildren. She just wishes they
lived a little closer. Her daughter, Deborah, lives in Waltham and works for a
consulting company. Gloria and Larry
spent another wonderful summer at
Cape Cod. She continues to take watercolor classes and loves the magic of
the paint. When in New Jersey, Gloria
teaches English to a lovely young Korean woman. They continue to enjoy
football games, concerts, plays, and
their two rescue greyhounds.
BEVERLY PARKER BINGHAM’s husband,
David, was diagnosed more than a
year ago with an Alzheimer’s-type
problem (severe short-term memory
loss). Says Beverly, “Because he has
always been a take-charge type guy,
I am having to gradually take over
running everything, including him.”
Their daughter, KIMBERLY BINGHAM
KNOPF ’79, moved from Severna Park,
MD, to Mill Valley, CA. Kimberly’s
husband is an oncologist, and they
have two children.
Life has been eventful for MARIANNE
SCHWARZ BENTLEY. In 2006, both her
daughters married wonderful young
men. In Aug. ’06, Marianne and her
partner, Willi, took a three-week trip
in their VW pop-top camper from
Tennessee to the Bay Area of California and up the coast to Portland,
OR, and back. They thoroughly enjoyed the wonderful state and national
parks they visited and only spent four
or five nights in real beds. She writes,
“I am amazed at what a vast and beautiful country we live in.” They visited
ANNE HARDING WOODWORTH and Fred
at their cabin near Brevard, NC, and
hiked and took bike rides along the
Blue Ridge Parkway. Marianne has
experienced the delight of becoming
a grandmother for the first time and
feels very fortunate.
At the 82nd commencement at
Brooklyn College, ROBERTA SIEGAL
MATTHEWS was honored for her six
years as provost and vice president
of academic affairs and received the
presidential medal. Commencement
marked the start of Roberta’s retirement.
Sec., Marcia Schofield, P.O. Box 686,
Solana Beach, CA 92075,
[email protected],
www.smith65.org
1966
My pitch this time invited comments
about the value of being in a women’s
group. For the past 20 years, I’ve sat
with different groups of women to
do personal writing, explore dreams,
search for our own creative vein of
gold, meditate, expand our inner
and outer peace, and share favorite
books. The friendships with these
women ebb and flow, but each has
added something unique to my life.
Some are my forever-count-on-for-
52
Some class of ’66 officers gather in Berkeley, CA. Pictured, left
to right, are Ann Shapiro Zartler, Diana Kopp McDonough, Ellen
Roop Fisher, and Sarah Cross Mills.
anything cohorts. I include my older
sister as an important member of
my larger sisterhood, although we’re
separated by a continent. We shared
a memorable trip to Ireland in June,
along with a small group of hobby
sheep breeders. (We don’t have sheep,
but we love knitting!) On my flight
east, it took only about 10 minutes to
discover that my seatmate was EMILY
MITCHELL THACKER, even though we had
never met! We started talking about
good books, then Maine, where I was
heading, which led to her mentioning
Colby, although that wasn’t where she
went to college. Where did she go?
Smith. What year did she graduate?
Such a tiny world!
VIVIAN JARRETT HARROWER writes
from Toronto, “I have been part of a
monthly book group for over 10 years
now. It really is a support group, and
sometimes we feel that we should just
’fess up and call it an eating group.
The basic group includes five women.
We always start with wine and hors
d’oeuvres as we catch up on our latest
news and emotional state. There have
been significant changes for all of us.
We have celebrated with one another,
and we have cried with one another.”
She’s grateful to her women friends
for “their strength, compassion, and
wisdom” in tough times. Vivian says
they tend to read books by women authors. She recommends Lori Lansen’s
The Girls, about conjoined twins, and
says an all-time favorite is Jill Ker
Conway’s The Road from Coorain.
ELLEN MOORHOUSE, also from Toronto, says, “Somehow, retirement goals
get sidetracked. I’ve taken up a new
career, teaching English as a second
language at a Toronto community college, hoping to take short-term jobs
overseas. My daughter is in her last
year at the university, while husband
Ken continues to work at the Toronto
Star, where we met more than two
decades ago.”
EVELYN ROTH FOGARASI shared this
important recent experience: After
a wonderful winter in Naples, FL,
returning to Baltimore in April, Evy
writes, “I was diagnosed with breast
cancer. Luckily it is stage I and my
prognosis is good, but it was a whirlwind of activity getting the diagnosis
(it did not show up on a mammogram
or sonogram), choosing the doctors,
and getting the necessary treatment.
I am lax about self-exams but for
some reason did one. I felt a thickening, not a lump, and went to the gyn
right away. My mother was a gyn and
I remember her saying that it didn’t
necessarily have to be a lump, any
changes should be investigated. A
very persistent breast surgeon did her
own sonogram and finally found an
area that she said looked a little different and biopsied it. I am very grateful
she didn’t just say, ‘Let’s watch it for
three months.’ Daughter Simone is a
pediatrician at Children’s Hospital in
New Orleans.”
DIANA KOPP MCDONOUGH writes, “I
have just been on an amazing vacation with my mother, the Garrison
Keillor Prairie Home Companion
Cruise to Norway! The cruise was
round-trip from Copenhagen to
Norway. The scenery was spectacular, and the entertainment unforgettable: the complete Prairie Home cast,
fabulous operatic performances, the
Kreutzer string quartet playing Grieg,
a Swedish New Orleans jazz band, and
ragtime piano. My mother, who is 86
and half Norwegian, had never been
to Norway, so she was thrilled with
everything. She even talked to Garrison Keillor in the elevator!”
NANCY WHITTIER BERGER recently celebrated her 40th wedding anniversary
to Walter and 40 years of loving life
in San Francisco. She continues to
enjoy walking and practicing obedience with her Westies and has been
busy lately with four adorable Westie
puppies.
NANCY THOMPSON GODFREY writes,
“I’ve been wedging work in between
wonderful visits back East to Greenwich, CT (daughter and her family,
my mom, sister, and friends), and to
Traverse City, MI, where my son and
his family have just moved. Tennis
camp in Telluride and some explorations in Colorado with husband Peter
rounded out the summer. My mom
sent me an article about the late BETSY
EDWARDS from the July 13 Manchester
(VT) Journal; she left a gift of $1 million to Planned Parenthood of Northern New England.” It says that Betsy
had been involved with the organization, but had never indicated that she
intended to make this bequest.
LARAINE LEBERFELD FERGENSON writes,
“I’ve been enjoying retirement, but
still keeping a hand in. I gave a talk
on Wuthering Heights to a local book
group recently and have an essay in a
book on teaching this fascinating novel. The book is part of the Approaches
to Teaching series published by the
Modern Literature Association.”
“John and I are still in Washington,
DC,” writes MARY SPIECZNY PODESTA,
“but the center of gravity of our family
is moving west. Megan and her family
are in the Bay Area, and son Gabe is in
law school at Berkeley. Mae is still doing foundation work in Africa (Liberia
now) but likely will be in California
next year. We log airline miles getting
together, often in Truckee, where we
see PAM SCHWARZ. We think we will
retire to the little place we’ve got there
and see if we tire of the dry air and
smell of pine needles. And that’s when
I’ll finally learn to knit.”
NANCY KROPP GROTE reports that she
and Bob moved from Pittsburgh to
Seattle last February: “Our children,
Sara and Hobey, live in Seattle with
their spouses and our five grandchildren, ranging in age from 4 weeks to
4 years old. Being with our family was
the main reason for moving.” Nancy is
an associate professor in the school of
social work at the University of Washington with a joint appointment in
psychiatry. Bob is retired. Says Nancy,
“We love visitors and especially welcome Smith friends!”
TOULA CHRISTAKI TOMESCU , MSW,
writes, “I have been in Dallas for the
last 30 years and have only kept in
touch with CATHY FITZGERALD BARNIER
in California. DIANA ZACARIAN was a
dear friend, and I still miss her.” Toula
has a full-time private practice and
is active with professional organizations. She regularly visits Greece, her
native land, and spent a month there
last summer with her husband and
son. She writes, “One book we discussed in a book club I started a few
months ago is The Faith Club. It is
the account of three women, a Jew, a
Muslim, and a Christian, who formed
a group after 9/11 to discover more
about the other faiths because their
kindergarten children were asking
questions.” Toula started the club to
engage in a deeper level of discussion,
and it seems to be working.
RUSTY TRUE BROWDER reports the
birth last May of granddaughter Ruby,
born to daughter Sarah and her husband. Rusty was grandmothering in
Austin, TX, while daughter and sonin-law explored the city for a possible
future move.
ALICE VAN BUREN KELLEY writes, “My
external life is flowing along its familiar channel, but my inner life is
manifesting the sort of choppy water
that comes when an outgoing tide
meets an incoming tide. Imagining
retirement on Cape Cod raises all
sorts of tumultuous questions: How
do I keep my important friendships
alive when I move far from those who
have been a regular part of my life?
What will my marriage be like when
my husband and I really share a house
rather than living very busy and very
different lives? I know that many of
us have already worked through these
questions, and I would love to hear
about their experiences.”
Sec., Sarah Cross Mills, 55 Brodea
Way, San Rafael, CA 949011,
[email protected]
Sec., Deborah Eaton Keeney, 71
Blueberry Hill Lane, Sudbury, MA
01776, debeatonkeeney@smith.
alumnae.net
1967
Sec., Dee Hopkin Lundberg, 120 Uncas Point Road, Guilford, CT 06437,
[email protected]
Sec., Joey Boise Budell, 2370 Leafmore Drive, Decatur, GA 30033,
[email protected]
1968
Sec., Nancy Hertz Ellis, 21 Zamrok
Way, Morristown, NJ 07960,
[email protected]
Sec., Carol Spielman-Ewan, 666
Upas Street #1603, San Diego, CA
1969
MARGOT LEVY finished her second
term on the Crested Butte town council in November. She writes, “It has
been an exciting, challenging eight
years, serving while Crested Butte
struggles with the growing pains and
pressures that assail so many idyllic
resort communities. I plan to celebrate by traveling to South Africa for
almost four weeks of bird-watching,
safari, and exploration with friends.”
PAT TARZIAN is returning to school to
receive a degree and then certification as a homeopathic practitioner.
She says, “I’ll be attending the Homeopathic Community School in Seattle and hope to receive my degree
in three years and my certification
around the end of the fourth year.”
Pat continues to teach yoga and will
participate in a yoga teacher-training
program. Son Kristofor has moved
back to Portland, OR, pursuing the
formation of businesses productive
for the environment.
JUDY NEISWANDER writes, “Bill and I
and our cat, Fergus, continue to flourish in Minneapolis. I had a book published last year by a small British press
on glass as an artist’s material, and
Yale University Press will publish my
next book in fall ’08 (finally!): Rooms
with a View: Cultural Liberalism and
Mary Seibert Goldschmid ’69 (left) visits with classmate April
Hoxie Foley ’69, U.S. ambassador to Hungary, and her daughter,
Catherine Foley ’02 (center).
the British Home, 1870–1914. It will
feel good to have this lengthy project
completed.”
BARBARA LAUREN still lives in Rockville, MD, and is associate director
of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions
Officers. Her work has involved her
as editor-in-chief shaping and shepherding two new professional books,
The Registrar’s Guide, which came out
last year, and The College Admissions
Officer’s Guide, which will come out
next spring.
SUSAN SMITH still works in the mental health field, doing social work for
the state of Connecticut. Family and
friends are fine. The school in Haiti
founded by a priest in her church is
doing well, with 300 children and
plans to build a bigger school in the
future.
In July, JUDITH FERSTER visited Smith,
with a stop at the new art museum,
appreciating its easy access and its
striking bathrooms (rightly listed as
exhibits). She then revisited the Boston area and caught up with LUCY MACK
and her husband.
ANN WOLKEN says that Venice was
beautiful and she enjoyed growing tomatoes and walking along the
beach. Daughter Cassie is in an MEd
program at UC Santa Barbara.
JANET WILLIAMS HARRISON writes
that her family celebrated the early
August wedding of oldest son Trent.
The couple live in New York City, and
are pursuing degrees respectively in
history at Columbia and neuropsychology at Stony Brook.
MARY SEIBERT GOLDSCHMID recently
retired as an economics professor and
business consultant, while husband
Harvey continues as a professor at
Columbia Law School. She writes,
“Three sons are almost off the dole:
one is a lawyer in Washington, DC;
another works for a hedge fund in
New York; and the third is in his senior year at MIT.” Mary and Harvey
dined with APRIL HOXIE FOLEY, the U.S.
ambassador to Hungary, when April
and Harvey spoke at the same conference. A highlight of the evening was
viewing two portraits on loan from
the Smith art museum. Another was
meeting April’s daughter, CATHERINE
FOLEY ’02, a freelance writer.
CHARLOTTE SQUARCY is celebrating
her 60th with her sister on a Mediterranean cruise, then visiting Welsh
relatives. She is looking forward to
hosting a Holland Dames reception
and rare map lecture at the New York
Public Library.
MARJORIE BARKIN SEARL and husband
Scott celebrated turning 60 with ANN
EBERLY CALVERT, whose children and
grandchildren hosted a surprise
birthday party. Meghan is a neuropsychologist at Brigham and Women’s
in Boston; Rebecca, married in June,
moved to Phoenix as a newly minted
vet; and Jamie is a bass guitarist with a
reggae band. Marjorie writes, “I have
completed 20 years at the Memorial
Art Gallery in Rochester, and Scott
is now the oldest ophthalmologist in
his practice.”
JUDITH VANDERKAY writes, “I will
make the big shift from one demographic to another—scary! But I guess
60 is the new 40? That’s good, come to
think of it, because we will be working
many years to come to pay off that
horrendous college tuition bill.”
CLAIRE FREEMAN WOLKOFF has been an
actuary and consultant at Buck Consultants, specializing in pension plans
and other employee benefits, for more
than 30 years, and is not ready for
retirement yet. Husband Allan is chief
of the new division of hepatology at
Albert Einstein College of Medicine,
Montefiore. Son Steven (Dartmouth
’97) lives in Santa Monica, with the
goal of being a movie director, but has
had success as an artist. Daughter Hilary (Dartmouth ’00) graduated from
NYU Law School and is an associate
at Cahill Gordon in New York.
MARGUERITE SMITH is very busy with
family; law practice; work for the
Shinnecock Indian Nation, of which
she is an enrolled member; and various volunteer efforts, including Cornell Cooperative Extension in Eastern
Long Island, NY.
PEGGY WOODBRIDGE DENNIS says her
husband, Bob, continues as director of
the macroeconomic analysis division
at the Congressional Budget Office.
Son Peter is in his third year at Catholic University Law School; Alex is at
McDaniel College. Says Peggy, “After
years of being treated for ADD and
clinical depression, Alex spent a summer having neurofeedback therapy,
and it worked!” Peggy is involved with
civic projects. She and her husband
are still working on the house they
built 17 years ago and took a great,
three-week vacation in Tanzania last
summer.
MARGI WITTIGSCHLAGER NAREFF has a
new woman in her life—granddaughter Eleanor, born in July, in Minnesota, where Margi spent a week taking care of 2-year-old brother Sawyer
Jon. Margi says, “At 60 we were tested
keeping up with a toddler, but we had
a ball.”
NANCY CHARLES MILLER is the interim
rector at Trinity Episcopal Church in
Williamsport, PA, and expects to be
there about a year.
LIZ GOODENOUGH finished work on
an hour-long documentary, Where
Do the Children Play?, produced by
Michigan Public Media, which will air
on public television. Liz is also editing
a study guide that helps parents and
teachers envision a better world of
outdoor play for children and would
love to hear from those of us who
might want a showing of the documentary in their community.
SUSAN STILLMAN would like to hear
from anyone who might be considering serving on the next slate of class
officers. If you are interested and have
time to devote to Smith, please let Susan know at [email protected].
Sec., Kathy Golden, 14 Knollwood
Road, Rhinebeck, NY 12572,
[email protected]
Sec., Rosa Leader Smith, 257 Park
Hill Avenue, Yonkers, NY 10705,
[email protected]
1970
Lots of news arrived for this issue.
ERIKA ROSENFELD moved to Riverside Drive in New York City in fall
’06, and enjoys a lovely view of trees
and the river. She says it’s like having
the country house she always wanted,
with the advantages of the city. Her
book Thomas L. Bosworth: Building
With Light in the Pacific Northwest.
NANCY FORREST is happy and healthy
in Arlington, VA, with husband David.
She spends weekends in Middleburg,
VA, trying to learn to ride her horse,
Jackpot. Son Joakim is terrific, living
with his wife and two children in Lake
Bluff, IL. MARTY CATHCART, NINA SHAPIRO, and SUSAN BUTTERWORTH LORD live
nearby and they see each other regularly, and she’s been in touch with JUDY
DWORIN. She also saw MARIE MONACO in
New York recently; NANCY NEEDHAM
HATHAWAY when she passed through
town last year; and LUCIA KITTREDGE
last year at her home in New Hamp-
53
alumnae update
shire. You can see she’s serious about
staying in touch, and she invites you
to visit if you’re coming to DC.
When I (co-secretary SUSANNA
NATTI) sent out a broadcast query
for news, I mentioned that I’d be
doing some mother-daughter bonding by helping my older daughter,
Lydia, paint her apartment in Nashville (she’s starting a PhD program
at Vanderbilt in religion), so ELAINE
DIEFENDERFER’s first words made me
laugh out loud: “Welcome to that
famous group, PWP, Painters Without Pay. And yes, it’s great bonding
and testing of patience.” She writes
that her mother and mother-in-law
passed away. Eldest daughter Pam received her master’s from SAIS/Johns
Hopkins in international relations.
Middle daughter Beth received her
MD from Baylor and is doing her
residency at Washington Medical
Center in DC. Elaine and husband
Tod visited youngest daughter Nancy
in Strasbourg, France. Elaine’s first
grandbaby was born in June.
HELEN LAZARUS FREEMAN has lived
in London since 1989 and now has
dual citizenship (as do her husband
and children). Husband Ron has retired from investment banking, and
is on a number of boards. Their elder
daughter, Hadley, is deputy fashion
editor of the Guardian newspaper
and a contributing editor to British
Vogue. Nell, their younger daughter,
is a photojournalist, specializing in
public health issues, and just won an
American National Press Photographers Award. Helen’s been studying
European art history at the Victoria
and Albert Museum—a course she was
introduced to by HELEN HEARD HETHERINGTON ’72. When in Washington,
DC, she sees LAURA ROSS BLUMENFELD,
her sister-in-law ROS AVNET LAZARUS
’64, and NINA SHAPIRO. She also sees
ROBERTA ROSENBERG WEINSTEIN ’67, the
best friend of Helen’s beloved sister,
MARTHA LAZARUS WEIDEN ’66, who died
of breast cancer in 2001.
JILL WOODROFFE BRÉHON is enjoying
her return to France after several
years in Beijing. She and husband
Daniel are delighted to be able to see
their sons more regularly. Yannick
defended his doctoral thesis in May.
Both he and brother David work fulltime and have apartments in Paris,
so Jill and Daniel are revamping the
interior of their house in the Paris
suburbs.
JULIE CAILLOUET MAY has been performing and stage directing. She is the
stage/artistic director for the Philadelphia Gilbert & Sullivan Union,
which recently took its production
of Iolanthe to England for the International G&S Festival. She writes that
since the death of her son 10 years
ago, she has thrown herself into local
community theater. She has played
Vera Charles in Mame and Katisha
in The Mikado. She also sings at weddings and funerals. Her husband of
54
An Albright class of ’70 mini-reunion in Mycenae, Greece.
From left to right are Helen (Ellie) Weist Karl, Margaret Joss
Stathopoulos, Peggy Devine Moore, Nancy Nathan Hair, Marcia
MacHarg, and Mary Caroline Parker.
almost 38 years has a successful feeonly investment advisory firm in West
Chester, where Julie works part-time,
and daughter Angeline lives next door
to them. Julie underwent cataract surgery in both eyes, and, for the first
time since fourth grade, no longer
needs glasses. She says, “It is strange
to be on stage and actually able to see
the audience!”
LYNN TORNOW GOODHUE’s younger
daughter graduated from Wheaton
College in 1999, finished her master’s
last spring, and got married in October. Her older daughter moved to
Ithaca, NY, with her husband of 10
years and their two children.
ROSALIE GROSS FOX and husband Lee
relocated to Dorset, VT, after more
than 30 years in the Boston area. She’ll
continue her writing business while
Lee expands medical device manufacturing for a local company. They
“remain enchanted by the varied interests and myriad accomplishments”
of their three children. She’d love to
hear from any ’70 Vermonters or travelers in her area.
MARION VERP’s daughter, Karen, was
married in May. SUSAN COHEN attended the wedding. Marion says, “Talk
about a mother-daughter bonding
experience!”
MARIANNA WOOD RICHARDSON and
husband Douglas celebrated their
25th wedding anniversary in the
summer, and she writes that they’re
celebrating it as an achievement, “just
because there’s so much hard work involved.” (Amen!) They’re most proud
of their two sons, Alexander (Brown
’07), who is studying Mandarin in Beijing, and Theodore (RISD ’06), who
is a furniture designer in Manhattan.
Marianna recommends Elizabeth
Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love.
ALICE BOROWSKI LAFOND did some
bonding of her own with her older
sister, Carol. They spent the summer together, first in Florida (Alice’s
place) and then in Nebraska (Carol’s).
Their summer plans included a visit
to Poland to sample the castles, culture, and cuisine of their ancestors.
Expectations were that they would
have a grand time; one of her sister’s
Nebraska friends told Alice, “You two
could have fun sitting together in a
ditch.”
DEIRDRE JACOBSON is recently divorced and has two daughters at
home. She’s still in the insurance
business, working for a property/casualty broker as an account executive
and also working on private equity
due-diligence projects. What really
excites her, though, is dance; she’s one
of the directors of an annual Israeli
dance camp held in the Hill Country in Texas every spring. And she’s
“trying her hand (well, wrong part of
the anatomy) at belly dancing.” Life
is good!
In May, PEGGY DEVINE MOORE met
MARY CAROLINE PARKER, ELLIE WEIST
KARL , MARCIA MACHARG , MARGARET
JOSS STATHOPOULOS, and NANCY NATHAN HAIR in Greece for a four-day
Albright House ’70 mini-reunion.
She reports that Marcia is a partner
at Debevois and lives in Frankfurt;
Margaret is a retired teacher and lives
in Athens; Peggy is retiring from PepsiCo and lives in Connecticut; Nancy
is the CFO for Bechtel and lives in
California. Mary Caroline runs several Montessori schools and lives in
Texas, and Ellie is a doctor and lives
in Washington.
MARY CAROLINE PARKER, writing about
the Albright mini-reunion, adds that
they enjoyed an introduction to
Greek history and culture as they
visited Corinth, Mycenae, Tyrins, and
Epidaurus. She says, “MARGARET JOSS
STATHOPOULOS’s well-annotated and
perfectly preserved photo albums and
1970 Smith yearbook brought back a
flood of memories.”
MARGARET MCCURLEY GILLIAM retired
in July ’06 from a long career in the
federal government, mostly with the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration. She spent
her first year of retirement touring
Denmark and Russia with elder daughter Beth, reconnecting with friends,
“getting the house back together after
years of slapdash maintenance,” and
planning Beth’s wedding (last June).
Beth is a medical student at the University of Maryland, and Mary is at
Cornell. David plans to retire in 2009.
They are still singing (for now, in an
excellent church choir).
GLORIA WEISSMAN had a year of “terrible lows and wonderful highs.”
Her father died in March, and her
ex-husband died suddenly in June.
Her daughters, who live in Chapel
Hill, are happy and well, and “the
path from her house to theirs is well
worn.” Three years after retiring as a
Fed, she finds herself swamped with
consulting work and busier than she
thinks she’d like to be.
NANCY OFFENHAUSER has attended
lots of seminars: Living Medicine in
Texas in May, The International Herb
Symposium near Boston in June, and
a chiropractic and yoga seminar in
September. Her health continues to
improve. She’s been corresponding
with women with endometrial cancer
who are not having hysterectomies.
DEBORAH SHAPIRO BARRY didn’t succeed in retiring in 2006. An opportunity to get back to her first love, publications, resulted in an original magazine
called six00threefive, after the ZIP
code of her hometown, Highland Park,
IL. She has spent much time rehabilitating from fibromyalgia: 10,000 steps
on a recumbent machine and up to
6,000 pounds of resistance per health
club visit! Son Bram and his wife are
in Chicago. Daughter Aurora, an elementary school vice principal, and
her hubby are in Norfolk, VA. On the
way home from a family wedding in
Baltimore, she and Al saw SALLY COULTON and husband Sandy in Annapolis.
She talks often with Smith roommate
DEB WOLFE LIEVENS. She’s always happy
to hear from Hubbard lassies!
And we’re always happy to hear
from you! We welcome your news
anytime.
Sec., Susanna Natti, 32 Independence Road, Bedford, MA 01730,
[email protected]
Sec., Margaret Clark, 3126 38th
Street NW, Washington, DC 20016,
[email protected]
1971
BETSY GARDNER JOHNSON writes,
“Left my job as interim executive director for the American Community
Gardening Association in June (the
interim was into the third year!), but
continued to be very busy for ACGA
by being the lead organizer for the
annual conference in Boston. Had the
fun of showing off many of our community gardens. Last March enjoyed a
two-week safari in Kenya and Tanzania. We met up with my daughter, who
had been working at a hospital.”
MARY O’KEEFE KELLOGG ’s daughter
started at Smith last fall. Mary says,
“Visitors welcome, as always, in our
corner of France on the border with
Geneva.”
Congratulations to KAREN ROSENBLUM LAWRENCE, who was named the
10th president of Sarah Lawrence
College.
OLIVE LIECHTY-DEPONTE writes from
San Rafael, CA, “We bought a house
a year ago and successfully concluded
one college and one high school career, and are embarking on the next
chapter in our lives. Son James graduated from Occidental College and
works for a geotechnical consulting
firm in Los Angeles. Daughter Lani
[started] Bennington in the fall.” Olive and husband Kelly (Stanford ’75,
UCLA ’81) took the Smith Travel trip
to the Dordogne, led by her former
government professor, Charles Robertson. She continues her volunteer
activities (membership/database)
with the Smith College Club of San
Francisco and Marin.
LENORE KRAMER MOHR writes, “My
daughter Michelle graduated from
Johns Hopkins University in 2004 and
is starting a graduate program in psychology. My daughter Lindsay graduated from Trinity College in May, is
working in New York City, and plans
to go to graduate school next year. I
am a judge of workers compensation
in New Jersey. My husband, Mark, is
a lawyer with his own practice close to
our home in Springfield, NJ.”
KATHY DUFF RINES continues to split
her time between Detroit and New
York City, where she recently got an
apartment on the Upper East Side.
Kathy’s older daughter, Jackie, lives in
New York and is establishing herself
as an artist. Her younger daughter,
Ellie, is a first-year at Union College,
outside Albany. Kathy continues to
serve on museum boards and National Endowment for the Arts visual arts
grants boards.
Sec., Elizabeth Soyster, P.O. Box 153,
Gibson Island, MD 21056,
[email protected]
1972
I asked, “What did you do on your
summer vacation?”—a chance to get
in a few vicarious activities myself!
Here’s what came back, but first, remember that question I posed right
after our Reunion: “What has given
your life its distinctive quality?” or
the option, “Can you see where a
crisis in your life ultimately resulted
in the birth of an opportunity?” Two
intrepid ones answered:
SUSAN SOLOYANIS: “Smith prepared
me to be the first woman to earn a
PhD in geology at the University of
Massachusetts. Since then, I have
assumed that anything is possible.
I pioneered working from a remote
location almost 15 years ago and just
convinced the company that I retired
from to hire me back as a contractor.
My most difficult transition (at 40)
combined job loss, business failure,
career change, translocation, and divorce. From that came a new career
that has allowed me to retire from
full-time work at 55.”
SUSAN GUTCHESS: “Almost every bad
event has turned out to have an excellent outcome, e.g., being dumped
by my former girlfriend gave me the
opportunity to meet Helen and have
a much better relationship, and being
relieved of my finance duties at the
National Trust gave me the opportunity to advance into planned giving. So, if you want to be a Pollyanna
about it, it’s always good to look for
the silver lining. I once made a list of
how I made significant decisions, and
almost all of them have been opportunistic—responding to potential crises
rather than as a result of a deliberate
life plan.”
KAREN CHANDLER talks about her
summer: “Mostly, I hosted other
vacationers. Part of the time, I teach
yoga, meditation, stress management,
creative visualization, swimming (for
kids mostly), and outdoor skills at the
spa of a luxury hotel on the island of
Hawaii. But, here, most of us only
leave to visit family (is that a vacation?).” Karen was headed for Cape
Cod, where her family still has a home
in Chatham.
Then there are the worker bees.
DIANA ZUCKERMAN: “I have spent my
summer nonvacation meeting with
congressional staff in the House and
Senate, trying to improve a soon-topass new law to make prescription
drugs, vaccines, and medical devices safer. I’m working with other
nonprofit organizations to fix this
bill, including breast cancer groups,
consumer groups, advocates for good
science, and groups representing patients whose loved ones were killed by
prescription drugs that they thought
would help them.”
BETH TAYLOR SOBILOFF: “I’ve been so
focused on building my business that
the only time I even went away was
to go camping with some friends one
weekend and watch one of our friends
who was drag racing in upstate New
York. Granted, we had a great time!”
IVY EBERHART BANNISTER: “This year it
was a cataract operation in a hospital
near my home in Dublin, Ireland. I
am making up for it by accompanying my husband to a conference in
Spain in September, and then going
on to New York for a month to hole
up writing.”
Londoner ROBIN ZIMMERMAN STEPHENSON: “Having a great time in
France. Just back from Cape Cod
for my niece’s wedding. Believe it or
not, Peter bought us a flat in Boston!
Send a man shopping and you never
know what he’ll come back with!
It’s on Commonwealth Avenue, just
three blocks from Boston Common,
so it looks like I’ll be in the States a
bit more frequently. I’m now the sole
president of the London Smith club,
so I’ll have a challenging year ahead.
I do look forward to meeting Boston
Smithies when I settle in.”
CATHY EATON : “This summer on
top of visiting Nova Scotia, Colorado, Maryland, and California to
see over 40 family members, I went
to Pugwash, Nova Scotia, to attend
the 50th anniversary meeting of the
Pugwash Peace Conferences against
nuclear proliferation. What a shame
we haven’t made more progress in
that time. Let’s work to end nuclear
bombing and the storage of nuclear
bombs.”
KIM SMITH NILES: “John and I have
moved from our wonderful farmhouse on the Groton School campus
to our own house on the other side of
town. We are now in the process of
consolidating furniture and stuff from
two houses; it’s a wonderful feeling
to have made a decision about where
we want to live upon our retirement.”
Kim’s mother died in June, so Kim is
also helping clear out her stuff. After
30 years, John is moving from admissions into a new post he created, director of communications. Son Ben is
teaching English at Pomfret School in
Connecticut. Kim is finishing up her
last season of shows and reorganizing
her business after 20 years.
ANN LEMON is close to having her
name in lights: “I was an extra on the
set of Eddie Murphy’s movie Starship Dave. I was discovered at a hiphop festival in New York City.” I feel
younger already!
LUCILLE SPERA: “This summer, my
children and I spent some time with
my brother and his family on Cape
Cod. Getting away from home helped
us to get back together and gave me
some perspective on life. I am happy
for the choices I’ve made in life, even
though those choices have made life
harder in so many ways. Single parenting a 12- and 16-year-old is very
difficult, and gone are the fantasies of
vacations in the South of France. Yet
I am so very glad that I have had the
courage to do what I wanted to do.
No doubt there are many of us who
feel that way.”
Keep in touch.
Sec., Mary Lindley Burton, 12 East
97th Street, New York, NY 10029,
[email protected]
1973
Planning is under way for our 35th
Reunion. SANDRA FERGUSON MCPHEE is
leading the planning efforts in consultation with other class officers
and would welcome your involvement and suggestions. To learn how
you can volunteer, please visit our
class Website by going to the AASC
Website (http://alumnae.smith.edu)
and clicking on “connect” and then
“class Websites.” One of the exciting
things happening is a class survey we
hope you will participate in. There
will be opportunities to explore the
findings at Reunion. Announcements
about the survey and Reunion planning have been e-mailed to the class.
If you are not getting these messages,
please go to the AASC Website and
update your contact information so
you can be a part of our communication network.
Who says you can’t go home
again? With the restructuring of her
husband’s investment management
firm, MARY ANN ALEXANDER LENTZ and
husband Preston moved last summer
to Mary Ann’s hometown of Honolulu. Mary Ann will be the director of
development at the Mission Houses
Museum, where she had her first job
as a 16-year-old museum guide.
SUZANNE FOLDS MCCULLAGH has spent
33 years at the Art Institute of Chicago,
where she is the Anne Vogt Fuller and
Marion Titus Searle Curator of Earlier Prints and Drawings. Suzanne is
involved in a major building program
that will include new galleries for her
department. Elder son C.W. (Rice ’05)
is an analyst for British Petroleum in
Houston. Younger son Gibson graduated from Groton and is premed at
Hobart. Suzanne is on the visiting
committee of the Smith art museum,
which gets her to Northampton on a
regular basis.
I received a lovely postcard of the
Amalfi Coast from E. HOPE FREEMAN
HUDNER. Hope has an art studio in
Rhode Island not far from her homes
in Providence and Little Compton.
She designs clothing and jewelry. Her
husband of almost 32 years, Mike,
continues to run his company and
own ships. Daughter Bay is a senior
at Harvard. Sadly, their son, Ripley,
died in a car accident in 2004. Hope
sends best wishes to all.
I’m thrilled that ANNE SMITH VOSBERG
sent news for the first time. She and
husband Don have been married for
33 years and reside in Tucson, AZ.
In 2006, Anne received an EdD in
educational leadership from Northern Arizona University. The best
part was that her two brothers and a
nephew traveled from her hometown
of Northampton, for the graduation
ceremonies in Flagstaff. Anne is in her
13th year with Pima Community College, where she is serving a one-year
term as dean of student development
for the downtown campus. Anne has
quite a history with Smith: her father,
uncle, aunts, and brothers all worked
with the College, and her mother, RITA
SMITH AC ’93, graduated at 75.
Another new contributor is JANET
BENN. For many years, Janet lived in
New York City, working in animation
production, first by hand and then on
the computer. She has worked with
the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV
series, Courage the Cowardly Dog,
and MTV. She also served as an adjunct lecturer in the arts department
at the University of Massachusetts.
She now lives in Boston, where she is
writing and illustrating a chapter in
a book titled How to Draw 50 Manga
Babies. The book is about drawing Japanese-style characters. Janet
would like to broaden her contacts
in Boston so she can do more writing
and illustrating.
CONSTANCE CUNDY BERGSVEN retired
last summer after 34 years in the
financial services industry. Connie
55
alumnae update
says the time was right since husband
Dave had been retired for six years,
and daughter Lindsey graduated with
high honors from the University of
Wisconsin in Madison with a degree
in environmental engineering. She
works with an engineering firm in
Kansas. After retiring, Connie and
Dave drove through North Dakota
and Montana, then headed north and
traveled to the end of the highway in
North Pole, AK, where Connie sent
her message to this column. Their
plans called for meandering through
Alaska before returning home after
two months of traveling. Connie stays
in touch with WENDY SHAW, KATE KANTER, and MARGUERITE MICHAEL BEASER,
all of whom she hopes to persuade
to attend Reunion.
HOON ENG KHOO relocated from
Singapore to Cambridge, MA, last
summer to work with the Asian University for Women Support Foundation as vice president for academic
planning. This new university will
be established in Bangladesh in late
2008, at which time Hoon Eng will
move to Bangladesh. On a personal
note, Hoon Eng’s sons graduated
last spring: Ming from Hastings Law
School and En from Dartmouth.
ELIZABETH KILCULLEN BLAKE is happily remarried to someone she met
at law school 33 years ago. She is
settled in Atlanta and her three sons
are flourishing: Addison (Williams)
works in Boston; Asher is a senior at
Vanderbilt; and Taylor is a first-year
at Emory. Elizabeth is at Habitat for
Humanity International, where she
is responsible for advocacy as well
as government relations and the legal department. She says that seeing
slums in Manila, Mumbai, and Guatemala City has changed her life: “Work
is wrenching but rewarding.”
SUSAN HODGE had a wonderful minireunion last April with MARTHA BALDWIN, who was visiting Aiken, SC. Having missed our 30th Reunion, Susan
is looking forward to seeing everyone
at our 35th.
Take care and write. We love hearing from you.
Sec., Mary Sneed Hinkel, 1718
Mason Mill Road NE, Atlanta, GA
30329,
[email protected]
1974
This is your class secretary, pleading!
Keep in touch! We are shooting for
100 percent participation for the 35th
Reunion, so I need your help to keep
us connected. Visit the Alumnae Association’s Web page at http://alumnae.
smith.edu, and log in under “Alumnae
Directory and E-mail” to update your
personal information. The directory
is most effective when information
is current. To ensure that your information is correct, log into the online
directory, then click on “Personal Information” at the top of the screen. I
would be forever grateful!
56
In Needham, MA, at the bat mitzvah of Jan Stager Cohen ’75’s
daughter are, left to right, Andrea Feld ’76, Jan, Tina Lafiosca ’75,
and Jane Warner Micou ’75.
KAREN BOLTON DANENBERGER writes,
“For the first nine years, I taught art at
a middle school on Cape Cod. While
doing this, I enrolled in a master’s
program in painting for teachers at
NYU that featured two summers of
study in Venice, Italy. In 1983, I married Bud, a petroleum engineer. We
spent five years in California, where
our daughter, Kristin, was born. She is
a senior at James Madison University.
Since 2001, I have been teaching oil
and acrylic painting to adults here in
Reston, VA, where we have lived for
19 years. I have been busy painting
scenes from my travels, particularly
of Venice. My artwork has been exhibited in solo and group shows.” Karen
and her husband traveled to Venice in
September in celebration of their 25th
wedding anniversary and the 30th anniversary of her first visit there.
MELINDA BILLS STEVENSON writes,
“In February, I had major abdominal
surgery (the fourth time since 1984),
and it was serious enough to keep me
hospitalized for three weeks and unable to eat anything for almost five
weeks. My husband was wonderful,
and so were Smith pals. This Smith
community is there when needed,
and as so many write in these notes,
we always just pick up where we left
off. A particular thanks to AMANDA
WALLIS BLUE for reams of jokes, JENNY
TUFTS ’76 for telephone yoga, MATHILDE
(TEIL) SILVERSTEIN, MARY ANNE FISCHER,
CATHY LEBLANC HIERSTEINER, KATHLEEN
LEE, DEBBIE GOTTHEIL NEHMAD, JANET
SULLIVAN STEIN, and DEBBIE BAHN HAGLUND. Their encouragement got me
through some dark times. Meanwhile,
I continue with the European Union’s
delegation to the United States (for
more than a quarter century now!) in
Washington, somewhat tied by health
requirements, and also by the very humane treatment that Europeans give
their employees, particularly when
illness strikes.”
SALLY COLLINS HONENBERGER reports,
“SARAH MEREDITH BOUCHER continues
to counsel in the Andover schools,
using her language skills. She and
husband Don took a break from new
grandparenthood to visit Italy and
Greece. ELISA MASELLI lives and works
for an international consulting firm
in Somerville, NJ. PEM COVINGTON’s
husband’s bank went public last year.
She has a daughter studying nursing
in Virginia Beach, and three other
children still in Rhode Island.”
ELISA MASELLI says, “I enjoyed seeing SARAH MEREDITH BOUCHER in August. Sarah grew up in Somerville,
NJ, where I live, and on a recent trip
to visit family, took time out to have
lunch and see my house and yard.
During a trip to Rhode Island, I had
dinner with PEM COVINGTON and her
husband at their home in Barrington.
SALLY COLLINS HONENBERGER is coming
to do a reading from her new novel,
White Lies, at the Princeton Smith
club. I am also enjoying being a business writer, earning a consultant’s
wages while sitting at my desk in
New Jersey without having to travel
like the road warriors who work with
our company.”
BARBARA BOCKHAUS KLAAS was at an
education conference in San Francisco in April. She had lunch in Sausalito
with ROCHELLE CABOT. It was fun to remember old times at Smith!
BARBARA LAURAIN was named language arts curriculum program coordinator of the South Windsor, CT,
schools. She also received a grant to
offer curriculum workshops to Hartford teachers in integrating the arts
into all curriculum areas. She rendezvoused with NANCY CAPLAN DOW
in New York in June.
LINDA GRAY writes, “My Fulbright
in Ukraine has been renewed for an
additional 10 months. Five months
in Dnipropetrovsk, and then the last
five months in L’viv. This will give me
a good understanding of both eastern
and western Ukraine. I have found
this experience to be fascinating. I
am teaching history and memoir in
a place where both are not quite accepted disciplines. I would love to
have visitors, or to hear from others
who are in Europe, Eastern Europe,
or the former Soviet Union.”
GAIL CHANDLER GASTON sent a picture of a chance meeting with BETH
KONKER WESSEL ’75 in Botswana! She
writes, “Jamey is spending the fall in
Florence, Italy (Colorado University).
Daughter Frances will be a sophomore
there this year. I see a lot of SUSAN
NICHOLS FERRIERE ’73, and SHARON
VOROS came up from Philadelphia
over my June birthday this year with
her daughter. Always fun to see her,
though not often enough.”
LESLIE ADELSON has just begun a
three-year stint as director of Cornell
University’s Institute for German Cultural Studies. She is studying Turkish to complement her longstanding
interest in German culture, which
began at Smith.
KAREN ABELMANN GROSS writes, “I am
entering my second year as president
of Southern Vermont College, a small
liberal arts college in Bennington, VT.
It was quite an amazing first year, and
I was delighted to meet several Smithies at the Harvard New Presidents
Institute. My husband commutes to
Vermont from our home in New York
for weekends. Other than business
travel, this is the first time in our 26year marriage that we have commuted—another interesting adventure.
Our son is obtaining his PhD at the
London School of Economics.”
JENNIFER ARTHUR reports from San
Francisco, “I just celebrated the 16th
anniversary of working for myself out
of my home office as a health-care
consultant. The freedom of working
for myself allows me to take a lot of
vacation time. This summer I did my
fifth house exchange, this time in
Normandy, France, for two weeks.
Previous exchanges included two
in Italy and one each in London and
Puerto Vallarta. A year ago I adopted
a 4-year-old male whippet named
Maestro. He keeps me active with
our long walks in Golden Gate Park,
but also keeps me company while I’m
working.”
AMY WROBEL LYONS reports that she
and husband David took a trip to Israel with radio talk show host Michael
Medved: “The ongoing crisis in the
Middle East demands the attention of
serious people.” Amy marked her 25th
year in private practice of law.
ANDREA GRAHAM was voted president
of the board of Stageworks Theater
Company in Tampa, FL. She says it
is a pivotal year for the company as
they raise money to build in one of
the newest entertainment districts in
downtown Tampa. Expected opening
of the new theater is fall ’08. ADRIANE
ISENBERG was a featured singer at the
theater’s masquerade ball in January. A summer vacation to Glacier
National Park in Montana was filled
with hiking, boating, biking, and
ATVing.
ELLEN SANDHAUS writes, “My hus-
band, David (Amherst ’71), and I
spent 10 days in June in Glacier National Park. Hiked for miles in the
mountains. In the resort town of
Whitefish, we kayaked the lake and
went to a fundraiser and met Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer (first
Democrat elected in 20 years). We just
missed the 100-degree temperatures
and wildfires!”
BILL WALTON, MFA, writes, “Thanks
to the SAQ class notes, TIM BUCHMAN
called and we are meeting in New
York for a mini-reunion. All are welcome!”
STEVY MASSOFF FELDMAN writes, “The
boys graduated from college in May;
Nate from the University of Tampa
with a degree in marketing and Matt
from Adelphi University in education.
Matt plans to pursue his master’s in
health ed; Nate decided to put off grad
school. In June we also celebrated the
graduation/ordination of my brotherin-law from cantorial school. Michael
and I had another wonderful trip out
west last summer, trading in our beloved canyons of Utah and Arizona
for Yosemite. Of course we ended in
Vegas as always. I continue to write
and edit tests for state ed and teach
sixth-grade Latin in Lynbrook—five
more years to go.”
DEBBY SCHAUFFLER reports, “I skipped
the first week of school last September
to drive my son Alex to Appleton, WI,
to start his first year at Lawrence University. Brought back many memories
of arriving at Smith with my Aunt
Winky in fall ’70. My daughter Robin
graduated from University of Puget
Sound with a degree in theater two
years ago. She is now working at the
university as the scene shop supervisor. I am still teaching English and
humanities and working as a dean at
Oregon Episcopal School. With Alex
off to college, it’s just me and the cat
at home. I joined a peacenik women’s
choir, Aurora Chorus, which has been
a wonderful experience.”
CHRISTY JONES BITTENBENDER writes,
“Chuck and I are heading to a biking
trip in Provence. We have been biking in the beautiful Cleveland Metro
Parks all summer to get in shape. All
is going well for Peter, who is in his
first year of an internal medicine residency at the University of Michigan.
Jeff is getting some experience in the
field of landscape architecture before
possibly heading off to grad school
next year.”
PATTI JONES LANG reports, “Daughter Katharine spent the summer in
Georgetown as a Placido Domingo
intern at the Washington National
Opera. She will graduate early in December and is now job-hunting. We
celebrated my dad’s 80th birthday in
July, with a backyard barbecue, banjo
player, and lots of cousins, aunts, and
uncles.”
Sec., Martha Redeker, 3041 South
Sequoia, Salt Lake City, UT 84109,
[email protected]
1975
Sec., Lyn Wehmann Magness,
[email protected]
1976
Lots of news this round, so here
goes.
LUCY ASHTON VAN ATTA happened by
her neighborhood Baptist church in
Greenwich, CT, and, when they discovered her college connection, ended up speaking about the late YOLANDA
KING at the Sunday service in which
Yolanda was memorialized.
SUSAN BABCOCK lives in Riverside, CT,
pursuing executive search/executive
coaching opportunities, playing tennis, and road biking. The documentary film Farmboy, for which she was
executive producer, won a New York
Emmy in April for original soundtrack
and is being shown on various public
television stations and at screenings
across the country.
KIM BERGESON HORTON and family
took a two-week safari to Kenya to
celebrate son Cliff’s graduation from
Columbia (engineering) and daughter
Laura’s graduation from Greenwich
(CT) High School. Laura is now at
Boston University.
JEANNE BLAUNER lives in Lancaster,
MA, with daughter Allie, 14, and is
just back from leading two Sierra Club
trips in Maine.
TOM BOYER, MA, went from music at
Smith to Columbia Business School,
to product management, to Harvard
to revisit musicology. Now he is remarried, living in Florida, singing
professionally as a church soloist, and
teaching marketing management at
the University of South Florida.
CONNIE CONTANT KNAPP has been with
U.S. Customs for 31 years and was
recently promoted to supervisory
import specialist in Champlain, NY,
a major port of entry, where she will
be in charge of textile imports. Connie
and husband Perrin celebrated their
25th last year, and have two daughters
at Clarkson. They enjoy their summers at Cayuga Lake in the Finger
Lakes.
JENNIFER LENOX CRAIG’s son Mike is
a first-year at Princeton, Andrew is
a junior at Lawrence Academy, and
Jessica is a high school first-year at
St. Mark’s School. Jennifer has gone
back to work part-time at Harvard
Business School.
SUSANNE DUNLAP became a grandmother in January to Sofia, her daughter’s first. Susanne is in advertising in
New York City, and her second book,
Liszt’s Kiss, was published in April.
SUZANNE FURLONG HIGGINS is a thirdgrade teacher in Longmeadow, MA.
Tom still works for Baystate Medical
Center in Springfield. Daughter Amy
graduated from Dartmouth, Matt is
a senior at Boston College, and Will
is a first-year at Middlebury. Suzanne
and Tom celebrated their 25th with a
long-awaited trip to Europe.
MARYLOVE HEARTY MOY is a financial
planner for MetLife, and is studying
for her CFP designation. Architect
husband Eric spends a lot of time in
Dubai. Oldest son Liam is married;
two grown wonderful sons with special needs are thriving.
SHEILA HEFFERNON is in her 28th year
at Northfield Mount Hermon School
in Massachusetts. One daughter graduated from Connecticut College and
is teaching in northern California.
Her oldest son is a senior at Babson,
and her younger son is on the college hunt. Congratulations to Sheila,
who was honored when a new rehearsal hall in the Northfield Mount
Hermon Rhodes Center for the Arts
was named in her honor. The naming
announcement was made on the occasion of Sheila’s conducting of her
25th Sacred Concert at the school,
where she chairs the performing arts
department and directs the choral and
music programs.
MARY HUGHES BICKERTON has been a
lawyer for the Federal Reserve for 23
years. The twins are seniors at Wesleyan and Hamilton. Mary is studying German and learning to knit, as
well as serving on the boards of two
law-related nonprofits. She and Scott
recently celebrated their 27th anniversary in Seville.
LOUISE JONES MCPHILLIPS and Frank
celebrated their 30th on a driving
tour of England. Louise and her
sister CAROL JONES GUTHRIE ’72 took
their 86-year-old father to Paris in
the spring. Mom BARBARA HOPKINS
JONES ’43 is in a nursing home in Birmingham, AL, where the McPhillips
family lives. One son is in law school,
another graduated from Harvard and
covers the Red Sox for a Major League
Baseball Website, and the third is a
sophomore at Harvard.
REBECCA JUDGE chairs the economics department at St. Olaf College
in Minnesota, the first woman to
hold the position. She was happy
to see MAURA O’DONNELL KELLY when
she came to Minnesota to attend the
confirmation of her goddaughter,
Rebecca’s daughter Emilie.
PATRICIA LEE is a partner at Kelley,
Drye & Warren in New York City, specializing in corporate finance and securities work, especially international
commercial transactions and project
finance. She has been married for 21
years to a professor of political science
at Purchase College, whom she originally met while in Peru during college,
and was later reintroduced to by LIZ
BAUCH ’77, who ended up a bridesmaid
at their wedding. Their daughter was
adopted in Peru 15 years ago.
ELISSA LICHTENSTEIN leads the public
services division of the American Bar
Association in Washington, DC. She
lives in Silver Spring, MD. Daughter
Jennifer is a high school junior.
After a 10-year struggle with major
family health issues, the loss of her
mother, and a divorce, VICTORIA LYON
MARTIN is moving both her interior de-
sign business and herself and two kids
into a new location in Old Greenwich,
CT, after many years in Stamford.
CECILIA MARINO GARRITY and family live in Milton, MA. Son Jon is at
Harvard; daughter Jackie is a firstyear at Tabor Academy.
CONNIE MENAND MARGOWSKY lives in
Somersworth, NH, where her daughter is a high school senior. Connie is
a mortgage consultant; her Egyptologist husband is a writer. Connie has
been active on a local political committee, and has helped to open The
Democracy Factory, a nonaffiliated
information station about Democratic campaigns for national office
that also provides voter registration
information.
LIZ OATES was appointed chair of the
department of diagnostic radiology
and is a tenured professor of radiology
at the University of Kentucky Medical
Center in Lexington. Her husband is
a radar systems engineer; daughter
Victoria is at Colby-Sawyer College;
Olivia is at Brown; Cecilia is a seventh-grader at North Country School
in Lake Placid, NY.
FRANCES OLIVER spent four weeks
in China studying Zhineng Qigong,
recognized worldwide for its healing
power. A highlight of the trip was
the week spent in the ancient Fuhu
Nunnery on Mount Emei, one of four
sacred Buddhist mountains in China
and a UNESCO World Heritage site,
in Sichuan Province.
LILLIAN PLINER was recently named
acting division director of hematology/oncology at the University of
Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and is also senior medical director for Care Alternatives Hospice. In
her spare time, she is a road cyclist
and had planned to participate in the
Pan-Mass Challenge. Daughter Kate
is a Juilliard precollege violinist; her
younger daughter is 13. Their activities have allowed her to have a lot of
contact with Smith friends JAN BARBOUR CARHART ’75, HELEN MROSE, and,
during a recent trip to Paris, MACEY
BIERMAN SMITH ’75.
CINDY REED VELTRI’s daughter entered
Smith this fall. Cindy’s younger sons
are both at DePaul Catholic High
School in Wayne, NJ. Cindy works
as a child study team social worker
in West Milford, NJ. She and husband
John (Holy Cross ’75) celebrated their
27th anniversary this year.
CATHERINE STIRLING has moved to Annapolis, MD, where she spends a lot of
her free time sculling or sweep rowing
on the Severn River, and working in
disaster response for animals.
SUSAN TALSKY PASTER and husband
Ken visited us from Scarsdale, NY, and
JANE MURPHY SARGENT came over from
Moorestown, NJ, for dinner. Susan
works part-time for Snaidero Kitchens in Greenwich, CT, as a kitchen
designer. Her two daughters live in
San Francisco; her stepdaughter is
57
alumnae update
at Indiana University; her stepson is
a high school junior. Jane works for
Comcast Corporation. One son is a
sophomore at Loyola, the other is a
high school senior.
NEILA WOODWARD BROWNSTEIN and
Mark and daughter Hannah live in
Londonderry, NH, where Neila is
an instructional aide at North Londonderry Elementary School. Hannah
is in sixth grade, and Mark works for
an environmental engineering firm
in Boston. Neila and Hannah enjoyed
our 30th Reunion, sharing a great
weekend with JENNIFER GOLD LEVY
and her daughter, CLARE OLLAYOS, and
ROBIN KELLY MCCANN and Chuck.
Thanks again to all who have responded to my e-mails. I really enjoy
hearing from you!
Sec., Sally Scott Moser, 301 Caversham Road, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010,
[email protected]
1977
Greetings from your new secretary
and many thanks to all who wrote to
share your news for my first column
for the Quarterly. Please continue
to send your news, no matter how
grand or trivial—we all love to hear
from you!
I enjoyed the entire summer in our
newly renovated home in Chatham,
MA, along with husband John, daughter Ashley, 11, and new Welsh terrier
puppy Maggie. It was the first summer
I have not been working in as long
as I can remember and it was heaven
to have the summer off, to run and
take walks every morning, to lounge
at the beach, and to enjoy nights in
Chatham!
LYNN FRUEHAUF CHARLTON writes to
announce her marriage to Lev Wood
in June. They honeymooned in Bermuda and live in Grosse Pointe, MI.
PENELOPE CORCORAN is still reveling
in the gray skies of Seattle, WA. After three years as the restaurant critic
for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer Penelope returned to Amazon.com to
manage site merchandising for its
online gourmet food store, which
made her realize (again) why she’d
left Amazon the first time. After a
short trip to Oahu in January, she
joined Brooks Sports Inc., as its content manager/marketing copywriter.
Belatedly celebrating her 50th birthday, Penelope visited Vietnam at the
end of August with a small culinary
delegation organized by PeaceTrees
Vietnam. Penelope enjoys spending
time with MARY LOCKHART ’78, who
relocated to Seattle in 2006.
FRAN BLACK writes that after 12 years
with Paramount Pictures, she moved
crosstown in Los Angeles to become
senior vice president of Columbia
Pictures. She says, “It’s a challenge
to learn new ways of doing a very familiar job but it’s been great to shake
life up a bit.” Children Cora and Ian
are now 12, and she and her husband
anticipate that life as they knew it will
58
be shaken up quite a bit as the teen
years approach. Fran enjoyed Reunion
and reconnecting with old friends SUSIE SIVARD, ANNE BARNUM ALEXANDER,
and NANCY GLOWA.
JAN VACHULE SHEEHAN writes, “Reunion was amazing and I only wish
more of us could have made it to
Smith to reconnect and enjoy what
has to be the most beautiful college
campus on the planet.” Jan writes that
she saw Aix-en-Provence roommate
BARRETT ASHTON ANDERS twice in May,
once at Reunion and again in Los Angeles. Jan took her youngest daughter to Washington, DC, for a summer
politics program and had a great time
visiting with PAT TAZZARA and MARY
HAINES . Jan and Mary pored over
her Paris junior year abroad photo
album and memorabilia: “We talked
about the idea of having a Paris JYA
reunion for ’77s as well as those from
other colleges.” Jan wonders if anyone
would be interested. Jan’s oldest is at
Stanford. Jan reports she is happily
divorced, still working in public relations, and very happy to be moving
into a newly renovated Spanish circa
1930 duplex in Beverly Hills.
SHARON JUNGREIS BOWERS and
husband Nigel continue to live in
Charleston, SC.
LAURIE GODFREY writes, “The big
news in my life is that I just completed my doctorate in psychoanalysis from Vermont Graduate School
of Psychoanalysis, and it feels great.”
Laurie’s work included a study that
looked at emotional obstacles to second-language learning for immigrant
children in elementary school, and
demonstrated the value of play therapy in helping these children learn.
Her study opened up new career avenues, and she is deciding what else
to do besides her clinical practice in
New York.
BETSY BYERS writes that her 11-yearold son played All Stars, and she took
him to Washington, DC, to show him
the sights.
RACHEL COAN writes about the July
29, ’07, article in the New York Times
special education section about unofficial slogans of institutions of higher
learning. The article mentions the
double entendre celebrating Smith’s
centennial—“a winner of a slogan
contest and still quotable more than
30 years later.”
MICHELE GAGNE KINNER met up with
VICKY LYNCH KNIGHT and KAREN DAY.
Michele and Karen meet regularly
in Manhattan, but they had not seen
Vicky, who lives in Los Angeles since
her marriage 17 years before. They
had a great time catching up (all are
mothers of boys) and discussing their
respective careers. Michele writes that
she and her family have now lived in
Greenwich, CT, for 15 years. Michele
commutes to New York City to manage private equity fund investing for
a global multifamily office. Husband
Steve teaches tech ed at a Greenwich
middle school. Son Christopher is a
sophomore at Harvard, and Ryan is
a senior at Green Mountain Valley
School. Michele’s mother-in-law, HELEN AFFHAUSER KINNER ’39, still lives in
Florence, MA, where she grew up.
CARLIN LEEPER KNIGHT writes that after
many years in social work administering the legal department of her county
child welfare agency, she went to law
school, graduating in 1994. She is in
private practice with her own firm in
Media, Delaware County, PA, concentrating in family law and adoption.
She reports that her social work skills
have been invaluable to her law practice. She adds, “My children are grown
and have children of their own (one a
senior in high school, one a senior in
college, and another graduated from
college a year ago and is a labor and
delivery room nurse).”
HARRIET MADOFF OSWALD writes to
announce her marriage to C. Jefferson
(Skip) Parker in July, in Greenwich,
CT. The service was held in an outdoor chapel of St. Paul’s Episcopal
Church, officiated by Rabbi Richard
Chapin. The bride’s attendants were
Harriet’s daughters, Sascha and Charlotte, as well as Harriet’s niece Amelia, all granddaughters of JANICE DIETZ
MADOFF ’39. Smith friends at the wedding included GRACE YEOMANS THALER,
FLORENCE QUINN, and Harriet’s sister,
who started at Smith but transferred
to Brown.
MARJORIE MEIMAN-ROBINOWITZ loved
Reunion and enjoyed her summer at
home in Scarsdale with lots of swimming and barbecues, and a getaway
to the Cape. Her daughter, Lara, is
7. Marjorie has begun a new career
taking photos for the local newspaper. She writes, “Photography allows
me to be with Lara whenever she is
home and to pursue my own interests
simultaneously. Photographing kids is
very rewarding.” Husband Joe (who
was with Marjorie at Reunion—remember the karaoke sing-along?) was
appointed editorial director of Rupert
Murdoch’s recent publishing ventures
in the New York area.
Sec., Sandy MacGregor O’Brien,
70 Apple Blossom Lane, Lynn, MA
1978
Thanks for your news! Herewith,
1978 continues to celebrate as we enter the “51-derful” realm! First, three
of us send news of their publications
and their lives.
KATIE CHAMBERLIN COMPTON (aka
C.R. Compton) is the author of two
mystery novels: Holy Comfort, published in 2006 by Hilliard & Harris,
and Leaven of Malice, coming soon.
She writes, “As for real life: Children
include one college graduate (Mary);
one in college (Wheeler); and one
with a year more of high school (Susie). Husband Paul is a vice president
at Smith Barney; I still work at Washington University in St. Louis—gotta
keep that day job.”
NANCY HIRSCHMANN writes, “I spent
my 50th in Florence and Rome, where
my husband and I splurged at expensive restaurants and shopped for
paintings. My 50th year has gone well
professionally: I was given a named
endowed chair (the R. Jean Brownlee
Endowed Term Professor in the Department of Political Science) by the
University of Pennsylvania, and two
of my books were published (Feminist Interpretations of John Locke and
Gender, Class, and Freedom in Modern Political Theory). I’m now working on a political theory of disability
and illness—hey, why not turn the
lemons of an aging, declining body
into the lemonade of another publication! Seriously, it’s fascinating stuff
that we’re all going to be facing all too
soon, if we haven’t already faced it. I’m
looking forward to our 30th Reunion,
though dreading seeing how many are
using Botox, upping the ante in the
battle against middle age!”
ELLEN MANDINACH recently took a position as a senior research analyst at
the CNA Corporation in Alexandria,
VA, where she commutes two days
a week from New Jersey. She is anticipating the publication of her third
book, Linking Data and Learning, by
Teachers College Press. She was also
elected president of the American
Psychological Association’s division
of educational psychology. When not
working, she travels the world with
her husband, this year to Scandinavia;
plays competitive tennis; and enjoys
the company of their beloved cat, Sir
Maximilian.
Many of us are involved in college
applications for our children, getting
kids to college, helping kids and adopted Smithies postcollege, etc. What
were the experiences like for you? And
what’s next as those nests empty out?
I hope to report after getting our son,
Adrian, to Brown University this fall.
He was accepted early decision for
the class of 2011 and is excited about
this new venture. His sister, Zoë, a
first-year at East High School in Denver, is watching his every move for
planning her high school and college
adventure.
DOT MARKS BROWN writes, “We attended college graduation for our
son, Andy, this year, and the P-rade
at Princeton was very like Ivy Day except for all the beer. I felt old enough
to have a kid graduating from college,
but when we met his future in-laws
I really felt like Methuselah! Now he
has moved to Santa Clara, has a new
car and a job and an apartment. His
girlfriend is a lovely Princeton ’07; her
aunt is BEVERLY BAYNES TOMB ’75. Our
daughter, Beth, had a successful first
year at Cornell. The dogs are aging
badly, but at least they don’t talk back!
I look forward to seeing all of you at
Reunion next spring!”
LYNNE BUSH writes, “I’ve been working at UC San Diego for five years,
as senior editor for the Institute on
Global Conflict and Cooperation.
Prior to that I was managing editor
for the political science journal International Organization. I finished
my MFA in creative writing in May
’06. Cindy and I will celebrate our 21st
anniversary in September. We bought
a house in Normal Heights, an older
neighborhood in San Diego, 13 years
ago. (Yes, it’s really called Normal
Heights!) Have an excellent network
of friends, including KATIE MICHELMORE
’98.” Katie contacted Lynne through
the Alumnae Association for advice
about careers in publishing, and they
struck up an e-mail friendship. Katie
came out to visit and has lived there
ever since. Lynne writes, “I consider
her an adopted daughter and am
very pleased with how being open to
helping the next generation of Smith
women paid off so beautifully.”
Sec., Stephanie Urban, 2560 South
Garfield Street, Denver, CO 80210,
[email protected]
1979
NANCY AGNEW writes, “I celebrated
my 50th on a Caribbean cruise in
June. I’m finishing the first year that
my mother moved to Chapel Hill
from Wellesley (after 52 years). She
is in her own house, and I’m enjoying having her here to do things with
(and make her attend concerts of the
choral society I’ve sung with for 22
years).” Nancy works part-time for a
software company and part-time as a
Feldenkrais practitioner.
DEBRA BARBEZAT chairs the economics department at Colby College.
Husband Jim is an economics professor at rival Bates College and is an
economics consultant. They have a
son, Conor, and Debra is preparing
herself “for the agony of separation
when Conor goes off to the University of Chicago this fall. As he told us
when he was 10, he plans on being a
‘real scientist,’ none of this social science stuff that occupies his parents.
In honor of my 50th birthday (and the
empty nest) I bought my first horse.
Best wishes to all celebrating their
50th this year!”
BETH DEVINE HART writes, “I am still a
library media specialist with the New
Haven public school system, a job I
love. Husband John (UConn ’79) lost
his job with Bayer after 23 years as
a research scientist, as did all Bayer
employees in Connecticut. What a
shock. Fortunately, he found another
job in his field (bioinformatics) but
now has a long commute. Son John
(Gettysburg ’06) started his first job
as a high school music teacher. Son
Christopher, a senior in high school,
has started his college search. Tuition
payments start again soon!”
BECKY FOUST was looking forward
to attending the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference at Middlebury College after a summer at the Cape. She
writes, “It’s been a great year, with
Michele Gagne Kinner, Vicky Lynch Knight, and Karen Day, all
class of ’77.
Brian running competitively again,
all three kids thriving, and my new
writing career taking off. You will
find my poems in the fall ’07 issues
of Atlanta Review, Margie, Nimrod
International Journal, North American Review, Taproot Literary Review,
and, sometime next year, in Poetry
East and South Carolina Review. I’ve
also published two short essays, but
poetry is really where my heart is.”
SIAN GIBSON ROLLWITZ writes, “While
doing graduate work in English literature at the University of Toronto
with Northrop Frye, Bloom, and the
like, I met John (now my husband of
25 years), who was studying ancient
languages. He morphed that into a
career at BMC Software. Here in the
’burbs of Houston, I recently hung
up my PTO president cap and have
returned to teaching English lit at a
local college. We have three amazing
kids: Andrew, an accomplished watercolor artist, begins his junior year
at Texas A&M; Geoffrey (named with
fond recollections of Bucky Harward’s
Chaucer class) is finishing his last year
of high school. He is our tech wiz. Emily is in seventh grade. She is lovely,
athletic, and extraordinarily strong,
having conquered bone cancer when
she was 7.”
MEG GREENE MARABLE writes, “My
daughter, Esme, is preparing to start
her sophomore year at Barnard, having adored her first year there. One
of her best friends from high school
and that friend’s sister are at Smith
and loving it.” Meg continues work
on her novel, now an adult tale, set
in Dark Ages Scotland and England.
Her primary reason for “choosing an
R rating: If life expectancy in early
medieval Britain is something like
30–35, a body is about halfway there
at 17, so one better get busy. The
other reason is that it’s fun to write
the naughty bits.”
CINDY HARRIS writes, “After our older daughter, Sharon, left for college
(UMass), we adopted an exchange
daughter, Eva, from Germany so that
Rebecca would have some company.
That worked out so well that Rebecca
and I spent a month traveling around
Europe, ending with nearly two weeks
with Eva’s family in central Bavaria.
On our way home through Frankfurt,
we spent a day with our incoming exchange daughter, Juliane, who arrived
in Pittsburgh a month later and was
another joy to have around. Meanwhile, Rebecca was accepted early
decision at Smith. So my husband
and I are now the proud parents of a
class of 2011 Smithie.”
BARBARA JACOBS WOLF writes, “Still
enjoying working for Kubera Portfolios, investment management for
individuals, foundations, and small
businesses that focuses on global,
environmental, and economic sustainability. Turned 50 and decided to
celebrate all year! I am blessed with
wonderful friends and family and
have enjoyed celebrating with them.
Watched my oldest, Will, graduate
from high school. He will head to
Penn State’s college of engineering.
My three boys (Will, 18; Jordan, 15;
and Evan, 11) are happy, healthy, and
safe (most of the time). Still have the
same great husband, who is one day
younger than I am.”
CAROLINE KEENEY MEYERS writes,
“Two years ago we moved to Amherst,
MA, where I’m the pastor of the South
Amherst Congregational Church.
Construction on Route 9 (hasn’t that
been going on for the last 30 years?)
still makes getting to Northampton
a pain, but I get over there on occasion to remember what big-city life
is like. Husband Tom works in the
trust department at Greenfield Savings Bank; daughter Rebecca (who
came with me to our 25th Reunion)
is 13; son Sam is in sixth grade. I’m
in the planning stages of co-authoring
a book on church stewardship with a
seminary friend, and am embarking
on my first experience in helping to
lead a half-million-dollar capital campaign. I’ve been both awed and moved
by SUSAN HOAG BADEAU’s writings in
Sojourners’ online magazine. Far too
irregularly I see JUDY HANSON HUEBER,
who runs the Chesterfield Inn in New
Hampshire; SUSAN TOWNSLEY ’83, a
colleague in ministry; and KATHLEEN
PEETS ’91, godmother to Sam. DARYL
MCGREGOR ROBISCEK is faithful about
sending Christmas cards and letters
each year.”
SUSAN LEARY writes, “I am still an
executive assistant at Accenture
and living in Boston. My significant
other, Bob, and I just bought a condo
in Brookline, a 100-year-old, totally
renovated, and charming place with
stained glass windows, a leaded glass
dining hutch, antique moldings,
combined with all the modern amenities! Bob and I have been together
10 years and still going strong. Living in Brookline, I am still close to
all my family and friends. I keep in
very close touch (daily IMing!) with
MARY ANN HILLES SQUIRES, my Smith
roomie. We have been friends for 32
years and are as close as ever. I am also
in close touch with my junior-yearin-Geneva dear friend SANDY SWEENEY GALLO, who manages a hotel in
La Jolla and is president of the San
Diego Smith club.”
DONNA MARIE LEE was appointed to
Maine’s state rehabilitation council
by the governor. She adds, “I also
was accepted to the Disability Leadership Institute, a two-year program
sponsored by the Maine State Office
of Developmental Disabilities. I am
an autism information specialist for
the Autism Society of Maine and also
on the board of directors of Justice
for Autism with Community and
Kindness, a grassroots organization
aimed at improving the quality of life
for children on the autism spectrum
in my community.” Donna Marie adds
that if anyone wishes to contact her
regarding autism, they are welcome
to do so.
KAREL JOYCE LITTMAN, an attorney for
the city of Teaneck, NJ, was given the
Chapel of Four Chaplains Legion of
Honor Award by the U.S. Marines
Corps League for her “selfless service
to humanity without regard to race,
religion, or creed.”
ANN LYON writes that daughter Deirdre started work on her master’s degree in English at Boston College.
After three years in a centralized
role for San Francisco Unified School
District, Ann is teaching algebra at a
high school “in a neighborhood that
is, um, not usually visited by tourists,
or even most locals. The school climate has improved considerably in
the last couple of years, though.” Ann
had two weeks at the Cape; saw the
Hopper exhibit at the Museum of Fine
Arts in Boston, which was wonderful; attended a couple of professional
development workshops; and spent
a week in the Sierra foothills taking
care of a farm.
KATHY MILLS writes, “After two seasons of agricultural bliss on organic
farms, I am working at Maine Audubon as a grants officer, with one of
the best conservation teams in the
state.” Kathy maintains strong ties to
local organic farms and serves as an
adviser to the Cambodian Arts and
59
alumnae update
Scholarship Foundation, a Portlandbased nonprofit which helps put atrisk Cambodian girls in school.
KATE SIEGAL OLENA went to Hong
Kong for the International Drama
Education Association World Congress, and took workshops with, and
saw performances by, teachers and
students from all over the world. Then
she and her daughter traveled by train
to China. Kate has a blog on her trip
at Blogspot.
PATTY PRUE DYKSTRA writes, “After
Smith, I went to medical school at
Emory University. I met my husband,
Kevin, at the University of Michigan,
where I was doing my pediatric residency and he was completing his PhD
in biochemical engineering. We have
been happily married for 18 years. After four years in the Baltimore/Washington, DC, area for fellowship and
postdoc training, we moved back to
Massachusetts and started our family.
We have three great kids: Caroline,
15; Ben, 12; and Nate, 9 (and Ruby,
the Schnoodle, 2).” Patty practices
part-time, general pediatrics, but
also helps with a clinic for children
with HIV.
DEBORAH RADWAY writes, “JACKI-SUE
KATZMAN and I hosted a tubing expedition on the Deerfield River in
August for a group of friends from
GE in Lynn, MA.” In September, Deb,
MARTHA JAZAK GALLEY, and SUZANNE
KOSSAN LOWMAN gathered at Suzanne’s
house in Richmond, VA, to celebrate
Martha’s sabbatical from Microsoft,
Suzanne’s fabulous tennis game, and
Deb’s home renovations—“I replaced
four rotten termite-ridden sills under
the house for less than $20K.”
JANE SIMONI COOKE’s mother succumbed to Alzheimer’s in August,
after a 13-year battle with the disease. Although not a Smith graduate
herself, Barbara Simoni was a great
supporter of Smith, and to that end,
she established the Jane Elizabeth Simoni Scholarship Fund in honor of
our Jane. Prior to that sad day, Jane
and son Ronan, 8, spent an exciting
July vacation flyfishing in King Salmon, AK, returning home with 2,400
pictures of fish, bears, walruses, seals,
and eagles. Two hours into the trip,
Ronan was chased by a grizzly sow
and cubs!
CHERYL SPEAR FROMULARO and twin
sister Kate took a birthday trip to
Sedona, AZ. Her oldest daughter
just graduated from the University
of West Florida, and “now feels that a
graduate degree is the thing, found a
job on campus that will pay for it, and
is back to school, at someone else’s
expense.” Cheryl is battling tendonitis in an elbow, a shoulder not quite
back from surgery in February, and a
jammed ankle. They lost their house
to Hurricane Ivan in 2004, rebuilt on
pilings, and moved into their new
home in Nov. ’06. She adds, “Max the
giant slobbering Irish setter is finally
old, and since I am his queen, that is
60
Wilder class of ’80 alumnae celebrate the wedding of Alison
McCrone in New Castle, NH. Pictured, left to right, are Lisa
August, Thea Lee, Maureen Durkin O’Connell, Alison, Margaret
Moreau, Debbie Monegan McClelland, and Susan Gadecki Tibedo.
very sad.” Two daughters (13 and 16)
are still at home.
JENNY STAUFFER SHEW writes, “I have
two children in college now (artist and
engineer), and the third is a young
teen who is thorough in doing his job!
I continue to find satisfaction working
for state government, in aging services. How it has become 17 years of
living in Georgia is amazing, but the
Decatur community has transcended
being in the Southeast. I have been
single since the divorce in 1999, and
the journey has been one of healthy
growth and various adventures. Now
in a quality relationship, I relish having a partner again.”
LISA UNTERBERG DELAFONTAINE writes,
“I fulfilled a lifelong dream and surfed
in Hawaii on the last family vacation.”
The Delafontaines spent much of the
vacation on the Big Island of Hawaii,
where Lisa’s husband met growers
and agronomists for his biodiesel
feedstock project. She adds, “On
our way home, we visited SUZANNE
SWANSON NOFZ ’78 and family at their
woodsy vacation home in Big Bear
Lake, CA.”
Sec., Anne Macaulay, P.O. Box 50,
Falmouth, MA 02541,
[email protected]
1980
Many thanks to all who sent news.
Apologies for having had to cut some
of you short this time, but space has
become tighter. Nevertheless, please
continue to send in your updates!
ANITA CHARLESTON PARKER has worked
as an analyst for the Department of
Defense for the past 17 years. Her oldest son, Malachi, recently graduated
from high school, got his first real job,
and is attending community college
part-time. Daughter Ariel has just
started high school and is already considering Smith; younger son Malik is
in third grade. Anita and husband Anthony continue to enjoy the surprises
and challenges of parenthood.
CARRIE COLEMAN STRASBURGER is now
a resident of Brunswick, ME, and
loves it! She and husband Frank are
officially empty nesters, with all three
children either in college or graduated. Frank has retired, but Carrie is
still under contract with her school
in New Jersey for another three years
to do professional development and
training. She looks forward to having
time to enjoy kayaking, biking, skiing,
and travel.
Checking in from Farmington, CT,
GINNY DOTY WOLF writes, “Our daughter, Annie, is in her sophomore year
at Barnard, looking at becoming a
veterinarian; Alex is in his senior
year of high school, so the next college search is under way. After being
a stay-at-home mom and volunteer
extraordinaire for a number of years,
I’ve launched my new career in broadcasting, with a radio show on arts and
entertainment out of Middletown,
CT, and an Internet radio show. I’ve
also returned to my love of acting,
taking classes, auditioning, and even
landing a part! I’m still married to Steven (brother of our classmate NINA
WOLF), and see Nina, the best aunt in
the world, quite often.”
Kudos to DEBORAH DURHAM, whose
book Generations and Globalization:
Youth, Age, and Family in the New
World Economy (coedited with Jennifer Cole) came out this year. Deborah was promoted to full professor of
anthropology at Sweet Briar College,
and received a Fulbright grant to undertake research on aging and class
in Turkey.
MAUREEN DURKIN O’CONNELL reports
that ALISON MCCRONE married Rob
Baum (Cornell ’69) last summer in
New Hampshire. Present from Wilder
House were DEBBIE MONEGAN MCCLELLAND, MARGARET MOREAU, THEA LEE, DOT
DI NICOLA NOYES, LISA AUGUST, SUSAN
GADECKI TIBEDO, and ALLISON JOHNS
BRADFORD. ALISON MCCRONE herself reports that she and Rob honeymooned
in Turkey and the Greek Isles, and are
now working on selling their respective houses and finding a new home.
She adds, “My life, as I approach the
big 50, has taken a new direction. I look
forward to it with much excitement.”
JULIA ERICKSON is finishing up her
MBA, which she did completely online through Ellis College (part of
the New York Institute of Technology). She plans to focus on building
a coaching and consulting business
geared toward helping clients make
life and work transitions. She loves
living a door away from her twin sister and her family, and being Auntie
Julie (the almost mom) to 5-year-old
niece Julia.
Touching base from Wiesbaden,
Germany, where she is a lawyer in government policy, NANCY GAGE-LINDNER
reports that she had a peer-reviewed
article published in an international
nursing journal, and that she also presented papers to health researchers
and clinicians in Edinburgh, Salt Lake
City, and Bern, Switzerland. Nancy
has been involved in multiple global
efforts in violence prevention for
some years and cofounded the WHO
initiatives, the Violence Prevention
Alliance, and the European Violence
Prevention in Health Network. She
and husband Peter struggle to make
mortgage payments and keep their
garden and 13- and 17-year-old sons
in check.
Congratulations to CELESTE GUDAS on
the great success over the past seven
years of her company, 24 Seven, a
staffing and recruitment agency for
the fashion industry. The company
has grown from one office to eight
worldwide offices and recently won
the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of
the Year award. Celeste resides in
Brooklyn Heights with her partner,
Stuart, and three children, Ellie, 8, and
twins Jack and Kate, 6.
RONNIE KRACHMALNICK WAGNER continues to work as a deputy district attorney for Marin County and enjoys
being a trial lawyer. Son Madison is
a sophomore at California State University, Northridge, majoring in media composition; he plays piano and
clarinet in the CSUN Wind Symphony. Twin brother Spenser is a sophomore history major at UC Davis, and
is co-president of the UC Davis Aggies
ice hockey team.
The class multitasking award unquestionably goes to KARI (KELLY) KUERSTEINER-BECK, who is homeschooling her six children, ages 5 to 17. She
shares, “Using that Smith Spanish
degree, I took the gang to Spain for
a month to speak at a University of
Madrid conference, on the subject of
homeschooling. I just returned from
another month in Africa with husband Mike and the whole entourage.
I got off to a great start with a minireunion, en route, with STEPHANIE
ALLGAIER in Washington, DC. We are
still dividing our time between Tallahassee, where we import and sell
Thoroughbreds for eventing (look for
our Charley Farley on the short list for
Beijing!), and Sarasota, where we’re
building a polo yard. Five of the kids
plus Old Mom were recently profiled
on TV as the Beck Polo Team.”
Best wishes also to LEE-ANN LARSON
MCQUILKEN, who married George McQuilken in May on Mayo Beach in
Wellfleet, MA. Lee-Ann, who lives in
Portsmouth, NH, will earn her certificate in digital design and animation
from New Hampshire Community
Technical College next spring. She
is a contractor for Port Technology
in Amesbury, MA, and loves it. Her
25 years in financial services in Boston gave her great technology experience, so she feels at one with the
computer!
CINDY MILLER continues to enjoy her
practice in pediatric radiology, and
has begun attending once a week in
adult chest radiology, a welcome new
challenge. While in Israel in March,
she was inspired to become a bat
mitzvah and is working toward that
goal.
Deepest condolences to LAUREL
PALEY on the unexpected passing of
her beloved father in July. Wilder
and Dawes residents may remember
Albert Paley as the dad who cut out
the daily Doonesbury comics and sent
Laurel her weekly fix of the strip,
which she would pass around the table
at breakfast. Laurel gave the third and
final (and funny) eulogy at his funeral.
On a happier note, Laurel’s artwork
has been on the move, in traveling
shows in Korea and China, as well
as in the Los Angeles area. Laurel
also did some summer traveling in
Japan.
TOBY SCHERMERHORN ’s daughter
spent last July in the Smith science
program and hopes to go to Smith.
Toby and husband Rob (Syracuse ’84)
have been married nearly 20 years,
and have worked together designing
hotels for the past 10 years.
Apologies to ABBY SLATER , who,
through an editing error, was selling stocks instead of socks (she and
husband Morry own a sock business
in Canada). Abby’s older daughter,
Maya, is a junior at Smith; younger
daughter Emma is at Yale.
JACKIE YANG had a mini-reunion in
July with some of her Dawes first-year
housemates at the home of HELENE
POWERS in Florence, MA. The group
included JANE CHUNG, SUSANNAH GAL,
KIT DODGSON, and AIDA ABBOUD GENNIS ’78.
That’s it for now. I hope this news
inspires others to send in theirs.
Sec., Eda Martin Joyce, 3909 Blackthorn Street, Chevy Chase, MD
20815, eda.joyce@att
1981
Greetings! We bring you the latest
class news.
ANDREA BERMAN writes that KAROLINE
ADLER, DEBI ZONIES, and she had a minireunion in May in New York City. Andrea flew in from the San Francisco
Bay Area, and Karoline came from
outside Philadelphia to meet up with
Debi, who lives in New York City.
Andrea says the threesome toured
the city, visited the Met, tasted local
cuisine, and saw Spring Awakening on
Broadway. They had such a great time
that they are thinking of making it an
annual event.
STEPHANIE NOWAK writes that she and
MARCY WESTERLING traveled to Tucson,
AZ, for a mini-reunion with SUSAN
ROBERTS in 2006. Steph lives in Minneapolis with her husband and two
dogs and writes that she is in her 20th
year as a public school art teacher and
is celebrating her seventh anniversary
of ending chemotherapy for breast
cancer. She has walked nearly 300
miles since April in training for the
Susan G. Komen Walk for the Cure.
KATHLEEN LYU RYAN and husband
Kevin spent their 25th wedding anniversary in June in Puglia in southern
Italy, “a quieter Tuscany with abundant, fabulous food, grapevines, and
olive trees.” Kathleen’s oldest son,
William, is at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts.
Also celebrating her 25th anniversary was PEGGY POGUE STEINER, whose
two oldest children are now in college.
DEBBY MITTELMAN writes that daughter Dove is a senior at the University
of Arizona, and just returned from a
semester abroad in Italy; son Nash is a
junior at Northern Arizona University
and planning a semester in Australia. Debby says she enjoyed taking her
daughter back to school and sitting in
her room at her sorority “remembering the anticipation at the beginning
of each new school year at Smith, seeing old friends after a long summer
and thinking about new classes and
experiences about to happen.”
Continuing with the college theme,
LAURIE POOLE CHESTER writes, “My
news is empty nest.” Son Tommy is at
the University of Colorado in Boulder
and David is at St. Paul’s School in
Concord, NH. Laurie says she hopes
to spend her time “regaining some
lost ground on health and home while
working lightly” at her art publishing
and licensing company, Wild Apple.
Laurie says she and LISA FINGERET run
into each other and share pictures of
their dogs: “No doubt we are turning
into the crazy old women who fixate
on their dogs.”
MARYLOU COYLE writes from Vancouver, where she lives with husband
Brent; daughter Sierra, 12; and son
Dylan, 8. Marylou completed her
master’s-level training in Pilates rehabilitation in 1999 and now operates a Pilates studio, the Refinery, in
Vancouver. Marylou made this career
shift in 1999 “as the kids were growing up and my world travel and public
company life as a CEO was hindering
my time with the family.”
PAM EUSTIS MILLER writes from New
York that she enjoys the many activities of son Ben, 3, as well as her work
with the Blue Hill Troupe. She is on “a
zillion committees” and wonders how
she will complete everything, “but so
far, like Ado Annie in Oklahoma, I’m
just a girl who can’t say no.”
Finally, CAROL BIRNEY DE WET, on the
faculty at Franklin & Marshall College, writes that she spent the past
18 months serving as the special assistant to the provost and president
on women and family issues. Underscoring one of the fundamental issues
that women face, Carol says, “Perhaps
surprisingly, small liberal arts colleges
tend to have few policies relating to
women or family issues, but women
tend to make good use of those that
are in place. In contrast, large universities tend to have a suite of policies
on the books, but few women take
advantage of them for fear of ending
up on a negative mommy track or being viewed as uncommitted to their
careers.” Her oldest went off to college
in the fall.
Please send us your news, especially
if we have not heard from you in a
while. Until next time, all the best to
everyone.
Sec., Mary Louise Wagner, 5458
30th Street NW, Washington, DC
Sec., Gigi Pooley Helliwell, 620 Lafayette Avenue, Buffalo, NY 14222,
[email protected]
1982
Greetings from your new secretaries! You’ve got a bicoastal team here
to help share news, with Nancy on the
East Coast and Jody on the West to
keep us connected over the next five
years. We welcome your news anytime, but watch for and reply to our
periodic e-mails. Meanwhile, check
out the online alumnae directory at
www.smith.edu/alumnae—register,
update your info, and keep in touch!
Fund co-chairs LIZ CLARY CHOW and
LESLIE BROOKS SOLOMON send the following exciting milestone: “Our class
raised a comprehensive gift for Smith
of $1,454,698, setting a new record
for a 25th Reunion class by besting
the record set last year by the class
of ’81! That amount is well ahead of
our goal of $1,200,000, and reflects
the support and generosity of many
classmates. Our class participation
rate was 43.6 percent, which means
that 284 of us contributed to this exciting result. Through our generosity,
the class has not only helped support
financial aid and other important programs at Smith, but also has raised
the bar for the classes that will follow
us. May they be inspired to set new
records of their own!”
SUE ALTSHULER NORTON writes that
her youngest started kindergarten this
year, so “I finally feel like we’re making
some progress!” Reunion “was fabulous and it was great to see everyone
that attended. The BETTY GOLDSTEIN
FRIEDAN ’42 discussion was outstanding and as always I reconnected with
old friends and made some new ones
as well. I admit I had a little trouble
reentering the real world after the
four days in Northampton, but the
trip was worth it!”
MELISSA COHN, president of the Manhattan Mortgage Company, earned
top ribbons in the hunter ring at the
Vermont Summer Festival and was
later featured on both CNBC and the
NBC Nightly News as a leading expert
in the mortgage field. Daughter Sarah
is also an accomplished horsewoman,
earning top honors at several summer
events. Melissa has been collecting
accolades in business, with a Stevie
Award for Women in Business, and
she was named top mortgage originator for 11 years in a row by the editors
of Mortgage Originator Magazine.
She was also honored in May with
the Spirit of Life Award from City
of Hope.
JOANNE COREY’s younger daughter,
Trinity (a high school senior), spent
four fantastic weeks at Smith with
the summer science and engineering
program, a great program for high
school girls with an interest in any
scientific or engineering field. Eldest
daughter Beth is in her senior year at
the Sunderman Conservatory of Music at Gettysburg College, and spent
the fall semester in Vienna.
SUSAN DANDRIDGE and husband Bruce
(current chair of the National Lung
Association and president of Elite
Racing, a sports marketing and management company), traveled to Cape
Town, South Africa, for a conference
on lung disease as it is complicated by
HIV and TB. She’s in her 17th year
at Morgan Stanley. Daughter Kristine is a first-year at San Diego State
University.
ANN DOWNER-HAZELL writes, “My
middle-grade fantasy novels are
still riding the long coattails of the
Harry Potter phenomenon, and it
was especially gratifying this spring
to have Hatching Magic nominated
for the Nutmeg award, whose winner is chosen by Connecticut school
kids, and to receive an award from
the Boston Authors Club for The
Dragon of Never-Was. My husband
and I are kept busy with our editing
careers, Ed at Houghton Mifflin, me
at Harvard University Press, where
I sometimes get to do things like go
kayaking with 40 arachnologists on
the Susquehanna River. Our 7-yearold, Ben, is ambitious to be the CEO
of Lego and a movie director, so he
can take over Toho studios and make
Godzilla movies.”
LAURA MATTES COX was married in
Dec. ’06, in Tuxedo Park, NY, with
BARBARA HORAN ’81 as a bridesmaid.
BETSY PICKEL HEARN writes, “The
25th in NoHo was the best ever, and
I continue to be amazed/impressed
by my classmates! As a result of Reunion karma (yes, it’s true), I started
a new position, at a new company, in
August, and am now director of sales
operations for Acceller. Michael and
I celebrated our 14th anniversary in
61
alumnae update
August, and our 13th year in Atlanta.
As a fifth-grader, Katie advanced to
the Georgia state semifinals in the
Scripps National Spelling Bee, and
Jack continues to tear up the diamond
as a Little League dynamo.”
HOLLY WELCH SULLIVAN’s son, Daniel,
started college at the Boston Conservatory, and James is in high school,
while her two girls, Bridget (fifth
grade) and Nora (fourth grade) remain eager and excited about school.
She shares a common sentiment:
“Somehow, everything will get done,
but I’m sure I don’t know how at this
point. One day at a time is our mantra
around here.” Holly was delighted to
see so many of us at Reunion, especially CYNTHIA GRAY CONENA, who made
a heroic effort to attend before passing away from cancer shortly after.
Holly writes, “She was a lovely, caring person, and I can’t believe she’s
gone.”
TRACY MITCHELL-MACKOID writes, “It
was an incredibly rewarding Reunion
on all levels: seeing old friends, remembering those who are no longer
with us, and being reminded of how
many smart and funny women we
lived with during our years at Smith.
It was such a great feeling. Call me
crazy, but the rain even added to the
reminiscing aspect of the weekend.
I especially enjoyed my ride up with
FLORIE SEERY ’83, and seeing JODY
BROCKELMAN TOLAN , SUZY SCHIFFER
PARRASCH, ELYSE LAZANSKY, MELANIE
HATCHELL TAYLOR, and so many others again. In honor of LOUISE LOWE’s
passing, Suzy and her family all came
to visit us for a long weekend in July,
and we enjoyed getting to know each
other’s families. It’s amazing how easily we all jumped right back into our
lives of 25 years ago. I can’t wait for
the next one.”
A lovely message to conclude our
first column!
Sec., Nancy Davis O’Hara, 17
Merrill Road, Cranston, RI 02920,
[email protected]
Sec., Jody Brockelman Tolan, 1591
Oakdale Street, Pasadena, CA
1983
We welcome some first-time correspondents this quarter!
CECILIA THOMPKINS RENDER writes, “I
decided to write in because I never
have and the class notes are always the
first thing I read in the Quarterly.” Cecilia was just promoted to director of
the Nordson Corporation Foundation.
She also reports on a mini-reunion of
Jordanites last August at the home of
AMY TUTTLE SWEENEY in Portland, ME,
with Amy, Cecilia, CLAIRE PEACHEY, SUZANNE GARROW ’84, and SARA ERICKSON
’84. She says a group has been getting
together almost every year, and has
included ANNE RICHIE HOHL ’82, DEIRDRE PAONE COHEN, JULIE BAIRD LILLYS ’81,
ANNA GANNON ’85, CARRIE STEWART ’81,
and NICOLE ARBUSTO.
62
A class of ’83 mini-reunion in Portland, ME, included, left to
right, Amy Tuttle Sweeney, Cecilia Thompkins Render, Suzanne
Garrow ’84, and Claire Peachey.
In July, another mini-reunion took
place in Middlebury, VT, when CAROLYN JONES MARKLAND met up with ALISON GARRETT MUSE, LAURA BELLSTROM,
LISA COUNSELMAN HOAG, and ALETHEA
WILLIAMSON HARDY. Carolyn writes,
“We are all looking forward to our
25th in May. I am now divorced and
live in North Adams, MA, with my
partner, Lucy, and two daughters,
Katy and Jenna. Lucy and I own our
own small-business-services practice
in Williamstown.”
LINDA MORGAN writes, “I married
Phil Haws in August in an outdoor
celebration at a lodge in the Adirondacks. I’ll be a stepmom to two children, Lucas, 8, and Miranda, 5, and
we look forward to many happy years
together. I recently joined Cogswell
Realty Group to facilitate an 18-acre
mixed-use redevelopment in downtown Newark, NJ.”
Another Adirondack wedding took
place earlier in the year, when NANCY
HUTCHENS was married to Steve Reif,
with MARTHA CLOUGH ENGEMAN in attendance. Nancy writes, “It was beautiful, fun, and very moving to come
full circle and marry my high school
love. We were married at our camp
in the Adirondacks with our entire
families and camp friends. The circle
of life continues as I’m busy preparing
my two sons, 20 and 17, to leave for
college and fashion shopping with my
13-year-old daughter. Martha and I
are planning on Reunion!”
LISA BILBREY HYDER writes, “I made
contact with the wonderful Smithies
here in the Chattanooga Smith club
and truly enjoyed the luncheon we had
a few months back. I’ve since gotten
together with club president FLOSSIE
WEILL ’73, who’s a partner at a law firm
and a great woman with whom to talk.
I’m starting a new job as a technical
writer for Life Care Centers of America, a long-term health-care company
headquartered in Cleveland, TN. My
husband, Mark, an internal auditor, is
constantly on the road, so I run our
chaotic household solo much of the
time. Andrew is in seventh grade at
our church school this year; Ben is in
second. Sparky, our Cardigan Welsh
corgi, and I have gotten our feet wet in
animal rescue by helping transport an
injured corgi to his foster home. It’s a
very rewarding way to help dogs that
need a second chance.”
KIM VANGE BOESTAM writes, “My husband and I have moved to Stockholm
after 12 great years in London; it was
just time for a change. Still working
on McDonald’s Happy Meals, have a
new office, am renovating a new place,
and learning Swedish. So far, all is going well, but check in again once the
snow comes!”
JOANNE BENNETT JEFFERS has returned
to the States, to Sarasota, FL, after five
years in Zagreb, Croatia. She writes,
“We want our third-grade daughter,
Ann, to learn about being American
from a new perspective.” Joanne’s husband, Bill, will continue as director
of the U.S. Agency for International
Development Mission to Croatia and
will join them as soon as he can.
SYLVIA HENDERSON had a wonderful
family celebration in NoHo with her
mother, SHELLEY LINDNER HENDERSON
’50; eldest niece, SARAH-NEEL SMITH
’07; both sets of grandparents; four
aunts; and Sarah-Neel’s parents and
sister. Sylvia also caught up with former housemate ALEXANDRA RISLEY
SCHROEDER ’86 and with LAMA ABUGHAIDA KAMAL. Sylvia has been a chef
at the Center for Hellenic Studies in
Washington, DC, for six years.
CAROLYN SCERBO KAELIN writes, “2007
has brought with it a bridesmaids trifecta. LEIS ROSE and I attended this
year’s Rally Day ceremonies. DARCY
NAUMOWITZ GUSTAFSON visited me in
Boston with her adorable 5-year-old
son, energetic mother, and ever-handsome brother. CARRIE NOTARI ’84 and
I attended the spring Alumnae Association health symposium (where I
gave the keynote address).” Carolyn’s
second book, The Breast Cancer
Survivor’s Fitness Plan, was published in the fall by McGraw-Hill and
launched a 12-week exercise program
for breast cancer survivors approved
by the American Council of Exercise.
[Editor’s note: See “A Surgeon’s Jour-
ney” in the Summer ’07 Quarterly
for more on Carolyn and her work.]
The program is up and running at
YMCAs in New England and has already expanded to as far as Colorado.
She and Bill are looking forward to
their 20th wedding anniversary, and
enjoy traveling with their children,
Kathryn Grace, 15, and Tripp, 11, and
as a couple. She is looking forward
to Reunion.
AMY RESNER writes, “In June, FLORIE
SEERY and I visited NORA FITZGERALD
in Moscow. We had an amazing time
together. Nora’s Russian language
skills are impressive, and she was an
excellent guide.” Besides visiting museums and the Kremlin, they hung out
with Nora’s kids, and had countless
conversations with Nora and Peter
and their colleagues about Russia’s
politics and society. On a side trip to
Kiev, they made sure to see the huge
Babi Yar memorial, the site of a massacre of 34,000 Jews in the 1940s, and
then visit Uman, where the famous
Rabbi Nachman is buried, whose
teachings are still a great source of
spiritual inspiration for many Jews.
Amy’s family comes from Nemirov,
near Uman, and she is only the second
person from her family to return to
their roots.
FLORIE SEERY sends an addendum: “I
had surgery at NYU Hospital and had
the good fortune of having IN KYUNG
YOOK as my anesthesiologist. She took
excellent care of me, and we had a
chatty time in the operating room
talking about our families and reminiscing about Smith.”
KATE YOUNG’s chapbook, Gentling
the Bones, was scheduled for publication by Finishing Line Press in
late November. Kate’s poems have
appeared in several publications, including The Massachusetts Review,
The Iowa Review, and Shenandoah,
and many places online. She is a visiting poet in the Arlington, VA, public
schools, and cohosts a Washington,
DC, poetry reading series. Kate also
recently hosted “Beyond Sylvia Plath,”
a DC-area reading featuring Smith
Poetry Center director Ellen Watson
and poets ANNE HARDING WOODWORTH
’65, NANCY MENEELY ’65, and PAMELA
HARRISON MCCULLOUGH ’68.
JEAN CARTER RYAN writes, “The
big change in my life this year is I
switched jobs after 18 years with the
state of Ohio’s development department. I am now the executive director of the Columbus-Franklin County
Finance Authority, an organization in
the start-up phase. I’ve had to learn
all kinds of new skills, which has been
both nerve-racking and exhilarating.
On a personal level, husband Tim and
I have three girls: Nora and Kieran
are in high school and Kate is a fifthgrader. Nora is a junior and starting
to look at colleges, so I plan to bring
her to Reunion so she can check out
Smith. Tim and I continue to work
on our 115-year-old Victorian home
in our spare time. The kids swear
we’ll never finish. We’ll prove them
wrong!”
JOANNA PARKER EVANS ’81, MEd ’83,
writes that she has changed careers
and is now the director of admission and financial aid at the White
Mountain School in northern New
Hampshire. She writes, “Twin sons
Miles and Dylan are first-years at the
college preparatory boarding school,
where global sustainability is emphasized. Visitors and inquiries about the
school are welcome! Husband Michael is a tenured faculty member at
Indiana University and will commute
between homes in Indiana and New
Hampshire.”
First-time correspondent ELIZABETH
RANDELL UPTON writes that she was a
government major, but as a singer
became fascinated with early music.
She sang in professional choirs and
ensembles in New York, earned a
master’s in historical musicology at
Columbia University, and received
her doctorate from the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, with a
dissertation on an Italian manuscript
of late 14th-century French songs and
motets. She is now a tenured assistant
professor in the musicology department at UCLA. Husband Brian Upton
designs video games; son Sam is 10;
daughter Rose is 7. “We love living
in Los Angeles—who knew humidity
was optional?”
Your secretary certainly wishes the
option button could be pressed in New
York City! My news: My associate in
private practice retired in June, and I
am now setting up an art conservation
facility for the Staten Island Museum.
For eight years, I was an extreme commuter, traveling three hours a day for
work in Manhattan, and am happily
looking forward to working just five
minutes from my home when the
museum studio is ready in January.
Meanwhile, I’m really enjoying having
the time to work on my own art, and
doing a bit of freelance conservation
work. Looking forward to hearing
from everybody next quarter—get
ready for Reunion 25 in May!
Sec., Lenora Paglia,
[email protected]
1984
Hello again! Thanks for such prompt
responses to my e-mail requests. I
want to mention that according to the
Alumnae Association privacy policy,
secretaries are to limit inclusion of
third-party information. Also, we are
not to include address or e-mail information unless it pertains directly
to class business, as below.
LEIGH PEAKE, our class vice president, writes, “Although May ’09 and
our 25th Reunion seem ages away,
planning is already under way and
we are eager for volunteers! We have
plenty of small tasks that can be accomplished with a minimum amount
of effort, so please contact me (leigh.
[email protected]) if you’re willing
to lend a hand. I’m still hanging out on
the farm in Maine with four horses,
four goats, two dogs, an iguana, and
my partner, Angie. I’m also still at
Heinemann (an educational publishing company) as vice president and
editorial director. Big news from the
fall was starting my 2-year-old filly
under saddle. My first time, and all
went well, so I’m relieved.”
JENNIFER ABRAHAMS reports on two
Talbot mini-reunions: “First I got
together with MARTHA CALVERT REYNOLDS in June at Stinson Beach. Martha, Jonathan, 11, and Olivia, 6, were
back from China visiting the States
and joined me, my husband, and our
daughter, Natalie, 6. Second, I drove
to San Francisco to meet MARTHA POST
ANDERSON while she was out from Buffalo for an ABA conference. I love being able to just pick up with my Smith
friends, even though we may have had
a span of several years since we last
got together. I’m still with GeoTrans
as a consulting hydrogeologist—I’ve
been doing this for 21 years!”
JANE BAINTER recently joined Clive
Wilkinson Architects in West Hollywood as office manager/public relations contact.
JULIE BAXTER married Bert Cornelison in Houston, in June, and has three
stepchildren (16, 21, and 23).
AMY KIRKHOFF CARLSON writes, “The
Noteables celebrated the founding
of the group 25 years ago this past
spring. It was a real hoot and several
of us older alums returned for the jam,
including NANCY LEE JACKSON, CAROLINE MCDANIEL ’85, SUSAN BECKER AZIZ,
STEPHANIE TSANDIKOS, and MARY VON
HERRMANN ’85. Mary came with her
niece, a fourth-generation Smithie!
Noteable alums out there, please contact me, as we want to have a good
working list!”
JOANNE LISKIN CLOUTIER and family
are going on year 13 in sunny Phoenix,
AZ. Joanne is pursuing her second
master’s degree, this time in education, while working in secondary special ed. Her three children all attend
the local K–12 charter school where
she works, which she finds wonderfully convenient. Husband John recently formed his own financial/legal
services company, Cloutier Capital
Consulting, after working at Merrill
Lynch.
PATRICIA LOWE GARVEY writes ,
“GRETCHEN LOEW NOLAN hosted a Smith
pool party last summer. One friend in
attendance was MARTHA CALVERT REYNOLDS, who has been in China for the
last two years. It was fun to reunite
with the Talbot crew and to hear about
the exciting adventures that Martha
and her family have been on. CAROL
THOMAS, husband Doug, and daughter
Sarah were in attendance as well as
the Garvey five (Jeff; Patty; Jim, 15;
Jack, 12; and Tom, 11). Gretchen and
husband Ed have four children (Max,
15; Lucy, 14; Teddy, 10; and Charlotte,
8). It was a great day!”
SABINA MARTIN HARVEY writes, “I was
married in April, here in Charlottesville, VA. My daughters, Nina and
Emma, were my maids of honor, and
my son, Joseph, walked me down the
aisle. It was such a wonderful day!”
JADE HAWKINS VALDIVIESO and FLORENCE
WALKER FITZGERALD ’59 were guests.
BRITT LIDDICOAT HASELTON writes,
“Celeste, 15, will be a sophomore
and Alecia graduates from eighth
grade in the spring—two teenagers,
will I survive? Glad I have my office
to escape to sometimes! My husband
and I work together at our law firm in
Soquel, CA. My other therapy is my
horse. I enjoyed representing the Los
Alto Hounds in the Masters of Fox
Hounds of America Championship in
Middleburg, VA. My horse, Cruising
Altitude, or “Clive,” and I competed in
the four-phase event. The champion
was a Virginian, but we had a great
time competing.”
CATHY BAIRD KUSMIN and husband
Lorin live in Silver Spring, MD, with
daughters Lynn, 7, and Abigail, 5.
ROBIN LLOYD went on a six-day safari in Tanzania last summer. She saw
all of the Big Five, including a black
rhino. These are becoming increasingly difficult to see in the wild as their
numbers are dwindling. The leopards
also were spectacular, as well as an
amazing diversity of birds.
MISSY LOVING has one daughter who
is a junior at Northwestern and one
who is a first-year at Boston University. She is still in human resources
at Chrysler and also working on her
dissertation in organizational management.
LISA MARIE MARKS writes, “I took Samantha, 9, to Paris in June, where we
caught up with ELENA IRIBARREN and
son Juan, 6. The kids went rowing
in the Bois de Boulogne and Elena
and I tried to catch up on so many
years in one afternoon! Elena works
for a French publishing house and
her husband is close to finishing his
PhD. Son Ben, 5, is very social and
curious about everything. Their dad
and I separated last summer after 13
years of marriage. I have been very
busy with my art advisory business,
with private and corporate clients,
and am just finishing up a project on
Viacom’s executive floor. I also had
the pleasure of seeing ERIN FRAY KERR,
who was in New York for the fancy
food show. Erin looked great and
seems very happy with her life working at Republic of Tea, still painting as
well and parenting two teens.”
LYNN MCGREW visited JANE SOKOLOSKY
in Barrington, RI, and met Jane’s three
boys and new golden Lab.
CARRIE NOTARI exhibited her work at
the Museo del Mare at al Castello di
Santa Severa, Italy.
DEBBIE OSTROW ESSEX writes, “I
think I have finally achieved a happily balanced life! I have a part-time
psychotherapy practice, volunteer as
a writing coach, and serve as a board
member for an Albany schools’ fundraising organization. I spend as much
time with my kids (Sam, 10, and Sarah,
13) as I can, while also running over
to play Scrabble with my 97-year-old
grandmother. I’ve had several fun gettogethers in New Hampshire, California, and New York with my old Tyler
House roommate, the ever-dazzling
and energetic KIM NORBECK KEATING.
Also, I have been corresponding with
PAULA KAENEL-FAITH, who moved to the
Lucerne area of France after marrying Andre Kaenel, whom she met at
Smith when he was studying abroad
from his native Switzerland. Paula has
two teenage boys and teaches English
in the French schools.”
AMY WILKERSON, associate vice president for research support at Rockefeller University, spent a weekend
last summer on Queen Anne Lake in
western Massachusetts at the family
retreat of CAROLINE MCDANIEL ’85, accompanied by MAGGIE NOBLE ’81. She
included a stop in Northampton,
which served as a clear reminder
of why she chose to major in geology while at Smith—the incredible
topography of the area.
Sec., Mimi Wiegand Fargo, 539
Pointe Essex Court, St. Louis, MO
1985
Greetings! Hope all is well in your
corner of the world. I got to go on
an awesome trip to Germany in June,
with my mom and my daughter Dana,
16. It was a genealogical-themed trip
that my mom wanted to go on, and
we were her luggage carriers. However, we made her get wheelies, and
off we went for three weeks. I have
a new appreciation of all the hours
my mom has put in to assemble our
family history. It has spurred me on
to get my husband’s side of the family started while the older folks are
still around to chat with. We met
and traveled with cousins from eight
generations back, and I had the treat
of visiting three German families of
third cousins that I hadn’t seen since
I was 16. That, along with our annual
trek to the Northeast, Maryland, and
North Carolina beaches has rounded
out my travels for now.
JEANNETTE JACKSON writes from Ann
Arbor. She, LYNDA MAILLET NORTON,
and PAT DILL RINVELT stay in contact
through the Ann Arbor Smith club,
lunches, and kid activities. Jeannette,
who has a 12-year-old daughter, and
Lynda both have children at the same
elementary school, work on projects
together, see each other during afterschool pickup, and their children attended camp together last summer.
Jeannette and her business partner
continue to work with Smith students
as faculty in the Smith Leadership
Program, running the Smith Leadership Pre-Orientation program, which
has been a gift. They have a consult-
63
alumnae update
ing practice focused on organizational
change and leadership development,
and they find this part of their work
truly refreshing. It has been interesting to see the generational changes
through the years, especially as some
of the new students at Smith were
born the year we graduated!
Send me news when you can!
Sec., Diana Swift-Monroe, 3224
Running Springs, San Antonio, TX
1986
Hi, everyone! Here’s what your fellow ’86ers are up to.
ANNA FREITAG-KEDERSHA, a board-certified endocrinologist with a private
practice in Stamford, CT, and active
hospital privileges at Norwalk and
Stamford hospitals and St. Vincent’s
Medical Center, has been voted a top
doctor in endocrinology and internal
medicine for the last three consecutive years by Connecticut Magazine.
Last summer FRANCES CHESTER and
partner Sylvia moved to Providence,
RI, where Sylvia will start her medical residency in pediatrics at Brown.
Frances writes, “I have been in Louisville, KY, for 13 years and have loved
it, but will be happy to move back to
New England so I can see my Smith
friends, like MARY MARTONE , who
lives in West Springfield, MA, with
her beautiful daughter, and LAURI
MEADE ’87 in Northampton.” Frances has been a nurse practitioner at
a community health center serving
primarily uninsured patients for the
last 13 years and has been working
on her doctorate in public health at
the University of Kentucky for the last
four years. She will be happy to stop
commuting the 80 miles to Lexington
from Louisville, and writes that she
passed her comprehensive exams in
the fall and is now a candidate for the
degree.
LISA-ANNE CULP writes that in March
she left academia after 14 years of
teaching English at the university
level to return to technical editing,
this time at the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission. She writes, “The move
from Florida to Maryland has been
quite a change (less NASCAR and
hurricanes, more power suits and
$20 yoga classes), but so far I’ve done
some fun things, like meet one of my
favorite actors, Gene Wilder, at his
book signing.” Lisa-Anne couldn’t
attend Reunion, but she did manage to get a student’s daughter interested in Smith with riveting tales
of nighttime pranks between Wilder
and Comstock and totally female-focused classrooms. “She was accepted
to Smith last year, and it was a thrill
for me to think of her starting her life
there.” Lisa-Anne would love to hear
from Smithies from Wilder House or
anyone in general.
Sec., Mia Tanella, 1457 Gwynmere
Run, Carmel, IN 46032,
[email protected]
64
1987
Hello, classmates. Your co-secretary
SHARON VAUGHN WILLIAMS just returned
from the 2007 Smith Volunteer Conference, the highlight of which was
the Volunteer Recognition Awards
dinner. What an exciting and inspiring event! Also in attendance were
our president, MELANIE ROSENTHAL
MARGOLIS; treasurer, DIANA SIMPLAIR;
and club officer, MARTHA PHELPS. In
addition to the presentations, training
sessions, and discussions, we learned
about our new roles, met with students, networked with other volunteers, and met members of the staff
who will assist us in carrying out our
respective duties.
Kathleen and I did not receive any
news to report this quarter; for class
secretaries, no news is certainly not
good news. For future issues, we
want our inboxes overflowing with
updates. We are especially interested in hearing from those of you who
haven’t submitted an update before.
Start spreadin’ the news!
Sec., Sharon Vaughn Williams, 5824
Tehama Avenue, Richmond, CA
Sec., Kathleen Pulsifer, 1121
Dorchester Street, Orlando, FL
1988
Dear classmates: I’m hijacking the
column this month to put in a plug
for our 20th Reunion at Smith, May
22–25, ’08. Reunion chairs KRISTY
GERTSEN KETELTAS and ERIN SHEEHY
are putting together a terrific program, with help from the very able
Reunion committee: ASHLEY PAYNE
EASON, BETSY CODDING, CHERYL LASOTA
BUNDY, CHRIS ALAIMO, JENNIFER GRAY
JACOBS, MELISSA CODISPOTI BURLING,
MONA GHOSH SINHA, NICOLE PASQUINI
HEPBURN, TONI TOMLINSON BURNHAM,
and VICTORIA HARRIS. You can find
details on our Reunion Website via
the AASC Website (http://alumnae.
smith.edu). Click on “Connect,” then
“Classes.” In addition, MERILYN CH’NG
CHESLER has set up a terrific online
community for us (http://smith88.
moriahweb.com), so please take a
moment to log in and start reconnecting.
Why should you come to Reunion?
Indulge me while I offer my interpretation. Some of you know that my mom
is BARBARA STUETZER LAUTERBACH ’57.
She had her 50th Reunion last spring,
and I went to see ’57 in action. My
daughter and I left the house at 6 a.m.
in order to make it to Northampton in
time for the Alumnae Parade on Ivy
Day. It was raining, cold, gray—not
a day for whites, but I wore them
anyway and dug out my sash; I knew
I was expected (by Mom) to march.
Due to the bad weather the parade was
in the ITT. The facility was packed
and impossibly loud, with hundreds
of delighted seniors and their proud
families, the marching band, and the
Reunion classes. Around we marched,
and darned if I didn’t get just a wee
bit choked up. There was a lot of
speechifying and then more cheering of students, alumnae, and faculty.
We celebrated one another and the
institution, and it felt great to be a
part of it all. When I was growing up,
I moved around a lot, so coming to
Smith is like coming home for me—
every time. I can’t wait to do it again
next year, and look forward to seeing my old friends and making some
new ones. So, reconnect, reengage,
reenergize, recharge—however you
review it—Reunion!
Written by Pres., Lisa Lauterbach
Laskin
Sec., Linden Rhoads,
[email protected]
1989
Sec., Gabriella Judd, 3534 Jefferson
Avenue, Redwood City, CA 94062,
[email protected]
1990
Hi, everyone!
JENNY BORNHOLDT HAMMOND writes,
“After Reunion 2005, I kept in touch
with a bunch of Capenites. I have seen
JEAN CHO at least twice a year. We enjoy going to the Philadelphia Museum
of Art, especially the Sunday brunch!
Ah, our true Smith upbringing shines
through—fine art and food! In Aug.
’06, Jean and I attended a mini-reunion at MAYEN LAGDAMEO-HOGAN’s
home in New Jersey. We had fun by
the pool and watching Mayen and my
sons dancing to ‘YMCA.’ In Jan. ’07, I
met with MICHELE MARTIN in downtown
Philly and enjoyed an amazing Italian dinner. She is working at Morgan,
Lewis and Bockius LLP after living in
Connecticut for a short time.” Jenny is
director of alumni affairs at Abington
Friends School, her alma mater, which
she says is wonderful, as is the opportunity to be involved with the Smith
alumnae admission program.
MARY ELLEN CUSACK MCDONOUGH reports, “DOROTHY ADLER BRANIFF lives
near the New Jersey shore, is married
with two adorable sons, and is doing
that Avon 3-Day Walk for breast cancer. I met CHRISTINE SWYMER BOYLE in
May. We took all six kids on the train
to Boston to the Children’s Museum.
We’re hoping our youngest ones,
Madelyn and Molly, will be at Smith
in 2020!” Mary Ellen likes selling real
estate, despite the downturn: “The
job gets harder, but more interesting,
plus, the flexibility can’t be beat.”
AMANDA ORR writes, “I had my second
baby, a boy named Augustus Miller, in
March. He joins Madeline, 3. He is a
great baby—that rare breed that sleeps
12 hours a night—and he has a great,
happy personality. He’s also a boy
with many nicknames—Gus, Guster,
Gustafer, and Augie are among the
frontrunners. Parenthood is so much
easier the second time around.”
In closing, please join me in making a generous gift to the Smith Fund,
so that future generations of accomplished women will have endless opportunities at Smith College. And, of
course, send me more information for
our column in the Quarterly!
Sec., Annie Steeper Morita, 225
Fifteenth Street, Manhattan Beach,
CA 90266, [email protected].
net, [email protected]
1991
Happy Sweet 16, Smithies! We’ve
been out of school that many years.
Just think of it as four short years till
our 20th Reunion. Thanks to everyone who responded to the call for updates. We love to hear from long-lost
Smithies, so everyone please urge at
least one classmate to e-mail me with
updates. And all of you, keep writing
in. We all love to hear how everyone
is doing. And what a far-flung group
we are.
Last summer I saw REBECCA MORRIS’s
art studio in Los Angeles; caught up
with ANNE DUROE, visiting San Francisco from Ann Arbor, MI; and wondered at KELLY LINDNER’s round-faced
son, Finn, when she was visiting
Southern California from Brooklyn.
I check in regularly with ALISON CONN
’92, also in Brooklyn.
CRISTINA CHESTERMAN SIDHU moved to
Nova Scotia in Jan. ’06 when husband
Paul was offered a promotion there.
She writes, “Loving life in the Maritimes, busy with two boys, 6 and 4. I
got a surprise reunion with my former roomie JENN THOMSON ’92, when
she attended the Global Microcredit
Summit in Halifax in November.
We hadn’t seen each other in over
15 years! She was accepted into the
Canadian Portrait Academy’s ninth
annual juried exhibition and the
Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club’s
Members and Associates juried exhibition.”
TAYA SWENSON was married in April;
she and her husband live in Minneapolis with a cat and two kittens.
RACHEL BROWN-CHIDSEY , MAT, is
spending the academic year in Alaska
on a yearlong sabbatical from the University of Southern Maine. She will
write research articles, work on revisions to one of her books, and enjoy
more time with family.
LISA LOWREY TOMIHIRO’s son Connor,
7, is in his fourth year at the Academy of Dance, and youngest son Ian,
3, started there last summer. Her
husband is with the same company
but switched from programming to
administration.
CHRISTY HARDIN SMITH writes daily
for Firedoglake, a progressive political blog. She attended the YearlyKos
convention in Chicago and was on
the advisory board for the Democratic presidential debate of Aug. 5,
’07. Christy is married (14 years and
counting), with one child, Fiona, born
after several years of struggle with fer-
tility issues. Christy lives in West Virginia. She is writing full-time, taking a
break from her legal practice and her
previous work as an assistant prosecutor. She has appeared on C-Span,
CNN, Air America, and WNYC.
AIMIE SMITH CHAPPLE works for Accenture and made partner in 2005.
She now leads a group of 200-plus in
the UK. She has traveled to Southeast
Asia, India, Japan, the United States,
and France. Her daughters, 11 and 7,
are at girls’ schools. She and husband
Ed continue to work on their 1870s
house. She enjoyed seeing LARA TALARICO ANTHONY and CHRISTINE JACKSON HOHLBAUM at Reunion last year.
JACQUELINE BETHUNE MCNEIL was married last spring to Gregory, a senior
kitchen designer with Contemporary
Cabinetry and Closet Concepts. They
honeymooned in Keystone, CO, and
live in Sarasota, FL.
TONI HOCHSTADT moved back to
Northampton in spring ’06 with her
two daughters, 8 and 3. She is a paralegal for Western Mass Legal Services
doing outreach and case management
through the Housing Court Intervention Project. In 2003, she earned her
MEd from UMass, Amherst, in multicultural teaching and curriculum
development.
CHUMA MBALU KESWA writes from
Johannesburg, South Africa. After
living in Pennsylvania for years, she
moved to South Africa to take a job
with De Beers. After a five-year stint
in Johannesburg, her husband, Mduduzi, and four kids are relocating to
Pennsylvania. She spends time with
SIPHOKAZI KOYANA ’89, THANDI MVAKALI,
and DESIREE LALBEHARIE ’90, who recently moved back to South Africa.
NATALIE HANSON completed her PhD
in anthropology while working fulltime. She is still at SAP’s headquarters
outside of Philadelphia, most recently
as director of business operations. After nearly 10 years in Philly, she and
partner Stephanie bought a house in
the suburbs and are now the proud
moms of Auden.
RUTHIE GOLDBERG HILTON lives in
Brookline, MA, with husband Steve
and their two kids, Ana, 9, and Donny,
7. They also have been doing foster
care for infants. She has been working
part-time as a social worker, and also
has a small private practice involving
adoption support. They spend their
vacations in Westminster, MD.
SARA BAQUERO-GARCIA is still in Tokyo enjoying her job at the American
School in Japan. She and Doug had a
son, Roberto, in Feb. ’06. They spend
summer vacations in Oregon and in
Utah with family.
ANU VYAS returned to India after
graduating from Smith and worked
for different software/consulting
firms. She married and had a son in
1997. She came back to get her MBA
at the University of Washington. She
is now back in India as a stay-at-home
mom and is homeschooling children
A potluck dinner at Ann Burke Mikula ’90’s house in Winchester,
MA, enabled alumnae from many different classes to connect and
discuss Smith. Pictured, left to right, are, back row: Lois Goddard
’51, Anne-Marie Scholer ’85, Laura Anderson Henry ’76, Lisa
Thyson Craig ’83, Ainsley Gould Donaldson ’65, Gloria Gehshan
Liias ’69, Stephanie Smith ’90; front row: Terry Sheehy Marotta
’70, Ann, Fritzie Nace ’84, Brenda Chamberlain Reishus ’80, and
Virginia Miller McDonough ’85.
Abubakr, 9, Aisha, 6, and Abdurrahman, 3. She says the most significant
decision in her life after Smith was to
convert to Islam in 1994.
TIFFANY TURCO MCCLENAHAN and
husband Chris are celebrating their
eighth wedding anniversary. They
spent some time at the Jersey Shore
with their four future Smithies: Mahon, 7, Breacain, 5, Deaglan, 3, and
Quinlan, 2. In June, NATASCHA BIEBOW
’93 visited the States from England
and came to see them. At the end of
July, KATHY BURKE stopped by on her
way home to Tennessee after being
with family in New England. They had
a great time reminiscing and discussing the new look of campus.
ROBIN MEYER KRAUJALIS and husband
Mike welcomed their second child,
Sophia Marie, in March. Robin has
been at home with the kids since
Henry was born in 2002. Before that
she worked at the Saint Louis Zoo as
director of major gifts and assistant
director of development and helped
successfully complete a $70 million
capital campaign.
Sec., Claudine Zap,
[email protected]
1992
Hello, class of ’92! I’m excited to
be your new secretary. I hope you’ll
share your news and that you enjoy
our column as much in the future as
you have in the past.
KINA KIM MIN writes that she went
back to Smith recently “to see The
Frog Princess in Theatre 14. KELSEY
FLYNN ’93 is part of PaintBox Theatre,
a children’s theater group in the summer there. The show was sold out and
we loved it!”
BIZ DANA AC wrote to say how much
she enjoyed Reunion: “Once again this
time I charged the old friend battery
and got an invigorating jump-start
by meeting new friends from my
class.” Biz still works at the Brattleboro Retreat, a psychiatric hospital
in Vermont, and she and husband
Randy are raising a mixed-breed dog
they adopted through the local humane society. Randy also greeted his
10th grandchild over Memorial Day
Weekend.
BRIANNA LATHAM AC ’97 writes,
“Nothing much going on here in
Nashville. I am blessed to work as a
fundraiser at a house for recovering
moms and their children. The home
of ERIKA MANNINGHAM has become my
second home. SUE KIM has adopted my
bipolar dog, who tries to scale trees
chasing squirrels. WENDI JACKSON
SMITH is a part of my personal board
of directors, as are those above. I stay
in touch with MARIA ELDRIDGE WALLACE
and RICKI POLLACK FRAYMAN, who are
wonderful friends. Reunion (my first
one to attend) was one of mixed feelings (took me 10 years to finish). But
I’m glad I did and to have been elected
Fund team coordinator.”
As for me, I’m still living in Denver
with my husband, Jeff, and our two
cats. I had a great time reconnecting with old friends and meeting new
ones at Reunion, and I hope to hear
from you in my new capacity as secretary. Please share your news; I look
forward to hearing from you!
Sec., Sara Metz, 1485 South Jay
Street, Lakewood, CO 80232,
[email protected]
1993
Hi, class. Where are you these days?
Of the four updates I have for this column, two are from New Hampshire
and one from Vermont. While these
are beautiful locations, it makes me
wonder if we don’t have classmates
in faraway lands as well? As we approach our 15th Reunion, who’s living
farthest from Northampton?
STACY TEICHER still works at the
Christian Science Monitor, where she
started as an intern right after college,
though she took a two-year break in
the late ’90s at the University of Missouri for a master’s in journalism. In
April, she married Zia Khadaroo. A
family friend who attended Smith and
lived in Baldwin House decades ago,
SANDY FELKNER ’61, played piano for
them at the wedding in St. Louis, MO.
Stacy writes, “Zia’s originally from
England but has lived in Nashua,
NH, since he finished college. I’ve
just moved to Nashua and am working from home a few days a week and
carpooling to Boston on the other
days—a big change from living in the
city, but I’ve quickly discovered the
joys of a quieter neighborhood where
I can watch baby birds in their nests
and grow cherry tomatoes on the
deck. Zia’s in the computer business.
A week after our wedding, we had another reception in New Hampshire,
which was attended by my good friend
and Baldwin housemate HEATHER MACCHI. Heather is a teacher and recently
took a job in Wellesley, MA.”
ROBYN OSTRANDER lives in Westmoreland, NH, with husband Jerry and
son Ian, born in March ’06. Robyn is a
child and adolescent psychiatrist, and
the medical director for kids’ services
at the Brattleboro Retreat, a nonprofit
psychiatric hospital in Brattleboro,
VT. She lectures to psychiatry residents at Dartmouth Medical School,
and “viciously protects” her fourday work schedule! She visited with
MELANIE HANNON, her husband, and
their daughter born in Feb. ’06, when
they visited from Germany. In fall ’06
she got to see KATE WING ’94, who is
married and fixing up her house in
Oakland, CA. Robyn says that Kate is
a policy analyst with the National Resources Defense Council’s ocean protection initiative. Robyn also spends
lots of time with MAGGIE BERGIN ’95,
who lives in Holyoke, MA.
JODI PARROTT FRENCH provides her
first update. She landed in a law office
support staff position in 1996 and obtained paralegal certification in 1999.
On July 3, ’99, she married Walter, an
attorney with a general law practice
in Brattleboro, VT, and in 2003 she
commenced the Vermont four-year
law office study under his supervision.
On May 30, ’07, she was admitted to
the Vermont Bar, and is now an associate attorney with a Brattleboro
firm, concentrating in family law and
municipal and probate/estate work.
Jodi and Walter are building a home
in Newfane. She is on the executive
board for the Windham Regional
Commission, representing the town
of Newfane as a commissioner and
sitting on several committees. Jodi
had lunch with JESSICA RICCI ’94, with
whom she has been friends since
grade school.
MICHELE NEFF-FRANKE gave birth to
her first child, Thatcher Kent, in February. He weighed almost 10 pounds
65
alumnae update
when he arrived.
Sec., Laurie Ann Phillips Ryan, 5918
Chesterbrook Road, McLean, VA
1994
Hello, class! I hope this Quarterly
finds you all well. I continue to be
impressed by the wonderful work
you are doing, both professional and
volunteer. My husband and I spent
last summer moving (and trying to
downsize our belongings!) so I could
not track as many of you down as I
wanted to. Please note that I have a
new snail mail address below. Also, in
the past I have encouraged you to send
in updates not only about yourselves,
but also about anyone else you can.
I hope you will continue to do that,
but please keep in mind that I will
need to verify any news you submit
with the source. Keep that news coming—hey, you could even send me an
e-mail today!
SARAH KASOWITZ PHANOS writes that
her daughter, Lily Isadora, was born
in April, and weighed seven pounds.
Sarah and husband Spiro are simply
overjoyed. The Phanos family is settling into a new family routine with
Lily and enjoying visiting with family
in New York City.
JEN POLLACK MCNALLY enjoyed a trip
to Ireland last summer with her husband. She reports a mini-reunion,
coinciding with MARA BONFELD’s 35th
birthday. Mara’s mother hosted a
lovely tea at the King’s Carriage House
on the East Side in New York. Smithies present included LIZ KASE JOHNSON,
DEENA GREENBERG, ERIN PEYTON, CHARLYN LUSK ’95, MONSTERRAT COUGHLIN
KIM and new daughter Kerala Kim,
JENNIFER POLLACK MCNALLY, and MARYLIN BENDER ALTSCHUL ’44. Jen enjoyed
catching up with old friends, especially since several are living abroad.
Monste and husband George were
visiting from Hong Kong, so everyone
had the chance to meet Kerala. Also,
Deena was back from a few days in
Italy. Finally, Jen reported that Mara
went to the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas for a work/fun trip that coincided with her actual birthday!
JENNIFER KARON-FLORES is in her
fourth year at the National College
of Natural Medicine in Portland, OR,
earning her naturopathic doctorate.
She also just celebrated her seventh
wedding anniversary with husband
Bill. Jennifer and Bill have a daughter,
Sadie, who keeps them laughing. They
also have two hamsters and three rabbits to round out their family. Jennifer
loves living in Portland and hopes to
stay after she completes her ND, since,
she claims, “It is worth staying for the
fresh salmon and berries alone!”
ELIZABETH MARLOWE and her husband
recently welcomed their second child,
Dahlia, who joins sister Arielle, 3.
Both Elizabeth (an art historian) and
her husband (a historian) are teaching at the University of Maryland at
66
Cristina Chesterman Sidhu ’91 enjoyed an unexpected visit with
former roommate Jenn Thomson ’92, when she attended the
Global Microcredit Summit as a delegate in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
College Park.
spent 10 years
coaching figure skating in San Francisco and living a full and fast-paced
city life. She recently relocated to
Quebec City with her new husband,
Nicolas. She absolutely loves it there.
In July, Heidi gave birth to twins Beatrice Oline and Marguerite Frances!
Heidi says she is in touch with RACHEL KOTOK , whom she is missing
very much since Heidi’s move. Heidi
reports that Rachel is married, living in Oakland, and teaching ESL at
Hayward State.
HEIDI OLINE PRUETT
YASMINE (SAIRA) DARYANANI KARNANI
lives in Barbados with her husband
and their two daughters, 5 and 7.
Yasmine and her husband celebrated
their 10th wedding anniversary in
July. Yasmine’s husband is the CEO
of the Barbados branch of a German
reinsurance company; Yasmine reports she is “currently employed by
my two kids.” In her free time, she
volunteers at her children’s school
and is an active PTA member. Last
summer the family made their first
trip to Orlando to enjoy the Disney
experience.
STEPHANIE KAMPEL WILSON lives in
Atlanta with husband Josh and their
son, Jacob, born in Sept. ’06. Stephanie would like to share that she and
Josh had great difficulty conceiving,
and that had it not been for reaching
out for help she never would have had
Jacob. She is happy to talk to anyone
having infertility issues. Thank you,
Stephanie, for offering to be a resource! In her professional life, Stephanie launched two new companies in
September. One is called Signatures
by Stephanie and offers invitations,
announcements, and gifts. The other,
Innovative Marketing & Design, deals
with corporate marketing and promotional items.
LAURA MATHEWS finished her master’s
program in oriental medicine in 2006.
She is cofounder of the Neighborhood
Acupuncture Project in Austin, TX, a
clinic that seeks to remove financial
barriers to obtaining acupuncture
by providing treatments on a sliding
scale. Not only does Laura provide
this elegant, effective, and sustainable
medicine to an interesting cross section of people, but she gets to educate
people about alternatives to Western
medicine. Laura also works with a local nonprofit that provides treatments
to patients with cancer, HIV/AIDS,
and hepatitis.
In 2006, after Hurricane Katrina,
MAYA STANFIELD-MAZZI moved to New
Orleans from California, with her
husband and 2-year-old daughter, to
teach art history at Tulane University. Maya reports that the city is still
recovering but is incredibly beautiful
and culturally rich. She would encourage anyone curious about New Orleans to come and visit, and look her
up if they do! Maya is interested in
meeting Smithies in New Orleans, especially those with young children.
CARLA FANTINI-CESPEDES spent two
years in Japan as a Rotary World Peace
Fellow and completed a master’s in
peace studies last year. As a part of her
studies, she traveled to Cyprus and
the Middle East. The real highlight of
her time away, she claims, was traveling to Tucson, to attend my wedding!
Carla has spent the last year working
in the Boston area on projects with
different organizations, such as a dialogue program for U.S. and Middle
East university students and an after-school program for low-income
Latino youth. She is now turning her
attention to a new project, and is returning to Vermont to build a green
house with partner Eric. She thinks
her Smith work-study job as campus
recycling coordinator might have set
her on this green path.
JOANNA MANECKJI has lived in Singapore for the past seven years with
husband Paul. They have a son, Mikko, 4. Joanna works in learning and
development at Standard Chartered
Bank.
ROSEMARIE KOUNTZ sends her first
update. She recently celebrated her
fifth anniversary as a financial adviser for Edward Jones Investments
in Newburyport, MA. She also recently completed an accredited asset
management specialist program. To
celebrate her career anniversary, she
traveled to Portugal with friends.
Finally, it is with deep regret that I
inform you that JENNIFER DELVECCHIO
GUSTAFSON passed away in August, after a battle with breast cancer, leaving
her husband, a son, and a daughter.
You may recall her submission to the
Summer ’07 Quarterly, when Jennifer
happily reported that her daughter
had recently been born (June ’06) but
that, while pregnant, she learned she
had breast cancer. My deepest condolences to those of you who knew
Jen personally. A memorial fund has
been established in her name; contact me for more information. Also,
an online memory board has been
set up for Jennifer’s children so they
may be gifted with as many tangible
memories of her to read and see as
we can provide to them. Friends are
encouraged to post remembrances
at www.jennifergustafsonmemorial.
com/memory.php.
Thank you again, everyone, for your
contributions to this issue.
Sec., Tamzin Sawyer Sugiyama,
3760 North Camino Leamaria, Tucson, AZ 85716,
[email protected]
1995
My head is swimming with to-do
lists (we just put our house on the
market and are preparing for an extended family vacation and a crosscountry move), so I’ll dispense with
the clever introduction and just jump
right to what you turned here for anyway—news from our class.
MAGGIE GIAMMARCO HOLIHAN writes,
“In Nov. ’06 I had a baby boy. The
baby keeps me busy, but I am really
enjoying being a new mom. I still live
in Virginia Beach and work part-time
as a senior defense analyst for the U.S.
Government Accountability Office.”
TRACY GREGG WHITE and husband
Paul bought their first house in Pearl
River, NY, the suburbs of New York
City. Their first son, Blake Gregg, was
born in March. Tracy writes, “Blake is
named after William Blake, proving
some favorites discovered at Smith
last a lifetime—Pat Skarda and the
English department can be proud. I
was recently promoted to integrated
marketing director at American Express Publishing corporate sales and
marketing.”
DEBORAH CHAD and husband Tony
welcomed their first child in April.
Eamonn Kenneth came early, weighing two pounds four ounces, and is
doing great.
STEPHANIE WISELEY FOX is a marketing manager for the United States and
Latin America at Newell Rubbermaid.
She writes, “My husband, Michael,
and I live in a house in Stamford. Our
2-year-old son, Jackson, is so much
fun; we love every minute with him.
Life is great and I couldn’t be happier—unless of course I heard from
my fellow Smithies.”
KIM RATLIFF HALL and husband Matt
welcomed their second child, Lydia
Margaret, in April. Big brother Jack
is enjoying his new role, and Kim
enjoyed her summer maternity leave
“filled with the simple joys and sleep
deprivation of life with a new baby
and a preschooler.”
NICOLE GOODE gave birth to a healthy
baby boy in May. Jonah Bear was born
in the comfort of their Steamboat
Springs, CO, home with a midwife attending. Nicole resigned from her job
as a high school French teacher to be
a mom for a few years. Any Smithies
passing through the gorgeous Rockies
are welcome to stop by!
JAMI PARRISH is a grief and spirituality therapist at Sierra Tucson, one of
the top rehab facilities in the country,
treating all addictions, trauma, eating
disorders, and mood disorders. She is
also trained in Interfaith Spiritual Direction. Her position affords her time
to work on her painting and bookmaking/binding. Jami writes that she
has reconnected with several Smith
friends and says, “It is wonderful having friends where you can just pick
up where you left off, no matter how
much time has passed.”
That’s all for this time. Don’t forget
to keep in touch!
Sec., Kristine Mueller Kidder,
[email protected]
1996
Hey, ’96ers! Thanks for your fantastic updates from all corners of the
world. It’s great that so many of you
are able to connect via class notes.
Please ensure your information is
updated in the Alumnae Association
online directory, so classmates can
contact you directly. Also, many of
you now have Websites and blogs, and
because Quarterly policy prohibits
printing Website addresses—or any
other personal contact information
that is not specifically related to class
business—be sure to check the Alumnae Association’s online directory for
that information. On to the news.
It’s always thrilling to hear from
those submitting news for the first
time! MELISSA NOONAN-MAZZEI is catching up on 11 years’ worth of news. In
February, Melissa and her husband of
eight years, Ricardo, welcomed new
son Nilo, who joins sister Flavia, 3.
The family recently moved to Brooklyn, after a decade on Mulberry Street,
and are enjoying borough life and being across the street from Prospect
Park. Melissa continues to work in
the jewelry field, and is director of
product development for Tiffany &
Co. Among those she is in contact
with are SHIVANI KANNABHIRAN ’95,
MOLLY TAMBOR, GINA-LOUISE SCIARRA,
JULIA HOGGSON, ELAYNA BEREAN HO, and
GWEN BROWN.
Another wonderful first-time update comes from KRISTI ECKARDT .
After a circuitous post-Smith route
that took her for a master’s at Harvard
Divinity School and stints in hospital
chaplaincy and church ministry, she
is now happily living in Boston and
on the health communications faculty of the Massachusetts College of
Pharmacy and Health Sciences. She
has an adorable dachshund puppy,
Duke, who has a special affection
for alums—so please feel free to be
in touch!
CAROLINA ORTEGA BARRALES sends
her first-time submission from the
Lone Star State. She moved to Houston from Chicago for a job with an
oil company in the field of corporate
social responsibility. She says, “I absolutely love my job. I’ve been working
in this area since I got my master’s
in New York five years ago, and I am
passionate about it. I’m happily single
with no children, so most of my free
time is spent traveling. I remain in
very close touch with NATASHA PARDO,
who is also in Texas, pursuing her
graduate degree in marine biology.”
Also writing in for the first time is
STEPHANIE HILL MOLINA. She worked
in Washington, DC, for a number of
years, received a master’s degree in international development, and joined
the Foreign Service with USAID. A
year ago, Stephanie was posted overseas to Lima, Peru, with husband
Santana and son Enzo, 5. Stephanie
writes, “I work on a program helping
Peruvian farmers in the jungle develop licit, sustainable livelihoods.
Any Smithies coming to Peru are welcome to drop me an e-mail and stop
by!” Stephanie is in frequent contact
with NICOLE HUBER, who lives outside
Chico, CA, with husband Jim and
toddler Allie, and is getting another
master’s degree, this time in biology.
Stephanie also reports that ELIZABETH
KELLEHER just moved back to the East
Coast outside Philadelphia with her
husband and her two boys. Stephanie
says, “Elizabeth is still working her
techie magic doing IT project management work.” Finally, Stephanie
shares that ROXANNE FINN is back in
the Pioneer Valley, after several years
each in Japan and Italy, followed by a
long stint in New York City.
Congratulations to LAURA HANSEN
MARKS, who, with husband Jeff and
son Henry, welcomed new baby Willa
Kathryn to the family. Laura reports
everyone is doing well.
Lucky JAMI MITCHELL spent last summer in beautiful Innsbruck, Austria,
finishing her coursework for her master’s degree in peace, development,
and conflict transformation. She did
the bulk of her studies in Spain, and is
now enjoying the change of scenery.
Her husband and 4-year-old son are
also in Europe, spending the summer
traveling around in their VW camper
van.
In May, CHRIS PARKER and partner
Penny welcomed twins: Taylor (a girl)
and Jordan (a boy)! Chris carried the
babies, and they were big for twins;
one was over five pounds, the other
over seven. She reports, “Everyone
is doing great and we are hanging
in there, despite sleep deprivation.”
Chris and Penny have a great blog
with lots of pictures and news about
the babies, so contact Chris via the
AASC online directory for more information. Chris and Penny moved
from California to Montpelier, VT, in
the fall, and Chris is especially looking
forward to reconnecting (in person)
with JESSICA FINCK, RAJNI SAMAVEDAM,
SASHA KRAVITZ, and AILEEN PARK.
EMILY GEE writes, “I am still living
in London and working at English
Heritage. I just finished a thesis on
the housing of working women in late
19th- and early 20th- century London
for the building conservation course
at the Architectural Association. The
Smith College Club of Great Britain
is very active and I encourage others in London to get in touch with
the club.”
BETH CHARBONNEAU writes that she
and husband Deron welcomed daughter Joy into the world in June. Beth
says they all hung out at home for the
summer before Beth returned parttime to her psychotherapy practice.
Beth also says, “I had such a great time
at Reunion last year, and really loved
catching up with old housemates and
classmates. It’s hard to believe how
fast 10 years can go by. With news of
so many other babies born recently,
maybe we’ll be able to have a minireunion during orientation for the
class of 2028!”
STACYLEE KRUUSE received her MPH
with a concentration in health law,
bioethics, and human rights from
Boston University in May. Congrats,
Stacylee! She continues to work at
Boston University as an international
development officer with responsibility for India, Canada, Israel, and
South America.
MELANIE BROWN VIANNA writes that
after living and working at Fort Leonard Wood, MO, as a personnel specialist processing the paperwork for
soldiers heading to Iraq, she returned
to her home state of California. For
three years, Melanie has worked as
a special education teacher in San
Jose, CA. She teaches seventh- and
eighth-grade students with mild
mental retardation and autism. She
speaks with MARY VARAGIANNIS COSTA
’94 regularly.
The last year has been busy for SARAH DEVOTION GARNER, who moved from
Cairo to Hanoi, Vietnam, last summer. Then she welcomed her third
child, Sander, in October. Sarah says:
“If anyone comes to Vietnam, please
give me a call.”
Congratulations go out to STEPHANIE
KENDALL, who married partner Jennifer (George Washington University
’96) in May in a beautiful ceremony
during a huge thunderstorm in Washington, DC. Stephanie shares, “As we
exchanged vows, the sky turned dark
with rain, and gusts of wind blew the
windows and doors of the hall wide
open—the drama was a wonderful addition to a perfect day.” Smithies in
attendance at the wedding included
KATE BARRAS MANNING, ELIZA (PIPPA)
SHULMAN , and REBECCA BELL . Kate
and Pippa delivered a “very meaningful toast—a true reminder of how
important and enduring my Smith
friendships are.” In early August, the
couple relocated to Massachusetts;
Stephanie will pursue licensure as a
psychologist in Massachusetts and
plans to open a private practice.
BETH PERRY lives in Boston and works
for the state as a health-care data analyst. She is also busy with health-care
reform work. Beth and her husband
had planned to leave for a six-month
trip to Southeast Asia in October. She
says, “We are very excited for a real
adventure.” Beth has met some great
friends through the Boston Smith
club, like ELIZABETH BARRY, JENNIFER
RHOADES, and ROSEMARY RIPLEY. She
says, “We never knew each other at
Smith but are great friends now and
hang out often. I will miss them while
we’re away!”
JULIA HOGGSON is launching a photography business focused on weddings and family/baby/maternity
portraiture. Julia says, “I am super
excited about having my own business
and look forward to photographing
these happy times in women’s lives.”
Julia has an amazing Website for her
business.
After many adventures, including
volunteering for Hurricane Katrina
relief with the Red Cross as a driver,
and some work with a career coach,
MONICA FREUND KAUFMAN writes that
she’s applying to dental school. To
that end, Monica did a prehealth
program over three semesters at
Worcester State College, working
full-time during the day. She submitted her application for fall ’08, hoping
to end up in Los Angeles at USC or
UCLA so she can be a part of her 2year-old nephew’s life. She says, “It’s
definitely weird to contemplate going
back to school for at least four years,
but it feels good to know I’m on the
right track now and working toward a
career that is a good fit for me.”
ESTELLE REDDING LAWRENCE recently
returned to work after maternity
leave. Jayden Nester was born in
March to much fanfare and love from
brother Preston, 6, and sister Renata,
10. Estelle says, “Life in the Poconos
is still grand, even after spending five
months at home, but I’m glad to be
back to work. I started a home-based
business selling candles and accessories and love it.”
After teaching college in Rhode Island for almost three years and teaching for Trinity College Elderhostel
programs in Italy for eight, SABRINA
BERENT recently moved back to the
States to a full-time position teaching
Italian at North Quincy High School.
Sabrina is pursuing a doctorate in
modern languages at Middlebury,
67
alumnae update
where she will be for the next few summers. Sabrina reports that she already
misses her dearest friend in Florence,
ELIZABETH NAMACK ’91, but looks forward to seeing more of friends like
ALEXANDRA YURCHYSHYN ANATH ’95,
SIOBHAN CALLAHAN, and Nick Rutkiewicz, the honorary Smithie of ’96, now
living on the Vineyard.
MEG FLANAGAN gave birth to baby
Elanor in May, and says Elanor is
“happy, healthy, and very cute!” Meg
and her husband are relocating to the
Washington, DC, area, where Meg
will work at the Pentagon. She looks
forward to connecting with Smithies
in the area.
HEATHER LINK and husband Kevan
welcomed their first son, Jacob, in
May, on Kevan’s birthday! Heather
finished her pediatric residency and
worked part-time attending over the
summer. She occasionally runs into
AILEEN PARK, who is finishing up medical school in Buffalo. Heather recently
connected with LEAH VOIGT-ROMANO,
who lives in Ann Arbor, and keeps
in touch with CARLA WALBURN LITZELL
and MIIRA HAKKARAINEN VELIA. Heather
welcomes visitors to Buffalo.
SUSAN SLINGLUFF reports, “After
years of teaching eighth grade, I went
back to grad school and completed
a master’s degree at UC Berkeley in
city planning in May ’06. I am an urban planning consultant in the Bay
Area. I live in Oakland, CA, with my
husband and train for triathlons for
kicks. Our wedding took place here
in Oakland last July, and was attended
by JESSIE GUNNARD ’94, who provided
fabulous event-planning services
for our rehearsal dinner! I am looking forward to my first visit back to
western Massachusetts this fall, and
seeing the fall leaves and visiting
Northampton!”
ELENA RIVELLINO is in the midst of a
great Alaskan adventure: “I’ve been
doing commercial interior design for
the last few years, and then lost my
job in March. After a trip to Europe
to visit my sister in Switzerland and
my good friend MARY ANN VILLAR,
who is married to a Brit and lives in
England (we also traveled together in
Italy to do some hiking in the Dolomites), I decided to go on an adventure for the rest of the summer since
I had not come up with another job
offer. I flew to Alaska to finish out
the summer season at a lodge on the
Kenai Peninsula, waiting tables for
the first time in probably 12 years! I
will travel around the state for another
few weeks, then just see what comes
up next.” Check out Elena’s great blog
about her travels.
Thanks to everyone who submitted
news. To those who haven’t in a while,
drop us a line and let us know what
you’re up to. Remember, you can send
us news at any time!
Sec., Katie Phillips Clark, 77 Converse Street, Wakefield, MA 01880,
[email protected]
68
Sec., Nancy Vanasek, 294 Fifth Avenue, Apt. 302, New York, NY 10001,
[email protected]
1997
Hi, ’97! I’m excited to be your new
secretary. Already I’m having a great
time hearing from lots of members of
our class. Keep those updates coming!
HEATHER BARNES is in the midst of
graduate studies at the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where
she’s pursuing an MLS. She’s still living in her Carrboro, NC, tree house,
with her partner in time, Elaine,
and their two portly kitties. She also
makes documentary videos and is
slowly (and finally!) reading all the
Harry Potter books in her copious
spare time.
JENNIFER WALLACE was married
in Sept. ’06 in San Jose, with three
Smithies in attendance: her sister,
CATHARINE WALLACE ’07; ALLISON FALK;
and DARYL HARRISON HAESSIG ’98. She
and husband Larry then moved to just
above the Golden Gate Bridge in San
Francisco, and Jennifer started a new
job with Wells Fargo.
HEATHER GORDON lives in Las Vegas
and works at Vegas.com in its business operations department.
RACHEL KRAUSS SMITH has two children, Hannah, 4, and Tyson, 2, and
lives in Mountain View, CA. Currently a stay-at-home mom, she had
graduated from UGA School of Law
in 2002, and is now studying for the
California bar exam in anticipation
of reentering the job market next
year. She also teaches a children’s
yoga class.
MELANIE AUSTIN and her husband relocated to the Boston area and welcomed their first child, Aimee, in July.
Aimee is healthy and perfect and was
welcomed with open paws by Katrina,
the dog, and Brooklyn, the cat.
EVIE HAMMER is an actress living in
West Hollywood, with a day job in
interior design at Plantation Custom
Furniture. She has received strong notices in both the Los Angeles Times
and Back Stage West.
CHRIS KAPLAN earned her LICSW
in 2006 and became clinical director
of the Massachusetts Department of
Social Services’ STARR (short-term
assessment and rapid reintegration)
program in Beverly, working with
teenagers and their families. She occasionally crosses paths with ERINA
WHITE, also a therapist working in
the emergency services field. Chris
is working on adopting a furry friend
from the local animal shelter.
FARZANAH GANGJEE and LISSA SCOUTEN
GANGJEE welcomed Amaya Miriam in
March. Farzanah delivered Amaya after four ferocious days of drug-free
labor. In May, the couple relocated
to Oregon, where Lissa took a job
running the Portland office of the
Threshold Group, an ultra-high, net
worth, multifamily office. Farzanah
left LanguageWorks, where she had
been since graduation, and is now
home with Amaya full-time. Lissa reports that JOANNA SLATER was married
in July, outside Toronto on Joanna’s
family farm. The couple live in New
York, where Joanna works for the Wall
Street Journal and her husband is a
graduate student at Columbia University.
GENEVIEVE THIEL lives in the Roadrunner Hostel in Tucson, AZ, on work
exchange, and is preparing for a sixmonth trip through Mexico and Central America. She promises to provide
updates of interesting and exciting
adventures along the way.
ANNE BANDES still lives in Cambridge,
MA, with husband Matt, two cats, a
horse, Tuna (stabled in Dover, MA),
and the latest addition to the family, an adopted year-old pointer dog.
Anne is finishing up her third year at
the law firm Bingham McCutchen in
the financial institutions department
but still manages to ride Tuna four or
five times a week.
ABIGAIL RUPP was sorry to miss Reunion, but had a great excuse—she
and husband John welcomed their
fourth child, Maria Benjamin, at the
end of May in Washington, DC. They
also have Hannah, 4, and Alexander,
2; Francisco died in July ’06.
ELAINE BROWN STILES recently took
a position as a program officer with
the Western Regional Office of the
National Trust for Historic Preservation in San Francisco. She works on
historic preservation issues in Alaska,
Washington, Oregon, and Idaho and
is enjoying getting to know the fabulous people and historic resources in
the Pacific Northwest.
STEPHANIE BEJUNE had a fabulous
time at Reunion, catching up with
old friends and making new ones.
She is looking forward to serving as
our president for the next five years
and to staying more connected to our
class and to Smith. She is transitioning from her position as a chemist for
BASF to a new role as a production
engineer.
MONICA MOLL COLEMAN and husband
Matthew are proud to announce the
birth of their son, Alexander, born
May 6, and weighing in at six pounds
three ounces. Monica was delighted
to have ANNE ACTON CONNELLY and
HEATHER FONTAINE MERTON ’98 attend
her baby shower in March. The Colemans live in New York City.
SILKE SCHADE has moved to the West
Coast for a job at the University of
British Columbia in Vancouver.
ROBYN TAMURA lives in New York
City, and is director of strategy and
creative development at Clinique.
Since her last update, she has been
fortunate to travel for work, visiting
many countries—sometimes studying the markets, sometimes traveling with a celebrity makeup artist
for store appearances, press events,
and makeup application classes. She
is looking for ALLYSON MOORE BORING
’99, who is listed in the online directory as lost.
As for me, I relocated from Brooklyn, NY, to Albany in 2004 to pursue
a graduate degree in public health. I
finished in May ’06 and am a research
associate for a public sector research
and consulting group. In my spare
time I enjoy my Netflix subscription,
try to read more nonfiction, and am
working on perfecting my tamari almond recipe. I’m also the book awards
coordinator for the local Smith club,
so I feel thoroughly plugged in to the
Smith scene! Until next time.
Sec., Maria Ayoob,
[email protected]
1998
KATHERINE BUFFINGTON writes, “After
graduation, I spent three years in Japan with the Japanese Exchange and
Teaching Program. I met my husband,
David, there. Later, I obtained my
master’s degree in women’s studies
and gender relations; my thesis was
focused on Japanese popular culture
(particularly comics, as those who
know me will not be surprised to
discover). I teach English composition and humanities at two local colleges in San Diego, my hometown. I
would love to get in touch with any
fellow Smith Science Fiction and Fantasy Society members and Lawrence
House residents.”
SARAH CARMICHAEL has this exciting
update: “In 2006 I finished my doctorate in earth and planetary sciences
at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, and
moved back home (literally) to start
a postdoc at the University of New
Hampshire, studying hydrothermal
vents at midocean ridges. I spent
much of my last year at sea on the
R/V Atlantis, where I met KATE BUCKMAN ’01 on board, and I had my first
Alvin dive to the ocean floor (over a
mile and a half underwater) later that
year. On top of that, I met a documentary filmmaker named Tom, and
after what can only be described as
a whirlwind courtship, married him
10 months later in June ’07 (MARY MCDONOUGH and HEATHER MCCLURE LENOX
attended). I accepted a faculty position at Appalachian State University
in Boone, NC, and Tom and I now live
in the beautiful mountains just outside the Cherokee National Forest.”
SARAH LYON was married in July, in
Killington, VT. GIULIANA GILLETTE VLASAK was a bridesmaid.
CAROLYN HINKLER-HARARI was married in 2002 and lives in Columbia,
SC, with a Dalmatian and four cats.
She is a second-year student at Mississippi State University College of
Veterinary Medicine working on a
DVM. Carolyn would like her Wilson housemates to know that while
she does have a Volvo wagon, there
are no kids yet!
SHANTE SMALLS writes, “Life in
Brooklyn is as good as ever. I’ve left
my job to focus on my doctoral dissertation full-time and to work on my
solo album. Being in the studio again
is so fantastic, and I can’t wait to see
what develops. I had a great summer
of touring and was featured on MTV
Canada, which was very exciting.”
DEBORAH HANOUSEK was married in
Sept. ’06, in Bronx, NY. REGAN VIELE
and EMILY SPENCER FEAGLE were bridesmaids; REBEKAH HANOUSEK-MONGE ’95
was matron of honor. Also in attendance was KATRINA VON HOLLEN WEAVER
’99. Hurricane Ernesto was blowing
through town that day, which Deborah says “actually made the day more
fun.” Deborah lives in San Francisco
and is an editor for an education
nonprofit.
ALEXANDRA BECKER FOSTER earned
her law degree from the University
of Maine School of Law in 2002 and
is now a lobbyist for several large
corporate clients at a law firm in Augusta, ME. She is the proud mother
to two affenpinschers, one an AKC
champion.
REBECCA POWER graduated with an
MLS in 2005 and is a science reference
librarian at the University of Missouri
in Kansas City.
VICTORIA MURADI writes, “I’ve just
moved from tiny Chatham, VA (population 1,000 and one traffic light), to
Durham, NC. My husband and I love
the Triangle area—the universities,
abundance of super-smart people,
gourmet restaurants, and diversity
make us feel like we are in the center of the universe! I’m working as an
administrator at a local PK–12 school
and am eager to connect with local
Smithies.”
KAREN KRAMER has a new position at
a law firm in Oakland, CA, doing civil
and workers’ compensation defense,
and lives with her boyfriend in Marin
County.
BRYNA KEENAN SUBHERWAL lives
with her husband and two cats in the
Washington, DC, area. She works for
Amnesty International USA.
KRISTIN HEYDENBERK HALSELL gave
birth to a healthy baby boy, Brennan
Alexander, in February (he actually
arrived on his due date!). She and her
family still live in Lansing, MI, where
she works part-time as a family practice physician assistant.
REBECCA METZGER gave birth to son
Noah in May, in Allentown, PA. In
July, Rebecca, husband Paul, and
Noah traveled to Vermont for SIRI
KAUR’s wedding.
NAOMI ASUKAI writes, “After graduating, I pursued a master’s degree in
international relations at the Université de Genève; I graduated in 2000
and since then have been working
at the Geneva headquarters of the
International Labour Organisation
in the elimination of child labor department. There are quite a few Smith
alums in Geneva and I had two Smith
JYA interns in my office this year, so
the Smith bond is alive and strong! In
At the wedding of Joanna Slater ’97 in Arkell, Ontario. Pictured
from left to right are Maya Guttman-Slater ’09, cousin of the
bride; Pilar Davila-Murray ’98; Elaine Wechsler Slater ’47,
grandmother of the bride; Joanna; Lissa Scouten Gangjee ’97;
Farzanah Gangjee ’97; Lisa Slater ’73, mother of the bride; Ronnie
Janoff-Bulman ’73; Abby Slater ’79, the bride’s aunt; and Smith
philosophy professor Elizabeth Spelman.
July, I married a Geneva grad school
classmate, in a beautiful hotel on
Lake Leman. I look forward to hearing from Smithies in the area and any
King House Savages.”
DONNA ABELLI writes, “In addition to
my other national and regional design
awards, last spring I was awarded an
ADDY from the Western Massachusetts Advertising Council for my design work in the publication George
Bellows: A Ringside Seat. It came as
a pleasant surprise.” Donna reports
she is building her freelance design
business, recently completing the
Amherst Chamber of Commerce Visitor Guide, working with the Amherst
Art Walk, and promoting the arts in
Amherst. She also has a new position
as the development and marketing
manager for the Emily Dickinson
Museum.
GENA SCHWAM lives in rural Hamilton, NY, and works for the Picker Art
Gallery at Colgate University as the
museum’s registrar. Gena says Colgate reminds her of Smith in many
ways.
JENNIFER BLEIKER writes, “Last
month, LUNA SPELMAN took a break
from her hectic schedule to drive up
from Portland, OR, and meet me for
a day in Seattle, where I was vacationing. Although she’s on the West
Coast, Luna seems to keep an East
Coast pace about things, between her
full-time commitment to her budding
massage practice, and the classes she
teaches at Ashmead College. Seattle’s
weather is much like the North Shore
of Boston, where I work at home for
my family’s business, and as a fulltime professional firefighter.”
Questions about Reunion? Ask me
or Reunion co-chair CHRISTINE KORONIDES or visit www.smithclass1998.
org.
Sec., Monique Daviau, 1504 Alguno
Road, Austin, TX 78757,
[email protected]
1999
Greetings, everyone! If you’re not
receiving the reminder e-mails I
send out in advance of the deadline,
chances are your e-mail address is not
on file with the Alumnae Association.
If this is the case, please visit http://
alumnae.smith.edu and update your
contact information in the Alumnae Directory. While you’re online,
you might also wish to peruse our
class blog at http://smithcollege99.
blogspot.com, or catch a glimpse of
your classmates at http://www.flickr.
com/photos/smithcollege99.
MEGAN HOOVER, writing from her
home in Milan, reports that she is
thrilled with the birth of her wonderful baby boy, Michele Todd, who rang
in at a whopping eight pounds nine
ounces. Megan notes that he is doing
well, with a diverse agenda of eating,
sleeping, and crying.
HILLARY THOMAS SHAW and husband
David joyfully welcomed the birth
of their first child, Brogan Robert,
in April, in Annapolis, MD. Earlier
in the spring, Hillary had a beautiful
baby shower, attended by SOPHIE CANTELL, PRIYA THANIK, GINA CALIA-LOTZ,
INGRID HOWARD, and BETH AMBROSE
’97. Hillary also reports that she was
hired by ELIZABETH BARNES to design
the Website for Holway and Barnes,
Elizabeth’s St. Petersburg, FL-based
catering company. Though they have
yet to meet in person, Hillary and
Elizabeth managed the successful
launch entirely by way of telephone
and e-mail.
ELIZABETH BARNES herself reports
that son Quincy is approaching his
third birthday. Writing that it is a
small world with Smith bonds that
are stronger than one might imagine, Elizabeth notes that she has been
hanging out with BRIDGET SEKERA TAYLOR ’83, a new friendship born of a
play group.
ISHAH JANSSEN-FAITH writes that she
is doing well in New York City and is
pursuing acting. She most recently
appeared in Not From Canada, a
film shown at the New York International Fringe Festival, and has also
appeared in the ensemble Not Just
For Shock Value: A Femmes Clowns
Assemblage, with eight other women
clowns. Ishah also writes that she both
produced and appeared in Turning
Tables, a production by her theater
company, Coffee Cup, and looks forward to the show’s 2008 run.
JESSICA BECKER sends warm regards
to the class from Charleston. She is
happy running a Pilates studio at the
medical university. Jessica spent August in Maine to dodge the sultry heat
down South, and though she had a
great time, she missed her work terribly. Jessica also reports that she
and partner Joe and their son, John,
2 (whose initials spell “jewel”), are
excellent company. They manage to
squeeze in lots of vacation, and are
always happy to entertain, so Jessica
invites Smithies in or passing through
Charleston to give them a shout! Jessica also writes that LAUREN WETMORE
’97 rolled out the red carpet when
Jessica and her family visited her in
Oakland, CA.
AUDREY TANG married Matthew
Sousa on July 7, ’07, in Seattle at the
Newcastle Golf Club. In attendance
were PHOEBE BARTLETT INGRAHAM ,
ANNA CAREY COLLETTI, LINDA SIU, KATIE
HO, LORI KAUFFMAN, JULIA CASSANITI,
and DEBBIE TAY ’98. Audrey and Matthew had a fabulous time at their
wedding and honeymooned in Tahiti
for 10 days. Audrey also reports that
fellow Smiffenpoof MEGAN NEUMEISTER got married the very same day
in Maine.
KATE CROWE reports that as fast as
she moved to Los Angeles, she turned
around and left, and her lungs are still
recovering! Kate now lives in Putney,
VT, in a cute house on the campus of
the Putney School, an independent,
coeducational boarding and day high
school, where Kate primarily teaches
math, but also knitting and drawing
as evening elective classes. She also
looks forward to her role as the assistant Nordic ski coach. She writes
that the school is quite impressive;
it is on a farm and works to develop
the artistic, athletic, and intellectual
talents of high school students.
AMY ADAMS, one of my fave and fellow Smithereens, reports that she is
still in Shanghai, China, and has been
there for eight years now! Just over
a year ago, Amy launched Occam, a
cross-cultural training company that
teaches those traveling to China for
business how to work more effectively
with the Chinese people and their
culture. Amy returned to Massachusetts for KELLY CZWORKA’s wedding in
July, which she reports was a great
opportunity to catch up with other
Smithies for a very fulfilling weekend.
69
alumnae update
Amy hopes to meet up with Smithies
in China, and invites any who might
be in the neighborhood to drop her
a line.
GINA CALIA-LOTZ co-chaired the Smith
College Club of Baltimore book sale in
the spring, and has been handed the
reins to coordinate the club’s 50th annual sale in 2008. Gina invites Smithies in the Baltimore/Washington area
to check out this spectacular sale and
the club’s Website.
KAREN ZAIDBERG and wife Rachel purchased their first home in the spring,
and renovated the kitchen themselves.
Karen writes that though she and Rachel “gave in” and relocated across the
Hudson River to Jersey City, they are
happy to report that they love their
new neighborhood. Karen also did
some relocating of a different kind,
deciding to leave the classroom after
four years and join Teach for America’s New York City regional program
team. Karen also reports that she took
a week’s vacation in Provincetown,
along with ELEANOR CARTELLI, CAROLINE
FOURNIER ’02, RACHEL POTTER ’01, and
RACHEL VORKINK ’01—a great mini-reunion and a much-needed break.
LEDA NORNANG writes that she recently married Ryan Kampe on the
beach in Rincon, Puerto Rico, and was
happy to have so many Smithies make
the long trip to celebrate with them.
In attendance were MADHURII BAREFOOT, O’HARA TUDOR, DIANA JENSEN,
HILARY NELSON ’97, HEATHER FONTAINE
MERTON ’98, and CHRISTINA JIMENEZ ’98.
Leda and Ryan took a three-month
honeymoon to Tibet, India, Central
Asia, and Europe. They live in Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, and work in
feature film production.
KATHRYN DIX ABELL writes that she
was married in fall ’99, and began
work with a company developing antibodies for cancer research. Kathryn is
currently product manager, troubleshooting experiments undertaken by
a wide variety of PhDs, MDs, etc. She
gave birth to a son in 2003. Kathryn
keeps in touch with JOHANNA LINDSAY,
LYNN LI ’98, and ALICE TANG ’98 and
notes that all are living on the West
Coast and doing very well.
JENNIFER RILEY is pursuing a master’s
degree at the Fletcher School in Boston.
As for myself, I’m finally an attorney,
beyond the rat race of law school, and,
as Lionel Ritchie once sang, “Oh, oh,
what a feelin’”! Hope you are all well.
Please keep me posted with your news
and take care.
Sec., Ingrid Howard,
[email protected]
2000
Sec., Sarah Trabucchi,
[email protected]
2001
ANISA LANGLEY BACZEK runs a day
treatment program for pregnant/parenting women with substance abuse
70
Classmates at the wedding of Audrey Tang ’99 (center) in Seattle
included, from left to right, Linda Siu, Debbie Tay ’98, Lori
Kauffman, Phoebe Bartlett Ingraham, Anna Carey Colletti, Katie
Ho, and Julia Cassaniti.
and mental health issues. She gave
birth to her own daughter, Madeline
Rose, in May. Everyone is doing well
and adjusting to life with less sleep!
Smithies in attendance at her baby
shower were KARI DETWILER, AMY CONLY, JUSTINE SULLIVAN ’02, ELLEN WIEWEL,
ERIN NORTHEY, and ELIZA HAYES.
SARA REEVE of Morris House hosted a
mini-reunion for her wedding. Smithies flew and drove in from all over the
country to rural Vermont to celebrate
the momentous occasion. Since leaving Smith, Sara was in Seattle for three
years but returned to Vermont in 2004
to be closer to her family. There, she
met her husband, got her master’s
degree in early childhood education,
and bought a home. She now works
for a small independent school teaching and creating curriculum for students with disabilities. ALLISON VAN
STEENSBURG ’99 of Morris House was
Sara’s maid of honor. Allison is an
actuary for an insurance company
in Bermuda and has taken up field
hockey again, in a women’s league.
Also in attendance were JEN JOHNSTON
ROMAN, CAITLIN FOITO, and ROYA MILLARD ’02 of Morris House, and MEG
LEARY of Talbot House. Jen lives in
Massachusetts with husband Jay. She
has her master’s in education and is
teaching kindergarten. Meg lives in
Chicago after a stint in Seattle, living
with Sara. She moved back East to
get her master’s in performance art
at NYU. She has since gone on to get
an MFA from the Chicago School of
Art. She is still fabulous! Caitlin lived
with Meg and Sara for a year in Seattle
before moving to Los Angeles, where
she works for Fox Productions, the
leader in her division of script production. She is very excited about her
work, on shows that have premiered
on the FX and USA networks. Roya
lives in Massachusetts and works in
publishing, after being a behaviorist
in public schools for several years. She
and her partner recently purchased
a house in Marlborough, and she is
attending divinity school. Sara writes
that even though they don’t see each
other often, the fact that they maintain their relationships despite their
life changes speaks to the everlasting
friendships that Smith helps create.
ALLISON EBERHARD ULMER of Gardiner
House lives in downtown Denver with
husband Keith and dog Cougar. She
is a real estate attorney at Isaacson
Rosenbaum with CARA GREENGARD
LAWRENCE ’93 of Wilson House. Allison recently connected with KSENIJA BROKS of Gardiner House when
Ksenija passed through Denver on
a road trip.
PATRICIA PREWARE of Gardiner House
works for the Research Triangle Institute on a malaria-prevention project
as part of the president’s malaria initiative. So far she has traveled to Mozambique and Ethiopia and will also
work in Mali and Benin. Patricia also
adopted a dog, whom she describes
as both the bane and the joy of her
existence at the moment.
ALICE JAYNE has finished law school
in New York and (happily) relocated
back to the Boston area.
As for me, Dania, I was promoted
to group relations manager for the
greater San Francisco Bay Area region
of Enterprise Rent-A-Car. I’m looking
forward to doing public relations activities like shaking hands and kissing
babies. Also, after a year’s worth of
technical difficulties, the class page
is up and running at www.smith2001.
com. As always, please send in updates. We love updates!
Secs., Dania Frank and Jessica
Heinzelman,
[email protected]
2002
JULIE HERRICK completed two semesters on campus at Michigan Tech
University and began a three-month
internship in Colima, Mexico, where
she continues to focus on volcano
monitoring techniques. This work
(infrasound and seismic monitoring) on Volcán de Colima will help her
prepare for master’s thesis research.
She has been investigating volcanic
hazards in developing countries since
entering the master’s international
program for geological hazards. In
August, she joined the Peace Corps
in Panama; for her two-year stint, she
will work on environmental education
strategies and geologic hazard mitigation at volcanic centers in Panama.
LEILA EMERY (Sessions) writes, “I live
just outside Washington, DC, where
I am managing editor of a nationally
known literary journal, Potomac Review, and a creative writing teacher.
I received my MA in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University
in May. I have had some of my poetry published, and am also writing
a memoir.”
ASHLEY SHAVER writes from Minnesota, where after finishing grad
school in May, she started a new
job with a philanthropic consulting
firm. She and KATHERINE OTTO visited
THARA RAGHUTHAMAN in Brooklyn, NY.
Ashley writes, “We had tons of fun
catching up and reliving the good old
times, though we really missed NIKA
GRIGAITIS, who was busy finishing her
dental school residency in San Francisco. Hoping for the whole crew next
year! I’ve also been in touch with ANNI
ELWELL, now married and living in Albuquerque, NM, after completing a
stint with Teach for America, where
I’m sure she was the best fourth/fifth
grade teacher in the school!”
JULIE BABER writes that her theater
company, The 20% Theatre Company,
is doing well in its fourth year. The
company produced Parallel Lives: The
Kathy and Mo Show in January, starring ELIZABETH BRADLEY-HOWARD. In
May and June, they had a great run of
the show On the Verge, which PORTIA
KRIEGER ’03 directed, and starring JOHANNA WELLER-FAHY ’01. Julie is doing a
new play, Tender, by Shapour Benard,
for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. She
is looking forward to moving to Prospect Park, with ROBIN MORK ’00 and her
boyfriend. Despite battling illness in
February, life is good.
In other theater news, ABIGAIL
BOUCHER writes, “I recently moved
back to Paris, France. I’m back to
working for a translation company
based in Chicago, and am still actively involved with The 20% Theatre
Company in Chicago with ELIZABETH
SCHWAN-ROSENWALD and SARAH OSTMAN. We’re producing a great festival
of short plays by women playwrights
titled Snapshots and couldn’t be more
excited about the response we’ve received and the awesome lineup we’ve
put together. I recently performed in a
little music festival with some friends,
which was great. Now I just need to
start getting involved with the theater
scene in Paris and all will be well.”
ADIA HOAG had a recent mini-reunion
with Philly Smithies DAWN DANIEL ’03,
ERICA KHAN, and OLA ALADE. She also
met all the Democratic presidential
candidates and one of the Republican
candidates as well.
writes, “I live
in Lyme, CT, where my husband,
Erik, and I are renovating our 1850s
house—quite a project! I have my own
massage therapy practice in a neighboring town and recently traveled
to Thailand to study Thai massage.
Erik and I were married June ’06 in
Branford, CT.”
ALISON DUREN-SUTHERLAND is in a
midwifery program, having taken a
break from her previous abortioncare work. She recently assisted a
state legislative lobbyist in Olympia,
WA, helping to pass paid family leave
and same-sex domestic partnership
legislation. Returning to the clinic
to work part-time, she took on a sixmonth apprenticeship at the Puget
Sound Birth Center. After the apprenticeship, she will focus on midwifery
school.
LYDIA PEABODY recently moved to
Australia with her partner, Dave.
She will apply for residency in New
Zealand and should be in Wellington
for quite awhile.
BENNETH PHELPS loves her job directing a community-supported agriculture program near West Chester, PA.
She graduated with a master’s degree
in city and regional planning from
UMass, Amherst this year. She appreciates being near other Smithies
working in rural and urban agriculture projects in and around Philadelphia. She enjoyed attending the wedding of SARA FELDMAN last summer in
Princeton, NJ.
KATIE REED writes, “After working for
the Corporate Executive Board (CEB)
in Washington, DC, for five years,
I’m heading to London to pursue a
master’s degree in international employment relations. On a recent visit
to London to scope out housing, I saw
ALYSSA MERWIN, who is happily working in the London branch of CEB, and
KERI LIJINSKI, who is finishing up the
first year of her master’s program at
LSE. I’ll be joined overseas by EMILY
RAZZANO, who is moving to Amsterdam in September.” Katie also recently
saw ADRIENNE CAHILL, DANIELLE HUSSEY,
ALICE MOTES ’04, KATE HOBBS ’04, and
KRISTIN THORNBLAD, who are all doing
very well.
SANDY COLVARD AC graduated from
the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine in 2006. She moved
to Tacoma, WA, to open her medical
practice, a nonprofit with an outreach
specific to the LGBTQ population
of Seattle/Tacoma/Olympia. Sandy
is the medical director of Bridges
Health, a family practice for naturopathic medicine, massage therapy,
and acupuncture. She would love to
hear from any Smithies interested in
this type of health care.
LYDIA JETT reports that after two
years at Goldman Sachs and a summer traveling, she is attending Stanford Business School. She spent July
in Asia and August in South America.
LINDSAY EISENSMITH
Sybil Dunlop ’01 was married with plenty of classmates on hand
to celebrate. Pictured, left to right: Victoria Fort, Kara Ralston,
Sybil, Sadie Dingfelder, Holly Burke, and Erin Sikorsky-Stewart.
Before leaving New York, she grabbed
drinks with KRISTA GILL.
JILL MCCULLOUGH is working for New
Horizons, a wilderness therapy organization in rural Maine. They take
at-risk adolescent girls backpacking,
canoeing, and snowshoeing as part
of a holistic treatment program. “It’s
challenging, but ultimately really rewarding,” Jill says. She also spent a
couple of years in northern Minnesota working with the International
Wolf Center and Outward Bound
Wilderness and completed a graduate
program in environmental education
through the University of Minnesota,
Duluth. “The highlight of my time
in the Midwest was three weeks of
dogsledding through the Boundary
Waters,” she writes.
ELIZABETH WILEY writes, “After
graduation, I taught seventh grade
for two years in Detroit with Teach
for America. I returned to school
and graduated recently with both a
JD and MPH from the University of
Michigan. I am leaving for Norway
on a Fulbright next month to study
long-term care and will begin medical
school in fall ’08.”
Jordanite ANGELA DICORLETO was
married in June to Faisal Khan in
Cleveland, OH. The happy couple live
in Brooklyn, NY. Angela is a social
worker with the Legal Aid Society’s
juvenile rights practice. Present at the
celebration were ANNE NOYES, an MA
student in journalism at NYU; LISA
KANAREK, a recent graduate of the University of Florida Law School; SASHA
WEISER FREEDMAN, in urban planning
at Rutgers; and MELISSA SOONG ’01, a
social worker at a New York human
service organization.
ALLISON SANCHEZ decided to leave
midwifery training after her mother
passed away from Lou Gehrig’s disease. She moved with partner Jeremy
from Portland, ME, to Portland, OR,
falling in love with the Northwest and
working for a trademark lawyer. She
debated a future in law and played
competitive Ultimate Frisbee. In
April, she visited HILLARY LOWENSTEIN
in Krakow, Poland, where Hillary was
finishing medical school. Now Allison and Jeremy are in Long Beach,
CA, where she is at USC Law School,
pursuing health law. She’s also playing
beach Ultimate, “enjoying the sand
and sun, and exploring the Los Angeles lifestyle.”
KATIE WOOD still lives in the Philadelphia area, working her way through
school. She’s just finished her MA
at Winterthur with a focus in 18thcentury American sculpture, and is
continuing her PhD at the University
of Delaware’s program in art history.
All is well. She loves Pennsylvania,
and thinks of Smith all the time!
ANNA FRANKER BRELJE writes, “Penny
(my dog) and I just celebrated her oneyear adoption birthday. I am back in
Minneapolis, working as the political director at the Minneapolis labor
council. Also, I have not been arrested
for skinny-dipping yet this summer.
Life is good.”
Life is indeed pretty good. Louisa
and I are oh so excited to serve you for
the next five years as your secretaries.
Send in those updates!
Secs., Moliehi (Mo) Pefole and
Louisa Bradtmiller,
[email protected]
2003
Wow! We have so many updates
this go-round that my mailbox has
been full! It is a real pleasure to finally have some news to publish, and
I know my 2003 readers must have
been as frustrated as I was. I’d like
to remind you about our brand-new
Website, http://web.mac.com/smithsecretary03. Please feel free to submit
news via the Website blog comments
function. Also, Reunion is just around
the corner. We are looking for volunteers to help plan the big weekend,
and an artist to draw the 5th Reunion
logo. You can put the date in your calendars now as May 22–25, ’08. It will
be amazing to see all you lovely ladies
again! And now news from you!
The bells are ringing for weddings
left, right, and center: NICOLE BOWERS
reports that DAWN DANIEL was married
to her high school sweetheart, Robert, in June, in Brooklyn, NY. Nicole
writes, “It was a beautiful ceremony.
She wore a beautiful off-white and
taupe wedding dress. She looked stunning. After the exchange of vows and
lighting of the unity candle, Mr. and
Mrs. Robinson jumped the broom,
an Afrocentric wedding tradition.”
KELLI SMITH was Dawn’s maid of honor
and KIANA TERRY ’05 was her wedding
planner. Among other Smithies in
attendance were AYOKA STEWART ’06,
CRYSTAL ADEGBOLA ’04, KIANA TERRY ’05,
KNIA TANNER, GENEVA PAUL, and MAYA
RAMOS.
In a lovely midday wedding, ANNE
MILLER married Michael Bello with
lots of Smithies to help celebrate,
including her mother, PRUDENCE
WHITE MILLER ’66; cousin LIZ DEAN ;
and maid of honor NANCY MARTIRA.
Also in attendance were MARIN KRESS,
ALEXANDRA KLEYMAN , GRACE RYDERO’MALLEY, GRETCHEN UNFRIED ’01, and
ALLISON CROSBY ’04. The Bellos live in
Northampton and honeymooned at
Disney World.
Our third wedding occurred in
June, when ANNE MORRIS was married to Hannah Logan in Atlanta. In
attendance were BRITTA GUSTAFSON,
ALEXIS LAMB , CELESTE CAVINESS ’05,
BRITA ZITIN, ERICA SANDBERG ’04, EMILY
GERSTEIN, and ALLYSON BOGIE. Anne
was thrilled to have so many Smithies
present to help her celebrate her wedding. Anne and Hannah live in Miami,
where Anne dances with Brazz Dance
Theater and works as a teaching artist
through Arts for Learning, Miami.
She is applying to MFA dance programs for fall ’08.
Last but not least, SARAH CUSHWA
DIVINE was married in Aug. ’06, in
Sheffield, MA, to David Divine.
Smithies attending included KATHERINE D’AMATO, ERIKA PARKER, SHARON
HOROWITZ ’02, LYDIA JENNER ’01, AUDREY
MANNING, ROBYN BLUESTEIN, and ANNA
PIERCE. Since receiving her master’s
in early education and child study
from UMass, Amherst in 2004, Sarah
taught special education in New Milford, CT. David and Sarah now live in
Hillsdale, NY.
BRITTA GUSTAFSON still lives in
Washington, DC. She works in the
lobbying department of a law firm
downtown.
ALEXIS LAMB is pursuing a doctoral
degree in clinical psychology at the
University of Rhode Island.
BRITA ZITIN lives in Portland, ME, and
works for the Born to Read program at
the Maine Humanities Council.
EMILY GERSTEIN lives in Tempe, AZ,
and is getting her PhD in clinical psychology at Arizona State University.
After graduating from law school
and taking the bar exam in summer
’06, ERICA BALL relocated from San
Francisco to Southern California to
be closer to her family. She finally
settled down in Rancho Cucamonga.
71
alumnae update
Erica’s been working at a midsized law
firm that specializes in public law,
representing cities and other public
agencies throughout Central and
Southern California. Erica writes, “I
really enjoy my work! I make an effort
to visit LINSEY MCMILLAN down in San
Diego as often as possible, and keep
in touch with SARA BALDWIN and NADINE SCHNEIDER, who both live in the
Philadelphia area.”
SARAH GOTTESDIENER has lived in
Portland, OR, for almost three years,
after moving from San Francisco. She
lives in her own home with her girlfriend and pit bull (“both adorable”).
Sarah works at a design firm and magazine called Plazm, and keeps busy
with two bands, playing the drums
for one, and singing and playing bass
and guitar for the other. She also
has art shows around town and has
a Website. She keeps in touch with
KATERINA LLANES’04, at Bard for grad
school, who visited Sarah last summer; BARBARA JOO, an award-winning
DJ in Washington, DC; and former
roomie JANE SCHON ’04, who is almost
finished with her PA degree.
ALLYSON BOGIE has lived in Berkeley, CA, since graduating. She began
teaching through Teach for America,
and is in her second year of teaching
middle school English in Oakland.
She says, “I love teaching and I plan
to keep teaching for awhile.”
Finally, a bit of personal news: I have
now moved from Baku, the capital of
Azerbaijan, to Aberdeen, Scotland,
where I started a three-year training
contract with Ernst & Young in August to become an accountant. More
important, I gave birth to a daughter,
Bel (short for Isabel), in July. My elder
daughter, Cora, 3, is thrilled, and loves
to play with her new sister.
I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the holiday season. Don’t forget
to share your news. Best wishes, and
I hope to see you at Reunion!
Sec., Autumn Kidd Green,
[email protected],
http://web.mac.com/
smithsecretary03
2004
Lots of news to share about starting grad school, finishing grad school,
weddings, performances, relocations,
and mini-reunions!
ALEX LYON writes that over the last
several years, her interest in small
farms and local food has grown, and
she is working on an MS in agroecology at the University of Wisconsin,
Madison. “My grad program is one of
the first of its kind, and I’m excited to
be a part of it,” she says. She keeps in
touch with, among others, MARGARET
SEMISCH ’05 and KAT RICKENBACKER.
SARAH KEHOE relocated from Seattle
to Boston to attend grad school at
Tufts; she lives in Cambridge.
MARIA VELAZQUEZ of Gardiner House
is starting the doctoral program in
American studies at the University
72
Amy Getchel ’94, Meredith Walsh ’00, and Yumi Aikawa ’04 in
Thailand, where they provide medical care to Burmese refugees.
of Maryland, College Park.
MEGHAN FLANAGAN moved out to
Minneapolis to begin grad school
studying water resources in the civil
engineering department at the University of Minnesota.
CAITLIN SCAFATI is in Santa Monica,
CA, working toward a master’s in psychology. The National Eating Disorders Conference in October featured
her independent photography project
on people in recovery from eating
disorders.
MARIAN KRAMER moved to Duluth,
MN, to start a master’s program in
water resources science at the University of Minnesota Large Lakes
Observatory. “I am excited to be so
close to Lake Superior and back in
my home state!” she says.
Last spring, CANDICE CORNISH graduated from American University’s
Washington College of Law.
After WIEBKE HENNING, DIPL, finished the Smith diploma in American
studies program, she returned to Germany, where she received a master’s
in American studies, musicology, and
political science from the University
of Hamburg in 2006. Still in Hamburg, she is a project assistant at a
large ship classification society there.
Wiebke reports, “In late June, EMILY
JONES came to visit while she stayed
in Berlin for the summer, and we took
a lovely trip to Amrum, a tiny island
in the German North Sea.”
SUSAN JENNINGS MCLAY graduated
from the MGH Institute of Health
Professions with a doctorate in physical therapy and is now working at
MGH’s outpatient physical therapy
department in Boston. She continues
to dance with SoulFelt Expression, a
local gospel dance group.
HEATHER DYSON was married in June
to longtime boyfriend Matthew Williamson in their hometown of Swarthmore, PA. BECKY ALEXANDER was her
maid of honor and ANNA SERGEL ’03
and ELISA HITT ’06 were in attendance.
The Williamsons now live in Evanston, IL.
EMILY JACOBS reports that her sister
’02 married Jonathon
MacCarthy on July 7, ’07, in the Jemez mountains outside Santa Fe. Also
present was EMILY DOMAN ’01. All three
are Gillettites.
MOLLY PARSONS tied the knot in June
in Greenfield, OH. Her dear friends
and fellow Ziskind House classmates
CARA STEPP, ALICIA VANDEVUSSE, ADRIENNE KICZA ’03, and XIN LI attended,
“making the day even more special,”
she says.
DESTINY MONTAGUE spent the fall
touring with her band, Shock Cinema,
following the August release of an EP
titled Our Way Is Revenge.
Poet, playwright, and performance
artist LENELLE MOÏSE, MFA, recently
released her debut spoken-word CD,
Madivinez, which Time Out New York
hailed as “powerful.” She was excited
to return to Smith in September for
New World Theater’s workshop production of her two-woman play about
race, art, and infamy, Expatriate.
COURTNEY CHOI moved back to Southern California at the end of July to be
closer to family. “I miss New York,”
she says, “but I’m looking forward to
getting to know SoCal as an adult,
since I haven’t lived here since high
school!”
KELLY SHIPMAN just moved from Boston (where she hung out with ELIZABETH KNOX, KRISTEN ZEISER, and EMILY
JONES) back home to Philly, where she
works in the development of gynecologic cancer research. She’s enjoying
her new job, and is contemplating
grad school for next fall. “I’m glad to
have moved, but I do miss my Smithies in Boston!” she says.
LAUREL DAMASHEK reports that six
New England Havenites got together
at the end of July for a mini-reunion
in York Harbor, ME. “We made sure
to ‘ding’ at dinner,” she writes. Laurel has a new job editing Chinese
textbooks and reports that ALLISON
KENYON is finishing her nurse practitioner degree at Yale School of Nursing; MIRIAM QUINTAL is working toward
a chemistry PhD at Harvard; AIMEE
PETROSKY opened her own day-care
MEGAN JACOBS
business in Northampton in the fall;
and LIZ LIEDEL was promoted to major
gifts coordinator at Combined Jewish
Philanthropies.
Also present was KAT RICKENBACKER, who writes to say that she spent
August on a cross-country road trip
and is trucking away on her sociology PhD.
YUMI AIKAWA spent her summer
working at Mae Tao Clinic in Mae
Sot, Thailand, and was ecstatic to
meet AMY GETCHEL ’94 and MEREDITH
WALSH ’00, who have also been working in the area. “It’s exciting to know
that three generations of Smithies
are helping the displaced people of
Burma,” says Yumi. She reports that
Meredith works at the Burma Medical
Association, and Amy is a midwife at
the Umpiem Refugee Camp.
Sec., Shannon Hunt, 8 Chauncy
Street #1, Cambridge, MA 02138,
[email protected]
2005
Sec., Alicia Duffin,
[email protected]
2006
Hello, class of ’06! Come this May,
we have been alumnae for two full
years! We’re no longer the newest
alums on the block.
JENNIFER TRINKAUS-RANDALL is a nanny in Boston, to three young boys, and
fell in love with London after spending a six-day tour in the city with her
mother. In addition to her nanny job,
she plans to volunteer at Children’s
Hospital in Boston in the Child Life
Program.
SARA BARZ spent last summer riding her bicycle across the country
with Habitat Bicycle Challenge, and
plans to move back to western Massachusetts.
After three months of applying for
positions in the VA, EDWARD ZAPALA,
MSW, accepted a job in Madison, WI
as a part of the homeless program.
Edward will act as an intermediary
between the VA and partners in the
community that have set up transitional housing programs for homeless
veterans.
After graduating, CAROLINE ROBERTS
moved to Boston and worked as an art
conservation assistant at the Museum
of Fine Arts. Now she is a conservation technician at the Isabella Stewart
Gardner Museum, helping equip the
art objects lab and lending a hand
with various conservation treatments.
Caroline is looking ahead to graduate
study in art conservation.
KAITLIN NORTHEY teaches at the Smith
College Center for Early Childhood
Education, after a first year of teaching art at the Elias Brookings Museum
Magnet School in Springfield, MA.
She was given a surprise birthday party by ASHLEY SUTTON ’08, MOLLY SHEA,
ABBY WALTON ’07, ELEANOR GRANO ’09,
and JILLIAN BAUER ’09.
ELLIE KLIMAS is Janet Reno’s research
assistant in Miami.
LANA SUNDMAN is working on several
novels and a screenplay. In 2007, she
moved to the Dallas area.
After graduation, SOPHIA SAVAGE
lived in Florida, then joined her
partner in New Zealand, where she
is now a PA for a respected private
project management company, which
is proving a new and interesting experience. In Wellington, Sophia has
acted in lead roles in both Dangerous Liaisons and Shakespeare’s Titus
Andronicus. She reunited with several
of her closest Capen friends before
heading overseas, but still finds it
hard to live so far away from them.
Sophia encourages all alums to visit
New Zealand and see how beautiful
it is firsthand.
AILEEN MURPHY still lives on the West
Coast and works in the San Juan Islands, WA, as a sea kayak guide. In
the future she will continue to bring
together her passion for adventures
and the ocean as she works toward
becoming a sailor.
NICOLE MARCEAU AC has taken and
passed her LICSW exam! She is employed full-time as a clinical social
worker on an inpatient adult psychiatric unit. She works with three
Smithies who have been a tremendous support both professionally and
personally as she adjusts to postgrad
life. Nicole lives in western Massachusetts with daughter Ashley, 13, who
is thrilled that her mom has finally
finished school!
ALYSSA DOODY and DANIELLE MOST
have made their home in Denver.
Danielle is a legal advocate for victims
of domestic violence at the municipal
courts. She recently helped organize
the nation’s largest pro-choice auction
for the Colorado chapter of NARAL.
In addition, she teaches a GED class
at a day shelter for impoverished
women. Alyssa is doing a medical
preceptorship at the Denver Health
Association, specializing in gynecology and internal medicine, and also
works in the medical ward at the Denver County jail.
After a wonderful year with AmeriCorps VISTA at Wittenberg University in Springfield, OH, MOLLY RITCHIE
moved to Washington, DC. She works
for her home district’s representative,
Congressman Brian Higgins, and
loves it. Molly writes, “It has been
great to catch up with all the Smithies who live in Washington!”
SANDRA HALL lives in San Francisco
and is a child and family therapist at
Burt Children’s Center, a level 12 residential treatment center that serves
severely emotionally disturbed children ages 6–12.
MAGDALENE GOBLE works in the office
of constituent services for Governor
Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas. She really enjoys it, but is interested in trying something new, so from Aug. ’07
to Aug. ’08 she is volunteering with
the Mennonite Central Committee
Brunching in Berlin are Kerstin Koch, DIPL; Nora Pittis; and
Lillianna (Lilly) Joseph, all class of ’06.
in Cairo, Egypt, where she teaches
English to children and adults at a
school run by the Egyptian Coptic
Church. Magdalene is to live with
Coptic nuns—most definitely a new
and unique experience!
RUTH MILLER has finished her master’s in elementary education at the
University of Michigan and is now
heading to Beijing to teach first grade
at an international school.
KERSTIN KOCH , DIPL, graduated
from Smith as part of the American
Studies diploma program, a graduate
program for international students,
and is still in Hamburg, Germany,
working on her master’s thesis at the
Universität Hamburg. She also went
to Berlin for a weekend with LILLY
JOSEPH and met NORA PITTIS, who is
studying in Berlin.
AYOKA STEWART was hired with
CollegeWorks of Oakland, CA, a
nonprofit dedicated to increasing
the enrollment of low-income, highachieving students in four-year colleges. Ayoka and her organization will
be bringing 14 of their most gifted
female students to Smith so that they
can become exposed to the wealth of
resources at small colleges. She has
also been revising her honors thesis
in preparation for graduate school
applications.
EMILY DALY returned from Spain but
was lucky to hang out at the Feria de
Cordoba with JENNIFER GIVENS. She has
started a new job as a Spanish teacher
at the Stratton Mountain School in
Vermont. In July, her buddy CAROLYN MARTIN visited from Florida, and
they went to a Scales mini-reunion
in Boston, where they saw ALLISON
HINDMAN-HARVEY, EMILY LEONARD, REBECCA SPALDING, and CATHERINE MILLERLITTLE.
Keep the updates coming! Please
note that my contact mailing address
has changed. As always, the best way
to reach me is by e-mail!
Sec., Tegan Ahmed, 409 Willow
Brook Court, Mebane, NC 27302,
[email protected]
2007
Hello, class of ’07! Although it has
only been a few months since we parted ways, everyone seems to have gotten a great start to their new lives and
seems excited to share their news!
A large number of us are on the East
Coast, with many of us in New York
and Boston.
FRANCES GUTTER LISK works for
Christie’s house sales department in
New York.
LEONORA EPSTEIN works for Cosmopolitan.
NKECHI NNEJI works with CNN New
York.
JAMIE NOLAN is applying to law
school and hosting a radio show on
WVOX.
SARAH MATARI works at a law firm and
plans to attend law school in fall ’08.
MELISSA MACDONALD teaches firstgrade special education in the Bronx
through Teach for America.
MARIA FRENCH teaches middle school
students with disabilities in Brooklyn with the New York City Teaching
Fellows.
EMILY FARQUHARSON lives with GRACE
POKELA ’06 in the city. Emily works as
a paralegal, and Grace has just been
accepted to the NYC Teaching Fellows.
MAGGIE SOWELL is a Columbia University graduate student. Just across
the street from Maggie, KATE ROOD is
a stewardship officer in the department of institutional advancement at
Barnard College.
Outside the city, JULIANA ROBERTS
lives on Long Island, where she works
for a nonprofit battling suburban
sprawl.
KATHERINE HARTMAN is a recruiter
for a Long Island Macy’s department store.
Farther north, SYLVIA SANCHEZ AC
lives in Somers, CT, with her husband
and two young boys, and teaches fifth
grade.
MARY HINES works in Windsor Locks,
CT, at Hamilton Sundstrand as an IT
business analyst.
VICTORIA BRAM, ERIN SCHAEFER, ERIN
LOUGHNEY, and ANEESHA GANDHI all
recently moved to Boston.
SHANNON STRUBLE is in graduate
school at Simmons College in Boston, pursuing a dual degree in library
science and history.
TALYA DAVIS-JOHNSON is in graduate
school at Tufts University.
ALISON PIETRAS is a clinical research
assistant at Brigham and Women’s
Hospital.
EMILY STACKPOLE lives down the
road in Somerville and is a technical research assistant at McLean
Hospital.
CLAIRE (JYOTHIR) JOHNSON and STEPHANIE JARVI both work at Children’s
Hospital in Boston; Jyothir is an ophthalmic technician, and Stephanie is
a research assistant.
BETHANY KULCZEWSKI works at Beth
Israel Deaconess Medical Center as
a research coordinator in the sleep
medicine department.
NINA WILKINSON works at Tufts-New
England Medical Center and as the
men’s client specialist for J.Crew.
EMILY GARVEY is in her first year of
law school at Northeastern University
School of Law.
LYDIA RAINVILLE is a junior economist
for the U.S. Department of Transportation Volpe Center in Cambridge,
MA.
Just outside Boston, DEBORAH SANZONE teaches ninth-grade biology at
Milford High School.
West on I-90, KATE WINANS is employed by Historic Deerfield as a historic house guide.
ASHLEY BARTON is a programs and
education assistant at the Children’s
Museum of Holyoke.
AMA ADUSEI is in Springfield at the
Center for Human Development as
an assistant case historian.
Apparently TARN MARTIN could not
get enough of Smith. She is now a student at the School for Social Work and
counsels students at the JFK Middle
School in Florence.
JUAN LI is at Cornell University for
PhD study in operations research.
AMANDA BIRD is in Middlebury
College’s Spanish graduate program
and teaches Spanish at Scituate High
School in Massachusetts.
MARY-MORGAN CHILDS is also a graduate student at Middlebury for her
master’s in French.
ELIZABETH JENSEN is in graduate
school at Dartmouth College for
mechanical engineering.
CHRISTIANE WOLSKI lives in Ashfield,
MA, and is studying for her master’s
degree in applied psychology at Antioch University New England in
Keene, NH.
MIRA GREENE is a literary management intern with the Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, RI.
HILARY MARTIN lives in Maine and is
an accounting assistant for a company that processes blueberries and
73
alumnae update
cranberries.
ANGELA FOSS
returned to her home
state of Maine and works at the
Muskie School of Public Service Institute for Health Policy and at a local
bookstore.
In the Washington, DC, area, LAUREN INGEGNERI attends George Washington University Law School and
plans to practice intellectual property
and patent law.
Also in Washington, THEODORA
DWORAK is volunteering through
AmeriCorps at Christ House, an inpatient health-care facility for homeless people.
JENNA LOVAAS has begun her twoyear stint as an IRTA Fellow at the
National Institutes of Health.
GINNY SLAUGHTER is a public relations
specialist for the Commonwealth of
Virginia.
Trading East for West, GARRETT
BRADLEY left her hometown of New
York and attends UCLA film school.
ANA-FLORINA VOICA is in graduate
school for chemistry at the Scripps
Research Institute in San Diego.
KRISTI CLOSSER is in a chemistry graduate program at UC Berkeley, where
TERESA GONZALES is in a graduate program in sociology.
FRANCES BELL lives in Berkeley and
works at Bechtel in Oakland.
In San Francisco, ALEX BOOTH works
at Google AdSense as an embedded
tools developer. BECCA DANTON is a recreation director for Project Insight,
a small organization run by the San
Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. JESSICA CHIANG is interning
at the UCSF AIDS Health Project in
the research department. JANNA WHITE
and JANE BERKELEY have both moved
to the area to get started on their new
lives. ZAINAB RAZA works with AT&T
in San Ramon, just outside of San
Francisco.
Otherwise, Smithies have been
spreading themselves across the country. ALYSSA MCCANNA and her husband
bought a house in Colorado Springs,
CO. She is a prelitigation assistant at
a law firm.
KARA SOSA attends Barry University
School of Law in Orlando, FL.
LAUREN MILES lives in Fort Myers, FL,
works at the state attorney’s office,
and has applied to law school.
In Las Vegas, KATE SHEFFIELD works
as an electrical engineer for Bechtel
SAIC, while BRYNNE CRAIG is a field
organizer for the Hillary Clinton
campaign.
TYLER DAVIS lives in St. Paul, MN, and
is studying for her master’s in counseling psychology.
SABRINA BEASON lives in New Orleans, where she works for a downtown passport agency.
VIRGINIA PHILLIPS is a student at the
University of Missouri-Kansas City
School of Law.
KATHERINE DUNBIER teaches secondary English in Elim, AK.
KATE ROGERS is in Phoenix, AZ,
studying for the LSAT and saving up
for law school.
JENNIFER LAVANGA is in medical
school at the American University of
Antigua College of Medicine.
CATHERINE HOUSHOLDER lives in Santiago de Chile and teaches two English
classes at the Universidad de Ciencias
de la Informática. She writes, “Landing this job, interacting with Chilean
students and teachers, and earning
my first real paychecks has been a
thrilling experience so far!”
FRANCES KINGSBURY moved to Puebla,
Mexico, in the summer and works
for Smith’s study-abroad program
in Mexico. She wants her friends to
come visit her!
In London, JENNA AUGENLICHT is in a
three-year acting course at the Royal
Academy of Dramatic Arts.
Across the water, ALLISON SCHEIN
is pursuing a master’s in French
language and civilization at NYU in
Paris.
SARAH-NEEL SMITH is also in Paris
as a fellow at the École Normale Superieure.
BRITTANY ROGERS and ELIZABETH
LABELLE are in Spain teaching for a
year.
NINA PALMER is in a Johns Hopkins
program in Nanjing, China, pursuing a one-year certificate in political
relations. She will then be in the Smith
area around January or February.
REBECCA PAGE teaches English in Japan with language school GEOS and
lives in Iizuka, a small city in the Fukuoka Prefecture in Japan.
HANA VIDEEN and GABRIELLE HUNTERENSOR are also teaching English in
Japan for a year.
DANA BERTE lives in Tsugaru City,
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Japan, and is a coordinator for international relations at city hall through
the JET program, run by the Japanese
ministry of education.
As for our Fulbright scholars, KRYSTAL BANZON is in the Philippines doing research on postcolonial Filipino
theater, working with activist theater
companies in Manila. JULIE GOSHE is
in Taiwan doing a Fulbright English
teaching assistantship and working
on her Chinese.
Unfortunately, FRANCES SAUNDERS’s
mother died shortly after graduation.
She is taking some time off from job
hunting and writing a play.
Please keep the updates coming!
Sec., Elisabeth (Lizy) Sexton,
[email protected]
Ada Comstock
Scholars
BRIDGET ANDREW ’88 practiced family medicine as a physician associate
(Yale School of Medicine ’96) with
the Indian Health Service in Zuni,
NM, for nine years. She completed
her MPH in international health at
Johns Hopkins in spring ’05 and in
July joined the CDC’s epidemic intelligence service. For two years, she will
work with the Montana Department
of Health in Helena. She writes, “I am
sad to leave New Mexico but really
looking forward to the EIS and living in Montana—great department
of health, mountain biking, running,
and snowboarding all within minutes
of town. Doesn’t get much better!”
KATHLEEN DUNN ’06 has worked at
Enterprise Bank in Lowell, MA, as
an assistant vice president in human
resources since graduation. She is also
the alumnae admissions coordinator
for the greater Lowell area, and says,
“I love playing a small part in the decision process, and it’s a great way to
give back to the Smith community.”
She is on the board of directors for
the Brush Art Gallery in Lowell and
volunteers at the Career Center of
Lowell, teaching resume and interview skills to disadvantaged women.
She loves spending time with her two
granddaughters in New Hampshire.
AUDREY TANNER ’91 moved to the
San Francisco area in 2002, after 11
years in Boston working, raising her
son, and completing both a second
bachelor’s degree in psychology and
a master’s in organizational management. She recently completed an EdD
in higher education leadership and is
associate vice president for financial
aid and career services at Dominican
University of California. She would
love to connect with other Adas in
the Bay Area.
MARY DAMIANO PINNEY ’80 writes,
“The big event of my summer was
the wedding of my oldest granddaughter in my gardens in June. We
had a perfect day and the 200 guests
all seemed to have a good time. SUSAN
SMITH ’80 played a keyboard before
the wedding and for the processional
and recessional. All my children and
grands were there at one time, which
doesn’t happen often these days! After
it was all over, I spent a peaceful five
days in the Adirondacks with NANCY
HURD SCHLUTER ’83. I am kept busy by
my work on our township environmental commission and on the planning board. I also continue to be the
Ada representative to the Alumnae
Association classes committee.”
P. LOUGH O’DALY ’84 closed her antique restoration/custom wood finishing business of 20 years due to
regulatory changes in the industry.
She is now training and working as
a dental lab technician. She has also
been hired part-time at Infineon
Raceway in Sonoma as a mechanic for
one of the race car repair shops. Some
of you may recall that she arrived at
Smith fresh from an Air Force career
as a jet engine mechanic.
MISTINGUETTE SMITH ’00 commutes
between Northampton and New York,
pursuing her MPA at the Wagner
School of Public Service at NYU.
ANNAMARIE (ANNIE) PEDERSEN ’05 will
receive her master of arts in marriage
and family therapy from Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, WA.
Upon graduation, she plans to stay
in the Pacific Northwest and provide
counseling for couples, children, and
families.
HEATHER NEAL ’05 has a thriving
massage practice in Northampton
and teaches massage at Greenfield
Community College as well as being
involved in restructuring the program
there. She and wife Kristin became
preadoptive foster parents of a 4-dayold girl in May.
DEBORAH WILLIAMS ’99 will spend the
next year at Roehampton University
outside of London, working toward
her master’s in dance anthropology.
She will miss her life and friends in
Baltimore, especially PATRICIA WHALEN
’88 and husband GREGORY BULLEN, MA
’83, with whom she has had the pleasure of working for the past several
years.
ANGEL WILLIS BAYLISS ’99 writes, “I
have lived my life here in Oklahoma
on Indian Trust land and am once
again back on Indian Trust land trying
to make a difference for my people.
I am registered Absentee Shawnee
Tribe of Oklahoma Indian roll #0527.
We are a federally recognized tribe.
I was so fortunate to graduate from
Smith and then go on to get my master’s in psychology and religion from
Andover Newton Theological School
with cross-registration with Harvard
Divinity in 2001. I was in my PhD program at the Institute of Transpersonal
Psychology when I became ill and returned home in 2003. I wish all the
sisters greetings from Indian country
here in Oklahoma.”
Sec., Kelly Loringer ’93, 1117 Morgantown Road, Point Marion, PA
15474,
[email protected]
WINNING
through charitable giving
As a member of the Class of 1958 volunteer team, Rose
“Rosie” Converse Morgan is eagerly anticipating her upcoming
50th reunion. Reunion allows Rosie to revisit close friends and
re-live memories.
In anticipation of this memorable occasion, Rosie wanted to
make a lasting gift to her alma mater. She’s already played an
important role on campus, serving as a fund-raising volunteer,
but she wanted to make an even larger impact. Rosie and her
husband, Cub, decided to fund a charitable gift annuity. Both
Smith and the couple benefit from the gift – The Morgans
receive a fixed income for life and enjoy tax advantages, while
the college will be able to utilize the funds for its greatest
needs. It is a gift that Rosie described as a “win-win situation”
for her and Cub, and one that will benefit a future generation
of Smith students.
Rosie is thankful for what Smith College has given her.
During her junior year, she reaped the benefits of studying
abroad, and throughout her years on campus, Rosie
enjoyed learning from Smith’s talented professors. Following
graduation, she served in various volunteer roles in her
community such as coach, committee chairwoman, and board
member.
For more
information about
charitable gift
annuities and other
life income gifts,
please contact
Smith’s Office
of Planned Gifts
& Bequests at
planned_giving@
smith.edu or
(800) 241-2056,
option 5.
Additional
information and
a schedule of gift
annuity rates are
available at www.
smith.edu/future/
planned.
When Rosie marches in the Ivy Day parade next May, she
will do it with pride. Through her volunteer work and financial
support, she is able ensure the next generation at Smith enjoys
the experiences she once did.
PRODUCED BY
THE OFFICE OF
A D VA N C E M E N T
OBITUARIES
OBITUARY POLICY Obituaries may be submitted by family, friends, or classmates to the SAQ office at [email protected]; Smith
Alumnae Quarterly, Alumnae House, Smith College, Northampton, MA 01063, Attn: Obituaries; fax: 413-585-2015. An alumna must
be confirmed as deceased by the college records department in order for an obituary or death notice to appear. Obituaries can be a
maximum of 150 words. Newspaper obituaries cannot be reprinted.
1930s
MAY GOULD SHERRILL ENGLISH ’33, July 6, ’07, peace-
fully in her sleep in Bedford, MA, at age 95. Her
mother was EMILIE CREIGHTON GOULD 1904, and her
eldest daughter is SARAH SHERRILL ’57. She married
Gibbs Sherrill in 1934 and was twice widowed. She
is much missed by her five children, three grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.
—Sarah Sherrill ’57
JOSEPHINE EMORY BELL
’34, June 1, ’07, following
a brief illness. She was still living at her home in
Cazenovia, NY, enjoying life to the fullest. Jo had
wonderful memories of her time at Smith, and kept
up with several classmates, exchanging e-mails with
another Smith alumna on her 90th birthday. In her
50s, she learned Braille, and initiated a program for
blind children at a local school. She and Gordon,
her husband of 55 years, made friends wherever
they traveled, and their home was always filled with
friends, family, and a wide assortment of pets. Jo
grew up in Morristown, NJ, and graduated from
Kent Place School before attending Smith. She
wrote charming short stories, some of which will
be published. She loved poetry, and often recited
poems learned at Smith. She also wrote a number of
poems. She leaves her daughter, two sisters-in-law,
and numerous nieces and nephews.
—Jody Reynolds, her daughter
GLADIS BARBER INNERST
’36, May 19, ’07. After
graduating cum laude from Smith, she attended
the Bank Street College of Education, at Columbia
University. In 1939, she married her first husband,
an aeronautical engineer, and the couple settled in
La Jolla, CA. Gladis taught, using Montessori and
other creative methods with young children. Always
politically active and especially concerned for world
peace, in the early ’50s she joined the Religious
Society of Friends or Quakers and held positions
of leadership, especially with regard to activity on
behalf of peace. In 1965, she married J. Stuart Innerst, also a Quaker, who hoped to promote better
relations with China, where he had been a missionary in the ’20s. Gladis is remembered as a vigorous
fighter for justice and peace, an imaginative teacher,
and a very generous hostess, entertaining friends
at her lovely seaside home in La Jolla.
English literature and was a member of Phi Beta
Kappa. Jane joined the Office of Strategic Services
in 1944 in support of the war effort. Her early assignments took her to wartime London and postwar Germany. For much of her later career, she
worked as a counterintelligence officer, serving
as a liaison between the agency and the FBI. After
27 years, Jane retired and was awarded the CIA
Intelligence Award for distinguished service. She
married a CIA colleague, the late Howard Roman,
in Switzerland in 1954. Upon retirement, they divided their time between Washington, DC, and
Stockbridge, MA, where Jane volunteered her time
to many organizations. She leaves two daughters;
three grandchildren, including SIENNA MCLEAN LOGRECO ’90; and two great-grandchildren.
B. GEHRING (GAY) COOPER PITTMAN ’37, Dec. 29, ’06,
in Rochester, NY, where she, like her friend and
classmate the late CYNTHIA HOGLE LITTLE ’37, lived
her entire life. Gay married John Pittman three
months after graduation. Both worked for the
Eastman Kodak Company. Life changed for Gay
after 1943 with the addition of her son Jay; two
daughters followed, as well as assorted pets and
wildlife. In 1960, Gay earned a master’s degree in
math at the University of Rochester and taught high
school math for the next 17 years. She spent summer vacations touring the United States, Canada,
and Europe with her children. After retiring, Gay
and her husband traveled for months at a time, year
after year, wandering all over the globe, often by
bus. Gay finally slowed down 10 years ago after her
husband passed away, spending more time with her
children, grandchildren, and friends.
RUTH RICHARDSON PARADISE
JANE ATHERTON ROMAN ’36, Sept. 6, ’07, at her retire-
’37, May 8, ’07. Ruth
grew up in Maine and attended Colby College
before transferring to Smith. She worked at the
Harvard Business School before marrying William
Paradise in 1942. His work with the National Cash
Register Company required them to move five times
to five states with their five children before settling
permanently in Concord, MA, in 1968. There, Ruth
worked for the Sentry Insurance Company until she
retired. She then turned her boundless energy into
volunteering for her church and community. Ruth
was keenly interested in women’s issues, politics,
her extended family, her bridge club, and in keeping
fit by swimming well into her 80s. She leaves five
children and seven grandchildren.
ment community in Bethesda, MD. She graduated
magna cum laude from Smith, where she studied
VIRGINIA CLEGG GAMAGE
To report the death of an alumna, contact
the records department, Smith College,
Northampton, MA 01063. Send full
tributes directly to the Smith Alumnae
Quarterly.
76
’37, Sept. 23, 2007. A full
obituary appears in “Beyond the Grécourt Gates”
in this issue.
ANNE STRAHAN DRUMMOND ’38,
April 4, ’07, in Gorham, ME, following a lengthy illness. In 1940, she
married attorney Josiah Drummond, and settled
in Portland. The family spent summers at their
East Sebago cottage, where Anne and Josiah enjoyed spring trolling for Sebago landlocked salmon.
Anne was an active volunteer and board member
for numerous community organizations, including the Northeast Hearing and Speech Center; the
Community Counseling Center; the Community
Chest and its successor, the United Way of Greater
Portland; the National Society of Colonial Dames
in Maine and its Tate House Museum; the Smith
College Club of Maine; and Maine Medical Center.
A longtime member of State Street Congregational
Church, she more recently became a parishioner
at Portland’s Anglican Cathedral of St. Paul. Her
husband predeceased her in 1991. She leaves two
daughters, three sons, 15 grandchildren, 14 greatgrandchildren, two sisters, and two brothers.
KATHERINE (TAPPY) FAIRLEY CLOSS
’39, July 5, ’07, in
Fairport, NY. Her mother was CHARLOTTE CHASE
FAIRLEY 1905. She was born in Brooklyn, in 1918,
and married Harvey Closs of Canandaigua, NY.
They lived in both Canandaigua and Honeoye Falls,
during their 62 years of marriage before Harvey’s
death in 2003. She leaves three sons, a daughter,
seven grandchildren, four great-grandchildren,
and a sister.
1940s
JANE MARKLE ROGERS ’40, Sept. 18, ’06, at the home
of her daughter in Clayton, WA. Jane was born
in Feb. 1919, in Northampton. After graduating
from Smith, with a major in French, she earned a
master’s degree in botany from Washington State
College (now WSU). There she met her husband,
Thomas, a high school biology teacher and later
founder of the Dishman Hills Natural Area. Jane,
a full-time mother, was an enormous help to Tom
with his plant collecting. He preceded her in death
in 1999. Jane lived in the Spokane Valley from 1957
to 2000. She leaves five children, 11 grandchildren,
and seven great-grandchildren.
ALICE DUFFY RINEHART ’40, June 22, ’07. She was a professor of education at Lehigh University, from 1965
to 1984. Previously, she was a social studies teacher
and the first guidance counselor at the Amherst
(MA) junior and senior high schools, where she
worked for six years. After her marriage to Robert
Rinehart, an electrical engineer at PPL, and raising
three children, she earned a doctorate from Lehigh
University Graduate School of Education, becoming a full professor. She taught the sociology of education and was director of Lehigh’s intern teacher
program, helping hundreds of aspiring teachers
to launch their careers. Her community service
included several PTA presidencies and eight years
on the advisory committee of the Lehigh County
Agency on Aging. She was the author of two books
and co-author of another two. She leaves two sons, a
daughter, a grandson, two brothers, and a sister.
EULALIE (LEE) MACFARLANE NOBLES ’41, March 22, ’07,
at her home in El Dorado, AR. She was born on
Sept. 2, 1919, in Houston. She graduated Phi Beta
IN MEMORIAM
“In Memoriam” contains the names of alumnae who were confirmed deceased by the records
department at Smith College since the last issue of the Quarterly. To report the death of an alumna, please
contact the records department, Smith College, Northampton, MA 01063.
Submit full obituaries for publication directly to the Smith Alumnae Quarterly.
1923
Ruth Leberman Bandler
Florence Munsie Woodward
Perchik Melik
Sara Jobson Moonaw
Vera Baker Roberts
1925
1927
Marie Major Saylor
Evelyn Gildersleeve Schoonmaker
Helen Emery Cook
Margaret Sprout Peirce
Mary Reynolds
Helen Ross King
Virginia Sohlberg Bland
Charlotte Mason
Margaret Ward Lauffer
Margaret McMillan Reynolds
Mary Deal Drake
Caroline Newman Sternberg
Emily Sturges Miller
Darthea Davis Derlien
Gladys Bidwell Barker
Helen Hahn Smith
Elizabeth Anable
Bettina Blodgett Anderson
Helen Hahn Asbury
Marion Ball
Dorothy Damon Beggs
Emma Payson Bradley
Gertrude Kendig Brooks
Miriam Burdett
Mary Vilas Burnett
Ray Calvert
Helen Allen Camfield
Frances Morton de Rheims
Nancy Derr
Doris Dunning
Julia Morrissey Fuller
Helen Geer
Helen Waterhouse Gotschalk
Juliet Kind Herrmann
Martha Montgomery Jenkins
Katharine Lee Knowlton
Naomi Loucks
Giovanna Mancini
Evelyn Queen Miles
Elisabeth Millet
Lillian Niman
Gertrude Cuscaden Perrigo
Dorothy Bruce Salomon
Karoline Simon
Ethel Smith
Josephine Stewart
Augusta Rosenthal Strauss
Dorothy Cullen Thompkins
Alice Thompson
Sarah Ramsey von Schrader
Katharine Phealan Hadley
Katherine Connell Cunningham
Muriel Rothschild Scott
Georgiana Kline Davidson
Mary Coolidge Jones
Edith Trussell Hill
Constance Walter Hubbell
Anna Davis
Ruth Lilly Fouch
Dorothy Libaire
C. Marie Simpson Sullivan
Edith Rau Levy
1929
Florence Chapin Garrity
1930
Emeline Shaffer Warren
1931
Helen Merritt Stene
1932
Julia Dorn Heflin
1933
May Gould English
Jean Babcock Chappell
Evelyn Gerstein Winer
1934
Barbara Stronach Perryclear
Louise Doyle
Ruth Cohn Segel
1935
Elizabeth Borst Smith
Ruth Sayre Lechner
Margaret Sample Sugden
Jean Potter Chelnov
Esther Setlow Kenigsberg
Barbara Vaughan Garside
1936
M. Virginia Woodward Houghton
Lucile Norton Corwin
Harriet Smith Dresser
Jane Skiles Griggs
Jane Atherton Roman
Margaret Lumbard Mercer
1937
Elizabeth Nichols Carter
Mary Way Sohngen
Mary Bridgeman Zehnder
Virginia Clegg Gamage
Mary Burke
Margaret May Harwood
Louise Vanderbilt Quarrier
1938
Helen Summer McCann
M. Rosalie Warriner Bate
Kathryn Smith Huss
Elizabeth Poole Christopher
Mary Bray
1939
Cordelia Cole Wilson
Katherine Fairley Closs
C. Lois Stoffregen Carhart
Rosamond Riley Bennett
Beatrice Julian Cohn
Jeanne Weil Spiller
Barbara Brainerd Crane
Dorothy Pugsley Alley
Jane Parker Mook
1951
1940
1952
Mary-Ann Weld Bodecker
Nancy Scrimgeour Curran
Ann Richards Huntoon
Alice Duffy Rinehart
Katharine Fisk Bogle
Jeanne Isaacs Taylor
Helen Duke Ash
Helen Hirschbein
Marilyn Fish Munro
1953
Mildred Nahum Nossal
1954
1941
Madeleine Camp Franklin
Mary Gruman Beauregard
Elizabeth Hasselman Foye
Marjorie Froehlich Wolfe
Frances Brown
Caroline White Fenn
Helen Kingman West
Faith Witte Munson
Eddye Aitken Wetherell
1942
1955
Sara Bull Wood
Margaret Weltmer Phinney
Barbara Smith Griffen
Dorothy Davis Delman
Nancy Farr Solley
Esther Strong Holway
1943
1956
Nancy Matthews Wood
Mary Smith Jerez
Sally Lambert Parriott
1959
Lillian Shoffstall Carawan
Harline Ward Hurst
Barbara Levine Cutler
Jean Churchill Moore
Rosalind Robinson Benford
1960
Elin Hannigan Crowley
1944
1962
Elizabeth Stine Plimpton
Giovanna Stewart Mullis
Nancy Leslie Griswold
H. C. Abbe Lack Sawabini
1945
Karen Grounsell Smith
Mary Nelson McFarlane
Susan Lemel Powar
1964
Anne Kinsolving Talbott
Susan Taylor Menges
Irene Goodman Sorokin-Bobrow
Ellen Eichenwald Switzer
Ellen-Fairbanks Diggs Bodman
1966
1946
Sherrie Echols
E. Louise France Werbe
Sarah Sulger Pickering
Mary Hurley Di Sciullo
1947
Marie Bittner Hayes
Polly Osborne Smith
1948
Marcia Williams La Riche
1970
1973
Margaret Murray
1974
Margot Louis
1978
Loretta Lorusso
Elizabeth Ewald Sandman
Harriet Hall Provost
Betty Beehler Hunter
Elizabeth Hay
Margery Cobb Wright
Margaret Blatchford Parke
1987
1949
Dana Kovaric
Sara Smith Robertson
1950
Elizabeth Christensen
1994
Jennifer DelVecchio Gustafson
1996
1998
Roselle Hoffmaster
Nancy Knight Lyon
Anne Chase Manderson
Rosalie Heffelfinger Hall
Frances Larrabee Low
77
obituaries
Kappa from Smith, where she majored in French.
Lee was a homemaker who loved opera, traveling,
and entertaining. She was a member of MacFarlanes Company–USA, LLC, and was a lifetime
member of the First United Methodist Church
of the El Dorado, where she served in the choir.
She was also a member of El Dorado’s Lady Golfers Association. Her husband of 60 years, James,
passed away March 24, ’07. She leaves a son and
two granddaughters.
BARBARA BALENSWEIG WILK ’44, April 2, ’07. Barbara
was an art major at Smith and lived at Haven House.
In 1949, she married Max Wilk, a writer; they had
three children and later six granddaughters. After
Smith, Barbara studied at the Art Students League
of New York, as well as in Paris and London. She
earned a master’s from the University of Bridgeport
and taught art history and practical art at Bridgeport, Fairfield, and Connecticut universities, as well
as at Norwalk and Housatonic community colleges.
She also owned an art gallery and exhibited in many
juried art shows and galleries across the country.
For many years she summered in Westport, CT,
and wintered in Santa Fe, NM. She received a Guggenheim fellowship, and, in 1993, she received a
President’s Volunteer Action Award for starting
New Mexico’s Eyes for the Future program, which
provides complete eye care for Navajo and Hopi
children.
H. C. ABBE LACK SAWABINI ’44, July 16, ’07, in Shelburne, VT, of pneumonia. After Smith, she earned a
master’s degree in Christian education from Union
Seminary and completed postgraduate work at
Columbia University. She accepted a position as
director of Christian education at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Burlington, VT. There she met her
husband, Wadi Sawabini, a beloved dentist in town,
whose patients included all the Von Trapp children
from Stowe. They were married in 1949, and her
Wallace House roommate, KAY KEELER SMITH ’44,
and I were both bridesmaids. Abbe and Wadi had
four children and entertained many friends in their
summer camp on Lake Champlain. She was active
in many programs that served children, and was a
founder of the Vermont Mozart Festival. She and
Wadi both worked to promote justice for Palestinian refugees. Wadi died in March ’06. She leaves
three sons, a daughter, and eight grandchildren.
—Janet Kedney Woodhull ’44
’44, Sept. 12, ’07, in
Billings, MT. After Smith, she did graduate work
at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania State
University, and Southern Methodist University.
Gina then taught history and geography in Dallas, and in her hometown of Ridgway, PA. James
Gosnell became her life partner in 1946. During
World War II, Gina joined the Navy WAVES and
worked as a code breaker and Russian translator. In
keeping with her husband and daughter’s interest
in horses, Gina herself became a horsewoman and
traveled to horse shows around the country. She
was also her son’s first passenger after he acquired
his pilot’s license at age 16. She pursued knowledge
and was always surrounded by good books. She
had a talent for scouting out obscure authors and
following their careers into the limelight. She is
celebrated by her husband, her daughter, her son,
and her granddaughter.
VIRGINIA (GINA) KELLY GOSNELL
ELLEN EICHENWALD SWITZER ’45, July 30, ’07, at home
in her beloved New York City. Ellen immigrated
to the United States from prewar Berlin, and was
proud of her status as a full-scholarship student.
After Smith, she worked as a reporter for Time
magazine and married sculptor Gilbert Switzer.
A working mother in Connecticut, Ellen was a reporter for the New Haven Register and wrote for
several magazines, including Vogue, Newsweek,
and Ladies Home Journal, where for many years
she wrote “Can This Marriage Be Saved?”, which
appeared in each issue. She is the author of more
than a dozen books, including several dealing with
the world of ballet, most notably The Magic of Mo-
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zart, which she collaborated on with photographer
Costas. Ellen’s husband died in 1975. She leaves two
sons and four grandchildren.
’49, June 27, ’07, of cancer.
An excellent student, Sara is remembered by classmates for her ability to leave a three-hour exam
a half hour before the allotted time had elapsed,
invariably getting better marks than the rest of us.
She was also known for a keen sense of humor and
quiet wit. A lifelong resident of the Glens Falls, NY,
area, she participated in many community activities, including the Glens Falls Hospital Guild, the
Hyde Museum Council, and High Peaks Hospice.
She was a member of the Chepontuc chapter of the
D.A.R. and the Glens Falls Country Club, where she
played platform tennis, golf, and duplicate bridge.
She leaves her husband, Daniel, a son, a daughter,
and two grandsons.
SARA SMITH ROBERTSON
1950s
ROSALIE (RODY) HEFFELFINGER HALL ’50, June 24, ’07,
of an aneurism, near her home in France. Rody’s
complicated, sometimes tragic life led to her ordination at age 60 as an Episcopal priest, a journey
she described in her memoir, A River Echoes in My
Ministry. She was born to a powerful Minnesota
family and married after graduation to the son of
presidential candidate Wendell Willkie, but the
story turned soon to grief, a difficult divorce, life
as a single mother, and a battle with breast cancer.
In her 40s she married Bob Smith, the love of her
life, then publisher of the Minneapolis Star Tribune,
who died suddenly seven years later. So began the
quest that led to the priesthood and another battle
with breast cancer. Her crowded memorial service
in Minneapolis was a tribute to her benefactions
to her native city and her numberless friends. She
leaves three sons and three grandchildren.
—Peggy Lynch Tomlinson ’50
MARILYN FISH MUNRO ’52, Aug. 29, ’07, at her home
in Point Judith, RI, after a long illness. Marilyn was
the daughter of the noted oceanographer and Smith
College Medal recipient MARIE POLAND FISH 1921.
She came to Smith from Mary C. Wheeler School
and National Cathedral School. After graduation,
she taught at the Wheeler School before joining her
ensign husband at a naval facility in the Bahamas.
An avid mystery-story reader, Marilyn became the
mystery-book buyer for a bookstore in Westport,
CT. She was a nationally ranked crossword puzzle
contestant. When her youngest son went off to
college, Marilyn pursued a law degree, receiving
her JD in 1983. She and her husband established
the law firm of Munro & Munro in Westport. In
2001, after 28 years in Westport, they retired to
Point Judith. She leaves her husband, three sons,
and six grandchildren.
NANCY DAWSON-SMITH BIAGIONI ’53, June 16, ’07, in
Zurich, Switzerland. Her Chapin friends and classmates will recall her enthusiasm for her English
major, her passion for crossword puzzles, her commitment to coffee and cigarette breaks at Totos, and
her love of pickup bridge games in the Chapin living
room. Following graduation, she joined her sister in
Milan. There Nancy found a good job and met her
future husband, Marcello Biagioni. Over their married life the Biagionis lived in Milan, Genoa, Rome,
and, for the last several decades, Zurich. Their three
sons, all graduates of American colleges, now live
in the United States, where Nancy visited them and
her three grandchildren frequently. Nancy was a
loyal attendee at class of ’53 reunions and was active with Smith Europe activities, attending most
of the biannual meetings, and taking many Smith
Travel trips. She was Smith to the core.
—Emily McKnight Corry ’53
KAREN GROUNSELL SMITH ’55, Jan. 3, ’07, in Newtown
Square, PA. After graduation, Karen worked on
Capitol Hill for four years. She married Robert
Smith in 1959 and moved to suburban Philadelphia.
Karen joined the Junior League of Philadelphia and
was active with Wheels for Welfare. She also was
the program chair for the Junior League of Philadelphia’s 60th anniversary celebration. Karen was
a devoted volunteer for the Bryn Mawr Hospital
and was a comforting influence in the green room
and surgical center for many years. She chaired
several committees of the Devon Horse Show and
assisted with Operation Gold Mine. Karen was a
talented seamstress and crafter and enjoyed sharing
her work. She and her husband were lucky to travel
the world with the USTA and USOC. She leaves a
daughter, son, four grandsons, and many friends
who will miss her kindness and sense of humor.
MARY ANN SMITH JEREZ ’56, June 30, ’07. To her friends
in Comstock House, she was known as Smitty. A
graduate of the Kent Place School in Summit, NJ,
Mary Ann lived most of her life in Monmouth
County. After graduating from Smith, she became a
registered nurse and worked at Monmouth Medical
Center, later becoming a member of its board of
trustees. Mary Ann was active in the Blood Bank
of Central Jersey as well as the Mental Health Association of Monmouth County. Many friends and
neighbors counted on Mary Ann’s help in coping
with medical problems. She was generous with
her time and managed to bring humor to most
situations. For most of her life, Smitty retained
the wonderful, wacky sense of humor she had in
college. She leaves a daughter.
—Barbara Zevon Berlin ’56
EMILY HILL ’57, May 26, ’07, of cancer. She majored in
history at Smith and had many friends in Northrop
House. After marrying and raising her three children in California, she moved to Sarasota, FL,
where she became involved with the Smith club
there and served as president. She was a devoted
member of the Church of the Redeemer, served
on the vestry, and was director of the altar guild
for three terms. She was an active member of the
Founders Garden Club of Sarasota, and was serving as treasurer at the time of her death. She loved
doing needlepoint, stitching treasured Christmas
ornaments for her children and grandchildren,
and belonged to a weekly stitching group at her
church. Emmy was a lifelong birder and participated in the Audubon Society’s annual bird count.
She loved history, reading, and travel, especially
to Alaska and California to visit her children and
grandchildren.
—Cynthia Walz Doggett ’57
BETSY HILYARD WHITESIDE ’57, March 17, ’07, of ovarian cancer, in Temple, TX. An economics major,
Betsy was a Morrow House resident. She married
George Whiteside III, and they lived in Durham,
NC, and Milwaukee. Betsy was active with senior
citizens as part of RSVP. She is survived by four
children and 11 grandchildren, and was thrilled
to be a great-grandmother three times.
’57, Feb. 13, ’06. She
was the daughter of the late ANN HAMILTON LOCKWOOD ’30. One of five women in her Yale Medical
School class, Sally met and married classmate Vincent Marchesi. They studied at Oxford, where she
SALLY LOCKWOOD MARCHESI
received a doctorate. After receiving her medical
degree, Sally spent several years at the National
Institutes of Health, where she was one of the first
to isolate and study the blood factor responsible
for hemophilia. After adopting three boys, Sally
had four children of her own, raising them to successful adulthood while a full-time member of the
Yale Medical School faculty. She leaves her husband
and children as well as her sisters, MARY LOCKWOOD
SPELMAN ’55 and NANCY LOCKWOOD COOKE ’58, and
cousin ELINOR LOCKWOOD YEO ’55.
’57, April 24, ’07, in Philadelphia. After receiving a degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Myrna worked
as district counsel for the Philadelphia office of
the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
and served as president of the Mid-Atlantic Legal
Foundation, a nonprofit public interest law firm.
She was later named judge of the court of common
pleas. Survivors include her husband, a daughter,
and four grandchildren.
MYRNA PAUL BAUM
DI ANN SMITH RIGGS ’59, March 29, ’07, in Oklahoma
City, where she had lived since 1982. Di Ann married
Randy Ney in 1961, and they raised their two children in his hometown of Fort Smith, AR. Following
their divorce, Di Ann moved to Oklahoma City, and
later married William Riggs, who survives her. In
addition to her husband, she is survived by a daughter and a son, two grandchildren, and a sister.
—Peggy Phelps Atherton ’59
1960s
LESLIE INNIS MCCOOK ’65, April 13, ’07, at her home
in Wyndmoor, PA, of ALS. Leslie grew up in Providence, RI, majored in history, and spent her junior
year in Geneva. After graduating, she spent two
years in Tunisia with the Peace Corps. There she
met and later married Ned McCook, a native of
Philadelphia. Leslie earned her PhD from Temple
University and had a successful private practice
working with couples and individuals with marital
and other concerns. She was a beloved person who
touched the lives of everyone she met. In addition
to her husband of 39 years, she leaves her daughter,
a sister, and two brothers.
1970s
’70, June 13, ’07, in Avebury, England, after a four-year struggle with ovarian cancer.
Sherrie was a valued member of the class of ’70 and
Albright House, though she did not graduate with
the class. She received her BA from Barnard, an
MA in English from the University of Virginia, and
a PhD in clinical psychology from the California
School of Psychology. She touched many lives as
a clinical psychologist in institutional and private
practice in California, Wales, and London. Sherrie
had a generous, adventurous spirit and traveled
widely. Her greatest legacy is an extraordinary
group of loyal friends around the world. Within
weeks of her death, there were three celebrations
of her life in different places, and at least three
more planned. Sherrie’s warmth and energy captured the imaginations and hearts of many. We
will miss her.
—Helen (Ellie) Weist Karl ’70
SHERRIE ECHOLS
AMY FRASER BRAGG ’78, May 4, ’07, at home in Grosse
Pointe, MI, after a valiant four-year battle with lung
cancer. A graduate of Ulster Academy, she majored
in art history, living at Comstock, then Albright as
head resident. Amy designed a centennial poster
for Smith, and a logo she created for her hometown
of Saugerties, NY, is still used today. Her executive
search career began at Spencer Stuart. She became
research director at Heidrick & Struggles, then a
partner at Canny, Bowen & Associates. Amy married Scott Flood in 1988. The unofficial gardener at
their Upper West Side co-op, Amy maintained gardens that were greatly admired. The family moved
to Grosse Pointe in 1999. Amy leaves her devoted
husband; two teenage daughters, who share her
passion for horseback riding; two adored brothers;
and her mother. Witty, gorgeous, with an intriguing
bohemian/prep style, Amy is loved by her many
chums.
—Jennifer Newlin ’80
1980s
ELIZABETH CHRISTENSEN ’87, Aug. 7, ’07, at the Uni-
versity of Arizona Medical Center in Tucson, following a lengthy and courageous battle with cancer.
She was a math major at Smith, and earned a second
bachelor’s degree in engineering from the Thayer
School of Engineering at Dartmouth College in
1989. She was employed until her death with the
U. S. Army as a communications engineer assigned
to Fort Belvoir, the Pentagon, and Fort Huachuca,
as well as numerous tours of duty worldwide, including Iraq. She had lived in Reston, VA, but, for
the past 10 years, was a resident of Sierra Vista,
AZ. She was a member of the Society for Creative
Anachronism and participated in reenactments of
medieval battles in various locations nationwide,
and was a voracious reader. She leaves her father
and stepmother; two brothers; two sisters (one her
twin); a stepsister and stepbrother; and 10 nieces
and nephews.
1990s
DANA KOVARIC ’96, June 22, ’07, after a courageous
battle with cancer. She was a geology major at Smith
and graduated cum laude. Born in Santa Monica,
CA, Dana displayed an early love for science and
astronomy (pointing out gibbous moons to fellow
5-year-olds). Gillett House was Dana’s home, where
she was known for her mischievous ways, boundless
generosity, sardonic humor, and zeal for travel, photography, figure skating, puppetry, pop culture, and
Harry Potter. Her career in terrestrial and planetary
geology included a master’s degree from UCLA and
work on the ill-fated Mars Polar Lander project. Yet
Dana’s true calling was to make science “cool” to
young children. She developed educational materials for Bill Nye the Science Guy and DragonflyTV.
She also wrote several original screenplays and
novels. She leaves her loving parents and adoring
family, friends, and Smith sisters.
—Sara Smolek Filipek ’95
ROSELLE HOFFMASTER ’98, Sept. 21, ’07, while serving
as a surgeon and U.S. Army captain in Iraq. Roselle
died of noncombat-related injuries in Kirkuk. She
had been assigned to Headquarters Company, 1st
Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division,
at Fort Drum, NY. A native of Cleveland, Roselle
majored in biochemistry at Smith and earned
Academic All-Conference honors as a member of
the cross-country team. She received her medical degree from Case Western Reserve University
School of Medicine in Cleveland in 2004. That same
year, she was commissioned into the Army Medical
Corps, following a residency in internal medicine at
Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, TX.
She was assigned to the 10th Mountain Division
in July ’07 and deployed with her unit to Iraq in
September. Her awards and decorations include the
Army Superior Unit Award, the National Defense
Service Medal, and the Army Service Ribbon. She
leaves her husband and her parents.
79
ALUMNAE EXCHANGE
To place an ad in “Alumnae Exchange,” e-mail your ad to [email protected] or fax to 413-585-2015. Deadline for the Spring ’08
issue is January 15. Please include your full name and class year or your affiliation to Smith in your ad. Ads are $2 per word, 75-word
maximum. Please make check payable to Smith College and mail to “Alumnae Exchange,” Smith Alumnae Quarterly, Alumnae House, 33
Elm St., Northampton, MA 01063. The Quarterly is not responsible for the products and services advertised.
FOR RENT
CAPE COD, MA
Private waterfront home
overlooking beautiful,
bayside scene in artistfavored Wellfleet.
Picturesque view of tidal
inlet from three sides with
spectacular sunsets from
wraparound deck. Staircase
leads to private beach for
sunning, nature walks or
kayaking. Ocean is 1.2
miles away. Spacious home,
with 5 bedrooms, including
water-view master suite
with private deck, 3 full
baths, and outdoor shower.
Accommodates 10. For
details write Kaliperman@
comcast.net. Melanie
Foster Robert ’77.
CAPE COD, MA
Wellfleet. Summer- and
off-season rental. Private,
beautiful, 4-bedroom
contemporary, skylights.
Immaculate, comfortable
home, large deck, on 1-acre
wooded lot on cul-de-sac.
Phyllis Berman, mother
of Madeleine Migenes ’86,
315-445-2935.
BUZZARD’S BAY
Cape Cod waterfront.
Completely renovated 2bedroom cottage shares
beach and 30 acres with
our family home. One hour
from Boston or Providence;
sleeps 6; $1,800 per week,
May 15–Oct. Contact John
Christie at 202-663-6368 or
john.christie@wilmerhale.
com. Margaret Barker
Christie ’61 and Athalia
Barker Esty ’59.
MARTHA’S VINEYARD
Knowledgeable and
conscientious service
with 20 years’ experience.
Short-term, seasonal, and
off-season rentals. Listings
from prestigious waterfront
to modest apartments.
Owners: new listings
welcome. Contact John
Best, husband of Margaret
Curtin ’75, johnbest@
vineyard.net, 508-693-5566.
NANTUCKET
Nostalgic for your
grandmother’s house? Tired
of antiseptic rentals? Rent
our family’s historic (1765)
Centre St. cottage next
summer. Sleeps 10, with 6
bedrooms and 3.5 baths.
New appliances, large
yard, wraparound porch.
Great for multigenerational
families. Walk to Main
St., or Children’s Beach in
6 minutes. Well-behaved
dog OK. $3,500 per week;
discount for longer stays.
Please contact Sandy
Morgan ’65, 860-561-3124,
[email protected].
“Starboard Watch,” our
welcoming family home
on serene private cove. All
amenities. Sleeps 6, pets
negotiable. $2,000 per
week, summer; $900 per
week, winter. Margaret Gay
Lavender ’73, jmslavender@
comcast.net, 847-446-3485.
NORFOLK, CT
SOUTH FREEPORT, ME
Private getaway in beautiful
foothills of the Berkshires
on pristine lake with private
beach, surrounded by
forest preserve. “Birchfield”
includes a main house
and 3 sleeping cottages (6
bedrooms total; 3 double,
6 single beds); dishwasher;
and washer/dryer. Available
for Aug. ’08 and select
weekends July–Sept; $500
per weekend, $1,250 per
week, $5,000 per month.
Call 917-375-3309. For
photos go to http://www.
cyberrentals.com. Margaret
Jessup, digital resources
archivist, Sophia Smith
Collection, Smith College.
MAINE, MIDCOAST
Family vacation, stress
relief, nature, and
waterfront activities
abound year round at
Waterfront rental with
spectacular views, 20
minutes from Portland.
Ideal for couple or
individual. Available
summer ’08 weekly
or longer; by special
arrangement other times.
Mary Lou Michael ’68,
marylou.michael@gmail.
com, 207-865-2121.
MOUNT DESERT ISLAND,
ME
New 3-bedroom, 2-bath
home with stunning
views of Blue Hill Bay
and surrounding islands.
Carol Carson AC ’89,
[email protected],
www.mtdesertisland.net.
SANIBEL ISLAND, FL
Our beloved retreat for
20 years, this spacious,
airy 2-bedroom, 2-bath,
beautifully furnished
beachfront condo has
every creature comfort.
Direct beach access and
breathtaking ocean views,
large screened patio,
elevator, and pool. Shelling,
bike paths, nature preserve.
Perfect for two couples or a
family of four. Available by
week or longer. No smoking
or pets. Valerie Fitch ’79,
212-858-1718, valerie.
[email protected].
SARASOTA, FL
Exquisite, charming
1920s Craftsman cottage.
Three bedrooms, 2 baths,
2 porches, designer
furnished. Quiet street,
minutes from Siesta Key
beaches and downtown;
secluded garden
with outdoor dining.
Available monthly or
weekly. Lara Embry ’91,
ciullaproperties@comcast.
net.
SANTA FE, NM
Architect’s house on
secluded 12.5 acres,
sleeps 6. Stunning views,
15 minutes to plaza. No
pets or smoking. Weekly.
Bonnie Orr Miskolczy ’60,
978-369-2647.
SANTA FE, NM
Casa Siempre, charming
adobe, with 2 bedrooms,
2 baths, full kitchen, and
kiva fireplace, all modern
amenities. This cozy ski
retreat is 16 miles from Ski
Santa Fe, one of the highest
ski areas in the continental
United States, with a base
area elevation of 10,350 feet
and great facilities. Ski the
day and enjoy evenings in
historic downtown Santa
Fe. Also, 3 blocks from
Canyon Rd. Linda Albright
’07, [email protected],
415-717-1172.
KEYSTONE, CO
Luxury mountainside
condo, ski-in/ski-out,
sleeps 6. Log on to www.
loneeagle3033.com for
photos, rental information.
Owner is son of Lila
Silverstein Rosenblum ’52.
PORTLAND, OR
City center. View 3 peaks
from huge windows of
newly renovated, high-rise
condo. One bedroom, 1
bath, deck, and brandnew kitchen flow into airy
dining and living room.
Willamette River Marina
VeridianVillage
at
HAMPSHIRE COLLEGE
Live. And Learn.
Combine Home Life with a Life of the Mind.
EXPERIENCE THE EXCITEMENT and camaraderie of a new and unique community organized around
the intellectual, cultural and social vibrancy of the Five College area. Veridian Village homeowners
can benefit from college programs and facilities and a variety of amenities at the Veridian Commons,
providing many opportunities to interact with professors, students and neighbors.
Adjacent to the exciting town centers of Amherst and Northampton and surrounded by the
natural beauty of Western Massachusetts, your new flat or townhome has been thoughtfully designed
to adhere to green principles while providing the best in comfort, convenience and design.
You’ll look good in green.
CALL TO JOIN US FOR AN EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW.
1.888.253.3903 www.veridianvillage.com
3 blocks away; easy walk
to art museum. Light rail
to zoo, Woodland Park,
International Rose Test
Gardens. Trolley and bus
stop at our building, but
rental includes parking.
Mid-April to mid-June
’08, $650 per week. Susan
Schneckloth Whereat ’61,
[email protected], 484380-3500.
927-2322 or reservations@
coralstoneclub.com.
ST. JOHN, U.S. VIRGIN
ISLANDS
Roussillon, Mediterranean,
Pyrenees region. Wonderful villa (sleeps 6, with
foldout couch), high-up,
nonstop view of Pyrenees;
2-hour drive to Barcelona;
15 minutes to the Mediterranean. Please visit www.
villa-chiapella.com for
more information or e-mail
[email protected], associate
of Lisa Franklin ’73.
ELEUTHERA, BAHAMAS
Two-bedroom villa on
exclusive Double Bay,
with secluded pink sand
beach and 55-foot lap pool.
Photos at www.dianepage.
com. Diane Page ’68.
ISLA VERDE, PUERTO RICO
Pretty 1-bedroom condo,
ocean view, prime San
Juan-area beach. Long- or
short-term. Diane Miliotes
’81. Contact Andrea Torres,
andreatorressj@hotmail.
com, 787-642-4481.
SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE,
MEXICO
Beautifully located,
charming, and colorful
home in Mexico’s
17-century colonial
treasure/artist colony.
Three bedrooms, 3.5
baths; maid and property
manager; short or longterm stays; high-speed
Internet. Contact Lucy
Young Noyes ’61 at her
real estate office, La Puerta
Real Estate Services, LLC,
New Mexico; 505-8673388; lucy@lapuertallc.
com. See property on www.
newmexico-land-homes.
com.
YUCATAN-CARIBBEAN
Vacation house in Akumal,
Quintana Roo, Mexico,
on the sea, where the
Caribbean meets a beautiful
lagoon. Four bedrooms,
4 baths, servants. Lovely
gardens, snorkeling, diving
in 82-degree turquoise seas.
Total privacy and peaceful
beauty. Owner is Ann
Lindenberger Christensen
’56. For information contact
Cindy at 208-725-5551 or
[email protected].
GRAND CAYMAN
FRANCE
SOUTHWEST FRANCE AND
PARIS
Restored spacious stone
farmhouse northeast of
Bordeaux. In-ground pool.
For information: www.
charente-maritime-home.
com. Also, 2-bedroom Paris
apartment in 13th Arr.,
www.relaxinfranceonline.
com/ile/75001.htm.
Katherine Hoffman ’69,
603-924-9535, glnward@
gmail.com.
ITALY AND FRANCE
Picturesque villas and
apartments, all personally
visited, in desired locations.
Enhance local flavor with
concierge services. Contact
David Geen, nephew
of Patsy Jerome Korten
’49. 800-593-6350, www.
villasandvines.com, dgeen@
villasandvines.com.
Island-wide real estate
sales. Knowledgeable and
conscientious service
with 20 years’ experience.
Member of LINK real
estate listing network.
New listings welcome.
Contact John Best, husband
of Margaret Curtin ’75,
[email protected],
508-693-5566.
TRAVEL
ONE-OF-A-KIND, SMALL
GROUP TRAVEL
Discover Europe,
Scandinavia, Central and
South America, Asia,
and the United States.
With only 6-12 travelers,
we’re able to visit locales
inaccessible to larger
groups and encounter
people you might never
meet on your own,
perfect to deepen your
understanding of another
culture. Hotels are small
gems; dates chosen to avoid
crowds. No wonder we’ve
been cited in Newsweek,
Travel, and the Los Angeles
Times. Horizons, Jane
Amster Sinauer ’61, 413367-9200, horizons@
horizons-art.com.
COOKING IN THE
PERIGORD
One-week, hands-on
culinary adventure in the
Perigord. Enjoy France’s
finest food and sights at
“La Combe,” a charming,
restored manor house.
Limit 8 people. Barbara
Stuetzer Lauterbach ’57
and Lora Brody instructors;
www.lacombe-perigord.
PRODUCTS AND
SERVICES
CATERING, NEW YORK
CITY
Stylish, elegant catering
for social and corporate
functions. Entertaining
Ideas, owned by Diane
Gordon ’82, caters to
Apple Computer, NYC
Ballet, Air France, and the
Frick Museum. Visit www.
entertainingideascatering.
com or call 212-289-1230.
PECANS
The Smith College Club
West of Boston announces
its annual pecan sale
for its scholarship fund.
Contact Mary Barbara
Alexander ’73, 508-6471631 or [email protected].
Mammoth pecan halves (16
oz.) or chocolate-covered
pecans (12 oz.); six for $65
includes shipping.
SAVE MONEY ON YOUR
MORTGAGE
Looking for a mortgage?
Thinking of buying or
refinancing? Then you
should contact Eris Perese
Saari ’84. As president
of Amerifund Home
Mortgage, licensed
mortgage bankers in NY,
NJ, CT, VA, and FL, Eris
specializes in offering
personalized service and
low rates. Amerifund offers
mortgages for the purchase
or refinance of 1–4 family
homes, condos, and coops; $250 off closing costs.
Contact her at 800-922-
8440 ext. 203 or esaari@
amerifund.us.
THE ORGANIC MATTRESS
People- and planetfriendly bedding, for
baby, too. Free of
bio-accumulating fire
retardants and other
unhealthy chemicals;
10% off until March 15,
’08, mention this ad.
Diane Jamrog ’93, www.
theorganicmattress.com.
FICTION
Debut novel published by
Women and Men Books
looks beyond women’s
public presentations
and beyond closed
doors to the inner
person itself. Equality
Ascended by Marilyn
Jane Babcock ’53. Read
part of chapter 1 at www.
womenandmenbooks.com.
DOLCE DESIGN
Gorgeous Websites, logos,
brochures, etc., from Dolce
Design, www.dolcedesign.
com, a Smithie-owned
design studio. Discount for
Smithies. Belinda Darcey
’00, darcey@dolcedesign.
com.
MODERN MEMOIRS, INC.
PRIVATE PUBLISHING
SERVICES
Memoirs and family
histories for clients who
care about high quality and
personal service. Writing,
editing, design, and
book manufacture. Kitty
Axelson-Berry ’71, www.
modernmemoirs.com; 34
Main St. #9, Amherst, MA
01002; 413-253-2353.
SMITH PHOTO NOTE
CARDS, BOOKMARKS, AND
GIFTS
Beautiful color photographs
of favorite Smith scenes
grace high-quality 5 X 7
note cards (blank inside),
bookmarks, and gifts.
Great for fundraisers. See
them at milescapesart.
com/smithcollege.html.
Available for purchase
individually, in quantity,
and in assortments.
Contact Marianne Miles
’87, 315-638-4190,
mmiles@milescapesart.
com.
WANTED
AGENT WANTED
Seeking a literary agent for
Philosophical Dieting: The
Why As Well As the How of
Losing Weight, a completed
nonfiction book aimed at
the general public. Caroline
Wiseblood Meline ’63,
[email protected].
ANNOUNCEMENTS
LOOKING TO ADOPT
We want to adopt a baby. If
you know someone who is
pregnant but unprepared to
parent, please tell her about
us. See our family profile
at our Website, www.
BabyToAdopt.net or email us at BabyToAdopt@
hotmail.com. Our home
phone, toll-free, is 800-9223574. Our adoption home
study is approved by the
state of Minnesota. Thank
you! Kathy Skeffington
Ollivier ’79 and husband
Daniel.
TUSCANY
Magnificent stone house
in hilltop village near
Lucca, formal garden,
fabulous panoramic view
includes marble mountains.
Peaceful, private. $1,150 per
week. Solace Wales Sheets
’60, 415-459-8980, solaces@
comcast.net. For photos go
to www.Tuscany-Rental.
com.
unexpected treasures
TUSCAN HOLIDAY
Spacious, comfort-filled
family home perched
in 13th-century walled
village, with Cortona
in the distance. Utterly
tranquil yet immersed
in the pleasantness of
Italian village life. Contact
Victoria de Grazia ’68,
[email protected], www.
hilltownholiday.com.
Featuring an unusual
array of hand-selected
items for every occasion.
Visit us when you’re
on campus or stop
by our website:
www.smithmuseumstore.com
VOULIAGMENI (ATHENS),
GREECE
Stay in Mimi’s Place. Our
ocean-view, fully furnished
2-bedroom (sleeps 4),
1-bath apartment is close
to Athens and yet a world
away. Just steps from two
lovely beaches, plenty of
tavernas, tennis, and playgrounds; 30 minutes by cab
to the heart of Athens and
all its archaeological treasures or the ports for island
hopping. Approximately 20
minutes from the airport.
Available April–Oct. Victoria Harris ’88, vjharris@
epix.net, 908-251-1196.
BED-AND-BREAKFAST
BETHESDA, MD
Washington, DC, tour
guide’s home, 15 minutes
from downtown. Good
transportation, safe parking.
Joan Hinsch Searby ’58,
(301) 229-4835.
museum SHOP
Inquiries & orders:
413.585.2779
or email:
smith college
museum
art
nfl[email protected]
413.585.2760
WWW.SMITH.EDU/MUSEUM
ELM STREET AT BEDFORD TERRACE
NORTHAMPTON, MA
Produced by SCMA
Beautifully renovated
1,800-square-foot condo
with prime location on
Seven Mile Beach. Deluxe
kitchen, 3 bedrooms,
3 baths. Ground-floor
unit ideal for family or 3
couples. Walk directly out
to patio, pool, and beach.
Tennis, exercise, grills on
site; short walk to shops
and restaurants. See photos
at www.coralstoneclub.
com and check unit 21
owned by Roz Smulian
Schwartz ’56. Call 888-
Sunny 2-bedroom condo
in Arcachon, a great beach
resort, 45 minutes from
Bordeaux. Ann Sanford ’75,
[email protected], 877848-0087. On the Web, go
to www.vrbo.com/25312.
com, www.lorabrody.
com/classes, www.
barbarlauterbach.com.
of
Tranquil paradise with
spectacular views of Coral
Bay and the British Virgin
Islands. Comfortable,
modern, 4-bedroom home,
with 2 separate living areas.
Ideal spot for families or
vacationing friends to enjoy
the Caribbean breezes,
white-sand beaches, hiking
trails, and snorkeling of St.
John’s unique national park.
Winter: $1,695 per week;
summer: $1,345 per week.
See our Website, www.
spyglasshill-stjohn.com,
for availability and details.
Molly Robinson, senior
laboratory instructor,
retired, 413-628-3361.
FRENCH ATLANTIC
REAL ESTATE SALES
MARTHA’S VINEYARD
news from the alumnae association
BEYOND THE GRÉCOURT GATES
‘A bond that never ends’
Longtime volunteer honored with
John M. Greene Award
after a long day of meetings on October 18 with the Museum of Art’s visiting
committee, JANICE CARLSON ORESMAN ’55
was looking forward to a nice, leisurely
dinner that evening with Smith friends,
fellow committee members, and trustees.
Unbeknownst to her, they all had something a little different in mind. At the end
of the meal, MARY PATTERSON MCPHERSON
’57, chair of Smith’s board of trustees, announced that Oresman was the latest recipient of the prestigious John M. Greene
Award.
“It took my breath away,” Oresman said.
“I had no idea any of this was going to
happen. But it truly was the most wonderful surprise. I was
so honored and moved. I could barely speak.”
What stunned her even more than the presentation of the
award was how well everyone had managed to keep it secret.
“Not one person slipped,” she said. “It was a giant plot that
was very closely guarded. [My husband] Roger knew since
June, and kept quiet about it.”
To those who know and have
worked with Oresman, honoring
her with the John M. Greene Award
seemed only natural. The award is
given to people whose service to
the college has gone “beyond the
call of duty.” In Oresman’s case, that
has meant more than fifty years of
volunteering for Smith, including
serving as president of her class;
fundraising for a host of campus
initiatives, such as the renovation of
Seelye Hall; serving on the board of
trustees and leading its advancement
committee; serving on the search
committee that brought President
Carol Christ to Smith; remaining
active in the Smith Club of New
York City; currently chairing the
Janice Carlson
Grecourt Society; and even selling
Oresman ’55 and
pecans.
Mary Patterson
In her citation, McPherson noted
McPherson ’57.
that Oresman’s efforts have benefited countless Smith-related programs. “Virtually no corner
of our campus [has remained] untouched by your energy and
commitment,” she said.
For Oresman, an independent curator and art adviser to
corporate and private collectors, the inspiration to give back
to Smith struck early. “I was a young girl from Minneapolis
who came to Smith on scholarship,” she said.
Classes such as Art 100 opened her eyes to “a world of
ideas” and ultimately enabled her to discover her passion.
“Art history was a gift,” she said. “It became my life’s work.”
Beyond the academics, it has been the close friendships
with classmates and other alumnae that have motivated her
to stay so connected to Smith. “We always talk about how
grateful we are for everything Smith has given us,” she said.
“It’s a bond that never ends.” —JM
Day on a tree farm Oregon Smith club celebrates its own Mountain Day
On October 14, more than
twenty members of the Smith
Club of Oregon, along with
their families and friends,
celebrated Mountain Day at
the World Forestry Center
Magness Memorial Tree Farm
just outside Portland. This
year’s celebration, which is
the club’s annual fall event,
was inspired by the work
Oregon club members and their
friends and family tour the tree farm.
of BARBARA WALKER ’57, a
trustee of the center and a
longtime activist whose work
has contributed to the many
open spaces in and around
Portland. At a reception,
Walker spoke about her preservation efforts around the
world. Alumnae also enjoyed
guided tours of a portion of
the 80-acre tree farm.
Designer Heather Wells ’87 used
Smith colors and memorabilia to
freshen up the Smith Room at the
College Club of Boston.
Vintage Smith
Alumna designer adds just the right touch
to College Club room makeover
when the college Club of Boston set out to redesign the
eleven guestrooms in its historic Victorian brownstone, it gave a
small group of designers two weeks and a small budget to come
up with a new look that would incorporate the club’s antique
furnishings and also show off the college for which the room
was named.
Designer and architect HEATHER WELLS ’87 accepted the
challenge to freshen up the Smith Room, whose pink walls and
sheer curtains did little to evoke the image of Smith College.
Wells, principal of Heather G. Wells, Ltd. Architectural
Interiors, and her design team recast the room in shades of
blue and yellow, the colors used by Smith athletic teams. Pale
yellow walls in the bedroom with Delft-blue upholstery on the
chairs give the room a nostalgic feel that blends with the antique
furnishings. “As a firm, we tend to work with a slightly more
contemporary decor, but here we wanted to be contextual while
still being fresh,” Wells said.
To give it a true Smith feel, the design team hung 1940s-era
Smith commemorative plates on the walls and a 1920 Smith
College Alumnae Fund poster in the bath.
“The design is fresh, welcoming, warm, and classic,” Wells
said, “like the members of the club and Smith alums.”
To see more photos of the Smith Room, or to find out
more about the College Club of Boston, which operates as
an event venue and bed-and-breakfast in Boston’s Back Bay
neighborhood, go to thecollegeclubofboston.com, or call 617536-9510. —EG
Remembering a
dedicated volunteer
VIRGINIA (GINNY) CLEGG GAMAGE ’37 died September
23 in Marblehead, Massachusetts. A former president
of the Alumnae Association of Smith College, Ginny
was known throughout the Smith community as a
dedicated supporter of the college and committed
volunteer.
Born in Philadelphia, Ginny lived for the past
fifty-six years in Marblehead, and was extremely
active in the community, where she was well-known
for her work in historic preservation. In 1979, she
headed Marblehead’s
350th anniversary
Virginia (Ginny) Clegg
committee. She wrote
Gamage ’37
seven editions of a
Marblehead walking
tour titled The Lure of
Marblehead and coauthored the definitive
history of the town,
Marblehead: The Spirit
of ’76, published by
Chilton Book Co., in
1972. Gov. Francis W.
Sargent appointed her
to the Massachusetts
bicentennial
commission, and she
planned statewide
activities for the 1976
celebrations. In 2004,
Ginny was named
Marblehead’s first
historian emerita.
In addition, Ginny
was president of the
Marblehead Historical Society, the Marblehead Neck
Association, and the Old Marblehead Improvement
Association. She was a trustee of Salem Five Cent
Savings Bank.
Professionally, Ginny had worked for the
Remington-Rand Corp. and CBS. She was an account
executive for the McCann-Erickson Advertising
Agency in Los Angeles, and was associate editor at
Nautica magazine.
A fiercely loyal Smith alumna, Ginny held numerous
volunteer positions with the college, including trustee
of the college (1965–1968), president of the class of
1937 (1957–1962), and class Fund agent (1952–1957).
She leaves three daughters, a son, and two grandchildren.
smith seen | photographs by asia kepka
Knitting
the
night
away
A
cold, windy November
night was the perfect time
to cozy up with a skein of
wool and settle in for a
long evening of knitting
and conversation. That
was the scene November
16 when eighteen students, along with Dean
of Students Julianne
Ohotnicky, gathered in the
Campus Center’s Goldstein Lounge for what
was billed as a five-hour
knitathon. The event was
one of a series of alternative Friday night SmithTo-Do activities that have
been coordinated this
year by Kelly Johnson ’08
[see p. 16]. In addition to
knitting and purling, the
group was raising money,
about $650 that would go
to the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts.
Students brought their
own knitting projects
with them to occupy their
hands. For those whose
projects didn’t require
their full concentration, a
little on-screen entertainment, at left, helped pass
the time. And, thanks to
a group from Park House,
there were homemade
cupcakes.
N_`Z_JZ`\ek`jk8i\Pfl6
Summer Science and Engineering Program for High School Girls
June 29–July 26, 2008
K_\Jd`k_Jldd\iJZ`\eZ\Xe[<e^è\\iè^GifîXd `jX]fli$n\\bi\j`[\ek`XcgifîXd]fi\oZ\gk`feXcpfle^nfd\en`k_jkife^èk\i\jkj
èjZ`\eZ\#\e^è\\iè^Xe[d\[`Zè\% <XZ_jldd\i#j\c\Zk_`^_jZ_ffcjkl[\ekj]ifdXZifjjk_\ZflekipXe[XYifX[Zfd\kfJd`k_
:fcc\^\kf[f_Xe[j$fei\j\XiZ_n`k_Jd`k_]XZlckpèk_\c`]\Xe[g_pj`ZXcjZ`\eZ\jXe[è\e^è\\iè^% >ìcjn_fn`ccY\è_`^_jZ_ffc
îX[\j0 Æ() è]Xcc)''/Xi\\c`^`Yc\kfXggcp]fik_\jldd\i)''/gifîXd%=fiXYifZ_li\#Xggc`ZXk`feXe[ÔeXeZ`XcX`[è]fidXk`fe#
ZfekXZk1Jd`k_Jldd\iJZ`\eZ\Xe[<e^è\\iè^GifîXd#:cXib?Xcc#Jd`k_:fcc\^\#Efik_Xdgkfe#D8'('-* K\c\g_fe\1+(* ,/,$*'-'
=Xo1+(* ,/,$*'-/ <$dX`c1\[flki\XZ_7jd`k_%\[l N\Y1nnn%jd`k_%\[l&jldd\igifîXdj&jj\g
WOMEN HELPING WOMEN—ALUMNA TO ALUMNA. IT’S WHAT THE SMITH NETWORK IS ALL ABOUT
TAP INTO THE POWER OF THE
SMITH NETWORK
BE A MENTOR: Use your talent, skill,
and experience to guide a fellow Smith
alumna to her professional best.
FIND A MENTOR: Whether you’re
just starting out or looking to change
careers, you can find a Smith alumna to
help you achieve your goals.
Smith Alumnae Quarterly
Alumnae House
Smith College
Change Service Requested
With the Alumnae Association’s mentoring program, it’s easier than ever
to make the Smith network work for
you. Sign up online to be a mentor to
a Smith alumna or search to find an
alumna mentor.
To get started, take a couple of
minutes to go through a brief tutorial at
http://alumnae.smith.edu/mentor.
Your Alumnae Association.
Your community.
CONTACT US
Web: http://alumnae.smith.edu
Phone: 800-526-2023
E-mail: [email protected]
Nonprofit Organization
U.S. Postage Paid
Permit No. 230
Burlington, VT 05401

gives - Smith Alumnae Quarterly

Transcription

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