class notes

1920s | 1930s | 1940s | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | 1990s | 2000s

In Memoriam | People & projects

1940s

1940 | 1941 | 1942 | 1943 | 1944 | 1945 | 1946 | 1947 | 1948 | 1949

1948

Gretchen Eisner Rachlin
gretchen@goodpilot.com

How we all loved our 60th reunion! What a turnout! As your new class secretary, I want to thank my predecessors Ruth Bloch Baltimore and Sue Strauss Kraus for their great work, as well as our other class officers.

June Lynn Freeman and Allyne Seaman Portmann, escorted by their husbands, came to their first reunion ever. June said it was “a lovely experience.”

Marty Blomberg Beery and Bobby Green Brooks traveled on together after Reunion, joining a great Elderhostel cruise from Boston to Montreal. Marty also reports that fellow Wilmington, NC, resident Barbara Bender Wood, who lived in Thompson House our freshman year, died in January; we send our sympathy to her family.

Joan Cummings Koven, who spent the summer after graduation at Oxford University with me, is recovering from a stroke and wishes she could have been in Saratoga with us all.

K. T. Hoopes Schmidt and husband George had a fantastic time at our 60th, along with Sally Cheney Buell and husband Art, who joined me and husband Larry (at Crooksie’s urging) at the class hospitality suite. There was much laughter and many memories from those home videos!

We missed Katey Geyer Winant, whose husband, Jake, fell and fractured a rib two days before Reunion. Leila Goldstein Garlock did the same thing, and had to cancel her plans, too.

Carolyn Lapp Black met Ruth Morris at Friendship Village in Tempe, AZ. They had not known each other while at Skidmore.

Tibby Van Ness Reid and Marion Crouze Chase had a great time at our 60th, and hope to be at our 65th.

Nursing majors Elizabeth Thomaier Dunning and Joan Kirwan Schroeder were happy to meet again at Reunion after so many years. The nursing exhibit in Dana Hall was a highlight for Elizabeth.

Jean Schnabel Bailey and husband Doug live in Spring Harbor, a retirement home in Columbus, GA. Their son Don lives nearby in Atlanta. The Baileys are happy in their new home, which comes with “nice residents, nice staff, and a great saltwater pool.”

Jean Elton Moran continues to work with ESL kids during the school year in Springfield, VA. She enjoyed a great two weeks in Provence, France, this summer.

News from Virginia Tabor Daniels is mixed, with health problems and happy family celebrations. But she remains active in volunteer work at her church and senior center and says, “I count my blessings every day.”

Helen Marriott O’Brien’s husband, Bill, has been battling Alzheimer’s for seven years. They live in Ocean Grove, NJ. Granddaughter Meredith Palmer ’11 and grandniece Sarah Marriott ’11 are both members of this legacy family.

Kay Smith Parkhurst lives a few blocks from Lake Minnetonka in Minnesota, a 90-mile winding shoreline complete with mansions, cottages, and hundreds of boats. She says it’s great in the summertime.

Northbrook, IL, resident Sally Krueger enjoys activities in Chicagoland and stays in touch with Old Greenwich, CT, resident June Lynn Freeman.

Jeanne Herrup Elman was happy that she recovered from her operation in time to attend Reunion with her husband. She enjoyed visiting with Dotsie Slosson Ers­kine, Joan Theobald Mitchell, and our new prexy Marylou May Hartmann and her daughter Katie, neither of whom had been to the new campus. Katie was “more excited than I was,” Louie says. They both loved it.

Carol Lipman Ackerman and husband Marshall regretted missing our 60th, but celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary on a May–June cruise from Los Angeles to Alaska. Their “long-range retirement plan” includes two cruises annually on the Silversea cruiseline.

From Midway, KY, Phyllis Horton Obermeyer and Marilou Heiser Rose were sorry to have missed Reunion and thought of us as they gazed at the beautiful bluegrass of Kentucky.

Reunion was “a wonderful few days with great food and fellowship” for MJ Baker Macartney. Unfortunately, husband Hal, who has always accompanied her to past reunions, was too ill to attend.

Gladys Gillman Taylor, who had been focused on the care of her mentally ill son for many years, says life is now “exploding with excitement.” Since March she’s been enveloped in the celebrity of daughter Jill Bolte Taylor, a brain scientist who, after suffering a stroke, studied her brain’s damage and recovery, which unleashed a new surge of creative energy from her right brain. The author of My Stroke of Insight, Jill has had interviews aired on Oprah and was on Time magazine’s list of The 100 Most Influential People in the World. For more information, visit ted.com. Gladys, professor emerita of math and computer science at Indiana State, is deeply grateful that she is able to experience the joy of Jill’s turning “a tragedy into a triumph that serves as a source of hope and inspiration for people throughout the world.”

Phyllis Magill Levy was sorry to have missed Reunion. She spent the summer traveling to Italy and Sicily with her family, the second four-week trip with the whole clan.

Our thoughts go out to Jean Riley Guretsky, whose husband, Joe, died suddenly last December. Jean lives in Fort Myers, FL.

We really missed those of you who couldn’t get to campus for Reunion. It was an impressive program and a memorable time.