class notes

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In Memoriam | People & projects

1940s

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1949

Edith Armend Holtermann
holterglas@aol.com

After a difficult stay in a nursing facility, Ruth Gold West is finally back in Pennsylvania, where her stepson is looking after her. She doesn’t drive but has good friends to get her wherever she needs to go.

Claire Schreiber Pittman lives at Regency Park, a new retirement community in Vero Beach, FL. She is back on the tennis court now that her broken leg has fully healed.

Sarasota, FL, residents Eleanor Rao Witthoefft and husband Art, who met at the Cranford Academy of Arts in 1949, have two daughters, two sons, and six grandchildren.

Kay Christie Shaw and her husband are investors in an artists’ cooperative in Scit­uate Harbor, MA. Carol Higginbotham Healy ’57 is one of the volunteers who mans the front desk when needed. She is helping plan the 375th anniversary celebration of the Unitarian First Parish and sings in the choir. She retired from teaching watercolor painting and misses it.

Alice Stevenson Calvert sent classmates an update on our nursing majors: five are missing, seven are deceased, six are married, and six are widowed. All of them were practicing nurses.

Joyce Watkins Bates thanks Alice for her work. She and husband Herm, who live in Hillside, OR, are looking to sell their previous home in La Conner, WA.

Mary Mitchell Durland could not make Reunion because she had to undergo knee surgery, due to acute osteoarthritis.

Audrey Platt Jacobson says she is feeling “under the weather.”

Nothing new and exciting from Redwood City, CA, says Sally Armstrong Gieseler.

Jane Hendershot Blake can’t believe she has lived until age 82. She is busy completing her bucket list: walking across the Brooklyn Bridge (which she did in May) and returning to Paris (her two daughters are taking her there). She is in good health.

Phylis Dye Turner’s grandson was catcher on Oakland’s Cal Ripken World Series baseball team, which was runner-up in 2008 in Maryland. The Turners are having a family reunion in Santa Fe, NM.

Ferne Hessberg Weiner underwent an aortic valve replacement last January and has suffered many complications. Honey and Howard celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary with a big bash put on by their children.

Betsy Bell Condron, who compiled our 60th-reunion class history, thanks all of us for a terrific response. She worked on the history at her Marco Island, FL, home and later joined the ranks of 80-year-olds with a “grand ladies tea party”—gloves and calling cards included.

Adelaide Hodgman Marx is busy getting her black Lab puppy through obedience school. She was unable to make Reunion due to knee replacement surgery.

Nancy Shoemaker Confar, who lives in a seventh-floor apartment, is happy communing with the birds. She volunteers at local hospitals and churches. Her children and grandchildren live nearby.

Patricia Hickey Powell had back surgery in November, then fell in December, suffering a broken wrist and six cracked ribs that required additional surgery. She traveled twice to Nashville, TN, where her son is a neurosurgeon, for the surgery.

Martha Park Boswell is still playing tennis, despite the loss of her shock pads in both feet. She still skis on the nearby slopes (free to folks in their 80s) and organized several ski trips to Mt. Tremblant in Quebec for 28 friends. Marty recently welcomed another grandchild.

Alice Geise Clark reports the sad news that she lost her partner of more than 30 years in January. Alice had her right hip replaced and is on the mend.

Pat Henkes Pogge’s husband, Horst, passed away in February. We are sorry for her loss.

Betti Detrick Williams moved to Day­tona Beach, FL, and says she has been supporting the medical world by keeping up with her health issues. She no longer teaches but paints four days a week. She
is exhibiting at five galleries, with 12 shows from May to Decem­ber. She plays bridge and is active with her host of friends, singing, dancing, and painting. She and Don celebrated their 60th anniversary in August. One of Betti’s sons is a woodworker, and another is a potter and teaches at University of New Hampshire; her daughter is a graphic artist. Betti, who painted for the Coast Guard, has her work included in the Coast Guard Museum in Wash­ington, DC.

Ann Whitaker Richie is selling travel excursions to her school associates and friends, allowing her to visit Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, and French Polynesia, among other places. Ann and her husband had operated a motel in Palm Springs for many years. They sold it a few years ago to the gay community, and Warm Sands Villa is now a top gay resort. They live in a continuous-care commun­ity in Carlsbad, CA, and are doing fine.

Georganne Hinchliff Eggers visited Siggie Sletteland Behring in Wis­consin, where Siggie was born. Hink thinks Siggie is still “the beauty” of the class.

Doris Higgons Popenoe was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma and started chemo in April.

Nan Currier Hilfrank is now at a nursing home, where she receives good care for her Parkinson’s, which has caused rather severe dementia.

Madeline Flood Peel was sorry to miss the 60th, but just could not make it with her limited physical ability. Maddie was so sad at the passing of roommate Sandra Working Brown in January. She sends her love to all of her classmates.

Patricia Thayer Whitney hopes to get news from classmates, especially those who were at Reunion! She cannot travel anymore, but still finds lots to enjoy—such as a fabulous spring in North Carolina.

Leah Cunningham Wood was not able to make Reunion, due to Chuck’s poor health.

I just returned from two Elderhostels—one in San Diego and the other in Ventura, CA. I spent the weekends with my daughter Penny and grandchildren, who also live there. I waitress at our Richmond town Auxiliary Café, play bridge with a friend of over 50 years, and serve in my church vestry, among other activities.