class notes

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In Memoriam | People & projects

1950s

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1953

Marlane Furbee McKenzie has returned to creating art, along with her job as corresponding secretary to her town’s retired-teachers association. Two of her paintings have been exhibited in local public buildings.

In Key Biscayne, FL, Sissy Kresel Levine keeps active playing tennis seven months of the year and going to the gym. She sends her love!

Gail McKay joined in a Sarasota, FL, family reunion of first cousins, including Ann Schaaff Wadhams ’51 and Jean Meenan ’54. She also enjoyed our 55th.

Betsy Singer Gluck reports that 60 years ago, six of her classmates graduated from Dana Hall School in Wellesley, MA, and joined the freshman class at Skidmore: Debbie Phillips, Louise Berke Wolff, Norma “Billie” Fisher, Carol Haynes Nelson, and the late Mary Jane Bileck Bromley.

Joan Knickerbocker Dupre’s husband, Rejean, writes that Joan has been laid up for several years, and he is her caregiver. They live in North Palm Beach, FL.

In February Francine Lampher Compton and her husband, who were married in 1959, returned to the site of their engagement in Austria, with members of the Southern California Ski Club. They are both in good health.

Mary Caskey Avery gets around with classmates. Toot spent time this past winter in Maine with Debbie Phillips and Sally Sanderson Cutler, who appears to be doing great and is driving her car. In South Carolina, Toot visited Grace Ackernecht Harrigan, who is active in the Beaufort Historical Society.

Children’s author Patricia Glass Palmer lives in Hawaii. Her books include Liking Myself, The Mouse, the Monster, and Me, Teen Esteem, and I Wish I Could Hold Your Hand (a child’s guide to grief and loss). Four of Pat’s books have been published in Japan.

Elizabeth Smith Exner loved spring skiing this year and shares this story: She was happily moving along when “a big dumb oaf careened out of control across the tips of my skis, forcing me to attempt a sharp U-turn to avoid being crushed by his bulky body.” Robbie fell on her side and on top of her pole, fracturing her hand. Robbie went to a female surgeon who had helped her in the past, and while being treated, she heard a male assistant being told, “She’ll want to ski again, so mold it around a ski pole.” He did so, shaking his head. Robbie went right back to the slopes!

Nancy Bigelow Bird had a wonderful trip to Europe with her daughter earlier this year and later visited sister Barbara Bigelow Roy ’56, who lives in Saratoga. Nancy enjoys life with no computer (including no e-mail).

Gabrielle Fuchs and sister Gerda Fuchs Rypins happened upon Nancy Combes Wogan ’51 in the locker room of their aqua class in Berkeley, CA. They plan to have lunch soon for further discussion.

Debbie Phillips is delighted to have remained in Woodstock, VT, where she is able to meet regularly with New England classmates like Janet Tinsley Fiske, Toot Caskey Avery, MaryJo Marcy Rines, Sally Sanderson Cutler, Marty Hamilton Finlay, and Betsy Singer Gluck, along with their husbands.

Carol Bradford Kirby says it is wonderful to wake up “on the green side of the grass!” She notes that the grandchildren have more news than she and her husband do; two are Duke grads, while others are alumni of St. Paul’s, Bates, Andover, and Williams. Two more are entering high school. She and her husband live in White Stone, VA, on the Chesapeake Bay.

West Coast classmate Norma Morse Edelman has ongoing conversations with Vermonters Nancy Angel Dubois and Pat Funk Burley, whom she sees when she visits New England. Of her wedding-planning business she writes, “Never did I think when majoring in business that I would still be doing it at age 76!”

Lois Kite VanWagner is the organist for the local Eastern Star chapter and substitutes for other chapters in the area. She also does regular piano recitals at the Woodlawn-Embury apartments in Saratoga Springs, and is the organist for their vesper and memorial services.

Ann Harrison Michels’s eldest granddaughter, Haley Strader ’09, is the third generation in her family to graduate from Skidmore. Ann’s résumé as an artist is extensive and includes works in places as far-flung as the Tate Museum in London and the Smithsonian Institute Archives in Washington, DC. Her husband, Herman, practices law in Newark, NJ; they live in Short Hills.