class notes

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1950s

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1950

Adele Altenburg Mardirosian
setadele@erols.com

After 47 years with Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles, CA, Olive King Sutton quit her job and moved back to New England. She lives in New London, NH.

Widowed since 2000, Helen Miller Reindel recently moved to an apartment within an assisted-living complex in Montpelier, VT, which affords her a panoramic view of the landscape. She is active with a church-sponsored advocacy task force dedicated to uprooting racism, and other community projects.

Ellen Kelsey Dubocq traveled to New York and Connecticut to visit family and friends to get her “green fix” (there’s not too much green where she lives in southeast Arizona). She and her brother also visited Scandinavia. She stays busy on her 27-acre ranch, tending goats, horses, and chickens, and continues as a volunteer at her church and as a receptionist and docent for Amerind, an archeological and anthropological facility.

Last summer and fall Janet Malone Bliss and her husband spent several weeks in Kenya and Tanzania, Romania and Bulgaria (the latter is “especially dismal, but the people are upbeat and making progress”), and Manitoba, where they saw polar bears.

In time for last November’s presidential election, Irene Marcus Senter’s Third Wave Television released its sixth video in eight years. Titled Women Vote 2004: The Margin of Victory, it explored priority issues for women and how each of the candidates addressed those issues.

Although Hurricane Ivan dealt a devastating blow to Pensacola, FL, Harriet Leighton Enbody’s neighborhood was spared. She spent Thanksgiving in Michigan with her second son and celebrated her 80th birthday with a party.

Trudy Giese Vilaska exhibited her artwork in Norway’s Oslo City Hall last summer, and was lucky enough to sell a picture to a director of the Oslo National College of Art. She also appeared on Norwegian television. This spring she will travel to Rome, where more of her artwork will be shown in a gallery. Trudy credits her artistic achievements to Skidmore’s outstanding art department and the emphasis placed on individuality and strong self-belief.

In July Ruth Niederlander Shoumate traveled to France for a Seine River cruise and four days in Paris. The food was great, and the scenery is “the most beautiful in the world,” she claims.

Dorothy Stephan Kellsey, having recovered from an illness, moved to an assisted-living facility in Colorado, closer to her daughter. She says the place is great.

Leona Sobel and sister Ethel Sobel Brody ’45, both involved with South Carolina’s Columbia Museum of Art, are traveling together in Peru with a group from NYC’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The sisters’ travel schedule also includes attending Spoleto in Charleston, trips to Maine and NYC, and a tour of the Dalmatian coast with a MoMA group.

Norman Migliorato lives in a retirement community in Camden, ME.

Rhoda Siegelman Kittay and husband are leaving Southbury, CT, for Rye Beach, NY, to be near their children. Rhoda insists there will be no more shopping or cooking: “It’s time to relax and smell the flowers.”

Gloria Dahr Ashooh is fighting old age by taking yoga classes and bowling with her old PTA league. She has eight grandchildren, one of whom is a college freshman.

Fay Syrett Kester is no longer doing museum work, but paints for her own pleasure and spends time enjoying her family; she has 11 grandchildren and a great-grandchild.

Ann Tompkins Hewat is VP of a Habitat for Humanity chapter. She is also involved with the arts committee of her local library and the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, and is a lay reader for her church, where she serves on the vestry.

Inger Johnsen Jakhelln of Oslo, Norway, visited Virginia, Georgia, and Alabama on her way to Florida last April, and is wintering in Florida again this year. An avid bridge player, she also enjoyed a wine tour of southern France last fall, followed by a trip to Boston and Cape Cod to see the changing foliage.

Roberta Fast Lazarus reports that there’s an article about her late husband, Marvin, in the new art magazine Esopus; it features his photographs and portions of his journals from 1950 to 1960.

Joan Meyer Bramson has two children (a third, a son, died three years ago), and 11 grandchildren ages 3 to 16. She and her husband winter in Boynton Beach, FL, and summer in East Brunswick, NJ.

After two mandatory evacuations to Orlando, FL, and wading through piles of debris and destruction, Judy Rehr Dunning and husband Franklin have emerged from post-hurricane trauma in Vero Beach. Fortunately they had no permanent damage to their home. The couple went to Boston for three weeks with daughter Jennifer, to smooth away the hypertension that had set in.

Jan Sutherland Fairservis spent her seventh winter in Hawaii with eldest daughter Teviot. Daughter Jenny Fairservis ’84 is an acupuncturist and Chinese medicine practitioner, and, according to Jan, a born healer who “keeps the family up-to-date about the best remedies.”

Marjorie Ness Kartiganer traveled from Florida to New York, playing golf along the way. Her oldest son, Scott, died suddenly in July. The family had planned an August cruise from New York City to the Maritime Provinces and decided to continue anyway as a way to celebrate Scott’s life. Marjorie says the journey helped heal and bond family members. The class sends Marjorie and her family its condolences.

Joan Weller LaPann only recently learned of the death of Alison Beyea in 2003. Poni had a wry sense of humor and kept us laughing for years with her stories of her cats and the people with whom she worked.

We were saddened to hear about the sudden death in August of Mary Gould Markham’s daughter, Deborah, and extend condolences to Sis and her family.

Our sympathies also go to Joel Sandleman, whose wife, Peeta, died in December.