class notes

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1953

Hail and farewell. This is the final column I will write as your class secretary. I have enjoyed the process of informing you all of special travel, new ventures, gobs of grandkids and some great-grands (are we really that old?), and lots of 50th anniversaries. I regret having to write the notification of deceased spouses, and hardest of all has been the news of classmates who have slipped from this life.

Due to my recent spinal surgery, expected carpal-tunnel surgery, and eventual total hip replacement, I had to miss our 55th—and the class spirit we have displayed since before our graduation. (All those pop songs we won with—and who could forget our stomping into College Hall with our long gray coats and rebel hats and flags? We wowed ’em and walked off with that treasured spittoon—just one of my many Reunion memories.)

There is good news: our class prexy, Carol Claflin Kurtz, seems to have beaten her cancer, and Sally Sanderson Cutler is back in her own home, on her own, after suffering a stroke.

Pat Lanpher Compton and husband keep traveling. They toured Alaska and the southern tip of the inland waterway last July. The trip was enhanced by the inclusion of two ’58 grads and spouses. In October the Comptons spent two weeks in Rhode Island, followed by a great visit with Bobby Fee Dickason and John in Florida. They also enjoyed a three-day visit with Sue Dorr Cairns in Seattle.

Jackie Bailey Martin met with Dottie Garbarino Walka, Ann Shaaber Campney, and Joan Dymond Barnett at Cindy Madsen Henson’s Orleans home on Cape Cod last fall, to make Reunion plans.

Til Jones Neri was ecstatic that one of her granddaughters is a member of the Skidmore Class of 2011. With Til’s mother graduating in 1921, they maintain a 90-year history with the college.

Gail McKay is painting and exhibiting, canoeing (her passion), and initiating the Artists1 League of Lake Placid, NY. She recently reuned with cousin Jean Schaaff Meenan ’54 and Jean’s sister Anne Schaaff Wadhams ’51.

A note from class volunteer Barbara Holden Moulton encouraged all of us to contribute to the annual fund, so we could get close to 100 percent participation, which is more important than the amount given.

Betty Hill Johnson and I had our annual lunch meeting halfway between our homes; she chose the restaurant because it was showing artworks for sale.

Another classmate left us: Alexander Taylor, one of the Glens Falls GIs, died in December. We send our sympathies to his wife and three children.