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1960s

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1963

Deborah Frankel Reese
bybynj@aol.com

Elizabeth Cater Jones lives in Santa Cruz, CA, and owns an essential-oil business with husband Larry. She began teaching a class on essential oils over 10 years ago and within a few years founded the College of Botanical Healing Arts (www.cobha.org), which offers classes in botany, chemistry, mind/body, clinical science, and energetic healing. She is now training new teachers from graduates of the program. Good friend Betsy Welch Hostynek enjoys spending time with Elizabeth’s five-year-old granddaughter.

Karen Levin Coburn, associate dean of student affairs at Washington University in St. Louis, “has a knack for making things happen,” according to the university Web site. She advises and mentors international students, students involved in the Women’s Resource Center, the editors of Student Life, and others. This past fall, Karen partnered with Dean Anita Steigerwald to present a program called “Letting Go” to Skidmore freshman parents. She observes, “The energy on campus was fantastic. By the time the parents took off, I think they felt confident that they were leaving their kids in an extraordinarily stimulating and caring community. Although I love coming to reunions, it was a special treat to experience today’s Skidmore in action. I think our alma mater is on a roll!”

Judith Bunnell Sellers, who obtained a master’s and a doctorate in nursing from Boston University, is an associate professor at Northern Arizona University, where she is a gerontology researcher. She has written prolifically for professional publications, most recently about aging among rural Navajos and Anglos.

Carol Smith Witherell teaches child development, learning, and exceptionality to master-of-arts teaching interns at Lewis and Clark University. Since 2003 she has also been director of the graduate core program, in which she teaches.

In September Janet Block Lefkowitz took a break from her catering business to visit Ireland with her physician husband, David, and two old friends from Memphis, TN. One friend was a Dartmouth grad who once spent time in jail for removing the sign from Caffè Lena in Saratoga Springs.

Recently I saw a review in Art New England written by staff writer Lois Sommer Goglia. She has lectured at Yale Medical School and other universities, and for local civic groups. She has exhibited her work widely in her home state of Connecticut, and is known for her large constructions and sculptures made with materials usually associated with physicians—tapes, bandages, and X-rays that are cut, sutured, and stuck together. With added paint, canvas, and inks, they are described as “lyrical, textural—with gestural qualities.”

Hazel Kaplan Siegel of Atelier Hazel Siegel Ltd. received the International Interior Design Association 2004 Leadership Award of Excellence. Hazel was saluted among ten outstanding design innovators throughout the US during the IIDA’s tenth anniversary celebration. Hazel is the founder and former president of Momentum Textile’s Textus Group.

Calista Crosby Bookout is involved with many pottery and art groups on the north fork of Long Island; she has an apt e-mail address: claylady@optonline.net.

Also active on Long Island’s North Shore is Bonnie Lancaster Devendorf. After 20 years as a broker for the Daniel Gale agencies, she is currently a VP. The Daniel Gale/Sotheby office she opened in Locust Valley is said to be the leading authority in real estate on the North Shore.

Liz Fleischer Paley lived and painted in NYC for years, gravitated for a time to the hills of California after the untimely death of her husband, and now spends most of her time in Madison, WI. She and her current companion—an economist, retired professor, and consultant—are spending two months in Bulgaria and Croatia before heading to Italy for a month’s stay at Bellagio, a Rockefeller think tank, where “Ed will ‘think’ and I will paint some small gouaches and watch the boats go by.”

Chris Mackey Giddings enjoys life in Chestertown, MD, a small college town that boasts many historic homes and buildings and very little traffic. Chris retired two years ago after 22 years as a librarian with Montgomery County Library System. She and husband Richard have been married for 41 years; they have three children and four grandchildren.

In October class co-presidents Judith Pettingell and Ronnie Zolondek Bramesco spent a weekend for class volunteers at Skidmore. In the fall Judy worked for the Kerry-Edwards campaign and the Sierra Club. She has since added several new positions to her volunteer roster. She assists people studying with the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen to receive college credit, has founded an arts advocacy group, and is working with an interdenominational organization to address poverty in New Hampshire’s Upper Valley.

Anne Schwiebert, Sandy Wilbert Fleischman, and Ronnie Bramesco gathered at the Devon Yacht Club in Amagansett, Long Island, to attend a Skidmore club event at the end of August. Ronnie got to stay at Anne’s home in Southold (North Fork) and Alex’s Southampton (South Fork) residence.

Louise Siegel Musser sold her longtime home in Tenafly, NJ, and bought one in nearby Englewood designed by an architect she has always admired. Over the summer she packed up years of accumulated stuff. Louise spends half the year at her place in LaJolla, CA, near her two sons. On both coasts she is working on perfecting her golf game—a relatively recent obsession.

In October Wendy Sussman Rubin and Evelyn Nutman Siegel had lunch together in Florida—a “very mini reunion!”

Ginny Payne Morse is comfortably living at Clark House (Fox Hill Village) in Westwood, MA. Ginny Nyvall Durfee and Ronnie Bramesco have visited, and many classmates have written; Ginny Morse really appreciates your notes and news.

Linda Cohen Lubell’s two-year-old grandson “is a joy and a delight.” The Lubells try to visit Zachery and his parents, who live in New Jersey, as often as possible.

Our hearts go out to Penny Dammann Johnston, who lost husband Allistair suddenly in August. Carolyn Caesar Ingraham, Ginny Durfee, and Barby Nichols Kirwood attended the service.

Classmate tributes to Kathryn “Twig” Terwilliger, whose death was noted in the last issue, can be found on our class Web site.

I had a rough summer, starting with some severe back troubles, moving on to my fifth and worst kidney-stone attack ever (resulting in surgery), and ending up concurrently with a pulmonary embolism. I have had far better seasons! Once these events were over, I got a lot of rest, but no painting, yard work, entertaining, or walking in the magnificent hills of Vermont.

I worked for John Kerry as much as I could. My painting Web site, www.reeseportraits.com (which now also includes semi-abstract landscapes), is generating business from as far away as Texas and California. It keeps me busy and happy.

Check out our class Web site at www.skidmore.edu/alumni for class newsletters full of memories and photos.