class notes

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1963

Deborah Frankel Reese
bybynj@aol.com

Barbara Bankes Cunningham, Evelyn Berrell Edwards, Debbie Ketchum Lambert, and Betsy Orr Klausing are in contact with Priscilla Smith Kehm. Priscilla, still fighting her long and difficult battle with cancer, has done miraculously well over the past years, and her friends say they marvel at her strength and faith. Priscilla recently wrote to them that “it’s like riding a bike with the air out of the tires. But it’s worth it…just enjoying one God-given day at a time.”

Joyce DiBona was in Saratoga this past summer visiting friends of her husband, Robert. She says the new campus looks wonderful—“even the huge construction work going on is a wonderful sign of prosperity and growth.” Joyce feels that the move to a new campus was definitely the right decision for the college, although she admits she voted to stay on the old campus. The DiBonas later drove up to Keene Valley, where Robert took a 70th-anniversary dip into a favorite swimming hole. The couple later drove to Lake Placid for some great golf.

Also in Saratoga in the summer was Ronnie Zolondek Bramesco, who marvels that the restaurant at 43 Phila, where Mother Goldsmith’s used to be, “has the chutzpah to serve $60 veal chops!” Ronnie and Alix Carver Spielman, Patty Foreman Balbirer, and their respective guys spent a great day at the Saratoga Racecourse in August. Ronnie entertained Terry Lang Phillips, who spent a long weekend with her in NYC, while attending a nephew’s wedding. Terry recently moved from Sedona, AZ, to West Palm Beach, FL, and Ronnie connected her with Evelyn Nutman Siegel, who lives within 10 minutes of Terry’s. Evelyn said they had a grand time; “I really can’t believe how meaningful these Skidmore connections are after all this time.”

On June 5 Elizabeth Flescher married Ed Feige, a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Evelyn Siegel, forever referred to by Elizabeth as “my college roommate,” was in attendance. The newlyweds were campers together in the 1950s, met up again at a camp reunion in l987, and remained casual friends for the next l3 years. In 2001 Elizabeth visited him in Croatia, where he was consulting to that government’s National Bank, and they have been together ever since. Elizabeth writes, “After Earl, my first husband, died in 1982, I never felt it important or necessary to remarry, but now it seemed the right time and the right person.” Elizabeth and Ed honeymooned in Croatia before returning home to Madison.

Judith Pettingell did a masterful job of organizing all the children’s art at the Upper Valley Arts Alliance “Arts for All” celebration in Lebanon, NH, in early October. Judith has been one of the movers and shakers in getting this grassroots volunteer organization (www.uvarts.org) off the ground. Its focus is making the arts a vital and accessible part of everyday life in the Upper Valley region of New Hampshire and Vermont.

Willa Zens Marten’s household lives on the Big Island of Hawaii from December through April; she extends a blanket invitation to classmates in the neighborhood of Kealakekua Bay to stop by Hale Keawe. Willa is also looking for someone to live in her Mill Valley tree house while she’s in Hawaii. To enjoy the Marin experience, call her.

Much to her horror, Louise Siegel Musser has taken up watching soap operas—well, one anyway. She has two sons, who took to the California life like ducks to water when she bought her part-time home in LaJolla some years back. Older son John now owns a surfing business; but younger son Alec, a full-time model who has studied acting, became an actor for All My Children! He was the winner on the TV reality show I Wanna Be a Soap Opera Star, landing a contract on All My Children for 13 weeks, playing Del Henry. Louise says she has never watched soap operas before, and never will again, but she has to follow her son’s career! Back on the East Coast, Louise, a master gardener, spent the summer settling into her new seasonal New Jersey abode and fretting over the new gardens she put in during the summer drought.

Ginny Nyvall Durfee shared this memory of a day in August last year: “Ginny Payne Morse was ‘sprung’ from her place by husband Jack, who brought her down to our house in Little Compton, RI, for a beautiful day and a reunion lunch with Judy Baldwin Martin and me. Judy was transported from Stonington, CT (where the Martins are building a wonderful shingle-style home) by her husband in their boat. It was a gorgeous day with flat seas; but did we laugh when Judy got there slightly wind-blown. What a good sport! We had so much talking to do, and so many things to catch up on. ‘Ginny P’ loved it, as did Judy and I. There is nothing better than old friends and the joy of being together again.”

Lynn Edwards Hendricks spent a wonderful time in Italy this past summer.

Joan Davidson Reich admits that reading about everyone’s memories of their college experiences in the online newsletter prompted her to send news (for the first time) to Scope. As a nursing major away from campus for two years, she missed out on a lot of our common experiences but met some new people senior year through her freshman-year roommate, Ellen Franklin. She remains in close touch with Karen Rogers Harrison, who she roomed with in NYC after graduation. In September Joan and her husband attended a wedding in Amenia, NY; one of the guests turned out to be Susan Altus Rudnick, whom Joan hadn’t seen since senior year! They had a nice conversation reminiscing about Skidmore. Joan and her husband sold their retail business 11 years ago; her husband does some consulting work as a fundraiser for nonprofits, and she does volunteer work. Their children live in New Jersey and the Philadelphia area, so the couple is often on the road to see them and their three grandchildren. In August they took a riverboat cruise from St. Petersburg to Moscow, followed by short stays in Berlin and Amsterdam.

I am very busy with my art and have gotten into several good galleries in the Vermont–New Hampshire area. I may soon be represented by a licensing art company. Fall is utterly divine here in Vermont, and we have been canning tomato sauce and plum jam, making pesto to freeze, and pressing our own cider. Don’t forget to check out the class newsletter at www.skidmore.edu/alumni/alumniaffairs/classes/1963/1963.html.