class notes

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1950s

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1953

Two of our classmates’ husbands have been featured in the news media recently. The first is Eugene Neri, spouse of Natalie Jones Neri, who took six years to build a class catboat that started in his cellar and was launched in June. Four of their five kids came from as far away as Nevada and Colorado for the launching party in the Neris’ backyard on the Niantic River in Connecticut. That story appeared in The Day from New London.

The second story appeared in the Boothbay Register in July and concerned Melvin Rines, husband of MaryJo Marcy Rines. Mel wrote a personal history book with two grandkids in mind because he had never known his grandparents. Flying High, the story of a fighter pilot, traces his military career from the Naval Air Corps in WWII to the time of the Korean conflict. Once finished with flying, he ended up in Boston as an investment banker.

MaryJo had one of her paintings accepted by the New England Watercolor Society for a national show. Another prize-winning watercolor was accepted for a show that ran this fall at the New Bedford Museum of Art. In July MaryJo and Mel entertained Sally Sanderson Cutler, Deb Phillips, and Mary Caskey Avery with husband Skip at their summer home on Southport Island, ME. Mel sings in a globe-trotting men’s chorus, which performed at Green Mountain College in Vermont
at what is known as Saengerfest. Diane Snow Brennan’s husband Jack is the president at the college. The group thoroughly enjoyed the hospitality of the president’s house.

Betty Hill Johnson tells of the sale of their Maryland home and her pretty-permanent move to Maine. Her husband is still mostly in Maryland at the home of their daughter, but commutes when possible. Betty’s freshman-year roommate Barbara Fournier Gary-Campus visited with daughter Susan last summer, and they enjoyed a couple of rounds of golf when it wasn’t raining. Betty has been doing a lot of pastel painting and has several items in local galleries.

Anne Whitehouse Gass demonstrates spinning wool and animal hair at public fairs in Maine.

Two more members of the class have succumbed. Frank Colotti was one of those who had the
mind of a computer. I never had him in any of my classes, but I’m sure some of you remember him.

Also, Pat Littlefield Kotlewski died in July. She was my next-door neighbor on the second floor
of the old Wilmarth, and her dad and mine really hit it off on our first Happy Pappy weekend.
They formed a group that stuck together for the four years of Happy Pappy and entertained us royally. Sympathy is sent to both families.

I had to break a lunch date with Betty Hill Johnson when I broke my hip. Don’t ever get in a boat that is not tied to a dock; I did a sidewise split and four days later fell in the night and heard the
hip snap. I am home now but still having home-health and physical therapy.