FORMER EMPLOYEE NOTES

Alison Acker reported that she was married on July 7, 2017, at Saint James Plantation in Southport, N.C. “Larry and I live in sunny Venice, Florida. This past Christmas, we volunteered our home for the 2022 Holiday Home Tour. The service club sponsors this for a local charity. I had a wonderful team help me decorate the house; it was an experience that I will never forget. You can view the house on YouTube, search Bowers-Acker House Christmas 2022 for pictures. I am very proud of all the work done by my house team and the money we raised for charity. We are doing well and going on a second honeymoon on a European cruise in May.”

Steve Bailey sent news: “Heather and I continue to enjoy living in Vermont. We volunteer at the Montpelier Food Pantry and lead hikes, kayaking and cross-country ski trips for the Green Mountain Club. It’s hard to believe that I retired from PDS almost 12 years ago! Since the pandemic lessened somewhat in 2022, we were able to catch up on some traveling we had put off. In March, we visited Big Bend National Park for the first time. We were amazed by how big the park is (the size of Rhode Island) and by how varied the terrain is, ranging from rugged mountains to flat plains by the Rio Grande. In May, we met up with our son, Dave ’88, and his wife, Natasha, and our daughter, Melissa ’00, in Taos, N.M., for a week of hiking. It was great to have everyone there for Mother’s Day. The highlight of 2022 was the birth in October of our first grandchild, Quentin, to Dave and Natasha. We visited them in Seattle in December and were happy that Melissa was able to join us there. We also were able to see former faculty John Baldwin and Kate Winton, who have a new grandchild of their own.

Helen Bodel wrote: “I am ever a lazy nonna, reading poetry together with a lovely Vermont group, and driving the grands to sports and theater events—and already a little lonely just THINKING about Michael ’99 and family being out of town for several months! And always missing Anniebo ’03, a Californian for years now... I left the West Coast at 30 and still miss it; whenever I’m in San Francisco for a wedding or a visit I find myself overcome by memories of my Menlo Park girlhood and college and working years in the city. So much fun!

Michael and his family are heading to Madrid for six months. The children, now 10 and 12, are already enrolled in a Spanish school. Alex, their trilingual mom, will relax(!) and Michael will continue his work at Dartmouth, but remotely... I will have the opportunity to visit them in Madrid — as well as see my brother and his family in The Hague. It will be a wonderful spring!

“Annie defended her MA thesis in February at Moss Landing Marine Labs near Monterey, where she was a grad student on a NASA grant for several years. Her talk was viewed in person and online by hundreds of scientists who study ocean waters. It’s a timely subject for marine biochemists, oceanographers, geologists and the like, of course, all working to heal the world’s waters. So proud of her; she is now packing for her new position in San Diego!”

Peter Buttenheim reported: “Frances and I are writing to you from Kendal at Longwood in

Kennett Square, Pa., the retirement community where we have lived for almost two years. We are busy and well here, with many activities, new friends, and an atmosphere of liberal spirits. I think our decision to come to an LCC was a very good one for us.

“I need to brag about granddaughter, Francesca’s, delayed Mount Holyoke College commencement — from 2020 to 2022 — and granddaughter, Claire’s, commencement from Yale. Those events were five days apart in May of 2022. And, the other REALLY BIG event concerned Jennifer’s husband, Dmitri. Late in August, Dima became a US citizen after a long wait. HOORAY!

“My very best PDS connections in years consisted of many emails back and forth among Steve ’72 and Evan Bash ’74; Giaff ’72, Cam ’74, and Grayson ’75 Ferrante; John Gordon ’72; and Phil Benson ’75 surrounding the World Cup matches last November. All those extraordinary PDS graduates played soccer with me at PDS. More recently, I had a long and delightful email from Alice Dunn ’74 who left PDS to attend Wesleyan University where I was working after my tenure at PDS. Women at Wesleyan petitioned the University for a women’s soccer team, and Alice came out for the team. What a great treat that was for me.

“Anyway, a reporter for the Wesleyan school paper wrote a big article this fall about the advent of Title IX at Wesleyan with a long story about our creating that first women’s team in 1978. Alice was quoted in that article, and I found her email address. We have exchanged 45 years of our history since we both moved on from Wesleyan.”

Jan Baker visited with Maryjo Blewitt Collins this past summer. Maryjo taught physical education at PDS from 1978-1982. As the varsity field hockey coach, her team won the New Jersey Prep A tournament in 1981. Maryjo coached Middle School lacrosse during the spring term while getting her master’s degree at Columbia.

Kay Haartz Cortelyou wrote: I have just returned from a week of horseback riding and camping in the southern Andes of Patagonia, Argentina. It was a challenging trip physically and mentally. I am proud of myself and grateful that I am still able to do and complete such a challenging adventure. Kip and I love living near our son. We now have three granddaughters and keep very busy helping with their care.

Kip continues to grow vegetables while I still show my Morgan horses. We live north of Houston and enjoy connecting with friends and former students from PDS.

Liz Cutler reported: “After I retired from PDS, I became a sustainability consultant, working at schools around the country to help them become more sustainable. This past January, I flew to The Island School on Eleuthera in the Bahamas, to be their master teacher-in-residence for the semester, helping the young faculty and the interns grow in their teaching practice. What an adventure. I bike a thirteen-mile round trip to work under the stars (pre-dawn and post-sunset), and spend the day with students, faculty, and researchers. I even have a PDS grandstudent here. I am Miriam Pollard Cohen ’88’s daughter’s English teacher. How’s that for a small world!”

Alison Distefano reported: “Since leaving PDS almost two years ago, my husband and I finally opened our business, Vampire Penguin. We are a unique, boutique frozen dessert shop featuring shaved snow. We are located inside YB Eatery at 8 Court Street in Freehold. Shaved snow is a blend of ice cream and ice; it has all the creaminess and flavor of ice cream but is light and fluffy like shaved ice. It’s so different from anything around, and most people really do fall in love at first bite like we did! We recently purchased a food trailer and expect to be mobile by April! It’s been a fantastic new journey for my family and me. Definitely come check us out. You can find us on Facebook or Instagram.

Brent Ferguson wrote: “To those I taught at PDS from the classes of 2021 through 2025: I relish the time I had working with you in mathematics, my fellow classmates! Whether in calculus, precalc or geometry, we wrote lots!

We explored, we asked, we reflected, we revised and we tried again. We wrote some more. We grappled earnestly with challenging problems and I did my best to convey my utter confidence that you could in fact engage difficult thoughts and tackle big ideas! Some of us traveled to Greece. Others folded paper and used a compass and straightedge. All of us kept organized notebooks of annotated homework and learned how to ask a good, focused question or two each day of ourselves and of our neighbor. We learned each other’s names and stories and endeavored to help ourselves and those around us learn math. Boy, we sure did write a lot!

“To each one of you: I hope you have learned to BE who you are, to TRUST who you are becoming, and to ENGAGE others (and your best selves) in the process of constantly asking that latter question, “Who am I becoming?” The lessons I learned there inform my work this year at PHS and will do so going forward wherever I might be. The ongoing relationships some of you have sustained via email and the like have been very encouraging, and I hope to continue to hear from you in the years ahead (ferguson. brent@gmail.com). If you ever wish to talk about teaching and learning, or to reconnect, drop me a line anytime. Pop quiz: (1) Do you still recall any of the four affirmations? (2) What learning endures for you beyond our year together — fundamental theorem of calculus, anyone? What else stands out for you? I think of each of you often, and I lift up a prayer each time!”

Dean Jacoby sent: “Greetings from New Mexico. I was the director of college counseling at PDS from 2001-2006. This year marks my 15th at Albuquerque Academy as a college counselor and soccer coach. I often think of the many students from PDS who impacted my life so profoundly and the colleagues who were role models and mentors. I love reading the Journal to see what everyone is up to. After 30 years as a college admissions counselor, I am about to go through the process as a parent. My daughter, born at the now closed Princeton Hospital, is a junior at Albuquerque Academy. Wish me luck!”

Louise Topp McClure wrote: “I’m still teaching strings privately — about 50 students per week — and loving it. I’m actually getting more efficient. The back-office work keeps me out of trouble, or continually IN trouble, depending on your point of view. I’m playing some chamber music but quit my chamber orchestra for lack of adequate practice time. A friend lent me his banjo, and I’m starting to figure it out.

“Two years ago, we bought a small place up in the Adirondacks, near Schroon Lake, on the eastern side. We’ve been spending summers and a few long weekends up there. It’s off a tertiary road but five minutes from the interstate, quiet, surrounded by trees and hills, with pure air and water, and lots of hiking just out the door. The High Peaks are just an hour away. I tried cross-country skiing but couldn’t figure out how to control the tips, so I quickly became a contortionist. I’ve decided I prefer keeping my feet firmly planted on the ground, via shoes or snowshoes. Love to all my PDS friends and former students!”

Judy Rowe Michaels reported that she had a new poetry book, “This Morning the Mountain,” published in April. There was a book launch party, reading and signing at the Princeton Public Library in April. The book is available from Amazon. Or if you’d like a signed copy, send your address and $20.00 to Judy at 330 Zion Road, Hillsborough, N.J. 08844. She continues to spend much of the summer and fall at the cabin in Maine that she shares with her sister and brothers but when in N.J. she participates in two poetry groups and volunteers for the national program Survivors Teaching Students, speaking on their panels at medical schools in N.J. and NYC about her experiences with ovarian cancer and the importance of early diagnosis.”

Jenny Mischner reported: “My Chicago neighborhood is not only a walker’s paradise, but the 18-mile lakefront trail is also great for bike riding. Luckily the terrain is much flatter than the hill up the Great Road! I volunteer at the Lincoln Park Zoo once a week, enjoy stained glass open studio at the Lincoln Park Cultural Center, ring in an English handbell choir and play pickleball four times a week. I’m the program chair for the Windy City Knitting Guild and attend the Madison, Wis., Knitters Guild on my visits to Lindsey ’08 and family.

My two-year-old granddaughter got a baby brother in July! It’s amazing how quickly they grow; luckily knitting child and baby sweaters goes pretty quickly!

“Ken and I celebrated our 40th anniversary in September and our daughters threw us a surprise anniversary party in October! We have finally scheduled a trip to use the ticket vouchers from the wedding we were supposed to attend in Luxembourg in August of 2020.”

Irene Mortensen reported she was a think tank participant and presenter at the NAIS Annual Conference in Las Vegas this past February. “During my presentation, ‘What Would You Do? Case Studies for Admin Team Members,’ part of the NAIS Leadership Lab; two PDS graduates were in my session. It was great fun to bump into Rachel Levin ’00, assistant head of the Lower School at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Day School in Washington, D.C., and Jennifer Gladden ’00, Upper School dean of instruction at Polytechnic School in Pasadena, Calif. Both participated in my workshop presentation. What fun! I am currently dean of faculty at Gill St. Bernard’s School in Gladstone, N.J. We reminisced about PDS and talked about how many former students are educators. My tenure at PDS was 1991-2001.”

Jessica Anne Kabis Rodriguez reported that she had a baby in June; her name is Aurelia Irene.

Cindy Stadulis wrote: “I am in my fifth year as CFO/COO at St. Stephen’s Episcopal School in Austin, Texas, and 37th year as a business officer in independent schools. Where has the time gone? My fourth school, SSES, is my first day and boarding school. Tom and I are living on campus in the hill country with a wonderful neighborhood of colleagues and friends. Our kids keep us traveling for visits. While Leslie ’06 (San Antonio) and Philip ’08 (Austin) are nearby, Meghan ’08 (Baltimore), Ben ’09 (Fallon, Nev.) and Sara ’12 (Ithaca, N.Y.) are still spread out across the country. We are enjoying time with our two grandchildren and starting to think about retirement. Sending our best to all!”

Evan Thomas reported: “I have recently started a new venture as a real estate agent licensed in P.A., N.J. and M.A. I’m also volunteering with the Animal Shelter of Martha’s Vineyard and helping several independent schools with website projects. I miss seeing my girls in the PDS hallways! They are both thriving at UVM in Burlington, Vt., where Kip and I visit regularly.”

Barbara Walker wrote: “‘Ars longa, vita brevis,’ Hippocrates said first in Greek; many great authors have famously quoted it as ‘Art is long, but life is brief.’ It’s not plagiarism if I give the credits, right? Last spring, I became a docent at the Princeton University Art Museum, having prepared on Zoom classes during COVID, but if you are aware of happenings at Princeton, you are cognizant that the museum is osedclay — in pig Latin (apologies to students of Mr. Gudgel and Ms. Bodel), a big dent in the center of campus. Yet, the new building designed by David Adjaye is in the process of rising to very great heights in the fall of 2024. So far, I’ve given a Princeton Senior Resource Center class or two, an OLLI-RU, Rutgers Senior Outreach class, and am the connection between our museum and others for Zoom excursions for the docent group where I hope to enlist the talent of Charlotte Williams ’12 in the near future. Life has been challenging balancing this new responsibility with concerns for my mother’s health, a mighty woman at 97 living in upstate N.Y. This requires long-distance visits to the Adirondacks, so I strengthen myself with morning aerobic classes in the Peddie pool and assuage my longing for my faculty friends with connections to docents and fellow pool gals, though I miss the English Department mightily. During COVID I instigated Grandma Barb’s Book Club with my grandsons in Boulder, Colo., sons of Jeffrey Walker ’88. We are reading our 18th book as I write this notice. I hit the poetry classroom in September at Bread Loaf for the Middlebury Alumni College. I sorely miss my former students and colleagues, and I cherish fond memories of you all.”

Bunny Webb reported: “Here in Buffalo in an independent apartment in a continuing care community at 91 years of age, I survived the Christmas blizzard and now a mild case of COVID. The staff slept on the floor because they couldn’t get out of the parking lot, so we were looked after and fed. My memories of PDS are fresh. I still miss Joan Baker, Bev Williams, Anne Rothrock, Janet Stoltzfus and many others but I am still here — just not in Princeton.”

Kate Winton sent greetings from Portugal. She and John Baldwin were spending two months there; they hoped to finish the trip with a couple of weeks walking the Camino from Porto to Santiago de Compostela in Spain “if knees cooperate. Our biggest news is we became grandparents this past year; Elliot Ann turns one next month, and oh my, she is a cutie! We feel very lucky to live so close to Erin and her husband, Scott, as we discover the joys of grandparenting!”