Class Notes
1938
News has reached Shady Hill that Joan Zebley ’38 passed away March 28, 2023. Her father Everett H. Smith taught at Shady Hill from 1929-1963. Our sincere condolences to her family, including her daughter and Shady Hill TTC alum Jane Sebborn TTC ’75.
1939
News has reached Shady Hill that Mary Lothrop Bundy ’39 passed away August 8, 2022 at her summer home in Manchester, MA, surrounded by family. Our sincere condolences to her family, including Shady Hill alumni: her sons Stephen ’66 and Andrew ’68, and grandsons Benjy ’03 and Evan ‘07 HansenBundy. Martha Pickman Baltzell ’39 also passed away September 28, 2022. Our sincere condolences to her family and classmates. Connie White ‘39 passed away March 2023. Our sincere condolences to her family including her sister and Shady Hill alum, Mary Anne Streeter’47.
1944
News has reached Shady Hill that Erica “Binda” Payson Parra ’44 passed away on August 8, 2022. Leonard Opdycke ’44 also passed away on February 3, 2023. Our sincere condolences to both their families and classmates.
Our Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role! Email alumni@shs.org
Jane Williams writes of the passing of classmate Erica “Binda” Payson Parra ’44 and family friend Mary Lothrop Bundy ’39 Elinor Taylor says: I am grateful to be alive, seemingly healthy, but walking slower than I used to. I’m grateful for still living in Mexico, and still painting. My website is FensPaintings. com.
SUE WARING PRIDEAUX suzy101@comcast.net
Jim Leamon writes: I wish I could say that I’m still engaged in research, writing and intellectual activities. But no, I am slowly disposing of my notes and library while my wife and I are gradually recovering from COVID infections. I think fondly of my wood-working class at Shady Hill right now as we undertake some interior alterations (I remember my teacher’s name, but can’t spell it). Right now, like most Mainers, we are confronting a major snow storm, our second with yet another on the way. Thank goodness my snow blower works well and we have helpful friends. So with this bit of non-news, I’ll close and attend to this storm.
Liz Thomas (Marshall) writes: Shady Hill was a very good way to start life, and I wish my 91-year-old brain could remember more about it. What I remember is that I liked going to school and I liked the teachers and the other students. My life after that has been pretty good. I went to Radcliffe, then graduate school (I’ve forgotten the name of the college) and got an MA although I learned
absolutely nothing in that college. I was happily married and we had two fabulous children. I became a writer and wrote quite a few books but I had other jobs too—one of which, of all things, was teaching in a college in Washington, DC. I don’t remember the name of the college. I lived in South West Africa with the San (formerly called Bushmen), in Uganda with the Dodoth, and on Baffin Island with the wolves. The San were the people I knew the best—those whom we visited were in a huge area which had never had contact with other humans, living the successful lives they had lived for thousands of years. Although I’ve forgotten hundreds of things I clearly remember them. I’m still in touch with one of them who, because times have changed considerably, now has a computer and sends emails. I’m glad that Shady Hill is still going and I’m sure it’s as good today as it was in the 1930s.
Sue Prideaux says: Living full time in Dallas, TX. Still painting and have a show in April called “Birds with an Attitude.” I am blessed to have all 8 grandchildren and 2 children living in the Dallas area - saves lots of traveling. We have a home in Sconset (Nantucket) and spend some time there in the summers. I help my daughter with her side business, Whimsey Mah Jongg cards - a great game! Hi to Shady Hillers - snow arriving in Dallas tonight.
1947
DAVID CLARKE david.clarke11@verizon.net
David Clarke: Dear Classmates, I was glad to reach you by phone and greatly enjoyed chatting about current activities and reminiscing about our days at Shady Hill. I hope that I remember correctly some of our conversation for these notes; I apologize for any errors or omissions.
I am saddened to report that two of our classmates died since the last report: Ted Bruning let me know that Marty Bruning (Raymond) died this past October after a long illness at home in Chatham, VA, and Diana Forbes’s daughter relayed that Diana had died this past October at The Residence in Ipswich, MAwonderful classmates whom we will miss but keep in our memories. Mary and I continue to live in our house in Concord, MA which we share with our daughter, Maura (TTC ’94), and family. Our two grandsons (ages 8 and 11) help keep us active and on our toes. Mary maintains interest in town affairs and my main activity is the town Trails Committee which involves developing, mapping, and maintaining the town’s trail network. We are able to spend some summer and fall time at the family house in Woods Hole, MA. I reported last June that I attended the 75th graduation anniversary of our SHS class. Nice to be there and I thought of all my classmates that had made SHS so special to me – ’47 Forever. Nat Bowditch says that Shady Hill was a super school and praised its values. His career included management at First Pennsylvania Bank, Smith-Barney investments, and
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1946
“Bird Catcher” a recent painting by Elinor “Fen” Taylor ’44. More of Fen’s work can be found on her website, FensPaintings.com.
Sue Prideaux ’46 found her olympic costume for the Grade IV olympic games. The students made and colored the costumes themselves.
Sue Prideaux ’46 (left) at the 1941 Olympic games.
then combined several Israeli banks. He also spent years leading the Urban League in Philadelphia; he felt their approach to racial justice was very effective. He and Peggy live in a retirement home in Kennet Square, PA and continue to spend summers at Hancock Point in Maine.
Joanna Hodgman (Bailey) lives in a retirement home in Rochester, NY. She has had a good year. She enjoys reading, especially books on American history. Her three grandchildren are close enough to visit often.
Doe Mechem (Coletti) lives in San Francisco, CA with her husband, Kirke, who is a composer. Doe enjoys playing the violin and has four grandchildren. Doe left Shady Hill after the fourth grade but remembers many of her classmates from those years.
Harriet Myers (Robey) is now well though she did have a bout of COVID. She has ceased her golf but exercises weekly at the gym. She resides in Madison, CT and spends some of her summer at the family house in Gloucester MA. She has three great-grandchildren, one of whom carries the name Harriet Lyman for the eighth successive generation.
Frances “Bootsie” Rademaekers (Carter) reports that she is thriving in her retirement community in Madison, WI. She has two grandchildren, enjoys the New York Times crossword puzzle, and traveled to Washington, DC for Thanksgiving.
Mart Ann Streeter (Dexter) resides in her home in Wenham, MA. She reports a good year though activities are somewhat limited by her need for oxygen assistance. She has two great grandchildren who live close enough to visit. Mary Ann says she greatly enjoys plants and spends much time in her greenhouse.
1948
JAMES C. GOODALE
jcgoodal@debevoise.com
James Goodale (Your Scribe): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
James_Goodale. 85 years ago, Anne Eiseman, Anne Carpenter, Kathy Shohl, Tony Porter, Steve Bolster and I started at a beginners class at Shady Hill and sadly the others with us then are no longer with us now. Since it is the 85th anniversary of sorts, it’s time for a modest reflection on the class
of 1948. I always thought our class was no different than any others but now I begin to wonder with at least six of us in Wikipedia and (six plus) of our parents also there, 8 PhDs, 22 Harvard/Radcliffe graduates, authors of over 20 books and a new one by Bill Cleary: REFLECTIONS ON AN AMATEUR LIFE. Wikipedia, I realize, is not the final word on anybody’s life but at least it’s a place to start and there are so many, I provide photos and links to the Wikipedias of classmates and parents. Indeed, the achievements of our parents distinguish our class because of their wartime contributions. Kenneth Bainbridge set off the first atomic bomb explosion. Louis Turner and Samuel Goudsmit contributed to that effort and to the development of radar at MIT which brought them here in the first place. Laurence Marshall founded Raytheon which made the radar. When one adds writers Hope Hale Davis and Claud Cockburn to the mix, as well as Arnold Metzger, a philosopher, you have a distinguished parent body. At the class level the Wikipedians include Roger Lane, John Marshall, Tommy Metzger, Bill Cleary, Claudia Davis and yours truly. The question comes up after 85 years: would you do it all over again at a progressive school? My experience at SHS was more about my experience outside the classroom than what went on inside. But what happened outside could not have happened without the benefit of what was inside.
In one of May Sarton’s books, she describes the typical life of a Shady Hill student: he/she leaves home in the morning on his/her bike only to return just before dinner and no one knew where he/she had been. Roaming Cambridge on my bike and into Boston during the first 14 years of life was an experience not to be missed and I would do that again in a nanosecond. Repeating a progressive education at SHS provides the same generic conclusion but with some reservations. I was the class athlete - with all due respect to Bill Cleary’s later achievements. I never thought being an athletic All American type had much appeal for the Yankee maidens who taught us. But I actually appreciated their subtle disapproval of my efforts because it made me realize there was another life at SHS and beyond. When I was 12, I read on my own the autobiographies of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Joseph Pulitzer, William
Allan White, Lincoln Steffens and saw the play on Holmes. And so began my life and love of the First Amendment, publishing and journalism. I discovered I had a better than ordinary ability to write and so have been published in every major publication in the United States. Who would have thought the class athlete would do that. Why didn’t someone encourage me? That, of course, is the complaint of every adolescent who thinks their talents have not been appreciated. But there is no question SHS emphasized the life of the mind over matter. My one reservation about going to Shady Hill again would be that I would be put in a position of not being fully appreciated. But that reservation is trumped by what SHS is all about: it is not what you learned but how you learned it. Rote was not part of the process but understanding was. One learned by asking questions stimulated by “The Central Subject,” not by memorizing the answers. There were no sacred cows and everything was up for grabs. One knows when one meets an SHS alum whose conversation invariably involves questioning accepted norms. In later life, when I was up against the likes of Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger and John Mitchell they turned out to be less than worthy opponents because they had not questioned the prevailing wisdom about Vietnam and publishing classified documents. The latter issue of course was central to the Pentagon Papers case, which my team won and theirs lost. Had they had the benefits of a progressive education perhaps we might have avoided the tragedy of Vietnam and Nixon’s massive assault on the First Amendment in the Pentagon Papers case.
Allie Hoag Bator (Kurland) (by Julia Bator, her daughter): All is well with Allie Hoag’s crew! Her son Tom ’76 continues to practice law in Boston, her other son Michael ’78 has just moved to the Buzzards Bay area, and her daughter Julia ’83 lives in NYC and does philanthropic advising. They celebrated Allie’s life with a Quaker meeting and family memorial service last August in Nonquitt, MA, with many cousins and SHS alums there to enjoy wonderful memories of Allie’s kindness and graceful spirit. I’m not sure I can give any kind of accurate report on SHS today. I have one good friend who still works there as a tutor, but that’s it!
Stevie Bolster: Many years ago,
Steve made his acting debut around the maypole at SHS. It was the spark that later fueled a 40-year career in the entertainment industry. After retiring from acting, he established his transportation company, Your Car—We’ll Drive. For more than 20 years, he took his clients wherever they wished to go in their own cars. Now Steve is fully retired and resting comfortably at home. His wife, Donna, is at his side giving care 24/7. He enjoys visits from family and friends, eating his favorite meals and watching TV shows and movies that remind him of his best years in acting. He sends his warmest wishes to longtime friends from SHS!
Suki Hilles (Bush): I was only at SHS for first grade and during the war for 4th-6th grades when my father had a sabbatical year and when he was in Airforce Intelligence. Most of the time I went to the Foote School then in New Haven in an old stable tarred in front for a playground with sand, bricks and stone in back which industrious third graders chopped at to make “gunpowder” for the war. Our principal came from England and we had some refugee teachers and a high proportion of faculty fathers. A smaller class, we are now down to seven? My best friends of 80 plus years were in that class. Some of us went to Radcliffe and were in the
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James Goodale ’48
Suki Hilles (Bush) ’48
Choral Society where we sat down when the Harvard Glee Club sang football songs. I was not very happy at my grandparents’ during the war with my father gone and I gained weight. My chief memories of SHS are of Kitsie and Chick putting a snake in my desk – I knew something was up and took care not to scream and now often say I’m not afraid of snakes although...and of a wasp biting me on the arm as I looked out longingly at green fields in the sun while our teacher read technical passages from Moby Dick. Because of my boredom on that day I wrote in response to one questionnaire that I thought Moby Dick should not be taught in sixth grade and then came to the reunion commemorating the teacher and Moby Dick, not my finest hour. As for Madeira, I was only there for two years having to ride horses and compete in the corral where eventually my last punishment for a conduct was to pick up stones for an hour and then be told to throw them back in. My parents thought I should come back to New Haven and go to Prospect Hill School where my friends were and I eventually agreed. We knew the Yale boys loved us because they draped toilet paper on our gates on the way up to the labs on the hill. I don’t know how famous my father, Frederick W. Hilles, was but during the war he was in US Air Force intelligence at Bletchley Park reading German and he took over from Telford Taylor at the end of the war to close up the operations. He later became the head of the English Department at Yale. His picture is at the left, his Wikipedia is below.
Frederick W. Hilles (Academic): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Frederick_W._Hilles.
Peter Castle: Shady Hill was preprofessional, since money was not
yet all that mattered: It mattered, but so did collective concerns like war, music, sports, and making things. Diversity was not yet a moral abstraction, but a practiced individual activity or source, including the Greeks, Vikings, science and shops, with Gilbert and Sullivan thrown in. The war in the background also mattered along with comic books! Books still ruled, the personal screen was yet to come. Movies were a collective experience then, notably on Saturday for kids. Nostalgia turns out to be a return to home, and we all had a special one together.
Bill Cleary: https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Bill_Cleary_(ice_hockey)
Bill Cleary started in our class and graduated in 1949. He has had an incredible career including as a superstar AD at Harvard and is the author of a newly published book. I asked him, in this 85th anniversary year, to share some of his views with us. He writes: Talked with Jamie Goodale recently and it brought back fond memories of our days at SH. The names of McCarthy, Putnam, Vincent, Chapin to name a few come to mind. They were great teachers and got us started in the right direction academically. Jim Dudley was our coach and gave us a wonderful experience on the athletic fields. I recently wrote a book, “Reflections on an Amateur Life,” about my memoirs and said it all started at SH playing six man football, baseball and basketball in the old badminton courts. That was my first time ever being on a team. I visited the school a few years back and found they don’t have those sports anymore, much to my chagrin. I have stayed very friendly with Steve Endlar since our SH days. We were Harvard classmates after our secondary prep days. Hard to believe so many years have passed.
Claudia Davis (FlandersCockburn, Disability Advocate): https://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Claudia_Cockburn.
Scribe’s note: I spent some time this year with the brother of Claudia Davis, Andrew Cockburn, a well-known journalist. His daughter Olivia Wilde was on the cover of Vanity Fair last fall for her movie “Don’t Worry Darling.” Andrew asked Claudia’s daughter Laura Flanders (his niece) to send me a note about her mother. By the way, Laura has her own PBS show, The Laura Flanders Show.
She reports: When my mother Claudia Flanders died in 1998, she had received an order of the British Empire (OBE) award directly from Queen Elizabeth. She had started one of the first charity organizations created by, with and for people with disabilities, in this case, TRIPSCOPE, a peer to peer telephone service growing out of her long experience working to improve access to transportation for disabled people. She also served for many years on the board of PHAB (Physically Handicapped and Able Bodied). At a time when disabled kids were segregated in special homes and schools, PHAB brought disabled and able bodied kids together to do the craziest things from horseback riding to mountain climbing to hiking in the Yorkshire Dales. All of this work grew out of her experience with Michael Flanders, my father. He toured the world (“the English speaking world and in America”) with two hit shows, “At the Drop of a Hat,” and at “The Drop of Another Hat,” with his partner Donald Swann. “Claudia had the hardest job,” Michael once told a reporter. “I only had to produce the show. She had to produce me.” Certainly, getting Michael, who used a wheelchair (after contracting polio in the Navy) around the world twice on schedule was no easy feat. These were the years long before curbs had cuts or almost anywhere had ramps, and decades before the ADA. Starting in late 1961, Claudia had a child to tour with too: me! The experience and expertise she gained in the course of all of that led to what came afterwards.
Claudia met Michael through his youngest sister Pat, with whom she performed in the UN Orchestra (Pat on the viola, mom on the clarinet). They were married in 1959. Her work at the UN as a translator (French/English) followed several years working with Radio Free Europe under the directorship of John Dunning. The details are hazy for me, but she was sent to the great (anti-communist) World Youth Conference in Hungary. She attended Smith College - a couple of years ahead of Gloria Steinem. When I went to St. Paul’s, London, and met a girl called Jenny Goodale on the very first day, mom was quick to remember Jamie (Jenny’s uncle). Partly through that early connection Jenny and I became friends - as we are, if remotely now,
to this day.
Claud Cockburn (Journalist): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Claud_Cockburn.
Hope Hale Davis (writer): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Hope_Hale_Davis.
Christopher Eliot: Kitsie was a successful physician who died in mid-life as did Pidge Bainbridge. The fathers of each are pictured below as Wikipedians. They were respectively the head of the Unitarian Church and a nuclear physicist, who when he exploded the first atomic bomb, said to Oppenheimer “Now we are all SOBs.”
Frederick May Eliot (Theologian): https://uudb.org/ articles/frederickmayeliot.html.
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Bill Cleary ’48
Claudia Davis ’48
Claud Cockburn
Hope Hale Davis
Kenneth Bainbridge, (Atomic Physicist): https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_ Bainbridge#:~:text=Kenneth%20 Tompkins%20Bainbridge%20 (July%2027,s%20 mass%E2%80%93energy%20 equivalence%20concept.
Edward Ginsburg: I entered Shady Hill in the first grade as a transfer along with other boys from Buckingham which ended taking boys because of WWI when families moved depleting the class. For me, Shady Hill with progressive education emphasizing intellectual curiosity and the joy of learning was the most important part of what was a gold-plated education. I felt so strongly that I made my wife
promise to send our two daughters to SH despite the fact that near our house in Newton was an excellent elementary school. Scribe’s note: Peter Castle also came to our class the same way through Buckingham’s “transition” grade which separated kindergarten from first grade. Peter said “it set him back for years.” No comment from Eddie.
Roger Lane (Historian): https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Lane.
Roger Lane became a famous historian at Haverford College. He has won many prizes for his work, most notably the Bancroft Prize which is the most sought after prize for historians in the United States. His report follows: Jamie tells me that there are some twenty-eight of us who matriculated back in 1939, but none of the rest of you will remember me. At least I hope not -- my report card says I was “immature” -- not clear how that was manifested. This despite the fact that I was actually nearly half a year older than the school had been told, as part of an elaborate tale designed to obscure the fact that I was born out of wedlock; my parents not marrying ’til I was six years old. And in any case the family moved out the next year, eventually to Connecticut. I can assume, of us twenty-eight, that having started well we kept it up, continuing to make strong educational decisions, and are now well-educated members of the upper middle class. (Although not sure that all our educational decisions were that strong. In my case, as a high school senior, I leaned towards Harvard in the fall, when I was going with a girl from Needham, but decided for Yale in the spring, when I was going with a girl from Greenwich. I had a fine time in New Haven – but Jamie and I together accounted for about half of the Democrats in the Yale Class of ’55, and politically I would have had a more congenial time in Cambridge.) Begging your indulgence, and bulldozed by Jamie, I would like as a historian to reflect on the years between our entering Shady Hill and now. [Please turn to the Shady Hill website to read Roger’s history. It can be found at www.shs.org/ RogerLaneHistory.
Emily (Putnam) Link: I am fine as I turn ninety which I find rather extraordinary! Certainly a time for taking stock: my experience at SHS provided foundations for me throughout my life. I remember
Chape’s mantra “the responsibility for learning is yours, first last and always.”
John Marshall (filmmaker): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ John_Marshall. Scribe’s note: John died several years ago after making a reputation for himself as an archaeologist and filmmaker. When he was at Harvard he appeared on national television to talk about his work on the Kalahari desert for an ethnographic study of the Jul’hoansi and document one of the last remaining hunter-gatherer cultures. Below is his picture and his link to Wikipedia and the same for his mother and sister. The Marshalls appear to be the Wikipedia family of all time since John’s sister Elizabeth Marshall Thomas is also in Wikipedia for her books, the most notable of which is “The Hidden Life of Dogs.”
Lorna Marshall (Anthropologist): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Lorna_Marshall.
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Elizabeth_Marshall_Thomas.
Thomas Metzger (Chinese Scholar): https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Thomas_Metzger. Tommy Metzger was with us during the war. He had a fabulous career as a Chinese scholar. He has been associated for years with Stanford and the Hoover Institute. The last conversation he had with me several years ago extolled the virtues of Donald Trump (true). Also below is a Wikipedia of his father, a wellknown German philosopher, Arnold Metzger (German philosopher): https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Arnold_Metzger.
Charles Moizeau: I left SHS in early November 1944. I had very good grades in Smitty’s fifth grade, but slid badly downhill in Chapin’s sixth grade, both in academics and my social behavior. I was accepted into a small boarding school in the Monadnock region of New Hampshire. There I was straightened out by my peers. My grades were good enough so that I was accepted by Philips Exeter, where I spent four years that imposed a tough academic program on me.
Oliver Ricketson was a member of our class for many years. A member of the Carnegie family, he died in his 50s in Hawaii, and I just discovered he was buried in Cumberland Island, Georgia, in the Carnegie plot. The Carnegies owned Cumberland
Island. His uncle was Andrew Carnegie. His father was a noted archaeologist whose expeditions were financed by – guess what - the Carnegie Foundation.
Ann (Tracy) Ross: Good heavens! It is hard to believe that any of us are still here. My husband, John, died last November at the age of 91. Ian, the hurricane, hit hard last September, but further to the south. We had little to no damage except for some tree branches that decided not to hold on. We lucked out. I spent three nights at the facility where John was embedded, so I felt very safe. It was COVID that complicated John’s January diagnosis of Parkinson’s. We both succumbed to COVID in late July after two jabs and two boosters. It took its toll on
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Frederick May Eliot
Kenneth Bainbridge
Roger Lane ’48
John Marshall ’48
Lorna Marshall
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
John, and he passed away as noted above. I don’t consider being in my 90th year until I get there. That will be in late April. By then, I may have lost my memory. However, I just got re-elected to serve another 2 years as President of the Sarasota Technology Users Group (STUG). They must be either nuts or desperate! I badger a bunch of techie types and keep them on track to get articles into our newsletters on time. I make sure they refurbish laptops, which we give to the less fortunate, and I also demand that they teach us non-techie types a bit of what they know about a world into which we were not brought up. How could I ever have accomplished all that without the marvelous background that SHS provided me? SHS really was a great school when I look back and realize how much I learned there, and how much fun I had while I was there learning. My fondest memories, aside from you, dear Jamie, were of climbing ropes to the ceiling, parading around at the Olympic Games, Bruce Elwell blasting his trumpet in my ear and Mr. Chapin throwing a book at me because I couldn’t answer some ridiculous question he had asked me about Moby Dick! I really do smile when I think back on SHS! I missed seeing Peter Castle when he came to Sarasota, but he didn’t call until he was leaving town. When are you
coming down?
Kathryn Scott: Thanks to your extensive research, it looks as if we are among the few survivors of the class of ’48 (it was more like 83 years ago). What a ride it’s been! I’m sure that without SHS (and of course Barton Chapin), I would not be the person I am today. Throughout college, graduate study, years as a cataloging librarian, retirement, raising a family (now including three great grandchildren), widowhood, worldwide travel -- I am always looking back on those wonderful years. I came back from a fall trip to the eastern Adriatic last year (postponed three times) with a mild case of COVID, but I am triple boosted and always mask up when I go out -- I’ve got too many risk factors to get really sick. Because of my declining ability to hear, I have cut back on both theater and concert going. With the support of all five of my kids, I can enjoy living independently. We even managed 15 for the Christmas holiday at my house. I am optimistically booked for three trips next year. Excelsior!
Ledyard Smith was in our class in the early days – like 1939 and 1940 – and was a good friend of mine then. He died in October 2020. His father (a Wikipedian by the way) was a well-known archaeologist who was the assistant curator of the Peabody Museum. Ledyard went to St. Paul’s and Harvard where he was a member of the Fly Club. He served in the marines and then became the chief operating officer of Rex Lumber Company. He lived in Bolton, MA, where he was active in many civic activities including being a Selectman.
Anne (Eiseman) Walker: 85 years; that’s a long time! I don’t remember any kids from Beginners or Kindergarten. A teacher named Miss Kirk? Kathy Shohl and Debby Johnson were my best friends, probably around 3rd grade...and you lived next door to Kathy. We made matching skirts. I remember you and Stevie, Chick Kuhn and many others, but no specifics. I probably didn’t appreciate SHS until I came back from two years of DC public school in the 7th grade. I missed 5th and 6th. I just got out my Smith ’55 yearbook. No Claudia Davis. I remember the name, not the person, and didn’t know her at Smith. Ben Wright was the President of Smith when I was there and I remember Janet Wright from SHS. I
think she was younger…I have just had COVID-19. It was not all that bad. Not sick, just isolated! Hope you have escaped it.
Len Wheeler: I’m doing well at 90, still active, with my 31-year companion Katie, still enjoying with gratitude what we’ve been given. I’m active in our UU Church, hiking, woodworking, playing my clarinet (with lessons), often eating out with good friends. At SHS, I really had a good time, even with Chapin throwing those erasers, and getting into trouble with Kits Elliot’s pipe bomb. Those years of undefeated football were head turning as well. I was at SHS for a total of 8 years. I then went on to Exeter for three years, then to Harvard, where I was an on-campus student. After graduation, I went to Columbia Medical School, then into private practice with a fellow physician until retirement at 65. I’m glad you’re still at the helm, checking on what’s happening with our classmates. Looking forward to the next copy of the SHS news bulletin!
1950
JEFFERSON FREEMAN jeffreeman77@gmail.com
News has reached Shady Hill that Pat Glavin Colton ‘50 passed away in March 2023. Our sincere condolences to her family and classmates.
News Leading Off: I’m saddened to report the passing of our classmate, Thomas B. Molholm, who died April 25, 2022 at his home in Millerton, NY. He is survived by his three daughters, his ex-wife Nina, his wife Karen, his two grandsons, Aidan and Rafe Abdulali, and his brother
Tench Vans-Murray-Robertson ’50.
I have sent a copy of his obituary to Shady Hill and will also send copies to our classmates.
Contacts: By email, phone, text, and other means, your correspondent reached out to 24 Class of 1950 members. Here is news from and about 19 of us.
Svetlana (Leontief) Alpers, New York, NY. Svetlana writes: Good to hear from you—really I am fine. I am reading and writing and still going to France—but now two rather than three trips a year. As you know, I do not like to chat about my life just for the sake of chatting. However, I’m delighted to report I have been recognized by the CAA—College Art Association (the academic professional organization for art historians and artists)—which has given me the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing on Art. It’s nice to get an award for something I indeed have done for a lifetime and so enjoy doing. https://press.princeton.edu/ news/alpers-caa
Joëlle (Fontaine) Cabot, Cambridge, MA. Honorary Classmate. Joëlle writes: your request for a 2022 story reaches me when I am far away. Conrad and I are currently in Paris, in the “Île de la Cité.” We’re spending a month visiting my daughters and grandchildren. My youngest grandson was accepted at Tufts University, which makes me very happy.
Frederic Chang, Wichita, KS. Via phone, Fred reports: 2022 was a bit of a down-and-up year for me physically. I fell and broke my ribs and, after they somewhat healed, entered a long period of physical therapy to regain strength. I’ve been kept away from the golf course by the accident and slow recovery, but am doing better now. I’m also having trouble maintaining my balance—not surprising perhaps to any of us who have reached our current age, but still a frustrating part of life. I may be old and retired, but I’m doing my best to keep my mind going. Wordle, Spelling Bee, other puzzles—all completed every morning. I play duplicate bridge every Tuesday morning now, having started again about five years ago.
I think I’ve become a better bridge player as a result of the weekly competition. Not only that: the group has a lot of fun together. We manage to stay friends in spite of
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Thomas Metzger ’48
Arnold Metzger
Ledyard Smith ’48
competing to win! After Jan died two years ago, our son, Jay, moved in to live with me in our condo, which is what made it possible for me to continue living here. I might not have wanted or been able to do so on my own. Our three daughters and five grandchildren live “all over” everywhere—Alaska, Massachusetts, KC Metro—but stay in close touch. We all went on a family cruise in the Caribbean last summer, which turned out to be a lot of fun for all of us. Finally, together again after the COVID-19 siege! It’s a pleasure to reflect back on my Shady Hill experience. My sister and I were there for only a short while. We were in elementary school before we arrived—marching up and down halls, not much learning. Shady Hill was magically better. Rests on mats while our teacher read stories. Learning how to play the recorder. Report cards with written teacher commentary rather than just a letter grade. The Olympic Games in the spring. At Shady Hill, learning was fun! I left after fifth grade when our family moved back to China. I failed at the Chinese school, not being able to speak or read the language. After that, I went to a British school in Hong Kong—very strict, more focused on recitation than helping me learn. Of all the schools I attended, Shady Hill was tops.
Patricia (Smith) Elvebak, Middlebury, VT. Patty writes: I am happily ensconced—as of July 2, 2022—in Middlebury, VT after 57 years in California. I got out just before what has been this terrible year for the San Francisco area. Without any relatives, or few living close friends, I sold my house (the realtor got a big chunk), but I still came out way ahead. I am happy at the Residence at Otter Creek— and have given my address to Jeff for inclusion in the Class of 1950 Roster. The move was greatly helped by my sister-in-law (my deceased brother Harvey’s widow) who has lived here for 40 years. We are the sole survivors of the Smith family! She and the rest of her family live ten minutes away. My life is full of activities, and I’m surrounded by educated people from all walks of life. I have no complaints!
Jefferson Freeman, Guilford, CT. Jeff writes: 2022 turned out to be a good year for us. Landa and I avoided COVID-19 infections:
were boosted twice, followed mask protocols on public transportation and in crowded places, visited cautiously. No sickness until the end of the year, when we picked up common colds—free of them so long, we’d forgotten how to be sick! We still do a lot of walking—I’m out daily, Landa, regularly— mostly around town and at the Hammonasset Beach State Park. Decreased balance is a problem for each of us. Even when my pace is brisk, I need a full-width path to walk more or less in a straight line. When we go to local preserves, we’re more confident and feel safer using paired trekking poles. I’ve pledged to our adult kids that, despite knowing trails well,
being school-age amateurs. Because of distances separating all of us, we keep in touch via phone and regular Sunday afternoon Zoom sessions. Despite limited travel in 2022, we’re busy all the time. I continue a lot of volunteer work for Shady Hill, and various alumni activities at Yale. Landa’s a frequent volunteer with “Friends of Hammonnaset,” and is also active in the Yale University Women’s Organization. We’re very much attuned to Guilford, its people, and the community’s goings-on, but are members of a center-city church in New Haven— more reflective of the world as it really is. Books to be read have piled up beckoning us to dive in. One recent favorite for me: Searching
more painful aspects of American history. For me, time spent reflecting on content such works offer is a fine antidote to the deluge of weird national news bombarding us daily.
I’ll no longer hike alone through backwoods areas—okay to hike with family, but solo is no-no. Son Peter and his wife Sharon have moved from Georgetown, MA to Watertown, CT, about an hour away from us. Older daughter Willoughby and her husband Marc still live in Mount Kisco, NY, close to where we lived for decades— about 90 minutes from us, but only an hour from Peter & Sharon. It’s great being able to visit each other more frequently. Younger daughter Allison and her family are in Durham, NC. We visit with them at least a couple of times a year, most recently in December for a performance of The Nutcracker by granddaughter Cailin’s dance school company. Family picture was taken at the Washington Duke Hotel in Durham, NC. The 80-plus kids who participated in The Nutcracker were amazingly polished despite
for Stars on an Island in Maine by an absolutely brilliant physicist and humanist, Alan Lightman. He does a masterful job of reflecting how life has tugged him in two directions: toward the absolutes of belief that cannot be proven, and the seeming certainties of science that demonstrate the impermanence of what is discovered despite being “proven.”
And another: Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave, Written by Himself. William Grimes’ dates: 1784 – 1865. Oxford University Press published the modern version. The original work, written in Grimes’ hand, was published in New Haven in 1855 by the author—in part to restore personal funds he had paid to purchase his freedom! Searingly discomforting reading in many parts. Grimes’ firsthand account, even if exaggerated, readily puts the lie to glossing over
Lee (Ginsburg) Herbst, Chicago, IL & Tucson, AZ. Lee writes: I like to think and write positive thoughts. However, this past year has been difficult for me. As Bette Davis said, “Old age is not for sissies.” Though I fortunately have not experienced too much of this myself, I have watched loved ones deal with the ravages of time on their bodies. The human body is a remarkable machine of intricate systems and sensory abilities, but these systems start wearing out. We are definitely the older generation; I am now 87 and my husband is 91. We have taken advantage of some of the great advances of medicine with new bones and cataract removal. Now, although he has been helped with anti-bacteria medication and, subsequently, with infusions of nuclear isotopes, my husband is struggling to maintain his equilibrium. This is difficult to witness! I find walks under the bright blue sky and sunshine in Arizona soothing. I often escape in books and do puzzles—like daily wordle, nerdle, and sudoku. When we can, he and I attend concerts, lectures, and art openings that we support. But we often resort to doing these things on Zoom. So technology has become the friend of the housebound. We get pleasure in reminiscing about the many people and places we have been. We enjoy many series on television that remind us of these places. Old age continues to require adjustments! John Horvitz, New York, NY. Via phone, John reports: Each year my story is about the same: “Not much changed since last year.” True, but we’ve adapted to the way we have to live now. COVID-19 doesn’t seem as much of a threat as it was when it started. But Sandy and I are still masked any time we’re out in public—restaurants, public transportation, being around others in stores, etc. The current surge is in the news, but it seems more like dealing with flu — be careful, take precautions, expect we’ll need to re-vaccinate each year. I rode the subway uptown today to my primary care physician for my annual physical. I was one of
SHADY HILL SCHOOL THE 2021-2022 ISSUE 26
(left to right) Willoughby, Allison, Cailin the dancer, Eamon the brother, Landa, Jeff Freeman ’50
the few masked, but—others who were not? That’s their problem for not thinking more carefully. Being cautious is better than being sorry later. Incidentally, the doc said I’m in pretty good shape for an 87-year-old. I feel that way too, and am glad I do. I do notice I stumble with short-term memory issues more than I used to—“where did I leave our apartment keys?” I get plenty of Sandy’s “coaching” when I do things like this, but don’t have a good answer for fixing the problem. I didn’t go to my Harvard 65th reunion this past spring, but plan on going to Exeter for my 70th later this year. In addition to reconnecting with long-time classmates, it’s always a pleasure to visit New Hampshire: wonderful lobster, clams, and other seafood, and state stores that provide better pricing than liquor stores in New York. Speaking of Exeter: small world. In talking with Jeff, I mentioned a long-time friend from Exeter named Jack Hughes. After Exeter, I went on to Harvard, and Jack went to Yale. Turns out Jack is also one of Jeff’s long-time friends and classmates from Yale. They sang together in the same a cappella group as undergrads and have both been on international tours with the Yale Alumni Chorus. Imagine!
Sandy and I are still residents at our New York City apartment much of the time, but continue sojourns in Bridgehampton when the weather
turns nicer later in the year. I’m always glad to see Shady Hill and other friends when they visit New York—fun to have a meal together and catch up in person.
David M. Kaplan, Palm Beach, FL & Boston, MA. Via phone, David reports: 2022 was a good year for Naomi and me, which I’ll get to in a bit. But I think we’ve left 2022 entering a period fraught with danger. We’ve wound up nationally with a so-called “Republican” majority in the House of Representatives that’s been taken over by an extremist fringe, almost all 2020 election deniers. Now sworn into office, they seem intent on significantly reducing social and military federal expenditures, pushing in an impossibly short time to curtail deficit spending. They’re elected to govern, but profess no interest in engaging in the giveand-take that’s required. They’re mostly out for “me”—what can I do to achieve my own personal goals and increase my visibility? Two years from now, many of them are destined to be swept away. Meantime, the country will have difficulty avoiding the damage they may inflict. I was comfortable for years voting as a Republican—until Trump came along. He may or may not be out to pasture by 2024, but his influence has metastasized into a fringe cohort that seemingly has little to no regard for democracy. How can we protect ourselves?
Perhaps not much, given our ages. Perhaps more importantly, how can we help our children and grandchildren ensure that all we have had endures? As I stated at the outset: the next two years is likely to be a period fraught with danger! Back to me and us! We (Naomi and I) split our time between Palm Beach and Boston, doing the best we can to stay qualified as Florida residents. My two sons continue in their respective careers. Steve has taught at Belmont Hill School for close to 30 years—respected and appreciated by parents, students, other staff, and alumni. David Jr. continues in a senior executive position with TJX companies, made up of leading off-price apparel and home fashion retailers. They’re closer to retirement ages now, but haven’t yet decided to step down. I’m doing okay physically, but am having problems maintaining my balance. Using a walker helps me work around the problem. I’m also working with a trainer two times a week on overcoming balance problems, and am doing so both here in Florida and when we’re in Boston during the summer. The regular sessions seem to be helping me but, sadly, I’m past the stage where I can play golf. Frustrating for me to know that other golfing friends (in their 90s) are still playing! Despite my physical problems, we’re continuing to enjoy life. Florida Atlantic University—north of us in Jupiter, FL—offers many lifelong learning programs. I’ve taken several lecture courses there—interesting subjects that are keeping me mentally alert. Palm Beach is also a destination for visits by symphonies and opera companies, so we have plenty of opportunities for cultural events. Naomi, a Toronto native, was a performer in the Canadian Opera Company. She’s helped me learn about and appreciate the art form. She has two daughters and five grandchildren so, in addition to Steve and David Jr. and their families, I have an expanded clan which we have visited and enjoyed—many nieces and nephews in different places out west and elsewhere.
Sadly, the death of a ’57 Classmate and friend led me to cancel my plans for attending my 65th reunion at Brown this past spring, but I’m looking forward
to attending my 70th reunion at Andover this coming spring. And so life goes on!
Eleanor (Jones) Rogers Luopa, Peterborough, NH. Ellie writes: In response to your plea for news I am choosing to reminisce about years past. As I look outside today I am thinking about the winters we used to have with lots of snow and skating weather when we were younger! Today I love that I don’t have to go out in it, but can sit and watch the world get blanketed in white! I remember days of fun in Grades II or III at SHS as we built a huge igloo of snow blocks for several recess times and, when finished, had our juice and crackers in our handmade igloo! How proud we were! And then I think back to Grades V and VI, and perhaps later too, when the playing fields flooded over and froze hard (a result of our proximity to the Charles River). During those times the whole school, teachers and all, would be out on the ice during recess time or after school with or without skates but loving the free skating party. Some great winter memories of life at Shady Hill! Hope this spurs others to recall good memories as well.
Helen (Cutter) Maclennan Caithness, Scotland & London, England. Helen writes: In 2022, I managed two trips to the USA, one in June to go to a grandchild’s graduation from Dalton School in NYC and to visit family in Cambridge and in Randolph, NH. While in Randolph, I got intrigued by my cousin’s campaign for the State Senate in a newly gerrymandered seat in Coos and 17 “towns” in Grafton County and offered to come and attempt to be helpful in the autumn. She accepted my offer and I came back to spend 40 days in the “wilderness”—mostly in Coos—in October & November cooking, visiting, demonstrating, addressing envelopes, meetings, musings and trying to be helpful. She did very well in a very Republican area, but the well-known allergy of New Hampshire residents to taxes was exploited by the opposition. The whole experience was fascinating, enjoyable, and very educational— as well as significantly different from UK parliamentary elections (fewer public Meetings in the USA, many more “flyers” and
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Betsy Ginsberg, Director of Alumni Relations, visited with David Kaplan ‘50 in January, in Florida.
“mail shots” and a great deal more money raised and spent). I had a great time and have barely come up for air since returning to the UK for Christmas, New Year and hearing about my grandchildren’s freshman year experiences at Bennington and Sussex University (all positive). The surfing grandson is now enjoying Rugby at Christ’s Hospital (School) with very quaint uniforms, really good music, and good teaching. The USA family are in London at the moment (early January) and we are all enjoying being together (a lot of seriously competitive cooking).
Katharine D. (Newbury) McGill, Raleigh, NC. Via phone, Dex reports: 2022 was the year of my big move! I sold my home in Westwood, MA and, in October, moved to Raleigh, NC. I’m near one daughter’s family in Raleigh. The other daughter and her family live in Charlotte, NC. It’s a great joy for all of us to be closer together—driving distance now, not flying back and forth. I really had no family left in New England, so it’s much better for me to be here.
Moving after 40 years in the same house was tough—so much to get rid of. Somehow we managed, but it was painful to part with all that had been part of my life for so long. I’ve kept and moved what I wanted and am pretty much set up to make it feel like home. I’m living in a senior retirement community, and have provided Jeff with my new address to be added to the 1950 Class Roster. I still have my same mobile number; everything else has changed—even my email address—new one also included in Class Roster. The Raleigh / Durham / Chapel Hill area, (aka Research Triangle) has many communities like the one I live in. It’s a great area! I’m enjoying making many new friends here and learning my way around. I’m doing what I can to remain physically active and stay mentally alert.
Frances (Bailey) Pinney, Georgetown, ME. Via phone, Franny reports: I’m currently in Puerto Rico, enjoying this beautiful island I have visited so many times. I’m overseeing the repair of a building my husband and I owned. It was badly damaged in the two recent major hurricanes. We’ll be able to sell the property once its use can be resumed. In the meantime, getting such work done here is almost impossibly
complicated. In the spirit of “You Only Live Once,” on March 30, I’ll embark on another cross-Atlantic cruise, from San Juan, PR to Lisbon, Portugal. The vessel, “The Star Pride,” an all-suite ship that is part of WindStar Cruises, accommodates about 300 passengers. Like other cruises I have taken earlier, I expect pleasant company and lots of fun.
I’ll stay several days in Lisbon before flying back to San Juan. My primary objective in Lisbon will be to revisit the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum. This will be my third visit. It’s a stunning and mammoth collection numbering over 6,000 pieces. Their website reveals why the museum will be of interest to any art aficionado—and why seeing it in person is a superb treat. I could complain a lot about my health problems, but won’t. I managed last year to get through a siege of COVID-19 and have also recovered from pneumonia. Alternative health measures have proven effective for me. I’ve undertaken a course of treatments with a highly qualified Reiki practitioner. Maybe it’s not for
everyone, but Reiki has helped me reduce stress and increase my sense of well-being—more than half the battle. I’m still searching for a more permanent residence. The family place in Georgetown ME is fine for visiting during summer, but too remote the rest of the year. I passed by the opportunity in Brunswick ME I mentioned last year, and am instead considering affordable senior apartments currently under construction in Bath, ME. They’ll be ready hopefully by fall this year. Their central location in Bath will make it easy to access all the retail and other services that make small community living attractive. Bath is adjacent to Brunswick, fairly close to Portland, and within driving range for visits to the Boston area.
Faith E. Rohrbough, Lawrence, KS. Faith writes: What a joy to receive news about our Class of 1950. For some time, I have been out of contact with many classmates and friends, the result of physical problems. I recovered somewhat a year ago but felt the need to leave Canada and return to the US to live with my sister, Bea (Nancy “Beatrice” Rohrbough Carlson ’55). I arrived here last June. I am physically much better although my memory has become quite limited. I moved to Saskatoon, SK in Canada in 1997 to accept the position of President of the Lutheran Theological Seminary. I had been Academic Dean and VicePresident of the Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia the previous ten years. I retired in 2004 from the Seminary in Saskatoon and decided to stay in Canada. It was in 2021 that I began to have the physical problems that finally led me to Kansas in mid-2022.
James H. Romer, Unity, NH. Jim writes: Here’s the latest news from Doddering Heights in Quaker City, a neighborhood in the very pleasant, scrawny little wedge of a town, Unity, NH. “City,” like “Center,” is a toponymic term which occurs in quite a number of New England towns. Quaker City has no Mayor and very few residents, but does have a number of good water power sites, where, back in the day, there were mills. Two towns south of Unity is “Alstead Center,” which is nearer to the geographic center of the town of Alstead than “Alstead Village,” which was called “Paper Mill Village” in the 19th century and
is where the Universalists built their meeting house. The Village could have been called “Alstead City,” but wasn’t. Alstead Center would appear to have been given that name not so much because of its location but rather because it is where the Calvinist founders of the town built the town’s meeting house, used both for Town Meetings and for religious services. Back to Doddering Heights. As its sole resident, I’m still doing surprisingly well most of the time. I’m a bit unsteady on my feet, but with the help of two “trekking poles” I’m able to walk quite well. Most mornings, I either do the threemile circum-perambulation of my country block or the one and a half mile walk with several neighbors down to the Little Sugar River and back. I again helped the Town of Unity obtain a grant (this time for $10,000) for conserving early Town records and making digital images of them.
David O. Sears, Pacific Palisades, CA. David writes: Since my formal retirement from UCLA in 2018, I have continued teaching graduate students, both an annual seminar and serving on dissertation committees. In 2022, as in the previous two COVID-19 years, I taught my graduate seminar on Zoom, though (for whatever reasons) with a record-high enrollment of 24 (?!). I continued to find teaching on Zoom to be, if anything, somewhat preferable to in-person. All the faces fit on one screen, their names were plainly visible, and I could easily call on the students who have been silent. I could see how I am coming across to the students. At least I seemed to look like a professor who knows what he’s talking about.
Robert Burns’ dream come true:
“To see ourselves as others see us.” Still, it was confusing neither to go to the office every day (as I had for nearly 60 years) nor to stay home all the time (as I had done through the COVID-19 years). I felt somewhat out of sorts, going just a couple of days a week to campus and usually staying only a few hours. I couldn’t tell if my sense of dislocation was due to the common tendency of older retirees to gradually distance themselves from their former lives, or to my unfamiliar new nonroutine. In June, I took my first out-of-town trip in almost a year to visit my daughters and their families. I went to the Bay Area,
SHADY HILL SCHOOL THE 2021-2022 ISSUE 28
Reunions in
NEXT REUNION: JUNE 7, 2024 Going forward, we will host
even-numbered years. All alumni are welcome, regardless of graduation year. We hope to see you there!
Above Photos: Reunion returned in-person on June 2, 2022, after two pandemic years of Zooming. The evening culminated with an impromptu singing of old Shady Hill songs, led by the Class of 1962.
Brad Feldman ’82 and J.J Gonson ’82
Strong turnout from the Class of 2017 at their 5th Reunion last June.
to my newest grandkids, energetic boys now five and three. Then on to the high school graduations of my two oldest grandkids. First, my granddaughter—highly artistic (visual arts), sometimes with rainbow-colored hair, various piercings, occasionally with chained accessories and unusual Goth-like makeup, at a highly progressive private coed day school in San Francisco (with her tall, rail-thin 16-year-old brother, devoted to origami). Then to an affluent Seattle suburb, where my oldest grandson, an athlete (lacrosse and track), graduated from a traditional public high school. His 16-year-old brother is a husky football player whose passion is weight-lifting. Three different daughters, three different worlds!
I then spent July and August at our family compound on Lake Winnipesaukee in NH. This fall, the granddaughter started Oberlin. Seems to be a congenial environment, though she says smalltown Ohio is so small-town Ohio! Toto, we’re not in SF anymore! My oldest grandson started Stanford, which seems to suit him, though he now exercises his athleticism with Ultimate Frisbee. Then back to Seattle for Thanksgiving, and to San Francisco for my youngest grandchild’s 3rd birthday party on New Year’s Day. Lots of toddlers! I used to regularly attend two or three professional conferences each year. I stopped that during COVID-19, and attended none in 2022. Partly avoiding COVID-19. Perhaps also because my generation is hardly present at all anymore, which I guess is not surprising. Anyway no COVID-19 for me! My three daughters and I have continued our weekly Zoom meetings together. The best! I had thought UCLA would finally be back to normal by fall 2022, so I started going back to campus two days a week to try to reconnect with my earlier life. Quite aside from the oddity of being an 87-year-old in an academic world overwhelmingly dominated by much younger people, I found myself somewhat troubled by the state of the university. Three years of COVID-19, with students having had to adjust to years of lectures over Zoom and infrequently seeing other students in person, with faculty overstressed and overworked trying to adapt to new teaching
technologies, and in the midst of a national political environment that makes universities controversial, and that makes me wince. And then, unforeseen, the long-festering exorbitant cost of living in California led to a UC-wide strike by almost 50,000 TA’s, RA’s, and post-docs. That basically shut down all nine UC campuses for the last three weeks of the fall term. All of us know graduate students whose finances have been stretched thin by the cost of living and their paltry wages, so it was easy to be sympathetic. But the UAW was the bargaining union for the students. Call me conservative, but an academic institution operates pretty differently from GM or Ford! Whatever the similarity of a classroom to an assembly line, the strikers are also students, not just worker-bees. Plus they are being trained to become professors themselves one day, not career assembly-line, unionized workers. The strike was settled after a couple of months of hard bargaining. But the immediate aftermath seems bitter. Some public, sometimes ad hominem, attacks on largely-sympathetic faculty and administrators. But the biggest losers were probably the undergraduates, who, after three years of seriously disrupted college experiences because of COVID-19, then found many classes abruptly canceled, with final exams not even graded if given at all. The college years must have been so disappointing for many. As I size up my life in my late-80’s, I feel extraordinarily lucky. My health shows no signs of trouble as yet. I eat and sleep well. I live alone, as a decade-long widower, but isn’t that quite common at our age? I don’t feel lonely, with three attentive and loving daughters, six thriving grandchildren, and friends I regularly Zoom with. I have resumed going to the HD Met and occasionally eat out. I have a wonderful ocean view, when it isn’t raining, which at this writing it seems to do daily! I feel generally rather content, the fires of youth largely banked. Even if my career is winding down, I have had a good run. No Nobel Prizes, but good enough with some meaningful awards. As an active research political psychologist, I wish I could have figured out how to prevent things like the Trump presidency and January 6, but no one else has either. I wish the very best for my
remaining SHS classmates, whom I remember with great fondness and clarity from my single year at our fine, intellectually energizing little school.
Thomas M. Stout, Rockland, ME. Via phone, Tom reports: Nothing much has changed for us over the past year—except, sadly, my macular degeneration has brought me closer to total blindness. I can see (or sense) light and dark but not much else. I have lived with it and do the best I can in spite of it, but I’m dependent on Susan for transportation and getting around. I can still fend for myself at home pretty much—have to, when she’s at work—and catch up with people who call, but: Thank heavens for Susan! She continues in her role as Nurse Supervisor at our local hospital: Penobscot Bay Hospital in Rockport ME, also known as Pen Bay Medical Center. She primarily works nights, because she’s willing, and because it gives us more time together. She brings home the bacon. I’d be unable to work as a pharmacist even if I wanted to. We’re still at the same address in Rockland ME—the one that’s listed in the Class of 1950 Roster. Despite my problem with eyesight—or rather, lack of sight—our health remains good. Whatever traveling we do is mostly local. I’m glad to catch up with classmates and others by phone, but that’s really the only way I can connect. Susan and I share an email address, so a message for me addressed to Susan will alert her to read a message to me from others. It’s always better to call me at our home phone number. I enjoy talking with anyone who calls.
T. Tench Vans-MurrayRobertson, Berryville, VA. Olga “Sandy” Sears, responding to Jeff’s email query, wrote to say Tench wouldn’t be replying by letter this year. She and Tench remain at their current location in Berryville, VA, reachable through the address in the Class of 1950 Roster.
Joel Wechsler, Lincoln, MA. Joel writes: Yes, Joey is still walking and I’m still neither skiing nor walking. We did manage a visit with the Colorado contingent when they stopped in CT on their way back from a wedding in Edgartown. Prior to that it had been Thanksgiving 2021. Did I mention that they have moved to the tiny town of Ward, CO (pop. about 200) because their budget would have bought not
more than a double-wide trailer in the Boulder area? The reason for the move is that a second greatgranddaughter is expected in March! As Joey says, Lucy, now 2 ½, will have a chance to practice her big sister skills, such as they may be. As for me, I have a 70th Milton reunion in June, which should be fun, in spite of the diminishing numbers in my class. That’s all the news from me that’s fit to print.
Louise “Lucy” Weiss, Cambridge, MA. Via phone, Lucy reports: I am well! And, I am happy! I continue as a resident at Neville Place of Cambridge. It provides assisted living to all of us, but only as much as any one of us needs. Of course I need some help, but the best part, for me, is being surrounded and in touch with the many friends I have made here. I and many others have been here longer, while others are relatively new. Regardless, we’re all kept busy each day with many offerings: social gatherings, movies, musical entertainment, art exhibits, physical exercise, visits from outsiders and family members, lectures, and more. The calendar is filled each day. But I take quiet time away to do a lot of reading, mostly steering away from letting myself be overwhelmed by today’s news. Our meal hour periods are scheduled, but each of us can go when we wish—or not go if we choose to skip and eat on our own. I think the food is wonderful — plenty of choices, lots of variety. I can eat by myself in the dining room but also wind up enjoying chats with others while we’re eating together. It’s also pleasant to visit our campus outside the building, but for me that means at the times of year when outside is right—more tolerable than during winter. So: I’m alert and energized. I look forward to each day. BUT: my motto is — one day at a time!
1951
RICHARD/DICK EVANS
rpesnave@gmail.com
Richard/Dick Evans, N. Chelmsford, MA writes: Charlotte and I have much to be thankful for. On July 22, we were blessed with the birth of our first great granddaughter, Celine Elfie Free. We are very proud of her and we
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see a wonderful future with her in our lives. We continue to be active in our lifelong learning groups, me at Harvard and Charlotte at UMassLowell. We’re vaxxed and boosted and so far have avoided COVID-19.
Maisie (Goodale) Crowther writes: when Robert Frost visited Shady Hill, he inspired us to write poetry. A classmate and I took pencil and paper and sneaked out of the school grounds and found a derelict garden. It was late fall, and we sat down amidst the green tomatoes, frozen and rotting on their stalks, and began to write. Away from the desks, the confines of our gray school buildings, teachers’ books and looks, we started writing about our surroundings. While gathering was inadvisable until last year, Zoom was essential in coordinating events. I learned I didn’t miss rushing off in the car to meetings! I read short stories and classic novels Chuck used in his English classes. I’m still singing in choir and watercolor painting. In 2021, I gathered some of my poems in a small chapbook, “For the Time Being.” Planning our virtual 70th Reunion with Janet Green Vaillant and Penny Pi-Sunyer was a rewarding experience! As we probed our brains for memories of childhood, we found the details came in strings—like fishermen with their catch. A favorite teacher, a snatch of a song, a round, a fearful exam, a missed assembly, an Olympic laurel, and a notable text came rushing forth—they didn’t “form a line” as though they were going to the next class. The most important things we remembered we wrote about. A 14-page document is available by email. Or, if you can’t download it, please notify Dick Evans.
Alan Steinert writes: I have only two pieces of news. First, I have departed Cambridge after living nowhere else (except boarding school) for 86 years. I am enjoying waking up in the morning looking at the ocean (Buzzards Bay) rather than the brick apartment wall across Ash Street. Second, I just returned from hosting and enjoying Christmas vacation in the Galapagos with my family, all of them, four children and their four spouses, eight grandchildren and one grand spouse. It was a hoot in all respects, much better
than a scattering of diminishing inheritance leavings after the inevitable. I recommend it for everybody’s bucket list, sooner rather than later because it’s not for the faint of heart, but worth it in all respects.
Thanks, Richard/Dick, for taking over this thankless job as secretary of ’51. Thank you, Janet, for your service. Both of you are Heaven sent.
Paul Dodson says: with COVID-19 restrictions lifted, I’ve been enjoying Canadian travel from Quebec to BC. Looking forward to another skiing season; I’ve bought new boots and downhill skis this year. Any classmates want to join me on the blue and green slopes of ME, NH, or VT in 2023? No more double diamonds at age 86!
Janet (Green) Vaillant is still basking in the glow of our glorious “Zoom” 70th reunion that Maisie Goodale, Penny Pi-Sunyer and I organized in 2021. We had good attendance, lots of chat, shared many memories and pictures.
We recognized together the huge impact SHS had on the people we became. Last summer, Henry and I visited Penelope and her husband Xave in Chocorua NH, a reminder that one of SHS’s greatest gifts was many life-long friends.
We have moved into Newbury Court, an independent living place in Concord. We like it, making new friends and able to keep old ones and still enjoy our town. I’ve almost finished a “creative non-fiction” account of my mother’s life before she moved to Boston. I enjoy thinking about the America in which she grew up and how different it is from what our generation has seen. One of the deep pleasures of being over 80 is thinking about our long experience and sharing those thoughts with friends.
Penelope (Wheeler) Pi-Sunyer says my big news is that both Xavier and I are in good health! How lucky we are. My wind quintets that collapsed for the pandemic have never revived and I miss them. But we are able to step out again to concerts, even an opera or two, and other programs including one called Music for Food that supports local food organizations. We are lucky to be in NYC! I continue to be active in a group called Quest, where we attend and
give presentations in a wonderful variety of subjects. I have been particularly active in a course on Black Women’s Voices, starting with authors of children’s books. On the volunteer front, I worked through a superb organization called Bros/ Sisters/Sol to help a senior write his college essay, and occasionally with another group greeting the busloads of Venezuelans sent up to NYC. Visits to and from family are treasured and summer gathers great numbers in Chocorua, including all 14 of our daughters and grandchildren. To top it all off, we took our first outing, to visit lots of Xavier’s cousins in Barcelona and even Caiscai in Portugal! Not bad! A good year in the midst of an increasingly scarily bad year.
1952
ANNE WATT annewatt99@gmail.com
News has reached Shady Hill that Nancy Proger Kaplan ’52 passed away in January 2022. Our sincere condolences to her family and classmates.
Lenny Clarke shares: Syd and I remain healthy and active— walking, reading and joyfully playing violin. I continue my efforts here in Maine to help create Pine Tree Power—which will be a consumer owned and managed electric power company, replacing poorly managed Central Maine Power and, as well as lowering cost, will expedite conversion to renewable energy and keep wealth local instead of in the pockets of wealthy foreign billionaires. Like all of you, we stayed glued to the Jan 6 Committee hearings and supported efforts to get out the vote to save democracy (Fall election WOW!, YAY!). To quote John Lewis, “Democracy is not a state. It is an Act.” We support Ukraine’s existential fight against Russia, the fight against capitalist greed and environmental destruction and alleviation of the huge gap between the World’s rich and poor. I feel good to have worked with the anti-poverty program in the sixties and to have participated in the final day of the march to Montgomery in 1965. We and our Brunswick
neighbors gave a communal sigh of relief as we bid 2022 adieu and welcomed 2023 which appeared with warm morning sunshine. Extended family all doing well. My son George successfully completed the grueling 100 mile Vermont Marathon in an unbelievable twenty-two and a half hours and is now looking for other challenges (a good mental break from teaching high school environmental science here in Maine). Older granddaughters are at UVM, Bates (xc ski team). My daughter Andrea lives and works in Stowe VT where my third granddaughter starred in the children’s Christmas production as a dancing and singing community Santa Claus and now is cast as Wilbur in Charlotte’s Web. All this is so reminiscent of Shady Hill Assembly Hall performances as well as the Concord Twelfth Night Revels in Concord in the 1980s with my brother David’s (David Clarke ’55) family—early music, Morris dancing, carol singing, kids tumbling. Finally, CIMPAC (My software company) closes next month and I will be “retired” with pride that our computer software, first written 25 years ago, survived all this time.
Ibby (Ellis) Curzon says: My news is pretty short. Charlie and I have been aging in place in a house with three sets of stairs—which I don’t know how long we can continue to do. Right now, our son Nick is visiting us in Cambridge, which is a great joy; he is fun to be with as well as a big help. Charlie has developed a love of cooking dinners; I do clearing and cleaning and cheering on the chef.
Klaus Fuchs- Kittowski says, in German: Liebe Kolleginnen und Kollegen, liebe Freundinnen und Freude, Sabine und ich senden Euch unsere besten Wünsche zum Weihnachtsfest und zum Neuen Jahr! (Siehe auch Anhang mit Link zur Preisverleihung, mit Hinweis auf die PDF-Datei: Danksagung und ´Beitrag zum Rundtischgespräch) Die Waffen nieder! Ein leben in Frieden ist das erste Menschenrecht! Unser größter Wunsch für das kommende Jah. English Translation: Dear colleagues, dear friends: Sabine and I send you our best wishes for Christmas and the New Year! (See also attachment to the award ceremony, with reference to the PDF file: Acknowledgments and
SHADY HILL SCHOOL THE 2021-2022 ISSUE 30
contribution to the round table discussion) Lay down your arms! Living in Peace is the first human right! Our greatest wish for the coming year.
Anne (Wallace) Elvins Grace writes: We are fine. John Sebastian Grace still walks about eight miles a day out of our woods into Belmont, and I swim six days a week in our lovely pool. The Brookhaven Players are doing Agatha Christie’s Towards Zero at the end of the month. As my daughter, Lani, had a spinal fusion recently, I did not volunteer for the play, but they got me to replace someone else last week, so I am back on board. John is in charge of mikes, the curtain and such things. Robin Hartshorne shares: Edie and I have survived another year without getting COVID, though I recently got RSV and am trying to be patient while it does its thing. Edie’s cancer treatment seems to be working (no evidence of disease), and she is leading her usual active life, with daily walks, trips to the gym, long talks with friends, and time with our three granddaughters, who luckily live nearby.
I continue my math work, mostly remote, refereeing articles and giving talks. I gave three talks during COVID this year, in Tehran, Oaxaca, and Shanghai, but found lecturing on Zoom very dissatisfactory. Most recently I went to a week-long conference, in person, in Luminy, near Marseille, and spent a week seeing old friends in Paris. We took two months traveling on the East Coast during the summer, spending time at our cabin in New Hampshire, then visiting East coast friends, including a lovely visit to the Colonial Inn in Concord to meet with Andy and John at their new retirement home. Edie (Churchill) Hartshorne writes: That is what being 85 in the midst of COVID feels like to me. COVID closed down my outer life of seeing clients in my tea house, traveling and doing sustainability through artwork projects in Senegal, Costa Rica, Ecuador, skiing, kayaking, sailing with my East Coast family and friends; retreats with Robin in our New Hampshire log cabin—this is all gone, as I stand quietly in my new life: living more in the moment, sitting in the sunlight with burbling sound of fountain, days slipping by like clouds, contentment following
the light. And the joy of three grandchildren and their parents who live nearby. This in no way excludes my awareness of the agony of smoke and fire turning sky brilliant orange, political breakdowns, environmental dread. Rather, I try to focus on kindness and love; on beauty and stillness. The shift also includes grappling with breast cancer this last year; sailing through chemo and radiation until I had a complete collapse. A friend said, “You really know who loves you when either you get very sick or go to jail.” Now I am in the 95th percentile of total recovery, having no cancer as I stand in amazement at the edge of this new life.
Garrett Paine writes: 2022 was a quiet year, no big trips. June and I are doing OK; we have avoided COVID and its variants. There were only a couple of train shows for me, and the Huntington docent activities that June does were few and far between. We continue with Tai Chi Chuan (me) and Pilates (June) to forestall the effects of getting older. Perhaps the most exciting part of the year were the elections and the Jan. 6 Committee’s activities. And, in June, our grandkids came in from CO for some fun beach time in Ventura, CA. We catch up with the rest of the family by FaceTime, Zoom and Messenger. We hope 2023 will bring a return to a more normal life.
Tom Plaut says: It’s good to hear some of you have been able to visit this year. I remember our reunion at Edie’s family home place on the Cape fondly. We are a very lucky cohort having reached this age without a natural or manmade disaster on our doorstep. Marian and I share our memory banks to find the morning cereal. Our family has been blessed with two new greatgrandchildren this year. With the four greats, 14 grandchildren and their parents, COVID has required our gatherings to be outdoors and/or masked, but we celebrate nonetheless here in these wonderful mountains around Asheville, NC. I continue to work with medical students and am scheduled to teach at the UNC-Asheville College for Seniors this spring—if only I can find the right building and the right classroom in it. ’Tis all a puzzle and a challenge to keep functioning!
Elisabeth (Moizeau) Shima writes: With the rain and road
hazards keeping us in, it’s been good to read in advance some of your news. We will continue to have heavy rains, high surf and downed trees with mudslides in the hills for the coming week. We have not had any damage at home. Santa Barbara likes palm trees that shed their large fronds about and are dangerous. We have both been healthy and happy, close to home, keeping up with the war in Ukraine, and the January 6 Committee. Three brief trips up the coast to San Francisco and Seattle satisfied our travel urges a bit. 2022 was a year in which our three grandchildren ventured forth in new directions. The eldest grandson moved to Texas and is working as a bio-engineer in the Life Sciences Division of a tech firm dealing with big data sets. Another grandson moved to Seattle where he is doing mapping projects with drones. Our artist granddaughter moved to Brooklyn, NY for a gallery job in a dynamic surrounding. It has been fun for us to keep abreast of their adventures.
Judith (Grace) Stetson says: Here I am, riding happily in the wake of Garrett’s email to Anne. My elderly MacMini computer could not access the link in the original email that Anne sent us all. My dear Tom died on February 6 at the age of 90. I am slowly settling into a serene, even rather joyful, widowhood as the difficult months of 24/7 care for him fade away and the long, loving, adventurous life we led together come into bright focus again. Our two children are healthy, happy, and wise—AND they live close enough for frequent visits. My three grandchildren are flying off into adulthood, but Kelia McCullough lived here all summer working in Woods Hole. What a delight! She goes off to Los Angeles in the fall to live with several fellow graduates from Newhouse in Syracuse U. where they all learned many skills in Media: creating, casting, directing, and producing in various formats.
Darby is entering her Junior year at UMass, Amherst with a major in sustainable living on earth. I
have given her the latest annual report from the Woodwell Climate Center here in Falmouth. It outlines several successful partnerships that its scientists have developed with indigenous people ranging from the Arctic to the Amazon to droughtstricken Africa. The scientists give priority to local wisdom and local agency as they develop climate mitigation policies and practices. “If you are not at the table, you are on the menu” is one bumper sticker version of this approach. I have noticed that many environmental organizations have recognized the importance of similar partnerships. Robert McCullough is a Gentle Giant. This is a moving company that was started by a local rowing club in Somerville. To be hired, Robert had to run up and down the stairs in Harvard Stadium with his interviewer! I have deep roots and close friendships in Falmouth where I have lived ever since Tom found “Judy Grace of Cambridge” on Nobska Beach in 1959 and transformed her into “Judy Stetson of Falmouth.” It is comforting and reassuring to be so befriended in this new phase of life.
Anne (Sturgis) Watt writes: I still enjoy being SHS class note collector since I get to read and enjoy each of your messages before turning them in. So to get COVID-19 out of the way, despite vaccines and boosters John and I both got it last August. It was not too bad but I had a fleeting cough for a few months afterwards. Last March we decided to sell our FL condo and got help from two of our three daughters to accomplish this. We made a large profit by chance, which I blithely decided to donate to my non-profit, Primary
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David Clarke ’47, Kit Dreier ‘45, TTC ‘53, Rolfe Goetze ’52 and Julie Anne Goetze at the reunion last June. The next reunion will be June 7, 2024.
Though I’m getting more dependent on my elbow canes or my electric scooter to stay independent, we managed some summer weekends in VT with children / grandchildren leading up to a visit from our Tampa violinist friend Rachel, and a concert for all residents of our home at the Commons. Our violinist friend Charlie Kessler joined John and Rachel for the performance including the Bach Double Violin Concerto in D. John still plays piano with vigor and sensitivity. That was a high point in this year of gradually decreasing memory, due to his early Alzheimer’s. The election and the World Cup held us plastered to the TV and I shifted my focus from fighting racism to doing my bit to fight climate change in our nearly all white facility by encouraging and facilitating composting and other green initiatives. A high point was the visit from Edie and Robin Hartshorne with memories and laughs galore. Old age has overtaken us and we have much to be thankful for, especially that our youngest daughter Jen, the traveling nomad (10 years working at EF Education), has decided to rent an apt in a complex right next to our place!
of Senegal in 1964 and daily walks with two dogs. Our son and family with two boys, 12 and five, live upstairs. Ah, YOUTH! We are very well physically but life certainly seems narrower than it used to. Happily, though, for the first time in three years, we spent two months at our rustic old cabin on Lake Winnipesaukee, and relished the swimming and visiting with my brother David (’50) and Nick and Penny Thompson, other relatives. Screen porches and outdoors. We have done some travel in our small camping van, and plan a month in Florida in March, in Ocala National Park. There the sun will shine, we are assured!
Heidi (Gerschenkron) Dawidoff writes from Francestown, NH: I am always intensely involved in politics, calling senators and representatives regularly. I was delighted with the November 8, 2022 election. It certainly confirmed the President’s political successes and excellent judgment. He accomplished so much with such thin margins of support in Congress, and he had a great effect in clarifying for Americans their need for effective government, democracy, and a balanced response to problems. The President read the country correctly as Americans rejected extremism and spoke for sound judgment in all branches of government.
during the pandemic, especially for good, long conversations with children, grandchildren, and friends. As for grammar, I had excellent English grammar instruction in my Washington, DC elementary school and had excellent teaching in grammar at Shady Hill through French and especially through Latin. The errors that appear in reputable publications and on radio programs are shameful. Too many journalists don’t seem to know that a compound noun is plural. In general, moreover, people don’t understand prepositions (“between you and I”), misuse who and whom, and don’t know that there are words that harbor adverbs: “continue” means to go on; “return” means to go back; “proceed” means to go ahead—no need to add anything. As for John Brown’s Body, it was a good choice for the course on the Civil War, but merging history and literature like that can severely truncate literature. Grades VIII and IX courses treated the two fields separately and so offered a very rich literary syllabus.
Hill’s Reunion program has moved to an every-other-year schedule, in evennumbered years. Please plan to come to campus Friday, June 7, 2024 for your in-person Reunion. In the meantime, plans for a Class of ’53 Zoom Reunion are in the works. The date (mark your calendars!) is Sunday, June 11, 2023.]
MARY HILL HARRIS
mhh10@cam.ac.uk
with help from Adele Merrill Welch
Much sympathy to Judy Cabot Marriner on the death of her husband this year.
Sybil (Kinnicutt) Baldwin, still in Rhinecliff, NY, says she has no special news but loves reading about other classmates. (And it’s always good to know that people are still alive, so thanks for your note, Sybil.) Nancy (Sears) Barker writes from Toronto, Canada: School friends remain quite clear and dear in my memory. Nothing too much to report from Toronto for 2022. We are still hunkering, but in warm weather we can invite friends into our backyard. Jonathan had a bad time with COVID when he had only one vaccination, and so we have been careful since. Dreary winter here, relieved by memories
I read widely, mostly non-fiction, most recently Fire and Light, James MacGregor Burns’s book on the Enlightenment. I’ve continued to lead a group in which we study various subjects, whatever members of the group develop into projects to present to the group. My projects are usually literary. Recently we spent a couple of months on eccentrics in literature, ranging, for example, from the “Wife of Baths’ Prologue and Tale” to “Bartleby the Scrivener.” Since the pandemic’s onset, libraries do not welcome even moderatesized groups, so I have modified the movie series I ran at my library from 2000. Now a few people (vaccinated and boosted) come for movies at my house on Sunday afternoons. I was sorry to miss the conversations of my classmates about grammar and John Brown’s Body. I do not have email and generally do not need it, preferring real letters and face-to-face conversations.
The telephone has been a godsend
Bruce Denny-Brown writes from Scarborough, ME: My wife Sheila and I have lived at Piper Shores, a life-care retirement community in Scarborough, ME, since 2015, and are very happy indeed with our decision. We spend five months each summer (May until October) at the year-round home in Hancock Point, ME, which we built in 1985, planting our garden and welcoming multiple family members and long-time friends back to the community each summer. I continue to do volunteer work on trails at Acadia National Park with “Friends of Acadia,” and both of us are very involved with community organizations, although I no longer play tennis or sail, which were my primary activities for many years. We have done less traveling than we did in the past, although I did attend the wedding of a nephew in Guatemala in December, and we plan to visit our two daughters and their families in Arizona and California in March. As it is our 70th SHS anniversary this year, and we have the good fortune to remain relatively well, and our son and his family live nearby in Bedford, MA, we very well may come down for the SHS ’53 reunion. Is it in May? Look forward to seeing all! [Editor’s note: Shady
Mary Hill (Gilbert) Harris writes from Cambridge, UK: we have been “living in interesting times in the UK this year, what with the Queen’s platinum jubilee in June and then her death in September, each closing everything down for about a week— not to mention having three prime ministers within two months. On a personal level, easing of lockdown restrictions has allowed me to resume many leisure activities such as U3A classes, book groups, choir and string quartet. The last probably gives me most pleasure: making music in the company of people who have become good friends. I still go in to the museum one or two days a week, and this year archaeology took me to Cuba, my first trip since a spring vacation in 1958, just before Castro took over. Unfortunately the conference was in an all-inclusive hotel in Varadero, a touristy part of the island, so I didn’t really see much of the country. Later in the summer I had my usual restorative visit to Gilbertsville, NY where I spent a lot of time with my sister Kaky (Gilbert) Lidz ’55. My daughter Lisa and family visited for part of the month. She is still a lawyer in Oxford (England) and my son Gareth is still rebuilding our stone cottage on the Gower peninsula in south Wales. Grandchildren both soccer mad. Where did they get that? Not from me!
Judy (Cabot) Marriner, in Concord, MA, writes: My husband Ken died at the end of August and his service was in October. He was almost 92. I’m staying in our house as long as possible. My health is good but of course that can change, too. I’m still painting and have started yoga classes. Gardening, via seed catalogs at the moment, is still my main interest. Del called yesterday and she sounded very good. I still see Ashley occasionally. Our daughters are good friends. I plan to go to visit my son and his family in Santa Fe, NM so may get in touch with Nick T. if he’s there in March.
Jay McCune reported to Del over the phone that he is living in
SHADY HILL SCHOOL THE 2021-2022 ISSUE 32
Source.
1953
On Ipswich Beach
By Nick Thompson, ‘53
Two children stood on a beach, looking out to sea. Let’s build a sandcastle, said one to the other, And fell to heaping up sand.
“Stop!” said the other. “The tide will come.”
We’ll build our castle on a very high mound, A mound that will divide the sea.
“No matter,” the skeptic said. “The tide will come.”
We’ll build huge levees to stand off the flood And channel the water away!
“Indeed,” the skeptic said. “Still, the tide will come.”
When the tide rolls in, our castle’s o’er-whelmed, Our walls o’er-topped by the waves, We will run to our parents, giddy from sun.
“Yes,” the skeptic said. “But for us also, the tide will come.”
We’ll instruct our children in the sculpting of sand, Of walls, of sluices, of hand-dribbled spires, Of razor clam arches and quahog towers.
“Even so,” the skeptic said. “Even for those children, and their children, the tide will come.”
“The tide will come for us all.”
Two children stood on a beach, looking out to sea. Nevertheless, the tide came.
Worcester, MA with his wife Susan, just getting out of rehab and trying to gain back the strength in his legs. Ashley (Dempsey) Pakenham reported to Adele that she is still living in her farmhouse in Woodstock, VT. She no longer has horses but is devoted to her two Corgi dogs. She is wondering if there are others who would like to get together for a reunion.
Hilary Smith writes from Shelburne, VT: alas in this era of COVID (not to mention global warming & political insanity) I have essentially no news, unless you can count being COVID-free, ambulatory (3-5 miles a day), and more or less intact mentally, as news. I’m glad to live in Vermont, appreciate Wake Robin (my retirement community which has just a touch of an SHS feel to it), admire (and tremble for) my girls, and send all kinds of warm
wishes & fond memories to all old classmates.
Nick Thompson, writing from Santa Fe, NM, recalls the tune “Big Mole” and its lyrics, asking whether others remember it (Hilary, Del and Mary Hill all did). He goes on to say: Nothin’ new to report. Well, I have developed an addiction to Grey’s Anatomy. Perhaps less said about that the better. Still shuttling between Santa Fe and Massachusetts. I expect to continue to do so until I have a heart attack in transit and am laid to rest in the SW Pet Plot at BWI. Still trying to write… on monism, whatever THAT is. During COVID, I was driven to poetry, even. I have appended a poem—“On Ipswich Beach”—displayed nearby, for those of you who remember the class party there. It is my version of “Coy Mistress,” I guess. Boo on skepticism. Gather ye rosebuds,
everybody.
Julie (Skinner) Vargas, still in Cambridge, MA, writes: I will be spending much of 2023 on the B. F. Skinner Foundation archival project. The Foundation has hired a real archival firm to convert my father’s correspondence, notes, and audio-visual materials—left after his death—into digital formats. The plan is for an eventual Digital Access Management system to go on the Foundation website. My father was a real pack-rat, and there are boxes and boxes of materials to go through. And of course, I am needed for explanations about the materials that archivists don’t know. Well, at least I am no longer President or involved in any financial matters. In 2022, I gave my very last Powerpoint address over Zoom to a live conference of two behavioral associations in Warsaw, Poland. Other than that, the family is doing fine. Our daughter Kris and her husband Trent spent weeks on St. John fixing up our cottage there, including hiring a firm to replace the rotting decks with Trex. Our only grandchild, Zoie, is 15. She lives with her mother about two hours from us, so we only see them when school’s out. Probably like the rest of you, we worry about the future, both in the United States and abroad. Here’s hoping for peace in 2023.
Adele (Merrill) Welch writes from Tenants Harbor, ME: There is the continued presence of COVID even in the Maine fishing villages. So I am not seeing my friends in person as often as I would wish. I’m trying to figure out how to live in a community that has COVID but learn to navigate safely. COVID-19 is here to stay. I attend meetings and Church on Zoom and use the phone all the time. This can be a challenge at best. I really enjoy being part of the community of St. George. My brother, Charlie Merrill ’60 and his wife live next door. At least I have someone local for sharing SHS news. I enjoyed the email “chat” we had last year among classmates.
Henry Winslow, still in Newtonville, MA, says: I got to visit two of my step-greatgrandchildren in June. Their number has grown to four since
then. They all live in Charlotte, NC.
Kitsy (Bolster) Winthrop told Adele that she has moved to an independent living facility near Portland, ME, and likes to read about classmates.
JOHN WHEELER jwheeler61@roadrunner.com
News has reached Shady Hill that David Aldrich ’54 passed away in September 2021. Our sincere condolences to his family and classmates.
Melissa Jane (Lordan) DeHaan Cummings died peacefully on August 28, 2022 surrounded by family at Kaplan Family Hospice House in Danvers.
Mac Freeman, cherished husband, brother, father, architect, and friend passed away on October 27, 2022. Rob Maclaurin died on December 28, 2022. He was 83. He is survived by his loving wife, Katharine Barry Maclaurin and four adult children, their spouses and five grandchildren. His full obituary is available at https://obits. csnh.com/robert-maclaurin.
Tom Weisskopf writes: My wife of 52-plus years, Susan Contratto, passed away on May 2, 2022. She had been suffering from dementia, which eventually took her life. I survive in diminished happiness and health but—thankfully— sound mind and resilient spirit. I hope that you who read this note are doing at least as well!
Deborah Ellis shares: Just read a note from Jim Bowditch which enumerated so many recent deaths of our dear SHS classmates. Gives
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1954
Robert Maclaurin ’54
pause. I have no significant SHS notes to pass on, though I am still living in the Washington, DC area, but probably now needing to contemplate A Move. My husband Lew Bigelow died last July, and my older daughter Isabel (age 56) alas is diagnosed with Fronto Temporal Dementia and has moved into a facility in Lenox, MA. My younger daughter Anna is a professor at Stanford, and I am thoroughly thinking through where and why I should live now… amazing life passages.
Carl Pickhardt writes: We continue to enjoy Austin life. Fourth grandchild safely arrived. Latest book came out in October: Holding on While Letting Go—Parenting your child through the four freedoms of adolescence. Continue to blog for Psychology Today: “Surviving (your child’s) adolescence.” Sad to hear of the passing of old friends.
Jim Bowditch shares: I was just told that Melissa (Lordan deHaan) Cummings died on August 22, 2022. Her obituary was in the Gloucester papers around then. Further, I was told by Mike Magruder that David Aldrich also died, and since your note about Mac Freeman, Rob MacLaurin died.
Felicity and I moved into a retirement community in Camden a year ago, which I reported at the time. Our kids (three) and grandchildren (six) are in Wayland, Wellesley and Hingham, so we are in Boston a fair bit visiting with them. John Wheeler writes: I have little news other than there has been some good ice skating on Chocorua Lake just after Christmas—pretty much the whole lake was skateable
and some areas really good! It was the first time in two or maybe three years so I was a bit wobbly at first, but found my sea legs fairly well. We are scheduled for our first cruise in the Caribbean to Central America in March—we have our fingers crossed for travel and health.
friendship.
MAISIE HOUGHTON maisiehoughton@gmail.com
News has reached Shady Hill that Gus Webster ’55 passed away in December 2022. Our sincere condolences to his family and classmates.
I am remiss this year but, just as I sent out my hopes that class members would respond, my husband Jamie Houghton died that evening. He had been struggling for over 11 years with frontal lobe dementia so, though my children and I are deeply saddened, we are also deeply relieved. He knew how I loved Shady Hill and would tease me about how I bored him even though he had not been a Shady Hiller himself. I thank classmates who sent sympathy and kind thoughts.
Anstiss Krueck writes from her beloved Chicago, IL: another year has rolled around and I think we all find that, by some unknown law of nature, time goes faster and faster. I realize that I reflect on the past more than I ever did. Literally, when I go to sleep, I walk through scenes of the past: houses my family lived in, trips taken, the chapters in my life, and many many memories of Shady Hill. I enter those familiar and cozy little gray houses and see all our faces and those of our teachers. That was the happy landscape of my youth. Now, so much older, many of the beloved trees in that landscape are gone. I was reminded of this by the death of Maisie’s husband, Jamie. Jamie was so much a part of the equation of my friendship with Maisie, that his loss leaves a large hole in the landscape of my life. And is a reminder of the thinning of my particular forest. Which is, of course, a natural process, but is why I think that I, in early slumber, take myself back to the years when that forest was growing, peopled by the trees of
Anne (Luther) von Rosenberg writes from Westwood, MA: we are approaching two years at Fox Hill Village and are doing well. Yours truly is rather creaky and has given up driving and can do our apartment with cane or walker. I either scoot around on my scooter or am pushed in a transport chair by the ever faithful and willing energizer bunny for longer jaunts. We have lots of very long hallways and the scooter really gives me independence. Chaz (aka energizer bunny) hikes one of the many trails of Blue Hill Reservation almost every day. He plays pool with sister and her husband every Sunday. I use the swimming pool for PT which is great. Chaz got some sailing in with friends last summer and has been skiing once so far and eagerly awaiting more. He loves being able to go at uncrowded times mid-week, get the Geezer rate, and in some cases goes for free! Daughter Heidi and Chris are doing well also. A house in Marion has been added to the Sudbury one. Will be their permanent residence one day. They visit there a lot with remote work and schooling. We love that too, as Fox Hill is only an hour from Marion so just a day trip. From Belmont it was a good hour and a half. Somehow our grandbabies are now 16 and 13. So I guess we really graduated SHS a long time ago. Lucy (Stone) McNeece writes: I am still happily living in Paris and teaching part-time. Last Spring I was asked to direct a play in Arabic at the National Institute for Oriental Cultures here in Paris, where I did a Master’s degree in Arabic literature a few years ago. The students had no theater experience and were learning the language but they surprised everyone, even me, and this year they have asked me to do a more ambitious project for which I cross my fingers daily that it will be possible. I spent a wonderful summer in Castine, ME with my son Tim, and Christopher came from California for a few weeks. Having that time together makes it possible for me to live so far away from them for most of the year. This Fall I finally visited Palestine (and Israel) with a research group here in Paris to observe the effects of the elections. We interviewed journalists, members of NGOs, and visited refugee camps. It was an emotionally
exhausting trip to see directly what I had read so much about. The media simply do not convey the tragedy of what is happening there. When people here ask me why or how I do the things I do, I always refer to my experience at Shady Hill, where we were taught to be open to new things!
DEBBY GOLDBERG STINNETT Dstinnett1@gmail.com
We lost Miles Jaffe in midFebruary 2023. For many of us, he stands out in our memories of SHS years and some of us were lucky enough to know him as an adult. He was smart and fun and a bit crazy. He had difficult health issues the last several years, but died peacefully on his beloved Martha’s Vineyard, surrounded by family.
Fred Churchill writes from The Cape: Margot and I happily settled in Bass River. Around the corner from our summer house. Many of our class have visited. We have just gotten a building permit for a new house on an adjoining lot. Our son Erik is building a small house. While we have remodeled lots of buildings, we have never built a house from scratch. It is keeping me “fully occupied.” We are healthy—still skiing in Alta in early March. Kids all well and busy. Grandkids from eight to 27. Again, all busy and healthy.
Alan Galbraith in Edina, MN writes: Catherine and I, married last May, are now happily ensconced here in MN. Give her credit for persuasiveness: she caused me to exchange St. Helena (Napa County, CA) for Minneapolis/St. Paul. MSP Airport turns out to be well located for travel to our children and their families: in Boston (her doctor daughter—an academic endocrinologist just like her mother); Chicago (her attorney son); District of Columbia (my diplomat son); Philadelphia (my law professor daughter); and San Francisco (my journalist daughter)—with 11 grandchildren between us! Besides much travel (Delta Airlines is a major beneficiary), we are addicted to NYT Wordle & Spelling Bee (confirming daily we are geniuses— or at least mentally acute), cribbage,
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Carl Pickhardt’s latest book on parenting adolescents, published by Simon and Schuster, came out in October 2022.
and enjoy the many and varied amenities in the MSP area. We have been making frequent short trips to St. Helena. If all goes well (not excessive snow), we will visit some of the magnificent western parks early this spring. It should be fun.
Marianna Hartsong (aka, Mimi Hartshorne) in Sedona, AZ writes: I drove over 9,000 miles of our beautiful country and some in Canada taking a four-plus month sabbatical for myself. I was 10 weeks, mostly all alone in the silence, at Whitton pond. What a gift. Meanwhile, I am alive and well and still seeing clients and loving and being inspired by it, pretty much daily. If any of you would like the long version of my sabbatical journey, which is actually interesting, please email me and I will send it along. Getting old continues to be “not for sissies”— and, currently, I am Very Well and in Much Gratitude.
Corky (Isaacs) White writes from Boston, MA: It’s January, 2023 and the sleety snow is blowing, not sticking yet. Why I continue to live in a challenging climate is a mystery to me. Well, first off, there’s the fact that I’m not retired from teaching at Boston University, and that my house is comfortable and my friends nearby. Enough about me. My children are fine.
Jen (White) Callaghan lives with her husband Richard and daughter Meghan in Washington DC, where she works for her Londonbased law firm doing at present very important work pro bono helping Afghans resettle and find work and homes. Meghan is of course a wonderful person, about to turn 12 and engaged in lots of interesting things from learning Mandarin to elaborate Lego constructions. Ben (Wurgaft) is a historian / writer / editor, living in Northampton and publishing a
NEXT REUNION: JUNE 7, 2024
Going forward, we will host Reunions in even-numbered years. All alumni are welcome, regardless of graduation year. We hope to see you there!
wide variety of writings, including being co-writer of a book soon to come out from the University of California Press: Ways of Eating, how an anthropologist (me) and a historian (he) think about and document food history and culture. We scarcely fought at all. But not enough about me. I will indeed retire from teaching, in another year and a bit. I’ll finish a book on food workers in Japan (maybe) and definitely go to Japan this spring, and next year too, to get into a project on the Japanese whiskey industry. Classmates, we could, if we got together here, have a great time tasting all these fantastic Japanese whiskies. I love visiting distilleries there and I hope my partner, Gus Rancatore (Toscanini’s Ice Cream) can come along in the spring.
I miss simple things, mostly singing, just as we did as kids, with Miss Abbott pounding the keys. I sometimes sing with my jazz vocal teacher in Kyoto, but something seems to keep me from joining a chorus or singing regularly here. I cook a lot. A big pot of tomatobulgur soup is on the stove now. I’ve stopped catering but I cook for friends and think there’s nothing better than the anticipation of a meal, sorting through cookbooks, checking the pantry. I miss you all and hope for another reunion of whatever kind with whomever can make it. Soup’s on.
Susan (Counihan) Fratus writes from Keene, NH: Hello SHS classmates. Nothing changes much for me here in Keene. Still painting, reading and benefiting from the comfort and presence of friends in my life. Also hoping for some kind of Shady Hill reunion in 2023. [Editor’s Note: Shady Hill’s Reunion program has moved to an every-otheryear schedule, in even-numbered years. Please plan to come to campus Friday, June 7, 2024 for your inperson Reunion.]
Tom Edsall writes from Washington, DC: My granddaughter Lydia is going to Dartmouth in the fall. Princeton Press is bringing out a book of my NYT columns coming out in April. I cannot imagine anyone wanting to read old newspaper columns…I am having my hip replaced soon if all goes as planned.
Marcia (Heinemann) Saunders writes from London, England: This
year I was able to help rescue from blindness a little girl in India who had emerged from a “rented womb” and been rejected by her prospective purchaser parents. I found her through friends here in London. She lives with a poor and benevolent young couple who shelter and care for a number of discarded children, devoting themselves to their care and education in a country where there is neither government interest nor support. My year was also illuminated by my young godson’s perceptions during his year abroad in the US at a large Midwestern university, where he was struck by the extravagant religiosity and wealth pervading the campus and the near-invisibility from that perspective of the extreme poverty a few miles away.
Mary (Morison) Winby, in Palo Alto, CA writes: 2022 has been a great year and a sad year. Despite our family getting COVID, we recovered well. My stepdaughter got married in June in a gorgeous venue outside of Denver. My stepson held his job as a technical recruiter despite a lot of the high tech layoffs. I got a third horse to ride with my group of friends, who are leasing the other horses. I’m playing in two chamber music groups, one for winds, and one for strings—and really enjoying it. We traveled five times to New Hampshire, Florida, North Carolina, New York, and Colorado. It was great to catch up with family and friends in person. We lost friends and family this year including two of our Shady Hill Classmates. It is sobering to experience the loss of loved ones. Corky, Jane, Liz, and I had a lovely lunch at Corky’s house, catching up this summer. We drove around Cambridge, highlighting the homes of all our classmates, which was really a lovely way to bring our memories back to Shady Hill.
Debby (Goldberg) Stinnett, in suburban Philadelphia, PA writes: I am emerging from pandemic mode. I have reactivated my gym membership and my dinner parties
are getting larger. Travel so far has only been to NYC and Boston to visit the kids and grandkids and friends. (This included a Grandparents’ Day and The Fair at SHS.) But, I expect this summer and next fall to increase the travel radius. Along with the rest of you, I am hoping for a class reunion this summer. [See Editor’s note; On-campus Reunion will be June 7, 2024.]
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Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role! Email alumni@shs.org
1957
Sue (Ryerson) Moon shares: I’m still teaching Zen, still writing. My latest book came out in April: Alive Until You’re Dead: Notes on the Home Stretch. It is a collection of personal essays—for anyone who considers themselves to be mortal. My sister, Francie (Frances Ryerson Shaw ‘63), and her husband, Bob Perelman, moved into my house in Berkeley with me four years ago, after a little remodeling. I’m happy to be sharing the house with them in old age, and I’m lucky they moved in before “sheltering in place.” I went to Cambridge in April, 2022 to attend the opening of a beautiful retrospective show of Roz (Stone) Zander’s landscape paintings. Judy (Zetzel) Nathanson also came from Philadelphia for the gala event. I was happy to see Duncan Kennedy while I was in Cambridge. COVID, old age, carbon emissions, and the hassles
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Classmates on front steps of Corky White ’56’s house. L. to r.: Liz Fitzpayne, Corky White, Mary Winby, Jane Millikan.
of air travel have all diminished my desire to travel. Okay, at 80 I should stay still more, but what’s hard is that my grandchildren are in Austin, TX, and Lexington, VA. I still visit them, but not as often as I would like. The older I get, the more I care about old friends who knew me as a child.
David Tartakoff writes from Falmouth, MA: After decades in Chicago, with my wife and
when they reach the goal. There is a little finishing canter before coming to a standstill. There is time to hear the kind voice of friends, and to say to one’s self—The work is done, but just as one says that, the answer comes, the race is over, but the work is never done, while the power to work remains.” In that vein, I solicited Notes from our Class, herewith presented in reverse alphabetical order and lacking any other convention as befits our alma mater.
precious daughter Ann Elizabeth, through retirement from the mathematics department at the University of Illinois at Chicago, guest Professorships and meetings around the world, after the sad and medically still unclear long illness and ultimately rather sudden death of my wife, Cheryl, of more than 27 years over five years ago, I decided to sell my house in Oak Park (Chicago, IL) and move to my long term family vacation house in Falmouth, MA. I am still unpacking and wishing I had not ultimately sold my house in Cambridge in 1986 (or so). Still playing violin and viola and conducting, writing about music and psychology (not about mathematics any more at the moment… sigh) but settling in. Life expands, and I adjust.
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CHARLIE WYZANSKI
wyzanski@gmail.com
As Justice Holmes said, albeit on the occasion of his 90th birthday, “The riders in a race do not stop short,
Charlie Wyzanski, Cambridge, MA. Not so much out and about this year due to a short bout with COVID and otherwise. Nilgun and I have made it down to Washington DC to see two-year old Charlie and months-old Theo and their parents but not often enough. We look forward to another grandchild due in April, this time blessedly not much more than a mile away in Cambridge. Though essentially retired, I realize some satisfaction in occasionally providing legal services to those who request it. Two involved tech scams, to which we elderly are now all too prone, and that gave rise to my writing an article published in the Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. I still lecture in a course on Frances Perkins regarding my father’s time with her as Solicitor to the Department of Labor. Much more frequently, I can be found at the Cambridge YMCA or the Public Library and just now I’m enrolled with Nilgun in a course on Ottoman history at Harvard. I also look forward to leading a book group for inmates at the Massachusetts State Prison in Concord.
David Smith, North Vancouver, BC, Canada. In March, I took one of Suzanne’s nieces, and a tiny amount of Suzanne’s cremated remains, to the island of Iona, in the Hebrides, which was a place Suzi loved. We buried that tiny bit of her there, and said a few words. Life without her has been difficult, but I am trying hard to keep on doing what makes me happy, writing, playing the guitar, doing lots of reading. (Steve Saltonstall’s new book is quite wonderful!) I’m hoping to begin to do more traveling next summer.
Peter Shapiro, Morgantown, WV. The work is never done and all is fairly well, thank God. Still splitting wood and climbing ladders, God bless ‘em. Visitors are welcome if you’re passing through the
“Deliverance” hill country. Steve Saltonstall, Tucson, AZ. I fell and broke my left hip and femur in June, and Tucson trauma surgeon Brianna Patti, M.D. fixed the mess with a seven inch titanium rod and three gold screws. Emily Dickinson once wrote that “Pain has an element of blank.” Pain can be helpful, at least it has been for me, as a jolting reminder of the need to help other beings, human and non-human, whose suffering is so much greater than anything I have ever had to endure, and the courage they have shown me, which is a continuing source of inspiration. John Perry, Burlington, VT. I still teach astrophysics full-time at UVM. Although ancient history when this goes to press, my spring semester starts tomorrow. Notwithstanding that minor insanity, I am well. Charlie Peck, Sussex, UK. New hobby is collecting badges, badges of age. Too little time to waste looking backwards, but with age there is such a wide field of recollection as frequent present companion. Have just volunteered to teach English to groups of asylum seekers who have no status, no clear future and may be moved on to a different place of reluctant lodging elsewhere in England at any time. So it will be greetings, names, basic nouns and, as most are from the Arabic world, stern instruction to write their cell phone numbers from left to right, not the other way. When I got out of college in 1967 I taught English to Angolans in Zambia for a year. Is my end my beginning?
Eric Johanssen, Bellows Falls, VT. Moments of contentment remind me of other such times. Food preparations and aromas reawaken mundane pivotal scenes of eucharistic nourishment. I’m tuning whistles within a pipe organ in Vermont, and I remember doing the same years ago in balmy Victoria, TX, or my first instructions from a kindly master at a pipe organ shop in Lawrence, MA. Remembering the words of a trusted friend renews a sense of trust in myself. Yesterday morning, while scraping the surface of a carrot with a paring knife, I recalled who showed me how to do that when I was 5 or 6. I smiled and said “Hi, Mum.” Forms and scenarios emerge, evolve, and vanish, but where love abides, gratitude reawakens and sustains timeless relationship. Amply blessed, visibly or invisibly companioned, we “touch
the fringes of eternity.”
Michal Goldman, Auburndale, MA. Montaigne instructs us to “make good use of our time. We still have so much of it that remains idle and ill-used.” Do I (still) think that idle time is ill-used? I want sometimes to be idle, not feel guilty about it, and see what happens next. How to write about a year’s time? Reporting facts and deeds no longer seems right. I’m terrified for this world and also in good spirits. A man who is very dear to me died a few months ago. I keep seeing him in my mind’s eye, as he was when we were young and in his last days. I’m trying to stay physically strong— dancing five days a week—so I can do the work I want to do—on the film I’m making and on my land in Prince Edward Island—before I slide or tumble out of this life. After these past few years, I feel how marvelous it is to be with friends. Whatever happens in my remaining time, I feel lucky to witness the lives around me. Charlie Deknatel, Jamaica Plain, MA. This year marked some resumption of activities for Cath and me. I did several days of digs in Boston with the City Archaeology program after a nearly three-year gap. Cath’s singing group—”JP Jubilee”—resumed live but masked singing including a December concert. But for both of us the year was more decisively marked by losses of brothers. My brother Bill (William Deknatel ’56) died in August from liver cancer and hepatitis. I received some kind notes from some of his classmates. Cath lost her older brother, Bob Scott, in November after a long period of helping with his care. Jamaica Plain continues to work well, being a place where most of what is needed is within walking distance. Plus Cath’s children and some grandchildren are nearby—the latter accelerating into life phases that are hard to keep up with and require only observation. Melissa (Carroll) Chapin, Fairbanks, AK. How to sum up all the years since I last contributed to this column? I love reading the class notes and the comments made about our amazing education at Shady Hill. Briefly: a major in Russian (thanks to Mr. Candage for teaching us about Latin case endings); marriage to an ecologist; Peace Corps; life in Fairbanks, AK; construction of our own house. (Smitty’s Grade VII shop class came in handy.). For many years I
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Judy (Zetzel) Nathanson ’57, Roz (Stone) Zander ’57, and Sue (Ryerson) Moon ’57, at Roz’s art show at the Boston Cyclorama, April 2022
worked as a Russian interpreter and helped to start an enduring Sister City Relationship with Yakutsk, Sakha Republic, Russia. The last few months have been particularly discouraging as we see all the hopes and dreams for “Peace and Friendship” between Russia and America fade, at least for the time being. Other than that, we are well and still enjoying Alaska. One son lives with us and the other son and two grandchildren are in Cardiff, Wales.
Nate Bowditch, Topsham, ME
Maine is my perch Maine is my place Maine is my peace Maine’s the way life should be.
I write, I read, I volunteer I want to accomplish I walk/fish/work out/cut wood I want to enjoy.
Lots of my and I—need more we We need to listen We need to talk We need to come together.
JACK KESSLER jakesslerjr@gmail.com
News has reached Shady Hill that Peter Fairbanks passed away in March 2023. Our sincere condolences to his family and classmates.
In addition to the news from classmates below, many expressed an interest in having another Class Zoom, like one we had in place of our COVID-canceled 60th Reunion. All we need is a largegroup-Zoom-friendly organizer. Any volunteers?
Nancy-Jo and I attended Andy Cook’s memorial service last August in Brunswick, ME. It was overflowing with the warmth and respect that Andy had earned from the Maine medical community and his neighbors and friends. After the celebration of his life, NJ and I drove out to the beautiful farm on Woodward Point that Andy and Jaki had operated as a beef farm for 12 years, which they have donated to the Maine Coast Heritage Trust
for preservation and public access. Jack Denny-Brown writes from Lunenburg, MA: Jack Kessler came to celebrate my birthday over lunch in Lunenburg. He told me how he sometimes finds that the root of his understanding on something can be traced to his Shady Hill Science teacher, Mr. Butler. I concluded that Jack was probably paying more attention than I was, because I couldn’t remember anything in particular in respect to Mr. Butler, other than the man himself. My daily routine includes breakfast at the kitchen table each morning with my wife Ann. We have set up a bird feeder outside our kitchen window which appears to be a popular stop for half the birds in central MA. To tell the truth Ann takes a more active interest in the birds than I do; she leaps to identify any new species. One day last week she called me over to see a new and interesting bird that was ground feeding. “What is that thing?” she said, not expecting an answer. “That’s a Flicker,” I said, and returned to the House hearings. She checked on her iPad and confirmed that I was right. “How did you know that?” she asked. “Miss Putnam-Fifth Grade-1955.” “You studied birds in fifth grade?” “Well, yes, as I recall. We had a journal in which we wrote down all the birds we saw. And we made a plaque on which we modeled some chosen bird out of plasticine.” “Was yours a Flicker?” “No. Mine was a Cedar Waxwing,” I said.
Toby Fairbank writes from Cambridge: I am winding down what will probably be my last architecture project, a small house in upstate NY. I’m also spending some time playing the piano and taking drawing classes. In a month or so Sandra and I will make a second trip to a fairly remote island in the Philippines to see our son and his family (our second trip there); our daughter lives in Arlington, MA and we see her often, which is nice.
Peter Fairbanks writes from England: In March, 2021, I closed the Montgomery Gallery in downtown San Francisco after 36 years as COVID had made it no longer viable. However, the Gallery continues operating on a virtual basis and I’m continuing to do appraisals. In July 2021, my wife Philippa and I moved to England (along with our horse) and settled
in her former neighborhood, mid-way between London and Cambridge. Prior to Christmas, we met up with classmate Charlie Peck, who lives on the South Coast, for a delightful lunch at the British Museum. My son Anders Fairbanks is Director of Student Affairs at the Quarry Lane School, Dublin, CA and lives nearby with his wife, Miranda and two young girls. My daughter Antonia Sivyer (nee Fairbanks) is currently on hiatus from her professional career to raise her three daughters. She serves as a volunteer art teacher at Tamalpais Valley Elementary in Mill Valley, CA; and is otherwise a professional in environmental planning and policy, with special expertise in marine and freshwater ecosystems.
Cary Hartshorne Flanagan writes from NH: I am honestly very happy to see last year GONE! It was not a good year for us, with minor exceptions. I was diagnosed with breast cancer a year ago in the fall (very early stage). I had a lumpectomy just before Christmas ‘21 and had several weeks of radiation. No, chemo, thank goodness. No follow-up issues. Good news! Ron was very sick with COVID which we both caught after all our inoculations and being isolated for many months. We both caught it on vacation (a train trip last October through the mountains in CO and visits to several national parks in CO and UT). Ironically that trip was the most fun thing that happened to us all year! We are still working on preparing our home of 40 years to sell next fall. We will be downsizing into an attractive apartment in a continuing care retirement community in Londonderry, NH that is currently under construction (website: www. thebaldwinnh.org). This is the first year I have begun to really feel my age. Ron as well. At least we had positive outcomes for what could have been more serious illnesses. Wishing each of you a happy and healthy New Year!
Steve Grossman writes: As many of you know from previous Notes, I’ve served for the last eight years as CEO of the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC), a Boston-based notfor-profit dedicated to inclusive economic prosperity and the economic revitalization of our country’s under-resourced urban
communities and neighborhoods. We provide executive education, one-on-one coaching, and access to capital to about 3,000 small businesses annually, overwhelmingly BIPOC- and woman-owned, in dozens of cities, in addition to producing a wide range of research on topics as varied as the economic impact of the coronavirus, the suburbanization of poverty, and the role of anchor institutions such as medical centers, college and universities and large for-profit organizations in addressing supplier diversity and supply chain equity. Closing the nation’s racial wealth gap and ending concentrated poverty are the overarching goals that motivate our team of more than 50 professionals. I was proud to have been appointed last year by the Biden-Harris administration to the Small Business Administration’s Council on Underserved Communities, charged with developing transformative strategies to accelerate racial and economic justice among our more than 32 million small businesses nationwide. Barbara continues as a professor of Drama and Performance Studies at Tufts and is currently teaching Voice: The Art of Confident Expression as well as a course on the 10 Pulitzer Prize-winning musicals from Of Thee I Sing (1932) to A Strange Loop (2020). Yes, Hamilton did win a Pulitzer as well (2016)! We consider ourselves extraordinarily fortunate to have David ’91, Ben ’95, and Josh ’03, all SHS alums, their spouses and our eight grandchildren living within a ten-minute drive and were delighted that 2022 brought Eliza (now eight months) and Lena (now seven weeks) into our family. Finally, we look forward to celebrating my mother Shirley’s 101st birthday on March 1st. She’s still reading three to four books each month and is a phenom in every way!
Duncan McClelland writes: My wife Alexandra and I are still retired in Cornwall, CT and enjoying the simple life. I have recently written a screenplay called Leaving Russia based on a true story of my wife’s grandmother who escaped Russia over the Caucasus Mountains on horseback with her two children to the Black Sea during the 1917 Russian Revolution. Quite a story! We, on the other hand, plan to escape to Florida by jet
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this winter to see our children and grandchildren in Palm Beach and Naples.
Charlie Merrill writes from ME: We are finally beginning to live our lives again after being shut in and experiencing incredible political turmoil. At the end of the summer, Otty and I traveled to the Swiss, Austrian, and German Alps for a biking trip with Vermont Biking Tours (VBT). We had a wonderful time sampling the food, wine and beautiful sights. Unfortunately, we caught the virus on the way home, but with the vaccine and boosters, the illness was not too taxing. I manage to get to the gym three times a week and continue to serve on the board of the local library. Volunteer opportunities are opening up at the hospital this month and I plan to return to the Surgical Care Center where I clean rooms, run samples to the lab, and wheel people out when they are discharged. A challenge that is coming up for me is that it looks like I will soon start another consulting engagement, working with a group of folks who are creating a Community Health Center in Thomaston, ME. My head is hurting as I restart my brain! Our health is OK, our kids are well, and we are enjoying two wonderful grandchildren. Three cheers for the new year!
I saw Charlie Peck briefly last June at our Harvard 55th Reunion. He writes from England: Met up recently with Peter and Philippa Fairbanks at the British Museum as they now live in Essex. Remembered his first day with us in Grade VI (which was also mine) as he walked in a few minutes late and went straight up to Mr. Denio to shake hands. Good manners. Ever since Pam Ferris died years ago, I have been the only expat member of ’60 in England, and it is good now to have his company. Could this be the start of a late-life trend? Keep me posted!
Ben Riggs writes from Newport: We have had a bumpy last two years with COVID and several back operations (it took us about a year to recover), but are now doing fine. Had a one month visit to Aix-en-Provence in France to visit family and two grandkids, five and seven, who love the local school there. Granddaughter Isabel is in her sophomore year at
Skidmore and loves it. Our other offspring (daughter Lisa’s family) are still in Nebraska, running their fine arts business, which now represents an artist who escaped from Ukraine and is living nearby (www.kiechelart.com). Our other daughter, Sonia, is near us in Tiverton, so at least we get to see her often, and without getting on a plane. Thankfully, Lee and I are still enjoying Newport to the hilt, and although aging, I’m not giving up my precious sailboat just yet. Corry Virtue Rooks writes from Wilbraham, MA: Jim and I are doing well. We still love being back in Massachusetts, even after nine winters here in the frozen North. Not much to report this time around. We spent much of last summer at our camp on Sebec
and how we apply those. The most effective resource any of us has is our ability to take action. Just being here again gives me a vision for how to tackle the complexities of today’s empires with mounting poly-crises that seek to control our lives.
Bill Vanderbilt writes: It has been an eventful year for Annie and me. On 2/2/22 (an auspicious day!), I had a kidney transplant, a perfect match from a living donor. Now, a year later, my new kidney is working perfectly, and I am overwhelmed by all the good samaritans out there who make these miracles possible. Then, on September 28, hurricane Ian destroyed our house on Sanibel Island. In spite of that loss, we are among the fortunate as we did not lose our lives and livelihoods, and
are frustrated that in the continuing COVID environment we haven’t felt comfortable making plans in advance for international trips. But we have visited three of our six grandchildren at Middlebury and Washington University in St. Louis and two of the remaining three living locally are off to college next year. We can hardly believe that Zander is graduating from Middlebury in two weeks and starting his first “real job” at a renewable energy consulting firm in Boulder, CO. Nancy-Jo has continued to be active with what I find to be a dizzying number of friends and activities, until she was temporarily slowed down by a broken foot five weeks ago. And I have backed into playing a lot more golf, a pursuit I used to ridicule, ratcheted up playing paddle this winter to three times a week, but remain primarily obsessed by the details of all the crazy politics and investigations.
ANDY OLDMAN
aqopbketch@aol.com
News has reached Shady Hill that Thomas Speer ’61 passed away in December 2022. Our sincere condolences to his family and classmates.
Lake in Maine, and it was nice having more than twice the usual amount of time up there essentially off the grid. We were also able to spend plenty of time here during the recent holidays visiting with all three of our children, their spouses and partners, our grandson, and several extended family members. That has not happened in quite a while. So much to be grateful for. Daniel Taylor writes: Greetings from Gandhi’s Ashram where I am again after COVID delays now able to teach our university’s course “Gandhian Methods for Modern Challenges.” There is hope for how we as people can positively deal with the mounting challenges. It lies in what we do with what we have ... that is shaped by our values
we have another house in which to live. So, we are entering 2023 believing that losing a house and gaining a kidney in the course of a year is a sign that it is time to move on to new adventures. I enjoyed my annual lunch with Zach Wiesner on Martha’s Vineyard last summer and emails since then. He says he has no specific new news to report but I would observe that he revels in his role as grandfather of his two young grandchildren who also live on the Vineyard.
Jack Kessler: Nancy-Jo and I continue to feel very fortunate in our good health but I have been to 10 memorial services this year and I am losing my Harvard roommate to Alzheimer’s. Like many others, we and our traveling contemporaries
Andy Oldman writes: We have had a decent year, despite the awful worldwide and national news. My maternal grandparents were from Lithuania, aka White Russia. I know too much about their awful experiences before emigration. History just repeats itself, maybe on a worse scale with new technology. One highlight was a pre-1915 Brass Era car tour in rural Wisconsin during September. The aircraft museums out there make me wish I were way younger. Doing that now might prematurely accelerate the inevitable by falling asleep at the switch! One of my boatbuilder friends in Brooklin, ME has a commission for an experimental wooden airplane in his shop. (Experimental is a euphemism for permitted work-arounds of many FAA rules.) I could qualify with only 20 hours of instruction and solo after eight hours, fascinating!
SHADY HILL SCHOOL THE 2021-2022 ISSUE 38
1961
Andy Oldman ’61
Managed to spend a lot of time watching and participating in the incredible process of our grandchildren acquiring language, writing, drawing, and many games and antics. Managed also to squeeze in quality time sailing and tinkering on the coast of Maine, and did a veteran car hill climb race at Castle Hill in Essex, MA. I enclose a photo of my grandson and me and fab Model T Hot Rod I picked up a couple years ago. The little kids at the meet were given ribbons to put on their favorite car. The little rascal corralled most of the others to select this ride as the favorite! I hope you are all thriving, as our 60th anniversary is fading into the background.
Nan Lincoln writes: I’m back to writing about the arts for two newspapers — an activity that pretty much dried up during the height of the pandemic, although I did review some books, and Zoom performances. I was so fortunate to be able to hunker down in beautiful Bass Harbor, with a walk to the shore virtually right out my front door, but did miss going to the theater, concerts and galleries. I was recalling recently that my first on-stage experience was playing Saralinda in Thurber’s The 13 Clocks, in 4th or 5th grade. May have shared this before but have reached the age where repetition is chronic. Recently spent four days in Chicago for my nephew’s wedding and had such fun with sister Deborah Fremont-Smith while little sister Fran was busy being mother of the groom. The attached photo is Deb and I having a tourist moment at the “Cloud Gate” or colloquially the “Bean.” (We are reflected in center with blue bags in one and in the selfie I am in front.) Fell in love with Chicago with its amazing and diverse architecture. Bracing for a snow storm this evening and hoping not to lose power as we did
for three days during Christmas! Stay well, Shady Hillers, try to hang on to your marbles, even if you roll out the same ones from time to time.
Phil Cowan writes: Hard to say if we are truly on the far side of the pandemic that filled our screens the last time we all reported in but here we are...wherever that may be. For me, it hasn’t been bad at all. For starters, I am now a grandfather to Hugo, born 3/25/21. Strong, healthy, and utterly adorable. They are still out in Portland and I am trying to get out there as often as I can. Next trip will be for his second birthday. I’m late to the grandparent game but I’ve come to think of myself as a late bloomer, generally. So be it. I’ve been back working since shortly after our last burst of class-wide chat. I am technically a per diem, so I have a fair amount of leeway for my other indulgences, mainly travel and photography, and the hospital seems content to let me work about three shifts a week. The idea of retiring continues to lurk on the fringes but hasn’t gotten closer lately. I did have a case of COVID but have had no long-term aftereffects and am continually grateful to remain reasonably healthy. Some rusty rivets, but otherwise...I wish the best to all my classmates. Fred Ross writes: 2022 had one bright spot for us when we traveled to Hanover, NH in March to visit our son Ben and family. We hadn’t seen grandson Owen since he was one month old. He is now three! In May I had the aortic valve in my heart replaced through a catheter from the leg. Crazy amazing procedure which went well. Since then, we have been gardening and mostly staying out. We wish the best for all of us for 2023!
Margaret Loss writes: Here’s what I wrote for my (postponed) law school 50th
reunion, finally held this past fall: How to sum up 50 years? I went straight to Yale Law School after Radcliffe, where I was one of only eight women in a class of 178, but the numbers and the campus atmosphere changed for next year when Yale College started admitting undergraduate women. While there, I sang with the Yale Bach Society. I married classmate Bill Blomquist at the end of second year and we both went to Wall Street law firms when it was still something to be proud of. We divorced after 11 years, with no children. The lesson learned is not to marry your friend and study partner. In New York City, I sang for 20 years with The Collegiate Chorale. I was a choral singer before singing with The Radcliffe Choral Society and I am still a choral singer. Gender issues have been the defining element of my career. In the ‘70s, I was always the first something with the only something else. Now, after the lean-in movement, we who were accused of being “aggressive,” “power-hungry,” and “interrupting” – even though we did all this much less than our male counterparts – are finally feeling validated and better understood. After Wall Street, I went into the law department of a major life insurance company, hired to do investment transactions, and later became the company’s variable life insurance lawyer. I remarried in 1986 and my daughter was born in 1987. When I went back to law firm life in 1988, it was as a specialist in the overlap of securities regulation and life insurance matters. This meant everything from product design to mergers of life insurance companies. I am immensely proud
of my daughter, Elizabeth L. Johnson (Lisa). She received her PhD from Berkeley in December 2016 in cognitive psychology with an accompanying appointment to the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute. Her dissertation topic was the electrophysiology of memory. I always said she would do something not yet invented. She is now Assistant Professor of Medical Social Sciences and Pediatrics at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine, where she founded and directs the Dynamic Brain Laboratory. Lisa’s father and I divorced after 10 years. Shortly after that I left large firm life to open my own law office (at home). I have gradually done less and less and finally retired at the end of 2021. In 2007 I got back together with Charles Dewing, whom I had dated for over two years as an undergraduate, and in 2012 we married. I had already moved back to Cambridge to the house where I grew up. After 40 years in Manhattan, it took five years to feel truly back in Cambridge, where I particularly enjoy being a Yalie. We are children of the ‘60s, the Vietnam War generation, now in a new century but, even more important, in a new age. We knew about computers but didn’t expect the iPhone or the Internet. We knew about the possibility of global warming but didn’t expect Katrina or Sandy. We knew about Kennedy but did not expect 9/11. We even knew about Nixon but did not expect the current gulf between liberal and conservative. What will the next 50 years bring?
Marguerite (Margie) Saslow writes: While traveling in Italy last fall, I was delighted to recall and recount to my older daughter many of the Greek and Roman myths and legends I learned in 4th and 5th grades at SHS. These stories are
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Nan Lincoln ’61 visiting Chicago
Margaret Loss ’61
portrayed in paintings, mosaics, and sculpture (along with local product labels) in small towns and villages as well as in the museums and galleries in the cities. I currently live in a small, off-grid, straw bale home in rural central Oregon. I have two adult daughters: a geriatrician in the Portland area and a pilot for Alaska Airlines who lives in Hood River an hour east of Portland. I am planning to retire this spring from a long and varied career in healthcare. I look forward to more energy and time to engage in creative efforts including permaculture and regenerative practices for my wildlife habitat conservation property. I have had the good fortune to participate in some writing workshops with Tinky Beal’s friend, Ellen Waterston, who is an inspiring teacher, local writer, and poet. Greetings to any classmates who may remember me!
L Peter Deutsch writes: 2022 was a year of ups and downs. My wonderful dog Marta was diagnosed with inoperable cancer on January 4 and died at home while I was on my annual January-March stay in Vancouver BC. Our giant backyard remodel was finally completed in February and despite a late start, we managed to plant and harvest enough in our new vegetable beds to cover about 2/3 of our produce needs. Michael had a second round
of spine surgery (on his neck this time) in November which helped but not as much as we had hoped. I had several more pieces of music released by PARMA Recordings on various CDs throughout the year. And the release date has been set for a compilation of commissioned cello miniconcerto premieres recorded with the LSO, one of which will be mine: sometime in March 2023. Meanwhile, I’m doing quite well at my mission of getting old as slowly as possible.
Jim Zetzel writes: While in London at the end of January, I had a delightful reunion lunch with Lizzie-Boo whom I have not seen in more years than I want to count. Wonderful to pick up ancient threads so easily—we covered 60 years in a little more than 60 minutes with no problem. I hope we can repeat it now that travel is a little easier. And maybe more minireunions with the Class of ’61. For the rest, I am now four years happily retired, and we are getting back to travel, partly for its own sake, partly that I get to follow Katharina on her international events--a dissertation defense in Paris at the beginning of November ‘22, London now (for both of us), and then she will lecture in Poznán, Poland in June, which will allow a visit to my grandparents’ grave in Berlin and maybe to the city (then Germany, now Poland) where my father was born. Katharina will be on leave in 2024, and we are starting to plan expeditions to interesting places that don’t require driving (have you noticed that it is hard to rent a car when you are 75?)
Peter Laursen writes: I am now retired from medicine here on Martha’s Vineyard. Married now 47 years. Two children and six grandkids, two here and four in NC.
Visit NC every couple months. Stay busy with photography; plaursenphoto.com. Traveled to Cuba twice, once with sister Kari and her husband and once with two photographers. Staying as healthy as I can.
Lee Roscoe writes: My book Wampanoag Art for the Ages, Traditional and Transitional is doing well. One of my films from Four Plays for a Planet in Peril premiered at the 10th anniversary Chelsea Film Festival, NYC this October. The Four premieres at Cape Cod Museum of Art, March 31, as Dreams from a Planet in Peril.
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DICK HENRY dhenry@hotzero.biz
Greetings Cribmates, Dana Ferry has passed the Class Secretary baton to me, and you have all responded graciously, so in this first outing, I have not been skunked. Thank You! Dana Ferry writes from India: I am writing to you from India, where I have been for five days for the first time in three and a half years. I am back at the place of pilgrimage to Avatar Meher Baba’s home and Tomb-Shrine. It isn’t possible to put into words for a newsletter what this place is like but just to say it is worth all the challenges of traveling here and much more to arrive at last! It is the spiritual home for many people around the world and I am one of those lucky people. Staying until March. It was lovely to see those who made it to the reunion. We had fun catching up and, of course, singing. Just received the album that Robin produced for his final classwork at Harvard and I can’t wait to hear it all. I have dipped into some of it already, and it is, as expected, a great treat. Shady Hill Greek mythology sticks to all of us, and these songs are, among other things, a
tribute to those beginnings. I hope more folks will write in this year. It’s always fun and sometimes surprising to read your reflections. As far as the world goes: Dona Nobis Pacem indeed! Namaste, Shalom, Salaam Aleichem, and more Love all the way around.
Robin Batteau – writes from Cambridge, MA: I had a concert at Passim in Harvard Square, debuting my suite of songs sparked by Ancient Greek Lyric Poets with my baby sister (she’s 65) Yani Batteau opening the show.
Uncle River – aka Steven Kaufman, writes from Pie Town, NM, and sends the poem below (I also recommend looking at his Flickr website).
Robin Engel Finnegan writes from CA: I’m happy to report that both Greg and I have managed to avoid getting COVID this past year while remaining physically active by taking outside walks almost every day. The recent rains, however, have crimped our style a bit. While there has been a lot of damage in California from what the press has hyped as “atmospheric rivers,” “pineapple expresses,” or “bomb cyclones,” our house has come through unscathed. I originally planned to attend the SHS reunion in June, which was also around the
Poem by Steven Kaufman ’62
I could have lived in the Old West. Which never really ended, where I do Live, here in Catron County. Take a look at some background figures In a good Western. I was the guy, On the edge of the little town, Who grows lots of carrots, shares seed, And let’s all the dramatic leads Water their horses. Scenery nourishes soul. Mostly quiet. Quite a few of sparse Neighbors more like me than dramas Of outlaws and law men. Who, especially If they live long enough to grow old, Switch definitions. Outlaw and criminal May or may not describe the same person. And surprising, or maybe not, how many, Of all sorts, appreciate not just The water and the carrots, But the scenery as well. If the wind doesn’t too madden.
And, oh yes. If you want me able to Answer your, “Which way did they go?” Don’t get me shot. If you can’t Understand that, your own buddies will have To take you out, for their survival. It is the Old West.
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Lee Roscoe ’61’s book “Wampanoag Art for the Ages, Traditional and Transitional” is doing well.
Lee Roscoe ’61 at the red carpet Chelsea Film Festival and the poster for The Warning which was there.
same time as the memorial service we had planned for my mother. But things changed when the COVID rates went up - I decided it was too risky to fly cross country. We ended up canceling the memorial service. I’ve become an active member of Ashby Village, an elder village, now merged with North Oakland Village (NOV), which we joined shortly after moving here. Most, but not all, of the activities I’m involved in are still on Zoom. Amusingly, the mother of a woman I met through NOV was an apprentice at Shady Hill way back when. Before the November election, I wrote over 500 letters through Vote Forward. While the outcome of the election was better than I thought it would be, it is hard to witness what is going on now in Congress. Having our sons, their wives, and our two grandchildren living close by is central to our lives and well-being. This coming weekend we’re getting away with our sons, their wives, and our grands to Albion, CA, on the coast. Amazingly it sounds like we’ll have three days of sun!
Rebecca Kent writes from Wilmington, NC: I do so appreciate your cheerful letter and the package of songs, bringing many happy thoughts of my far-flung cribmates. I am currently packing for my five-day
“Christmas-postponed-due-toCOVID” trip to visit my daughter and her lively family of five in DC. I will probably have to miss out on Robin’s Passim invitation. But I am sending loads of love to every one of you and look forward to catching up on our news when I return to Wilmington, NC, my current nest, next week. Brief, but happy to be in touch. Thanks, Dick, for taking on the challenge!!! With you all in Song and Spirit!
Bruce Wilcox writes from Amherst, MA: For me, it has been a year of highs and lows. On the high side, plenty of time spent with five boisterous grandkids ranging in age from 17 to one, as well as a memorable trip to Denmark in August to play soccer in the 70+ World Cup. On the low side, the death of my younger brother Eric in November at age 71. He had suffered a series of strokes that set him back in multiple ways. But he remained inspired and uplifted by music until the end and would occasionally sing songs from his Shady Hill days.
Dick Henry writes from Concord, NH: It’s been a busy year with the future looking maybe even busier. The summer before last, I had my thyroid out, which went smoothly, except I have lost my tenor voice which I miss, but it beats the alternative. This fall, I got a new hip which has allowed me to get back to rowing both on the indoor erg and next summer back on the water. I’m in training after a two-year hiatus for my 6th Blackburn Challenge, a 20-mile open water rowing race around Gloucester, MA, which I will do in my 19’ open water scull. I continue my work helping K-12 schools retrofit their buildings to net zero and reduce their energy costs by 50% to 80%. I’m also working with an electric storage company using capacitors for utility-scale stationary storage. We hope to have our assembly plant up and running by early summer in Maine. Lastly, I’m starting up my old company, Bellwether Solutions, to advise sheep farmers on how to get into the utility-scale solar grazing business using sheep. Throw in three grandchildren, four, seven, and nine, who visit frequently, and life
is quite active. Last but not least, my daughter and her wife have moved back to New England to Brunswick, ME, which is much closer than Gallop, NM! We are looking forward to seeing a lot more of them. So, life is very good, exciting, and busy.
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ALICE ROSS CODA alicec1@comcast.net
Dan Wallace writes: There is not much excitement on my front: still actively meditating on my own, with others in person, and online (lots of service opportunities there). I’m avoiding situations that require a lot of bandwidth . . . never was much good with multi-tasking and it CERTAINLY doesn’t suit me now. I’m not missing the higher levels of stimulation, very much enjoying a lower key (and still deeply enjoyable) unfolding of my days. Kids and grandkids are fine; happy campers all. Brina Peck says: For my family, the highlights of 2022 were the outcome of the midterm election and the partial waning of COVID. This last one led to our first Thanksgiving with guests since 2019. It was a warm day here in Southern California and we 14 ate in the backyard at a long table just like the pilgrims and native Americans in that classic painting. Gaj visited his siblings in Bangalore for the first time since January of 2020. He got into pickleball madness, and will start up again when his tennis elbow heals. Emma volunteers for the Claremont Forum Prison Library Project, a nice breather from her school nurse job and DNP (doctor of nursing practice) coursework. Every day I keep three balls in the air (Spanish, French and German) by reading, writing, and talking a bit in each language. The practice of juggling interests me, not grace or correct form. I’m still interested in foreign language learning by older adults, and continue teaching the course I designed, Spanish Through Reading, at the Pasadena Senior Center. Canine news: Oliver was spotlighted in a Hardwick, VT news article, “Volunteer Dog Shares His Love” and is approved to do similar work at a nursing home in
our neighborhood. We hope that kindness and sanity reign for all of us Americans – right wingers, left wingers, and in-betweeners in 2023.
Robert Alexander tells us: I finally have a contract for the sequel to my book on the Northwest Ordinance — this one takes the story of President Washington’s Indian War up through the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794, which opened the Ohio Country to white settlement. What’s little known is how extensive the anti-war sentiment was in the new republic. There was even talk of impeaching the president and the secretary of war. I’m also working on a book about the genesis of the U.S. Senate, explaining why its structure is the only item in the Constitution that can’t be changed through the usual process of amendment. And after 25 years, I’ll be ending the poetry series I named for my mother — the final volume is due out in 2024. Hope all is well our fellow Shady Hillers!
Spencer Cowan writes: Last year started with a visit from Robin Batteau, who spent a few weeks at our house. Lots of childhood memories, watching football, and having a generally great time together. I continued to work remotely as Director of Research for Woodstock Institute, a small think tank in Chicago, and Joy continued her woodturning. She taught a course on turning wooden table lamps at the John C. Campbell Folk School in February. In July, we went to Iceland for two weeks and then on to Stockholm for four days. We drove the ring road around Iceland, waterfalls, glaciers, hot springs, and open vistas with sheep and horses roaming free. Absolutely fantastic; we would happily do it again. We walked all over Stockholm taking ferries to get from one part of the city to another. Loved it. Other than that, the big news is that our younger daughter, Hannah,
NEXT REUNION: JUNE 7, 2024
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Bruce Wilcox ’62 and five of his grandchildren
Robin Batteau ’62 had a concert at Passim in Harvard Square, debuting his suite of songs sparked by Ancient Greek Lyric Poets, with sister Yani Batteau opening the show.
Going forward, we will host Reunions in even-numbered years. All alumni are welcome, regardless of graduation year. We hope to see you there!
got engaged to a wonderful man, Jeff, this fall. We are thrilled and welcome him to our family. Finally, I officially semi-retired from my position at Woodstock at the end of the year. I will continue to consult, but I am stepping away from all of the ancillary duties that went with the position, such as attending weekly staff meetings.
Brooksie Stanton says: Life in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom continues to reinforce the notion that “small is beautiful.” There has been a huge influx with the pandemic and with that comes various shades of change. But I continue to be touched by the “small kindnesses” of which I previously wrote. I am tallying the number of times I have been warmly called “honey” or “hon” at the checkout counter! I am preparing to deliver meals to “shut in” seniors with the Meals on Wheels program, while on the other side of the country my son Sascha and his wife, Maia, do support work for the exploding homeless population in their Los Angeles community. I have to think that Sascha’s work, editing comedy film/ television (currently “How To With John Wilson”), provides him with some relief from all the troubles of the country and the world. I visited Sascha and Maia last March and we took a gorgeous hike in Topanga Canyon, which as I write is being inundated by the historic California rains. I see lots of Brina when she comes to Vermont in the summers. It is also most heartwarming to remain in touch with Lise Aubrey, the “apprentice” who lived with my family for several years while I was an SHS student. Old connections keep us young. Speaking of which, I suppose it is reflective of our developmental stages that we shared so many communications and
reunions during our 50s and 60s, while our 70s are more quiet. I hope we can stay in touch in whatever form!
Cynthia Shelmerdine tells us: My best news is that a new baby golden retriever named Encore has joined the household! Gotcha day was December 19. Coda, now six, is her aunt as well as a very good big sister. She will be a full-time job for the next month or so but well worth it. She makes up for the trying aspects of life, which include a tough time for the public charter school whose board I chair and which will have to close at the end of this school year. That entails lots of extra time and mental energy on everyone’s part. Luckily health and family are good, and life is full. Paul Gifford writes: I am old enough that I can’t remember what I said a year ago. I was laid off from one job in December 2021, got a new job in February 2022, and am still there. It’s a much smaller company than I have worked for in the past. I am the Chief Estimator with almost no staff. Company is trying hard to grow and experiencing every possible challenge. The positives are that they are a minority-owned business which is much in demand these days and more importantly, the ownership trio are all actual nice human beings. So I believe I will be around for a while. Our twin grandkids just turned 14, so they are in full teenager mode, still living in Redondo Beach (LA). We get to see them about once a year when they come to visit, they generally are too busy on TikTok to Facetime with old relatives otherwise. I believe I mentioned we had to let one of our two dogs go over a year ago due to a huge lung tumor (very sad). Our remaining dog is 15 years old and has a different cancer that is slower but it is clear she will not last forever… For current information, we are surviving the crazy weather, no flooding at our place, and the trees that blew over fell away from the houses in our complex. Keep looking up at the huge eucalyptus trees above us on an absentee neighbor’s property and ordering
them to stay upright. Hope they listen. That’s about it, life is as good as it gets in this new, strange era.
Anne Kessler: Brooksie had occasion to communicate with Anne about how she and her house are faring in the California weather. Anne says she is well and in Mexico for the winter.
Elizabeth Hawthorne O’Beirne Ranelagh writes from England: I’m still working, giving advice to farmers at a very exciting time in agriculture with a lot of new techniques coming in. My own farm is expanding, with the raw Jersey milk, calf at foot, high welfare, direct sales dairy going from strength to strength. My husband has found a publisher for his “lock-down” book on Irish history, and I am now playing in three mandolin orchestras as well as a ceilidh band, although the latter has not been out much over the COVID period. She wishes us all well.
Lizzie deRham writes: I have had a year of introspection and revelations. I appreciated the times after our classmate Lenore Gessner Travis’ death that we all shared memories and feelings about our SHS years and felt it brought us together again in a way nothing else could have. I wish it would continue. It has been a difficult year between trying to find a new PCP and ending up with a jerk so on the hunt again. Am very upset about Ukraine. Russians have been brutal and liars since time immemorial. A Russian Jewish engineer I know, who had great difficulty leaving in the early 70s, once said to me “Russia began in tragedy and it will end in tragedy!” And I wonder if that is finally coming true. Al Lamb tells us from England: After attending a reunion at the beginning of August of my old school, Summerhill, I flew from England three days later to Boston and got hit by COVID hard on the plane. Passport Control let me in, however, and I drove up to NH but then tested positive for 14 days out in my daughter’s studio
and sitting on her porch looking out at her garden and pine trees. I was left at the end with three days to run around and visit relatives and old friends before flying back to England. I’m hoping to go back to NH in the summer and will hope to connect with old classmates then. Alice Coda: My news, in a nutshell, is that we are to be Grandparents! After a long time of trying without success my son and daughter-in-law went the IVF route and were successful after (only) six months. For them it seemed a long and emotional time but they are aware that many couples are not so lucky within that time frame. We of course are Very Excited. Also, we have planned a trip to Scotland in May for our 40th and my 75th. We are very much looking forward to that as well. I imagine there will be several celebrations this year given the respective ages of our classmates. Other than that, we are well and still in Hopkinton, though we have been looking at condos and smaller houses. Not much available here in NH at the moment, so we continue to rattle around in our house, having somewhat less joy in all the chores a house entails. 1964
NICK DEUTSCH deutsch.eubanks@gmail.com
I seem to be writing about another year in my Vermont life, says Susan Mahony. Yes, we have lived here since 1971, and still live in the house my husband built in 1979-80 with a major addition in 1985-87. Our two daughters are
SHADY HILL SCHOOL THE 2021-2022 ISSUE 42
Spencer Cowan ’63 July trip
Susan Mahoney ’64’s Vermont life
grown and flown, first far away and then back to Vermont, for now. Since the pandemic has receded, our local community orchestra and some singing groups are back! All of which I still love. Also, I take walks in our area with friends and serve on a town conservation committee. I love my three-season garden, and I get some help from a young strong-backed assistant. I have two new projects: pollinator gardens and protecting beavers. We have a local pollinator group with meetings and projects in town. Also, a group of neighbors is working with a beaver specialist to keep our local paved road from flooding and allow beavers to live in the wetland. Lots to learn in natural science in both these areas.
Stephanie Nolin Selden sends a photo submitted in Class Notes: Sarah Selden Bush ’86 took this pic on a December 25th winter woods walk over our family place in Petersham, MA. I am the smallest one amongst my Bush grandkids, all SHS alums, left to right Nicola, Lucas, Anna, Isabelle and Oscar. On the home front here, I continue to keep the woodlands and farmlands maintained, learning more and more about land conservation, forest management, and watershed protection. I am trying as hard as I can to influence those who might be persuaded that our democracy is in jeopardy and that we cannot work hard enough to protect it. The global climate is in peril and for us to have import in this crisis, influence on our own political system is critical. I see John Woolsey and his family here in Petersham. Suzanne Gabriel made a visit here in November. We caught up on friends and
SHS contacts which is an annual tradition.
Susanna Solomon writes from San Anselmo, CA: 20 years after my father died, my stepmother died and they cleared out the house in Cambridge to sell. My father had bought the house in 1945. After everything was cleared out, friends found this trunk hidden in the back of the attic. It was my father’s and hadn’t been opened in 75 years. He packed it during the war, it was filled with my grandmother’s memorabilia, things I had never seen before. Some items dated back to 1885; thousands of letters between my grandparents before they married, most difficult to read, cursive on onion skin paper. In going through the trunk (it took months) I managed to find some beautiful studio prints of members of my father’s family. I contacted some second cousins in southern CA who contacted more cousins and over months of Zoom calls
we identified most of the people in the photographs. And thus, we had a family reunion in Pittsburgh, where our mutual great-grandfather, Kaskel Solomon, founded a store and raised a family of three daughters and a son. The son was my grandfather. Out of the possible 13 second cousins, seven of us came together to meet in Pittsburgh. It was the trip of a lifetime. The other people in the photograph are descendants of the children of Kaskel Solomon: from left to right, Barbara Safier Shoag, Joseph Safier, Susan Safier Hershenson, Madeline Baum, Mark Bibro, myself, and my brother Mark Solomon. We also went to a synagogue he founded in Pittsburgh, the home my father grew up in, and a variety of other places. It was an emotional and moving experience. We are family, many of us together for the very first time. For all of us, it was the best thing ever. And I made another trip to France but that was nothing compared to Pittsburgh. Ennio Vivaldi reports: I finished my second (and last) term as president of the University of Chile and am currently the Ambassador of Chile to Italy. Hope to see you in Rome.
fabulous virtual 57th class reunion in early June. While we did not take advantage of on campus reunion events the Zoom capability allowed a greater number of our class to participate! And like last year, it was terrific to see so many of us even for the brief amount of time we had together. Those attending included Alice, Betsy, Brock, Conrad, Dan, Fred, Kin, Lisa, Nancy Drooker, Nan Schanbacher and Walter (in a separate meeting). And a special shout out to Michele who attended the on-campus reunion all the way from Cuba! Thanks to all who were able to participate and we missed everyone who was unable to attend!
FRED WANG FredWang65@gmail.com
A note from your class correspondent: We again had a
Alice Beal writes: She is enjoying retirement with her grandson Teddy around, and during COVID, supported her staff. The best two events in the past year: My son, Will, and his wife Priscilla had a baby girl, Evie, in December. My daughter, Kate, her husband Peter and son Teddy bought a house six subway stops (or a 3.5 mile Citi Bike ride) from us. And to start the year, I have a new granddaughter in Brooklyn. Teddy now has a sister Harriet. It’s great to have them so close. We talk (often video chat) with family a lot more, especially Will, Priscilla and Evie. My daughters and I do the crosswords via phone on Sundays. I’m looking forward to reconnecting with people again, especially Evie in LA.
Betsy Bracket writes from Minneapolis: She retired from family practice in 2016 and spends some of her time now gardening and quilting. She has been in Minneapolis since the 70s and 80s and wants to relocate to co-housing in the city. My husband Fred and I attended a national Co-housing convention in Madison, WI. the last week in August. It was great, however, four days later Fred came down with COVID and now seven days out I have it. Luckily mild symptoms. And we are on Paxlovid - hoping for the best.
Brock Cutting writes: He has been retired since 2016. He has been helping to work on replacing trees that had previously been removed from sidewalks due to the concrete. His daughter just turned 30 and is a resident at UCSD certified as a medical Spanish translator. Oddly the best thing that happened to me in the past year was that
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Susanna Solomon ’64’s family memorabilia
Sarah Selden Bush ’86 took this picture on a Dec. 25th winter woods walk over in Petersham, MA. Stephanie Selden ’64 is the smallest one amongst the Bush grandkids, all SHS alums, left to right: Nicola ’10, Lucas ’15, Anna ’17, Isabelle ’12 and Oscar ’18..
Susanna Solomon ’64’s family gathering in Pittsburgh
I was diagnosed with a medical condition (TTR Amyloidosis) which historically has been fatal for most patients within four to five years. Mine turns out to be the more benign type. The doctors caught it very early and the diagnosis explained a lot of symptoms I had been struggling with for years. While there is currently no drug that reverses the damage there is a “stabilizer” drug which I am now on and has actually produced dramatic and clear improvements. As my specialist said, “you will die with this condition but it won’t kill you!” I only wish that the same could have been true for Patrick Lydon and feel more than a little unworthy! I have learned just a lot more about native mushrooms and birds, bird calls, etc. during the pandemic. I am more comfortable with Zoom meetings although I still prefer in person. I’m looking forward to my son, Cody’s wedding to his fiancée, Liza, in September on the Palisades in NJ; and to consolidating households with my partner, Leslie, and downsizing to fewer, more sustainable houses, and also to traveling abroad more and reconnecting with old friends!
Conrad Wright writes from Paris, ME: He is dog parenting for Betsy ’04 when her fiancé is in Washington. Abby ’00 is at Fidelity with her daughter, Kit at SHS and she has Laura Ryan as Gradehead who also taught Abby and Betsy! Hopefully grandson Nat will go too! He semi-retired in 2017 and is working on Harvard graduate bios for classes of 1785 – 1787. He is also working on Culture in Boston 1790s – 1800s Art, Architecture, what does “culture” mean? How was Boston like or not like other cities? How was Boston’s culture affected by Unitarianism?
Dan Cohen writes from Davis, CA: Patrick Lydon’s brother Christopher said he is preparing a podcast about Patrick using some of their recorded long conversations. It should be available before January 27. I have worked in agriculture for 40 years, mainly on field crops. These include cereals like rice and barley, legumes like soybeans, cowpeas (black-eyed peas), and peanuts, “grains” from other plant families such as quinoa and buckwheat, and industrial crops like castor and cotton. But I specialized in oilseeds like safflower,
sunflower, canola, and other annual crops grown for oil. I also was involved with “new crops” which are usually another culture’s old crops, and cross-cultural agronomy or understanding other cultures’ farming or relationships with plants and animals. Occasionally, I worked with vegetable crops, and one of my varieties ended up in chef Alice Waters’ first book of greens (although it was purple!). The first farmers I did field experiments with were the Lundberg brothers who had recently started growing organic rice. There is always more to say but I recommend looking up The Real Organic Project (www. realorganicproject.org), based in Vermont. Many of the original organic farmers in northern California are part of it. Books that are related to my work, by people I knew or worked with include: Sweetness and Power by the late anthropologist Sid Mintz; Black Rice by Judith Carney; Tending the Wild by Kat Anderson; The Very Idea of Modern Science by the late Joseph Agassi, and Ebola: How a People’s Science Helped End an Epidemic by anthropologist Paul Richard.
Elizabeth Riggs: In July, I received an email from Elizabeth’s widower, Charles Cameron. He has just started an endowed scholarship fund “The Elizabeth Riggs ’72 Endowed Scholarship” in memory of Elizabeth at Earlham College, her alma mater. Please go to Earlham College’s Website (https://earlham. edu/) if you would like to donate to Elizabeth’s fund.
Kin Dubois writes: How has the pandemic changed something I used to do for the better? I have become better at saying “No”. Not a strong point in my past, whether with work, professional associations, or neighborhood or political involvement...and not that I automatically point to COVID when I turn something down. It can be refreshing when you realize that “no” can just be “no”! What am I looking forward to this coming year? Reconnecting with people, in person, around the country, abroad, and without masks when possible. We’ve been able to do some of this in the past few months but there is still a ways to go yet! We had a wonderful river cruise in France in May, on both the Seine and Rhone rivers, with six days in Paris before and a 185 mph train ride from
Paris to Lyon in between. We were tested no less than 11 times on this jaunt, however…10 days into a 16-day road trip in September, counter-clockwise around the UK (and Edinburgh), enjoying new sights while contending with the not-unexpected rain, Sandy and I both caught COVID on arrival in the Cotswolds. It would appear that our April boosters were waning just as new variants were taking over –the likely suspect is a crowded pub we visited for dinner after I had climbed a mountain in the Lake District. Our cases were “mild” as defined by the CDC but not something we’d like to repeat! We can and will get our new bivalent boosters in two weeks. As soon as we recovered, we took a planned trip back to visit our younger daughter, Megan and her family in Weston, CT, a trip that included a jaunt with one night in Newton, MA and another in Providence, RI. After a quiet Thanksgiving, I’ve been taking it easy while recovering from foot surgery (two toes) three weeks ago – making good progress and taking the opportunity to get a lot of reading done when I’m not watching the World Cup. Best to everyone for a fine start to 2023. Kristen Wainwright writes from Gloucester: Rick and I have temporarily moved slightly north to Gloucester. (We rented out our Cambridge house starting this month through to the end of August 2023.) This all came about because we both were free of civic et al. obligations and so decided we wanted to take a “Seeing with Fresh Eyes” look in 2023. This would/will include Costa Rica (learning Spanish & winter escape), New Zealand (where we have reconnected with Nancy Smith now a resident there – see picture) and Australia (Oy!) After a long and delightful coffee with Kathy Agoos ’66, I forgot to get a photograph! Happily, she is a once-a-month guide for the city so you can imagine we got the skinny in Melbourne and loved it.) Up in Sydney now, then to Cairns for scuba, and back in March, with the hope that we skipped
Boston’s winter! LA and Santa Barbara, Umbria in May…Visiting friends, family, scuba diving or snorkeling . . .
Lisa Rubinstein writes: The best thing (in the last few years) has been spending so much time together with Joel. He is retired, and I have worked from home, taking no new patients for five or six years, so with declining numbers. We really enjoy each other! And like Brock, I had a real health scare in October, with five days in the ICU with very low sodium. Luckily, it was caught in time, now OK, on fluid restriction, and am very grateful to get such good care. The best thing about COVID— have to agree with you, Fred, about doing Board work virtually. On the Board of Boston Health Care for the Homeless for the last decade, and though I miss being in person with other Board members, it has been merciful to be doing so many hours virtually. Each trip down to our building across from Boston Medical Center is a trek. We are doing a prolonged search for a new CEO and the meetings and interviews have been endless. I had breast cancer in the fall of 2022 and am now through successful treatment, thankfully. It was a reminder of so many of us who travel this road. It was also powerful to realize that my mother, who had it very young and died from it at 43 in 1956, had such poor treatment options available compared to what now exists for me in 2022. I am looking forward to (and hoping for) continued good health, and maybe a return to some travel? Praying for an increase in civility in our poor country.
Michele Frank writes from Havana, Cuba: Hello to all, I did go
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Kristen Wainwright ’65 and Nancy Smith ’65 in Te Awamatu, New Zealand
to the in-person “reunion” at SHS. I was the only one from our class but in general there was a very small turnout. It was interesting and good to meet some of the new staff people and hear about upcoming plans. There were a few people there who I knew, which was nice, and I had a lovely time! I thought I was retiring and winding down my work with patients and such. But it doesn’t seem to have lasted long. I see many fewer patients but have done some volunteering work on COVID, once I was fully vaccinated and boosted. Turns out the Cuban vaccines are GREAT! (Even if the US doesn’t want to acknowledge them.) The numbers here in Cuba are way down and minimal with life slowly getting back to “normal” (whatever that means!) I am doing more teaching and less direct clinical work, although some of my former patients have been “re-emerging” – now adults – with “troubles”. Having troubles and struggles seems to be the way of the world these days – totally understandable. I work closely with US medical students on scholarship here in Havana, through the NY-based IFCO/Pastors for Peace program. My daughter now lives in NYC and I try to go there and to Cambridge as much as possible (but not that much and definitely not enough!) I figure I won’t be really retiring any time soon but I AM most definitely trying to re-organize my life and “act my age”! I look forward to future get-togethers! With love, take care!
Nancy Drooker writes from Albion, CA: It was so enjoyable to connect with folks at the last reunion and see all your faces! I’ve been with my wonderful wife, Alix, for 37 years! Alix is happily retired and I, also happily, continue my work, part-time, as a psychoanalytic therapist and teacher. I teach at the Psychoanalytic Institute in San Francisco at which I trained. Like so many of us, the pandemic changed our lives, and we now make our home in rural Albion in Mendocino, living on a 10-acre property with our own Redwood forest and a walking path down to Salmon Creek (although, sadly, no salmon have been seen for many years). We hike to the creek on a
daily basis with our dog, Lobo, and cherish, with huge gratitude, being in nature. Zoom has made it possible to continue to practice and teach. Because of the lack of healthcare in this rural area, we are unable to permanently reside in Albion and still have a home in Oakland. I am feeling enormous, daily gratitude in the face of so much pain and suffering in the world.
Nan Hathaway writes: I have gotten back to one of my favorite pastimes, sewing. I had numerous linens that I pulled out of storage. None of my children wanted them so I started creating pillows with them.
Nan Schanbacher writes from Woods Hole on the Cape: Hi all! I just launched a new career as Director of Development for STEM Teachers. The best thing that has happened in the past year is the growth and beauty of the new flower garden I started last year following the complete excavation of our yard and my entire previous garden in December 2020 (sewer pipes). The rest of 2021 was unremittingly negative: Our son’s divorce, all three of us (our adult daughter lives with us) having ongoing health issues (non-COVID, although our daughter just had a mild case two weeks ago), and a massive flood following the last big winter storm, when the entire heating system’s pipes all burst, destroying the kitchen, which now has to be replaced. The other good thing was bringing an adorable Corgi puppy into the family last March. COVID changed very little in my life. I was already fairly reclusive and already working from home. I am looking forward to watching my grandson develop. He is a beautiful, gregarious, intelligent, and humorous four-year-old at
the moment. His language skills are exploding, making real conversations possible and delightful. He is obsessed with clocks, large bells (that chime the hours), and struggling to grasp the concept of time overall. He is very musical and artistic like his father. He is the light of our lives. Walter Weiss writes: I visited Chincoteague, a small resort town in Virginia with wild ponies on the island of Assateague. I was a doctor in the Navy and starting in 1985, worked at NIH in the field of immunology which was really blossoming at that time with the T-Cell receptor technology. I was there (NIH and Walter Reed) from the ages of 35 – 55 (20 years) and either had to become an administrator or retire. I am now very retired (as a Commander) and volunteer at a medical clinic once a week, it helps me to stay current with medical education. I have a 35-year old son and am enjoying white water kayaking in the Potomac in Washington. I loved being on the SHS soccer team where I learned teamwork, friendship, and had good times. I am now into Climate issues with a group hoping to develop grassroots actions to help, such as heat exchangers and encouraging their use.
Fred Wang writes from Boston: Daughter Andi ’03 began her first year of veterinary school at Tufts. She also just closed on a house near the school which borders a peaceful and relaxing lake in Grafton, MA with numerous birds and fish. Daughter Alli ’04 who got married last July gave birth to a baby boy, Liam, this past June making him grandchild number one! As for me, with the risk of COVID still around, I now value and appreciate my friendships playing soccer outdoors weekly so much more than before. Like Lisa, Zoom technology has made participating in my volunteer activities significantly more efficient (no long drives to meet in person, with drive times in the Boston area almost longer than the meeting itself!) and our meeting attendance has markedly improved! I don’t know what is going to happen once in-person meetings start again! I attended a Thanksgiving Day dinner with my extended
family members. On Friday morning, my soccer group had our traditional TDATD (The Day After Thanksgiving Day) game! At noon on Saturday, I received a text alerting me that Trevor (daughter Alli’s new husband) had tested positive for COVID. I was feeling fine until that evening and then started feeling really ill. I then tested myself and it came out negative. I was still feeling ill by Monday and took another test after conversations with my primary care doctor. It was then that I tested positive for COVID! Who knew my constant haranguing to my soccer group about masking up at indoor nonfamily events would affect me??? The good news is that the booster shots I had (in partnership with all those invisible but crafty T-cells) seem to be keeping me from feeling anything worse than a bad cold! I have fully recovered including finally eliminating the last vestiges of a lingering cough that hung on for weeks! I know some of you have already experienced this too. I hope that everyone has received their COVID vaccines and boosters, they do work! And while you are at it, get your Flu vaccine too! Finally, I want to thank everyone who was able to participate in our 57th reunion Zoom call and thank all of you who shared your stories here in our Class Notes with all of us. I wish you all a terrific 2023 and look forward to when we next “meet”! 1966
MARGARET BULLITT-JONAS
margaretbj@aol.com
We were saddened to hear of the death of Eric Wilcox. He is remembered by various classmates as “a sweet, gentle boy” and as “a friend, adventurer, and loyal companion to my growing up.” We send our condolences to his family. Kathy Agoos writes from Australia: 2022 was notable for a few reasons. We finally came out of our very long series of lockdowns in Victoria and the country opened its international borders for everyone. Not wanting to miss a moment, I took off to Boston in February for a two-week visit to my mum and siblings. I carried with me a beautiful wooden inlaid
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Nan Hathaway ’65’s hand sewn pillows
box containing some of Michael’s ashes that he’d asked to be buried near our house in NH. The box was made by my talented stepson, Anton Gerner, and was meant to have been taken there in 2020, but… LOCKDOWN. Leaving the box in our NH house to wait for a full family gathering in September, I returned home to Melbourne, where life was slowly returning to normal – with an asterisk. In September I flew again to the US, and, with my Australian children, stepchildren, grandchildren, and all of my US family, spent a wonderful extended weekend in NH, buried Michael’s box, and watched a moose swim across the lake in front of the house. I guess that’s not normal. But it was delightful and I treasured the gathering of the clan, a photo of which I include with these notes. The physical distance between the two halves of my loved family continues to be the most difficult aspect of my life. But I am very fortunate that travel is possible, and that we are all FaceTime and Zoom literate – even my 95-yearold mum!
Robin Alden writes: Ted and I continue to enjoy our life in Stonington, ME. 2023 marks five years since I retired from Maine
Center for Coastal Fisheries and Ted sold his last boat. This year we are foregoing big trips in favor of taking some additional writing workshops online. We are both writing, surprise, about fisheries history, ecology, and governance. We have good friends, lots of books and interests, and a beautiful place to live. We treasure our health. And our new heat pumps. What more could we ask besides many things for this country and the world?
Lark Batteau Bailey writes: The year has flown by! Here are the highlights. As ever, I am performing with my French cabaret all around town. May 1: Hosted another magical faerieland Fete de Blanche party with fantastical friends. May 20: Flew to Boston to celebrate brother Robin’s graduation from Harvard at age 73 and niece’s extravagant wedding in the Berkshires. June: Performing as Quan Yin, spreading love and enlightenment in the Santa Barbara Summer Solstice Parade. Have been reinstated as the Summer Solstice Children’s Festival Director… Oh yes! We will have fun! August: European Family (30 people: France, Holland, England, USA) Reunion in the Spanish Pyrenees. After which my sister Yani and I
tootled around Barcelona. September: Danced on stage with Chubby Checker (age 90) at local Club. October: Dressed as a Faerie Queen for Halloween. When you don’t have kids or grandkids, you can gather your best friends and play like one, in the best sense of the word. Charging ahead with my coming-of-age, literary memoir, Lark Ascending, set at Findhorn in Scotland. Publishing goal: February 2023.
Letty Belin writes: My son Miles and his family were here for Thanksgiving week and my daughter Miranda and her boyfriend Jayson were here for some of the time as well. It was chaotic, crowded and fun, and we all enjoyed our annual Thanksgiving gathering with family friends. I managed to get back to Massachusetts for a few days around Christmas with Marty and her husband Kurt, and Dick and his family. The Beals and Putnams revived their annual holiday cousin gathering in Boston (which had been shut down the past two years due to COVID), and while COVID took a partial toll, we enjoyed catching up with all manner of cousins…While I continue to work with California Trout (to get PG&E to take out two dams on the Eel River) and with the All Pueblo Council of Governors in New Mexico to establish a buffer zone around Chaco Canyon that would prohibit new oil and gas development, our Governor Newsom put me on the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board and I am trying hard to get up to speed. Our main focus is how to deal with climate change – sea level rise and all the many related problems in and surrounding the Bay and coastlines. It is both fascinating and really scary but at least our Board,
as well as all the cities and counties in our jurisdiction, are all very involved.
Kitty (Waring) Block writes: What’s new, or exciting in our lives? 50 years of marriage is pretty cool, added to the fact that we still actually like (mmmm, love) each other. Grandchild number 25 on the way (7th adopted) is awesome news. Finishing riding the Katy Trail (a rails-to-trail bike/ walking trail across MO) was a definite milestone this year. But mostly, we just enjoy life together, whether it’s church (where Frank still plays guitar on the worship team), visiting kids and grandkids, working out at the gym, walking in the woods together, or enjoying (many) quiet evenings at home. Frank is still tinkering with his beautiful 1950’s Willys Jeepster and I continue to have more creative projects than I can keep track of. Just finished building a barn wood dining room table and am thoroughly enjoying taking an art class online. So, our lives are full and happy, and we are grateful. Kitty Brazelton writes: I stopped teaching at Bennington on New Year’s Eve. I am Emeritus, but in my own mind, unretired. I wanted to be able to be a full-time composer and music maker before I got too old. Right now, I am dealing with the nuts and bolts of the financial transition but I hope to be making sound soon! Album plans. Opera plans. Still living in NYC as of this month, because internet marketer Rosie’s gone to Maryland for a while with her man Ghavin Vikash Deonarain, marine archaeologist. And still living, writing, and hosting on Cape Cod. The rest of the upland is going into conservation this year – exciting. My 10 acres of marsh are already conserved and in healthy resilience to greet the rising sea. Let me
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Kathy Agoos ’66 and her extended family
Lark Batteau Bailey ’66 on her 70th birthday, her ancient Tibetan heart still shining.
Lark Batteau Bailey ’66 as the Faerie Queen Lark Batteau Bailey ’66 & her sister Yani Starting from top right, Rachael Dowd (Miles’ wife), Letty’s son Miles with his older son Owen, Letty’s daughter Miranda, and Letty Belin ’66 with Miles’ and Rachael’s younger son Lyle, sitting on the stairs leading up to their Manc
know if you want to visit.
Margaret Bullitt-Jonas: I am STILL (skip ahead to Peter Galbraith’s entry to understand the reference) working for the two Episcopal dioceses in MA and for the United Church of Christ in Southern New England to build an effective faith-based response to the climate emergency. My favorite two pieces of published writing last year were an article on how the addiction/recovery model can inform climate action and an article for the journal Buddhist-Christian Studies on spiritual practice and sacred activism in a climate crisis. Both articles are posted on my website, RevivingCreation.org. Another highlight was organizing two multifaith prayer vigils in front of Bank of America to protest the bank’s funding of fossil fuels. I’m delighted to be part of ThirdAct. org, Bill McKibben’s online network for people over 60 organizing to tackle climate change and to protect democracy. On the home front, we celebrated the publication of my husband Robert Jonas’ book on the Holy Trinity as spiritual practice.
Two of my three siblings – Sarah Bullitt ’68 and John Bullitt ’61 – now live in MA, which makes it wonderfully easy to see each other.
Son Sam Jonas ’04 continues to teach Second Grade at Advent School in downtown Boston and, somehow, he makes time with his girlfriend, Riley Williams (a student at HBS) to do fun things, like take a cooking class.
Stephen Bundy writes from CA: Cynthia and I continue with our work in Berkeley, on a sometimes choppy glide path towards retirement. In my legal ethics work, I have been active in seeking to have some of Donald Trump’s attorneys disciplined for their roles in the January 6 attempted coup. In less familiar territory, I’ve also been doing some criminal postconviction work, getting a late-inlife education about the unfairness of the criminal justice system. On the family front, the biggest change is the passing of my mother Mary (Lothrop) Bundy ‘39. One of the best parts of her memorial was having time with Margaret (mom’s goddaughter) and, after too many years, John Sheldon ’66, who kindly brought his mother Sayre to the event, honoring a friendship that began when Mary and Sayre were young mothers on Berkeley Street in the 1950s.
Zanna Feitler (Susan Hull) writes: For most of last year I was taking a new course to become a Certified Consciousness Advisor. This is a program to introduce people to the 16 different “Consciousness Technologies” that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi revived and developed so that everyone, everywhere, will be able to enjoy a healthy, happy, and satisfying life. There is a wide range of methods to choose from, some requiring very little time, and some a long-term commitment. Transcendental Meditation is the primary Consciousness Technology; others include everything from Aromatherapy and Yoga Asanas, to Ayurvedic approaches to health. I have just completed the requirements to be Certified, and in a few weeks, I will be able to offer consultations to anyone who feels that they would like to improve some aspect of their life, according to their needs and interests. A few other related projects are keeping
me busy and excited for new opportunities to be of service, while still maintaining a relaxed and stress-free lifestyle.
Kevin Frank writes: We are 18 months into the adventure of no longer owning a house or office space. Caryn and I have been learning about adapting to living out of duffel bags and visiting our four 20-foot shipping containers to extract items for changes of seasons and taking advantage of our daughter and partner’s hospitality and using a small mobile home in FL for some of the winter months. We spent some nice weeks on the coast of ME this past summer. And our main event is being with those layers that got less attention when we were very busy taking care of property, managing short term rentals, doing sessions with people, holding workshops and so on. It’s a humbling journey and most probably one that is worthwhile. We do have a teaching situation planned for the spring in CO. And we look at homes for sale in central NH and contemplate possibly building something so we could live in a house that is soft on energy use and soft on maintenance. Grateful for health and for our network of colleagues and friends.
Peter Galbraith: On the occasion of his 85th birthday, my father wrote an op-ed in the Boston Globe on an invidious form of discrimination against the elderly: the STILL FACTOR. As in questions we get: STILL working? STILL exercising? STILL writing? And that final STILL question asked about you and not to you… So here goes: I write this from Switzerland, where I am still skiing. I am still traveling. Last year, I was in Moldova and Transnistria twice, Ukraine, Kurdish-controlled NE Syria (four times), and, more
agreeably, still lecturing for the Harvard Alumni Association with cruises on the Adriatic and Danube. And I just returned from Zagreb, where the Croatian Government invited me to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the implementation of the peace agreement I negotiated to end the war there. But most importantly, I am still going to Syria to reunite young Yazidi women enslaved by ISIS with the children taken from them after ISIS fell. (The Yazidi religious leaders refused to accept children born as a result of rape and the children were forcibly taken from the mothers and placed in a Kurdish-run orphanage). Two children reunited with one mother this year but a total of 26 children to 17 mothers since 2021.
Ralph Gifford writes: I wish I could upgrade my body as easily as I can upgrade my cell phone. Nothing seriously wrong with me but some things seem to take more effort than they used to. Still living in leafy Washington DC. I have stopped working as a training contractor after nine years. To keep busy I have volunteered as an ESOL teacher for refugees and other immigrants. Hats off to Frank Vincent’s patience all those years ago. No hard news except for the passing of my older daughter after years of progressive kidney disease. She had one transplant and was on a list to get another. Rest in peace. Otherwise, Linda and I eat, sleep, walk and read, with a few BBC television shows watched from time to time. I admire Peter’s ability to keep on traveling. Our heart goes out to Anna Stendahl Langenfeld as she grieves the death of her beloved husband, Eric, who passed away in September 2022. Harris Loeser describes himself as: Lucky and retired and in pretty
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Christmas in Stockholm with Peter Galbraith ’66 and four of the Yazidi mothers resettled there (the second child from the right has been renamed Peter)
Peter Galbraith ’66 in front of Odessa Opera House partially protected with sandbags
Margaret Bullitt ’66, John Bullitt ’71, and Sarah Bullitt ’64 enjoy Thanksgiving.
Margaret Bullitt ’66’s son Sam Jonas ’04 and his friend Riley enjoy a cooking class
good shape with Jane, my wife, still hanging together despite my growing idiosyncrasies. All three kids are doing well and are in good to visit places. I get to MA on my way to Martha’s Vineyard several times a year. Cambridge has been awhile. Fascinated to see myself and my peers turn into our parents. IMHO the world is mostly headed in the wrong direction in most things...but my life is pretty excellent. I ride a bike a lot and love San Francisco. Our long-time house has kept us spry with five flights of stairs; we’ll see how long we can keep that up before we get sent to senior prison.
David Riggs managed to compress an epic project into one sentence: We left VA, we arrived in CO, we still can’t believe we managed to move.
Victor Rodwin: I love Ralph’s first sentence! On traveling, I only crossed the Atlantic twice this past year. I can’t match Peter’s travels. But on this theme, my wife, Nadell Fishman, published a book of poetry entitled, Travelling, Travelling! I love JK Galbraith’s op-ed piece on the Still Factor. I’m still teaching comparative analysis of health systems at NYU online and still living in VT, and still writing articles and book reviews and still fortunate enough to enjoy living, helping students, skiing with my son and daughter, and collaborating with colleagues I enjoy in France, Switzerland, England, and China. And I still worry about the state of our nation, the war in Ukraine and its potentially catastrophic consequences, the global economy and the growing inequalities worldwide. Still… Thanks, Peter!
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Our Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role! Email alumni@shs.org
Francie Chalmers writes: 2022 was a busy year for us. We both finally fully retired, sold our home of 15 years in Bellingham, WA to downsize to a lakeside house 10 miles out of town. Keeping in shape learning to row a scull - on the water in summer and in the garage in winter. Turned 70 uneventfully
and happily on the Oregon coast. Traveled the coast several times to LA to be present as our two and a half year old grandson grows by leaps and bounds. So phenomenal to experience child development once again while watching our son and daughter-in-law parent. Marveling at the ever-changing absolute-way-to-parent rules. Our daughter lives in Wenatchee, WA, across the mountain pass, but we manage to see her often as well. COVID interfered with both Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays but we pulled off a family Christmas on 12/28 and it was lovely. Our only other travel was to Squam Lake in NH, in May to do annual maintenance and again in August to enjoy family time at my parents’ cabin.
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TESI KOHLENBERG tesik53@gmail.com
News has reached Shady Hill that Kip Hawley ’68 passed away in March 2022. Our sincere condolences to his family and classmates.
Peter Agoos says: He is briefly back at Shady Hill most Wednesday afternoons, picking up my grandson Myles, who’s having a wonderful time as a beginner in Caitlin Jackson and Pam Maryanski’s B-South classroom.
Andrew Bundy writes: In August, my mom’s 97 year life came to an
end. Shady Hill was a transformative place for young Mary Lothrop. She joined the class of 1939 as a fifth grader, a shy music-loving bookworm who discovered a world of inquiry and high hopes, fell in with a gang of girls who would become lifelong friends, and danced every dance and sang every song. She never looked back but in gladness. Feeling a lot of gratitude for the role of the school in her life. As for me, I am working more on democracy and less on revenue generation and it suits me. If you are looking for a way to feel better about the world and its worrisome drift away from opportunity and toward authoritarianism, I recommend finding a way to support the work of community organizers whose work you admire. In addition to its pursuit of worthy goals, it has a way of lifting one’s spirits, spreading hope, and fostering a shared sense of possibility!
Mark Finn writes: I continue in private practice, in love with my dog, and teaching at the prison. Kids are fine but we are impatient for grandchildren that still seem a little ways off. I hope to survive to the next reunion. He says that he saw Brooks McCandlish, who lives in NH doing forestry and raising sheep.
Roger Kay writes: The big news out our way is that older brother Josh ’66, whom many of you in ’68 know, is on a rapid downslope from Alzheimer’s. He was diagnosed about seven years ago and these things can go twice that long. He’s mostly sub-verbal now, but the old Josh still comes out from behind
the clouds from time to time. He’s invariably polite and kind, and you learn that that sort of behavior is more durable than some others. I’ve been out to Tacoma to visit several times and anticipate going a few more in the next months and, hopefully, years. Here on the East Coast, we’re all mostly fine, kids busy while we figure out downsizing and, with any luck, travel ahead.
Lisa Kirchner wrote: In April 2020, I produced and released on my label, Verdant World Records, my 6th Leon Kirchner album. My father’s appearances as composer, conductor and pianist were among the five albums of Kirchner works preceding this release, while the 6th album presents archival performances of concertos conducted by Kirchner with pianist Peter Serkin including the Beethoven 4th Piano Concerto at Harvard in 1984 and, joined by violinist Pina Carmirelli, the Berg double concerto Kammerkonzert at the Marlboro Music Festival. In 2022, I compiled, edited and published Leon Kirchner and His Verdant World. A liner note on a 1956 Sony album by my father became known as his credo: “An artist must create a personal cosmos, a verdant world in continuity with tradition further fulfilling man’s ‘awareness,’ his ‘degree of consciousness,’ and bringing new subtilization, vision and beauty to the elements of experience. It is in this way that Idea, powered by conviction and necessity, will create its own style and the singular, momentous structure capable of realizing its intent.” The book is an anthology of 69 writings by and about my father with contributions from his colleagues over a 60-year span of collaborations in the arts and sciences. 40 of them wrote new pieces on behalf of my father for inclusion in this book and 29 were
NEXT REUNION:
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Ekua Holmes ‘70 keynoted the Shady Hill Black History Assembly this past February, bringing her signature warmth, wisdom, humility and inspiration to the entire student body, all faculty and staff, and hundreds of parents. To view the recording, visit bit.ly/BlackHistoryAssembly. Ekua’s remarks begin at the 19:15 - minute mark.
Above: Desiree Ivey, TTC Director, introducing Ekua Holmes.
JUNE 7, 2024
Going forward, we will host Reunions in even-numbered years. All alumni are welcome, regardless of graduation year. We hope to see you there!
reprints from various publications over that same period. Both projects received excellent reviews and are available on Amazon and at VerdantWorldRecords.org and VerdantWorldProductions.com. Currently, I have in progress a 7th solo vocal album of my own as producer, singer and songwriter. The first six records are on Amazon, Spotify, and Apple, YouTube and other digital platforms as well as on Albany Records and Verdant World Records. Many songs are posted on my site currently in progress at lisakirchner.weebly.com. I hope you will pass by.
Tesi Kohlenberg is still in Watertown with husband Tom and younger daughter Amadi: I am semi-retired, retaining some small, enjoyable Zoom-based consulting jobs in child psychiatry, and shifting most of my energies to work with families whose children have the same rare and difficult genetic disorder that Amadi has. She has aged out of school, and now we’re trying to build an adult life for her. Although services for adults with disabilities in MA are much better than in most other states, it’s still very challenging. The day programs can be awfully dull and custodial and even those took a big staffing hit during COVID. And as for finding a life-long residential community — the Powers That Be realized that state schools were breeding grounds of abuse and neglect and passed laws to make the sequestering of the disabled impossible. What that turns out to mean in practice is that many of the creative and beautiful farm-based possibilities are no longer supported. On we go. Older daughter Hannah lives in Northampton with her partner and has her own interesting life. My immunocompromise means that our family still has to be very careful about COVID, and so for now we’re not socializing or hosting house concerts or political meetings, and I miss those a great deal. I miss people!! Tom finally went back to in-person teaching, masked and running a HEPA in his classroom, and his students have been good about masking in his class. Hoping our nation will skate back from the edge of fascism.
Kathy Logue writes: The news from me for 2022 is much the same, with the exception that we
lost my mother last June. She was just a few weeks shy of her 96th birthday and still very sharp and engaged, if physically frail. I have no doubt that I will be adjusting to her loss for years to come. Otherwise, I am still working four days a week as our town’s Treasurer/Collector and enjoying it -- although I think more about retiring than I used to! My daughter Megan is in the process of relocating to the Cambridge area, so there is a bigger chance of seeing me there in the near future. We lived a very careful life with regard to COVID avoidance while my mother was alive and are just now beginning to get more comfortable with venturing out further into the world -- I am one of the folks still wearing a mask a lot!
Jennifer Gordon Lovett sends: Almost three years ago, in the middle of the pandemic, my husband, Chip, and I moved our small herd of rescued equines (three horses, three mini donkeys, a mini mule and a Shetland pony) and two dogs from our home of 27 years in southern VT north to Starksboro. We love the privacy and beauty of our secluded farm and enjoy nearby skiing, sailing, and the more cosmopolitan experiences available in Burlington. While most of our time is spent on projects related to our farm and animals, last summer we enhanced the property and built a deck just in time for our son Dan’s August wedding. Chip, retired from Williams College, is teaching biochemical toxicology online to Chinese students. He also organizes The End of the World Marathon in Belize every year. The race is a fundraiser supporting high school (not free in BZ) and college scholarships for Belizean youth. I am on the board of Protect Our Wildlife VT, an advocacy group dedicated to ending wildlife trapping in VT. Our goal is to make VT more humane with the emphasis on co-existence and conservation of wildlife and habitat. I also enjoy working with the Starksboro conservation commission managing a large public property in town and creating relevant public programming. On the family front, our four sons and their growing families are spread across the country living in San Francisco, Austin, just outside NYC, and Williamstown MA. Luckily for us
these are all wonderful places to visit!
Brooks McCandlish writes: I do live in NH, I am a professional forester, and I do raise sheep with Janet, my partner of 50+ years. I will be turning 70 this year, like many of our class. I enjoyed my time at Shady Hill for the most part, 4th grade through 7th. I had a number of excellent teachers, as well as a couple of truly poisonous ones. (Just because they didn’t direct their scorn towards me, I am not willing to let them off the hook.) I do recognize many of the names on your list, although I might not recognize them in person today, at least not right away. I have gotten together with Mark a few times over the years and can report that he is still delightfully the same as he ever was. Be warned that I am not a very reliable correspondent but I’d be happy to converse with anyone who reaches out.
Rufus de Rham says: Still trying to retire despite enjoying working. I have given notice at the Senior Center I work at as Chore Services Coordinator. So as soon as they find a replacement I can reduce that commitment to volunteer status. This way, I hope to complete the renovation of two bathrooms in my own house, resume oil painting and writing, as well as being taken on long walks with Sophie, our new six month old puppy, as she works on training us! Kim is also talking seriously about retirement and we will be looking to downsize. Definitely staying in New England. Niel Wright says: I am still keeping fairly locked down as the current variant is crazy contagious. I’m pretty bored with being careful and missing things. Happily, my son and daughter spend about half their time at my place. I’m still mourning Kip.
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HENRY TAVES
hvtaves@mac.com
A few 69ers wrote to say they are coping with COVID, relaxing and/ or keeping busy, and enjoying new branches of their family trees. Kelly Erwin writes from Amherst, MA: I’m enjoying the pleasures that COVID allows - watching
the cats sleep, the trees grow, and the crumbs fall on my lap while eating take-out food in the car. I am learning secondhand about the entertainment world from my son, Lucas, who is working his way up at Creative Music Group in Los Angeles and about life in Encinitas, CA from daughter Jesse and grandson, Galileo, now six. My husband, Warren, works part time as a dentist at a community health center and I still take on occasional projects, most recently at the Center for Agriculture, Food and the Environment at UMass Amherst. Have been reading letters sent to me long ago and attempting to put my life in order. Ha!
Sarah Herrick Hungerford retired in December: I was surprised to awake one morning about six weeks in thinking ‘This has been fun; now it is time to get back to work.’ While the idea had started to fade by day’s end, it has led to much thought about how to best spend time in the weeks and years ahead. George and I are looking forward to summer travel to visit family and friends and, like so many others, are hoping all coronavirus restrictions will soon be lifted.
Anne Warner and partner Dan Paul escaped our winter weather, purchasing a condo in West Palm Beach, FL: We are enjoying looking out at the ocean in 70 degree weather in February! I continue my job as general counsel for Algorand, a next generation blockchain company - truly the best and most interesting job of my career. I joined a rowing club down here and get out on the water on a regular basis -- bliss for this old oars person. And she added a very nice sentiment: I still think that of the many schools I went to, including both Yale and Harvard Law School, SHS gave me the best education of all, encouraging curiosity, creativity, and academic excellence. I am very grateful to have attended the three years I was there with all of you.
Jill Vorenberg Alberts writes from New York City: Her main news is the arrival of a second grandson last August, William Rodney Alberts. His family, including Jill’s older grandson Henry, live in Lowell, MA.
Henry Taves: A second grandson is likewise my biggest news: In November, Benjamin joined his older brother Elliot’s family in
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California not far from Los Angeles. My wife Posy and I are going to visit them soon. Sadly, my 94-yearold cousin, Kellam de Forest, died of COVID a year ago in Santa Barbara. But the “circle of life” proved itself as Benjamin was born on Kellam’s birthday! Your new class secretary would love to hear more of y’all’s news! Write to me anytime at hvtaves@mac.com. 1970
Our Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role! Email alumni@shs.org
Nick Trefethen writes: My old friend Nat Foote was visiting recently and we decided to play a game at the piano. I would play a tune that I remembered from Shady Hill, back in the days of Miss Abbott and Mr. Langstaff in the 1960s, and Nat would try to identify it. Well, he scored pretty much 100% on twenty tunes or more and I’m sure there are a few dozen more inside us that I didn’t think of. The Arkansas Traveller, Dona Nobis Pacem, Coast of High Barbary, Jerusalem, Follow the Drinking Gourd, Lord of the Dance. 1971
EMMY HOWE
ehowe@wellesley.edu
Nick Jordan writes from St. Paul, MN: My family and I are healthy and well. Our daughter Jillian was joyously wed to her partner Nathan Barker in CT, in June. Our painting, baking, sewing child Clare is off to college, to study microbiology. I’m still engrossed in work, with many others, to evolve a new agriculture in response to climate change.
Tom Loeser writes: I had three new boxes in a show at a small and quirky exhibition space in Chinatown (New York City) called Superhouse. I’m also working on some new public seating in the downtown Madison Public Library. And enjoying first grandchild: Stella Luz born in December.
JT Bullit sends greetings. My
life continues to be full of spaces and places, in-person, online and in my heart, that are previously unexplored, as well as places and relationships that are familiar and well worn A new happiness is grandchild, Kayla Kaweesi GelnawHowe, who was born in April and brings joy and wonder. A rekindled happiness was the Anniversary of women’s sports at Yale –seeing hockey and soccer teammates and friends. I am still working with the SEED Project at Wellesley Centers for Women – retirement seems elusive.
Julie Agoos writes: In the continuing strangeness, suffering, and shock of the world, I think often of all of you, grateful for the reconnection of our last reunions and hoping you are finding new sources of hope. Our kids are well, 4 grandchildren (7 weeks to 6 years) in Santa Fe, family also in Philadelphia, Melbourne, New York, and Boston, which along with our family house in New Hampshire have all become real, reachable places this year. My mom just turned 95 and is living on Cambridge street! I’m still teaching and writing as Jeremy and I slowly think about retirement, falling ever more deeply in love with the Hudson River valley. sending much love and hoping we can gather in June!
1972
GEORGE PERKINS
georgehperkins@hotmail.com
Sally Onesti Blair writes: I have moved to Manhattan after losing my beloved husband, Bruce, to a stroke in summer 2020. Having retired from my job at the National Endowment for Democracy in 2019, I chose New York City, as my son, step-daughter, and brother, Stephen Onesti ’75 live here. So, having been away since graduate school at Columbia University in the 1980’s, I am learning to be a New Yorker once more. It’s a great city as long as you don’t get in anyone’s way. :) Sending warm wishes to all classmates!
Rich Read writes: Brenda Griswold and I got married in September on Martha’s Vineyard, three years after Ginger and Julia - my college friend, and Brenda’s
Seattle friend - got together and hatched the idea of introducing us. We had a small gathering, 30 people, and a ceremony on a bluff overlooking Vineyard Sound. It was in the Vineyard Gazette, so it must be true. After the wedding, we did an initial honeymoon in Vermont, where Brenda got to see the famed fall colors, a first for a California girl. Then we flew back to Seattle, where I’ve been enjoying the retired life, coordinating construction of an ADU [Accessory Dwelling Unit, -ed] in our basement while Brenda continues helping run a Montessori school.
Amy Vorenberg shares: I retired from teaching in June 2021. Since then, I and two co-authors have been writing a textbook that should be published by the fall of this year. The book is called, Utmost Resistance: The Law of Sexual Violence in the U.S. I have two beautiful, spunky granddaughters (9 months and 3) who live in New York City, so I make frequent trips there, and also to San Francisco to hang with my other son. I love the new pace of life, which leaves room for lots of travel adventures, time with loved ones, and
opportunities to try new things (like writing a children’s book, golfing, and generally practicing the leisure arts!).
And as for me, your class correspondent George Perkins: I retired in June, which has opened up limitless time for music making-a great pleasure. With Polly also now retired, we can travel! We had a nice trip to London in the fall and many trips around New England. Lots of visits to New York to see family and the opera and more foreign trips are in the works for these retirees. The golden years!
PAT SPENCE othneil625@netzero.net
Beth Brown writes: Still at BBN... Frederick is a Sophomore at Hobart still playing soccer -- Youmy is a Sophomore at Southern New Hampshire University and Henry is finishing his Senior year in Waltham and running track and applying to colleges. Brian has retired (against my wishes) and we have been married 27 years -- nothing to sneeze at..., my mom went to Valhalla in April and my Dad is living in Lexington and is learning to text.
Pat Spence says: Enjoying weekly archery practice and becoming more involved in climate change in Boston. Mom turned 93 in November and she is still moving and shaking. Learning how to work and take care of a body that really can’t do the high jump anymore... ha ha.
Jean Kluver writes: My parents are still kicking too, at 86 and 92. They escape the Boston winter to
SHADY HILL SCHOOL THE 2021-2022 ISSUE 50
1973
Brenda Griswold and Rich Read ’72 wedding in September
Henry ’19, Frederick ’16 and Youmy Beth Brown ’73 and husband Brian Madsen
stay with me in San Diego these days, though it has been pretty rainy here in California this year! I am pretty much retired, though I still do consulting and coach student teachers, which takes me to school to observe about once every other week, just about perfect for me. I became a grandma four years ago, the best thing to happen in quite some time! I still keep in touch with Vicky Cobb, and recently connected via Facebook with Amanda Dowd and Katie Pratt! Did anybody read the book Katie edited/curated of photographs of Julia Child’s years in France (France is a Feast)? It’s wonderful!
John Muggeridge writes: My wife and I bought a house on Cape Cod where I was able to reconnect with Sophia Webb for the first time since graduation!
Cameron Scott says: See somewhere in class notes for the selfie I took to go on my website cameronscottma.com which represents my current work as a consultant introducing “befriending our nervous system”. My joy in life is at current count, six kids and six grandkids. Still love living in downtown Concord, MA and claiming I got there before anyone else thought it was a good idea.
Ellen Campbell and I as original next-door neighbors, stay in touch. Attempting not to succumb to the symptoms of aging is a lot of work!
Eleanor Campbell writes: My husband, Darrell Swank, and I will celebrate nine years of marriage in April. We are both retired, but seem to keep very busy. I enjoy training my dogs, competing and volunteering for various clubs. I am now a delegate to the American Kennel Club (AKC) for one of my clubs, Morris Hills Dog Training Club. Meetings take me to Newark, NJ and Orlando, FL in December.
Robert Pierce Forbes says: I’ve taken off this year from teaching to talk about my book (an annotated edition of Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia) and to do some traveling for fun (just returned from a trip to Patagonia with Joanne). I’m launching into the narrative history that comes out of
1975
Our Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role! Email alumni@shs.org
Margaret Jackson writes: 2022 was a busy year, full of the regular work of making maple syrup and baking bread, as well as some travel. We are up to 23,000 trees tapped and countless loaves of bread baked, as this is my 12th year of baking. In September Peter and I took a cruise on the Danube with several other people including my brother Ned Jackson ’70. In October I drove myself and three of my adult children to Michigan to celebrate the wedding of Ned’s son Austin and I just returned from an impromptu RV trip to Nashville to return my son, whose Southwest flight got canceled. Unexpected and creative adventures inspire and delight me as ever.
the Notes edition, which has the working title of Self-Evident: How Thomas Jefferson Sabotaged the Central Truth of his Declaration of Independence--and Why He Did It.
Elizabeth Yntema writes: After leaving Cambridge for University of Virginia after graduating Winsor School, I attended Michigan Law School after a sabbatical year off traveling and working. Moved with my husband Mark Ferguson to the Chicago area in 1984. Now coming back to the Boston area in late Spring of 2023. 3 grown children and one delicious grandson later, I am excited to be a New Englander again. After a short stint in a law firm, I left to work for our (now indicted) IL Speaker of the House. Then on to crisis communications PR, being a stay at home mum, evolving back into part time work, as well as owning an art gallery for about 10 years. Still continuing a 25 plus year career in personal training and yoga. In 2015, I founded Dance Data Project advocating for gender equity in dance, focused on the world of classical ballet. Becoming a Founder in my mid/ late 50s shows not only that life is full of delightful surprises but if you trust, it will all make sense eventually.
Our Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role! Email alumni@shs.org
Daphne de Marneffe writes: I find myself thinking back more and more to my Shady Hill years, and feeling so appreciative of all the teachers, parents, and students who made up my world. My father Francis passed away in April, at 97, after a long full life. Peter ’72, Colette ’75 and I held a memorial in Cambridge in October, and delighted in having our far-flung families together, connecting with long-time friends, and experiencing the gorgeous fall colors. My stepfather, Tony Ferranti of Ferranti-Dege in Harvard Square also passed away this year, also at 97. Life for me in Mill Valley, CA goes well. I continue to enjoy my psychotherapy practice and writing, my husband Terry and I have taken up Tai Chi and skate skiing, my daughter Sophie has cajoled me into surfing, and she and her two brothers are all pursuing careers that engage them. A special highlight of the COVID years has been sporadic Zoom calls with other members of the class of ’74!
1976
TOM BATOR tebator@gmail.com
The hybrid world has taken full force for Tom and Pam Bator. We unexpectedly had the opportunity to buy a long admired place in Dublin, NH last fall and so we are now New Hampshire residents. I commute to my Boston office for Monday and Tuesday WIO as we call it. Work as a private trustee continues to be endlessly interesting and rewarding. 31 years at the same
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1974
Patty Spence ’73 with Janet Spence on Janet’s 93rd Birthday.
Cameron Scott ‘73
Jean Kluver ’73 and grandson Zuli
Elizabeth Yntema ’73, husband Mark and grandson Will
Margaret Jackson ’75
firm seems unimaginable to my younger co-workers (and to me)! Playing soccer, remembering how to play tennis after 17 years away, and following our three grandchildren are my attempts to stay young.
Kate Koeze writes: Jeff and I are still in Michigan with our two dogs. Our daughter, Ella, lives in New York and our son, Hugh, and his wife live in Virginia. My mother is still alive and lives in the old house in Maine so we keep a house out there as well and I spend my summers hanging out with the family which I can do since I have been working from home from before it was The New Thing. I manage a small software company and we have always been virtual. I am pretty much in semi-retirement but I spend most of my time on nonprofit boards and making quilts. I just finished two and a half years of being the chairperson on two different search committees which, in my experience, always ends up being difficult at some point. One of my new year’s resolutions is to spend more time quilting and happily Hugh and his wife, Megan, are expecting a baby in the spring so I am making both a quilted wall hanging for the nursery and a baby quilt. This is the first grandchild and first great-grandchild in our family so we are very excited.
Doug Sun writes: My brother and I buried Mom with my father at Mt. Auburn Cemetery, and we made the very, very painful decision to sell the house in Watertown, since it doesn’t appear that we’ll be living in the Boston area for the foreseeable future. Dane and I bought a house in Fredericksburg, VA, back in April. It’s a huge house on a bluff overlooking the Rappahannock River. Anyone passing through the area should let me know and come by for a visit. Fredericksburg is a great little town, with lots of nice shops and restaurants and plenty of Civil War battlefields. And, there’s nice fishing and kayaking off our dock. We also have the best German shepherd in the galaxy who loves to welcome visitors. I’m still with the State Department, now doing research and writing on diplomatic tradecraft at the Foreign Service Institute in the DC area. We came back from my last overseas assignment in The Bahamas in 2020 and have decided not to go back overseas. Twenty-one years
constantly on the move has taken its toll. In any case, I’m looking to retire from State in the next year or two to look for something else to do. I’m not quite ready to leave the workforce, but I find that the deepening political divisions in the US have slowly but surely morphed the federal government into a rather unpleasant workplace. It’s probably time for me to move on.
1977
Our Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role! Email alumni@shs.org
News has reached Shady Hill that David Hofmann ’77 passed away in December 2022. Our sincere condolences to his family and classmates.
Lisa Bynoe shares: Looking forward.
1978
DAVID SUMMERSBY dsummersby64@gmail.com
David Summersby writes: everyone in our class has or will be turning 59 or 60 this year and this June will mark our 45th reunion.
home and I am still spending a lot of time in Cambridge helping out my parents while continuing to work as a psychiatric social worker. Our kids both went to SHS and are fast growing up, daughter Emily began Suffolk Law school this year and our son Jack is finishing up at Middlebury College. Our golden retriever Cooper, adopted from Istanbul, Turkey, keeps us quite busy and insists that I take him for walks twice daily no matter what the weather is outside. Fortunately, the Middlesex Fells is less than a mile from our house so we can let him off leash for hikes on the trails there as much as possible. Best wishes to all and I hope we can celebrate our reunion some time soon.
Jane Cutter writes: I’ve survived the first year of widowhood. I’ve moved to a new place in Edmonds, WA and I took up a new hobby of social/ballroom dancing. I am rebuilding my life after the loss of my beloved Andy. Still working, still agitating for social justice. I won’t be 60 until September. My daughter is 31.
Nicole Troy reports: I finally got my Master’s at 60. Yikes. Life is good. MSW I have my license in Substance Abuse Counseling. Working on becoming a LCSW in May.
Deborah Bernat writes: It is both weird and sobering to be 60…. Here’s to excellent health and 40+ more years.
Andrew Daniels writes: I would love to join a reunion, and will cross fingers and toes that it happens and that I can make it!
Sarah Churchill shares: Nothing is better than hearing from you. I’m still in Brookline. Not 60 yet, but surprisingly ok about the arrival of the next decade. Married and our daughter is a sophomore at Brookline High
School. I’m in awe of how great education is great in all sorts of sizes and places. She’s in a school of 2,000 and loves it. I’m a reading specialist in the Needham Public Schools. I work with kids who aren’t reading as well as we’d like them to, Grades 3-5. Sometimes I partner with teachers and co- teach which I love..I love what I do and really appreciate that no matter how chaotic or confusing life is (politics, COVID etc), I know that what I do makes a difference and showing up matters. It’s a nice feeling. Can’t wait to see you all in June!
Claudia Williams shares: After 20+ years in the DC area working in health tech policy, we moved to Oakland, CA in 2017 where I was CEO of a health data collaborative. We loved Oakland, but decided to be nomadic for a few months when I left my job last June. My husband Dave and I put our stuff in storage and have spent the last few months driving across the US and Canada, spending summer at our family cottage in Vermont, retreating for a month in Esalen living in community and learning Gestalt awareness practice and most recently traveling in Southeast Asia with our two sons Adam and Zach. We’re returning to the states tomorrow and are ready to dispense
I have been touched by all the wonderful stories and adventures from my classmates who now live around the country and the world. It seems everyone is keeping the spirit of Shady Hill alive and well. In my news, not much new and I have not strayed far from Cambridge. My wife Sue and I are still living in Melrose in our starter
SHADY HILL SCHOOL THE 2021-2022 ISSUE 52
Jane Cutter ’78 with her daughter
Claudia Williams ’78 with husband and two sons
Elizabeth Steiner ’78 and family
with suitcases for a while. Even without the extra Shady Hill injection of curiosity and independence, our sons live at opposite ends of some spectrumZach is a product manager for Uber in Manhattan and Adam works in mental health crisis response in Seattle. Adam will either hike the PCT this summer or go to Thailand to become a monk. Here in Class Notes is a picture of the four of us in Raja Ampat. After a few months not working I am really missing it. So I am trying to figure out what comes next work wise. At 60 it’s still a fun, confusing and still somehow daunting process. Go figure. It’s wonderful to be part of this SHS community which still feels so meaningful to me after all these years.
Elizabeth Steiner writes from Oregon: So great to see all these updates. Hard to know where to start with mine. Like Ava Lisa, I went back to being single in 2020 and am infinitely happier (you know you should split up with your husband when your kids tell you to do it!) Didn’t expect to ever date again but happened to meet someone wonderful about 18 months ago so that’s an unexpected joy. All three of my kids (stepdaughter Christian age 43, daughter Mira 27, non-binary Emerson 24) are back in Portland, much to my joy. They’re all doing well and I see them frequently. No grandkids yet but sometime in the next several years perhaps. I’m definitely looking forward to that stage of life!
On the work front I’m just starting my fourth four year term in the Oregon Senate. Totally not what I expected to be doing but overall I’m very glad I ended up here. I’m now in my fifth year as Senate CoChair of Ways & Means (budget committee) so I spend my days thinking about very large numbers and exercising my “no” muscles (too many good ideas, not enough money).
In my free time I hike a bunch, still read voraciously (anyone besides me remember being devastated when they cut down those big willow trees to build the Beehive? I used to climb up in them and read during recess.), cook & bake, and do some photography. Overall, I’m very grateful to be much happier, if a tad creakier, at not-quite 60 than I was at not-quite 50. I’d love to come
to a reunion but if it’s this May (which is 45 years!) I will still be in the legislative session so it’s likely impossible unless it’s Memorial Day weekend which I suspect it wouldn’t be.
Ann Mackey writes: No recent big news here, but sympathies too all in the throes of caregiving, (aging parents). My mom passed away in January 2021, and nothing about that last year, or the aftermath, was easy. Would love to join a reunion, and will cross fingers and toes that it happens and that I can make it! Darroll Salesman writes: Great to hear everyone is well. Yes, we’re now old! Wondering when that happened. All the best to you all, all is well. Congrats Kofi and Nicole!! David Waldstein reports: I miss all my classmates, especially those we will never see again, but I’m hoping for another in-person reunion because seeing everyone at the last one at Rick Jarvis’s home was delightful. Anne McCabe, (former Cantabridgian) and I still reside in New Rochelle, NY. Our three kids are all in college and that’s a kick. My son and I went to Ecuador last summer and met his birth mother, the most memorable trip I’ve taken, to date. As for me, I went to the Bruins-Rangers game at Madison Square Garden with former Buckingham kid Josh Berlin and his son Will Berlin ’14, who raved about how much he loves Shady Hill, and that was nice to hear.
Jonathan Moller writes: My wife Viviana (from Colombia) and I are well. I’m still working as a photographer and activist, https://www.jonathanmoller.org/, currently working on a new book about people in different forms of transportation in different countries with the probable title: In the Company of Strangers: People in Transit. In about four months, together with three women I’ll begin work on a new project about indigenous Guatemalan women survivors of sexual violence, “In the Aftermath of Asylum Petitions: Struggles of Guatemalan Mayan Women in Guatemala, Chiapas, Mexico and the United States.”
Ava-Lisa Macon shares: Celebrated return to “single” status in 2021, partied in Jamaica, sold the family home, bought & rehabbed a condo (complete w/mid-life crisis full-size arcade alcove), moved
in and promptly landed a breast cancer diagnosis. Surgery and chemo 2021-2022 (note: “Bald” is not my best look - go figure!). 2022 - completed radiation, pronounced “cured” (yayyy!!), sought treatment for now-urgent hip replacement from no less than three doctors and learned “no dice” without significant weight-loss. Looked at a calendar and got the shock of my life: (WE TURN 60 THIS YEAR??!! How did this HAPPEN?!) — New plan. Sexy by Sixty! (Note: canes & walkers = serious cramp to dating game). Got serious, retained a weight loss doctor and got with the program. 2023 - 50 lbs down (at least 50 more to go) … and counting (@ Kofi: lookin’ good, kid. Solidarity!). So given the backstory, how I got caught up in the following escapade is anybody’s best guess: Got sold a bit of goods in Fiji. Local villagers offered me (for a “mere” US$70) the promise of an “easy walk” to a breathtaking hidden waterfall deep in the Fijian rainforest - No more than 20 minutes! Fiji-time!
You can’t drive, bike or fly to this thing. The only way there is by walking - or donkey. I’m intrigued. I hoist my handy walking caneand I bite. Fiji is SWELTERING in January. I’m sweating buckets the moment the rickety van lets me out at the local village. They give me a guide, a young male villager (who they announce repeatedly, apparently for my peace of mind - is both gay AND a medic) and we set off. AN HOUR LATER and at least 2 or 3 miles, up a MOUNTAIN, and across several roaring, painfully rocky streams, I learn we’re HALFWAY THERE! And no, we brought no donkeys. He peers at me with concern and suggests, timidly, that I might want to lose my signature long demure frock. My scandalized hesitation lasts all of … 2 seconds?? Modesty be damned; this was survival. My swim gear saw the first light of day since …. ever?? Next, he kindly offers a break (perhaps something to do with my swaying, melting and incoherent mumbling). I take it gratefully and weigh my options while my heart rate wraps up its mamba. Turn back? And hobble/ scramble the same distance with no prize?? Or forge ahead - composing the eulogy my kids will read once I become happily one with the rainforest & waterfall? I go forward. But I don’t compose anythingincluding coherent thought - until: oh. My. Gosh. That gorgeous grotto is EVERYthing! I greet that grotto like an Oasis in the Sahara and frolic in the falls like a … like a… well, like an exhausted, arthritic, overheated almost-60yr old ecstatic about completing a multi-mile hike, uphill, through forest & stream. Joy! Euphoria!!! Then. I had to hike back down. When I stumbled back to the village, man, woman and child set up a whooping, clapping & roar. They magically produce a chair, water, and someone fans me with a huge fan. THEN they tell me - half the tourists turn back and never make it to the falls! They sent me up there with a “medic” absolutely sure I’d never make it! Well, hot damn. They SHOULD have given me a refund! So gang, 2021-2022 were insane years - but here’s to grit, accomplishment, laughter, adventurously aging, and all the fabulous potential of 2023! Oakes Spalding reports: It was
53
Ava-Lisa ’78’s epic trek to a hidden waterfall in Fiji.
enjoyable reading those updates, and I regret that I haven’t kept up with most of you. As for me, I’m in a bit of a time warp. I didn’t get married until 45, and we didn’t have our first kids until I was 48. We have five kids now - Oliver, Lydia, Edmund, Crispin and Phoebe - ranging in age from 11 to 4, and we’re about to have our sixth - Clara - in a few weeks. And I’m a teacher, now, at least of a kind - we’re homeschooling our kids. Neither my wife nor I have 9-5 style office jobs so it’s doable. We even have a little classroom with desks. But there is no blackboard. So, unlike Mr. Evans, I can’t whip chalk at my younger boys when they goof around. In seriousness I try sometimes to remember what I particularly liked or what seemed to work for me with my SH teachers. Like Mr. Smith I make
remember, Elizabeth?
But my wife is the more crafty one - having them make relief maps or puppets, like Miss Sanville or Mr. McKiernon. A guitar arrived yesterday. A parent at our oncea-week homeschool coop offered to give lessons. I hadn’t touched one in 50+ years but I impressed and shocked my daughter by remembering how to tune it, and then playing the first few chords from Yellow Submarine. Do you remember, David W and Andrew? Actually, my role model for the wisdom and dignity of a teacher is still Mr. Merrill, though that’s a name that perhaps only Jonatha, Jane and Ann would know well (and apologies if I have forgotten any other Commonwealth alums). And now I am about as old as he was then. It is ridiculous and absurd.
I’d love to attend a reunion, schedule willing. We’re in Chicago, but that’s not an issue. Rivka Karplus writes: I’ve been living in Jerusalem since 1985. I mostly work as an infectious diseases physician, which means it took a bit of time to recover from non-stop consults during the height(s) of the pandemic. Clinic is on both “sides” of Jerusalem, although my Arabic is not as good as it should be. I also work as a volunteer advisor to a Catholic program for migrant/refugee kids (mainly Filipino, some Eritrean or Ethiopian). Otherwise: enjoying hiking (here and elsewhere), photography (which I took up during the pandemic lockdown to teach myself to find beauty within the limits), and whatever else I can find time for. Good to hear from you all. Reba Karplus (Rivka now in Hebrew: “riba” means “jam”). Jonatha Brooke writes: I am just recently 59. That January birthday always screwed things up. But I’m with you all in the “how did this happen” camp. Healthy, living in Minneapolis with my husband
birth. Lots of juicy nature/nurture threads; “TEMPUS” - an original commission with Jaclyn Backhaus, about an Antarctic explorer we’ve named Annie Lawson. She is lost in the ice in 1933, then (our conceit) revived 100 and some odd years later. Go!; And the last is a musical called “Quadroon” that Joe Sample and I were working on when he passed away. New Orleans, 1830’s. A free woman of color named Henriette DeLille whose only desire is to become a nun and serve God. Of course, the church won’t have it. (True story. She is up for canonization at the Vatican as we speak.)
In the spaces, I’m teaching songwriting workshops, mostly in Nashville, and touring as much as I can given the decimated post pandemic landscape. (I did 60 plus live streams over 2020 and 2021 to help keep us afloat. It’s great training to pretend there’s a huge audience when you are staring at that tiny green light on the laptop! It sure is sweet to see all your names and hear your stories here. Thanks, David, for prompting us to surface. Dinny Starr writes: hearing from
everyone has been just great! Thank you all for sharing your stories. In an effort to beat the submission deadline, here’s a very brief recap: Married almost 30 years, still live in Newton, have 4 grown kids (Oakes, how is it possible you have the energy for a 4 year old!), and I too am not yet 60! (2 1/2 months and counting). See class notes photo of my family after a very long day of hiking in Costa Brava Spain. Definitely up for a get together! Love to you all.
Kofi Makinwa writes: You’re not the only young ‘un. I’ll be turning 59 (goodness) in April. I’m in the Netherlands, so hooking up with all of you is going to be hard. But being a college professor I do come over a couple of times a year for conferences, so I’ll try and make it happen. It would be wonderful to see you all again. After two sedentary years during rolling lockdowns, my wife and I decided to press the reset button. We joined a fitness program, went vegan and I lost 5,1kg in three months! I feel a lot better, and as an added bonus, I got all my old clothes back.
Ann Richards reports: So great
Ray Bradbury available. Like Mr. Evans we have mental math quizzes: “How many of each animal did Moses take on the Ark?” Do you
Pat. Stepdaughter Lily (43) moved here in the midst of the pandemic and that’s been lovely. Stepson Alec (41) is in Austin, TX with wife Miranda and 6 year old Rosalind. Never thought I’d love being a grandma. But I do. Meanwhile, I am now juggling the development of three musicals. “Switched” w co-writer Geoffrey Nauffts, about two women switched at
SHADY HILL SCHOOL THE 2021-2022 ISSUE 54
Dinny Star ’78 with her family in Spain
Rivka Karplus ’78 hiking with her sister
Rivka Karplus ’78 on a bridge in France
Jonatha Brooke ’78 and her husband
Kofi Makinwa ’78 joined a fitness program, went vegan and lost 5,1kg in three months!
to hear from all of you about your adventures over the last decade or so. My life has followed the teaching path from daycare to 4th grade to now high school students. I realize how much I enjoy teaching young people in this world. My kids are grown, 25, 29, and 30. My daughters are in New York City pushing the glass ceiling which makes me proud.
I am very fortunate to have my son and his wife living down the street, so I have the joy of spending quality time with my 3-year-old granddaughter Maddox. It’s a true gift. I look forward to seeing you all. Stay well.
best wishes,
Alice Gleason writes: So glad everyone is doing so well! It’s such a warm-hearted, smart and funny group of people it’s just a joy to feel a part of it. I hope there is a chance to get together again soon.
Kirsten Erdosh writes: Oh, man! John, thank you for these photos. Been a long time since I’ve seen my dear friend Harvey’s face. Love that
first image of Jonatha and Dinny, too—it’s adorable. And, the one of Richard, Rory and Darroll is a bittersweet treasure.
Really love seeing everyone’s up-to-date pics, too, and hearing all these reports. As for me, my younger daughter is a freshman in fashion design at Parsons in New York City and my older one is graduating UCD this year with her degree in Entomology. (Follow her on Instagram for fascinating insect info: @gwentomologist). Sending love to all from my newly emptied “nest” in the SF Bay Area!
John McDermott writes: Hello old friends...after working at and now running the family business, I feel every day of almost 60! Great to hear from everyone and find out how the old gang is doing (sorry, I’ll stop saying “old”). It seems like yesterday that we had the 4th Grade Olympics (Darroll and I competed in the discus throw), the 7th Grade Play “Day of Absence” (Mornin’ Luke...Mornin’ Clem... Gonna be a hot day...Looks that way...) and I still have the program book from Madwoman of Chaillot somewhere in my office. Everybody looks amazing, and it’s great to hear about life after Shady Hill. At the risk of everyone nodding off, I wish everyone happiness and good health and leave you with a few photos of our days on Coolidge Hill… 1979
PORTER GIFFORD
porter@portergifford.com
Leading off, Natalie Fair writes: Biggest news is that my daughter Claire is getting married in December. She lives in LA and works for the Weitsman Foundation. My youngest is also in LA and works for CAA. My other two boys are in NYC in real-estate. John and I split time between the east and west coast.
From Toronto, MP Stevens: I am teaching English to speakers of other languages; it’s very nice to have international students back in Canada after the pandemic. Similarly, I am adjusting to a finally, really, empty nest after the whiplash of kids back home/back to school amid college shutdowns. That being said, we do go and visit our kids in beautiful, upstate Vermont
where they are both at Middlebury College. We are also lucky enough to be able to spend a fair amount of time in New Hampshire, skiing in winter and enjoying the lake in the summer, especially now that we can bring work with us. I’ve really enjoyed seeing all the photos and news that have come from our classmates via email!
In a reflective mood, Ben Morganthau muses: It’s funny how much Cambridge and Shady Hill have molded my values. We moved to Berkeley last year, the closest thing to Cambridge I could find out here, and Henry - now in 4th grade - started a new school called Prospect Sierra, the closest thing I could find to Shady Hill. He loves it, and so do BeckiLynn and I. The head of the middle school, and his wife (who teaches 1st grade) both came from Shady Hill. On the home front, we are almost back in our house after a 14 month renovation and would love to host/ see any of my Shady Hill family when you come through the area. From Alice Reich: I am catching my breath as the tridemic eases up a bit. Maybe I can now enjoy a bit of extra time with both kids in college. At least the house is clean so if anyone is passing through Philly, please stop by! Hugs to all. And Tony Mazlish: All mostly well in Mazlish land. Youngest, daughter, now at Northeastern, so back in Boston more frequently than I have been in years. Globe-hopping Townsend Zwart says: I am off to Shanghai for a six week work trip. I wish I knew more Mandarin. This is exciting and terrifying all at once. Hal Movius declares: All fine here on the cusp of… 60?! Son is a freshman at UVA, and daughter will head out to a yet-to-bedetermined college next fall. Saw Tom and Anne Snyder a couple of times last summer up in South Dartmouth, and Brad Feldman. Get to see Porter once a month, usually virtually. (He will apparently never succeed in teaching me how to be a better Bridge player, but we’ll both still have a good time.) It’s nice to be in touch with many of you from time to time on our ’79 email thread.
Jennifer White notes: We’re still in Washington, DC, I’m still at Allen & Overy running the U.S. pro bono group, still helping Afghans with pathways to safer
NEXT REUNION: JUNE 7, 2024
places to live, still swimming a lot and cooking a lot, still enjoying working from home much of the time, still forgetting to “unmute” myself on Zoom calls. Richard has a new job as the CFO of the American Bird Conservancy, and is still running, walking Charlie (our dog), cooking wonderful meals and still putting up with me ranting about the Taliban. Meg is in sixth grade, playing soccer and showing the determination, skill, and team leadership that I remember seeing in my sister when she played, and enjoying being a normal kid with her friends again. We got to the USVI in April, New England in July and the UK in August, but didn’t get to New Orleans in December (gee, thanks, Southwest!). We would love to see anyone who is in tow.
And last, but not least, Betsy Biemann chimes in: Hello all. Not too much to report from up here in Brunswick. Winter has finally come and I am looking out the window at the snow coming down. We have around 1.5 feet of it, and it is beautiful. My New Year’s resolution was “Renew” but I immediately got COVID-19 - happily a mild case, and I hope not a harbinger for how the rest of the year will unfold. I am still working with a great team at Coastal Enterprises, Sean and our kids Anna and Mac are still well, the world is still crazier than ever and I am still trying to do my part to make the economy work a little more equitably in Maine and in rural regions around the country. Please reach out if you are nearby. Hugs,
Betsy
1980
Our Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role!
55
John McDermott ’78 with Harvey Hood ’78
Rory Morton ’78, Richard Jarvis ’78, Darroll Salesman ’78
Jonatha Brooke ’78 and Dinny Starr ’78
Going forward, we will host Reunions in even-numbered years. All alumni are welcome, regardless of graduation year. We hope to see you there!
Cathay Hicks wrote: I’m still in New York City, still a Peds EM doc, and enjoying watching my daughter grow up alongside my husband, Jim, who you may have met at a past in person reunion. I can’t believe it was so long ago we were my daughter’s age (she’s a 6th grader now) as I remember it so clearly! Anyone who’s in the NYC area and wants to get together just LMK!
Sarah Ingersoll shared: I’m still in Washington, DC, raising my now twelve-year-old daughter. I’ve cofounded an organization to increase philanthropy and investment in forest-friendly enterprise in the Amazon to outcompete the deforestation economy.
now like to plan outward wilderness journeying. Advice welcome! Lydia’s life centers around music (DaPonte String Quartet), her children, who are now 13, 17, and 20, her partner Myles, and the woods and streams nearby.
profile: https://www.uwlax.edu/ profile/aloh/.
his work (photo on the next page). Kramer has mostly fond memories of his time at Shady Hill, especially the Greek curriculum in fourth grade. He remembers the May Day celebration around the flagpole and science teacher Tom Snyder singing Beatles songs with his band in the auditorium etc. By the way, look at what Tom Snyder did with Soup2Nuts!
SARAH WYMAN wymans@newpaltz.edu
Yvette Anderson wrote that she intended to move to North Carolina, but when her mother caught COVID, they decided to stay in Ohio and bought a house suitable for both of them. They have a great farmer’s market that sells fresh produce and meat from the surrounding farms. Yvette is planning a trip to Texas because she has never been and wants to sport a pair of cowgirl boots. She hopes this will be the first of many travels around the U.S. If anyone wants to take a trip to South Dakota, let her know.
Lisa Brown, is the Dean of Social Sciences at Austin College, TX. She ran in races in 11 different states in 2022. She is on her quest to complete a marathon in all 50 states. As an educator, she notices high levels of anxiety and depression in her students, as we emerge (we hope) from the pandemic. Lisa attended concerts by Black Violin, The Doobie Brothers, Elton John, Brandon Lake, and Adele. Visiting Harvard for an alumni event, Lisa played rugby again!
Lydia Forbes shared that she is enjoying the snow in Maine. The past year and a half have been full of profound personal changes for Lydia: loss of parents, of childhood home, a colleague. She has journeyed inward since and would
Sarah Hadley wrote from the hills of Los Angeles, CA that, despite COVID, this past year has been amazing. Her husband went on a 1/2 year sabbatical and they began 2022 by sailing in the Grenadines for a week. Then they boarded a plane for Rome and spent ten weeks in Europe. They traveled through Italy, France and Spain and she exhibited photos at the Milan Photo Fair in April. In the fall, Sarah had a solo exhibition at the Richard Levy Gallery in New Mexico. Then in November, she had a book signing for her book Lost Venice at Paris Photo, which was a dream come true. Sarah sees Margaret Harkins on a regular basis, and recently had dinner with Poonam Dayal.
Adrienne (Pettijohn) Loh reported that she is still serving as Interim Associate Dean for the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. Her daughter Madeline is 16 and starting the whole college visit thing and her husband Stanton retired last year. This summer they finally made it back to Paris and spent some restorative time in their old stomping grounds and visited the sea in southern Portugal. They are extremely grateful for vaccinations, the continued health of family and friends, and the good fortune that has stayed with them through these difficult few years. Adrienne wishes everyone health, peace, and something wonderful and unexpected in the new year. Web
Dominic Montagu still teaches as an emeritus professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at University of California, San Francisco. He runs an NGO he started to improve health program operations in low-income countries, but does much less travel than he used to, a healthy shift. Dominic and his wife are adjusting to older parents, and being older themselves - both things to avoid, if that were ever an option. Dominic’s father was buried in Mt Auburn Cemetery two years ago, which feels a bit “full circle,” coming back to the same Shady Hill corner of the world. Dominic’s parents moved near Huron Avenue a decade ago, so now each time he visits, he points out, “that’s where John (or Stefan, or Marc, or Nat) lived; there’s where Alex would have us all over for parties; this is where we’d get together on lazy summer days when you had to plan by phone and agree to meet at the playground in the Cambridge Commons and hope people actually showed up. The kids are grown - Silvana finishing college this spring, Dylan three years out and trying to decide whether he wants to be a software engineer or firefighter - social or financial drawbacks, pick your choice.” He shared his web profile: https:// profiles.ucsf.edu/dominic.montagu. Kramer Morganthau shared from the Silverlake neighborhood in Los Angeles that although he left SHS in fourth grade, he remembers us like it was yesterday. He has worked as a cinematographer on movies and television for the past 30 years. He is married and has seven-yearold boy/girl twins who travel around quite a bit with him for
Loring Robbins wrote that his family is still enjoying life in Maui, HI. His daughter just returned from a program at the Amsterdam Fashion Academy. After growing up on a small island, he loved being in a vibrant, European city. Next, he started a fashion design program at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. In November, Loring visited with his mom and brother in Maine for the first time since COVID. Great to see family and friends IRL!
Naomi Thompson works as an attorney in the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office, MA, Appellate Division.
Sarah Wyman updated us from Rosendale, NY that she enjoyed Raine Gifford’s floral watercolors and landscape collages at her art opening in Dobbs Ferry, NY. Rainegiffordstudio. Although Sarah still teaches innovative literary works that put white supremacy under erasure, much of her time goes to creating an edited book on education and action for social/environmental/economic sustainability – perhaps the same project. She is grateful for the 19 classmates who attended the Zoom reunion last June and looks forward to the next meeting.
1983
GREG ALLEN greg@ngaconsulting.com
Greg Allen shared from Denver, CO: I finally broke down and started taking tennis lessons this year. It was a good move. I really like playing tennis and shouldn’t have waited so long to try it out. Also, I transitioned from running my own company to working for The Denver Athletic Club as their IT Manager in September of 2022 and I’m happy that I made the move to join a much
SHADY HILL SCHOOL THE 2021-2022 ISSUE 56 Email alumni@shs.org
1981
Kramer Morganthau ’81 and family
larger organization. It is nice not be 100% in charge again. Eric Henderson and I got together at the start of November 2022 when Eric was attending meetings across the street from my work and we went on a behind the scenes tour of Empower Field, home of the Denver Broncos. It was great hanging out with Eric!
Sarah Hollington checked in from Shaker Heights, OH and said, I had the fortune to run into Pam Lloyd at a mutual friend’s wedding in Delaware. She looks fantastic and it was wonderful to reconnect. The only other classmate I have seen in recent years is my brother, Charlie. He is still living in Seattle with his wife and two kids. His daughter (13) is an incredible rock climber - earning a national title in her age group - and his son (10) is an avid fisherman, lacrosse and soccer player. Our Crissman family was all together, but for
one of my boys, in Maine in August. This included my parents and my younger brother, Will Crissman ’92, and his family. (Will lives in Wellesley, MA and is the head of Tenacre Country Day School). My husband and I are still in Cleveland. We have two boys in college and one in Denver. I “retired” from teaching 5th and 8th grade math this year as the boys have launched and I wanted to try something different. I haven’t figured out the next adventure, but more travel is part of the plan.
Seth Allen shared from Claremont, CA: After 31 years working in higher education, I took my first sabbatical this past Fall (2022) for nearly 3 months, returning to Chania, Crete for much of my time away. Life on a Greek island has a slower pace, especially off season, and I enjoyed touring olive oil production in the surrounding region, discovering a wood-fired bakery that makes scrumptious olive bread, buying food weekly from the local farmers markets, mastering pomegranate harvesting, and taking in the ever-changing Mediterranean views over a coffee or glass of wine. After a quick hop to London in mid-December on our way back to take in the holiday sights and sites, I spent the winter holidays at my home in Carlisle, PA. I enjoyed the brief snowstorm that blanketed the ground and the joys of wood fires most nights. As I write, I’m back in Claremont, CA, looking forward to 2023 and hopefully making it to our 40th reunion and hopefully seeing many of you!
Claudia Gonson checked in from Brooklyn, NY: I continue
to live in Brooklyn NY with my daughter Eve, who is now a 7th grader at Hunter High School in Manhattan. I earned a clinical social work degree, and I am beginning to build up a private practice, in my second career as a therapist. I also work as a counselor with Medicaid-receiving clients at an agency in Brooklyn and I continue to manage my band, The Magnetic Fields, although we have stopped touring as of 2021. The band will continue to tour around the USA and Europe in 2023. I travel to Cambridge frequently to see my family, and spend time with my oldest friend, Elizabeth Temin. Wishing everyone a safe and happy 2023!
Jill Forney updated us from Cambridge, MA: I continue to operate out of the same-as-it-everwas home base, but miraculously and a little strangely, I have finally graduated from SHS! After 11 years there as a student, and [I think] 21 consecutive years a parent, my youngest Beckett Gates ’22 graduated last spring. He remains at home, having started at Milton Academy this past fall as a day student, while the older four seem to be congregating in NYC. Colby Gates ’13 (is an 8th grade math teacher at Success Academy) and Fisher Gates ’13 (MA candidate at NYU in teaching) live together with another friend from SHS about 3 blocks from Jackson Gates ’10 (working for social impact investor educator Impact Frontiers) on the LES. Clio Gates ’13 is on the hunt for a job (possibly as a state or federal public defender paralegal?) in either NYC or DC. I continue practicing psychotherapy and West
African dance and drumming. I am thrilled to have launched with my co-founder Anne, Urban Pharm, a COVID incubated “food as medicine” business. We began selling our first product line, a series of shrubs, or drinking vinegars, in May 2022. Those interested can check out a fun write up in the Cambridge Day (https://www.cambridgeday. com/2022/09/05/urban-pharmsells-apple-vinegar-based-elixirstonics-inspired-by-the-backyardsof-cambridge/). Pam Lloyd helped manage the Urban Pharm farmers market table this past summer.
Suzanne Siner shared from Belmont, MA: Hello! I am still living in Belmont, MA with my family. Our youngest child graduated from Shady Hill this past June, and while I am no
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TOP PHOTOS: Seth Allen ’83’s travels in 2022. BOTTOM PHOTO: Seth Allen ’83 (left)
June 2022 SHS Graduation (Suzanne Siner ’83 with Daniel Mirel, Talia Mirel ’16, Ilana Mirel ’18, and Eitan Mirel ’22)
Pam Lloyd ’83 helped woman the Urban Pharm farmers market table this past summer
Sarina Tcherepinn ’83 and family
longer a SHS parent it has been wonderful to stay connected with SHS through community events and local classmates! I am working as a PreK-8 substitute teacher and I also co-teach a creative writing class for middle school students. We continue to spend our summers in the Adirondacks and remain very involved in the community there. This past December we spent the holidays in Copenhagen, where our oldest child was studying during her junior year fall. It was a magical time of year to be in Copenhagen! We loved the warm and welcoming spirit of the city, focus on sustainability, beautiful museums, amazing food, and pedestrian and bike-friendly life there. It was apparent why Denmark has been recognized as such a happy place to live! Hoping to see many classmates at our 40th reunion! Finally, Sarina Tcherepinn updated from Watertown, MA: Hello from Watertown, MA where I live with my husband and very fluffy cat, Chester! Our oldest son, Sascha Morris ’12, started his first year of medical school and our younger son, Ben Morris ’14, is getting a Master’s Degree in Biology at Cambridge University. We were very lucky to get to visit Ben in England in December! This is my 30th year teaching at Shady Hill. My kindergartners continue to inspire me with their creativity, curiosity, and compassion! I am grateful for all my years at Shady Hill! Wishing you all a happy and healthy 2023!
1984
JARED EIGERMAN
jeigerman@gmail.com
Court Brower noticed that breakdancing (finally) will be added
to the next Olympic games, and is looking for his old gear.
Jonathan Field wrote: I lost a front tooth, as a delayed result of chipping it while helping a stranger change a tire in 2001 in Allston. After many years on the West Coast, Ben Heskett is enjoying life in Daniel Island, SC, with his fiancée Katie Lofthouse and their two cats. He is seeking a master’s degree in environmental law and policy, which he plans to use in helping SC face climate disruption. Tom Szabó-Imrey reported from the Outer Richmond neighborhood of San Francisco, CA, that his family has adopted a puppy, Luca, after fostering several other dogs during the pandemic. Ollie, the incumbent, is teaching Luca how to behave with dignity.
1985
Our Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role! Email alumni@shs.org.
Thad Davis wrote that he had the pleasure of getting swept away by the inimitable China Forbes and
Pink Martini at Symphony Hall in November. For those that haven’t been, they put on a fantastic show!
1986
NELL BREYER Nellbreyer@gmail.com
Janet Buttenweiser updated us that: Year 2 at Seattle University School of Law is clipping along and in May 2023 I will reach the halfway mark of my part-time program. I am discovering parts of my brain that have either been latent since undergrad or have never been stimulated before. I am so grateful for the support of family, friends, and providers who make it possible to go to law school while raising two teenagers (Rue, age 14 and Evan, age 16). We moved from Seattle to the suburbs last year, and are enjoying life in our home at the shores of Lake Washington. Jared Williams updated: Hello everyone! It’s been ages, if ever, since I’ve written a personal update but so much has happened in the last few years that it’s high time! I hear wonderful things about SHS these days now that my brother Caleb Williams ’84 two daughters attend and it’s so beautiful to hear my nieces telling stories about the school whenever I visit them. After nearly 20 years of living in Boston as a graphic designer and illustrator while raising my now 18 year old son Silas, I have moved to the country! Beginning in 2014 I developed a deep passion for presenting and producing dance and performance art and began spending much of my off-time developing workshops,
performances and events in and around Boston. In 2016, another artist and myself founded the Lion’s Jaw Festival, an experimental dance festival first housed in Central Square at the now closed Green Street Studios, and later at MIT [Nell Breyer attended in 2018].
Lions’ Jaw ran for 5 years through 2020 and was not only a beautiful and radical endeavor but made clear to me personally that this was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. In February of 2021 a colleague of mine and I purchased a 10K square foot vacant country inn on 50 acres of land in Southern Vermont and began the process of turning it into an Arts Center focused on Contemporary Performance Dance and Multimedia. Now in its second year, the Field Center is a non-profit educational space committed to serving artists that centers the teaching, learning and development of performance and dance practices. Following in the steps of institutions such as Black Mountain College, we are an accessible, non-competitive space that allows for teachers to teach in non-academic settings and for adult-learners and working artists to spend 4 days to 2 weeks diving deeply in the work. Programming at the Field Center is year round and is generally divided between weekend-long events and longer workshops/intensives in which small groups live and work together for 7-14 days at a time, generally led by 1-2 teachers from a variety of disciplines. During the summer months we host a variety of festivals and cultural events. We are currently working to build a large theater and workshop space to serve
SHADY HILL SCHOOL THE 2021-2022 ISSUE 58
Tom Szabó-Imrey ’84 dogs Luca and Ollie
Left to right: Greeny Davis ’24, China Forbes ’85, Thad Davis ’85, Lulu Davis P ’15, P ’18, P ’24, and Eliza Davis ’18
China Forbes ’85 and Pink Martini at Symphony Hall in November 2022.
Eric Henderson ’83 and Seth Allen ’83 together at the start of November 2022 doing a behind the scenes tour of Empower Field, home of the Denver Broncos.
Ben Heskett ’84
the local Windham County and regional communities through hosting touring works, local artists and larger workshops to augment - if you know might be interested in supporting this specifically or the project generally I would be happy to dive more deeply into how and what we are doing here- I invite you all to join the magic! This January we published our first annual report which outlines our achievements and statistics from the last 18 months and our 2023 programming is available online at www.thefieldcenter. com
I always love to give tours and show folks around so please feel free to reach out if you’re ever in the area. In other news, my son Silas will be attending PACE University in Manhattan this fall to study Film and Video as a freshman and I couldn’t be more proud of him!
EMILY LLOYD SHAW elloydshaw@gmail.com
I, Emily Lloyd Shaw, continue to live in Great Barrington in Western MA. We have not had much of a ski season out here which makes winter a bit more dreary and ongoing, but I am making the best of it. My daughters are now 16 and 14- Sophomore and 8th grade- so life is full and fun (and tense at times LOL). Since the start of COVID I have continued to work virtually as a therapist and continue to love the work that I do. I was deeply saddened, as I know our whole class was, by the terribly sad news of Melanie Temin Mendez’s passing last February. I asked classmates to share some photos and memories of Melanie and have enclosed some of those photos here in Class Notes. Classmates shared memories and thoughts about her on our class Facebook page. She is deeply missed by so many dear friends from SHS and beyond, and our hearts are with her husband and son and other family members. As Abigail
Snyder noted: “Words can’t cover what we lost when we lost her.”
Andrew Summersby posted on our Facebook page: “This is such a heartbreaking loss I can’t get my head around it….a uniquely wise, insightful, thoughtful, generous and inspiring person - a lifelong friend, classmate (and many years ago a neighbor around the corner). I was lucky to know and stay connected with. My thoughts go to Adnai and Eli and everyone at SHS and beyond she touched over the years.”
I know you all think you have nothing to share- nothing interesting, but I know we all love to hear something from each otherso here are some updates or bits that I got this go around:
Maia Sloss Carson writes: My twins are heading to middle school next year and I’m already experiencing anxiety. I assiduously follow the advice of BB&N alum Michelle Icard whose books on tweens have saved many parents in similar places- highly recommend for anyone else with similar aged
kids. The whole Sloss clan had a 3 generation family reunion in Montana this past summer. Jared Colenback writes: The Colenback crew is doing great in Western Mass! All three boys are still home with us, which we love! Lila Nichols O’Mahony writes: I was saddened to hear about Melanie’s death and battle with cancer. She seemed to approach it with amazing gusto, grace and hope. Really incredible. I haven’t seen Melanie since grade school-But, I remember she always had the most interesting sandwiches, which may not have been that interesting, but compared to whatever was in my lunch box, they seemed amazing, Nothing much has changed out here--the rainy season is upon us in Seattle which after our now regular fire/smoke season, seems just fine. My eldest, Sophia (18) is applying to college for aerospace engineering (I could never get my head around physics, so this is amazing and foreign to me) and barring any shenanigans, should be
doing that next year; my youngest, Tadhg (15) is a freshman and loves playing soccer more than anything else. I am still working as a Peds EM doc, mostly just overnights as it allows me to do other stuff during the day, and overseeing our county EMS system as it relates to pediatrics. In my free time, I try to get out to trails and local mountain ridges to run. With age, I have let go of any time goals and now just aim to be “out there” as long as I can and as slow as is necessary. My spouse, Shane, still works as a Critical Care physician, but his free time is aimed mostly towards the water and kite surfing...sometimes we get an activity in together.
Lara Heimert wrote in to say she wasn’t ignoring my request for news, just that her life is “uneventful.” Although I think she has taken some amazing trips for pleasure and/or work and I know we all love seeing her beautiful photos of beautiful places and her son on Facebook! I learned that Erica Bouchard Rabins started Center Goods, a shop in Lexington, MA, and as Abigail Snyder noted, it’s as “beautiful, welcoming and practical as the woman who runs it. Go visit if you can!” https://centergoods.com/
Jessica Whitney writes: Not much to report, my private practice is thriving and life is good, my condolences to our class and Melanie’s family and friends. I wish all a very happy and healthy 2023. 1988
KRISTIN MERCER mercer.97@osu.edu
David Fiske writes from Nottingham, England: The boys are growing. Kaisen is 10 and looking forward to starting secondary school (i.e., Jr and Sr High school combined); Keri is 7 and looking for cuddles (long may that phase last). I’ve changed roles at work and am happy again there for the first time in a long time. My mom is in Alzheimers’ care, which is difficult, but gives my dad peace of mind.
With the recent cost of living increases, we’re looking forward to a holiday in Wales in February…and I’m only kinda joking about that.
Kristin Mercer writes from
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1987
Melanie Temin Mendez ’87’s Memorial service
Memorable photos with Melanie Temin Mendez ’87
Columbus, OH: 2022 was a tough year in our family as we all recovered from the joint effects of COVID and a car accident, and my husband added knee surgery to the mix. We haunted physical and vision therapy all year and have reached what is likely to be our new normal— not quite where we were before the accident/COVID but better than we were in the spring. We are looking forward to a family sabbatical in Tokyo for the 20232024 school year. Our child, Llama (11), is especially excited and we are taking Japanese class as a family. It will be an adventure!
1989
TK BALTIMORE tkbalt@gmail.com
Greetings from snowy, wet and cold Cambridge, MA! Shortly after I finish writing this, I will throw on a coat and some earmuffs and head up Coolidge Hill to collect my daughter, Tesla, from Afterschool. Tesla has the stalwart Ms. Leahy for 3rd grade and is enjoying studying whales and whaling this year. I am taking a sabbatical from work and using the opportunity to get to know Boston a bit better. Despite being from Cambridge originally, I feel like I’ve never really known the city of Boston, so it’s fun to tromp around (even in the cold) and remember where the Back Bay ends and Beacon Hill begins. Many thanks to my classmates for sending along news this year! Special mention goes to Jay Day and Sam Thompson for writing back the same day I sent my initial email asking for news. Jay Day has been living in Berlin, Germany for the last 10+ years, and is an artist and a teacher. He has an 11-year-old son, Cassady, who is becoming a Dungeons and Dragons maestro. Jay recently enjoyed a vacation to Sicily, which made him understand why, in order to describe Italy, the filmmaker Pasolini had to go to Africa. Sam Thompson writes that 2023 will mark his 20th year back in Cambridge. He has
been at Progress Partners for 16 years and is one of the founding partners of their venture fund, Progress Ventures. Sam’s wife of 22 years, Anne Bunn, launched a new business in June called Urban Pharm, focused on “good for you” foods. Their daughter Clare is in her Junior year at St. George’s in Middletown, RI and their son, Hayes, is in 7th grade at The Carroll School in Lincoln, MA. Sam adds that Henry Ogden is sometimes in town visiting family. Henry’s sister, Lydia Ogden ’90, lives in Lincoln, MA. Sam also mentions that Cara Weir ’90 has a wonderful business that helps with the cleanup of family estates; she did a fantastic job helping Sam’s mother after his father died in June, 2021. Emily Hart Reith is also not far from Shady Hill in Sudbury, MA, and writes that she would love to reconnect with anyone in the area. She and her husband have two kids in college (Dartmouth and Northwestern), so they spend a lot of time visiting even colder places than Massachusetts. But it’s worth it, Emily says, because it’s great to see the kids happy and having lots of adventures as they explore college life. They also have a 9th grader at Lincoln-Sudbury High School and have particularly enjoyed being parent-spectators at her team’s volleyball games. Hopefully, they can make it to the SHS Fair one of these years for a trip back in time. Emily remains grateful for the foundation and friendships that SHS gave us and thinks of everyone often!
Jeremy Dittmar writes from London, England that he has been married to his wife, Stephanie, for 8 years, and has been enjoying bicycling, taking mass transit, and digging up his garden, when he’s not busy teaching economics at the London School of Economics. Tiverton Smith McClintock is still living in Boston. Her oldest son (SHS class of 2019, and thrilled to forever share a reunion year with his mother) is desperately applying to colleges while her younger (class of ’21) is loving boarding school. On the verge of being an emptynester, Tiva has taken up a buffet of hobbies that might be useful if she were any good at them. She is thankful to Ms. Austen for having added knitting to her quiver in the SHS years. Tiva thinks she is probably disappointing our teacher
by not carting, dying, and spinning her own wool, but maybe that will come when both boys are actually gone?
Eli Hardy lives in Charlton, MA, which is about an hour outside of Boston. He works full-time as a Principal Software Engineer and Engineering Manager for the Avid Media Composer video editing product at Avid Technology. However, Eli has also been freelancing as an Avid Editor and Broadcast consultant for CBS on major sporting events like the Masters and the Super Bowl for the last 15 years, and has earned 3 EMMY awards doing this freelance work. He has been married for 22 years and has 4 kids. Teofila (18) is finishing up senior year at Woodstock Academy in CT and currently applying to RISD and Cal Arts to major in Animation. Aniela (15) is a sophomore in high school, working at the YMCA preparing meals for the needy. Lincoln (14) is in 8th grade, busy playing Fortnite and E-gaming tournaments. And Leo (11) is in 6th grade, plays percussion in the school band and loves Elvis. Eli and his family enjoy summers on the Cape and spending time in their cabin in Camden, ME. While Eli hasn’t seen any SHS classmates in a while, he does see retired SHS teacher Jane Hardy (his aunt) when vacationing in Maine. Miranda Pearce has been married to her husband Matt for about 17 years and has been living in Cambridge for about that long as well. Her kids are Oscar (12) and Leo (13). Oscar is into trick scootering and Leo is obsessed with basketball and just discovered 7-11. Miranda sees Amy Bracken in Cambridge and her family spent Christmas with Amy at Amy’s mom’s house.
Todd Rodgers happily reports doubling the volume of honey harvested from his hives in the Hudson Valley (22 pounds of floral golden goodness!). While not protecting the honey from local bears, he continues his work at Haven Tech in NYC where they continue to expand their SaaS software business in the insurance industry. He can’t quite believe that he’s already started looking at colleges for his older daughter (warning: it’s a lot more competitive than when we were all applying!) and high schools for the younger one.
SHADY HILL SCHOOL THE 2021-2022 ISSUE 60
Lila Nichols O’Mahony ’87 two children Sophia and Tadhg
Lila Nichols O’Mahony ’87 and husband
Lean Sweeney ’87 family photo
Jared Colenback ’87 family photo
Betsey Geller Keely says: We are enjoying the southern California lifestyle. Splitting time between Manhattan Beach and Costa Mesa for our boys’ high school years, as they commute from Manhattan Beach to Orange County for school and my husband works in the OC. I spend a lot of time watching our boys play indoor and beach volleyball and chair an organization that educates local Manhattan Beach high school students on various career paths. I enjoy cooking, yoga and taking our two labradoodles (Kona and Lucca) on lots of long walks. I don’t miss the Northeast winters and am always grateful for the warmth and sunshine we have most days here! If anyone is in SoCal please reach out! Would be fun to connect.
Justin Rogers reports that he is still living in Edina, MN with his wife DeAnn and daughter Kaia. They are busy with the various high school activities of their daughter like learning to drive, and Kaia is also in 4 separate bands and an allgirl troop of the Boy Scouts. They go skiing almost every weekend and are planning a trip to Norway this coming summer.
Marina Lang Kheel has two kids, Mia (12) and Max (8). She is an administrator at Campbell Hall School in Los Angeles. She still pals around with Rebecca Cutter as much as possible.
In 2022, Harry Kargman and his wife, Jill, celebrated 20 years of marriage. They live in New York, NY with their 3 teenage children, the oldest of which started her freshman year of college last fall. Harry celebrated his 25th college reunion in May. Harry remains the founder and CEO of Kargo; the company is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.
Elise Van Winkle, who is an expert in the field of sexual assault
NEXT REUNION: JUNE 7, 2024
Going forward, we will host Reunions in even-numbered years. All alumni are welcome, regardless of graduation year. We hope to see you there!
prevention, suicide prevention and workplace climate around diversity, within the military, was a SHS featured alum last year. Check out this incredible article about her on the SHS web site: https://www.shs. org/news-detail?pk=1497446&nc= 26119&fromId=298376. Lastly, while we don’t have any news direct from Rebecca Cutter this year, I wanted to take a quick opportunity to plug her Cape Codbased TV show, Hightown, which will premiere its 3rd season on STARZ in 2023. It is, I will admit, the only reason I subscribe to the STARZ streaming app. Thanks for reading, everyone, and thanks again to everyone that sent in news! It’s always so great to catch up with everyone and see what amazing and interesting things you’re all up to, and I think we had an almost record participation this year.
1990
KATHRYN BAILIS PHILLIPS kathryn.phillips75@gmail.com
Happy 2023 to all! Hope everyone is doing well and is healthy and happy. Life seems to be so busy, but it was so great to hear from some of you.
Max Sederer and Amelia Margolis Haddad shared that they both live in Watertown. They wrote: our kids, Aidan (4th grade) and Mia (pre-K) now attend the same school, bringing things full circle, as Max and I met and became friends at our pre-school and remained friends through SHS and beyond!
Jesse Sarzana and I ran into each other late last February in Long Island at a soccer tournament for our girls and will both be there again next month. It was a fun surprise to see each other! Jesse had great news. His son, Leo, will be attending the University of Rochester starting next fall; he’ll play football for the Yellowjackets. We all have memories of our most special teachers and one of those most special ones was Mr. [Jerry] Hakes. I just heard from him and is settled in living with his daughter and has had some health challenges, but is in a good place now. I wrote to him that we had just been remembering The Lords Behind You Moses. How many of us
still remember the words from that show? He wrote that he has been in touch with Amanda Van Vleck and would really love to hear from more of the class of 1990. Here is his email so you can reach out: jerrywhakes@gmail.com
As for me, Kathryn Bailis Phillips, we continue to live in NYC and I am in my 11th year teaching pre-K at the Brick Church School (this year I am lucky enough to have one of Alexandra Dowling Lari ’95’s children, James, in my class!). My daughter, Savannah, is a junior in high school and plays a lot of soccer as well as ice hockey and lacrosse and keeps herself busy at school. Please keep in touch whenever you can. Sending hugs to all.
1991-92
Your Class Correspondent position is open. Please consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role! Email alumni@ shs.org.
1992
Alexander Dunn shares: Still living in Newport, RI working for NOAA fisheries. Excited to be getting married in March 2023 to a wonderful woman I met in the Peace Corps.
Will Crissman writes: All is well with this wing of the Crissman family. We are still in Wellesley where I am the head of school at Tenacre. Two of our daughters are at school with me and our oldest is at Dana Hall. I’ve been able to see
Kabir now and then. What are the rest of you up to?
1993-95
Your Class Correspondent position is open. Please consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role! Email alumni@ shs.org.
1995
Julia Martin writes: I was glad to be able to visit and catch up with Biz Munder in Florida when I was there for a recent work trip. In the small world category, I recently bumped into Alden Simonds ’97 when we discovered our daughters were in the same dance class.
Zack Sarzana writes: I’d like to thank retired teacher Mrs. Levy and the 5th grade teachers who taught me everything about the ancient Egyptians. I finally made it to the pyramids and into Khafres tomb.
1997
Your Class Correspondent position is open. Please consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role! Email alumni@ shs.org.
Nick Deane shares: Nick(o) and wife Keia Cole are still living in Brooklyn with their daughter Emerson, who is now 20 months old. Nicko recently joined the data and analytics team for the New York City public health system (NYC Health and Hospitals) and
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Max Sederer ’90 and Amelia Margolis Haddad ’90
Zack Sarzana ’95 in Egypt and visiting the pyramids.
hopes everyone is staying safe, healthy, and happy.
1998
Our Class Correspondent position is open. Please consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role! Email alumni@ shs.org.
Thea Aldrich shares: Teaching 3rd grade in Arlington, Virginia.
Hilary Falb Kalisman shares: My book, “Teachers as State-Builders: Education and the Modern Middle East” was published by Princeton University Press in September 2022. I am living in Boulder, Colorado with my husband and two kids, who are obsessed with fishing and climbing, respectively.
Jesse Last writes: During an early morning blizzard on 12.22.22, Rosie and I welcomed our first child! Penelope Mae Sharp-Last (Penny) came home with us on Christmas Day, the best gift imaginable.
Talya Wyzanski says: I welcomed my second son, Theo, on August 22, 2022 and Charlie loves being a big brother! One of Theo’s favorite memories of my maternity leave was barre class with Jill Biden!
1999
Your Class Correspondent position is open. Please consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role! Email alumni@ shs.org.
2001
Your Class Correspondent position is open. Please consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role! Email alumni@ shs.org.
2003-05
Class Correspondent positions are open. Please consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role! Email alumni@ shs.org.
2006
ANJALI LAPPIN anjalilappin416@gmail.com
Anjali Lappin writes: I am currently working as a Metco School Social Worker/Adjustment Counselor in the Brookline public schools. I work in 3 of the elementary schools, so it definitely keeps me busy! I absolutely love this work, and can’t believe I haven’t been doing it my whole career. I am traveling again this summer to Italy to play in a chamber music festival and will also go to Switzerland and Scotland with a good friend of mine. I hope everyone at Shady Hill is doing well! I also love having the honor of being on the alumni board at SHS as the events coordinator.
2007-15
Class Correspondent positions are open. Please consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role! Email alumni@ shs.org.
2009
Cat Dickinson Gaillard and her husband welcomed their first child, Paul, into the world. He was born on St Patrick’s Day!
2015
Jai Tobin shares: I am currently living in Chicago as I finish my BA in Record Production & Publication and have spent the past year working as an intern at a small firm specializing in the acquisition of music copyrights and discographies, which has been a fascinating experience. In an attempt to bridge the gap between some of my rather eclectic passions,
I have co-founded and contribute to two creative collectives whose purposes are to provide support, leverage industry connections, and provide a platform for collaboration between artists.
When I look back on my time at Shady Hill, I am so grateful that I was lucky enough to be a part of such a supportive and forwardthinking institution. I have no doubt that the values practiced at SHS were instilled in me and have impacted my life and who I am as a person for the better.
To my classmates and all of the fantastic faculty I interacted with during my time at SHS, I have not and will never forget you.
SHADY HILL SCHOOL THE 2021-2022 ISSUE 62
Jai Tobin ’15
Hilary Falb Kalisman ’98’s book, “Teachers as State-Builders: Education and the Modern Middle East” was published by Princeton University Press in September 2022.
Rosie, Jesse Last ’98, and Penny celebrate their first Christmas together. Denver, CO, December 2022.
Jill Biden after her workout with Theo and Talya Wyzanski ’98
Last August, Shady Hill’s senior administrative team enjoyed a delicious lunch at Judy’s Bay, the restaurant owned by Lukas Dow ’04. Following the meal, Lukas (standing, in apron) provided a hands-on mochi-making lesson – a super “lifelong learning” experience for our Shady Hill team!
2016-19
Class Correspondent positions are open. Please consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role! Email alumni@ shs.org.
2019
Yaman Habip shares: Four Shady Hill alumni, now seniors in high school, were all elected captains of our respective high school teams this year after running for three years at Shady Hill. David Hermanson ’19’s team won the league after an incredible undefeated season. Thanks to Shady Hill XC and in particular Mr. Fitz, Mr. Williams, and Mr. Fischer for introducing us to this amazing sport!
Daniel Martin writes: I’ve just been accepted into BC’s highly selective engineering program and am very excited, plus relieved that I won’t have to worry about college applications for the rest of my senior year of high school at Commonwealth! Thank you for helping me become who I am today, SHS!
2020-21
Class Correspondent positions
are open. Please consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role! Email alumni@ shs.org. 2021
Sophia George shares: My name is Sophia George and I’m a Sophomore at Dana Hall School. I am currently applying for a semester abroad program where I would get to spend half of the school year in Washington DC, the center of our political universe.
Jade Jackson says: My name is Jade Jackson and I am currently a sophomore at ‘Iolani School in Honolulu, Hawai’i. Although I miss my SHS friends and teachers dearly, I am having an amazing time here at ‘Iolani! I am part of my school’s Halau Wahine which is the Hula program at ‘Iolani. If you know me, you know that I love to dance, so this was a perfect opportunity. I have also joined many of our school’s community service and language clubs, because I think that it is important to give back to our community. On the weekends, I spend hours at the beautiful beaches here with my friends. In addition, I have been using my leadership skills that I learned over the years at SHS to contribute to the development of my school’s diversity, equity, and inclusion goals. I am very grateful for the foundation SHS provided for me, because that has become
the basis of how I understand the academic, social, and emotional parts of learning. I am looking forward to staying connected with my Shady Hill community.
Liam Childs writes: I am giving a Ted x Youth talk on the 10th of Feb 2023.
Zoe Theodorou says: I am at church and I’m doing volleyball, musical theater, and lacrosse. I have performed in “Kiss Me Kate’’ and this year, I play Milky White in “Into the Woods.” I have done lots of community service and I speak up for myself way more than I even need to now! I am going to paint a mural on the school’s greenhouse in the spring, and help make it usable again. I also entered my artwork and poetry into the literary magazine, and into weekly art shares.
2022
Our Class Correspondent position is open. Please consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role! Email alumni@ shs.org.
Chandler Aldridge shares: I’m going to CRLS and I am excited to start French IV this semester. My history class is fun
center after finishing their race. All of them ran cross country for all three years of their time in middle school and they all served as captains on their respective high school teams (Yaman & Andrew - Milton Academy, David
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Yaman Habip ’19, David Hermanson ’19, Andrew Rodriguez ’19, and Ford Legg ’19 (left to right) at the ISL High School cross country championships at the Wrentham development
- Nobles and Greenough, Ford - BB&N).
Jo-An Evans (right) showed Betsy Ginsberg, Director of Development and Alumni Relations, the bench given In memory of her late husband Jonathan Evans, who taught at Shady Hill from 1973-1998.
Love Shady Hill? Support Shady Hill! More information at www.shs. org/give/ways-of-giving.
Photo submitted by Sophia George ’21
At Shady Hill School
Zhanu Bowden ’93 zhanu.bowden@gmail.com
Sterling Hoyte ’18 shoyte@college.harvard.edu
Jennat Jounaidi ’20 jjounaidi1234@gmail.com
