CLASS OF 1963 | 2018 | ISSUE 3
Walt Pilcher’s hometown, Greensboro, N.C., escaped most of Florence’s wrath. Walt is busy writing novels. He just sent his fourth, Everybody Shrugs, off to his publisher, Fantastic Books in the U.K. “I’ve been retired from the panty hose business since 2000. You know, L’Eggs was what I worked on for years.” He and his wife of 63 years, Carol, have three children: a son, 52; twin daughters, 50; and six grandchildren, five boys and one girl, ages 10 to 21. As I have often heard with classmates who are now grandfathers, he struggled recalling all their ages and turned to his wife for help. Of course, she nailed it. Carol is also retired from both childrearing and being a RN. She likes to paint and is an eager golfer. Walt golfs too, but now plays with a group of men all pretty much his age. It’s a “low key group—no betting, an agreed upon number of mulligans each nine, and no great concern for handicap lowering scores.” They both go to Global Awakening conferences and belong to Grace Church in High Point, N.C.
Steve Weil has moved from far east Oregon (Pendleton) to far west Oregon (Portland). He has two sons from a former marriage, 44 and 43, and one grandson, 4, whom he Skypes with daily. He and his wife of 27 years, Wendell, have a daughter, Keaton, who is in a gap year after college and is applying to med school where she is considering focusing on cancer research. Wendell is about to become a grandparent too as a daughter-in-law has just become pregnant.
Steve’s older brother, Marty Weil ’59, is the longest-serving employee of the Washington Post. He has worked on the night shift there for many, many years.
Bill Wood lives in Virginia Beach and has nice view of the Chesapeake Bay. He retired in 2004 from the Virginia Beach Department of Human Services, where his focus was on behavioral health. He and wife Nancy now travel extensively on month-long trips abroad. Married in 1964, they have two daughters, 52 and 49, and two granddaughters, 16 and 14. Nancy, now retired too, is an ordained Episcopal deacon and worked as a hospital chaplain. For the past five years, they have lived in a retirement center which has an excellent fitness facility. They use it a lot and it helps to keep them active. A popular summer sport there is lawn croquet “of the bumpy lawn variety,” but now Ping-Pong season is almost upon them.
Barre Seibert is “mostly retired” though he still does some financial consulting work. He and wife Julia live in Clyde Hill, Wash., where he is an active member of the town council. Julia was a high school teacher and now, like Barre, is “mostly retired.” She is quite active helping their local library, especially with fundraising. They have two daughters, 48 and 46, and seven grandchildren, ages 7 to 16. They enjoy traveling. Recent trips were to Hawaii and Mexico. Barre’s favorite hobby is gardening. Although he plants flowers, vegetables sounded like a greater interest. In fact, when I phoned, Julia called him in from the backyard where he was in full fall vegetable harvest mode, some of his crop headed straight to their table, others for storage, and some to go to neighbors and friends.
Linwood Small lives five months a year in Raymond, Maine, where he grew up and the other seven in Blythewood, S.C. Linwood has his PhD in psychology and taught psych for many years at Columbia College in South Carolina. After retiring from there in 1999, he taught psych part-time for 12 years at Cappella University. Linwood’s wife, Judith, a psychologist, too, is also retired after serving as a staff psychologist for the University of South Carolina. They were married in 1974. He is a stepfather to her three grown children, ages 62, 60, and 58, and step-grandfather to her four grandchildren.
Like Linwood, Barry Craig spends time in two different states. Though he says he “pretty much retired” he spends a third of his time up in Pascoag, R.I., working as trustee for an estate. He and wife Gina, whom he married in 1969, live in Mount Juliet, Tenn. He used to drive up to Rhode Island and did not mind the two-day trip. But now he finds it’s cheaper and more relaxing to fly. Gina is also retired, having at one time worked for Burger King. She was in charge of all its nonprofit activities, such as corporate donations. They are now much involved with their new puppy, teaching it what not to chew inside and what definitely to do outside.
Some sad news: John Corn died passed away over the summer. You can find his obituary at magazine.wesleyan.edu.
Byron S. Miller | tigr10@optonline.net
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