CLASS OF 1975 | 2026 | SPRING ISSUE
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Thanks for sharing high points of your experiences at our 50th, post-reunion connections made, and other recent news. Please continue to contribute to these notes and to enjoy or add to Reunion photos in our Google album.
Brett Sherman’s most special moment was arriving on Friday with Bart Kummer by train from NYC. “We made it to the dorm expecting to drop our bags, and there were our classmates already partying: Emely Karandy, Alyson Greenlaw Cleary, Bill Devereaux, Jim Daley, Dave Terry, and Mark Nickerson. Seeing them all together was a wonderful start. Also joining for the weekend were my freshman year roommate Kathy (Scholle) Hale, who I get to see regularly in Rhode Island, along with Bill Bass ’74, who had such a good time at the Class of ’74 Reunion, he came back. I’m so glad I had the opportunity to catch up with David Lipton, Susan Gans, Cutty Wilbur, Pat McQuillan, Perry Cacace, Steve Levin, Gary Steinel, Jack Hoover, and many others. An unexpected pleasure was spending time with classmates I had not known well before. At the time of the reunion, as I was about to retire with some trepidation, it was comforting to learn that most of our class had already retired and were flourishing.”
Speaking of New York, Dave Rosenblum lunched in NYC a few days after Reunion with Bob McNamara, whose family commitments prevented him from attending. Bob, who is retired and an avid sailor, lives in Westchester. In December, Dave had dinner in NYC at Bart Kummer’s apartment on the Upper West Side—less than 10 blocks from Dave and Sue’s pied-à-terre.
David Leisner’s newest album, DEDICATIONS, is a collection of 10 works that are premier recordings. David commissioned all but one from illustrious composers who are among his friends. Five of the pieces were commissioned and written during the pandemic. One was written originally for Segovia in 1957, but in 1979, David was the first to ever perform it. This is a digital-only release that you can find at the top of the Performer Recordings page on David’s website: http://davidleisner.com/recordings/. David calls DEDICATIONS “one of the most important albums I’ve ever made, so I truly hope that you might find time to listen to it!”
Jeff Morgan observed, “our 50th Reunion was way more fun than I thought it would be. I went with my old friend, Vicky (Rigsby) Keiser, and we hung out and had a great time with old and new friends. I hosted a tasting of wines from my Berkeley, California, urban winery, Covenant, for some 100 thirsty alums. (It was basically a giant therapy session for me with good drinks.) I continue to rediscover my musical self, playing gigs in New York, San Francisco, and Miami, which feels good after a 20-year hiatus. I’m blessed to have my youngest daughter, Zoe, working as Covenant’s GM. And both my daughters (along with three grandchildren under the age of two) now live nearby.
Bruce Weinraub, aka “Dr. B,” is also enjoying his musical side. He sent a video of him playing blues in his retirement location, Clarksville, Mississippi: Big A and the All-Stars at the Son House tribute Festival with Dr. B sitting in on keyboard. Bruce was mentioned in Oxford Magazine’s article about the film, Sinners, set in Clarksville:
“That the Sinners festival (in Clarksville) coincided with a previously planned tribute weekend to musician Son House . . . caused some concern for Bruce “Dr. B” Weinraub, a physician, piano player, and owner of the Blue Room, an event space on Third Street. Weinraub, who organized the Son House tribute weekend, had invited Joe Beard and John Mooney to headline the event, which also featured a screening of and panel discussion about the 2016 documentary Two Trains Runnin’. Weinraub said he hoped people who came out to experience the Sinners events would also take time to get to know Son House and his contribution to the Delta blues. ‘It’s all related,’ he said.”
In November, Martha (Faller) Brown welcomed her first grandchild, Luna Valkyrie Means. “From this grandmother’s perspective, she is already strong and quite vocal, so I know she’ll make her mark on the world. All other news kind of pales in the face of new life!” Martha has been a beta reader for Tim Brown’s(’72) current project, writing his Union Township Trilogy. His first volume, The Brangus Rebellion, “a climate fiction thriller,” came out in 2023 under his pen name R.R. Corvi (rrcorvi.com). It won a first-place book award from the Colorado Independent Publishers Association.
Speaking of grandchildren, Kathy Scholle Hale and her family recently welcomed a fifth grandchild named June Margo Hale. Paul Gionfriddo and Pam also became grandparents for the fifth time this winter when their daughter, Lizzie, gave birth to her first child, Ryan, who has many Wesleyan connections on both sides of the family. His paternal grandfather is Brian Katten ’79, Wesleyan’s longtime sports information director. In the fall, Paul and Mark Nickerson caught up at a Wesleyan-hosted NCAA Division III second-round soccer game. “We dodged a few raindrops as we cheered Wesleyan on, but unfortunately late first-half and early-second goals cost Wesleyan a close match.”
During Middletown’s cold-weather winter, Paul spends several mornings a week warming up with an indoor jog at the Wesleyan field house, which is open to older local residents in the morning. “We share the space with Wesleyan’s spring sports teams on several mornings. It’s mind-boggling how many students are engaged in sports these days (and how many are up and active so early in the morning—certainly not what I remember!).”
Richard Hume retired on December 31, 2025. He and Lesley and headed to New Zealand and Australia for a month—a welcome change of climate from snowbound Michigan. In Chicago, their son, Michael, and his wife, Ashley, delivered a fourth Hume grandchild, Deckard, last July. His older siblings are two, 11, and 13 years old. Richard and Lesley’s daughter, Rebecca, remains in Brooklyn working for Protect Democracy.
It was great to hear from Eric Appellof for perhaps the first time. (It’s never too late!) After earning his degree in chemistry, Eric worked for a year as a lab tech at Pfizer in Groton and learned that chemistry was “not my true calling. The next logical step was obviously law school, with a side of business school thrown in for variety.” After earning his JD/MBA from Syracuse University in 1980, he moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, spending half his career in a law firm and the second half working in-house at People’s Bank until retiring in June 2016. “Along the way I married twice (with a divorce in proper sequence) and had four children, one of whom is Wesleyan Class of 2006. Since retiring I have moved from Fairfield to Branford, just a couple of blocks from Long Island Sound.” Although Eric missed the Reunion, he got together with freshman roommates Rich Hume and Jeff McChristian along with everyone’s spouses in May. He’s seen Jeff again more recently, along with JD Moore, a high school classmate who is affiliated with the same law firm where Eric got his start in 1980.
Watch for Amy Bloom’s new book, Blunt Instrument,out June 2 from Mysterious Press. It’s set at a small, excellent liberal arts university in Connecticut. A difficult person is bludgeoned to death with a bronze bust of Nathaniel Hawthorne. A disgraced former English professor investigates. . .
Susan Gans sums up the reunion’s success thus, “Our 50th Reunion was a blast, and word is that our class set the record for 50th Reunion attendance, fundraising, and number of submissions and essays for the Class Book (which, sadly, was the last Class Book to be printed, as we were told that it will go all digital starting with the Class of 1976). Staying up late in the lounge talking with classmates felt as though we’d been transported in a time machine back to 1971.” Susan is enjoying retirement, spending a lot of time traveling (Italy last summer and Croatia in the fall), fostering and seeking good homes for dogs, and planning events for the 400-member tandem cycling group she founded five years ago.
Cathy Gorlin spends the winter in Naples, Florida, but her heart is back in Minnesota this year with the wonderful Minnesotans who are gathering to protest. She writes, “So many I know are afraid to leave their homes. My brother’s kid was maced, beat up, illegally detained, and then let go. On the brighter side, our son and daughter-in-law are expecting a baby girl in March.”
Doug DeNatale and Gail “were so delighted to connect with many beloved classmates at Reunion. Since then, we’ve been fortunate to finally find our forever retirement home in the town of Randolph, New Hampshire, in the White Mountains. It’s a unique town founded in the early 1800s, mostly by academics and clergymen who formed the earliest hiking community.” They are enjoying much snow and a lovely view of Mounts Madison and Adams. Doug won’t fully retire as director of the Arts and Cultural Management
Graduate Program at Boston University until the end of next year, and Gail’s not yet ready to leave her position as senior associate director for Strategic Development at the Center for Teaching and Learning at Northeastern University. Their two daughters are flourishing: Martha established a day-care center in Kingston, New Hampshire; while Becca, a pastry chef, is taking a parental break in Barre, Massachusetts, to care for the three grandchildren Logan (four), Remi (three), and Colten (one). Doug adds, “I recently had the great pleasure of joining Brad Kosiba and Dorothy for dinner at their beautiful home in Chapel Hill. We’re hoping that they and our other classmates will come visit us in Randolph!”
Sticking close to home, Rachel (Adler) Hayes and husband, John, visited their son in Miami for Thanksgiving and spent three weeks in January at their farm in Schoharie, New York. They continue to cook at scale with their synagogue—Friday night Shabbat dinners for 200 and supervising Christmas dinner prep for 600-plus people in need in neighboring communities. “My peeling and chopping skills are deepening,” she says.
Jeff McChristian reported from West Hartford, happy to say that his summer health adventure—a spinal infection and eight-day hospitalization, has pretty much resolved. “I am off heavy-duty pain meds and slowly getting back in shape with continued PT. I’ve done some gentle cross-country skiing twice in the past week, a benefit of the first real winter we’ve had in several years. Grateful to Commander Dennis Chin, MD, [who] was immensely helpful and generous with his time during my recovery. I’ve stayed in touch with several classmates since our 50th, including Dennis, JD Moore, Eric Appellof, Carole Evans Sands, Emely Karandy, and Rick Segal. Bruce Tyson also reported that he expects to have his house rebuilt this year after it burned to the ground in the Palisades Fire last year.” For 2026, Jeff and Pat resolved to make up for six months without travel. They returned to Guatemala in January for Pat’s sixth community mosaic project in the largely Mayan town of San Lucas Toliman. Next will be southern Spain in March, and then Greece in May, stopping in Istanbul on the way home, and finally, Nepal and Bhutan in October. In between, they’ll drive to South Carolina to visit their daughter and son-in-law, as well as Vermont and upstate New York to see friends and family.
My summer and fall were a medical challenge as well. Two months after Reunion, Bob and I celebrated with 80 friends and family the wedding of our son, Ethan, to his beloved, Amanda. A few weeks later, a scan revealed a mass deep in Bob’s brain that seemed to be causing severe vision problems he’d been experiencing for almost a year. We were immediately sucked into the alternate universe of a medical crisis and spent a month at UCSF Medical Center seeking a diagnosis. When it came, we were blessed to learn that the lymphoma they diagnosed is very rare, and the top specialist in it is based at UCSF and leads a clinical trial that Bob could join. After three additional months of intensive chemo, Bob is in remission, receiving continuing outpatient treatment, and feeling pretty good. We are both enormously grateful.
Meanwhile, Brian Steinbach is relieved to be done with four weeks of five-day-a-week radiation treatment for a very low-grade prostate cancer, which he reports has a 95%–plus success rate at 10 years.
Ellen (Kabcenell) Wayne had a big family get-together this winter. Their son, Michael ’05, his wife, Lucy, and children, Akiva and baby Lillian, came from Rotterdam and stayed with Ellen and Charlie ’73. Their other sons, Daniel, with his wife, June, and Joey Wayne, with his wife, Hannah, and three young daughters also attended. They were joined by Ellen’s brother, Brian Kabcenell ’78, his wife, Joanne, and sister, Amy (the one non-Wesleyan Kabcenell).
Having traveled farthest to attend Reunion, Karin Johnson rated it “AMAZING. I never imagined that I would be able to re-connect with so many people and even forge new connections. It has been wonderful to see that some of the very important things in life can be sustained this long. I was strongly reminded of why I wanted to go to Wesleyan in the first place. These are harrowing times, but what a gift it is to know that there is bread for the journey.” Karin, Janet Brodie, Risa Korn, and Jane Hutchins continue regular Zoom visits to stay connected. Karin has also recently heard from Karen Kawaguchi and Lydia Evans. She adds, “Here at home, my family is well, and my grandchild is a chatty two-year-old, so life is delightful. Japan is becoming a trendy destination, it seems; feel free to reach out if you are in the neighborhood!”
Finally, no one worked harder and was more determined to be at our 50th Reunion than Charlie Stolper. As Karin Johnson remarked, “His presence was so strongly felt,” and he was buoyed by the love and support he received from us in Middletown last May. Charlie, surrounded by his family, succumbed to Parkinson’s disease and myotonic dystrophy (diagnoses he received shortly before our 40th Reunion) on September 24, 2025. He was generous in death, choosing to donate his brain, spine, and vital organs to the Stanford University Biobank to advance the study of myotonic dystrophy by researchers around the world. He donated the rest of his body to the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State University.
Brian Steinbach was kind enough to write the following memories of Charlie:
“Charlie was the first classmate I met when we both ended up in the same suite at Lawn Avenue (as it was then called). Notably, all five of us from that suite attended the 50th Reunion—Charlie, me, Jeff Cox, Phil Swoboda, and Dave Rosenblum. Charlie and I ended up being suite, or roommates, for four years—another year at Lawn Avenue and then two years at Delta Tau. We had many adventures in those years, including a cross-country trip after freshman year that featured a stop at Dave’s in Portland; a 10-week European trip the next summer (memorably, we almost missed our flight because we went to a JFK Airport outside viewing area to have a last joint before the trip and returned to the gate to discover almost everyone had boarded a bus to the plane; fortunately gate personnel knew we were missing and drove us out to the plane). We drove to concerts as far afield as Waterbury (the Dead, along with Cindy Ulman and Martha (Faller) Brown, as well as Santana), NYC (Hot Tuna), and Providence (George Harrison and Ravi Shankar); and other road trips. We did lots of listening to loud music, and he brought me into DJing at WESU. We celebrated Charlie’s 21st birthday in the long tunnel under Foss Hill (with help from Cindy and Brad Kosiba). I spent one Thanksgiving with him and his mother and sister (and David Leisner) at a ski resort in Vermont. Somehow, during those years he managed to excel at CSS. After graduation, we stayed in touch, visiting in Charlottesville (when I was at UVA law), NYC (where he first worked), Boston (when he was at HBS, again excelling, and I was in Providence), NYC again (where he achieved his dream of being an investment banker by working for Kidder, and met his future wife, Christy), Princeton (where they lived for a while), Concord, Massachusetts, Chicago, and D.C. One D.C. visit involved his younger brother, who had just turned 21, drinking us both under the table. There was a ski trip to New Mexico where we stayed with Christy’s aunt and uncle at Los Alamos and inadvertently dissed them by traveling to ski at Taos each day. Fortunately, they didn’t hold it against him when he married Christy. I attended his wedding and he my first wedding, and I was his son Chad’s godfather. We exchanged visits to Evanston and Concord for our respective 40th birthday parties. He talked me into preparing the music CDs for our 35th Reunion. We did not see each as much after that, other than at Wes reunions, but we stayed in touch, and I was very glad to have a chance to talk to him at Reunion and to join the well-deserved standing ovation he received on arrival for our class picture. Charlie leaves behind the wonderful Christy, his daughter, Tory, and son-in-law, Jackson, his son, Chad, and daughter-in-law, Lydia, and his grandson, Tucker.”
As Dave Rosenblum said, “Even as he was physically debilitated by illness, Charlie remained engaged, including in fundraising for Wesleyan. He offered us all a lesson in courage and grace through his determination to attend our 50th.” Charlie departed with Wesleyan in his ears, as Tory invited close friends to send voice messages of love and support that she played for him in his last hours. He was deeply loyal to Wesleyan, so if you feel inspired, make a gift in his memory to Wesleyan’s Financial Aid and Access Fund. His family will host a memorial celebration to honor Charlie in Manhattan on May 23, 2026. Contact me if you would like more information.
CYNTHIA M. ULMAN | cmu.home@cmugroup.com
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