Tag: 1963

Error Message: Last issue, when I outed the Hon. Leonard Edwards as one who sneaks in at night and works secretly on a jigsaw puzzle, thus violating his marital vow (“We shall work on this together, not in secret, alone, whilst the other is asleep!”), I called Mrs. Edwards “Marcia,” when in fact she is the E.M.H. (Ever More Honorable) Margaret (or Margie) Edwards. My bad—or mea maxima culpa. Now that’s out of the way…

Not having any family members still living in the East, January of last year, Virginia and Steve Humphrey moved west to Napa, Calif., to be closer to their children. Their daughter and two children live there and their son, also with two children, lives in Denver. Their grandchildren are between 10–13 years old. Steve still plays a lot of golf but now plays more of the golf course than when was younger. Only one of his grandchildren, a 10-year-old, shows any interest in the game. He retired at the end of ’13 but still does some consulting with some of his former clients. When I talked to him he was relaxing in the sun down in Cabo San Lucas, having been there for several weeks. Along with golf he finds that Western wines, especially Cabernets, enhance his retirement. He and all the rest of his family are enjoying good health and most of the year, the weather in Napa is wonderful.

Richard Currie, retired in ’03, still enjoys volunteering as a driver for Meal on Wheels and coordinates the food bank for the area around Belle Vernon, Pa., where he and his wife of 49-plus years live. Both he and Sue have always been active in their church and both were certified lay preachers. But several years ago, Sue felt called to become a Presbyterian minister and after three years in seminary has become one and now heads a congregation of 150 people, so Richard now calls himself a househusband/chief-cook-and-bottle-washer. He has become quite good at both, especially the former, as he uses the Internet to get all sorts of recipes. He does not need the Internet for the latter. Due to the needs of her congregation, their ability to travel is much curtailed but Richard has long been interested in singing, which he does a lot—both in choirs and with the Westmoreland Choral Society. They have two children: a daughter, 45, who is a professional stage manager in D.C., and a son who recently moved out to Burbank, Calif., where he’s quite excited doing his work in computer animation. He and Sue are working on how to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, which is coming up soon.

Lee Hunt, who spent only his freshman year with us, is semi-retired but still does some consulting work with a number of construction companies. He recalled several friends at WesU, Jim Dooney, and two others who are now deceased, and while he’d expected to return, never did. He and his wife, Evelyn, married for 25 years, live near Richmond, Va. Lee learned woodworking from his dad and does a lot of restoration work—furniture, grandfather clocks, but mostly antique motor boats. His most recent restoration was of a ’55 Chris Craft Capri runabout, one of only 43 ever made. With a fellow restorer, he has just started working on another wooden boat, a 20′ Ancarrow “with a monster Chrysler engine” which was capable of going 90 mph when first built. The Ancarrows were well known for their great speed but he doubts that they will even try to get it up to that speed when they’re finished. He and Evelyn are planning to take a Viking cruse this coming September to Sardinia and the Mediterranean.

Also retired, Dick Ort and his wife, Mary Catherine, are living in Williamsburg, Va. They’ve been married either 36 or 37 years. (Depends on who I talked to and I talked to each separately. I suspect this paragraph will help get that question resolved.) But be that as it may…like the rest of us, Dick is getting older and his knees often curtail his running, which he enjoyed and would like to return to as soon and as much as possible. They also interfere with his playing softball, which he had enjoyed for much of his life. Dick, when with Chubb, had much to do with their initial sponsorship of Antiques Roadshow, a concept initially transplanted from its UK origins. Besides becoming a show much enjoyed by viewers (of which I am one!), he was often told by very grateful antique dealers that it helped drive the prices of antiques way up. However, they complained that it also made their job of buying so much harder, as now bidding at auctions is much more competitive with way more amateurs getting in with hopes of finding great, unrecognized treasure. Dick has always been interested in history, especially military history. He focuses on WWI and the Civil War. He defied me to mention a Civil War battle the location of which he had not visited. (Panicked, I could only come up with Gettysburg which he’s visited more than 40 times.) He has also visited WWI battlefields in France and Belgium, though not to the same extent. But over there he says the food is much better after hiking the terrain. He says he learns a great deal about military strategy—what went on and why—by looking over the actual sites.

Fritz Henn is “slipping more and more into retirement.” Though he has closed his lab in Cold Spring Harbor, some of his ongoing drug trials continue, trials of what he hopes will be a more effective antidepressant. One such trial is of a drug class he patented for which he won the Colvin Prize, the largest prize for work in mood disorder research in the world! (Check it out on YouTube.) Fritz and his wife, Suella, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary by meeting up in Heidelberg, Germany, with their children—son Steve ’94 (married to Emily ’94) and their three girls; and their daughter, Sarah, her husband, and their son and daughter. As Fritz and Suella had spent 12 years living there, they wanted to show their family some of their favorite old haunts. The Henns now live in DC, near their daughter and her family. The grandchildren keep them busy.

From Lake Oswego, Ore., Mike Marble retired “slowly”—from ’95 on he gave up his private practice as an orthopedic surgeon, but continued to come in to assist in operations. There were two particular plusses in this: of course, the continued income. But it was also especially nice that if something came up later that needed more attention, he was not the MD called back in. He did other kinds of part-time work too. He would review matters involving accidents resulting in medical-legal arguments over surgery/payments. Mike has been married to Debra for 47 years and they have two daughters. Like Lee, Mike also likes woodworking and makes “simple, useful things, like tables or bookcases.” He enjoyed sailing and has a 20’ day sailer and did a lot of riding on a recumbent bike. However he fell last July and has spine issues and at the moment, partially limited mobility, which he hopes will be resolved in time with PT. Debra, a watercolor artist, has gotten a job in Federal Courts as a court room artist. She is employed by newspapers to do this. Due to the economy, such work is becoming scarcer. If the case does not involve a jury, some judges will let her sit in the jury box. But if there is a jury and it’s a “hot” case, she has to get there early and find a seat for herself. And no, she has not yet worked a case involving a particularly notorious villain.

Sad news: John E. Peterson, of Santa Cruz, Calif., died Jan. 30, 2014, of a rare brain disease. A well-written and extensive obituary can be found on Google. He is survived by his wife Mary, his daughter. Ingrid, and sons, Wylie, Price, and Webster. He and Mary have three grandchildren.

He was a member of DKE, very active athletically and also took up paragliding, which was not an athletic option at WesU in the ’60s. He also served in the Peace Corps in Ghana. If you would like to share condolences or good memories of John, you can do so at pacificgardenschapel.com.

BYRON S. MILLER | tigr10@optonline.net
5 Clapboard hill rd., westport, ct 06880

Dave Holdt is now fully retired, having stopped teaching freshman writing at the University of Hartford in December 2013. He says he’s now a house husband, in charge of all things domestic as his partner, Karen Chase, is still at the University of Hartford, where she heads the Education Department, teaching both PhD students as well as undergrads. He says he’s doing pretty well with the domestic chores except that Karen says he “cannot see spiders.” He is in a memoir writing class at UConn and as they live near several large forests, he takes one of his three dogs for daily hour-long walks and is now in much better shape than when he stood all day in front of classes. He has seen all sorts of wildlife during the walks and has become a bird watcher. They hear lots of owls calling at night. Recently a nearby sheep farmer reported that some “very big animal” was killing his sheep. There are some thoughts of America’s largest cat nearby. He and Karen enjoy going to CT Tigers, a Detroit single “A” farm team’s home baseball games in nearby Norwich. Go, CT Tigers!

Having retired in the summer of ’12 after 49 years as middle school department head of language arts at the Gilman School, an independent school for boys in Baltimore, Samuel “Bo” Grimes is now much involved with a group of parishioners working to draw up their profile for a new rector for a nearby Episcopal church in north Baltimore. Bo and his wife, Sabra, were married in ’75. They have two daughters. One is getting married next April. “Big expense,” chuckled a resigned but pleased Bo. He and Sabra live in Cockeysville, Md. The met at work, as she was in charge of schedules for the Gilman Middle School. She, too, is retired. They travel a little, last October to Montana to visit Glacier National Park. Sadly, that turned out to be just when Congress closed all national parks. One day before they were to leave, parks were opened again so at least they got in one day. Bo likes gardening and they both like reading, especially “quality” mysteries. Their next trip will be to Quebec. This is because they are particularly fond of a Canadian mystery writer, Louise Penny, winner of Canada’s highest civilian award, the Order of Canada, for her writing. Many of her mysteries take place in Quebec very close to the Vermont line and her descriptions of the scenery and characters are so pleasant that they’d like to visit the areas she’s described in her mystery series. Recalling times at Wes U, Bo spoke fondly of the John Wesley Club and his interesting friends there. Unlike the fraternities, it did not have a kitchen so JWC members ate at Downey House or at different fraternities. He particularly favored EQV, both for the friends and food there.

Also living in Maryland (Trappe, Md., on the eastern shore) but appearing for the first time in our class column, Ted Passyn has retired from a career in real estate development. He specialized in building moderate-cost housing, first in Pennsylvania and for the last 33 years in Maryland. Ted met his wife Julia (Smith ’63) on a blind date at a party at Wes U on Valentine’s Day weekend 1960. They were introduced by Bruce Meinke ’62 and got married in February 1964. The rest is history. Included in that history are 10 children, ages 28–50 (23 degrees among them!) and 20 grandchildren. Ted told me that number was to change on his birthday, the day after we talked, as a 21st grandchild was to be induced. So then their ages then would stretch from 1 day–24 years. When the Passyns travel, it is generally to see their children and grandchildren who stretch across the South from St. Louis to New Orleans. While he does not know all their favorite colors, he can pretty well recognize them all. One year he went to 43 football games! (Go, CT Tigers and everyone else!) Ted served in the Army as a finance officer after he was married, rising to the rank of first lieutenant, while on active duty and making captain later in the reserves. At one point shortly after the Gulf of Tonkin, his unit was on alert to go to Vietnam for five months. In the end they never went, but he found that his time in the army was very broadening and a valuable addition to his education. He is a serious cook with a 10-burner commercial range and a serious wine cellar. He is also somewhat of a gardener and has had a wonderful sounding conservatory built with many beautiful flowers and palm trees, all of which opens onto a very large, lovely enclosed pond with a waterfall.

It is possible that Jon Hopkins has had a unique experience among our classmates. And that is, that in the summer of ’68, primarily due to the immediate threat of his being drafted, he left the country and moved to Canada and applied for permanent residency. The day after Canada accepted his application, in ’69, he got a letter from the US Attorney General indicting him as a draft dodger. He said his father backed his move but his mother was worried that their friends might “think he was a deserter.”Canadians had no such problems and were very accepting of him as in general they opposed the war. In ’77, one of the first things President Carter did was to pardon all draft dodgers. After graduating from Wes U, Jon was ABD in the University of Delaware graduate program in chemistry. Once in Canada, he enrolled in McGill in a master of science program but when money ran out, got a job teaching at the Herzing Institute (now Herzing College) in Montreal, where he lived since moving north. There he taught junior college level students right out of high school along with older students/workers returning to college to grow professionally. For much of his life in Montreal Jon also free-lanced as a computer programmer though he says while he was never a particularly good businessman, at least he was never broke. At Wes U he was a chemistry major and he’s retained an interest in science and enjoys following some websites like Science Daily and Slashdot, on which he finds interesting comments on computer matters. He also likes to read ancient history, really ancient history. A couple of recent reads were Thucydides’ History of the Peleponnesian War (431 BC) and an early 20th century book on the Middle Ages, which proved difficult, not for the subject matter but for the text, which was all in small print and worse, the voluminous footnotes in ever smaller print. Jon lives in an apartment in downtown Montreal and wonders in what other city could someone live so well and inexpensively? He subscribes to Montreal’s Sept.–May annual 12-concert series, and enjoys walking to the concert hall, stopping along the way for dinner at a delicious Chinese restaurant. He finds the Canadian comprehensive health and drug care programs “a godsend!” and scoffs at Canada being called “socialistic” due to its health care system. Even before enrolling at WesU as a freshman, he had heard of the John Wesley Club and intended to join it, which he did. In high school John had been one of the very best students. At WesU he found what many of us also found: pretty much everyone fell into that category. He played clarinet in our not-quite-world-famous football marching band and found the JWC experience “fantastic—we had great guys, very liberal, and got outside speakers to come for discussions at the JWC. Many, like Hanna Arendt, John Cage, and C.W. Snow were there in residence, but came for smaller discussions at JWC. However, I think Pete Seeger came just to JWC.” He recalled one incident when two guys who may not have been JWC members but were just rooming there would boil peyote and then partake of the resulting concoction and collapse in great mirth and laughter. So, someone substituted spinach for their peyote stash. They boiled it, partook and collapsed in great mirth and laughter, which just goes to show—those were the times, my friends…

BYRON S. MILLER | tigr10@optonline.net
5 Clapboard Hill Rd., Westport, CT 06880

The Hon. Judge Leonard Edwards, now retired, writes: “I had lunch with Bill Needham recently. Very interesting. He is involved in a gold-digging project in Colombia. We had a great time. He is a bundle of energy and very jolly, hugging everyone in sight. He says he’ll be a billionaire when the project gets going!” (Alumni Office take note!) But further info on Len, somewhat disquieting: As a somewhat belated wedding gift, I gave Len and his wife Marcia a fine, Liberty jigsaw puzzle depicting their home state, California. I had found that they were fellow jigsaw puzzlers. They were delighted and apparently agreed to only work on it together. Well, it was with shock that one morning Marcia discovered that someone had slyly snuck in and had been working on the puzzle during the night! Hell to pay! Accusations! Flimsy denials! All leading to total caving. Decision: as it was not a felony, only a misdemeanor, Marcia was granted equal, solo catch-up puzzle time. Peace restored. I must add that it pains me to drop a dime on a fellow classmate like this.

From the L.A. area, Lew Whitney says that he has “nothing exciting to report.” Of course, at our age, that’s probably a good thing. He was sorry to miss our 50th but a pre-existing one month trip to France got in the way. His missing the 50th was somewhat made up for, as he attended the Pre-Reunion gathering down at Bill Roberts’ place in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Lew is semi-retired now and will fully retire in March. He will probably continue as he is now doing, with some consulting and design work on the side, which he says he does “for wine money.” Lew got into sailing at 7 with his dad. In ’84 he got this first boat and has had many since, most in the 40-foot range. In his current 40-footer, Ventana, he and his wife of 20 years, Toby (“a wonderful sailing partner!”) frequently sail the 20 miles out to Santa Catalina. Last year they spent 36 nights aboard Ventana, generally moored off Santa Catalina. You might recall Lew’s picture of himself in our Reunion Book, paddle boarding, something he had taken up relatively recently. After getting over the falling-off part of the learning process, he now goes for long paddles up and down the coast. He says that in the past it was very common to see lots of sharks along the coast and on the way out to and around Santa Catalina. But the Asian love of shark fins has led to the shark population being decimated, which has led to an ecological crisis as unchecked seal populations are now overrunning the shores, taking over docks as haul-out spots and climbing onto any moored boats they can get up onto. He says for a long time now he hasn’t seen a shark large enough to eat him on any of his frequent paddle board trips. Lew and Toby have four children between them (he was divorced and she was widowed) and five grandchildren aged 1–15 years. While he does not race himself, he used to do a lot of exciting crewing on a friend’s steel-hulled, 54-foot race boat, working as a grinder opposite one of the bigger and stronger youngsters, thereby making Lew’s job easier. He vividly recalls the frantic start of one fleet race when they lost their steering and rammed the Committee boat.

Robert Gallamore writes: “My book co-authored with my Harvard mentor, American Railroads: Decline and Renaissance the 20th Century, will be released by Harvard U. Press 6/2/14!” (You can read more about it at HUP or Amazon websites under his name.) “This was a 15-year project, the roots of which were in my study of economics and government regulations of industry under Prof. Joseph Palamountain and Prof. Richard Miller at WesU. It brings together material from my academic studies and teaching, a first career in government, and a second with Union Pacific in NYC and Omaha.”

A tidbit of info on the son of a former stalwart of Chi Psi, Jim Reynolds. His son, James IV, has been a Major League baseball umpire since ’99. He graduated from the Jim Vans Umpire Academy in ’92, taught there for three years, and then worked his way up through several levels of minor leagues to the big leagues in ’99. Since then he has umped four Divisional series, two ALCS series, and an All-Star game. Not bad for a kid who didn’t follow his father to Wes, though he did at least go to another college in Connecticut, UConn. The elder Jim now lives with his wife, Nancy, in Gilbert, Ariz.

Walt Donaghy sent in some sad news: “Jim Mattson passed away quietly in his sleep 7/22/13. He was with his family (children and grandchildren) on a family vacation in N.C., when he died. Jim and I were roommates all four years, members of Sigma Nu/Kappa Nu Kappa, and lived on the top floor of our fraternity house our last three years. We’ve been friends ever since the fall of ’59, our freshman year, when we were assigned to a double room in Andrus Hall on Foss Hill. Jim ‘Matt’ played football (halfback and punter) freshman through senior year. A few years ago he was told that he’d held the punting record at Wes until very recently. Of course we had to have some serious losing games then to establish a punting record—too many ‘3 and outs.’ Matt wrote a very nice, brief and modest bio for our 50th Reunion Book. He couldn’t make it to the Reunion because his grandson was playing in a very important baseball tournament that weekend. As always Matt had his priorities right. Family comes first. He will be missed.”

BYRON S. MILLER | tigr10@optonline.net
5 Clapboard hill rd., westport, ct 06880

From Schenectady, N.Y., the one-time Deke, Peter Tobiessen is appearing for the first time in this column! He has been married for 45 years to Joanne who, like Peter, has retired from Union College, where they both worked. She was an administrator and he taught in the biology department for 36-plus years. Their son is a playwright who has written three plays, each of which was produced in different cities around the country, one off Broadway in the Big Apple. John, still an ardent biologist, has written a book well reviewed in nature/ecology/outdoor circles titled The Secret Life of a Lake, The Ecology of Northern Lakes and their Stewardship (Graphite Press, 2012). His goal was to help lake users and lovers and non-scientists to understand how a lake works, stays balanced and how to keep lakes that way. Not just a good wordsmith, he was also part of a group of hands-on history buffs in the Albany area who built from scratch a 52-foot, 29-ton white oak replica of the first covered deck ship built in what we now call Manhattan. Named the Onrust, it was finished in time to join a fleet of 15 historic vessels and countless private and commercial boats that all joined in a 140-mile reenactment of Henry Hudson’s trip up the Hudson River, 400 years after his journey. The Onrust also took part in a renewal enactment of the 400th anniversary of Two Row Wampum Treaty, which was the first treaty between white settlers and America Indians, in this case the Haudenosaunee. Some of the simple, hopeful words of that treaty are: “As long as the grass is green, rivers run down hill and the sun still rises in the East and sets in the West…” There are many interesting pictures and write ups about it on the Web, as there are about Peter’s book.

For 35 years Dick Donat worked for Marshall Field’s, eventually becoming manager of their flagship store in Chicago after being very successful in increasing the income of Marshall Field’s stores in smaller cities. Dick says that when he arrived in Chicago, the flagship store was very conservative, with very little diversity in its staffing and customer base. This he worked hard, and with considerable success, to change. One result was that the store that had made a steady $1,000,000 a year from ’36–’84, started growing its income to $5,500,000 a year over the next eight-and-a-half years. Dick was in Chicago during a period when the downtown business hub went into a terrible decline, eventually reversed as the Millennium Park development brought business back to the downtown area. Dick and his wife, Charlotte (who also worked at Marshall Field’s, where they met), have been married for 35 years and have four children, two from a previous marriage and two from their marriage. They are now very involved taking care of their aging parents and one son who is disabled. They live in the Glencoe suburb of Chicago and Dick is quite interested in studying the history of changes in the Chicago headquarters of Marshall Fields, where he worked for so long.

From Walt Donaghy: “Jim Mattson passed away quietly in his sleep on July 22, 2013. He was with his family (children and grandchildren ) on a family vacation in North Carolina when he died. He will be missed by all of us

“Jim and I were roommates all four years at Wesleyan. We were members of Sigma Nu/Kappa Nu Kappa and lived on the top floor of our fraternity house for our second, third and fourth years. We’ve been friends ever since the fall of 1959, our freshman year, when we were assigned to a double room in Andrus Hall on Foss Hill.

“Jim (‘Matt’) played football (#22, halfback and punter) freshman year through senior year. A few years ago he told me that he held the punting record at Wesleyan until very recently. Of course Wesleyan had to have some serious losing games in those years to establish a punting record! Too many ‘3 and outs.’

“Matt wrote a nice, brief and modest bio for our 50th Reunion Book. He couldn’t make it to our 50th Reunion because his grandson was playing in a very important baseball tournament that weekend. As always, Matt had his priorities right. Family comes first.”

John Driscoll ’62 adds: “A call to our sports information office yields the following: Jim established the record for punting average in a single game against Middlebury in his sophomore year (1960) with an average of 44.5 yards, a record that stood for 37 years , until the ’97 season.

“I remember a tall, rangy and talented teammate who was known for his poise and performance, more than noise and excessive emotion.”

Walter Pilcher has also written a book: The Five Fold Effect: Unlocking Power Leadership for Amazing Results in Your Organization. And in mid-November he appeared on The 700 Club TV show to discuss his book. In the book, he draws on his and others’ church and business experiences to lay out the steps that could help create highly successful leadership teams. Walt’s wife of 49 years was a RN student at the nursing school in Middletown, which is where he met her. (And no, he did not meet her on one of our freshman panty raids on their dorms. So put that thought right out of your heads!) They have three children. After graduation they both attended Regents University in Virginia Beach and later for 12 years they were involved with its board of trustees. He has been retired from “gainful employment” but is active on the Board of Global Awakening. Walt also writes short stories and songs that he sings for groups while accompanying himself on the guitar, which he has learned to play. Recently he and Carol took a river cruise in Europe from Budapest to Amsterdam, which was very relaxing with plenty of good food and local wines.

For 44 years Jerry Berka has practiced law. He has a general practice, so he’s handled a very wide range of cases. At Wes he had started out pre-med but changed his mind along the way and has had no regrets about that. He is quite pleased that one of his daughters, after studying clinical psychology for two years, has switched over to law and is now on her way to becoming a partner in her firm. She has been attached to Family Court, where her psych background is very helpful. He and Mary Ann, his wife of 45 years, have a second daughter who is a veterinarian in California. Mary Ann was a professor at Nassau Community College for 44 years and still works part time. They live in the small village of Brightwaters, a small enclave of Bayshore, N.Y., on Long Island. They have had a house in the Adirondacks on Schroon Lake for 30 years. There was a time when Jerry did a fair amount of mountain climbing, but those days are past. They like to sail and have been “all over the Caribbean” and along the West Coast. And for 40 years he’s owned a motor boat on Long Island Sound. After law school, he entered the USN, one of only 41 law school graduates selected by the USN for JAG that year. Lt. Berka served from ’66–’69. He thinks that his frequent pre-Wes summer jobs on Long Island ferry boats helped his prospects with the USN, as they might have felt that unlike most other law school graduates, he was already somewhat used to “the sea” (if that term can be applied to Long Island Sound). Jerry feels that public service is very important. He has worked long and hard on school building funds projects and served many years on the Bayshore Board of Education, and he was a long time chair of the Student College Aid Fund. Apparently his work was noticed and there is now a Jerry Berka Building at the public school.

If any of you know of anyone who has never appeared in these notes, or of whom you have not heard in many a long year, please contact me and I will try to track him down.

BYRON S. MILLER
5 Clapboard hill rd., westport, ct 06880
tigr10@optonline.net