Tag: 1976

Well, I was a little late in contacting everyone and did not expect much. But I got a barrel of news, so here goes.

Sara Avitzour is an active psychotherapist whose lawyer days are long behind her. This semester she is finishing up her master’s degree in English and creative writing at Bar Ilan University. She has published three short stories so far and a full-length memoir. Sara has four grandchildren, three boys and one girl, ages 1 to 5.

Leslie Anderson won the 2014 National Genealogical Society Family History Writing Contest with a story about her great-great-grandmother Tabitha, who was born a slave to a wealthy tobacco planter in Virginia. When Tabitha was about 60, she purchased 16 acres from her former owner. The story will be published later this year in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly. Leslie is the project editor for an index of Virginia Slave Births published by Heritage Books.

Elizabeth (Betsy) Eisenmann writes that she has had three big life events in the past year. Her son and his wife (who live in LA) had twin daughters in Sept. 2013, her mom passed away on Oct. 1, 2013, after 18 years of living with Alzheimer’s disease, and Betsy retired in Jan. 2014, after 29 years as an RN, 28 with Lowell General Hospital.

Jeff Frank, who lives in Columbus, Ohio, got together with his three children for a week in Colorado Springs. (Hey, Jeff, my daughter went to college there.) Son George is a junior at the Air Force Academy; son Nathan, who is with the FBI, and his wife, Amanda, were in from Miami; and daughter Stephanie, who is a teacher, was in from Hawaii.

Karen Gervasoni, who was a great co-manager for the Wes wrestling team, and her husband, Tom Hansen, live on 100 acres in Kennebunk, Maine, with their son, Cole, who will be 16 in November. Karen is retired after 25 years as an actuary. She would love to hear from Janet Brooks, Kat Wilmore, and Diana Brody.

In July 2014, Cathy Gorin had a gathering of Liz Gissen Holder, Ed Papier, and Christine McCoy McNeil ’75 at her summer home near Copake, N.Y. At Wesleyan, they all had lived together at Kappa Alpha house (which was then university housing) and had come to this same summer home back in the spring of ’75. Their mini-reunion was full of wonderful stories and nostalgia.

Debra Haffner is still president of the Religious Institute, an organization she founded 14 years ago, to help religious leaders advocate for sexual justice, and she hopes to earn her doctorate in ministry by 2016. Her eldest got married in May and her youngest is a college senior. She just spent a week with Kath Booth ’78, her college roommate.

David Low, associate director of publications and arts and culture editor for Wes, just had his short story “Elevor” published at Solstice, a magazine of diverse voices. The story, which can be found at solsticemag.org/content/elevor concerns a young Asian woman’s adventures in NYC as she deals with claustrophobia.

Doug Hurd, who was a mainstay of the Wesleyan wrestling team, reports that his son Greg ’10 was a Division 3 New England champion wrestler for Wesleyan and went to Nationals twice. Greg is now in a PhD program in geology at the University of Texas in Austin. Doug’s daughter, Allison ’11, is pursuing dance in NYC. Doug, his wife, Cynthia, and family just returned from a trip to Cracow, Poland, and a hiking trip in the Tatra mountains.

Tom Kovar stays in touch with a lot of Wesleyan folks, including many who share his interest in music, including David Harmin and Karen Williams Harmin, Byron Haskins, Mel Blake, Marty Plotkin, Nat Needle, Libby Horn, Cheryl Alpert, BJ Buckley, Jim Fellows, Dan Cantor, and Winifred van Roden ’77. Tom, it is great that you keep in touch with so many of our classmates. Please encourage them to write in to class notes.

Gerry Rau writes that this fall over a dozen international students from various countries, none of whom speak Chinese, showed up at his church in Chiayi, Taiwan, and that the church is starting an English worship service for them. Gerry is coordinating the startup and will be speaking each week.

Mark Rubin attended Parents Day at Wesleyan this past September where Grace ’18, his youngest child, just started her freshman year. Mark’s niece, Lucy Rubin ’17, is also there. Unfortunately, Mark lost both his father and Eric, his younger brother, in the past 18 months.

This summer, Nancy and I had the pleasure of having Bruce Tobey ’75 and his wife, Pat, to our house for dinner. I also heard from Bill Devereaux ’75, who was president of our DKE chapter at Wesleyan. We have daughters at Bryn Mawr and Carleton and have met many interesting parents and alums from those schools. We both stay busy, and I have developed an interesting sideline by serving as an arbitrator and mediator in business disputes. Had an interesting case involving a well-known race car driver recently. During a break, he showed me a video of his 3-year-old driving an off-road four-wheeler solo and real fast through a bumpy field. When I asked him why his kid was not wearing a helmet, he turned to me with the most honest face and wide-eyed look imaginable. “Because his neck’s not strong enough to hold it up,” he said.

Well, we’ve run out of space. How about writing me for the next issue? 

Mitchell Marinello | mlmarinello@comcast.net

I was pleased to hear from Dan Bellegarde whom I last saw on a night out at a jazz club in New York City so many years ago. Dan and his wife, Marcia, are living in Vienna, Va. Dan has been with the State Department for 26 years and will retire Nov. 30 with 27+ years of service. Dan and Marcia met on Dan’s first tour with the foreign service, and they have two children. Stephen is 24 and an air traffic controller in the Air Force. Isabelle is 12 and in the 7th grade. They just moved to a new home and, after all the moving around for work, plan on staying put for a while. Good luck to you in retirement­—please stay in touch.

Carol Bellhouse continues to write and seems to be more prolific with each passing year. She has four books coming out in 2014 and the seven books she has already published can be found in print or via download at Amazon or CreateSpace or in local bookstores (for those of you lucky enough to still have them). Emboldened by this year’s harsh Chicago winter, I suggested to Carol that we have an alumni snowfall competition. That was before I realized she lives in Leadville, Colo., at about 10,000 feet above sea level. Even with some poetic license (or outright lying), Chicago can’t beat the five feet of snow then in Carol’s backyard. But we are contenders of a sort. As I write this on April 14th , after the third worst winter in Chicago (recorded) history, it is snowing briskly. This is not supposed to happen.

Barbara Birney is working as a volunteer at the Lumo Community Wildlife Sanctuary for six weeks on the development of income streams for local residents as a way of mitigating conflicts related to wildlife-human co-existence. She would be interested in hearing from any other alumni who are working on similar conservation efforts.

Steve Goldman was recognized by The American Registry as one of North America’s top attorneys. Way to go, Steve! Steve recently has been doing the college tour with his son Zach. Unfortunately for me, Chicago area schools were not on the tour. However, Steve and I have tentative plans to get together in Northfield, Minn., later this year.

Alan Haus continues to carry the flag for the Class of ’76 in San Francisco. He became the head of the intellectual property practice at his law firm there. Alan has three daughters. He could not convince the first two to consider any college more than ten miles away from the Pacific Ocean, let alone a campus in Middletown, Conn. Two years from now he will have one last shot at that, with daughter number three. We shall see . . .

Chris Mahoney married Joan Barrett in Aug. 2012. They met at the UVA business school back in the day. They live on a farm near Gettysburg, Pa., and also have an apartment in NYC. Joan has a pack of beagles which she actively hunts. Chris, who retired from Moody’s in 2007, has a financial blog: capitalismandfredom.blogspot.com.

Alan Miller, the president and CEO of The News Literacy Project, is continuing his excellent work in educating young people on how to know what to believe on the Internet. A story about the organization he founded, which has programs in the Chicago, New York and D.C. schools, was featured in the Wesleyan magazine. If you missed it: magazine.wesleyan.edu/2014/02/26/news-literacy-project-launches-online-curriculum/.

Ted Shaw, as you no doubt have heard by now, was going to be this year’s Wesleyan commencement speaker. Congratulations, Ted! I am sure that you will inspire everyone.

Bruce Tobey ’75 a fellow DKE and an honorary member of our class, has started a real estate business with some of his family members. It is called Tobey Seaport Properties and its website is: tobeyproperties.com. Good luck with it, Bruce!

Byron Haskins writes that he is a proud father. His daughter, Anna R. Haskins, PhD, who married Steven E. Alvarado, PhD, both on the faculty of Cornell University, on March 29, 2014, also published her first solo article in an academic journal. It is “Unintended Consequences: Effects of Paternal Incarceration on Child School Readiness and Later Special Education Placement,” Sociological Science, April 2014. The wedding was wonderful and a great mix of sociologists and people doing the things sociologists study.

This is a big birthday year for most of us. Why not write in something about yourself or share some of your observations on becoming more worldly and wise? For my part, I pledge to reach out a bit more and find at least some of you on Facebook and other social sites. But don’t wait to be asked. Write something in about yourself, your family, or your friends for the next quarter.

Mitchell Marinello | mlmarinello@comcast.net

First of all, thank you for sending so much news!

Tom Kovar is living in western Massachusetts, working for the VA as a social worker and gigging with his band, the Retroverts. His son, Sam, is in fifth grade.

Carol Bellhouse has six books out on Amazon: three in poetry, two novels and one biography. She splits her time between her legal practice and writing, sometimes for the TV and film industry.

Meredith Bergmann celebrated the 10^th anniversary of the unveiling of her sculpture at the Boston Women’s Memorial on the Commonwealth Ave. Mall. See the video at: youtube/12t429KHAL8.

Ethan Bronner and his wife, Naomi, spent four years in Jerusalem, where Ethan served as The Times bureau chief. Ethan is now deputy national editor for The Times and Naomi has reopened her psychotherapy practice in Manhattan. Their son Eli ’10 is with a nearly all-Wesleyan tech company called Lua; younger son Gabe is a student in Manhattan.

Robert Buccino has just had a book published, The Pitch Book: New Thinking for New Business. It is a quick and interesting read with advice that can be adapted to many situations and businesses.

BJ Buckley has published a new poetry chapbook: Spaces Both Infinite and Eternal, which you can find at limberlostpress.com/buckley.html. BJ is working through state arts councils in Arts-in-Schools/Communities Programs located in western states. In December, she will be returning to the Sanford Cancer Center in Sioux Falls, S.D., to make art with patients and their families.

Rob Cox, Steve Goldman, and I were in CSS together. Recently, it was parents’ day at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., where we each have a daughter enrolled: Kelsey Cox, Sarah Goldman, and Michelle Marinello. Steve and his wife, Kathy Rosenthal ’78, and Rob and his wife, Maggie, had a great time, and Nancy ’78 and I are pleased to have another connection with them. I also heard from Jon Cleworth, another CSS classmate, that he is recently retired and living in Connecticut.

In October, Ely Leichtling, who rowed crew with Jon Cleworth at Wesleyan, had lunch with me in Chicago, and we discussed career challenges and our personal five- and 10-year plans. Ely (employment litigation) and his wife, Sally Merrell (heads up estate planning at her firm), are attorneys in Milwaukee. They are married 34 years and proud parents of two Carleton grads. They plan to visit Mike Donnella in Philadelphia over Thanksgiving. Mike also has a daughter at Carleton.

Jeff Frank owns a successful moving company in Columbus, Ohio (American Moving and Storage), where he is married with three children, the youngest a sophomore at the Air Force Academy. Jeff’s son, Nathan, works for the FBI; his daughter, Stephanie, teaches English as a second language in Hawaii.

Jeffrey Gottlieb, a psychiatrist, is presently doing forensic work in Middletown and sees the Wesleyan campus on a regular basis. He has three children, the youngest a junior in college, and has been married to Gina for 28 years.

Byron Haskins, our class secretary emeritus, is also an author and has two recent publications on Amazon, Lake Affects: Musing Around Michigan, Vols. I and II. 

After 35 years in the magazine business, Matt Roberts has retired from Condé Nast. Matt has a considerable Wes alumni network of his own. He and his wife, Cathy Mudd ’79, a psychotherapist, have a son, Alex ’02, married to Louisa Hay ’02. Their grandson, Dane, may be shooting for ’41.

Barbara Strauss, who has a matrimonial and criminal law practice in Goshen, N.Y., is receiving an award from Legal Services of the Hudson Valley for her pro bono work in grandparental custody. Barbara is married to Jeff Storey, who is the executive editor of the New York Law Journal. Barbara and Jeff have two daughters: Rebecca who teaches at Columbia Law School and just had an article in the Yale International Law Review about law of war issues and Hanna ’03, who is now with the New York Times and previously was a foreign correspondent in lots of places including Mumbai. Barbara and Jeff also have one granddaughter and two additional grandchildren on the way.

Amy Zuckerman reports she is still working on her honorary Wesleyan degree. She is the founder of Hidden Tech, a network that supports 2000 virtual business owners and recently formed the 2030 Studio, a multi-media coop business.

Michael Greenberg, Matt Paul, David Cohen and Stewart Shuman reported a recent enjoyable weekend together at Mike and Ros’ house in Wood’s Hole, Mass. In words that I hope are true for all of us, Matt said: “We look back fondly and realize that our best times together still lie in the future, thanks to the strong relationships fostered at Wesleyan.”

Mitchell Marinello
mLMarinello@comcast.net