CLASS OF 1975 | 2014 | ISSUE 2
At age 60, I tried a personals ad to fill a void in my life, and it worked! Here’s what I wrote to my Wes classmates: “Middle-aged, married, female Secretary seeks news to share. Births (probably grandchildren these days), marriages (kids or yours), worklife changes, retirements, travels, and other doings all welcomed. Class Notes deadline looming; write soon!” Sixteen folks responded pronto, and their news follows.
David Weinstock wrote from the Vermont Studio Center, where he was spending an intensive week with 60 other writers and artists, including Jake Nussbaum ’10 and Hilary Mullins ’84. He was waiting to receive from Olin Library a pdf of his long-lost senior thesis, “New Poems, 1975.” Older son Ben is graduating from Wheaton College (an English major) and younger son Dan is completing his first year at Lehigh University (materials science and engineering). David’s wife, Ann, has returned to Middlebury College’s development staff, now representing her alma mater’s graduate and special programs (Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and Language Schools).
Bruce Paton’s term as chair of the management department at San Francisco State University is ending, and he’ll take over as faculty director of graduate programs for the College of Business. He’ll run SFSU’s MBA program, the MS in Accounting, the executive MBA program, and hopefully revive a dual degree program with the University of Nice in France. Bon voyage, Bruce?
Jane Hutchins and Janet Brodie planned to get together in Boston with Risa Korn in mid-May. Details to follow.
I received a reciprocal personals-ad-style reply from Ed Van Voorhees: “Cranky classmate enthralled with birth of first grandchild, Lucy, Denver, Colo., born April 2 to son and daughter-in-law (what’s-their-names).” Their names are now Lucy’s Mom and Lucy’s Dad.
Len Burman writes, “I am not in the habit of responding to personal ads,” but respond he did, although he’s still married to Missie. (They met at Wes.) “I returned to D.C. to head the Tax Policy Center (again) after a four-year stint at Syracuse University. I’m still teaching one course for SU, in Washington over the January short term, and currently hold the Paul Volcker Chair there. We have a 2-year-old granddaughter, who lives in upstate NY and is completely adorable. Two of our four adult kids live in DC. One is finishing up an MPA at Syracuse and hoping to get a job here.”
For one of the first times in 39 years, David Nelson checked in. David’s finishing his sixth year as rabbi and faculty member in religion at Bard College in the Hudson Valley, a position he loves. “Marrying off our youngest son in June—in attendance will be, inter alia, our grandson who will be 17-months-old at that point. The sad news came a couple of weeks ago when I heard of the death of Chuck Raffel ’72, who was very involved in Jewish life at Wesleyan and with whom I had stayed in touch over the years.”
Bliss White McIntosh and Maryann McGeorge found one another serving on the same small board of directors of a classical music organization called Music From Salem. Funny thing is that they never knew each other at Wesleyan!
Given local seismicity, it’s reassuring to hear from a Bay Area classmate, “No earth-shaking news from me!” Paul Bennett is still working at Chevron after 34 years, still married after 28 years, and has two 20-something sons living in NYC; one in the Bushwick area of Brooklyn and one (Wes ’13) in Manhattan. Paul is grateful for the excuse to visit NY a couple times a year. Now that they’re fully empty-nesters they’ve started working through the “one of these days” trips—two years ago was Slovenia/Croatia, and Botswana Safari/Cape Town; last year was hiking the Cotswolds in England; this year is Ireland and Turkey.
Jan Schwaner writes, “I am enjoying retirement from the hectic world of front-line pediatrics. I have thrown away my alarm clock and spent over 1/3 of the days last year out of state, visiting family and friends as far away as Australia, keeping track of my ailing parents, attending chamber music camp at Bennington College, and paddling my kayak. I plan to play baroque trios at Bennington next summer with Scott Brodie ’74.” Jan’s husband, Tim Hill has retired from the computer industry and is running a duplicate bridge club full time and directing tournaments. In that role he crosses paths with Peter Marcus ’77, a fellow tournament director. Jan and Tim flew to Sydney in March to meet their 2-week-old granddaughter, “the most fabulous baby ever born.” When she moves with her parents to Philadelphia in September, the Schwaner-Hills look forward to becoming interfering grandparents. Younger son, Peter ’08, plans to marry his boyfriend in June, coincidentally on Jan’s and Tim’s 39th anniversary.
Cathy Gorlin vacationed in Florida this spring, in Naples where she enjoyed dinner with Bill Hutchins ’73 who is a radiologist in Naples and fellow Minnesota native. They recalled Wesleyan Minnesotans getting together on occasion to watch Mary Tyler Moore on TV throwing her hat up in the air on Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis. In mid-August, Cathy’s son, Ross, will be moving from Hawaii to Denver and will be looking for an emergency medical services job; let Cathy know if you have connections in Denver that can help him find work in that field. Ross will be traveling around Asia for two months prior to moving back and spending a few weeks of August with Cathy and her husband. Their daughter, Lauren, got her MBA from NYU last May and works for Google in NYC. Cathy continues to head the family law department at Best and Flanagan and to practice family law full time in Minneapolis. She vacations at their summer home in Copake, N.Y., so she welcomes opportunities for visits there or in NYC.
It was wonderful to hear for the first time from Carole Evans Sands in Keene, N.H. A highlight of her spring was meeting her three-time Wes roommate, Jill Rips, with Jill’s daughter, Sian, and Carole’s daughter, Alyssa, in Somerville for a long evening of Wes stories and lots of laughs. They hadn’t seen each other in a dozen years and missed old friends Dana Asbury and Wendy Goldberg. Jill was touring colleges with Sian, a junior at a U.N. model high school in San Antonio. Jill is still “the heart, soul, and brains of the San Antonio AIDS Foundation.” Carole left Keene State College’s Child Development Center last June after 25 years. She writes, “You get a clock at 25 years; decided I just didn’t need or want to hang in for 30 and a rocker. Our home was also becoming an empty nest with son Evan off to Pace University Lubin School of Business in Manhattan this year.” (Alyssa graduated from Wheaton in 2011 and works at Education First in Cambridge.) Carole now enjoys a full-time position with much less responsibility at Little Harrisville Children’s Center—a 40-plus-year-old nonprofit child care center, where farm families and professionals and lots of artists and assorted entrepreneurs make up the small friendly community.
Tina Hahn Jacobson has joined the “One Grandchild Club.” Two of Tina’s kids are in Atlanta, and one is in NYC. Check out her painting: Tinajacobsonfineart. While retirement is not yet in sight for her husband, it is an occasional topic of conversation.
Roger Weisberg reports that their oldest daughter, Allie ’05 and her husband, Peter, have a 1-year-old baby. Allie founded Recess, an arts organization, five years ago, and Peter works as an attorney for MFY Legal Services. Middle son, Daniel, is graduating from Yale Medical School and starting his residency in internal medicine at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Youngest daughter, Liza, is completing a two-year stint as a trial preparation assistant at the Manhattan District Attorney’s office and will start law school at Harvard in September. Roger and Karen continue their respective work in filmmaking and foster children’s advocacy. Roger’s current project is editing a new PBS documentary, Dream On, about the vanishing American Dream.
Tracy Winn just completed a residency at the MacDowell Colony for the Arts where she worked on a manuscript for a second book of linked short stories. She is (like many of us) helping her mother prepare to move into a continuing care community and cleaning out the family home.
David Bickford’s news may surprise those who knew him at Wes. “I coached an All-Star game of the Los Angeles Derby Dolls, one of the top ranked track all-female roller derby leagues in the country, so their ‘all stars’ are some of the best players in the sport. I like to think my rousing halftime speech inspired the come-from-behind win.”
On May 1, Paul Gionfriddo became president and CEO of Mental Health America, the oldest national mental health advocacy organization in the United States. MHA is based in D.C., and has 228 state and local affiliates. Paul and Pam now live in two places—their home in Palm Beach County, Fla. (where Pam is still CEO of the county MHA affiliate), and an apartment in Alexandria, Va. (MHA has become something of a family affair—daughter Lizzie works for the Connecticut affiliate.) Paul’s new book, Losing Tim: How Our Health and Education Systems Failed My Son with Schizophrenia, now has a firm publication date from Columbia University Press: October 2014.
With respect to my “personals” ad, a few folks took a cheap shot at whether I qualify as middle-aged. While many of you are retiring and counting grandchildren, I still have a kid in high school, and several years of college tuition in my future. If that doesn’t make me middle-aged, I don’t know what does. I’ll just have to live to 120 to prove it!
Cynthia M. Ulman | cmu.home@cmugroup.com
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