CLASS OF 1959 | 2018 | ISSUE 2
Further doings of the Great Class of 1959:
Bert Edwards and Skip Silloway went on to Stanford Business School (’61) after Wesleyan and attended a mini-reunion in Boston. These are regular events held around the country involving around 24 couples and are great fun.
Marilyn and Ed Murphy spent six weeks this winter skiing in Winter Park, Colo. They have two boys, both living in Florida: one in Tampa, a Navy Seal attached to the Special Operations Command; and the other a blooming entrepreneur in Jacksonville starting a business importing tequila! Fuel for our Reunion?!
The spring lunch in Washington hosted by Ed at the Hamilton Restaurant included Messrs. Edwards, Chase, Errington, Leverich, Moody, and Ogren. “In spite of the uplifting conversation about developments at Wesleyan and our recent travels and activities, the unexpected no-show of Josiah S. Carberry, honorary member of ’59, professor of psychoceramics (the study of cracked pots) at Wesleyan and Brown, cast a bit of a pall on the afternoon.”
Paul Stevens and wife Dodo celebrated two 50th anniversaries last fall: Their marriage and 50 summers on Little Diamond Island in Maine. Paul is still working at SMRT Architects and Engineers (52 years), traveling last winter to Costa Rica, Italy, and Florida, and running competitively, though he says the competition is thinning out in the 80-plus group. No more marathons, however.
Bert Edwards needs no introduction, but we wanted to share a bit about his career, which is extraordinary! Bert became an accountant after Stanford and went to Washington to work for the government. He retired, with many awards, as the assistant secretary and CFO of the State Department. The Interior Department then called Bert out of retirement to help them settle a long-running suit for $175 billion brought by several Native American tribes, representing 300,000 people. The suit was settled eventually for $1.4 billion. Bert worked for two female cabinet secretaries, Madeline Albright and Gail Norton, one Republican and one Democrat. A man of great talent and flexibility!
Hugh Lifson still lives a block from the campus at Cornell College, where he is a professor emeritus. He works a couple of hours every day in acrylic and plastic wrap, his signature medium since the 1960s, except Sunday, reserved for the New York Times.
Phil Pessoni reports the wonderful news that his daughter, Clare Frey, gave birth in April to their fifth grandchild, Nicholas Peter, in Montgomery, Ala.
Steve Pyle has completed two oil paintings of holes at the Whispering Pines short course, the best in Texas by far. His message to Skip: “Come for a visit and we’ll tee it up for old times’ sake.”
Cyndy and John Spurdle hosted “A Salute to Sir Tom Stoppard” at the Roundabout Theatre in New York in early April. Tom was retiring as president of the famed London Library after 15 years of noble service. His play, Travesties, was opening in New York for a limited run.
Ellen and Herb Steiner are well, Herb hitting 81 in July. They are in close touch with the Martins and the Vander Veers and will be visiting the Martins at their farm in Connecticut to pick blueberries! Sounds perfect.
The Wesleyan lacrosse CLUB got its first coach in 1959, Nate Osur, football line and wrestling coach, and went 4-4 for the season. Fifty-nine years later at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass., the Wesleyan lacrosse TEAM took the Division III national title by defeating Salisbury of Maryland (read the article here). Heartiest congratulations to the team and coaches from some of the “founding fathers.” Lacrosse got started on campus four years earlier thanks to the efforts of George Davies ’57, Kent Davies ’57, and Dick Griscom ’57, among others. Long gone are the days of hijacking classmates as they came out of class to go play away games, whether they knew anything about lacrosse or not, and borrowing equipment, as we could, from the opposing teams.
Finally, three sad notes: Ernie Dunn passed away just weeks before his 81st birthday. Born in Harlem, Ga., he grew up in Erie, Pa. Doug Bennet, friend and former Wesleyan president passed away in June. Reminiscences from classmates can be found here. Walter McCann passed away last summer. Tom McHugh wrote: “I found a delightful and well-illustrated memorial to Walter at waltermccann.com.” Our deepest sympathy to his wife, Dr. Alba Ambert. Please contact us for her address if you’d like to send her a note.
Skip Silloway | ssillow@gmail.com; 801/532-4311
John Spurdle | jspurdle@aol.com; 212/644-4858