CLASS OF 1959 | 2018 | ISSUE 3
The Great Class of 1959 continues to achieve, amuse, travel, laugh, and send interesting news! Bravissimo!
Amazing to note that the Class of 2022 just arrived on campus at 800-plus strong. That is larger than the whole school in 1959.
Talking about “achieve” brings me to a recent conversation with Allan Munro, who is still practicing law after 52 years and counting, and still getting referrals from his best source of new clients, a 97-year-old pal who got him started with his first client! Alan is planning to come to the Reunion next year and is happily grandfathering a computerized cartoonist, an aspiring doctor, and a fledgling psychologist.
Ted Fiske and wife Sunny are moving up the leaderboard in the travel department. They are still living in Durham, N.C., where Ted edits the Fiske Guide to Colleges while serving on the boards of several nonprofits, including the Durham Children’s Initiative. Sunny retired as a professor of public policy and economics from Duke last year. “We have been able to ramp up our travel, spending three weeks in Kerala in southern India, summer in Maine and New Hampshire, time in Stockholm for an educational conference, and Ireland for a week with a side trip to London to see Jack Lambert and his wife at their lovely house in Islington.”
Dick Cadigan sent along the following news: “When author Tom Wolfe died earlier this year, I decided to reread Bonfire of the Vanities for fun. I discovered a character named Edward Fiske, a young, white Yale-educated cleric working for the Episcopal Diocese of New York, whose job it was to try to recover a $350,000 school grant made to a crooked black wheeler- dealer in Harlem.
“I thought it rather odd that the Fiske name was used, so I e-mailed Ted and got the following response: ‘When I was starting out, long ago, I worked for some church outfit doing work in Harlem. Years later I met Tom Wolfe at a conference, and by coincidence ended up sitting next to him on the plane home. We chatted about Harlem, my being a Princeton theological grad and Presbyterian minister. I didn’t think anything about our conversation until years later when Bonfires was published.’” Cads ends by saying “Now you know the rest of the story!”
The ever talented Weg Thomas has posted from great fall photos online, including “Up So Floating #9” — “I need a poem to sing the leaves to the eternal sea. I need a poem to calm the throbbing waters of Beings River, the river of one mother and one father.”
Laughter seems to have ruled this year’s annual Maine reunion. Al Brooks, Tom McHugh, Joe Mallory, and wives gathered at the beautiful house of Joanie and Bob Chase in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, on Sept. 12. Many laughs, fond recollections, reviews of the phenomenal exploits of our grandchildren dominated, but, of course, there were deep philosophical insights shared by all, Joe reports.
Latest amusement from Dave Eklund: “Mary and I hosted a Wesleyan Delta Sigma reunion on Nantucket for four days at our place (Rose and Crown) on Siasconset. Attendees were Irene and Tony Allen from Providence, Dave Darling from Middletown, John Dennis from Portland, Ore., and Shirley and Larry Kedes from L.A.
Bob Gillette writes, “Unfortunately Marsha and I will not be attending our 60th Reunion. We just found out that our granddaughter will be graduating from Elon that weekend. So, we will be with you in spirit, but you all understand how lucky we are to celebrate this family event. We were looking forward to the Reunion, the chance to be with old friends and to also celebrate our 60th wedding anniversary with other classmates doing the same.”
Back to traveling, Ellen and Herb Steiner will be in Portugal for a couple of weeks in October, but before departure are celebrating the arrival of grandchild number 10. Wow. Back to Delray for the winter. Herb says: “Retirement ain’t bad!”
Tom McHugh remembers Ernie Dunn: “A year ago at the dedication of the Huddleston Room at Downey House, I mentioned that the 1959 track team had a group of broad jumpers who could exceed 23 feet . . . a feat unequalled in most colleges and even larger universities. One was Dick Huddleston ’60. One was Ernie Dunn, our classmate and captain of the track team, and the third, Jim Thomas ’61, a sophomore.”
On to sad news: Dick Smith passed away just after Christmas last year. Smitty was a classmate of ours at Deerfield Academy, my roommate in Eclectic, and a wonderful guy. He had been battling an illness for a number of years. Our heartfelt sympathy to his wife of 57 years, Barbara (Teeny), his brother, Charlie ’55, three children, and 10 grandchildren. We will miss him.
Skip Silloway | ssillow@gmail.com; 801/532-4311
John Spurdle | jspurdle@aol.com; 212/644-4858