CLASS OF 1998 | 2023 | SUMMER ISSUE
Hi fellow classmates,
Hopefully by the time you’re reading this, everyone who went to our 25th (what?!?) Reunion will have had a fabulous time reliving the glory days on Foss Hill and kvetching about what’s changed since our time. . . .
In individual news, your previous Class Notes collector, Jason Becton, and his family (husband Patrick, daughters Marian and Betty) recently moved about 20 minutes south of Charlottesville to North Garden, Virginia, for an even quieter life in the country. Jason and Patrick still own MarieBette Café & Bakery, and their second location Petite MarieBette, in the “city” of Charlottesville. Jason is looking forward to catching up with everyone at Reunion this year!
Nicole Macotsis lives in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York, with her two kids and pandemic dog. She was happy to get paid a trick-or-treat visit by Laura Polonia and her son, who also live in the hood, last Halloween. She sees Annie Ackley as much as she can and aspires to see long-lost Luiselle Rivera by the time this is in print. Nicole got a second MA at Goucher in cultural sustainability but has been transitioning out of public folk arts work (due to her full-time single parenting gig) and is now a movement teacher, offering sessions to women for pelvic floor and core health at macotsismovement.com.
Last summer Georgia Silvera Seamans met up with Nadia Wynter and her family—yay! She is excited to be seeing more of Carrie Seabury. She is happy to be teaching a course about the environmental and cultural history of urban parks and using two public parks in NYC as her muse, and is the creator and host of the Your Bird Story podcast, now in its third season. If you’ve got a bird story based in a city, she wants to know about it!
In April Lynn Chen screened her directorial debut I Will Make You Mine (that her husband Abe Forman-Greenwald edited) on the Wesleyan campus with a Q&A. The movie also features John Newman and is currently streaming on Paramount+ and VOD.
Cassie Mecsery wrote in with a bit of heartache. After a two-year battle with glioblastoma (the most deadly form of brain cancer), her husband Sean passed away in May 2022, leaving her to run his family business started in 1945, Cos Cob TV & Audio in Greenwich, Connecticut. Cassie has children from her marriage to Sean: Calista (7) and Westley Stephen (4). The GoFundMe which was used for Sean’s medical treatments and caregiving, has transitioned to help pay for future expenses for their children in the coming years. Cassie writes, “Sean’s diagnosis in 2019 with stage 4 brain cancer, glioblastoma, rocked our world. One day I was at home with our two kids, and the next I was being told my husband had months and, if lucky, a couple years to live. We got two years, but not without a lot of grit and challenge. We are still struggling to come to terms with his death, but are learning to live life with gratitude for the time we had. I see life a bit differently now, and am working on how best to live out his legacy.”
That’s it for now. Be well all and be kind to yourselves and others.
Best,
Abby