CLASS OF 1978 | 2023 | FALL ISSUE
Greetings Classmates,
If you’re reading these notes, then you successfully found our “online only” Wesleyan Class Notes for Fall 2023. Hope you are well and enjoying a beautiful autumn wherever you are. Here’s what several of your classmates are up to:
Susan Southard, author of Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War (Viking, 2015) writes that she will be traveling to Taiwan and Japan for a five-city book tour in mid-October through early November. In addition to the United States, Nagasaki has been published in England and in translation in Denmark, Spain, Taiwan, China, and Japan. This trip, her lectures will be in Japanese. While she’s in Nagasaki, Susan will give the keynote address at the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Nagasaki National Peace Memorial Hall. She suggests that if you ever have a chance to visit Nagasaki, the Peace Memorial Hall is an exquisite architectural structure—inside and out, every inch designed to honor the memory of those who died in the Nagasaki nuclear attack and in the decades since.
Kate Probst and her husband moved to Park Slope, Brooklyn, in August after living in the Washington, D.C., suburbs for over 35 years. She describes it as “an experiment with no decisions beyond living there through June 2024.” They rented a furnished apartment that allows cats and dogs, and rented out their house in McLean, Virginia. They are enjoying their new life with all their errands on foot (which has greatly increased their daily step count) and only using a car sparingly. They also enjoy being a 10-minute walk from their daughter and her fiancée, walking and eating—the two major NYC pastimes—as well as going to the theater, museums, and walking in Prospect and Central Parks. They are much closer to friends in the Northeast, so have many visits planned. And while they miss their friends in D.C., so far don’t miss living there.
Ralph Rotman was recently recognized on Forbes’ 2023 Top Financial Security Professionals “Best-In-State” list alongside his daughter and business partner Cassie Rotman. In 2018 they started Power 10 Advisory Partners, a premier wealth management and financial planning firm in Boston. With a unique blend of intergenerational insights, the Rotmans have successfully merged traditional financial wisdom with contemporary strategies. Ralph included this photo of he and his daughter.
Bruce Phillips is happy to report that he retired in August 2022 from 36 years working as a family physician and delivering babies in Plainville, Massachusetts. He had a wonderful career and is very appreciative of his patients and colleagues who trusted him for so many years. He enjoys retirement doing all the same things he did while he was working: yoga, gardening, tennis, biking, developing his spiritual practice, and enjoying time with his family. Now he just has more time and space to do all these things. This fall he will teach new medical students one afternoon a week the basics of being a doctor, including skills such as listening, expressing empathy, and learning how to do a physical exam. Bruce enjoyed visiting Wesleyan for our 45th Reunion. He found “being on campus created a nice warp in time.” Bruce added this recent photo of he and his wife, Judy Kaye.
Please keep in touch! We love receiving and sharing your news, photos, and updates.
Warmly,
SUSIE MUIRHEAD BATES | sbatesdux@hotmail.com
KEN KRAMER | kmkramer78@hotmail.com