CLASS OF 1965 | 2020 | ISSUE 3
Fred Nachman called after learning of Hal Gorman’s passing. They were close friends and Chi Psi brothers. Fred sent Donna a lovely message and great photo of Hal pass-blocking for Fred on the gridiron. Fred and wife Linda remain happy and healthy (regular hiking/tennis) in Phoenix.
Geoff Geiser writes: “Carole and I celebrated our 54th wedding anniversary this year. Children, Erik and Lynn, and their spouses, Ingrid and Josh, continue to thrive. Grandchildren, Luke and Lauren, graduated from college, and Annika and Zachary are sophomores. Spend our winters in Pennsylvania when not traveling to warmer climates and summers on L.B.I. in New Jersey.”
Rick Borger: “Wife Judy and I are healthy, happy and comfortably retired, living at Cornwall Manor, a continuing care retirement community in Cornwall, Pennsylvania. I am vice president of the residents’ association and teach the AARP Safe Driving course. Each summer we visit our cottage on a pond in central Massachusetts where I grew up.”
Jack Hardin “continues to practice corporate law and to lead Atlanta’s efforts to combat homelessness. Compared to other major cities, Atlanta has had great success in reducing homeless counts. Upon the advent last spring of SARS Cov-2, Atlanta was the first city to test everyone in every shelter and most of the unsheltered, and opened up an isolation hotel and another hotel for the unsheltered. This kept the positivity rate below 2 percent when the general population tested as high as 10 percent, now trending down to 8 percent. Like the nation as a whole, we are facing a potential tsunami of potential evictions and working with landlords, tenants, and philanthropy to attempt to keep people in their homes.
“A few years ago, I corralled a few of my fellow Wesleyan alums in Atlanta and we created the Greater Atlanta Scholarship that helps Atlanta area students go to Wesleyan. We have three children (including Brett ’91) and six grandchildren.”
Arthur Rhodes: “Retired from seeing patients at Chicago’s Rush University Medical in 2019. Wife Leslie and I are enjoying visiting our combined five children and ten grandchildren in Chicago and New Orleans.”
Guy Archer: “Andrea and I still going strong here in Honolulu—walking several miles most every day, counting the golden plovers, taking online courses, and watching old movies on TV. Last summer we managed a month in Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and Austria via Eurail, and never missed a train. Among other European treasures, we saw the all Rembrandt exhibit, the Keukenhof Flower Gardens and heard the Firebird Suite in Amsterdam.”
Tony Shuman: “Very sorry to learn of Hal’s death, and sorrier still to inform you of another recent loss: Bill Brundage. Bill lived an iconoclastic life off-grid on the Island of Hawai’i (the ‘big island’). A champion of self-sufficiency and early environmental consciousness, he expressed this through his own life and in an endless series of letters to the editors of local papers. Over the years we were occasionally in touch, linked by our shared experience in class with Nobby (Norman O.) Brown. Bill never owned a computer, wrote by typewriter, and communicated through surface mail. I know that Guy Archer, also a Hawaii resident, was able to see Bill on his birthday last January. His daughter, Karla’s, poignant words to me follow:
“It is with deep sadness that I write to let you know that my dad, Frederic William Brundage, passed away on September 18, 2020, at the age of 77. I will always remember my dad’s love for the land and community of friends he found in Hawaiian Acres. He was a man ahead of his time in many ways. He always had a passion for the earth and with many of you, he lived his beliefs in his conservation and living as self-sufficiently and off the land as possible. He was a firm believer in recycling, and I recall him starting a recycling center at the Hawaiian Acres community a long time ago. I have always admired his artful life and skill in this way. My dad also had a passion for truth and always spoke what he believed to be true, which led to a very controversial life indeed! He also was an inspiration to me as a writer and artist and shared with me his love of his land. Thank you all for helping him to live a life of freedom, which he valued more than anything.”
(Tony continues to teach architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology after 30 months as interim dean. He is on sabbatical this year focusing on his work around Newark: development of a physical model of the city; heading the local community development board; co-editing Newark Landmarks (2016); lobbying for the historic Essex County Jail; and promoting “passive house” design for university employees. His family is in good health, with both boys now seniors in college.)
Philip L. Rockwell | prockwell@wesleyan.edu