Author: etaylor

Hello, classmates! Not many entries for this edition. Hopefully more of you will be able to reply in the future.

Dave Walden says that he has been enjoying his 24 years of retirement. He writes, “Carol and I remain well—no problem (yet?) with COVID. University is on virtual classes, but hopes to return to “normal” soon. Difficult for laboratory classes. We have two grandsons in engineering faculty at Western, and we have not been able to see them! Best wishes to all!”

Bud Johnson enjoyed the last class reports from John Binswanger and Terry Hatter. He now writes, “Lynn and I just enjoyed three grandkids’ graduations via Zoom. Notre Dame’s two speakers set high marks for reality and hopefulness. It might be interesting to pull out our ’54 Commencement Address and print just two or three primary points for reflection. Remember, I was headed to Naval Pilot training a month later. I wonder what I have forgotten!”

Your scribe, Bob Carey, and his wife Libby have been weathering the COVID storm like so many of our classmates. Hunkering down and using Zoom to connect with family and friends. Who had ever heard of Zoom before?

We watched six graduations last spring (four college and two high school) on Zoom—or in one case, by telecom link. Secretly, we said to each other, “This is a pretty efficient way to witness a graduation: front row seats, no travel and no getting up at 6 a.m. to sit in the hot sun for four hours in stadium seats!” All kidding aside, it is wonderful now to be able to give hugs again. I hope you all are well and are getting back to normal, as we are.

Received from “The Mouse,” aka Richard Levinson: has yet to reach 90, continues with his firm practicing law throughout New Jersey, and regularly, poorly but energetically, plays tennis. His wife, Susan, continues to write nonfiction and blog for Psychology Today. Like all of us, he misses the guys that made Wesleyan a great place.

From Washington, D.C., the restaurants, after more than a year, are beginning to welcome, inside, Walter Cutler and his wife Didi for dinners out. He is planning a family reunion on the Wesleyan campus with his Cutler granddaughters, Grace ’24, from Evanston, Illinois, and Nina ’24 from New York.

I sincerely hope everyone has been well and staying safe during these pandemic times. Please consider sharing your news—good or bad—or your Wes memories with me for the next edition of the magazine. I look forward to hearing from you. Be well!

 

I am saddened to report the passing of our classmate George N. Morris, and Joyce Buckingham, the wife of our former scribe, Hal Buckingham. George’s wife Ann wrote that he died on January 20, 2021, from heart failure. He is survived by his wife, three children, four grandchildren, and one great-grandson. He was a world traveler, having visited all seven continents, and he crossed the Antarctic and Arctic Circles numerous times. Following graduation, he served in the US Army, graduated from Harvard Business School, and had a long career in finance in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.

Joyce died on June 25, 2021, after a short illness. Hal began dating Joyce in her Oneonta, New York, hometown when she was a junior in high school and he was a freshman at Wesleyan. She was a regular at house parties and other weekend events while a student at Mount Holyoke. Those of us attending class reunions will recall that Joyce was always there at Hal’s side.

Harry Collings writes that he is still on this side of the ground at 91, living in a Del Webb Sun City in Lincoln, California, about 30 miles east of Sacramento. He lost his wife Peg seven years ago after 65 years of wonderful marriage and misses her every minute of every day. Playing bridge keeps him occupied, as does his two children, four grandchildren, and six great-grandkids. He worked 36 years for the DuPont Company. He reminds us that his dad was buildings and grounds superintendent at Wesleyan from the 30s to 50s and put in the original steam power plant, which has now probably been replaced. He sends his best wishes to all of us left from the class of ’52.

Zdenek V. David is still with the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., as a senior scholar. His publications in 2019–20 included a book, eight articles, and a translation. See Amazon for a complete list.

Alan Ward says hello to our classmates and writes that he missed his grandson’s graduation this year after attending three family graduations and quite a few others, once after a Middletown flood blocked almost all access to Wesleyan. He is not sure about our 70th Reunion, maybe, but it looks like his lifelong ties to Wesleyan—graduate, parent, grandparent, alumni association, trustee, counsel for the antitrust investigation, and 70 years as a Deke—are drawing to a close. He offered his grateful thanks to Vic, Colin, Arthur Vanderbilt, Millet, Snow, Woodbridge, Banks, and so many others.

Jack Murray reports that last fall he finally discovered his whole father’s side of his background. He disappeared shortly after Jack was born in 1930, a Depression story. The discovery was through a new-fangled service called Ancestry.com. He discovered that he has two living (half) sisters and a late brother who went by his same name. Since his mother was seventh of eight children and his father eighth of nine, you can imagine the cousin and niece and nephew glut. Nice thing to find out in your nineties.

Finally, I am happy to report that my granddaughter, Eliza Bender ’24, child of Samuel Bender and Ellen Friedman Bender, both class of ’82, finished a very successful first year at Wesleyan. Her sister, Madeline, graduated Yale School of Public Health and is writing articles for Scientific American as an intern, among other publications. I celebrated my 65th anniversary with Barbara in August as well as number 90 in September. I wish all in our class the best and ask that they send me news about themselves and their families.

Biff Shaw has agreed to assume the role of Class Agent for the great Class of ’51; he thought the class would appreciate an update on the fundraising year that ended in June. Biff and fifteen others generously supported Wesleyan in honor of our 70th Reunion, with gifts totaling nearly $425,000, some of which came from bequests. Please contact Biff if you would like to know more about current and planned giving options. It is never too late or a bad time to take part.

I received a message from 1950s classmate Bob Birney, saying that he is alive, in good shape, and 96 years old. He was Phi Beta Kappa at Wesleyan.

This column marks the beginning of my 99th mortal year, my 32nd year of secretarial jottings, and I’m nesaki (Mohawk word meaning “standing on a high hill, looking backward”). I have climbed and stood, walked, even slept atop numbers of the Rockies, bits of the Alps, all of the gentle old Adirondacks, and several of New England’s White and Green heights. Always, the view, were it at dawn, midday, or sunset, was an inspiration, sometimes an admonition, occasionally a windblast scare; but it never failed to lift the horizon to the level of my vision. And that’s why we go high. My walking the top of the world is years gone and my visions are memories; clear, keen, and colorful memories. The eye of the mind is indeed a treasure.

Returned to the Hill of Class Notes, I look backward to September of 1941, when a generally happy, sometimes boisterous collection of youths were buying affordable textbooks, completing class schedules, visiting fraternity houses, trying out for teams or music groups, and making new friendships that were sure to hold forever, according to the Wesleyan songs. The Depression was fading; Hitler, and occasionally Mussolini, were newsreel interludes at the movies. But that was there, we were here, and the class of 1945 settled into planning four years of the Wesleyan adventure. Seven weeks later the explosions at Pearl Harbor blew the class of 1945 into fragments that scattered graduations all the way through 1949. We went to the war to end all wars, and some of us never returned to Wesleyan—some too damaged, some to other colleges, some already at rest in honored cemeteries, or in unknown places in other parts of the world. We were one class for a brief time, but our fragments have added luster to the entire 40s decade of the Wesleyan adventure. So, from my secretarial hilltop I look out and back, and I see that scattered, tattered class again a whole force, the like of which will not be seen again.

Slán go fóill.