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We start with two significant genealogical achievements:

First, Andy Dahl writes, “After five years of research, writing, and editing, my book Finding Rose: The Search for My Grandmother has finally been published.” The book chronicles the life and fate of his maternal grandmother, Rose Liepmann Oppenheim, a German Jew, during the Holocaust. “I describe her life beginning with her prominent German-Jewish heritage through her persecution under the Nazis: the inexorable deterioration of her personal condition under the Nazi regime, the forced bankruptcy of her family business, the seizure of her home, the confiscation of her possessions, and her eventual deportation to the Izbica transit camp in Poland, where she perished.” The book also describes how his uncle, who had immigrated to the U.S. as a teenager, joined the U.S. Army and became both a “Ritchie Boy” (a German-speaking interrogator of German prisoners) and General George Patton’s jeep driver. Immediately after the war ended, he drove through the Russian-occupied zone with the unfulfilled hope of finding his mother alive. Still, “thanks to hundreds of letters written from Rose to her children and other family documents carefully preserved in old leather ‘suitcases of sadness’ for 80 years, I have come to know her.” Finding Rose has done well in Amazon sales under the Holocaust Biographies category and was featured at the 2025 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Andy concludes: “I owe my ability to do historical research and write a book of this type to my time spent as an American studies major at Wesleyan many years ago.” 

Second, Morrie Heckscher “used the COVID lockdown to address what to do with a family archive I’d inherited, finally giving it to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania—but not before composing a family history based upon its hundreds of post–Civil War letters, early photos, diaries, etc. These documented a classic American story: all about race and religion; ambition, immigration, and assimilation; patriarchs, powerful women, and family dynamics. These provided the kind of granular, unselfconscious evidence you don’t get on Google. The result, thanks to my Wesleyan education, is more history than hagiography. The Heckschers were from Hamburg, and the first-generation immigrants were the real achievers. More recently, my wife, Fenella, is about to come out with a biography of Jane Colden, America’s first woman botanist. She and I happily spend much of the time in our garden in the Hudson River Valley.”

In other news, John Hazlehurst is “still writing a weekly column for the Pikes Peak Bulletin, and (wonder of wonders) they’re still paying me to do it!” Otherwise, there’s “not much to report from no longer particularly scenic Colorado Springs, as Karen and I look forward to a calm summer with our three reasonably well‑behaved young dogs and visits from the kids, the grands, and the great-grands.”

Bruce and Karen Menke were recently recognized by the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Georgia for their participation in classes offered by the institute over the past 10 years. Bruce continues as a highly active democratic supporter, writing “more than 100 op‑eds and letters to the editor, which have appeared in more than 20 print and online media outlets serving the 22 counties within our congressional district, with many letters appearing in The Atlanta Journal Constitution. I have also led a group of 20 letter-to-the-editor writers, who have generated a steady stream of messages to the voters in our area concerning the ongoing attacks on our democracy and the actions that can be taken to oppose them.”

David Lorenzen Sbrega and his wife, Barbara, have both had some serious health problems but “are hanging in there. We still live in Mexico City (since 1970!), have two daughters, [who are] now living in LA and D.C., and a son here in Mexico. He is father to our only grandchild, now four years old. We often visit Barbara’s home village in upstate New York. I retired from my job as a professor of South Asian history in El Colegio de México in 2011 but am sporadically active with academic projects including a recent co‑authored book about an early modern Hindi poet. I applaud President Roth’s efforts to defend the academic freedom of universities against government interference.”

On a late and sad note, Milt Schroeder passed away on July 24, and Chuck Work was among the distinguished speakers at his memorial service.

Since I have a little extra word allowance this time, I conclude with a brief personal note. Helena and I are still living happily in our suburban Toronto home, although as dual citizens we feel quite aghast by the recent turn in political relations. Despite a few “penalties of age” (as a contemporary friend puts it), I keep moderately busy with small academic projects, mainly book reviews and memoir‑ish short articles. I greatly enjoy hearing from Wes classmates and recently tried (with modest success) to establish a somewhat comparable email network among my surviving Springfield (Pennsylvania) high school classmates. To everyone so inclined, please keep your messages coming to me.

RAY FANCHER | fancher@yorku.ca