Categories Class Notes | 1940sPosted on

CLASS OF 1946 | 2015 | ISSUE 2

The editors are saddened to report the death of longtime secretary Charlie Hill, who died June 7, 2015. He was 90. An obituary in the New York Times noted that he “taught French at Brooklyn College for 30 years, where he was a loved and respected teacher and colleague. He served as chairman of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures during the turbulence of New York City’s fiscal difficulties. He would give junior faculty members choice teaching assignments if he felt it would help their careers, since he was securely tenured. He was active as a leader in the New York-area American Association of Teachers of French, a role for which the French government honored him as a Chevalier des Palmes Académiques.” His son, Nick Hill ’85, observes: “Obviously, Wesleyan was a special place to him. Although many of our family members were Wesleyan graduates, that was not what mattered to him. He appreciated how well Wesleyan embodied the liberal arts. He would sometimes point out that he and Victor Butterfield started in the same year. I like to think that my time at Wesleyan gave him a renewed appreciation for a Wesleyan education. … As a longtime N.Y. Jets fan, he would jokingly gripe about Wesleyan’s embrace of Bill Belichick ’75!”

Douglas Dorchester writes, “I sent in an article on racism to the Cape Code Times. The editor liked it and waited for the right moment. When the tragic murders in Charleston, S.C., occurred, he said, ‘Now!’ He modified the article and printed it as their official response to Charleston. The article analyzes how racism develops in all of us.”

You can find his article at capecodtimes.com.

Categories Class Notes | 1940sPosted on

CLASS OF 1945 | 2015 | ISSUE 2

The preceding issue of this magazine included notice of the 2013 death of Gene Noble ’47; but before leaving for WWII service, he was a member of our class. He was also one of the 13 of us from Wesleyan who enlisted in the Tenth Mountain Division, which distinguished itself in combat in Italy and revolutionized the post-war ski industry. So far as I know at this June writing, four of us may still be alive; of two I am certain. That division was unique in military history, and its story and Wesleyan’s chapter of that story deserve a place in the college archives.

My last column generated no influx of news from you out there, but I did receive one unsigned scribbled note telling me, “A curse on your nonsense blessings.” Alas, that anonymous curse lacks spirit, lacks sting; it has no hint of elegance. Consider, if you will, how the ancient Irish curser had a fearsome power. To offend him or her was to flirt with a fate that could last four generations. Every chief had his personal bard whose function was to eulogize his employer and to curse without end his employer’s enemies. Next to the bard in cursing power came the widow woman, and a widow’s curse is still greatly to be feared. The orphan’s curse was no joke, either, and the priest’s curse was to be avoided like the plague. There’s a whole litany of curses in the Irish tradition: the hereditary curse; the reverting curse; the ceremonial group curse; the historical curse (probably the best-known historical curse in Ireland is ‘the curse of Cromwell’; the saint’s curse; and the poet’s curse. They take too many words of explanation for these notes’ allotted maximum, so I’ll end with my favorite delineation, the cursing contest, which has an underlying hint of good humor today. In Sligo town I witnessed a cursing contest between a shopkeeper and a woman of the Travelers. They went at it with vigor until the shopkeeper delivered this curse: “May the seven terriers of hell sit on the spool of your breast and bark in at your soul case.” The Traveler woman defeated him with, “The curse of the goose that lost the quill that wrote the Ten Commandments on ye.” American English has no elegance or imagination in what we coyly call four-letter words. The loss of powerful cursing is appalling.

Slán go fóill

Categories Class Notes | 1940sPosted on

CLASS OF 1943 | 2015 | ISSUE 2

I’m sorry to have to report two more losses. George McFarland died Jan. 5, 2015, and Art Snyder died Nov. 11, 2014. Art was a member of Psi U and a fellow soccer player. They will be sorely missed, and our hearts go out to their families.

Hope you are surviving the weather all right. A little too hot for me, coming from New Jersey! On my follow-up visit to the surgeon, they found some more cancer, so I’ll have to go back for another operation—maybe this time they will get it right!

From Jack Ritchie: “You do good work. I recently got to the campus (in May). I went to hear the president do an update on the state of the college, at lunch in the ’92 Theater for old folks. I was the only ’43 graduate, and the oldest there. The lunch was free.”

I received a nice letter from Fred Mellor, in which he writes, “It’s been years since I reported in to you or your predecessor. You deserve a deal of credit for your effort on behalf of the class of ’43. My wife and I are still in our same home since 1954—in good health, except I fell down a set of stairs and injured my left leg—so that I now walk slowly with a cane. It forced me to give up golf at our country club—now we play bridge there instead—men with men, women with women. I still can drive the car easily, but no sports. Ben Buffham ’41 is the only Wesleyan and Beta Theta Pi fraternity brother I have left to communicate with anymore. It has been years since the last visit to Wesleyan. Well, Fred—keep up the good reporting—I enjoy your effort.”

Dick Ferguson writes, “Always so good to hear from you, and the Wesleyan news. There are not any ’43 guys here at Cranes Mill. There is Bob Foster ’45, who was two classes behind us. He, also, likes news! Both of us send our best to Bobbie.”

Gene Loveland reports: “All is well. Tried to win back the cup in the spring putting championship, but bowed to my nemesis who had five aces to my four. A great match, and another crack at it in October. Also, news for the fall! Labor Day weekend I will marry an old friend of ours from Hartford and resident of the Hallmark. A beautiful 93-year-old who went to Wes house parties in our era, with a Deke whose name she can’t recall. [Congratulations, Gene!] Five days later, on Patriot’s Day, I will be 95. Should be a good year. Onward and upward into the 21st century!”

Categories Class Notes | 1930sPosted on

CLASS OF 1938 | 2015 | ISSUE 2

Well, I do believe I’ve had a first happen during my time as secretary for the Class of ’38. Seattle has had higher temperatures and less rainfall this June and early July than all of the places where I check in.

Okay, so I really only call Rhode Island and the western coast of Florida, but still, this is an amazingly dry summer we’ve got going on in Seattle. When I was looking over the last issue’s notes and saw how there was still snow on the ground when I spoke with Curtis Smith back in late March, I actually felt a little cooler. But these are actually the notes for the Class of ’38, not Seattle’s weather, so let’s get to them.

I am buying a lottery ticket because Len Weinstein and I actually spoke this time. I am delighted to report all is well with him and Suzanne. They are feeling very lucky. They are still living in their own home in Longboat Key, Fla., and he hopes it stays that way. “It’s a beautiful place on the edge of a golf course, overlooking a pond.” Who would want to leave that? Len enjoys playing bridge several times a week. Though a cane or a wheelchair may be needed, he still gets out daily to enjoy life.

Heading south just a bit, you’ll find Venice on the coast and that’s where you’ll find Art Kingsbury and wife, Diane. Normally Art is full of news but unfortunately Art’s hearing aids were on the blink the day I called. He sounds very well but our conversation was compromised. I did try later in the week and spoke with Diane, but the hearing issue wasn’t resolved. Besides the obvious frustration that comes with the loss of one’s hearing, all else was fine. Another great-grandchild will be joining the family this year. And as one can expect, that always brings much joy into their world.

Bob Porter and wife, Doris, are doing well. It’s a smaller world they are living in these days, but recent visits from their daughters brightened their June. “Nothing very exciting to report, I’m afraid, but fresh air is still on the menu.” So while he may not be putting around a golf course, getting out to watch the other residents is still an option he enjoys. We spoke about the exciting Women’s World Cup soccer games, as that was going on when I called. Bob was saying how differently soccer is played now from when he played for Wesleyan back in the day. “The ball control is amazing. The speed, the team work with the passing, it’s all fascinating.” Something I’d like to add that I think is fascinating is that Bob Porter is looking forward to celebrating his 100th birthday this November. I can’t wait to hear the details about that party!

After my Florida conversations, I called my sole fellow from ’38 who still lives up north. Curt Smith, you may remember, was rehabbing from a minor stroke. When we spoke this time, Curt said his recovery has steadily been improving, gaining strength and feeling better as the days go on. He is adjusting to his new place of residence, though he does admit the staff seems to fuss over him a bit more than he’s used to, but he’s working out a strategy for that. I await to hear if it works. While he may not want all the extra visits from the nurses, he thoroughly enjoys his visits from his children. Both daughters have visited from the Northwest this past spring. His daughter Maggie was going to be coming again soon in mid July. His son Phil swings by every week. Curt is still singing but currently it’s only in church. Perhaps when we speak next, he will have news about a choral group that he may start up at his residence. We both acknowledged what an amazing day it was when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality. We often talk politics and current events but I know these notes aren’t often the place for those issues. Every now and then a little sneaks its way in.

I miss my conversations around gardening at this time of the year, the ones I used to have with those from ’38 who have moved on. I hope they all are enjoying yummy peppers, incredible tomatoes, and beautiful dahlias.

It’s a wonderful image, isn’t it? And on that note, I close. Enjoy your summers and stay healthy. Check in with your families. Never forget that what you do now will be felt for generations to come. These notes remind us of that every issue.

GRACE BENNETT
daughter of the late Walter Bennett ’38
8104 39th Avenue, S.W., Seattle, WA 98136

Categories Obituaries | FacultyPosted on

CARL E. SCHORSKE

Carl E. Schorske, who taught at Wesleyan from 1946–1960 before moving to UC Berkley and eventually Princeton, died Sept. 13, 2015. He was 100 years old. A scholar whose essays centered on Vienna at the turn of the 20th century as the site of the origin of modernist thinking, he returned to Wesleyan in the 1970s as a visitor at the Center for Humanities. He won a Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction in 1981 for his collection of essays, Fin de Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture (1980), and was the recipient of a MacArthur fellowship, or “genius grants.”

Other books include German Social Democracy, 1905–1917 (1955) and Thinking With History: Explorations in the Passage to Modernism (1998).

Wesleyan president Michael S. Roth ’78 recalls that he had signed up for “Carl’s Vienna seminar” in the spring semester of his first year at Wesleyan.

“Carl was an extraordinary teacher—erudite, humane and sensitive to the different ways that students learned,” writes Roth. “He was an activist, a scholar and a pedagogue. These aspects of his personality all seemed to work together in his intellectual practice as a scholar-teacher. When he was teaching a subject he was deeply engaged with as a scholar, he said he ‘was really cooking with gas.’ He took culture seriously, and he took enormous pleasure in it, too. That seriousness and capacity for pleasure was something that his students were so fortunate to share in.”

Among those who survive are a daughter, three sons, three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. He was predeceased by a son, Stephen, in 2013, and his wife of more than 70 years, Elizabeth Rorke Schorske, died last year.

Categories Obituaries | FacultyPosted on

EUGENE KLAAREN

Eugene Klaaren, former associate professor of religion, passed away Oct. 17, 2015, at the age of 78. Gene taught at Wesleyan from 1968 until he retired in 2006.

His courses introduced students to central Christian thinkers in the history of theology and philosophy, from Martin Luther to Søren Kierkegaard, John Calvin to David Hume and Jonathan Edwards, and Friedrich Schleiermacher to Friedrich Nietzsche. Over the years he broadened his academic interests, regularly visiting Africa to study indigenous African religions as well as Christian theological formations that combined political action and religious belief and practice. But his great passion was in showing the forms of belief that sustained secularity and the vitality of the theological discipline from the early modern through the postmodern age. This dynamic intertwining of secular sciences and the religious imagination is captured in the title of Gene’s highly regarded book, Religious Origins of Modern Science: Belief in Creation in Seventeenth Century Thought.

Klaaren’s friend, Rick Elphick, Professor of History, Emeritus, who co-taught with him and worked with him in numerous academic settings, says: “Gene was a profoundly thoughtful teacher. He had a near-encyclopedic command of many literatures. When asked a question in the classroom, a seminar, or after a lecture, he would fall silent for 30 seconds and then come forth with an answer masterfully weaving insights from far-flung regions of his inner archive.”

He leaves his wife of 54 years, the Rev. Mary Decker Klaaren, two sons, a daughter, two sisters, a brother, seven grandchildren, and numerous nieces and nephews.

Categories UncategorizedPosted on

RICHARD H. GOODMAN MAT’55

RICHARD H. GOODMAN MAT’55, a national leader in public education, died Aug. 19, 2015, at age 84. An alumnus of Dartmouth College, he received his MAT from Wesleyan and then served in the U.S. Army. His first position in public education was as a teacher and principal in the Meriden, N.H., elementary school. He then earned his doctorate in education from Harvard University and served as superintendent of schools in the Milford, N.H., Union 40 District. In 1963 he was selected by the American Association of School Administrators to study public schools in Sweden, and in 1966 the Jaycees named him an Outstanding Young Man of New England. From 1966 to 1969 he was executive director of the New England School Development Council and then became superintendent of schools in Wellesley, Mass. In 1976 he and his family moved back to New Hampshire, where he became executive director of both the New Hampshire School Boards Association and the New Hampshire School Administrators Association. As director of the Center for Educational Field Studies at the University of New Hampshire, he visited every one of the 221 towns in the state, assisting local school boards and administrators in a multitude of ways. He fought tirelessly for the betterment of New Hampshire public schools and for the success of every child in the state. In 1996 he retired but continued to consult, serving as a project director at NESDEC. He co-authored “Improved Leadership for Improved Achievement” and “Thinking Differently: Recommendations for 21st Century School Board/Superintendent Leadership, Governance, and Teamwork for High Student Achievement.” The latter publication was sent to all school superintendents in America. He directed a national study of public school district governance, resulting in the co-authored publication “Getting There from Here: School Board-Superintendent Collaboration for Raising Student Achievement.” A founder of the New Hampshire School Boards Insurance Trust and the New England Christa McAuliffe Conference on Technology for Education, he conducted hundreds of workshops for school leaders and spoke at many regional and national conferences, including those of the American Association of School Administrators and the National School Boards Association.
In 1998, he became a delegation leader for People to People, and was appointed area director for Northern New England the following year, leading many groups of student ambassadors to over 10 countries until his retirement from the program in 2005. In 2006 he ran for and was elected to the Winnacunnet High School Board of Education, where he served two 3-year terms. He enjoyed fishing in the lakes and rivers of New England, earning the nickname “Fishnet.” He was an avid walker, devoured books on historical figures and loved to wear colorful Save the Children ties.

While a student at Wesleyan, he successfully nominated his mother to be New Hampshire’s 1954 Mother of the Year, an honor that gave him tremendous joy as the 12th of her 13 children. He devoted the first years of his retirement to researching and privately publishing a book about the Goodman Family. Predeceased by his first wife, Arlene Jette Goodman, he is survived by his wife of 15 years, Lynn Cozza Goodman, three children, two stepsons, including Derek F. DiMatteo ’97, four grandchildren, his brother, two sisters, 30 nieces and nephews, and many friends.

Categories Obituaries | 1990-1999Posted on

SACHIKO S. MALLACH ’94

SACHIKO S. MALLACH, 42, a fund-raiser and development officer for several non-profit institutions, died July 1, 2015. After graduating with a degree in comparative politics, she studied at Magdalene College of Cambridge University and at Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. She was affiliated with InterExchange and International House in New York City, and the Hackley School in Tarrytown, N.Y. She was the director of development for the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, director of development for the Chester County Historical Society in West Chester, Penna., and most recently the vice president for institutional advancement at Harcum College in Bryn Mawr, Penna. She loved listening to and playing music, hiking and camping, and being with people. She touched the lives of many people with her smile, optimism and generosity, and maintained her strong heart and sense of humor all the way to the end of her life. Her husband, Dan Mallach, survives, as do her daughter and her brother.

Categories Obituaries | 1990-1999Posted on

KATHARINE KELLOND ROTH ’91

KATHARINE KELLOND ROTH, M.D., a hospice and palliative care physician, died Dec. 15, 2014. She was 45 and had a long struggle with seizure disorder and Behcet’s Syndrome, an autoimmune disease. After receiving her medical degree from Georgetown University Medical School in 2001, she was determined to pursue her medical career despite several health obstacles, and her family reports that she was an inspiration to those who knew her. She is survived by her husband of 16 years, Chris Weston; her young sons, Nicholas and William; her mother, Judge Jane Richards Roth; her brother; and a niece and nephew.

Categories Obituaries | 1980-1989Posted on

GEORGE H. DIXON ’85

GEORGE H. DIXON, 55, a healthcare and financial executive, died Sept. 14, 2015. At the time of his death he was senior vice president in the commercial lending division of Boston Private, a unit of Boston Private Financial Holdings. Earlier, he worked with a venture capital firm as strategic and financial adviser, as well as with Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare, Inc., CSI Solutions, Inc., and Merrill Lynch Global Wealth Management. Among those who survive are his wife, Jane Oleski Dixon, and several nieces and nephews.