Tag: 1952

We promised more on Dick Mayer in this issue of the magazine. Dick left Wesleyan after his sophomore year and enlisted in the U. S. Army. Following graduation from Officer Candidate School, he became a platoon leader on the front lines of Korea, was seriously wounded, spent a year in a hospital in Japan, and was awarded one of the Army’s highest medals. Beyond this, Dick has forbade me (Hal) from providing any details of his military exploits, so my hands are tied. I am pleased to add, however, that Dick recovered satisfactorily from his wounds and says that he is still in pretty decent shape. He walks three miles a day and exercises for 45 minutes every morning. He has had a great life, especially his 61-year marriage to a very special woman (Ginger). He is still very active in the insurance business he founded, Executive Compensation Systems, Inc. (see issue 1, 2015, class notes for more details), and despite not having graduated, is every bit the epitome of the Wesleyan liberal arts-educated citizen Vic Butterfield so successfully molded.

Ken Taylor and his wife, JoAnne, reside in the same Seabury Retirement Community, Bloomfield, Conn., as Joyce and I, and we often dine together. You might think that we’d run out of old Wes stories by now, but recently Ken bowled me over with a tale I had trouble believing. Ken related (actually regaled) how his fellow Sigma Chi pledge, Russ Doolittle, was sent off on a quest to ride a horse across the Boston Common, lantern in hand, à la Paul Revere, shouting that the British were coming. I e-mailed Russ to find out if Ken was hallucinating, but Russ told me that, although it was probably not as sensational as Ken recalled, it was mostly accurate. Happily, Russ (and the horse) survived the event, and happily also, it turned out not to be the greatest accomplishment in his life. In fact, he says that he would just as soon forget it at this point.

In the course of tracking down the truth of the Doolittle quest, I learned that Dunc Nelson had had a quest on the same weekend and that he had actually accompanied Russ on his Boston Commons escapade. Dunc’s quest assignment was to parade a goose in front of the library at Wellesley, which he did. However, he was also supposed to inquire after the “measurements” of any young women he encountered there. That was a bit too much for Dunc, who wrote, “Flamboyant as I pretend to be, I suspect that I—keeping the ‘fowl’ imagery—chickened out.” On the way back to campus, Dunc’s borrowed car ran out of brake fluid. Having no money on him, he was forced to exchange the goose for two bottles of brake fluid at a gas station. You can’t make this stuff up!

Tom Collins and wife, Mary Ellen, were seen this past May after a performance at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Conn. Tom still goes to his law office in Glastonbury, Conn. daily. He is in great shape for one significantly older than the rest of his classmates—92. Tom was in the service during the WW II era before entering Wesleyan with us.

Walter Pories checked in recently with news of life in the springtime on his North Carolina farm, including a new crop of soybeans, baby goats, emerging pears, rhubarb ready for the table, “show-off magnolia with its huge white blossoms,” etc. Interspersed with that was, “To my absolute surprise, I was asked if I would like to serve as the second vice president-elect of the American College of Surgeons, a small organization of only 70,000 members [note Pories’ humor] and the strongest surgical society in the world.” Then, with his typical modesty and wit, he added, “As I see my job, it’s to get on my knees every morning and pray that none of the officers die. So far, I have a 100 percent success rate.” Amen, Walter!

More sad news. Dick “Sherry” Sherwood, of South Dartmouth, Mass., died on April 7, 2015. Sherry was part of the five-year Wesleyan/MIT program leading to a degree in architecture and civil engineering, so he left to attend MIT after our junior year. He was well known at Wesleyan as a sailing aficionado and, also, he possessed the first lacrosse stick and ball many of us had ever seen. He had a long career as a construction manager of projects in Jamaica, Iran, England, Denver, and other U.S. locations. Later on, his interest in sailing led him to write A Field Guide to Sailboats, and his keen sense of citizenship involvement led him to be selectman and to serve on various town committees of Amherst, N.H., where his wife, Janet, and he then resided. Dick is survived by his wife, two sons, and five grandchildren, to whom we extend our sincerest condolences.

Our class president and class agent, Bill Wasch, reminds us that our class has established the Class of 1952 Endowed Wesleyan Scholarship. It is presently held by Michael Glasser ’16, of Forest Hills, N.Y. Michael is a molecular biology and biochemistry major who says his favorite class last semester was Techniques of Poetry, which he took in addition to five science and math courses. Vic Butterfield would have loved this student! We can all build our scholarship fund for the benefit of future Wesleyan liberal arts students by designating our annual Wesleyan Fund contributions to the Class of 1952 Endowed Scholarship Fund.

Don Sanders was our faithful Class Secretary from shortly after we graduated until his death last November. He was the perfect fit for this position, as the bulk of his career was spent in writing and editing at IBM. He also co-authored two books that evolved from his geology major at Wesleyan, Volcanoes in Human History and Earthquakes in Human History. I shadowed Don as Class Secretary after his severe stroke four years ago, and now it has become my challenge to try to fill the enormous shoes Don left in this position.

Nothing is more painful than having to report the loss of classmates. We have several for this edition and I am afraid sad news of this sort is going to fill our class notes increasingly in the years ahead. Some, but not all, complete obituaries can be found online at classnotes.blogs.wesleyan.edu/obituaries-2/. The following recent deaths are reported here in chronological order:

Charlie “Birdie” Palliser died March 10, 2014, according to information obtained by Wesleyan. When last heard from, he was living in Walnut Creek, Calif., and was director of inventory systems for McKesson Corp. No obituary has been found, as of going to press. If anyone can provide further information, please let us know.

John Williams died in Winnipeg, Canada, on Oct. 30, 2014, from complications of a stroke. He spent most of his life in the New Rochelle and Larchmont, N.Y., area. An avid golfer and tennis player, he retired as a senior partner at Coopers & Lybrand in 1989. He was predeceased by his wife, Joan, and is survived by three sons and daughters-in-law and four grandsons.

Hugh Young died in Vienna, Va., on Nov. 24, 2014, after a completely unexpected heart attack. Hugh served 32 years in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations. He was a distinguished member of the CIA Senior Intelligence Service, headed CIA offices both international and domestic and provided direct leadership to CIA efforts in Northeast and Southeast Asian locations. Hugh is survived by his wife of 49 years, Reiko Young, and two sons.

Bob Wonkka died in Concord, N.H., on Dec. 10, 2014. Bob was a mathematics academician who taught, served as department head, and finally as division director at Vermont Technical College for 30 years. He was the first recipient of the faculty advising award, which now bears his name, and was named a professor emeritus upon his retirement in 1992. Always active in his local church and community, Bob and his wife, Nadena, had entered the retirement community of Havenwood-Heritage Heights in Concord in 1998. In addition to his wife, Bob is survived by three daughters, two sons-in-law and four grandchildren.

Kim Zachos died the afternoon of this past New Year’s Eve from a massive heart attack while on his way from his office to his car. He had just said goodbye to his office colleagues as he headed for home and had wished them a Happy New Year. No one in our class came from a more humble childhood and achieved greater success with more humility than Kim. From his Root-Tilden Scholarship at NYU Law School, to his longtime senior partnership in one of New Hampshire’s and New England’s leading law firms, to membership in the first class of White House Fellows and interning with Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, to being elected Deputy Speaker of the N.H. House of Representatives, to his decades of leadership of the Currier Museum of Art, to his chairmanship of the N.H. Charitable Fund, to serving on the boards of multiple educational, civic, religious, business and cultural institutions over the years, Kim exemplified the very finest of citizens and received more honors, awards, and tributes than space allows me to mention. A columnist for the NH Sunday News summed it up, “His legacy is a better state and profession.” Kim is survived by his wife of 55 years, Anne, three daughters, three sons-in-law, and five grandsons.

We extend sincere condolences to the families of these classmates who will ever be remembered and treasured as part of our Wesleyan experience.

We received a nice note from Don Stauffer when he alerted us to Hugh Young’s death. Don and his wife have been living at Avila Retirement Community in Albany, N.Y., for the past five years. They have stopped traveling to distant points, but are enjoying local culture, such as the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Tanglewood, Glimmerglass Opera in Cooperstown, the Union College chamber music series, Albany Symphony Orchestra, and The Clark Art Institute in Williamstown. Don is still a Cornell Master Gardener volunteer, sings in a local choral group and is a member of the Schenectady Torch Club.

Before his untimely death, Kim Zachos forwarded an e-mail he had received from his and Bill Wasch’s freshman year roommate, Dick Mayer. This e-mail was filled with news and information. It made up, sort of, for years of his absentia from these class notes! Dick, a CLU, founded Executive Compensation Systems, Inc., Savannah, Ga., which designs and implements executive benefit plans for physicians, attorneys, other professionals and for highly compensated executives of several public companies. He has now turned the business over to his son-in-law, but from his e-mail one can easily detect that he is still up for selling life insurance. Dick has some interesting personages in his family tree, including Samuel Huntington, who signed the Declaration of Independence for Connecticut, was Governor of Connecticut for 11 years, and whose home was located on the site of Wesleyan’s President’s House. More important, Dick and his beloved Ginger recently celebrated their 60th year of marriage. Look for more on Dick in the next issue.

Hal Buckingham | hcbuckingham@daypitney.com

William K. Wasch | wkwash@gmail.com

The last issue of this magazine carried word of the death of John “Didge” Dodge on Dec. 8, 2013. Didge, a member of Sigma Chi while at Wesleyan, spent a very productive career with the Boy Scouts of America. We send sincere condolences to his widow and children.

Classmates may recall the 2010 China visit by Al Chien and family, including his brother George Chien ’56, to the site of the bridge his father had designed over the Mekong River (known as the Lancang River in China) as part of the Burma Road. They were disappointed to find that only days before their arrival the bridge had been dismantled because of planned construction of a dam downstream. But disappointment turned to thrilling news in June 2014, when the Chiens learned that the bridge had been reassembled across the river at a safer place and is available for visitation but not crossing by vehicles. The bridge is legendary in China because it was that country’s first cable suspension road bridge and was replicated by many other bridges on the Burma Road. The bridge is named for the Chien brothers’ father, Chien Chang Kan, who not only designed it, but supervised its construction in 1939–40. Tragically, shortly after the bridge was completed, their father was shot down by the Japanese and killed while conducting an aerial inspection of bomb damage to the bridge. Members of the Chien family, hopefully including Al, plan to revisit the bridge, now a museum piece, in 2015.

John Wood, his wife Pat, and granddaughter made a vacation trip through New England during the 2014 summer. Among others, they visited Sigma Chi brothers Kim Zachos (and Anne), and Ken Taylor (and JoAnne). At Kim’s, they happened upon Charley “Rogo” Rogovin (and Marcy) who were visiting Kim and Anne while en route to Nova Scotia. John missed seeing Hal Buckingham (and Joyce) by minutes. Having left his original law firm in Indianapolis sometime ago, John has continued practicing law with the Indiana Department of Family Services on a full-time basis.

While visiting Kim Zachos, Rogo was able to reconnect with his old Chi Psi mate, Dave Nixon ’53, in one of the weekly coffee breaks Kim has with fellow attorney Dave in Manchester, N.H.

We lost another of our exemplary classmates when Jim “Harpo” Reap died on June 8, 2014. Jim, based in White Plains, N.Y., had an extraordinary career as a practicing attorney, city, and state judge, Rear Admiral in the USN and Commander of the NY State Naval Militia, all the while being active in a wide variety of local and state civic and bar organizations. Remembered at Wesleyan as a nine varsity letter athlete and captain of the golf team, Jim continued his golfing prowess and won the Westchester (NY) Bar Association Golf Championship 13 times. He is survived by his wife, Nancy, two sons, a daughter, and two grandchildren, to whom we extend our deepest sympathy on their and our great loss.

As the deadline for submitting these class notes arrived, we received word of the death of Bill Bruner on Aug. 30, 2014, in Charlotte, N.C. Bill’s beloved avocation was competitive sailing and he was an acclaimed sailor until Alzheimer’s struck him down 13 years ago. He leaves his wife, Jean, two sons and several grandchildren, as well as all of his Wesleyan classmates, to mourn his loss.

DONALD T. SANDERS | dtsanders1@sbcglobal.net
33 Sunny Hill Drive, Madison, CT 06443

Just as this issue of the magazine was going to press, we learned of the death of Don Sanders. Don has been our faithful and dedicated Class Secretary, author of our Class Notes since the first issue after our graduation in 1952. He remained steadfast in his service, even after suffering a paralyzing stroke four years ago. He leaves a daughter, son-in-law, two grandchildren and his longtime beloved companion, Joan Boutelle, to each of whom we extend our heartfelt condolences. To say that he will be missed by his classmates is a vast understatement. (HCB)