Jan H. Westerman passed away on Sept. 4, 2017 in California. He owned his own paper and office supply company and loved to sail. He was divorced and left behind his ex-wife and his daughter.
We thank Bob Johnson ’61 for this information.
While enjoying an afternoon coffee at Wesleyan, Glenn Hawkes and his son, Jesse, conversed with Emil Frankel and Jack Mitchell. Glenn reports: “Both Mitchell and Frankel have somehow managed to retain their handsome boyishness while enjoying their long and successful careers: Jack with his fine and far-reaching clothing business and his book-writing, Emil with an amazing career in D.C. and his serving as transportation secretary for the State of Connecticut.”
Hawkes continues: “I came close to falling off my seat in the coffee bar when Emil shared with us his decision to become an Independent, thus abandoning a half-century of leadership and love for the Republican Party. I think it was when we roomed together, graduate school days at Harvard, that Emil created the Ripon Society. I’ve also since left the Republican Party, accomplished some decades prior to Emil’s jumping off the ship. I’m still struggling to fundraise school fees for about 40 Rwandan secondary school students, hoping that I’ll live until the last student earns a diploma. That would be in 2021. As always, I welcome any interest you (or perhaps a son, daughter or grandchild) might have in taking a trip to Rwanda, where my second family and I have a nice home and guest house.”
Foster Morrison regularly presents thoughtful insights that may interest classmates. He writes: “One thing that has been long known is that such things often can change rapidly and extremely with small disturbances. Stability often is achieved by resonances, such as the periods of Saturn and Jupiter being 29.65 and 11.86 years for a five to two ratio. Pluto and Neptune never collide, though they overlap, because of a resonance. The same side of the Moon always faces the Earth. God’s will? Maybe God knows how to build things that last, but man does not or doesn’t care.
“Climate change seems to be moving slowly, but Hurricane Irma may mark the shift to a new peak for the energy in such a storm. Complex nonlinear dynamical systems may be stabilized by resonances (ratios of frequencies being small integers), but if these are disturbed, rapid disintegration often occurs. So Irma may (or may not) be sending us a warning that the climate in the North Atlantic may be getting much more unstable and dangerous. I think I’ve heard about another dangerous hurricane (Jose) already forming. The general principle is that slow, gradual change may destroy a stabilizing resonance and it will be difficult or impossible to restore it. Most scientists and mathematicians, being specialists, do not seem to be aware of this. Politicians, economists, bureaucrats, and journalists don’t understand anything. Specialists in celestial mechanics usually have some awareness of this property of nonlinear dynamical systems. I started out my career with satellite orbits, many of which have helpful resonances thoughtfully designed.
“The general principle is that establishing stability in complex nonlinear systems is challenging, but now made much easier with high-powered digital computers. God has been doing this almost forever and now we have to do it too instead of destroying His creations with our ignorance.”
Respectfully submitted,
Jon K. Magendanz, DDS | jon@magendanz.com
902 39th Avenue West, Bradenton, Fl 34205
The timing was perfect for Joe Miller, who wrote: “You hit me on my 78th birthday, and I’m feeling frisky enough to pitch in this time around. Three years retired from teaching African history at the University of Virginia and finding the ‘sweet spot’ of this stage, I’m now at my own pace. What the youngsters out there bring to the encounter is energy and imagination, and what I have to offer at this point is experience. They write the books and I try to help them make the most of all that good work. My oldest daughter, a Mayan archaeologist, has a freelance career in tourism and horses in Yucatan, and my youngest son is in 11th grade at our local Friends school. We have no plans to abandon our hilltop here in Charlottesville with the view of the Blue Ridge. For years the D.C.-area Green Scum (Alpha Delts to the uninitiated)— Dickson, Bloomfield, Wagner, and I, plus one or two from ’62) got together regularly, but we haven’t been so good about it lately.”
This was a cute response from Howie Morgan:
Singing as we travel and reach!
Residence now in Vero Beach.
Keeping a place in Deer Isle, Maine
But Home is still in dear old Wayne!
Trying to keep those libs from the door,
Hope old Wes has their feet on the floor!
Ain’t life grand?
From Larry Krucoff: “After leaving Wesleyan, I ended up in Chicago, where Carole and I got hitched. I worked my way through graduate school in anthropology, and went into marketing research. In 1971, I started my own firm and ran it until retirement in 2015. Carole worked in museum education, becoming head of education at the Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago. Now retired, she continues her museum associations by being a docent at the Art Institute of Chicago. While I was working, I tried to develop retirement skills. These developed into golf, baking, cooking, writing, play readings, and traveling with Carole.”
Dan Elliott is in assisted living in Cleveland with “a swimming pool and a work-out room with beautiful physical therapists who work me out. My Wesleyan daughter is in Cambridge, doing criminal justice projects. My youngest is married, employed as an athletic trainer, part-time with the Brooklyn Nets and with Long Island University. My son, Dan, participates on the Surface Transportation Board in D.C., and is married to an electrical engineer, with two stepsons. My son, Tim, does computer installation projects and lives here in Cleveland.”
Pete Drayer and wife Sandy are still in a retirement home. He is a senior judge until the end of this year.
Paul Dickson’s latest book, Leo Durocher: Baseball’s Prodigal Son, was published in March by Bloomsbury Press. He is working on a book tentatively titled The Rise of the Fishbowl Army, which is about the 1940 peacetime draft and the creation of a modern army in the days before Pearl Harbor.
Al Williams and Ed Knox get together regularly with Wendy and Huguette-Laure. “Being in D.C., health issues and grandchildren must now vie with politics as topics of conversation.” They are interested in catching up with other alumni.
From Foster Morrison: “There is a serious mismatch between the goals of the human species and the capacities of planet Earth. The people in charge want exponential growth to go on indefinitely, but the size and resources available on this finite spheroid are limited. Setting aside a few nature preserves will not mitigate the consequences of unceasing growth, whatever they may be. It’s difficult-to-impossible to predict exactly what will happen, but it probably will be global catastrophe.”
From Bob Hausman:
Unlikely am I to be found
In the Wesleyan annals of renown,
Yet I do try the fates to confound,
By remaining at best above ground.
Hausman has two sons and seven grandchildren. He went to St. Paul, Minn., in 1977 to teach at Luther Seminary and has been there ever since. “Between my children and grandchildren,” he writes, “we have made our mark at Carleton College, Macalester College, Hamline University, St. Thomas University, and the University of Minnesota. Unfortunately, I have been unable to persuade any of them to matriculate at Wesleyan. There are still two more grandchildren in the public schools and one in the womb, so who knows?”
John Rogers reports living at the Del Webb Sun City Community in Indian Land, S.C. “Great retirement area with golf course, two community centers, walking trails, and three pools. I retired from financial services in 2013, after 46 years, and am enjoying time with five children and 14 grandkids in Maryland, New Jersey, and Kentucky. We have traveled to Alaska, Iceland, Norway, France, Nova Scotia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Texas, and many national parks.”
Glenn Hawkes’ son, Jesse, is an actor and human rights activist living in NYC. They came to Middletown in April to attend the Samuel and Dorothy Frankel Memorial Lecture delivered by a Wesleyan alumna. Both enjoyed an afternoon coffee with Emil Frankel, who had just driven over from UConn, where he had a speaking engagement. Glenn reports: “Much of our conversation centered on ‘3rd floor Clark’ our sophomore year—Bob Hausman, Swede Wilson, Ernie Hildner, Jack Woodbury, Jack Mitchell, and Russell Mott.”
Jon K. Magendanz, DDS | jon@magendanz.com
902 39th Avenue West, Bradenton, Fl 34205
A recent posting on Facebook by Richard Corson addresses a librarian’s concern for literacy integrity: “Parsing fake news—Connie retired from the Spence School in 2001. During her time as library director, one of the resource members of her staff created and taught all grade levels with workshops related to information literacy. Even in those early days of Google and other online resources, these librarians were concerned that students should possess the ability to apply critical thinking, judgment, and evaluation to their use of online resources. We have come a long way since the 1990s, but I hope students everywhere still get basic information literacy skills. They are more important than ever.”
Thankfully, the musical arts have sustained and nourished a few of our classmates. Here’s a note (no pun intended) from one of our members: “Jon Magendanz and Bob Johnson were brought together in a Christmas concert, presenting four performances the weekend before Christmas in the magnificent Venice Performing Arts Center in Florida. Jon is a first violinist in the Venice Symphony, a group of more than 60 professional instrumentalists, and Bob is a baritone in the Venice Chorale, consisting of about 100 singers. This was their first collaboration. They will perform there again in March, featuring Bartok, Prokofiev, and the Poulenc Gloria. Jon lives in Bradenton, Bob lives in Nokomis, and both are snow birds.”
And lastly, a word from Phil Rodd: “My wife and I spent a week in August volunteering as English teachers in Spain. We were part of an English language immersion program, so our job was to converse in English for about 12 hours a day. We followed that with a three-week road trip around Sicily (pasta every night).”
Respectfully submitted,
Jon K. Magendanz, DDS | jon@magendanz.com
902 39th Avenue West, Bradenton, Fl 34205
The “noble nine” classmates galloped onto the Wesleyan Campus to renew, reunite, and restore acquaintances from memorable times past. In attendance at the events, including luncheon, seminar, reception, and dinner were Richard Corson, Jack Mitchell, Emil Frankel, Stephen Wainwright, Spike Paranya, Peter Funk, Neal Schachtel, Bob Patricelli, and Jon Magendanz. Special thanks to Peter for his exceptional photographic talent (The reader is referred to: flickr.com/photos/funkphotographs/sets/72157668442387901).
“I was the guest preacher for the Martin Luther King, Jr. service at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine,” writes Bob Carey. Although it is impossible to include all of Bob’s presentation, a few excerpts are inserted here: “What was new in the New World was that slavery was not a system of work alone. Slavery now defined an individual. In fashioning the racial ideology that rationalized the slave trade, the violence and control of enslaved life in America, whites argued that enslaved Africans were fulfilling their destiny; that white and black were utterly distinct. …The push for a more open, more inclusive society is a permanent piece of work. This day, above all of our national holidays, should bring us back to ask—Are we there yet? What is the work that still needs doing? It was the genius of Dr. King not only to see how the Constitution could become a people’s document; to argue that the Declaration of Independence included all who sought to grow and thrive and contribute to their communities; he also called us to remember that the structures of privilege have been well fashioned; that the rich and those who benefit from structures of exploitation and exclusion will be working to protect what they have. …I suggest …..that we use the metaphor of a feast—all are welcome, all can come to the table.” After Wesleyan, Bob finished his M.Div and S.T.M degrees at Union Theological Seminary and his doctorate in American history at Columbia. He is professor of historical studies, SUNY/Empire State College.
Ed McClellan writes from Bloomington, Ind.: “One the great pleasures of my retirement has been to become reacquainted with Glenn Hawkes. Glenn and I share a lifelong interest in K–12 education. I have especially come to appreciate Glenn’s work in Africa, where he has created a school for Rwandan children.
An update was received from Bob Reiser: “Life in Atlanta continues to be volunteering for several nonprofits and doing consulting work for Balentine, an Atlanta based investment advisory firm. Recently, after 40-plus years of writing investment commentary for clients, I took up two writing projects. Last year I finished writing a history of Georgia Shakespeare, a nonprofit theater in Atlanta, that went out of business after 28 years. I questioned why a theater with an excellent reputation for artistic excellence should suddenly fold. There were many contributing factors but by far the most important was the unwillingness of the staff and board to adopt budgets that were attainable. It makes an interesting case study for nonprofits in general and I hope to turn it into a college level case study. My other project was the completion of a first draft for a book, An Investment Guide to the U.S. Markets for the Foreign National. With the increasing wealth of investors outside of the United States it seemed to me that much of that money would flow into the U.S. as countries open up their capital markets. While it is true that there are literally thousands of investment books, I could not find any that specifically targeted the foreign national.
“My wife Margaret and I spend over a third of the year in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. Margaret chairs the board of the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden and I have joined the board of the YMCA. We find the contrast between small town living in New England and big city living in the south to offer a wide range of experiences.
The Wesleyan connection never seems far away. We visited with Neal and Tricia Schachtel at their home in St. Petersburg, and we were joined by Joan and Bob Chase ’59, who were passing through. We have gotten to know Bob and Joan through the Boothbay Harbor Yacht Club, which fortunately, does not require owning a yacht to be a member.”
The unexpected death of Thomas R. Patton III occurred on April 1, 2015, while traveling with his wife, Pam, in Australia. He was a long-time resident of Chatham, and formerly lived in Sudbury, Mass. Tom, born in Philadelphia, Pa., served as an officer in the U.S. Navy, worked for F.S. Moseley, joined a real estate development company and eventually formed his own real estate management company, The Alden Group, in Burlington, Mass. Tom was a resident and an engaged community member in Sudbury from 1969 to 1993. Tom and his family moved to Chatham in 1993 and opened the Carriage House Inn, which he and Pam sold in 1997. He was a realtor with Kinlin Grover Real Estate until his retirement in 2014.
Foster Morrison concludes this Class’61 column with some words on climate. “Being an environmentalist does not mean accepting a low standard of living. It means knowing that planet Earth can support only so many people: a few with a high standard of living or a lot more with a lower standard of living. It also means leaving a lot of land undeveloped and some underdeveloped to preserve the natural world and also assure environmental stability. For example, if global warming does not destabilize Earth’s life support systems, something else will. It’s just an obvious consequence of the Earth being finite. Strangely enough, or not so strangely if you understand them, economists think the global economy can expand exponentially forever. Anyone who has taken high school math (geometric series) should know better. Factoring in the fact that growth does vary takes a little calculus, which economists must do, but obviously they didn’t understand it.”
Respectfully submitted,
Jon K. Magendanz, DDS | jon@magendanz.com
902 39th Avenue West, Bradenton, FL 34205
Richard Corson sends word: “Having retired from my library directorship at SUNY Maritime College in 2001, I continue to live at my house in Forest Hills. After years of avoidance, I finally got a smartphone. I also activated my long dormant Facebook account. As a consequence, I am taking more photographs and exercising more care in their composition, and posting them. Once I had the smartphone, I figured why not get an activity tracker to keep me honest, so I waddle around Forest Hills on a four-mile circuit almost every day. From 2002–2010 I was a three-day-a-week volunteer at the office of the NYC Habitat for Humanity affiliate, first in Brooklyn Heights, then on John Street in the financial district.”
Following Richard’s wife’s death three days after their 49th anniversary, he became more active in his Congregational Church-in-the-Gardens, located in Forest Hills. He also attended theater events, encouraged by his participation in the Theater Development Fund (TDF)
“This past winter,” Richard continues, “I transcribed my maternal grandmother’s five-year diary from 1933–37, which resulted in connecting with my 88-year-old cousin, Joy, whom I had never met. It turns out that Joy and her husband, Michael, gave Harper Lee the means to take a year off from her work as an airline reservation clerk in New York to finish To Kill a Mockingbird. Who knew?”
More news from New York State by Tom Seward: “In July, on their way to Chautauqua Lake for a couple of weeks, Carol and Dave Denny stopped by Eve and Tom Seward’s cottage on Keuka Lake (N.Y.). Joyce Barney and her new husband, Kim Milling, joined them. We enjoyed meeting Kim. Over dinner we told some great John Barney stories. It was a bit like a mini Delta Sig reunion.
Last fall, Paul Boynton was reflecting about our 50th Reunion celebration: “Occasionally I think back fondly to that gathering. Then I leap further back to sort through memories from those years when we all got to know each other. (I just now paused to review the two sentences I wrote, which strike me as the musing of a verifiably old man. No matter, those were verifiably great times.)”He also sends updates: “I taught my last class at the UW in the fall of 2013, and miss that constant contact with students, but keep busy analyzing data and writing papers reporting the experimental gravitation program that my research group carried out over the past two decades. Barbara and I spent a few weeks with grandchildren in Europe in ’12, and a few more in China two years ago where I spoke at a conference in Shanghai, at university in Wuhan, and as we relaxed as guests of Beijing U through the longstanding academic connections of our oldest son. We take great joy in our growing family of six “kids,” 12 grandkids, and recently a spectacular great-granddaughter.”
Following their daughter’s June wedding last summer, Ernie Hildner and his wife, Sandy, anticipated traveling to the Galapagos Islands. “I walked into Machu Picchu on the Inca Trail 36 years ago (!), acclimating to altitude at the beginning of a month-long climbing trip, which culminated with a successful ascent of 22,200 feet. Standing on the summit of Huascaran, one is almost the farthest from the center of Earth as one can get and still have your feet on the ground. (Second only to the summit of Chimborazo, in Ecuador.) It will be interesting to see what changes have occurred in 36 years to a ruin about 600 years old. In late January, we go to Chamonix, France, for a week, to ski the great variety of areas on the north, east, and, south slopes of Mont Blanc. We’re very grateful that our health has held up—with the frequent aid of modern medicine—as well as it has.”
Your class secretary always appreciates a word from his former roommates. Emil Frankel writes: “Still active in transportation policy matters, serving as Interim President & CEO of Eno Center for Transportation, a small DC-based transportation policy think tank, ’til a new President is selected by the Board of Directors; serving on a couple of boards; and writing on transportation policy topics for various periodicals and organizations. Also, just completed service on a panel for Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy, making recommendations on transportation funding for the State.”
Jack Mitchell sends his update: “Our family is very blessed—we are all are healthy and in harmony. Linda and I will celebrate our 55th wedding anniversary in June. My grandson, Lyle ’16, is graduating from Wesleyan in June and my granddaughter, Dana ’18, is a sophomore at Wesleyan. They both play lacrosse. I have three other grandchildren in college and two in high school.
We now have eight men’s and women’s clothing stores, coast-to-coast: Westport, Greenwich, Huntington Long Island, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Seattle, and Portland, Ore. I continue to travel and speak, and have done more than 225 motivational speeches on my Hug Your Customer and Hug Your People books, in addition to working on our selling floor as the chairman of our family’s men’s and women’s clothing business. I continue on the faculty of Columbia Business School, guest lecturing in family business and luxury retail, and am playing lots of tennis and loving it! Finally, I am proud to be on the Presidents Council at Wesleyan!”
Sandy McCurdy submitted a few words as follows: “Heard from Howard Morgan that he and Dick Arnold hang out with their families in Florida somewhere (no doubt not a slum area!) and things are well with them all. My thoughts have drifted back to some of our deceased classmates, Hank Hilles and Pete Odell in particular. What wonderful creatures they each were as we knew them, and remembering especially how Hank loved the lyrics (which I believe someone in our class made up) to that old spiritual: “He’s got the whole world, in his hands ….” redoing it as: “He’s got a great big banana—in his ear, he’s got a great big banana—in his ear…” Ah, the carefree days of fine nonsense.
Another classmate, Bob Folley, died a few months ago following an extended period of cancer therapy and treatment. Bob, a dental colleague, a graduate school roommate, a gross anatomy teammate, and Best Man at Jon Magendanz’s wedding, was an avid golfer who, much to Magendanz’s amazement, would compete in tournaments held days after the snow melted and would finish as the winner. He practiced general dentistry in the Navy for two years and then for 33 years in his Glens Falls, N.Y., office. A unique follow-through for Bob’s golfing experience and expertise was that after retiring from dentistry, he joined the New York State Golf Association as a course rater. This position required his evaluation of golf courses throughout the nation. As he would say, with a grin: “It’s tough work, but somebody’s got to do it!”
Coming up in the next Class Notes edition: Words from Bob Carey, guest preacher for the Martin Luther King Jr. service at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, and some philosophical thoughts from Foster Morrison and Ed McClellan. Stay tuned! Respectfully submitted,
Jon K. Magendanz, DDS | jon@magendanz.com
902 39th Avenue West, Bradenton, FL 34205
Steve Wainwright’s 75th birthday celebration last August 2015 in Pocasset, Mass., was personally attended by John Driscoll ’62 and Carl Syriala ’60. In addition, a number of classmates wrote congratulatory notes to Steve, including Brad Beechen, Bill Harris, Al Williams, and Don Johnson. Don, who lives in Gold Canyon, Ariz.,, with his wife, Janet, relates that he and his wife traveled last summer, via RV, throughout western Canada. He proclaims Steve as “the most unforgettable person I have ever known,” explaining that he and Steve were roommates, during their junior year at Wesleyan, and shared “many, many rich and bizarre adventures as friends and fraternity brothers.” Jim Reynolds ’63 wrote a particularly memorable tribute to Steve with which we can all identify: “The Legend Lives On. He came out of Brockton with a banjo on his knee and a banana in his ear, with a presence that drew and held the attention of all who were near. He sang of the roar and the gore of the Cornell Fire, and told of McCoy the census taker, and the dead horse in the bathtub. His fame soon spread throughout the Wesleyan campus, where he dominated the Harry Ding contest, and north to the green hills of Middlebury, where he came to be known as the Rabbi. From there south to the quarters of New Orleans, then to the courts of the Commonwealth, even, yes, to the Supreme Court of the United States of America. The legend thrived, for whenever two or more of those who knew him gathered, the stories were told and retold. Even those who had never seen him in the flesh felt a connection. And so, as he concludes his 75th year, the Legend of the Bard and the Barrister continues to live on.”
A recent note from John Rogers reveals his new residence, grandchildren, and travels: “Retired from investment/financial planning business in 2014 after 48 years and moved from Greenwood, S.C., to Fort Mill, S.C., just south of Charlotte, N.C. I now reside in a Del Webb/Sun City community of about 3,000 homes, enjoying a simpler lifestyle of golf, pickle ball, and plenty of friends using Medicare weekly. No one is hung up on past titles, awards, or wealth comparisons. Still with five married children providing 14 grandchildren whom we struggle to see in Kentucky, New Jersey, and Maryland Recent travels included a river cruise to Moscow, an Alaska cruise, a road trip through to Upper Michigan, and regular trips to doctors and Walmart. So far good overall health, and I have stopped counting cholesterol intake.”
Paul Dickson’s latest book, Contraband Cocktails—What We Drank When We Were Not Supposed To, a Melville House publication, is about Prohibition and the paradoxical birth of the cocktail culture during those dry years. Paul is also completing work on his second biography, Leo Durocher-–Baseball’s Most Hated Man, which will be published in early 2017 in time for Opening Day. Paul is also researching for a new biography. His leading candidate is William F. Cody, better known as “Buffalo Bill.”
Jack Mitchell has also been writing, revising and re-launching his “hugging books,” as he describes them, with a third book in progress. In addition to his chairmanship of his family business, Mitchells Family of Stores, totaling eight in number, Jack is also an executive-in-residence at Columbia Business School, where he lectures and instructs graduate students. Two of Jack’s grandchildren are at Wesleyan; the other three attend Georgia Tech, Boston College, and Dartmouth.
Russell Mott (Bob Lannigan) reports that he is up every day at 3:30 a.m., work starting at four, for 8, 10, 12 hours in his ceramic studio (Mottpotts.com). “The work requires a passionate commitment, which I am easily able to muster every day, as my health remains remarkable in all respects. I am not at all sure I would have been interested in ceramics if I had been introduced to it in the ’50s, ’60s, or ’70s, but I thank my angels every morning for the gift of finding it earlier this century, two months after 9/11.” Russell goes on to explain that he is “living in southern New Mexico with Kato and our extended family here and in Jacksonville, Fla., including four granddaughters. Several other businesses, including an art gallery—MVS Studios—and a real estate company, keep us very busy.”
Phil Rodd is planning a two-week trip to Portugal in November 2015, including a week’s cruise through the Douro Valley, famous for its table and port wines. He promises more details in a future writing, as does Bob Johnson, who completed a 16-day safari to Tanzania and Kenya last year with his wife, Suzanne. Bob is vice president of his country club and is co-chairman of Men to Men, the organization for men with prostate cancer, providing support, guidance, and education. He and his wife live seven months each year in Nokomis, Fla. (just north of Venice), and the other five months in Pocahontas, Pa. Bob and Suzanne are both members of their Florida church choir, where his wife, Suzanne, also solos and assists in directing as requested.
Ed Knox writes to mourn the passing of his mentor and good friend, Professor George Creeger. This past summer, Middlebury College awarded Ed an honorary doctor of letters degree at the 100th anniversary of the summer language schools. Ed and Huguette now live part of the year in Rockville, Md., and the rest in Paris. They would be happy to see friends and classmates in either place (knox@middlebury.edu).
Jon K. Magendanz, DDS | jon@magendanz.com
902 39th Avenue West, Bradenton, Fl 34205
WELDON J. SMITH, a finance attorney, died Aug. 5, 2014. He was 74. A member of Chi Psi, he received his law degree from the Washington and Lee University Law School and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He was self-employed. His wife, Nancy Bryan Rhodes Smith, predeceased him. Survivors include two children, his sister, and his brother-in-law.
ROGER W. CYRUS, M.D., a family practice physician for 35 years, died Dec. 17, 2014. He was 75. After receiving his medical degree from the State University of New York College of Medicine Downstate, he finished an internship and then entered the U.S. Air Force as a commissioned medical officer. After his discharge he completed a fellowship at Yale New Haven Hospital and then established a family practice in Westbrook, Conn. He was certified by the American Board of Pathology and the American Board of Family Practice. Among his many interests were music and opera, books, art, and travel. He is survived by his wife, Ann Elaine Pothin Cyrus; her four children and their families; and two cousins.
“Time just keeps on clicking by!” reports Eric “Swede” Wilson, who claims he’s “still alive, kicking, and working. My daughter, Avery, got married three years ago, and is now living in San Diego, Calif., with her husband Conan. My son, Eric, his wife, Julie, and grandson Ethan live in Tuscaloosa, Ala., with us where he has a solo bankruptcy legal practice. He is a big Alabama Crimson Tide fan, and drags me along to a lot of the home games. My third son, Martin, still lives in NYC, where he is employed as a publicist with Harper Collins. He has just completed his second young adult novel, and it is undergoing editing. Health remains good with all of the family.”
“Well. We are a year older!” claims (or is it complains, or maybe proclaims) Bob Carey. He goes on to describe his “trips to Israel with some students to study boundaries and identity,” and his visits with the Littles and the Woodburys. Bob continues to explain: “I have become very much involved with a Lumina project here at Empire State College. It has to do with how we work with adult students who are finishing their degrees. Although very college specific, it raises all sorts of interesting questions about how we, in fact, come to know things. Of course, when I start talking about it, I find myself alone at the chip and dip bowl. Such are the vagaries.”
Here was an unexpected note from Brad Beechen, presented in his own words. “Brad writes regarding a small world encounter. His fraternity brother, George Kangas ’60, mailed him to say he and his wife had attended a program at their Bradenton, Fla., church where they listened to a highly enjoyed concert performed by ‘very accomplished musicians,’ a fellow named Jon Magendanz and Jon’s sisters, Donna Guarino and Felice Farrell. The program notes enclosed with George’s letter indicated the siblings have performed internationally.” In response to Brad’s encouragement for more explanation, your class secretary’s exposure to music has been lifelong, a result of being raised by musical parents. During attendance at Wesleyan, instruction continued, a benefit from a music scholarship, on the violin with three years study in Hartford and one year at Yale. Ensemble concerts were given at Honors College with my sister, Donna, and Ray Rendall, and, of course, there was the chamber orchestra and the pep band. That’s enough promotion, but do look for me at the 75th Reunion Parade!!!
An additional bit of Wesleyan history presented by Foster Morrison: “It was interesting to read about the renovation of that ancient 20-inch refractor at Wesleyan. I had some limited experience with it and other telescopes on Foss Hill, since I had three semesters of astronomy, an intro course and a research seminar with Prof. Thornton Page, and a summer job after graduation. He got me into Sigma Xi and as a co-author of a publication in the astronomical journal. I did dabble a bit in satellite orbits and satellite geodesy. In retrospect, I should have taken Prof. Eichhorn’s celestial mechanics course and learned programming on his first-ever-at-Wesleyan computer. I crossed his path again at the Army Map Service, where he had a summer sabbatical and I was programming a Honeywell mainframe and adding a curve-fitting capability to an obsolete satellite orbit theory.”
Congratulations are in order for Paul Dickson’s continuing accomplishments in the literary field. Rave reviews have been published in the UK’s Authorisms, The Guardian, and the Times of London, all which came out in the month of Paul’s 75th birthday. Also, with additional pieces later published in the Guardian and in the Daily Mail, as well as a promise of a second printing of his book, Paul was very excited about his 75th year.
Finally, on a sad note, the passing of Weldon John Smith Sr., on Aug. 5, 2014, is noted. Classmates are referred to the online obituary section of this publication for more complete coverage of Weldon’s family and graduate work.
Respectfully submitted,
Jon K. Magendanz, DDS | jon@magendanz.com
902 39th Avenue West, Bradenton, Fl 34205
