Tag: 1975

Thanks for sharing high points of your experiences at our 50th, post-reunion connections made, and other recent news. Please continue to contribute to these notes and to enjoy or add to Reunion photos in our Google album.

Brett Sherman’s most special moment was arriving on Friday with Bart Kummer by train from NYC. “We made it to the dorm expecting to drop our bags, and there were our classmates already partying: Emely Karandy, Alyson Greenlaw Cleary, Bill Devereaux, Jim Daley, Dave Terry, and Mark Nickerson. Seeing them all together was a wonderful start. Also joining for the weekend were my freshman year roommate Kathy (Scholle) Hale, who I get to see regularly in Rhode Island, along with Bill Bass ’74, who had such a good time at the Class of ’74 Reunion, he came back. I’m so glad I had the opportunity to catch up with David Lipton, Susan Gans, Cutty Wilbur, Pat McQuillan, Perry Cacace, Steve Levin, Gary Steinel, Jack Hoover, and many others. An unexpected pleasure was spending time with classmates I had not known well before. At the time of the reunion, as I was about to retire with some trepidation, it was comforting to learn that most of our class had already retired and were flourishing.”

Speaking of New York, Dave Rosenblum lunched in NYC a few days after Reunion with Bob McNamara, whose family commitments prevented him from attending. Bob, who is retired and an avid sailor, lives in Westchester. In December, Dave had dinner in NYC at Bart Kummer’s apartment on the Upper West Side—less than 10 blocks from Dave and Sue’s pied-à-terre.  

David Leisner’s newest album, DEDICATIONS, is a collection of 10 works that are premier recordings. David commissioned all but one from illustrious composers who are among his friends. Five of the pieces were commissioned and written during the pandemic. One was written originally for Segovia in 1957, but in 1979, David was the first to ever perform it. This is a digital-only release that you can find at the top of the Performer Recordings page on David’s website: http://davidleisner.com/recordings/. David calls DEDICATIONS “one of the most important albums I’ve ever made, so I truly hope that you might find time to listen to it!” 

Jeff Morgan observed, “our 50th Reunion was way more fun than I thought it would be. I went with my old friend, Vicky (Rigsby) Keiser, and we hung out and had a great time with old and new friends. I hosted a tasting of wines from my Berkeley, California, urban winery, Covenant, for some 100 thirsty alums. (It was basically a giant therapy session for me with good drinks.) I continue to rediscover my musical self, playing gigs in New York, San Francisco, and Miami, which feels good after a 20-year hiatus. I’m blessed to have my youngest daughter, Zoe, working as Covenant’s GM. And both my daughters (along with three grandchildren under the age of two) now live nearby. 

Bruce Weinraub, aka “Dr. B,” is also enjoying his musical side. He sent a video of him playing blues in his retirement location, Clarksville, Mississippi: Big A and the All-Stars at the Son House tribute Festival with Dr. B sitting in on keyboard. Bruce was mentioned in Oxford Magazine’s article about the film, Sinners, set in Clarksville:

“That the Sinners festival (in Clarksville) coincided with a previously planned tribute weekend to musician Son House . . . caused some concern for Bruce “Dr. B” Weinraub, a physician, piano player, and owner of the Blue Room, an event space on Third Street. Weinraub, who organized the Son House tribute weekend, had invited Joe Beard and John Mooney to headline the event, which also featured a screening of and panel discussion about the 2016 documentary Two Trains Runnin’. Weinraub said he hoped people who came out to experience the Sinners events would also take time to get to know Son House and his contribution to the Delta blues. ‘It’s all related,’ he said.”

In November, Martha (Faller) Brown welcomed her first grandchild, Luna Valkyrie Means.  “From this grandmother’s perspective, she is already strong and quite vocal, so I know she’ll make her mark on the world. All other news kind of pales in the face of new life!” Martha has been a beta reader for Tim Brown’s(’72) current project, writing his Union Township Trilogy.  His first volume, The Brangus Rebellion, “a climate fiction thriller,” came out in 2023 under his pen name R.R. Corvi (rrcorvi.com). It won a first-place book award from the Colorado Independent Publishers Association.

Speaking of grandchildren, Kathy Scholle Hale and her family recently welcomed a fifth grandchild named June Margo Hale. Paul Gionfriddo and Pam also became grandparents for the fifth time this winter when their daughter, Lizzie, gave birth to her first child, Ryan, who has many Wesleyan connections on both sides of the family. His paternal grandfather is Brian Katten ’79, Wesleyan’s longtime sports information director. In the fall, Paul and Mark Nickerson caught up at a Wesleyan-hosted NCAA Division III second-round soccer game. “We dodged a few raindrops as we cheered Wesleyan on, but unfortunately late first-half and early-second goals cost Wesleyan a close match.”

During Middletown’s cold-weather winter, Paul spends several mornings a week warming up with an indoor jog at the Wesleyan field house, which is open to older local residents in the morning. “We share the space with Wesleyan’s spring sports teams on several mornings. It’s mind-boggling how many students are engaged in sports these days (and how many are up and active so early in the morning—certainly not what I remember!).” 

Richard Hume retired on December 31, 2025. He and Lesley and headed to New Zealand and Australia for a month—a welcome change of climate from snowbound Michigan. In Chicago, their son, Michael, and his wife, Ashley, delivered a fourth Hume grandchild, Deckard, last July.  His older siblings are two, 11, and 13 years old. Richard and Lesley’s daughter, Rebecca, remains in Brooklyn working for Protect Democracy. 

It was great to hear from Eric Appellof for perhaps the first time. (It’s never too late!) After earning his degree in chemistry, Eric worked for a year as a lab tech at Pfizer in Groton and learned that chemistry was “not my true calling. The next logical step was obviously law school, with a side of business school thrown in for variety.” After earning his JD/MBA from Syracuse University in 1980, he moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, spending half his career in a law firm and the second half working in-house at People’s Bank until retiring in June 2016. “Along the way I married twice (with a divorce in proper sequence) and had four children, one of whom is Wesleyan Class of 2006. Since retiring I have moved from Fairfield to Branford, just a couple of blocks from Long Island Sound.” Although Eric missed the Reunion, he got together with freshman roommates Rich Hume and Jeff McChristian along with everyone’s spouses in May. He’s seen Jeff again more recently, along with JD Moore, a high school classmate who is affiliated with the same law firm where Eric got his start in 1980.

Watch for Amy Bloom’s new book, Blunt Instrument,out June 2 from Mysterious Press.  It’s set at a small, excellent liberal arts university in Connecticut. A difficult person is bludgeoned to death with a bronze bust of Nathaniel Hawthorne. A disgraced former English professor investigates. . .

Susan Gans sums up the reunion’s success thus, “Our 50th Reunion was a blast, and word is that our class set the record for 50th Reunion attendance, fundraising, and number of submissions and essays for the Class Book (which, sadly, was the last Class Book to be printed, as we were told that it will go all digital starting with the Class of 1976). Staying up late in the lounge talking with classmates felt as though we’d been transported in a time machine back to 1971.” Susan is enjoying retirement, spending a lot of time traveling (Italy last summer and Croatia in the fall), fostering and seeking good homes for dogs, and planning events for the 400-member tandem cycling group she founded five years ago.

Cathy Gorlin spends the winter in Naples, Florida, but her heart is back in Minnesota this year with the wonderful Minnesotans who are gathering to protest. She writes, “So many I know are afraid to leave their homes. My brother’s kid was maced, beat up, illegally detained, and then let go. On the brighter side, our son and daughter-in-law are expecting a baby girl in March.” 

Doug DeNatale and Gail “were so delighted to connect with many beloved classmates at Reunion. Since then, we’ve been fortunate to finally find our forever retirement home in the town of Randolph, New Hampshire, in the White Mountains. It’s a unique town founded in the early 1800s, mostly by academics and clergymen who formed the earliest hiking community.” They are enjoying much snow and a lovely view of Mounts Madison and Adams. Doug won’t fully retire as director of the Arts and Cultural Management

Graduate Program at Boston University until the end of next year, and Gail’s not yet ready to leave her position as senior associate director for Strategic Development at the Center for Teaching and Learning at Northeastern University. Their two daughters are flourishing: Martha established a day-care center in Kingston, New Hampshire; while Becca, a pastry chef, is taking a parental break in Barre, Massachusetts, to care for the three grandchildren Logan (four), Remi (three), and Colten (one). Doug adds, “I recently had the great pleasure of joining Brad Kosiba and Dorothy for dinner at their beautiful home in Chapel Hill. We’re hoping that they and our other classmates will come visit us in Randolph!”

Sticking close to home, Rachel (Adler) Hayes and husband, John, visited their son in Miami for Thanksgiving and spent three weeks in January at their farm in Schoharie, New York. They continue to cook at scale with their synagogue—Friday night Shabbat dinners for 200 and supervising Christmas dinner prep for 600-plus people in need in neighboring communities. “My peeling and chopping skills are deepening,” she says.

Jeff McChristian reported from West Hartford, happy to say that his summer health adventure—a spinal infection and eight-day hospitalization, has pretty much resolved. “I am off heavy-duty pain meds and slowly getting back in shape with continued PT. I’ve done some gentle cross-country skiing twice in the past week, a benefit of the first real winter we’ve had in several years. Grateful to Commander Dennis Chin, MD, [who] was immensely helpful and generous with his time during my recovery. I’ve stayed in touch with several classmates since our 50th, including Dennis, JD Moore, Eric Appellof, Carole Evans Sands, Emely Karandy, and Rick Segal. Bruce Tyson also reported that he expects to have his house rebuilt this year after it burned to the ground in the Palisades Fire last year.” For 2026, Jeff and Pat resolved to make up for six months without travel. They returned to Guatemala in January for Pat’s sixth community mosaic project in the largely Mayan town of San Lucas Toliman. Next will be southern Spain in March, and then Greece in May, stopping in Istanbul on the way home, and finally, Nepal and Bhutan in October. In between, they’ll drive to South Carolina to visit their daughter and son-in-law, as well as Vermont and upstate New York to see friends and family. 

My summer and fall were a medical challenge as well. Two months after Reunion, Bob and I celebrated with 80 friends and family the wedding of our son, Ethan, to his beloved, Amanda. A few weeks later, a scan revealed a mass deep in Bob’s brain that seemed to be causing severe vision problems he’d been experiencing for almost a year. We were immediately sucked into the alternate universe of a medical crisis and spent a month at UCSF Medical Center seeking a diagnosis. When it came, we were blessed to learn that the lymphoma they diagnosed is very rare, and the top specialist in it is based at UCSF and leads a clinical trial that Bob could join.  After three additional months of intensive chemo, Bob is in remission, receiving continuing outpatient treatment, and feeling pretty good. We are both enormously grateful.

Meanwhile, Brian Steinbach is relieved to be done with four weeks of five-day-a-week radiation treatment for a very low-grade prostate cancer, which he reports has a 95%–plus success rate at 10 years.

Ellen (Kabcenell) Wayne had a big family get-together this winter. Their son, Michael ’05, his wife, Lucy, and children, Akiva and baby Lillian, came from Rotterdam and stayed with Ellen and Charlie ’73. Their other sons, Daniel, with his wife, June, and Joey Wayne, with his wife, Hannah, and three young daughters also attended. They were joined by Ellen’s brother, Brian Kabcenell ’78, his wife, Joanne, and sister, Amy (the one non-Wesleyan Kabcenell).

Having traveled farthest to attend Reunion, Karin Johnson rated it “AMAZING. I never imagined that I would be able to re-connect with so many people and even forge new connections. It has been wonderful to see that some of the very important things in life can be sustained this long. I was strongly reminded of why I wanted to go to Wesleyan in the first place. These are harrowing times, but what a gift it is to know that there is bread for the journey.” Karin, Janet Brodie, Risa Korn, and Jane Hutchins continue regular Zoom visits to stay connected. Karin has also recently heard from Karen Kawaguchi and Lydia Evans. She adds, “Here at home, my family is well, and my grandchild is a chatty two-year-old, so life is delightful. Japan is becoming a trendy destination, it seems; feel free to reach out if you are in the neighborhood!”

Finally, no one worked harder and was more determined to be at our 50th Reunion than Charlie Stolper. As Karin Johnson remarked, “His presence was so strongly felt,” and he was buoyed by the love and support he received from us in Middletown last May. Charlie, surrounded by his family, succumbed to Parkinson’s disease and myotonic dystrophy (diagnoses he received shortly before our 40th  Reunion) on September 24, 2025. He was generous in death, choosing to donate his brain, spine, and vital organs to the Stanford University Biobank to advance the study of myotonic dystrophy by researchers around the world. He donated the rest of his body to the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State University.  

Brian Steinbach was kind enough to write the following memories of Charlie:

“Charlie was the first classmate I met when we both ended up in the same suite at Lawn Avenue (as it was then called). Notably, all five of us from that suite attended the 50th Reunion—Charlie, me, Jeff Cox, Phil Swoboda, and Dave Rosenblum. Charlie and I ended up being suite, or roommates, for four years—another year at Lawn Avenue and then two years at Delta Tau. We had many adventures in those years, including a cross-country trip after freshman year that featured a stop at Dave’s in Portland; a 10-week European trip the next summer (memorably, we almost missed our flight because we went to a JFK Airport outside viewing area to have a last joint before the trip and returned to the gate to discover almost everyone had boarded a bus to the plane; fortunately gate personnel knew we were missing and drove us out to the plane). We drove to concerts as far afield as Waterbury (the Dead, along with Cindy Ulman and Martha (Faller) Brown, as well as Santana), NYC (Hot Tuna), and Providence (George Harrison and Ravi Shankar); and other road trips. We did lots of listening to loud music, and he brought me into DJing at WESU. We celebrated Charlie’s 21st birthday in the long tunnel under Foss Hill (with help from Cindy and Brad Kosiba). I spent one Thanksgiving with him and his mother and sister (and David Leisner) at a ski resort in Vermont. Somehow, during those years he managed to excel at CSS. After graduation, we stayed in touch, visiting in Charlottesville (when I was at UVA law), NYC (where he first worked), Boston (when he was at HBS, again excelling, and I was in Providence), NYC again (where he achieved his dream of being an investment banker by working for Kidder, and met his future wife, Christy), Princeton (where they lived for a while), Concord, Massachusetts, Chicago, and D.C. One D.C. visit involved his younger brother, who had just turned 21, drinking us both under the table. There was a ski trip to New Mexico where we stayed with Christy’s aunt and uncle at Los Alamos and inadvertently dissed them by traveling to ski at Taos each day. Fortunately, they didn’t hold it against him when he married Christy. I attended his wedding and he my first wedding, and I was his son Chad’s godfather. We exchanged visits to Evanston and Concord for our respective 40th birthday parties. He talked me into preparing the music CDs for our 35th Reunion. We did not see each as much after that, other than at Wes reunions, but we stayed in touch, and I was very glad to have a chance to talk to him at Reunion and to join the well-deserved standing ovation he received on arrival for our class picture. Charlie leaves behind the wonderful Christy, his daughter, Tory, and son-in-law, Jackson, his son, Chad, and daughter-in-law, Lydia, and his grandson, Tucker.”

As Dave Rosenblum said, “Even as he was physically debilitated by illness, Charlie remained engaged, including in fundraising for Wesleyan. He offered us all a lesson in courage and grace through his determination to attend our 50th.” Charlie departed with Wesleyan in his ears, as Tory invited close friends to send voice messages of love and support that she played for him in his last hours. He was deeply loyal to Wesleyan, so if you feel inspired, make a gift in his memory to Wesleyan’s Financial Aid and Access Fund. His family will host a memorial celebration to honor Charlie in Manhattan on May 23, 2026. Contact me if you would like more information.

What a Reunion! The Class of 1975 beat Wesleyan’s attendance record for a 50th Reunion with 123 present! 

I can’t possibly capture and convey the weekend’s joy. It felt like the last week before graduation, when our time together seemed so precious because it wouldn’t be guaranteed once we left the Wes womb.

My apologies for not soliciting your news and Reunion stories in time for the Class Notes deadline, but my life’s been a whirlwind. My husband developed complicated vision problems requiring new doctors in arcane specialties and countless tests and visits. Our son’s wedding celebration in July—a beautiful event in an exquisite setting on a lovely day—required weeks of increasingly frenetic planning and errands in preparation to host dinners, brunch, and several houseguests.

So, this column shares some of my personal Reunion memories:

Driving into Middletown brought a wave of nostalgia . . . until I realized it’s not the Main Street I remember. It now bustles with offices, good restaurants, and shops, including the Wes bookstore located near where we hunted bargains at Bob’s Surplus.

Wesleyan is busy replacing or adding to buildings that it bragged about in 1970. Facilities staff led fascinating tours of the old, the refurbished, and the new. Highlights: the almost-finished Science Center; inside scoop on challenges and renovations at College Row and the Center for the Arts; evolutions in campus planning and architecture to promote learning and reduce costs and environmental impact.

In a lively co-education session, Bruce Tyson cracked us up reading from Where the Boys Are, a 1966 Mt. Holyoke/Smith pamphlet on road tripping. Erica Udoff observed that when she transferred in 1973, Wes felt like “it had always been co-ed.”  

Our welcome dinner started with a soggy bang under a tent at Pam and Paul Gionfriddo’s house. There were hugs, shouts, and lots of laughter as folks trickled in from the rain. No one sat still for very long; we were each trying to connect with everyone else at once.

Charlie Stolper had been absolutely determined to be at our 50th. Christy and their son, Chad, came along from Texas to help him navigate the weekend in a wheelchair. It was wonderful to have Charlie with us, and he was seated front and center in our 2025 class photo!

What those of us staying in the air-conditioned dorm atop Foss Hill most wanted was heat. Coats and umbrellas were essential with May rain and high temperatures barely reaching the 60s! After dinner each night, dorm dwellers, including Janet Brodie, Andrew Barnes, Martha Meade ’76 and Steve Miller, Karin Johnson, Risa Korn, Martha Faller, Susan Gans, Bruce Paton, Cutty Wilbur, Mark Nickerson, Jim Daly, Clif Grandy, his wife, Nancy, and others gathered in the common lounge for continuing conversation. There was probably a similar (but more comfy) scene at the hotel.

Friday morning we passed microphones around so that 100-plus of us could each share something from our lives. Stories were by turns inspiring, funny, sad, surprising, impressive, and profound. WESeminars provided opportunities to learn more about some classmates: how Jeff Morgan went from music major “dropout” to kosher winemaker; Beverly Daniel Tatum reflecting with Michael Roth ’78 about college presidency; Amy Bloom’s path as a writer and teacher; Roberto Powers’s foreign service career and life as an expatriate. Saturday breakfast featured short heartfelt talks from Andrew Barnes, June Jeffries, Paul Gionfriddo, Bruce Weinraub, Doug DeNatale, and Erica Udoff about the difference Wesleyan made in their lives and how Wes propelled some of them down unexpected paths. The ability to study and perhaps become anything one could imagine, plus the resilience to change directions and continue learning were frequent themes about Wesleyan’s impact. Another frequent comment was how much everyone enjoyed talking to classmates who they’d lost touch with or hadn’t known well.

For many folks, the most moving session was a WESeminar performance by David Leisner and Elissa Ely ’78, called “Kindness, Sadness, and Steadfastness.” It evoked laughter and tears by combining David’s guitar interludes with stories drawn from Elissa’s personal and professional experience as a community psychiatrist. A small group of us had a video call afterward with Joost Brouwer in the Netherlands, bringing him briefly to Reunion.

My two most surprising highlights? 

1. Lining up for the campus parade, I was surprised and delighted to run into my freshman-year boyfriend, Tom Wu ’72, for the first time in decades. 
2. A group of 2020 grads back for their fifth reunion stopped a few of us to chat. They noted we seemed surprisingly healthy and young—not something it would have occurred to us to say about the Class of 1930! Looks like we’ve held up rather well, after all.

Please share your memories, send me your news, and add your Reunion photos to our Google album.

Sometimes it’s fun to watch the sausage being made, so to speak! That’s how I am feeling about Reunion planning. We have a fantastic, dedicated committee of classmates working incredibly hard to have the best 50th ever. By the time you read this, I hope you have registered and made your travel plans to come to Middletown.

With any luck, you have already received the Class Book that Susan Gans, Cathy Gorlin, Arthur Gaither, Ellen Wayne, and I are devoting countless hours to developing. Clif Grandy has also been a great resource. It’s the yearbook we never had, filled with topical essays, photos from then and now, Argus clippings, bios of as many classmates as we could entice, cajole, and nag into writing (a record number!), and remembrances of some who are no longer with us.

Until then, here’s the pre-Reunion news:

Congratulations to Deborah Marion Brown and Mitch Brown ’73, who celebrated 50 years of marriage in October with a joyous family weekend that started with their eldest grandson’s Bar Mitzvah. The next day, all four children, with their spouses, and all seven grandchildren held the chuppah while the rabbi blessed Deborah and Mitch. Then Deborah headed off (sans Mitch, who doesn’t like group travel) on a congregational trip to Morocco.

Juliet Schor (who we were glad to see on our January virtual social event) still lives in Newton, Massachusetts, with her husband. They both teach at Boston College, and Juliet has recently finished a book on the four-day workweek after three years of research. (Was that three years of four-day weeks?) Check out her TED talk on the subject. She’s also speaking at Wesleyan in February. It was great to see another Massachusetts alum, Rachel Adler Hayes, at our January Zoom as well.

Emely Karandy retired in 2023 as Thanksgiving host, and now one of her kids invites her to the annual celebration. She says, “Somehow this feels nearly as good as getting them through college!” Emely is planning to be at Reunion and looks forward to seeing folks who haven’t been back in a while.

The news is unusually slim this time because so many of you were busy writing your bios for the Class Book and because my request came amid the Thanksgiving to New Year’s swirl.

But back to the pre-Reunion sausage making. It’s been a joy to socialize or work with many old friends and acquaintances. Karin Johnson, who has lived for most of her post-Wesleyan life in Japan, surprised us by calling into the January Zoom . . . from Sweden. Pat McQuillan delivered a great 11th-hour essay after we talked on the phone about needing something on football and DKE in the Class Book. Thanks to persistent Book Committee members, Karen Seymour Leftridge and David Terry both came through with bios and photos at the last minute. I enjoyed year-end phone calls with Joost Brouwer and Brad Kosiba to seek and follow up on book submissions and hear their year-end reports.

Thanksgiving weekend brought an extra and very welcome visitor this year. Susan Gans was in the Bay Area to spend the holiday with family. After all the online time we’d spent by then on Reunion planning, she accepted my invitation to drop by for our family’s traditional post-Thanksgiving leftovers potluck. We had a great time, and I expect her attendance may become an ongoing part of the tradition. 

More recently, I reached out to Susan Moldaw, who I knew lived in the Bay Area but hadn’t seen in decades. After several emails and a video call, we decided to get together for lunch.  Turns out we live 20 minutes apart, and we have a mutual friend who was formerly married to (and is still friends with) Henry Schumaker. It is, indeed, as small a small world as the Disneyland song says!

Steven Miller and Martha Meade ’76 lost their home in the Pacific Palisades fire in January. Fortunately, they are safe and grateful to be able to live in Steve’s mother’s former house that they were going to put on the market.

Looking forward to seeing many of you in Middletown!

You may recall that in our last notes I reported on David Harrison’s unexpected death. I had an amazing experience in May attending his memorial service at the base of the Golden Gate Bridge. I arrived just after it started and stood in the back for a while until I spied a seat closer to the front that I could slip into unobtrusively. When Mark Allard ’74 started speaking, he named other Wesleyan friends in attendance, and I realized I had plunked down in the midst of four DKE brothers—Bill “Zim” Zimmerman ’74, Jim “Fats” Farrell ’74, Jim “Jumbo” Daley, and Dave “the Rave” Terry, all of whom had come from afar to be there. It feels odd to say that such a sad occasion turned, afterward, into a great time talking about what a complex and wonderful guy we had come to honor, our memories of life in the early days of coeducation, and half-century friendships that followed. The whole day reminded me what great company we were in during the early ’70s at Wes, how easy it is to kindle or rekindle friendships from those formative years, and what fun it is to connect with one another when we can. Dave Terry described the day as a “mixture of grief, remembered hijinks, and joy at reconnecting.”

Speaking of Dave Terry, his health report is that a TAVR aortic heart valve replacement in July had him in and out of the hospital in 24 hours and left him feeling “as if I have been gifted an additional 50 to 100K miles!”  It was the wake-up call he needed to close his criminal defense practice after 45 years and more than 1,200 jury trials. Dave decided to “close up shop, live in Loreto/Ligui, Baja Sur, five or six months a year. Proud to announce I will be teaching beginning inglés classes on Fridays to the primary students in Ligui every Friday!” 

The first reply to my call for Class Notes was Cathy Gorlin, who has seen separately her Kappa Alpha housemate, David Drake, and her 22 Lawn Avenue housemate, Tory Rhoden Cohen [a Smith exchange student], at the Clark Institute in Williamstown. “Both were in fine fettle,” she observed.  

Michael Lehrhoff and his wife, Lisa, have raised their family and lived in the D.C. suburbs for the past 36 years. She is a retired teacher, and Michael is a (mostly) retired government attorney.  They have some big plans. “We have decided to move to Santa Fe and will be bidding adieu to Maryland next April. It is an area we have visited many times, and we’re looking forward to embracing it as our new home for the balance of our retirement.” Hopefully they’ll be able to work in a visit to Middletown in late May, despite the big move. Did I mention it’s our 50th Reunion yet? 

Update from Professor John Cavadini: No changes on the professional front at Notre Dame, but the grandchild count is increasing to 19 in the Cavadini clan. Can anyone top that? He reflects, “I have occasion to teach texts that I first read as an undergraduate at Wesleyan. I’m a little amazed and also grateful that someone had the patience to teach such texts to us undergrads.  I am amused by the marginal notations of my 19-year-old self. It’s also poignant because I don’t think the Wesleyan that I knew exists anymore, judging from the materials we receive.”  That sounds like an interesting conversation to explore at our Reunion. Will we see you there, John? 

Also in academia is Andrew Barnes. His two news items are:  1) publication of his co-edited (with Toyin Falola) volume, The Palgrave Handbook of Christianity in Africa from Apostolic Times to the Present; and 2) his recent appointment as head of the history faculty in Arizona State University’s School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies in Tempe.  He adds, “I look forward to seeing everyone next spring.” 

Back in Middletown, here’s what’s going on with Amy Bloom. “I’m glad to be alive and healthy.  Still working and writing and now retired from teaching at Wesleyan, after a long, wonderful run. Just sold a mystery that is set at “Cromwell University” located in “Centerville.” An unpopular English professor is bludgeoned to death with a bronze bust of Nathaniel Hawthorne. THAT was fun! I’ll see folks at the reunion, including, I hope Leslie Brett ’76 and June Jeffries, my beloved roomies.” 

Across the country, Bonnie (Hunter) Samuels sent me some of her highlights. She retired from the geophysical fluid dynamic lab in Princeton, New Jersey, in 2016 and almost immediately moved to Creswell, Oregon. Bonnie and her husband, Stewart, have been traveling as much and as safely as possible. But most importantly for her, their son, Ryan, and his wife, Zara, married in 2022 and now have a little boy, Leon.  Bonnie’s delighted that Leon and his parents have relocated to Oregon, because she loves being an active grandma. She and Debbie Kosich keep in touch with phone calls and, better yet, visits when possible. 

I was so pleased Deborah Appel wrote this summer: “HelIo, Class of 1975! I live in Burien, Washington, a small town south of Seattle overlooking Puget Sound. My husband, Sam, and I moved here from Modesto in 2007 and love living in the Pacific Northwest. We have two kids, Sara and Ehud. Sara lives in Israel with her husband and two boys. Ehud lives in California with his wife and daughter. Sam is mostly retired from a career in psychiatry. I never had much of a career beyond teaching ESL and basic skills classes for a few years, but I did a lot of volunteering in the community and was active in our synagogue and our kids’ schools. I love walking in this beautiful and scenic area, cooking, and spending time with friends and family, and I’m involved in two storytelling groups. We visit our daughter in Israel once or twice a year and our son in California every three months, but now that granddaughter Sophia is getting bigger, they will be coming up here to visit starting at Thanksgiving. YAY! I look forward to reading about all of you and seeing your photos.”

Dennis Chin provided a full report on his career and family. An orthopedic surgeon, he retired from Kaiser Permanente after 31 years and then has worked part time for the Veteran’s Administration for the past eight years. Dennis has volunteered as an Oral Board examiner for the American Board of Orthopedic Surgeons and participated in giving their annual exam for 25 consecutive years. He says, “I joined the navy reserves two months shy of age 63 while still working for the VA . . . . Updated retirement rules have recently allowed me to return to Kaiser four days a month. I now enjoy working with some of my former colleagues, as well as one of my daughters who is a physician assistant in the same orthopedic department that I was in for so many years!   

“In the navy, I was promoted to the rank of commander some years ago, equivalent to lieutenant colonel in the other military branches. The military has definitely been an adventure!  In April 2020 I was called up with about 48 hours’ notice to quarantine in San Diego for two weeks before heading to Gaum to care for sailors of the aircraft carrier Roosevelt. I packed my tropical clothes, limited to a backpack and sea bag. After five days, however, they released me from quarantine and sent me to New York City instead, arriving in late April.  Definitely NOT tropical weather! I was in a group called Operation Gotham that deployed to seven NYC public hospitals, and I worked in the Coney Island overflow ICU. Great experience, but at age 66 I was VERY worried about contracting COVID. Fortunately, despite hit or miss PPE and no vaccine, most of us escaped infection. More recently I returned from a three-week deployment to the Solomon Islands for the Pacific Games, berthing on the USNS Mercy hospital ship from mid-November until December 2023. Sadly, I will be separating from the navy this November after eight years, but it has been a great experience serving alongside our sailors and marines!

“My family continues to grow. Five of our eight children are now married. There are six grandchildren, and I am sure there will be more to come! The kids ask me when I will retire. I tell them ‘When it is not fun anymore!’ Truly, it is satisfying to make people better with one’s hands and knowledge, and to mentor younger doctors, nurses, medical and nurse practitioner students, and navy corpsmen.” 

I’m seeing a lot of Reunion Committee members on Zoom these days, including the indefatigable Steve McCarthy. He’s quite involved in documentary filmmaking these days. “For the past 13 years, I have been one of three partners at Quixotic Endeavors (www.quixoticendeavors.com) where we have funded/produced/distributed eight movies—all on iconic brands (e.g., Bergdorf Goodman, Tiffany, The Carlyle Hotel) or iconic individuals (e.g., Harry Benson, Alan Pakula). This fall/winter, we are releasing two 90-minute films on Bob Mackie (the costume designer associated with Cher/Carol Burnett) and Bernie Taupin (Elton John’s lyricist/musical partner of 53 years). Oddly enough, when I first got involved in 2011, it was our late classmate Seth Gelblum who I sought out for advice and guidance. Seth’s partners at Loeb and Loeb still represent us!” 

As for your class secretary, I enjoyed a visit in May from Risa Korn, and we got Martha (Faller) Brown to come over from Berkeley for brunch. Professionally, I’m happily continuing my consulting practice that guides nonprofit organizations on strategy, policy, board governance and development, leadership training, and transition planning. I believe that consulting is best done by those who actually also get their hands dirty in the type of work they advise others about, so I joined the Board of Trustees of Hidden Villa (https://www.hiddenvilla.org/) and was elected chair in June. Celebrating its centennial this year, Hidden Villa is an environmental education, regenerative farming, and wilderness preservation organization that manages 1,600 mostly undeveloped acres. It serves about 50,000 people a year and sits at the edge of Silicon Valley. The mission spoke to me, the history and commitment to social justice inspired me, and the people and place delight me. On the personal front, after five years of closure for COVID, fire, or massive snow problems, Yosemite reopened its Tuolumne Meadows High Sierra Camp, where we’ve spent a week or more almost every summer of the past 25. Our stay this year was extra special, both because of the years we couldn’t go and because we celebrated our son Ethan’s wedding to his beloved Amanda on the banks of the Tuolumne River. We did it in high style for the wilderness—our small family and two guests walking to the site in wedding finery and hiking boots, carrying our own picnic lunch (including a wedding cake in the shape of a bear). The evening “reception” was dinner at the Whoa Nelly Deli, otherwise known in our family as the Gourmet Gas Station (Mobil), a 45-minute drive away at the eastern foot of the Sierras. We’ll have a larger wedding celebration with family and friends in a more accessible spot next summer, though the river and gas station venues were very meaningful for us and will forever be part of family lore.

Late-breaking item: Retired Judge Moore, known to us as JD, has published a very readable article in Bloomberg Law on principles for successful mediation at https://news.bloomberglaw.com. 

Keep those news items coming. I hope that these notes help remind you of the people, experiences, and intellectual growth that Wesleyan brought to your life.  And I hope that will inspire you to take advantage of virtual and in-person opportunities to reconnect and continue our learning in our 50th Reunion Year. I’m looking forward to seeing as many of you as can make it next May.