Tag: 1975

I hope you’re vaccinated, healthy, and enjoying whatever pandemic pleasures are available. Looking forward to our 50th, let’s stay in touch through calls, Class Notes, Zooms, and visits (someday?).

      We’re retiring in droves. Vin Broderick retired in September after 52 years at Camp Pasquaney (24 as director). He says, “I cannot imagine a more rewarding career.” Vin’s looking forward to some projects and staying in touch from his base in Hebron, New Hampshire. Ann Dallas thought her layoff after 30+ years in journalism (AKA retirement) was the last big transition. “But no! We became brand-new grandparents, which is much more fun. My husband has Parkinson’s and several other health issues, so adapting to that has been challenging. But being a granny? Divine!”

     It was great to hear from Shirley Dodson, retired after three decades with Quaker nonprofits. She loves it but misses her COVID-quarantined daughter, Katie Ailes. Katie recently earned her PhD in English from University of Strathclyde in Scotland. Karin Johnson retired in March 2020, just in time to stay at home. Displaying COVID gratitude, Karin’s glad to shelter (almost) together with daughter, Yuka and her spouse Takafumi, who live in Karin’s building. Looking for an excellent Japanese translator? Yuka got her master’s in translation studies from International Christian University. Karin is well but misses travel and hopes to attend our 50th Reunion.

     Janet Schwaner and Tim Hill (both retired) stayed home, cooking and gardening through the pandemic. Tim plays and directs bridge games online (thill75@wesleyan.edu if you’re interested). The quarantine treat has been reading with their granddaughter in British Columbia every few days since March 2020. Janet lives dangerously, playing string trios weekly at home (windows open, fireplace going, masks on, seven feet apart) and gives virtual tours at the Museum of Fine Arts. She worked on November and January elections and says, “I was ecstatic! Will never take an election for granted again.” Lu Semeraro Hanley occasionally stops for a distanced visit when in Wellesley and gave Janet some expert post-hip-replacement care last summer.

     Brad Kosiba is overseeing a home kitchen remodel and a church construction project, plus laying out spring gardening and beekeeping plans. “Life in masks, even inside on workdays, is getting old, but so far effective. I hope we get vaccines soon, maybe from my old colleagues at Pfizer.” Joost Brouwer’s holiday letter shared losses and love. He and Emilie (retired) have three married children and four grandchildren in the Netherlands and Australia. All are healthy, active, and grateful for life’s joys.

     I think Ed Van Voorhees has nine grandchildren now, including a boy and girl born last fall. His daughter, Ellen, is a hospital chaplain in L.A.—a stressful job during COVID. Ed’s wife, Linda, plans to retire in July, and Ed’s aiming for May.

     Among the working folks, it’s been a tough year—between COVID and wildfires—for Jeff Morgan’s California winery, Covenant. His Israeli winery project, also hit hard, carries on under daughter, Zoe. She’s Napa Valley–bred, but has been in Israel for eight years. Jeff admits, “I guess we’ve been drinking even more than usual. But only with meals!” Cheers, Jeff and Jodie! Martha Faller Brown, also in Berkeley, reports good health. Her respites are lots of reading and hiking she wishes she could do more often.

     Roger Weisberg and Karen Freedman hunkered down in the Palisades, New York house where they raised kids. PBS recently broadcasted Roger’s 33rd documentary, and Karen continues fighting for foster kids as founder of Lawyers for Children. Their daughter Allie ’05 has kids ages five and eight, and 10 years ago founded Recess, an arts organization. Their son Daniel is regional medical director for Galileo, a startup improving health care delivery systems for complex care Medicare and Medicaid patients. Their daughter Liza, since finishing a clerkship with Judge Kimba Woods in the Southern District of New York, works for the ACLU. 

     Bruce Weinraub sent the most unusual missive I’ve gotten as secretary­—a photo of an antique page his mom bought, maybe from a Middletown guide circa mid-1800s. It refers to Wes as “an institution of great promise” and shows early College Row. Bruce says he chose Wes for its successful co-education and relatively high minority enrollment, but attached contemporaneous New York Times articles—one about the Class of 1975’s unprecedented 115 wait-list admissions, which they attributed to high ($5,000) cost of attendance, and perceptions of racial diversity.

     My quick update—both kids (26 and 24) are back in the Bay Area, thanks to COVID. I left my job last May (not retired but Bob is) and am working on reactivating my consulting practice in nonprofit strategy, growth and governance.  We four have stayed healthy. Bob and I are vaccinated and hopeful. Gratitude continues to be my pandemic watchword.

Those with class notes, please contact: 

Class Notes Editor
classnotes@wesleyan.edu

Pencil in our belated 45th Reunion for May 28-30, 2021. As a fun alternative, we pivoted to a 1975 “Re-ZOOM-ion” with 40 attendees. Brief scoops:

Barbara Bachtell is an artist and arts/nonprofit administrator in Cleveland. David Bickford is locked down in LA with his Thai masseuse wife. Jill Lesko, is sheltered in Nantucket contemplating her next career chapter after marketing, executive coaching, and teaching yoga. Janet Bradlow retired to Florida to be near family. Janet Brodie is doing creative arts therapy remotely at Yale New Haven Psychiatric Hospital. Perry Cacace, NYC lawyer working from Chappaqua, has four grown sons and a grandchild. Barbara Coven is practicing pediatrics in New York after an early-career odyssey around the South Pacific. Gary Davis is consulting on real estate development from home in a building he designed on Central Park North. Jeff Dunn is photo-documenting the COVID-era in the Boston area. Cathy Gorlin is confined to Minneapolis and is missing visits with her son in Denver and her daughter and grandkids on the East Coast. Tim Hill and Janet Schwaner retired in Wellesley, Mass., with kids in British Columbia and Ann Arbor and two grandkids. Tim runs a newly-online duplicate bridge club, and Janet plays cello and guides at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. Bill Holder remains in Middletown and has five grandchildren. Bonnie Hunter Samuels is a master gardener isolating in Oregon. Emely Karandy is a plastic surgeon and realtor outside Philly. Risa Korn is practicing internal medicine outside Boston and missing hugs with two local grandchildren. Brad Kosiba is keeping busy near Chapel Hill, keeping bees who work despite COVID. Debbie Kosich quarantined right after moving into a new Houston condo. Nancy Luberoff is hiking, backpacking, kayaking, and living by a Chapel Hill lake after her career in the Jewish community. John McNeill retired from Methodist ministry and volunteering as a community mediator near Rochester, N.Y. Pat McQuillan ’75, MA’81 is teaching at Boston College. Steve Miller and Martha Meade ’76 are sheltering in Pacific Palisades. Jeff McChristian is cutting his commute thanks to COVID and loving the boutique small-business law firm he joined in Hartford. Before COVID killed travel, Jeff and Pat traveled to Channel Islands, the Cotswolds, and Guatemala. COVID scratched two planned trips—Silk Road countries and Bhutan. J.D. Moore ’75, MALS ’80 is celebrating six years as a Connecticut trial judge and his new house near Jeff’s. Mark Nickerson is teaching trauma therapy in Massachusetts. Bruce Paton is teaching college online now from Sunnyvale, Calif., where he chairs local sustainability efforts. Becky Peters-Combs is retired from teaching in Denver and became a guardian for a former student, adding to her four kids. Ed Rosenbaum is living in New Jersey and thrilled that his daughter (a rabbi and cantor) is expecting her second child. COVID grounded Dave Rosenblum from his Los Angeles-New York travel routine as a retired consultant serving on corporate and nonprofit boards. Kathy Scholle is a retired attorney who sells real estate in Connecticut and has two grown kids and “almost” two grandchildren. Lucille Semeraro is a retired pediatrician enjoying hobbies. Gary Steinel, retired teacher, is riding bikes and brewing beer in Colorado. Rob Stockman is teaching part-time at Indiana University and running Wilmette Institute, an online education provider for the American Bahá’í community. Charlie Stolper is living in Austin (where his son works for Google), recently retired from advising venture companies.

Bruce Weinraub survived COVID-19 in March but has felt its longer-term effects on his medical practice in Northampton, Mass. Read about it in the Commonwealth Magazine. Check out his music side career on YouTube. COVID brought Suzy and Dave Rosenthal’s first grandchild. They drove from Buffalo to Denver for a two-week quarantine before they could hold him. Read about it in the Boston Globe. Dave’s editor of Side Effects Public Media, a collaborative publication covering health care issues across the Midwest. Jeff Morgan runs Covenant kosher winery in California and Israel with his wife, Jodie, and daughter Zoe. Jeff and Jodie just published their ninth cookbook, The Covenant Kitchen. Vinnie Broderick is hanging up the canoe paddle after 24 years running the New Hampshire summer camp where he and Bob Knox went as kids. Looks like the camp’s 125th anniversary will have to wait a year! Cheryl Vichness is “chilling in Baltimore” still working for a small management consulting firm but retired from Johns Hopkins.

Bill Devereaux and Emely Karandy shared word of Peggy Bouffard’s death from ALS last August. After Wes, Peg completed medical school at the University of Cincinnati, interned at Mass General, and returned to Cincinnati for pediatric residency. Peg was a beloved pediatrician in New Jersey for over 35 years. As her disease progressed, she moved to be with her children in Pennsylvania. Bill knew Peg from their high school days in Rhode Island. Emely, Deb Benton, and Brett Sherman roomed with her at Wes and attended her funeral. Emely writes, “Peg was a friend for life, sharing wisdom and love without judgment, dished out with a hug and a laugh. In spite of her brilliance, beauty, and accomplishments, she was never boastful, and carried herself with quiet grace.” She is survived by her daughter, Gretchen ’07, and son Adam, three grandchildren, and four sisters.

Cynthia M. Ulman | cmu.home@cmugroup.com
860 Marin Drive, Mill Valley, CA 94941-3955

In 2020, it seems we fully entered the era of retirements, grandchildren, and obituaries. Larry Greenberg and Debbie celebrated their son Stephen’s marriage in June. 2019 brought Emilie and Joost Brouwer two grandchildren. “Little Jelle lives 20 kilometers away, but his cousin Vida 20,000! Vida’s in Canberra, Australia, with her parents and two half-brothers, ‘bonus grandsons.’”

Ellen Remmer joined the grandparents’ club. Through philanthropy and social impact work, Ellen frequently encounters Wesfolk like Prosperity Catalyst Executive Director Catherine Gibbons ’79 and Sarah Williams ’88 of Propel Capital.

Russ Munson spends more time with his kids and grandkids in Brooklyn since starting half-time work for CarePartners of Connecticut, a Tufts Health Plan/Hartford Healthcare joint venture. Semi-retired Cheryl Vichness lives in Baltimore and often travels for fun. Her daughter teaches school and is finishing an M.Ed. John Tabachnik is planning retirement with two married kids “off the payroll.” He’s the art patron for his youngest, a ceramicist.

Brian Steinbach, semi-retiring this year, reports Steve Pippin in New Market, Md., teaches German at the local community college. Brian and Steve were grad school housemates at UVa. Brian had dinner with Brad Kosiba and Dave Nield ’77 in November. Speaking of Brad, his clan visited Deb Kosich’s condo in Grand Lake, Colo., last summer. Deb’s other home is a new Houston condo.

Gary Davis, based in New York since finishing architecture school post-Wes, has two grown kids and lives in a building he designed and developed (davisdesigndev.com) on Central Park North “with amazing views of the midtown skyline.”

Paul Bennett remains busy with nonprofits in the Bay Area and celebrated one son’s return to Oakland after decades away. His other son is firmly in NYC.

Cathy Gorlin celebrated her son’s wedding in Colorado, where he’s in his second year of med school. She had dinner in Miami with David Racher ’74 and Susan Margolis Racher. David and Susan met when Susan exchanged from Smith to Wesleyan.

Roger Weisberg completed his 33rd PBS documentary Broken Places, about the impacts of early adversity on children. Roger’s and Karen’s daughter Allie ’05 has children ages 4 and 7 and has launched a juvenile offender diversion program where participants can complete an arts residency to have their criminal records expunged. Middle son Daniel is regional medical director for Galileo, a startup to improve health care delivery for complex Medicare and Medicaid patients. Youngest daughter Liza followed her fellowship at the ACLU by clerking for Judge Kimba Wood in the Southern District of New York.

Steve McCarthy’s daughter, MaryKate, was married in Washington, D.C., last October. Steve works with Wesleyan alumni in philanthropy and public service and as executive producer of documentary films with Quixotic Endeavors (quixoticendeavors.com).

Deborah Brown retired in 2018 and has since tutored ESL, taken adult ed courses, and pursued Jewish text studies. She is president of a congregation in Glencoe, Ill., which has resettled 22 refugee families, witnessed at the Mexican border, and worked to shut down child detention camps. As a lay leader in Reform Judaism, Deborah has crossed paths with Wendy Liebow ’74 and Rachel Adler. Debby has also seen East College suitemates Lisa Anderson, Barbara Bachtell, and Kathy Heinzelman this year. She and husband Mitch ’73 welcomed grandchild number seven last fall.

Martha Brown and I met for lunch to catch up and compare notes as late-career moms with grown daughters contemplating next steps. Martha continues her operations work at East Bay Community Law Center but was just finishing a three-month sabbatical. My two kids are now both college grads; our son finished his BS in mechanical engineering at Northeastern in December. Done with Boston winters—he’s job-hunting in California!

I’m sure you recall that we lost our gifted classmate, Sam Miller in May 2018. There was a memorial service for him in May 2019 and I heard from his wife Anne recently. For a beautiful Wesleyan tribute, see wesleyan.edu/icpp/staff/sam_miller.html.

Thanks to Jeff Cox, Gina Novick, and Phil Swoboda for memories of Diane Cornell, who died Jan. 7. “At Wesleyan, she was known for her boundless energy and the delight she took in her numerous friends. She was a wonderful companion, talking and drinking long into the night and joining in such zany efforts as a collective attempt to levitate a table full of beer bottles to sounds of Jimi Hendrix’s “Star Spangled Banner.”

In COL, she took possession of The Magic Mountain and In the Penal Colony, works that her friends can never hear mentioned without thinking of her. Diane combined a matter-of-fact demeanor with inexhaustible warmth and deep commitment to causes she cared about. After leaving Wesleyan, she made her mark as a distinguished communications lawyer, a national badminton champion and sports executive, and a political and social activist. Diane’s extraordinary life was detailed in a Washington Post obituary.”

Cynthia M. Ulman | cmu.home@cmugroup.com
860 Marin Drive, Mill Valley, CA 94941-3955

Mike Lehman, professor of biological sciences, joined Kent State University as the inaugural director of their new Brain Health Research Institute (kent.edu/brainhealth), joining Eric Mintz ’90 and Merri Rosen ’90, both key members of the new institute and its executive committee. “Great example,” Mike says, “of how Wesleyan alumni come together to innovate and lead in science and higher ed!”

Larry Greenberg writes from Martha’s Vineyard that he and his wife Debbie are finally grandparents, to Emelia, the first child of their eldest son Dan and wife Kait. Youngest son Stephen will marry in late June after producing the Stanley Cup Finals between the Bruins and Blue Jays. Daughter Sarah is traveling the world setting up and managing conference venues. Larry continues to practice orthopedic and sports physical therapy, with Debbie practicing occupational hand therapy in their clinic. Retirement is still a few years away.

Ed Van Voorhees kept his news short and sweet: “New grandchild, Jasper.”

Martha Meade ’76 and Steven Miller celebrated the anniversary of their son Leland’s Wes graduation. He got a degree in film (and the 2018 prize for Best Screenplay). They drove from LA to graduation via the southern route. The return trip with Leland and his gear was more complicated because the gear left no room in the car for passengers. Steve flew west with Leland’s gargantuan suitcase, while Martha and Leland drove to Minneapolis, where they met Steve to take the second leg of the trip, and Martha flew back to LA. “Stops included visits with Brad Kosiba and Tom Wheeler, each in their respective native habitats, as well as seeing relatives we’d never met before, several national parks, and local color like the UFO Museum in Roswell, N.M., and the moose we almost crashed into on a dark mountain road in Idaho.” Now life goes on, Martha is making fabulous paintings, and Leland went to China for six months to work on a film production.

Nancy Luberoff and her husband, Bruce, are enjoying semi-retirement, living on a lake in Chapel Hill, N.C. The best part is hanging out with their two baby grandchildren, one of whom moved to Berlin in July with his parents. Nancy inquires, “Any Berlin connections out there?”

Bruce “BB” Weinraub writes, “As the great musician Jesse Winchester once sang, ‘Do it, do it until you can’t do it no more’ and as our class notes march unrelentingly towards the front, I will now. going forward, write a note for every alumni magazine until I can’t do it no more. In the spring of 1973 while living on Hewitt 9, Jay Abramowitz ’76, introduced me to the record Gumbo by Dr. John (Rolling Stone Magazine’s 402 out of the greatest 500 albums). That record has had a profound influence on my musical life. As Dr. John just passed, I am motivated to thank Jay for that and to remember some of the musical greats that I saw at Wesleyan—The Byrds, Bill Monroe, Roosevelt Sykes, Mance Lipscomb, McCoy Tyner, John McLaughlin, Commander Cody, Bonnie Raitt, The Oso Family, Orleans, Weather Report, Pure Prairie League, and probably many more.” Does bring back memories of McConaughy and the hockey rink.

Paul Gionfriddo wrote, “I was pleased to give Roger Weisberg the Mental Health America’s 2019 media award at our annual national conference last week in D.C. for his documentary Broken Places, which will air nationally on PBS in 2020.”

A note from Brian Steinbach pointed me to a New York Times story about David Garrow’s article on Martin Luther King. Apparently, it stirred up quite the controversy in historical and civil rights circles.

Risa Korn provides me with a home-away-from-home almost every time I get to Boston, much to my delight. She is “bubbe” to two grandchildren, Arya and Theo, who live nearby with their parents David (Risa’s oldest) and Laura in the Boston suburbs. Her daughter Melanie, living in Brooklyn, is responsible for investor relations at American Express, and son Sam is completing his residency in Denver. Most recent news was Risa’s plan for a long weekend in NYC when Jane Hutchins comes down from Vancouver Island.

Bob and I were thrilled to witness our daughter Julia Daniel graduating with her master’s in computer science from Stanford last week. Now she’s off to Europe to visit friends and for a two-week teaching gig in Prague. Lucky us, we’re invited to celebrate her 25th birthday in Prague, and then we’ll travel en famille to Vienna, Strasbourg, and Paris. The only thing better would be if her brother Ethan could come too, but he’ll be deep in his penultimate semester of college.

Keep your news coming. It gets way too quiet between columns.

Cynthia M. Ulman | cmu.home@cmugroup.com
860 Marin Drive, Mill Valley, CA 94941-3955