and published two books; she also volunteers at state and local levels. But a noticeable difference in her life, she says, “is the time I spend taking care of myself—walking, playing golf, practicing yoga.” [That’s Liebschutz on the cover.] She’s also developed “a keen interest in food and wine,” learned to play bridge, and joined a book group. Prairie “took to retirement like the proverbial fish to water,” she says. She and her husband left New England for a college town in Kentucky. Prairie pictured herself a “footloose and fancy-free traveler and craftsperson.” But when her husband was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, she shifted into caregiver mode. Prairie’s life changed in ways she couldn’t have imagined—and not all for the worse, she says. “I’ve learned as much about myself as I’ve learned about medical things and caregiving—all of which has enriched my life.” Michael Prairie died in December.
Mashburn has demonstrated and been arrested three times before, but not until retirement did she feel “free” to up the ante and go to prison to support her beliefs.
Mike Haskey
Winding Down and Gearing Up For twenty years, magazine publisher Merja Lehtinen ’76 lived the high life, earning a six-figure salary, flying to Europe, traveling by limo, staying in fancy hotels. But when several family members became ill within a short span of time, she took early retirement to become a part-time caregiver. She still does some writing, but the big change for her is tutoring immigrant children in Connecticut’s public schools. Taking a job she “never would have pursued for money has been an eye-opener,” she says. “The children have taught me what’s important.” To celebrate her sixtieth birthday, Elaine Abt
Parmett FP’86 quit her job as an academic adviser. She intended to spend more time with her husband, learn quilting and knitting, and exercise more. But another goal—to renew her “love affair” with American history—compelled her to research the life of Silas Lamson, “an eccentric nineteenth-century inventor, abolitionist, and preacher.” Now she’s giving lectures about him at local historical societies and plans to write his biography. After leaving her med-school teaching post six years ago, Marilyn Kincaid delved right into earning a master’s in Jewish studies. This is the first year she’s been outside the academic world, and she admits it feels a little “weird.” But teaching at her synagogue and tutoring a high-school student has helped fill the void. Barrett thinks of retirement as something like “revving our engines and seeing how far we can travel.” Her “all-consuming” project of directing a fifty-member children’s chorus has given her “the awesome feeling of accomplishment—making a difference in the community and being a positive influence in the lives of so many children.” After getting over her initial feeling of aimlessness, DeBrandt has unearthed “a lot of energy to explore each day, to ‘be’ part of the world rather than ‘retire’ from it.” As Merja Lehtinen reminds us: “Mount Holyoke women simply cannot be bored”—even in retirement.
Linda Ocker Mashburn ’63 says retirement freed her to pursue nonviolent resistance in the tradition of Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. She is spending three months in prison for her actions.
Mount Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly | Spring 2006
Maryann Teale Snell ’86 is a writer and editor in Saratoga Springs, New York.
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