CLASS NOTES SUBMITTING CLASS NOTES Do you have some good news to share about yourself or a friend/relative from Friends? If so, we want to know about it and so do your classmates! Send your news and/or photos to alumni@ wilmingtonfriends.org, or enter them directly through the alumni online community, at: www.wilmingtonfriends.org. 1936
Eric Allemann reported that he will be 91 in October and says he is “still kicking in spite of the numerous little problems that afflict the aged.” Eric and his wife have been living in Spain for 20 years. He wrote, “After I was married, I lived in Landenberg, PA, and remember playing golf with Hershel Loomis, my former coach and chemistry teacher at Friends. Carroll Kimes came to see us from time to time, also in Landenberg. Mr. Kimes was my math teacher.” Eric also remembered classmate Betty Topkis Schiff well. “She and Freda Braunstein Sacks both lived on Baynard Boulevard, and my family also lived on Baynard Boulevard.” Betty is living in Florida near her grandchildren, according to granddaughter Laura Hershorin ’82. Freda is also in Florida, and enjoys her two great-grandchildren.
neighbor Ellie Woodward Borders. “I still think of the miracle of big brother Walter Lumley ’41 getting me to and from school in my mother’s Lincoln Zephyr, which was driven like an airplane. He later became a fighter pilot in the Marines.”
1950
Bob Brubaker is a consultant for Michigan State University where he heads the Department of Defense/National Institutes of Health effort to develop a plague vaccine, and continues to work on various federal contracts and committees concerned with defense against terrorism. He spends most of his time in North Carolina where he renewed acquaintance with Friends alumnus Carl Schumacher ’45, now retired in Tryon, NC.
1951
Over the summer, Chick Altmaier and Frannie Walker Altmaier ’53 visited Peg and Art Hill at their home in Spruce Head, Maine. Chick reported, “Both seemed to be in great health. The weather was gorgeous and we had a fun time catching up.” Earlier this year, Art and Peg accompanied a singing group from the Annapolis School (where Art had once been Head of school) on a trip to Rome. The group sang for the Pope. The Hills told Chick and Frannie that they’d had “a fantastic time,” especially visiting the Coliseum.
1939
William Simons (See 1943.)
1941
Jack Simons (See 1943.) Walter Lumley (See 1946.)
1945
Carl Schumacher (See 1950.) Caroline Simons Kent (See 1943.)
1946
Marjorie Lumley Chapman wrote in July 2009 that she had moved to Boynton Beach, FL, to be near her daughter, Jennifer. She also enjoys visiting her daughter, Diana, in Spring City, UT, and her son, Rich, in Flagstaff, AZ. She stays in touch with classmate and former
Frannie Walker Altmaier (See 1951.)
1954
Anne Bailey Donaghy (See 1986.) Jack Hyden came out of retirement last year to work as the quality control engineer at a five-phase construction project at the Freshkills Landfill on Staten Island, flying from Buffalo to Newark, NJ, on Monday mornings and returning each Friday. Jack had plans to resign at the end October 2009, and, because he enjoys working, find something else to do in the Buffalo area. Jack’s wife, Marlene, recently completed the four-year Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Seminary Program and is now an ordained Lutheran Pastor at Grace ELCA Church in Buffalo.
1955
Devy Rose Bruch reported happily that she met her birth sister in Memphis in December 2009. Although Devy always knew she was adopted, it was not until earlier in 2009, after some research by her daughter, that she discovered she was taken from her teenage mother at birth as part of an infamous babyselling scheme operating out of Memphis. She also found out that she had a half-sister living in Germantown. The local media have covered Devy’s story and her reunion with her sister at length, and she has been talking with publishers about a manuscript she has written on adoption. Devy said, “Imagine a whole new career at 71.”
1956
1943
Dorothy Simons Buzby wrote that she recently had attended a family reunion of 42 relatives, including her siblings and their families: William Simons ’39, Jack Simons ’41, and Caroline Simons Kent ’45. She says three grandchildren out of eight graduated from college this spring. “Great life and fun times for all.”
1953
Charlton (Bruce) Ward provided this update in July 2009: “Setsuko and I have been married over 30 years. We have a son and a daughter and from them three
Peg and Art Hill ’51 Alice Pillsbury, Ann Atwood Biggs, Mary Beth Rickards Baisden, Chick Altmaier and Frannie Walker Altmaier ’53 all attended the opening of a Wilmington art show of Alice’s daughter, Nancy Carol Willis. Chick said, “It was a wonderful occasion to get together again with Alice after all of these years. She is still very active as the executive director of a retirement facility in the Houston area. Being with her was like seeing her yesterday.”
Ann Atwood Biggs ’51, Mary Beth Rickards Baisden ’51, Alice Pillsbury ’51, and Chick Altmaier ’51. Spring 2009 • Friends magazine 21