CLASS NOTES | Alumnae
“Frank and I travel a lot visiting our children and grandchildren who live in various parts of the world. He is still making movies and I am writing. We have been married more than 50 years. I am on Facebook with two of my best friends from Agnes Irwin, Beth Liversige Fluke and Vicki Wildman Postigo, whose lives are both full of surprises and great riches. Although it sounds ridiculous, I feel I am one of the luckiest girls in the world. I really think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I went to Agnes Irwin. My most memorable times there were spent listening to the headmistress then, Mrs. Bartol, tell stories about her childhood.” Patricia Pitman Franks ’63 and her husband have recently retired, sold their home, and driven across the country like, as she states, “a couple of crazy kids. We are now living and playing in Palm Springs, California.” Ellanor Stengel Fink ’63† A tribute to Ellie written by her husband, Matthew Fink, was included in the The New York Times magazine’s feature The Lives They Loved. It highlights Ellie’s characteristic kindness and generosity, and concludes with a quote from a Chinese exchange student who had lived with Ellie’s family during his high school experience. He writes that Ellie helped †
CLASS OF 1963
Judy Barnett Frazier
Judy Barnett Frazier ’63 certainly has strong connections to The Agnes Irwin School! Her mother, Catharine Thacher Barnett, who commuted to the school by ferry, graduated from the Philadelphia campus on Delancey Place in 1928. Judy’s sister, Catharine Wallace Barnett Harding, graduated from the Wynnewood campus in Judy with her youngest grandchild, Zander. 1954. Judy herself attended the school in Wynnewood but spent loving environment, she says. And so, all of her girls junior and senior year at the current Rosemont became “lifers”: Marjorie Frazier Maschler ’92, campus. Four daughters, three aunts, and numerous Catharine Frazier Devigne ’95, Grace Frazier ’97, cousins are also AIS alumnae. and Anne Frazier ’00. Judy enrolled at Agnes Irwin in fifth grade. She While the Frazier girls were at Irwin’s, their remembers that everyone was very welcoming, that grandmother, Catharine Thacher Barnett, was the school was a friendly place, and that Mrs. Bartol, presented with the coveted Alumna Award for her the Headmistress, brought her dogs, two corgis significant contributions to the school, including (named Gin and Tonic), to school with her. serving as President of the Alumnae Board, as well When the school moved to Rosemont, and Mrs. as a member of the Board of Trustees. Mrs. Barnett Anne Lenox became headmistress, there were many also instigated and chaired a fundraiser for the innovations, Judy says. Judy remembers the school called “An Evening of Pops” with Arthur inception of a mascot (an owl, which evolved into Fiedler directing the Philadelphia Orchestra at Gus the Owl of today), the Blue and Gold Teams the Academy of Music. When the (“school spirit rocketed at this time,” she Alumnae Award was presented, it was said), and weekly meetings of the senior noted that “Mrs. Barnett exemplifies class with Mrs. Lenox (to prepare the all that is fine about an Agnes Irwin girls for their transition to college). The Judy is education; she has represented our environment at the school fostered close grateful to School for many years and in many relationships among the students, and ways with intelligence, grace, and quiet Judy is grateful to have been in a class have made dignity.” where she made so many lifelong friends. so many “May we all strive to have these When it came time to choose a school lifelong qualities,” Judy states. “Not only in this for her own four daughters, Judy visited friends. year that would have have been my various schools, but found again, at mother’s 90th Reunion and is my own Agnes Irwin, a school that was 55th Reunion, but always.” academically challenging but had a
posthumous
WINTER 2018 AGNESIRWIN.ORG
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