Rendez-vous Saint John:
‘Some things last a lifetime’ R
oger Bourgeois, husband of Julia (Gallant) Bourgeois, perhaps summed it up best: “It is rare to find such strong bonds between classmates who have spent just a few short months together.”
Roger was giving the Toast to the Graduates of ‘53 at Rendezvous ‘03 in Saint John. “That has certainly been evident this weekend,” said Roger, who has witnessed many reunions over the years as a professor at the University of Moncton. “I may have found the answer in your yearbook. Glancing through its pages, I discovered many activities that must have gone a long way in forging true friendship — sports, the TC women’s choir, student council, Le Cercle Ste-Anne and the Student Christian Movement.” Response from 57 grads attending the Saint John Reunion on the weekend of June 6-8 certainly echoed Roger’s observation. “If we had charged $1,000, it would have been worth it,” Raymonde (Sonier) Savoie confided to Reunion Committee Chair Elizabeth (Desmond) Cann. Don Brown, who now lives in Toronto, likened the get-together to a family reunion. “The class of ‘53 is the closest thing I have to family left in N.B.” That also came through in the tone of the letters that Elizabeth received from about 30 grads who were not able to attend the Saint John gathering. Their letters were read at the Reunion Dinner. “Our biggest challenge was to reach everyone — to make sure that as many grads as possible were
A tip of the hat from Reunion Dinner MC John MacGillivray.
contacted and made aware of the Reunion.” Elizabeth and the Reunion Committee were able to contact all but 10 of the grads of ‘53 by the time everyone gathered in Saint John. “It took a lot of meetings, a lot of talk and, most of all, a lot of time.” There were enormous challenges. Even the Board of Education, on whom the committee had initially pinned their hopes, proved a brick
wall. It no longer had the addresses —or even the names — of many of the grads who spent their teaching careers in N.B. These were retired women teachers who had married. “It all didn’t come at once but in spurts. We started in November and were still contacting people as late as April.”
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