Class Knox on how he has spent the pandemic. home on Lake Geneva. Eleven of their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren were there. I know you will agree, having that many members of a far flung family with you at one time is a rare treat. ❯ Logan “Bud” Wharton has had several falls and has been in the hospital for several weeks with a broken jaw and a broken rib. Since I can’t visit him, we are very grateful to have FaceTime visits. I’m sure he is happy to see me, our children, and grands on screen, but the best treats are “visiting” with our toddler greatgrandchildren. ❯ All my best in our efforts to survive this crazy world. Class Correspondent: Dorothy Wharton 3511 SE Fairway West, Stuart FL 34997, dtwharton33@gmail.com, 772-220-9433
1956 Whoever would have imagined that our “golden years” would find us adjusting to the wearing of masks, staying in place, and social distancing? Adding to that was the surprising reality that our age group is among the most vulnerable. Shall we credit our Knox education for the ability to deal with these troublesome times? ❯ We hear from Burt Sargeant in Washington State that he and Cleo are hunkered down at home as ordered by their governor. Cleo celebrated her 90th birthday, and Burt celebrated his 86th. They now have 14 great-grandchildren, plus two more expected. The family is scattered all over the USA— Upstate New York, Washington, D.C., Alabama, California, and three families in different Washington locations. They make good use of Skype. ❯ Fred Habeck says it is not fun being in the COVID higher risk category in Hobe Sound, Florida, but he and Isabel are dodging the bullets pretty well. They were able to squeeze in a New Year’s Caribbean cruise safely, just in time. For Fred, “Old Siwash” is a mental monument that arouses fond memories, and always will. ❯ Carol and Mack Trapp now spend summers in Snowmass, Colorado, “of which Aspen is a suburb.” Sadly, the great Aspen Music Festival and School, the Aspen Institute’s Ideas Festival, and the Aspen Security Forum all canceled. The Institute did put on a terrific five-day virtual streaming program with interviews and discussions by Bill Gates, Madeleine Albright, Dr. Fauci, Yval Sharon, Walter Isaacson, Hank Paulson, and others. Mack reports that Albright is very bright, telling a story about being inspected by Customs at Heathrow Airport. She was on the floor with her suitcase open, pulling out all of the items for the Customs officer. Finally, she looked up and said, “Do you know who I am?” He said, “No, but we have a doctor on staff who might help you with your identity.” Mack reports no COVID among friends and family, and he spends safe time fishing for trout in local rivers. ❯ Bob Rothe, a proud math nerd and retired nuclear physicist, wrote a mathematics paper during the pandemic’s necessary isolation. Bob generalized the equation of a circle from beginning analytic
geometry to its parametric counterpart. His work is too long for the constraints of this column, but Bob happily will share it with other “math nerds” if contacted at bobrothe1957@gmail.com. Bob would like to get this work to the Knox Mathematics Department. He wants to acknowledge the role of Dr. Andrew Lindstrom, his math professor, in promoting his ongoing recognition of the intrinsic beauty of mathematics, both pure and applied. Trains are another of Bob’s passions, and he co-authored a magazine article in TRAINS Magazine. The tale, “fraught with fright, fun, fatigue, and failure,” is derived from a 20mile hike along the abandoned railroad tracks of a once-proud narrow gauge railroad in Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico. It will appear in a future issue of TRAINS Magazine. ❯ Since moving from Naples, Florida, to Lake Oswego, Oregon, in January 2019, Jenny and Stan Anton continue to enjoy their new home and adapted to a (hopefully) unseasonal chilly and rainy spring. Their daughter, Georgina, got married in Portland on August 8. She and her husband plan to continue their jobs and reside in the area. ❯ Rather than rattle around the house as a widower, David Yount has invited his twin daughters, Lisa and Christina, to join him at his home. Once they sell their Alexandria condo, they will have the top two floors of the townhouse, leaving David to rattle around in the furnished basement. ❯ Daughter Linda and I visited her twin sister Ellen and family in Springfield, Virginia, the first week in March, realizing after our return how lucky we were to be back home before travel restrictions started. That was the last of “normal.” ❯ Please, everybody, stay safe and healthy! Class Correspondent: Ricky Jung Schwarzler 854 Cessna Street, Independence OR 97351, schwarzler@msn.com
1957 Class Correspondent: Megan Clayton Knox College, Box K-210, 2 East South Street, Galesburg, IL 61401, 309-341-7476, pclayton@knox.edu
1958 Mary Zahutnik Krughoff wrote that her grandson, Kevin Krughoff, who is in his last year of residency for urology at Dartmouth, just received a fellowship from Duke for corrective surgery. Mary’s youngest grandson, Cass, had been living in Singapore when the pandemic started. She says he was lucky enough to get the second-to-last plane out before they shut down the airport! ❯ Mary Peterson Potter said she hoped that other classmates were doing well, and that she’d like to hear from them. ❯ Bill and Ann Velde Baker ’60 continue to spend time every summer at their lake house in Michigan. They enjoy time on what’s left of their beach since high lake levels have eroded much of it. Bill says the children and grandchildren are doing well, and only one grandchild is still in college. ❯ Judy Bowers
Rothe and her husband of 63 years, Dr. Robert Rothe ’56, moved from their home of 55 years in Boulder, Colorado. Judy writes, “In February 2020, we moved to Frasier Meadows Retirement Center, which is only 10 minutes from our previous home. I exercise and take the dog for walks, read murder mysteries, and watch more TV than ever before. Bob, who is a retired nuclear physicist, has written a mathematics paper. He’s had great fun with what he claims are never-beforepublished math findings. Stay healthy, classmates!” ❯ I received the following email from Bob Borzello. “There’s a famous British WW1 poster with a little boy looking at his guilty dad and the little boy is saying, ‘And what did you do during the Great War, Daddy?’ I thought of this in early March when our leader here in the UK was on TV telling us he had everything under control. Not only didn’t he but he ended up in intensive care with the plague. So I thought, ‘What will you do during the Great Plague, Bob?’ Usually I spend my time in London, Venice, and my cottage in the Welsh mountains. But the latter two were closed down to all visitors so I would be in my London home. First, I did my tax returns six months early. Then, I did all the to-dos and must-dos that covered my desk. Then I put my ‘affairs’ in order so when I die my kids will know what I’ve got and where I’ve got it. Finally, I decided to do what, sadly, neither my parents or grandparents did: write a family history. It is particularly important as I am now the oldest person in the family and so the only person who remembers anything before 1943, and I’m the only one who can identify the old-timers in the family photo album. I have an uncomfortable feeling I will have plenty of time to finish it. I highly recommend it. Your grandchildren won’t appreciate it now but they will in 50 years.” ❯ John Norton celebrated his 84th birthday with a family dinner at a restaurant just days before most places closed in response to the coronavirus. He and Janet decided it was time to head home to Moline and arrived there just in time to celebrate a virtual Easter. Morning gym visits in Mesa were replaced with hilarious home exercises that left dubious results, until the weather allowed outdoor exercising. In addition, John continues to work on translations in preparation for the 175th anniversary of the founding of Bishop Hill, the “Prairie Utopia” located in West Central Illinois. He writes that the colony survived its first cholera epidemics during the late 1840s and 1850s, then the flu pandemic in 19171918, and is now recovering economic stability as Illinois works through the pandemic. He sends his best to Knox and his classmates. ❯ Mondo Lopez shared: “Thank you to President Amott for all her service, contributions, and dedication to Knox College. Over the past decade of the course of her presidency, Knox has been fortunate to have President Amott as a leader during challenging times for the College and our nation. This includes how Knox is currently handling the coronavirus pandemic and the need to address
KNOX MAGAZINE Fall 2020
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