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2020 VISION and Beyond “Only you know how to tell your story and only you can write the story that ultimately you want to tell.” Westover’s 2020 Commencement Speaker Alexi McCammond, a national political reporter at Axios
What goes into the creation of a magazine? Selecting a theme, the content, photo selection, countless rewrites, emails and edits back and forth, meeting deadlines — OK that’s not exactly thrilling, but you get the idea. From start to finish, there’s a lot of moving parts and individuals that help make the Westover Magazine arrive in your mailbox. While it’s been an unconventional year, one thing that hasn’t changed is making sure a physical copy of the Magazine still happens. But this year — and moving forward — one of our main objectives is a commitment to making our Magazine process inclusive and equitable. Westover is learning and growing in order to become a stronger, more inclusive community. One way to achieve this is through our Magazine, which we feel, embodies a snapshot of Westover. In this edition, you’ll see our content that represents not only our loyal alumnae base, but our current community. We are committed to highlighting our students, faculty, and staff — the voices of our diverse community — and continuing to build on that in future editions. IN THIS EDITION YOU’LL SEE SOME OF WESTOVER IN 2020: • “The Starling” — our student-created current events newsletter that focuses on social justice issues in the world • A smattering of stories from students, faculty and staff, and alumnae highlighting their stories from 2020 in the pandemic • Our renewed focus on the important and constant work of equity and inclusion You’ll still see many wonderful snapshots of the past year and, of course, all of the Class Notes!
If you have a story idea or would like to provide feedback on recent editions of the magazine, reach out to the Advancement Communications Associate Director, Mary Albl, at malbl@westoverschool.org.
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‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ — The Show Must Go On!
JaMara Jean ’22 starred as Titania in the 2020 fall theatre production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
WINTER MAGAZINE 2021
Advancement Communications Office PUBLICATIONS STAFF
Lauren Castagnola Chief of Staff Mary Albl Associate Director of Advancement Communications
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LETTER FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL
WESTOVER NEWS
COVER STORY
From the Quad
2020 In A Word: What 2020 meant to you
Richard J. Beebe P’10 Archives Associate & Staff Writer
Thoughts on... A Transformative 2020
Muffie Clement Green ’65 Westover Archivist
Julie Faulstich, Head of School
Opus Design Magazine Design & Layout Michele Levy ML Brand Strategy Consulting Caleb Portfolio Principal Photography Mary Albl Interactive Schools Mara Lavitt Additional Photography The Westover Magazine is a publication of the Advancement Communications Office in conjunction with the Alumnae & Development Office. Please direct comments, corrections, and suggestions to Mary Albl at malbl@westoverschool.org. Westover School does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, or national or ethnic origin in administrations of its admissions, financial assistance, educational, or other school policies. Every Westover student is admitted to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the School.
Westover Cares — A Community Responds to The Pandemic New Faces, Roles Highlight Academic Year Sage Pottbecker “The Starling” Takes Flight to Educate the Community on Racial Justice ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ — The Show Must Go On! Finding Ways to Make Spring Memorable for the Class of 2020 Lunch and Learn: A New Way for Westover Alumnae to Connect
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LETTER FROM THE HEAD OF SCHOOL
THOUGHTS ON... A TRANSFORMATIVE 2020 Dear Friends, I sincerely hope this edition of the Westover Magazine finds you and those close to you healthy and strong. 2020 was nothing short of extraordinary; however, there were some glimmers of light in an otherwise challenging year. The students and faculty of Westover deserve the greatest applause for their resilience as they pivoted to learn, teach, and live in a virtual world. There were moments when the community would begin to find a groove, a rhythm to this new way of living and then, just like that, the world would shift again. And each time it felt as though the ground were moving beneath us, our faculty and students rose to the occasion, not just to teach and learn the curriculum, but also to offer support, encouragement, and a safe space to navigate change and uncertainty. Westover heard from our current students and alumnae that a deeper commitment to the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion is needed in order for the full school community to lean into our mission and core values. I’m grateful to the Board of Trustees who have undertaken this important work with the creation of a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force, which will ensure that this work and strategy execution is evident in the daily life of the School and the student experience. This work includes partnership with the Alumnae Association Board of Governors’ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, Chief Strategic Inclusion Officer Mary Taylor-Lewis and the team of professionals in the Rasin Center for Global Justice, members of the faculty and staff, and many volunteers who have offered their time and talent to help Westover become a more inclusive school. I feel so incredibly fortunate to be a member of this community. Throughout 2020, I was thrilled to hear from so many members of our extended Westover community who wanted to help, who wanted to ensure that Westover thrived despite many challenges, and who wanted to push Westover to be the very best school it can be. Thank you for your outreach. We are in a new world now. And Westover is in a new chapter in a storied history, but one which I hope we can look back on and say that we sustained and that we truly empowered young women to lead lives of consequence.
Be well,
Julie Faulstich, Head of School
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WESTOVER NEWS
From the Quad WESTOVER CARES
A Community Responds to The Pandemic
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I’m proud to be part of a community that continually reaches out locally and globally to work with others on making the world a more just place. Kate Taylor, Director The Rasin Center for Global Justice
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One way to measure a community’s resilience is to see how well it responds to a crisis like the coronavirus pandemic. Here are just some of the examples of how the School has shown that “Westover Cares” — • During the spring of 2020, thanks to the generosity of families of Westover’s students from China, the School received and distributed donations of 47,000 surgical masks, 590 KN95 masks, and 400 medical gowns to 20 hospitals, healthcare providers, human services agencies, and first responders in Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts. The distribution was coordinated by Kate Taylor, Director of the Rasin Center for Global Justice, and Jen Hill, Director of Health Services. • When the June 2020 community service trip to Jackson County, Kentucky, was canceled, families of the 20 students scheduled to go were invited to donate a portion of their participation fees to the Grace Covenant Ministries, the host for the annual program. A donation of $1,800 was used to complete renovations to the Ministries’ Community Fitness Center. In addition, 300 surgical masks were sent to a convalescent home in Annville, Kentucky. • During the last week of April, the Rasin Center encouraged members of the community — near and far — to take part in a series of #WestoverCares activities — posting signs and hearts in support of essential workers, planting herb gardens, organizing food drives, writing letters on behalf of victims of human rights abuse, reaching out to the elderly, and adopting or fostering shelter animals — and dozens shared their efforts with posts and photos on social media.
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The spirit of Westover Cares continued last fall, with Robyn Ames, Director of Community Service, coordinating not only a team of student volunteers on campus but students across the U.S. and around the world who were helping in their own communities. Robyn also worked with this year’s heads of Dorcas — juniors Sarah Adams, Tate Dunbar, and Morry Ajao — who assembled, sold, and distributed Dorcas Care Packages during the fall semester. The Dorcas Heads came up with the packages as a variation of the “Welcome to School” baskets full of school supplies that Dorcas has offered in the past. “Since this wasn’t possible this year with students all over the world,” Morry explained, “we decided to instead make a package that would be easy to ship. The pins, bracelet, pencil case, and most of the stickers were designed by the Dorcas heads and everything in the package was Westover/Dorcas themed. We hope these packages can provide a feeling of unity and get everyone excited for Dorcas this year.” “At the end of the 2021 school year,” Morry said, “the money that we have raised will go to various organizations focused on alleviating poverty.” In the fall of 2020, with funds left over from previous years’ fundraising, the Dorcas heads made initial donations to the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Waterbury, Habitat for Humanity, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Fund).
1. Sisters, Lili Gittines '20 and Isabel Gittines '22, pose in front of a homemade thank you sign they made in the spring of 2020 in support of first responders during the pandemic.
3. Westover’s Health Center Director, Jen Hill, pictured in front of her home in Wethersfield, CT with husband, Kevin, dog, Friar, and kids, Ellie and James.
2. During the spring of 2020, Kate Taylor, Director of Westover’s Rasin Center for Global Justice and its Global Programs Office, helped organize and distribute some of the masks donated by Westover families from China to area health-care providers, human services agencies, and first responders early in the Covid-19 pandemic.
4. Items included in the Dorcas Society care packages. 5. Designed by Dorcas Society Student Heads, Morry Ajao ’22 and Sarah Adams ’22, this Westover postcard was part of the Dorcas Society care package sent out in the fall of 2020.
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WESTOVER NEWS
NEW FACES, ROLES HIGHLIGHT ACADEMIC YEAR
HEAD TO WESTOVERSCHOOL.ORG/MEDIA/ FOR MORE IN-DEPTH PROFILES OF OUR NEW COMMUNITY MEMBERS!
NEW FACES Kira DeSimone ’16 Inclusion Program Coordinator for The Rasin Center for Global Justice; Dorm Parent BEYOND THE WALLS OF WESTOVER Enjoys baking, crocheting, and watching too many Hallmark movies.
“I am so excited to work with other faculty to uplift and support students,” they said, “as well as have crucial conversations about power, privilege, and identity during this incredibly transformative moment for the School.”
Jack Dwiggins History Instructor BEYOND THE WALLS OF WESTOVER Enjoys trying out new artisan crafts. He’s made his own cheese, paper, and soap at home.
“I started my high school teaching career at an all-girls boarding school in Pennsylvania, and I’m really glad to be back in this environment at Westover.”
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Ben Lewis Math and Science Instructor BEYOND THE WALLS OF WESTOVER Enjoys chess, bread-baking, painting, guitar, board games, video games, and recreational coding.
“I am excited to begin my career as an educator at Westover.”
Donté S. Tates Chair of the English Department, English Instructor BEYOND THE WALLS OF WESTOVER Enjoys reading and writing, serving as the community taste tester, a global foodie, and delectables connoisseur; doting on his aggressively friendly six-year-old Pug/Beagle Mix dogs Magenta (Genta) and Augustus (Auggie).
“I’ve always wanted to be at the forefront of empowering young women to be able to seize whatever opportunity that stands before them, to seize it fully, and wholly, and lovingly.”
Lauren Adja Tian Chair of the Arts Department, Director of Music BEYOND THE WALLS OF WESTOVER Enjoys food, traveling, and reading. “My father owned a Chinese restaurant at one point and taught me how to cook and care about cooking.”
“I believe everyone has a voice to sing, and I can’t wait to share many moments together singing with my students at Westover.”
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Shamair Todman Registrar BEYOND THE WALLS OF WESTOVER Owns and operates a small handmade accessory business. Addicted to roller skating (decades before it started trending on TikTok), cooking, traveling and video games. “There’s a high likelihood that any pair of earrings you witness me wearing were designed by me,” she said.
“I don’t take student information systems lightly. I firmly believe that data should be accurate, maintained, protected, and treated with integrity. Given my technical skills and love for all things neat and tidy, I knew that I could be a valuable asset to Westover’s academic team.”
Eva Zegarra Assistant Director of Admissions BEYOND THE WALLS OF WESTOVER You can find Eva attempting to follow Peruvian recipes, playing with her Cocker Spaniel named Lola, or watching true crime documentaries.
“In my new role as Assistant Director of Admissions, I am eager to work with diverse groups of students and welcome them to a school such as Westover which provides such fulfilling, stimulating, and life-changing experiences.”
Susan Murphy Executive Assistant to the Head of School BEYOND THE WALLS OF WESTOVER Enjoys cooking and traveling near and far, where she can experience new foods and culture.
“I am pleased to join the Westover team and excited to be a part of an institution that is dedicated to preparing young women for success.”
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WESTOVER NEWS
NEW ROLES
Mary Taylor-Lewis Chief Strategic Inclusion Officer
“I never personally think about my impact as one, because strategic inclusion work is never the result of just one person's actions; it’s many, many hands. I can mobilize, support, encourage, but it takes a collective effort, no matter what size the effort, to really make change happen across an institution.”
Shelby Neal ’00 Chief Academic Officer
“I love watching the journey of our students during their years at Westover, and see them graduate as strong, talented, and resilient young women. I am always amazed at their many accomplishments while at Westover and their drive to continue to make a difference.”
Lauren Castagnola Chief of Staff
“The work of creating, sustaining, and growing an empowering and inclusive organizational culture energizes me. I’m excited to work towards uplifting the adults in our community so we may all work collectively to ensure the best experience possible for our current students.”
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WESTOVER NEWS
GOING THE DISTANCE
SAGE ‘21 MAKES A SPLASH By Mary Albl
Sage ’21 rounds a buoy during a waterski competition in the summer of 2020.
On a typical fall New England day for Sage Pottbecker ’21, she would be lucky to get out on the water daily and practice skiing. But this was 2020, and nothing is really deemed typical anymore.
summer of tournaments, Westover giving her the option to take classes online, and the idea to extend her season and keep improving, it was almost like catching the perfect wave.
Sage decided to make the most of the unique circumstances during the coronavirus pandemic. When Westover made the announcement of virtual distance learning as an option in the fall of 2020, with only day students on campus for in-person learning, like a bird, Sage headed South. A top 5 nationally world-ranked amateur waterskier, Sage and her family made the decision to allow her to reside in Groveland, Florida, this past fall, where she attended the Jack Travers WaterSki School — honing her craft — and also taking Westover classes virtually. “COVID has 100% made alterations in how we are living our day-to-day life and has made some very difficult patches in lives, but without COVID, I would never have been able to have this experience and still be a part of the Westover community,” Sage said. “So, for that, I am very thankful.” When her fall season ended in November, Sage was ranked by USA WaterSki and Wake Sports U.S. No. 1 in the Girls 5 Division for the Jump event with an average score of 125, tied for third in the Slalom event, and fourth overall. Sage was globally ranked by WaterSkiersFoundation No. 4 in the World for the Jump event in the Under 17 (U17) Girls Division, with an average score of 38.10 meters. She finished No. 5 in Slalom with an average score of 2.00@11.25 meters, and was also top 12 overall. Sage, who is from Morris, Connecticut, tries to actively ski as much as she can, but living in the Northeast in the fall where the weather changes, the water gets colder, and people are working — the skiing gets harder, too. So for Sage, after a
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“Being in Florida is like summer back home, so really my summer was extended because of this opportunity,” Sage said. After competing at the Malibu Open in Trophy Lakes in Charleston, S.C. in September — where she won the U17 (under 17 years old) Girls Jump event — Sage and her family drove to Groveland, Florida, where she lived and trained for a few months. When her family went back home, she stayed in the girls bunk room, similar to a boarder’s life. A day for Sage in the fall looked like: wake up, get ready, eat breakfast, ski, do school work, and then repeat. Sage’s schedule allowed her the flexibility to ski three times a day. When back in Connecticut, Sage is a day student, so living far away and taking virtual classes was a new experience. “My friends and Westover are the best,” Sage said. “Whether it be sharing my progress online, or texting me and asking how things are going, the community has been there for me and I greatly appreciate it.” After a 2020 spring season that resulted in many canceled tournaments due to COVID, Sage’s season started up in June as she attended her first international competition, the 20th annual U.S. Junior Open Water Ski Championships in Maize, Kansas, placing fourth in the slalom final. Sprinkled in throughout the summer were some smaller, local tournaments, including Pre-Regionals and Regionals at her home site in Avon, Connecticut. In September, she competed in the New England Slalom Series in New York and then the Malibu Open, where she had a breakthrough performance, winning the U17 Girls Jump title with a then personal-best jump of 120 feet.
SPORTS
Since residing in Florida, Sage competed in a handful of tournaments, aiding in her progress and rankings. In one of the final tournaments, the McCormicks Fall Classic in Seffner, Florida, she had a personal-best jump of 126-feet. She followed that up with a strong performance at the Holy Cow Tournament at Ski Fluid in Polk City, Florida, as she tied a personal best in slalom with a score of 2@38. “When talking about tournament scores, I have definitely been able to improve my rankings and scores since being here, as a result of being able to work at it and attend tournaments,” Sage said. “One thing about being an athlete is that you will have periods of serious growth, then your performance might stutter a little and fall, go back up again and then plateau for a little bit. That being said, I have had my sets not where I want it to be, and I have had times where I am very happy about my performance. Either way, I have learned so much from this experience and do believe that I am improving as a skier, student, and just as an athlete in general.” In early October, Sage did face adversity as she crashed while jumping, resulting in a rib contusion and having to take some time off. Always striving to do her best, Sage said the time away was hard, but she was able to get back on the water with a positive outlook. “It’s always a gift to see people stepping into spaces where they’re meant to be,” said Sage’s advisor and Art History Instructor, Allison Hildebrand. “When I watch Sage skiing on the videos she sends, I’m blown away by the easy cadence of her turns. And picturing Sage, relaxed in her element, is how I see her having grown into her own as an athlete and as a student. Her journey, even this fall, hasn’t been without struggle, but Sage takes it all in stride: the challenges, the setbacks, and the successes. Sage chooses paths that support her passions, she makes time for the important things in life — her family especially who are a great source of strength for her — and she always gives it her all — in everything she does.”
“My friends and Westover are the best. Whether it be sharing my progress online, or texting me and asking how things are going, the community has been there for me and I greatly appreciate it” Sage Pottbecker '21
Sage explained that having this experience has allowed her to improve as a skier, get her scores up, and hopefully quality for bigger tournaments down the road. In late 2020, Sage received an academic and athletic scholarship to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, where she plans on studying nursing and will compete on the Division 1 water ski team. “In the big picture, I want my name in the top 5 for these two events (slalom, jump), as it would allow me to qualify for some bigger tournaments that I would love to experience,” she said. “But at the end of the day, being able to have had this experience and improve my rankings and my skiing has meant the world to me.” |
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WESTOVER NEWS
“THE STARLING ”
TAKES FLIGHT TO EDUCATE THE COMMUNITY ON RACIAL JUSTICE By Mary Albl
It’s Friday afternoon on June 19, 2020, and Westover School junior Morry Ajao is about to hit send on an all-school email. It’s a message announcing the first-ever student current events newsletter, “The Starling,” spearheaded by the current Student Heads of the Dorcas Society — a long-standing Westover student organization that emphasizes the importance of philanthropy, giving back, and helping the community. Morry isn’t too nervous about the response; delivering the content and message is far more important to her than the reaction. “No matter the response, I knew I wanted to keep doing it,” Morry said. Flash back to the beginning of June and social justice and equality issues have taken center stage. There’s national and global support for the “Black Lives Matter” movement and calls for reform of policing practices in the news headlines. “The Dorcas Society is about giving back to the community and speaking out for what is right and I think this sort of made sense,” said Morry, who serves as Third Head of Dorcas. Under the guidance of the Rasin Center for Global Justice and Dorcas Advisor Robyn Ames, Morry, along with Second Head of Dorcas Tate Dunbar ’22 and First Head Sarah Adams ’22, the three composed an email of education and helpful resources during this pivotal time in history. After sending out the email though, the three wanted to do more. Thus, “The Starling” began to take flight — a platform to continue the work and provide the Westover community with more information to aid in active anti-racist work. “I really liked the idea of a newsletter because to me, and I think to Morry, Tate, and the others, there is just so 2much information out there that is sometimes hard to digest,”
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Sarah said. “The newsletter provided an opportunity to collectively organize our ideas and updates to help anyone out who wants to learn more.” The first issue of “The Starling” on June 19th was a vibrant, six-page, online newsletter that featured an introduction, student spotlight, themed education, current news updates, and Westover School updates, all relating to the theme of BLM and social justice issues. “They themselves want to learn, and they want to share what they learn,” Robyn said. “They are passionate.” The response to the first edition was overwhelmingly positive. Tate said they didn’t really know what to expect or how long the newsletter would continue. Throughout the summer and early fall, the newsletter morphed into a reliable, fun, and innovative source of news for the community. Other students have joined as well, including juniors Emma Dobrovich, JaMara Jean, and former student Laetitia Heyne, who helped out in the summer months. “It’s definitely been empowering to feel like we can do something, and it’s something people enjoy,” Tate said. The name, “The Starling” came from Morry, who loves birds. “Starlings are birds that represent communication through vocalization, effectiveness, and assertiveness, and being mindful of your words and their actions,” she said. The assembly of the newsletter has been split between the students, with Kate Taylor, the Director of the Rasin Center for Global Justice, Mary Taylor-Lewis, Chief Strategic Inclusion Officer, and Robyn all looking over the final product, making sure links are accurate, and offering any suggestions and feedback along the way.
1. Members of “The Starling” newsletter crew from left to right: Laetitia Heyne ’22, Emma Dobrovich ’22, Tate Dunbar ’22, Sarah Adams ’22, JaMara Jean ’22 and Morry Ajao ’22. 2. Front page of the first edition of “The Starling” a digital current events newsletter started by the student leaders of the Dorcas Society in the summer of 2020.
“They do it all,” Robyn said. “The first product they gave us was so professional and great.” The editions feature a section of recommendations of books and movies to read and watch; a Student Spotlight on what current students are doing in their community, or sharing their own stories relating to social justice; Art and Poetry, highlighting Black artists; current news; a crossword puzzle, and any other message and calls to action from the news crew. “I think (the) student voice speaks louder, certainly to their peers, than adult voices,” Robyn said, of why the newsletter has worked so well. Sarah said the three have communicated using Google Slides and put the final product in the online design platform, “Canva.” Sarah does the recommendations and puzzles, Morry takes on the student spotlight, designing and organizing, while Tate tackles the news. With the addition of members to the growing crew, they have delegated assignments so everyone has had a role in making the newsletter. Robyn explained the newsletter fits in with the way they’d like to help continue to transform the Dorcas Society as a whole. “We wanted to make it really digestible and something that was easy to read and not too difficult. Westover itself has its own problems, just as any community does, (but) I think this newsletter is a good way for our community to subtly change.
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ON STAGE
'Midsummer Night 's Dream' THE SHOW MUST GO ON!
“The course of true love never did run smooth!” Lysander from A Midsummer Night’s Dream
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WESTOVER NEWS
… and in a pandemic, neither did Westover’s fall 2020 production of Shakespeare’s classic comedy. However, the efforts of the cast and crew came to fruition in a reimagined version of the play. Using a compilation of Zoom performances and recordings of live rehearsals, A Midsummer Night’s Dream was assembled into a virtual performance shared online with the school community. The show was originally scheduled to be performed October 30 in Westover’s Quad, with day students performing live and their international castmates performing in pre-recorded videos, but an early snowstorm forced a postponement to November 6. Then, heightened pandemic conditions led to the School’s decision to go virtual, which prompted a difficult but necessary decision to cancel the in-person performance.
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“The actors and tech students had all worked so diligently, and it was all coming together so beautifully, that they refused to give up,” said Marla Truini, Director of the Drama Program. In a Zoom rehearsal, the cast and crew agreed that the show must go on. This was possible, Marla said, thanks to “the wonderful edited Zoom footage” assembled by Audra Coulombe ’05, a professional video editor in New York City who had volunteered to edit the Zoom recordings and footage of student performances in the Quad and other locations on campus. The virtual performance was shared with the Westover community in December. Beldine Atieno Wasonga ’22 — portraying both Theseus and Francis Flute from Nairobi, Kenya — said, “Although doing a play with people all over the world is quite challenging, I always felt like I was a part of the production because of how everyone was so understanding, had so much energy, and a smile to warm my day.”
TO VIEW THE PERFORMANCE, VISIT THE WESTOVER YOUTUBE CHANNEL: WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/WESTOVERSCHOOL 4
1. From left to right, cast members of Westover’s fall theatre production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (back row): JaMara Jean ’22, Lexi Mays ’23, Hannah O’Brien ’24, Jillian Brown ’22; (front row): Wava Chan ’21, Shayla O’Donnell ’23, Madeline Abate ’21, Katy Wolff ’21.
3. JaMara Jean ’22 (left), who starred as Titania, and Jillian Brown ’22, who portrayed Puck, rehearse a scene in the Westover quad. 4. Reeya Desai ’22, a member of the technical crew, works a light during a rehearsal.
2. Wava Chan ’21 (left) Madeline Abate ’21 (kneeling) and Shayla O’Donnell ’‘23 rehearse a scene in the Westover quad.
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FINDING WAYS TO
Make Spring Memorable for the Class of 2020 By Rich Beebe
It was a graduation unlike any other in Westover’s history. The 47 members of the Class of 2020 — in the words of Head of School Julie Faulstich, “47 wonderful reasons for hope” — were celebrated at the School’s first virtual graduation on May 30, 2020. But before that unique event, Westover found other ways to celebrate the Class of 2020.
Senior Class Dean, Tammara Gary, holds up a sign in support of the Class of 2020 during the caravan parade that was held in the spring of 2020 to celebrate the graduating members.
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“The coronavirus has upended our lives and how we make sense of our own place in the world. But it’s also presented us all an opportunity to figure out what really matters in life and how we can and should make the most of every single moment of happiness and learning that comes before us.” Alexi McCammond, Commencement Speaker
1. Mikayla Labissiere ’20 is pictured with parents, Gabriel and Renika Labissiere, after receiving a graduation yard sign delivered to local graduating students in the spring of 2020 by Westover faculty and staff.
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In the days leading up to graduation, faculty, staff, and other members of the School community traveled throughout the area delivering “Congratulations Westover School Class of 2020” lawn signs to bring the celebration to members of the class. On May 28, members of the Class of 2020 and other students were recognized for their accomplishments and presented awards for academic, art, and athletic achievement and personal qualities through an Orchard Ceremony video-streamed to the School community. On May 29, members of the Class of 2020 and their families were able to return to campus when they took part in a parade of vehicles that went past the front of the School, then
2. Olivia Pandiscia ’20 waves to Westover faculty and staff during a caravan parade through the Westover campus.
The event was held in May to celebrate the Class of 2020 in a socially-distanced fashion 3. As part of the Graduation Parade, Westover photography teacher Caleb Portfolio created large-scale portraits of all 47 members of the Class of 2020 and installed them in the windows of the School’s façade.
through the campus, where they were cheered by dozens of faculty and staff. As part of the celebration, oversize portraits of all of the graduates were on display in the windows of the School’s facade. The 111th Westover graduation ceremony, video-streamed live from the School’s sun-filled Quad, the traditional site of commencement, incorporated many of the familiar elements of Westover’s in-person graduation — the Invocation and Benediction offered by Chaplain Tom Hungerford, the awarding of prizes, and the virtual presentation of diplomas by Assistant Head of School Ben Hildebrand. It also featured an address by the senior class speaker video-streamed from her home in New York City, and a recorded address by the commencement speaker.
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“I became friends with people I never would have expected to. We helped each other with classes and made sure to check in on each other... Westover will always be a home to each and every single one of us.” Jade Morton-Alexander, Senior Class Speaker
In welcoming viewers watching the ceremony from across the country and from around the world, Julie acknowledged that the special circumstances of the graduation were happening when “there is so much pain and suffering in this world” as a result of the pandemic, its economic disruption, and a worldwide response to acts of injustice. Senior class speaker Jade Morton-Alexander reflected with honesty and humor about the transformations she and her classmates experienced at Westover.
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“We were exposed to harder classes, more assignments, and ‘Common Errors,’” Jade said, but her classmates found themselves connecting with one another in new ways. “I became friends with people I never would have expected to. We helped each other with classes and made sure to check in on each other.” As a result, she added, “Westover will always be a home to each and every single one of us.” Commencement Speaker Alexi McCammond, a national political reporter at Axios, noted how the pandemic has changed our perceptions of the world. “The coronavirus has upended our lives and how we make sense of our own place in the world. But it’s also presented us all an opportunity to figure out what really matters in life and how we can and should make the most of every single moment of happiness and learning that comes before us.” In so many ways, the Class of 2020 has done just that.
4. Jade Morton-Alexander ‘21 was selected by classmates as the Senior Class Speaker for Westover's first virtual graduation ceremony in May of 2020 5. Cammie Hussey ’20, pictured with her dad and member of the Westover Board of Trustees, James Hussey, during the spring car caravan to honor the Class of 2020.
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WESTOVER NEWS
These four alumnae — Dr. Nkiruka Emeagwali ’96, Dr. Aimee Gough ’02, Davida Carr ’95, and Dr. Marra Stankus Francis Clinton ’90 — participated in the October 20, 2020 Lunch and Learn focusing on careers in medicine.
The following Lunch and Learn gatherings have been offered to date. Recordings of each of them can be accessed at: westoverschool.org/lunch&learn ALUMNAE IN SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
ALUMNAE IN LEGAL PROFESSIONS
September 29
November 17
By Rich Beebe
• Alyssa Siefert Jarvi ’05, Alumnae Governor, Panel Moderator
• Greta Atchinson ’02, Alumnae Governor, Panel Moderator
It takes more than a pandemic to keep Westover alumnae from connecting with one another.
• Becca Luger-Guillaume Poindexter ’01
• Becca Paolino Holshouser ’01
• Karen Lostritto ’02
• Gabbie Grimmett ’13
• Nefertari Adams-Sloan Martin ’04
• Shanell Littlejohn Lavery ’02
• Sarah Krueger ’12
• Maria Petrone ’91
ROCK YOUR LINKEDIN PROFILE
ALUMNAE IN ART & DESIGN
October 6
January 26
• Claire Fetherstonhaugh ’05
• Christine Muldowney Dahl ’82 P’14, Trustee, Panel Moderator
ALUMNAE IN MEDICAL PROFESSIONS
• Koo Guion Schadler ’80
October 20
• Habiba Koroma ’97
• Laura English Boogaert ’83 P’17, Alumnae Governor, Panel Moderator
• Sara Arno ’10
LUNCH AND LEARN: A NEW WAY FOR WESTOVER ALUMNAE TO CONNECT
“In the fall, we would typically have begun offering a series of regional events around the country,” said Carrie Loyd ’05, Director of Alumnae Engagement and Stewardship, but the pandemic meant the Alumnae/Development Office had to find a new format to bring alumnae together. “To keep our alumnae community connected and to leverage our impressive Westover network, the Lunch and Learn series came into being,” Carrie said. The resulting series of virtual panel discussions — structured around particular career fields — has been a success. “There are so many talented and accomplished alumnae that it seemed an obvious avenue to explore, especially as our young alums may be looking for internships or jobs but have fewer networking opportunities,” Carrie said. “They have even drawn in alumnae who don’t work in the field, but are just interested in hearing about others’ experiences.” An average of 30 alumnae have registered for each event, and because most of the Lunch and Learn gatherings have been recorded, they are accessible to viewers who can’t join the live, one-hour Zoom sessions. “We are immensely grateful to all of our panelists as well as our Alumnae Governors and Trustees who have moderated each discussion,” Carrie said. “People have been very willing to join in when invited. It has been so much fun to put the Lunch and Learn gatherings together while getting to know alumnae better and hearing about each panelist’s remarkable career path. Westover alumnae are such an impressive group!”
• Dr. Nkiruka Emeagwali ’96 • Dr. Aimee Gough ’02 • Davida Carr ’95 • Dr. Marra Stankus Francis Clinton ’90
• Charlotte Strick ’91
ALUMNAE ENTREPRENEURS February 23 • Alicia Lyttle ’94, Alumnae Governor, Panel Moderator • Dr. Jin Lee '04 • Lawrese Brown ’06 • Sarah SciottoGavigan ’88 P’22 • Katie Solley ’13
If you have suggestions for future careers to highlight and alumnae to nominate as presenters, please email them to: alumnae@westoverschool.org |
WINTER 2021 21
COVER STORY
in a word
What did 2020 mean
to you?
In an unexplainable, topsy-turvy and historic year, the best way to explain, we felt, was through the lens of Westover community members. We asked students, faculty and staff and alumnae near and far, to share with us their tales, triumphs, hardships, and any significant moments of 2020. From volunteering as a poll worker in the U.S. Presidential Election, graduating and finding a first job during a pandemic, to rekindling a passion of baking bread and finding forever love, these 14 entries are first-hand accounts of real, raw, honest and, for many, relatable chapters of an unforgettable 2020. We hope you enjoy reading how our community spent 2020. While we received many great entries from Westover community members, we could not include all of them in the print edition. Please visit our Archives Page of the Westover website to see a complete list of the entries.
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Irene Kim ’21
Mélodie Teta ’23
Senior (First Head of School)
Sophomore
FAMILY
GROWTH
2020, while bringing many uncertainties and changes, has gifted me with time to spend with family. With my brothers leaving home for college when I was young, and then with me leaving for boarding school, time with family has always been very limited. This year has been the longest time I’ve been with my parents in my four years of high school and will most likely be the last time I get to be with them for this long. So, I’ve enjoyed taking time to catch up with them and putting myself back into their everyday lives. I’ve been doing lots of baking and Zumba with my mom (and sometimes dad).
In one word I could describe 2020 as growth. Especially in quarantine, I grew a lot. Quarantine was a real blessing in disguise! I grew in my faith, my sense of self, and my mindset grew as well. I learned to take things day-by-day and to live in the moment because, as COVID-19 has proved, everything can change in a short amount of time. I struggled with online school and staying mentally healthy because I was away from home, and for a very long time. It was quite difficult, but in the end, I learned lessons, and now that it happened, I’m dealing with online school and finding a balance so much easier! Even though it gets hard sometimes, I can always look back at what I learned to help me: time management, discipline, and above all to rely on God because no one else can get me through this life!
Also, experiencing a change in my learning and having to do online school internationally, I’ve reflected on the privileges that I took for granted, especially regarding my education. I’ve experienced what it meant to be distant from a supportive community of teachers and friends; what it meant to study internationally and apart from the U.S. educational system after benefitting so much from being at the center of it. Overall, 2020 gave me time to appreciate my community and the opportunities available at Westover for me.
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Tom Juvan
Monica Lau ’22
English Teacher
Junior
STRENGTH
BREAD
I sit, fist clenched, jaw tight while preparing for my flight. Anxiously, I take my passport out for the CBP officers. It is March, coronavirus cases are rising in the United States, and I have decided to fly back to China. Much of my daily life has already been colored by the pandemic. I feel extremely insecure because I am alone. When I arrived at the airport in China, I was told to immediately fill out a form, proving that I have not been in touch with people with COVID-19 symptoms. After taking the mandatory coronavirus test with medical staff at the airport, it was arranged for me to stay in a hotel near my home with the medical team and security guards. During my two-week quarantine, I distributed a survey to the staff members of the hotel, asking about the precautions they are taking. With a teacher, I journal about my life during COVID-19. I did not feel comfortable during my two weeks of quarantine because boredom came, I was required to take one COVID-19 test per week, get my temperature tested twice a day, and the food was not suitable for my taste. I was able to contact students, who returned from the States and were also placed in the same hotel as I am, for advice in school. Throughout the pandemic, I challenged myself to remain grounded and brave, to learn about the pandemic to help others, to flip my sleep schedule to continue attending school remotely, and find ways to maintain community while self- isolating.
Baking bread has come back into my life this year, but I hasten to assert that I didn’t just jump on some COVID sourdough bandwagon. Before becoming a teacher, I actually used to work as a bread baker. (What else do you do when you graduate from college with a degree in English?) While I used to bake more frequently at home, in recent years I really haven’t done much baking at all. During last year’s Christmas break, however, I saw Joscie Norris ’16, who told me she had begun baking sourdough and offered me some starter. Although I had baked sourdough professionally, I never did so at home because the constant need to feed and discard starter felt wasteful with the infrequent baking that I do. Some research online combined with my library of bread books convinced me that I could start keeping the starter in the refrigerator and set up a weekly feeding/baking schedule. With starter from Joscie’s Vermont batch in hand, I started to figure out the best way to proceed. Aesthetically, I have always been partial to the free-form hearth loaf, but for simplicity of proofing I decided to go with a pan loaf for this experiment. I adapted a hybrid of several different techniques to devise a formula that felt right. A couple of weeks of tinkering got me to the proportions that worked beautifully. Especially as 2020 became increasingly filled with stress and uncertainty, I have appreciated the weekly routine of Friday night starter feeding; Saturday mixing, shaping, and rising; and Sunday morning bake-off. I have always loved the very tactile, satisfying working with bread dough, so it’s great having that back in my life. My family likes the weekly loaves, too!
In China, we use the “Health QR Code” to facilitate epidemic control. The Health QR code relies on mobile technologies and a color-based code (red and green) to identify your health status in all areas, including subway stations, malls, restaurants, and other public areas. Each time you enter a public area, you are required to check your temperature to check your health status. This has remarkably reduced the coronavirus cases in China. Recently, I have been working with a commonweal organization, helping patients in hospitals, and interviewing them with questions asking for their daily routines during the epidemic. My biggest takeaway is that I learned that, while facing significant challenges, I can persevere and even help others with my strengths.
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Donté Tates
Lauren Castagnola
English Department Chair
Chief of Staff
JOURNEY
TO DO
In a word, 2020 has been about taking the journey! In a year filled with extraordinary happening, unusual circumstances, and many unrests, I discovered that you can still flourish and grow as long as you believe in yourself, remain open to the possibilities of life, and take the journey that calls you. I have been a teacher for fifteen years, and I always have had aspirations to become a teacher-leader and department chair. As I began to grow weary in my search, Westover School found me, looking at my past resume on a job recruitment website. Tentative and unsure of the opportunity, I followed up on the email sent by now friend, colleague, and Chief Strategic Inclusion Officer, Mary Taylor-Lewis. What I discovered with each step in the process was not only a wonderful school community but also a gem of and a beacon for young womxn’s education and empowerment. Meeting the faculty and students through the interview process, the summer work to facilitate how hybrid learning meets the needs of learning and teaching, and the successful opening of the school year in unprecedented times, I have simply fallen for Westover’s ethos, excellence, and earnestness. All signs pointed to Westover School for me, and I will forever be grateful for 2020 because as the late poet, rapper, and activist Tupac Shukar famously penned and I honestly believe a “rose [can] [grow] from concrete.” Out of the concrete dilemmas of 2020, we can all be roses when we pay attention to the good signs that come our way. Thank you, Westover, for seeing the rose in me, and in our partnership, I hope we can make a rose garden stand tall and proud as the 2020 bloom. Beyond the pandemics, we all can blossom anew as a community, a people, and a society. Let the journey continue!
Feeling equal parts hopeless in the face of the pandemic and agitated by the 2020 Election, I decided that “to do” something might make me feel better. Persuaded by a Power the Polls segment on The Daily Social Distancing Show, I submitted my name to the Connecticut volunteer database and specifically selected November 3, 2020 as my available date. I waited weeks for someone to reach out. Finally, I received a call from the Meriden Registrar of Voters office with a plea to volunteer to count absentee ballots. I eagerly accepted, nursing an excitement in my belly that I hadn’t felt in months. I volunteered on November 2 and 3 to count nearly 8,000 absentee ballots. The city typically received 600 absentee ballots, and the team was clearly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of envelopes that needed to be verified, opened, and counted. I was joined by nearly 30 other volunteers, some who had been counting for years and others who were new to the process. The group of volunteers was Republicans, Democrats, and unaffiliated voters, as well as high school students, grandparents, retirees, and folks who used vacation time from their jobs to volunteer on an historic Election Day. We worked in groups of two, one person to open envelopes and one person who verified a voter’s registration on the city’s official rolls. Then, we took to ripping open the envelopes and sending the ballots through the counting machines, creating a satisfying “kerplunk!” as each ballot was counted. It felt great to be a part of the process, particularly on that historic day. But more than satisfying my urge “to do,” it was invigorating to be a member of this team that was randomly selected to do a job that was vitally important. The team that represented all facets of society, all holding varying beliefs, and all secretly hoping for specific outcomes, came together with a sense of purpose and camaraderie. As one fellow volunteer said late on Election Night, “see, we can all peacefully come together to get the job done.”
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Kira DeSimone ’16
Inclusion Program Coordinator
Hilary Bibb Porado ’80
FINISH LINE
PAINTING IN A PANDEMIC
2020 was a year of endings, beginnings, transitions, and returns. Graduating from college in the middle of a pandemic and from home was certainly a unique and challenging way to close that challenging chapter of my life. College was not the experience I thought it was going to be when I graduated from Westover. Because of this, graduation had been something I held up as the last finish line I had to cross to move on from the past hurtful and difficult four years. When I realized that that event was not going to happen in the way I had thought of, suddenly my finish line I had been working toward was gone. My closure that I so desperately needed was now not going to happen in the way I had always hoped. Since March I just felt untethered and floating through a void of time, and after school truly ended this felt more pronounced because the next chapter was now a complete unknown. Sitting in that space of unknown, confusion, anxiety, and limbo after graduation perfectly encapsulates the mood of 2020. The beginning and return parts of 2020 are from my return to the Westover community and beginning my new role as a faculty member. Coming back just over four years after graduating was not something I had planned on, but feel incredibly privileged to do. I feel incredibly privileged to have a job and connect with, and support, current students who are in the same place I was in not long ago. This phase of 2020 is now about understanding and figuring out what my role in a familiar community is when I am not just a student or alum but an adult in the building. Even though Westover is a space I am deeply familiar with, I am constantly reminded and shown that I do not move through this community and space in the same way because of this new role and the new perspective and experiences I gained during college. 2020 has felt like one, long, neverending transition.
As a plein air painter, I had to stay home for a while. Our class had a great 40th Reunion over Zoom where I was able to see so many old friends and catch up with them afterwards. It was a wonderful reunion. So great to see everyone! Robin Smith Melvin ’80 and I emailed each other about our pets. Margaret Perrow ’80 shared her blog. I made pastel drawings of the cat. Eventually, I realized I could go out in my kayak and paint on the river. (I was very thankful for the Westover Outdoor Program and my training in paddling.) There were beavers and muskrats and swans and deer and water lilies, so much to paint! Finally, I began to paint in the front garden and then at the beach while social distancing.
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Elizabeth Peterson ’11
Genevieve Zasada ’08
TRUST
GRIT
To me, in a word, 2020 has meant trust. I have had to trust my judgment and my ability to adapt in a world of uncertainty. I’ve had to trust my school that switching to distance learning was the right move for both teachers and students. I’ve had to trust myself to design an effective virtual curriculum when I’ve been teaching in person for years. I’ve had to trust my students to show up to Zoom classes and to do more work independently. I’ve had to trust my instincts of what is safe and what is true in things as simple as going to the grocery store. We’ve all needed to trust that the other people at the store are sanitizing carts, wearing masks, and keeping their distance. I’ve had to trust my ability to be on my own in the promise of keeping others safer. I’ve had to trust my family and friends to be there when I reach out, even when we can’t be together in person. I’ve had to trust that kindness is significant and that words and actions can show love even with distance. I’ve had to trust that masks work, that keeping distance works, that statistics can show accurate trends and help us make predictions. I’ve had to trust my gut that the right move for me is to leave a teaching career amidst a global pandemic and pursue a master’s degree dream overseas. I’ve had to trust that what I want out of this degree is going to help me to the next level personally and career-wise. I’ve had to trust that this is true enough to my identity that it is a dream worth pursuing. I’ve had to trust that I have been working hard enough to support myself in this dream. I’ve had to trust that things will fall in place even if the answers aren’t there right away and things seem uncertain. I’ve had to trust, and I do trust that we will get through 2020 stronger than before.
My daily routine didn’t always start like this. Over the last four years, I had flown everything from the modest Cessna to the Air Force’s T-38 tandem jet fighter trainer and mastered every simulated adversity, including engine failures, hundreds of times. The Air Force gave me four years of the most challenging corporate onboarding to qualify me to fly the most tactically relevant fighter in the world, the F-16. I strapped into my seat, donned my weighty helmet as my crew chief helped me plug in my G-suit while I mentally prepared myself for my flight: High Aspect Basic Fighter Maneuvers. We take off as a formation and set up the parameters for our first fight. My flight lead, “the bandit,” roars over the radio, exhilaration in his voice, “Fight’s on. Fight’s on!” The bandit points directly at me, 480kts, which means per the flight contract we have 960kts of closure. The afterburner shrieks, my G-suit inflates as 9 G-forces onset; I am immobilized in my seat. We merge at a thousand feet as I look over my shoulder. “Fly in relation to the bandit,” I tell myself; we point our aircraft noses into the sky. Soaring into the stratosphere, the sky turns black. “This is the closest I’ll get to being an astronaut,” I briefly think to myself. The bandit prematurely falls back to the earth; having more energy than him, I am able to arc behind him, pulling back on the stick to follow. “Lock, Lock,” Betty, the flight advisory, says coolly. I press the little red button. “Fox 2,” I bellow. Just another day in the office.
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WINTER 2021 27
Stacy Tattar ’94
Kelly Agnew Medvigy ’96
LOVE
TEACHER MOM
Greetings Westover Friends! Hope everyone is staying healthy and happy. 2020 has been quite the journey I served as a psych nurse this past spring in Boston right as the pandemic began. As a traveling nurse, I work in various hospitals with staffing needs for 13 weeks at a time. I’m accustomed to new settings with their plethora of challenges and needless to say, this one took the prize! I finished up in time to enjoy the beautiful New England summer. At the end of June, I attended a beautiful dinner on a nearby farmhouse and Norm asked me to marry him! I said yes, of course. I feel so blessed to have found love- not just from another but also with myself. Every day, I attend to my gratitude and yoga practices. I also get to care for and serve six furry little souls: Toshi, Phantom, Cookie, Phoenix, Pearl, and Sterling.
It’s a blessing and a curse to have a “Teacher Mom.” It’s even more of a curse to be on lockdown, at home, with your “Teacher Mom.” Being in “school” with her, sitting across the table from you, as she teaches your friends. But March 16th, 2020, that’s where we found ourselves. My fourth grader, my seventh grader and I, navigating “Mount Carmel South Campus” as we called it. Me, as a “Teacher Mom” every day for two weeks. Two weeks became a month. A month became the rest of the school year. By mid-April, “Teacher Mom” gave up on requiring them to sit at the table and didn’t much care where work got done as long as it was complete and they were somewhat dressed for a Zoom. The boys took over the basement as their home base - sleeping down there together, setting up scenes of Legos or action figures or WWE wrestlers, laughing and snickering and planning things a mom just doesn’t need to know about. A “Wild, Wild West” of brotherhood, so to speak. “Teacher Mom” tried to impose structure, rules, anything that made this time feel normal or manageable or predictable, but the truth was it was anything but. “Teacher Mom” begged them to write a journal as a keepsake for future generations. In the end I am lucky I got a few pictures. “Teacher Mom” encouraged family walks only to be thwarted one night by the fox that my children still claim “stalked and followed them” throughout the neighborhood. For all the failures of missed vacations with family, athletic seasons that were cut short, birthdays without friends (including my “quaran-teen”) and a myriad of other disappointments, “Teacher Mom” had some wins. Extra time spent together with family, late night video games when nobody thought “Teacher Mom” would know, FaceTime with cousins during the day, and brownies for breakfast will all become anecdotes from quarantine. And while there was certainly stress and worry and sleepless nights, I will forever be thankful for my months as “Teacher Mom” and the gift of time I spent with my boys.
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Fiona Boyle ’17
Kyla Reynolds P’an ’91
DREAM
EXPATRIATION
It all started when I took an art history class with Ali Hildebrand my sophomore year at Westover. It was a life-changing decision, because I discovered my passion for the subject. If I think back to my 14-year-old self, a nervous, quiet girl, I doubt she ever thought she would complete an Italian language program and study art history at the Università di Firenze.
In a word, this is what 2020 has meant to me. It has been a year that has rendered us distant, not just from family and friends, but also from home. In August, 2019, work relocated us from Boston, Massachusetts, to Lisbon, Portugal. My husband and I had long hoped and dreamed of an opportunity to live and raise our kids overseas but we never expected it to be a place as easy, close and enticing as the sunny coast of Portugal.
In early January, I arrived in Florence, Italy, for an intensive Italian language course, moved into an apartment, and shortly began classes. Florence, the birthplace of the modern-day Italian language, the Renaissance, and the politically and financially influential Medici family, would be my home for the next six months. Every morning, my 70-year-old neighbor waved and shouted “Buongiorno” from her window as I waited for the bus into the city. I would stop for a cappuccino and pastry at the bar across from school, and the owner taught me a new Italian phrase. I spent most days exploring the city, churches, and museums. On weekends, I learned Italian cuisine from my neighbors, who were like grandparents to me. Despite everything, I cried every night from exhaustion and homesickness. At the end of February, my brother came to visit. We went to a Fiorentina vs Milan football game the night he arrived. The following day I began receiving information about potential COVID-19 cases in Florence. Rumors flew around as NYU Florence students were abruptly told to return home. My gut feeling told me to start packing, buy souvenirs, and say my goodbyes. By the weekend I heard my program was canceled. On March 3, I flew home and walked through customs at JFK without a mention of the virus or a temperature check. Italy went into lockdown six days later. Given this unprecedented year, my bittersweet memories of Florence feel like a dream.
Our first several months here, like any expat experience, were filled with the challenges and rewards of setting up and settling in to a new country. We also spent time exploring and meeting many of the people that would become our surrogate, expat family in the year(s) to come. We told friends and family back home to give us six months to get settled and then our doors would be wide open to host a bevy of visitors. They started booking their flights and making plans for 2020. By mid-November 2019, our 2020 calendar already was full from March through August, with just a few blockedout weeks to regroup and take our own vacations. Our first family guests were scheduled to arrive on March 24. On March 13, Portugal went into lockdown and travel restrictions from the US have been in place ever since. Aside from two wonderful, long-weekend visits — one in October from fellow Westover classmate, Meredith Shirey ’91, and her son, who live in Sweden, and another from a close Boston pal in January — our guest room remained vacant. We have since converted it into a home office and its repurposing has made our separation from friends and family in the US even more acute. On the whole, Portugal has handled the Pandemic well. Mask wearing, until recently, was mandated only inside shops and buildings but not outside — now masks are mandatory all the time — and people wear them civilly and responsibly. It has been difficult watching, reading, and hearing about news from the US and we have felt both impotent and unjustifiably lucky that we are here in Portugal. I think, to some degree, 2020 has left many of us feeling expatriated; we are all surviving on our own islands and in our own distant lands, apart from the people we love. For 2021, I hope many of us will focus on this word: REUNION.
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Thank you to our Class Secretaries for submitting news to the magazine. Notes published in this magazine were received as of December 1, 2020. Individuals in photographs in the Class Notes section are identified from left to right in captions, unless otherwise stated.
GUIDELINES FOR PHOTOGRAPH SUBMISSIONS: Please provide the full names of every alumna in a photo (identified from left to right), the date taken (if possible), the location, and the occasion (i.e. graduation, wedding). Photographs will be published as space and photo quality permit. Please send digital photographs as email attachments to cloyd@ westoverschool.org. For printing purposes, it is preferable that photographs have a minimum dpi of 300. We also can reproduce photographs submitted as traditional prints on photo quality paper. Thank you and we look forward to seeing more photographs.
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Class Notes
1942 PAT FRANCK SHEFFIELD
psheffld@gmail.com
I had left telephone messages on everyone’s listed numbers and eventually I got some answers back, either from the classmate herself or from a relative. These are the seven I finally reached. Her son Rick told me that Mary “Molly” Waters Anderson is in assisted living at Meadow Ridge in Redding, CT. Her husband had died about five years ago. Although she has difficulty speaking, has some memory problems, and cannot walk these days, he says she is thriving. Mary Acheson Bundy and I had a long talk in late October. Because of the virus, she’s not doing any traveling. But as an artist she is doing portraits, mainly of adults, as well as some portraits of children based on pictures. She’s reading a lot and talked about a place called Book Haven in her Lexington, MA area. She has three grown children, four grandchildren, but no great-grandchildren yet. Harriet “Butter” Whelpley Conklin’s son was in the room when I reached them and he put the phone on loudspeaker for her to hear me. When I happened to call her “Butter,” he cracked up! The family had never known that was her nickname. She is now 96 and, having had polio years ago, she’s been bedridden for a few years. His father, Butter’s husband, was a lieutenant commander piloting Corsair aircraft carrier planes during WWII. (I was able to talk with him about my own useless work in 1946-47 at Douglas Aircraft spent designing carrier planes, which proved only that my math major in a woman’s college was not engineering math!) She was hoping to move in January to a place called Corona in Fallbrook, CA, run by Chris Conklin, a daughter-
in-law. It’s a respite-care facility for the elderly and requires state permission to move in. Elaine Shanley Jocelyn and I talked for some time. She lives in Doylestown, PA, and says she’s ambulatory and also driving a little. The members of her big family are all doing well, including a great-grandson. She lives in a community named Pine Run. She attended the David Mannes School of Music, finishing in 1948, but I neglected to get into what music she’s involved with lately. Suzan Phillips was also trained in music, getting her Master’s at the Manhattan School of Music. That led to her doing opera in Europe as well as acting. Suzan also wrote a musical about her local area. She lives in Vero Beach, FL, is still driving, and still busy as a photographer with a show almost a year ago. Two books of hers have been published and she’s writing a memoir. I told her that Butter’s son had asked me to say hello to her. Suzan fell in the shower some time ago and now uses a walker. I gather she has two daughters, one in England, the other one here whom she relies on these days. Sally Piper Noyes and I spoke. She and her son are both working as volunteers at a food bank. She says her health is fine. Her other seven children are also fine, and one daughter lives nearby. I didn’t learn much else, but that is good news. I heard from Barbara Spalding, the daughter of Sonia Allen Spalding, that Sonia and her husband are alive and well, and had just celebrated their 69th wedding anniversary. He’s physically active, she has “some Parkinson’s, but not much, goes outside with a walker, but is not driving.” They have two caregivers for good help. (Sonia’s somewhat forgetful, but so am I, Pat Franck Sheffield!) Her daughter was hoping to talk directly to Sonia and call back, but that did not happen.
Pat Franck Sheffield, reporting on myself now. I have had nothing but problems, endlessly, having to switch from Optimum TV to DISH coming from a satellite, buying a new computer (forcing me into a new Microsoft Word, which is totally confusing), paying for a new furnace and new roof gutters, and lots of medical problems in my back from the crash two years ago. Then my underground pump died last week, leaving me without any clean water until two rusted tanks are removed tomorrow (11/11/20). Otherwise, stuck at home like so many of us. Then staying sane during this November election and now its aftermath! Best of luck to everyone, especially during this pandemic. Feel free to call me or email me about any later news.
1946
with news, mail, phone, and food! Daughter Deborah Lippincott ’72, now a grandmother — making me a “great” — of Adelaide Beatrice — very gratifying, indeed. I wonder if she will be fortunate enough to have the Westover experience? Best to all. Send news to me anytime. I will save for the next installment. Bea
1949 Class Secretary Needed!
Submit your news at westoverschool.org/classnotes Joan Peterkin Foxwell reports that “I have moved from FL back to ME.”
1950
Celebrating their 75th Reunion in 2021!
Class Secretary Needed!
BEATRICE BRONSON GARVAN
Submit your news at westoverschool.org/classnotes
beagarvan@gmail.com
Peggy Evans Dennis wrote from CA: “Thank goodness the big election is over, but this is a crazy, difficult world for our grands and great grands to inherit. Reid and I have lived in the same house for 60 years and now are a ‘pod’ of five at home including a two-year-old. I miss Patsy Martin Seidler, but feel fortunate to be still here.” Received a nice note from Corky (Ann Corkran Nimick) re Ricky (Sue Colket Rakestraw), and Anne Newbold Godfrey, and others not in ’46, who are all at Beaumont, a senior living community on the Main Line. I am at another one, The Hill at Whitemarsh, with an excellent library, which has saved me. It has been a tiresome year and reminds me of the war years 1944-45 at Westover ... limited contacts, no travel, rare visitors, obsession
Emily Baldwin Nissley writes, “My biggest and best news is that both Tom and I are healthy, but that does mean we don’t attend church. We listen and watch instead.” 1. Head of School Julie Faulstich met in early February 2020 with Mary McCreath Godley ’38 P’62 ’67 (right) and Nicky Johnson Weaver ’63.
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Class Notes
1951 Celebrating their 70th Reunion in 2021! Class Secretary Needed!
Submit your news at westoverschool.org/classnotes From Francene LeRoux Haskell: “I hope that all my classmates have kept safe during this awful year. We are all fine, but sadly missed our yearly reunion in our summer home in France, for which my family comes from all over the world. My daughter Diana adopted Lucie, an eightyear-old, talented, beautiful little girl from China. I am working with my play-reading group, painting, and following my gym workouts on the computer — they are just as hard. Be well, everyone!
1952 Class Secretary Needed!
Submit your news at westoverschool.org/classnotes Lolly Treman Almquist writes, “Close lifetime friends and a chance to grow up (hopefully!) at Westover will always be some of life’s best times.”
1954 NANCY WATSON KING
nkminniemo29@gmail.com
Sandra Soule Ashley reported that her son Chris has designed a gorgeous Reward boat, which is waiting to be built. Look up rewardboats.com. They are beauties! She says she’s reduced to watching birds and doing puzzles while listening to the news. Her youngest grandson, Hunter, graduated from UMass Lowell magna cum
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laude. The eldest, Ryan, earned his PhD on the way to becoming a doctor at Hofstra. Of course, Sandy would have grandchildren like this! Suzanne Scoble-Macklin says she “peacefully” went through a procedure called TAVR, which replaced a heart valve. Not so much of a big deal as one might have thought (yes, one certainly might have!). She was to leave for FL on Dec. 8 and would love to see anyone who would like to visit Jupiter, which is great in the winter. Anne Chalfant Brown says, “First, let me start with some very sad news. My 25-year-old stepson, Joel, died of a drug overdose on Jan. 31, 2020. He’d been addicted to heroin since his teens and, despite many rehabs, was not able to kick the habit. I was very fond of him. When clean and himself, he was intelligent, caring, and creative. I miss him a lot. Through all that time, I found Alanon to be very helpful and have continued to go to meetings. “Otherwise the year has probably been similar to all of yours — sheltering-in-place, wearing a mask in public, not going out much, etc. It’s strange, though, when I first heard about the sheltering, I thought, ‘Oh, good. I’ll get caught up on all the books I’ve been wanting to read and movies I’ve been wanting to see.’ Not so — thanks to Zoom, I’m busier than I’ve been in years — many meetings that probably wouldn’t have happened in normal times are now on my schedule. My church has been doing a 10-week course on racial reconciliation, put on by the national Episcopal Church. I’m one of the leaders of that. The course has been very eye-opening and valuable, but time-consuming. In the run-up to the election, I did lots of get-out-the-vote texting through MoveOn, sometimes as many as 2000/day. I hope I don’t offend any of you by saying that I was happy with the results of the
election. Miss Pratt would probably be proud of me. I think I’m a Democrat because of her. “In July my granddaughter, her boyfriend, and my great-granddaughter who had been living with me for a couple of years, moved out. I miss them most days, though sometimes I’m happy to have my own space. “Almost every afternoon my little Norwich terrier and I go to a nearby park. It’s fun for both of us, because there are a number of other owners and dogs there with whom we’ve made friends. About a month ago we were there, and she had gotten bored with running for her ball. I was talking to other owners. Someone nearby threw a ball for his goldendoodle, who happened to be behind me. He ran full speed for the ball, ran into me, knocked me over, then ran over me. I’m so lucky I didn’t break my neck or something. All that happened was that I tore a ligament in my knee. The doctor said it would heal on its own and take about six weeks. I’m limping around but basically ok. That’s all my news. I miss all of you and hope you’re doing well. Our Reunion last year was fun, and I wish more of you could have been there. Maybe we should have a Zoom call. Much love to you all, Anne” Joy Peterkin Rasin writes, “One of the great things about a big old summer place with rubber walls is that the family can come shelter in place with me, and come they did! I was rescued from Naples, FL, by RV and delivered to Lake Geneva, WI, in June and had six to nine family here nonstop until September in the Flowerside Summer Camp. We all stayed healthy — the house hasn’t been that full and active since my own were in their teens. Three generations during COVID with the most important election of our lives looming led to some wonderful conversations — how lucky am I? They will all be back for Christmas after doing the necessary testing and isolation. The school-age kids are in their bedrooms schooling
so they are pretty protected. Others are super cautious. We are all, thus far, healthy and optimistic, so all is good.” Mary Maier Walker writes, “I’ve been volunteering at phone banks to get out the vote. Bill and I are about as well as anyone could expect to be, given our ages, plenty of infirmities but still coherent and still upright, thankfully. I’m writing this from Hilton Head, dreading a holiday trip home to the petri dish which is WI. We hope to return to Hilton Head in January. In a normal life I would be making visits to assisted-living organizations with my therapy dog, Rose. It’s very rewarding for both of us. But with the onset of COVID and a spinal fusion in early March, life has been very stay-at-home. I’m recovering well, but it’s a slow process. Thanks to our only married grandson, we are on schedule to become great-grandparents in April, and we are very excited!” Bourne Gafill Morris-Buss writes, “I encourage all our 50+ children to get long-term care insurance. Bob and I got it on the advice of a friend many years ago. We paid a fortune into it, but now it pays us. Now that we are 86 and 83, we need some help. Our dear Jeanine, who is our son’s girlfriend and a healthcare professional, comes every afternoon. We are eligible because Bob has dementia and I had knee surgery this summer. Jeanine cooks and shops. She helps me with the gardening. She walks with me outside. She helps me exercise my wicked right leg. But we still live in our own house, enjoy the company of our son and Jeanine (our pod as long as COVID-19 persists). And the insurance reimburses us all her wages. Daughters Miranda and Temple and their families are quarantining in MD. Both girls are therapists who still work every day, mostly online. I hope to visit them early next year, God willing and the creek don’t rise.”
Class Notes
Lane Fryberger Smith, jolly as ever on the phone with me, said she has nothing to report. Well that’s not true! She and her girls were going to her camp on the Brule River for Thanksgiving. That’s something! She also has a dog for company, and she reported a buck’s coming onto her deck. She eschews restaurants and occasionally goes to her club for dinner instead. Still laughing, thank goodness. Anne Richardson Johnson says, “I am still in Blue Hill, ME … a strange summer, but all our grandchildren were here so we weren’t so isolated. They came by at cocktail hour, so our wine bill was terrible. Everyone is working remotely and seems to be okay, but this is getting tiresome. We will go to Boca Grande after Thanksgiving. It is too dark and cold here. Everything is pretty well shut down and our bridge club is playing online. Quite fun. To entertain myself, I have been rereading old favorites and I can recommend John O’Hara. I think his last book, From the Terrace, is one of the great novels of the mid-20th century. I had never heard of Zoom until this recent unpleasantness, but it can be fun. Maybe we should try to have a Zoom cocktail hour. Hope you are all well.” Aldys Chapman Davis writes, “All is well here. My family lives nearby but restrictions here at Waverly are tight, so no family are allowed on campus. I can still drive to see them. Two grands live in Kennett Square. Keating is at Penn State and Ally is a senior at Kennett High. My other grandchild is in London getting her master’s. Retired from the gardening world as a GCA Judge in Horticulture after 17 years. Still find time to dig in the dirt. Best wishes to all my classmates to still dig in the dirt.” From Wendy Hill Merriman: “Dear Classmates, Amidst weathering this time alone, I give thanks for the family near and far, as well as thoughts for those in need. Once a nurse always a nurse, it is said. Also, once in ministry always in ministry! I am
retired and part of the United Church of Christ Faith Community Nurse Working group (previously called Parish Nursing). We meet monthly (Zoom) and help churches start health and wellness groups and guide congregations in health and wellness. I am also on a subset of this group working with ODUM in substance abuse and addiction. In the meantime, our family grows. My oldest grandson, Ryan, married Bayle at a destination wedding in Mexico in February (just in time!). Then my granddaughter Molly married Tim here in our backyard in September. This followed the day after our Saturday corn pudding ritual of pick corn, scrape, and freeze! Only 24 quarts this year. We had all the family together for the three events, which was such a blessing and treat as they traveled from afar!” Deborah Cook Siegel says, “I’m getting older which isn’t so much fun.” Debbie works on pen-and-ink drawings and occasionally takes up her painting (I have a lovely one of hers from when she used to go with other artists to Monhegan Island in ME to paint). She spends time sitting on her step watching the world go by with all of God’s creatures. She, in her amusing way, told me that she has been involved in her church for years doing Altar Guild, etc., participating in “everything little old ladies do in church.” Wonderful! Teenie Goodman Hayworth writes, “Now living in SC permanently. Ocean and Low Country living is very pleasant. So much of life has slipped away — all wonderful. God bless and stay safe!” Bonnie Davis Gerrard writes, “My husband died a year ago and I have sold my house and moved to an apartment nearby. I planned to move to MN to be near my sons, but the COVID rate is much better in ME than in MN.”
sending them to people (‘Oh, Mom, puleeese don’t’), hunkering down (as I suspect you all are), and being overseen by a kidney doctor, who speaks so fast in a weird accent that I have to have a family member go with me to translate. Pathetic. Helped get voters out — and won. I love hearing from those who connect and wish you all wellness and contentment. Try! And sadly: Barbara Ringe Ritter and Barbara Chase Mayer. I received a lovely letter from Barbara Ringe Ritter’s daughter Susan saying that Barbie had passed away on May 11, 2020, after a sudden resurgence of cancer. Susan said Barbie always referred to Westover as the formative phase of her early years, and always with deep fondness. Rest in peace, Barbie, and also Barbara (Skip) Chase Mayer who died in September 2019.
1956 Celebrating their 65th Reunion in 2021! Class Secretary Needed!
Submit your news at westoverschool.org/classnotes Suzanne Reitz Weinstein writes, “Having moved around pre- and now post-COVID, I have been, for the past three years, a resident of an assisted-living facility in a green enclave beside the Charles River in a suburb of Boston. Marcy Tench Crimmins, Susie Birge Isetorp, and I were
all ‘roomies’ on New Girl Corridor during sophomore year. Best to all of 1956!
1957 LAVINIA MEEKS
laviniameeks@gmail.com
Barbara Edwards Hicks enjoys her exercise class with a trainer twice a week, which now includes some yoga. She notes that her balance and flexibility are improving. Sandy Lazo Washington is busy at her retirement center, near Denver, where she is on the hospitality committee and works with hospice. She also gives talks on bipolar disorder and has started an Alzheimer’s support group for family and spouses. Ann Peck Hooke reports that Roger is still actively writing and editing scientific papers, mostly on glacial matters. Ann is active in the local land trust as chair of the stewardship committee, looking after preserves and conservation easements. They spent three weeks in New Zealand, safely, in early 2020. Several meditation groups keep Ann “grounded,” she says. One grandson is one of the stars of the MN State Championship Breck soccer team. Their older grandson is at the U. of Denver. Their daughter Lynn is 2. Mary-Rose Hickey Cooney ’57 with her three children and three of her grandchildren in December 2019 at Kildare Village Outlet Centre
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From your Secretary, Nancy Watson King: “Ennui! I am doing these notes, puzzles, cutting ‘interesting things'’ out of papers and magazines and
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Class Notes
banned books at Westover, like The Scarlet Letter, which I read under my bed during a required Assembly?!” Let’s all be around for our next Reunion!
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3. Florence (Posy) Lincoln Short ’57 with grandchild Gus and dog Stella in front of the cabin in the Adirondacks ten years ago
a pediatric physician in MN. and their son Bruce is a website designer and art photographer in western MA. Mary Denny Scott Wray feels very fortunate to be in her retirement community. She takes various classes, exercises a lot, goes to two churches on Sunday, the symphony and women’s club lectures once a month. She sees her Richmond family. All are well. Three grandchildren are working, three are still in college; two in some classes and one in all virtual classes. She says, “best to you all.” Dorie Milner Pease was elected to serve as a representative of the Resident Council Committee, a liaison position between the administration and the residents of her retirement center, Essex Meadows in Essex, CT. She is also chair of the health committee. Daughter Katie and family are in Fairfield, CT. Katie’s 2 sons are in college, and her daughter is in high school. Daughter Sarah lives in the South. Dorie has become quite proficient with Zoom meetings with her church, Westover, and Essex Meadows where she is very grateful to be. Mary Rose “Mezzie” Hickey Cooney is so far away in Ireland, where she shares her house with daughter Georgia and her husband. Son Aiden and family are back in Switzerland after selling their London house.
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Daughter Ally and family are in Dun Laoghaire, not too far from Mezzie, who is recovering well from a hip replacement. Mezzie and a friend were able to return to India and Nepal in Feb. 2020, where she has been sponsoring rainwater harvesting tanks and water filters for Gurka pensioners in Nepal. Many older people have to walk an hour up and down a hill to collect often undrinkable water! Kudos to Mezzie for all her good efforts! Gretchen Hill Kingsley and Charlie have moved from their house (the one I grew up in!) to an apartment in downtown New Haven. All are well; one child is safely recovered from a light case of COVID-19. Florence Lincoln Short loves being in Woodstock. VT, near daughter Polly and family, basking in the warmth of family life again after many years in OH “by her lonesome.” Mimi Stewart Baird ’56 and Deborah Morgan Luquer ’58 P’81 are good pals and “make my life ever so jolly.” She plays pickleball, takes a Tai Chi class, and records for the volunteer organization Librivox. org. Since all the recordings are in the public domain, the readings are somewhat old-fashioned, but it’s a great way to pay attention to the classics. Some years ago, a New York Times article recommended it for insomniacs! They will get you to sleep for sure! Florence is also beginning a class in education for ministry, which originated from the Theology School of the University of the South, “Was the Old Testament on the list of
Alane Gerdau and Bernardo are currently living in a wonderful apartment in the middle of a garden park, in downtown Stamford, CT. “We are both healthy, optimistic, and engaged.” Alane is working on her memoirs and Bernardo is busy with his online eBay business, Atelier Deluxe, selling haberdasherie for men and women. “Check it out!” From your Secretary, Lavinia Meeks: “After several health issues I moved to an assisted-living facility here in Lenox, possibly prematurely, which has been a challenge in itself. Fortunately, I can still drive and be a docent at Ventfort Hall. Sorry not to hear from more of you. I am grateful for the contact with others. My best wishes, Lavinia”
1958 PENNY JACKSON TRASK
ptrask3@gmail.com MARCIE MCCORMICK PORTER
mmporter@fairpoint.net
We are sorry to report that our classmate Amy Orr Lear died in March 2020. She had been in poor health for some time. Via Marcie: Sally Saunders writes: “My career as a poet and certified poetry therapist has blossomed even more. Right from the beginning of the pandemic, I’ve taken pen to hand and have written now 150 poems about the pandemic. The S.F. Public Library history archive department has some on file. The New York Times, NPR, and San Jose Mercury news all wrote about my work and the S.F. Chronicle published on the editorial page my poem “Tech Toddler.” Monthly I do a conference phone call all over the U.S. reading my poetry. I have my being published in The
Lantern all those years ago to thank. It gave me a big boost of confidence.” If you would like to learn more about Sally’s other work and her monthly conference call, you can email her at slovesndrs@aol.com. Helen Potts writes: “What an awful year it was! I did escape NY from mid-March until June 2 as my CA daughter and her family insisted that I fly out and move in with them. As I normally don’t get to see them much, that was great for me. All trips canceled, but I did get away for a few days to the Berkshires and Chadds Ford, PA. The Wyeth Museum, of course! Looking forward to a CA Thanksgiving, but worried about my Georgia Christmas plans because of COVID. Coping okay, but with winter coming it will be hard. I spend a lot of time in my church garden, so that is coming to an end, and a lot of my volunteer places won’t allow volunteers. Outdoor dining has been great fun, but is almost over. Thank goodness our museums are open again! Can’t believe I am 80! Pretty healthy, but my knee replacement wasn’t totally successful. Alas!” Lynn Hamilton says that one of the highlights of the COVID-19 lockdown has been regular Zoom chats with 1958 classmates. Who knew we would have so much to talk about after 62 years? She says, “Since March I have been home in Santa Barbara, which isn’t too bad compared to what others are coping with. Weather is good, I have a very usable garden where I get together with friends outside, and there are plenty of places to walk. My son and daughter-in-law came to stay for a week in July after I had a knee replacement, but no visits to family since I went to HI in January for grandparent’s day with my grandson at Hawaii Prep. Not being able to get together with family has been the real downside of this virus. Planned trip around the world was canceled, of course. Filling my time with some wonderful Zoom courses on art and many
Class Notes
other subjects, including a course on ‘Race to Justice.’ Also reading, cooking, walking, and speaking French once a week. Seeing a few students for school and college counseling, primarily on Zoom. Trying to wind down the business.” Lucy Lisle Murray-Brown writes: “The pulse of our earth has changed and Jeremy and I, like everyone else, are adjusting week by week to a new life. We are learning to let go of a lot, especially seeing kids and grandkids, to slow our lives down and be grateful for the gift of each day. Zoom has entered our lives. Jeremy audits classes at Harvard, I play bridge, have board meetings, book group meetings, and — best of all — Westover class Zooms. Life seems to go by alarmingly swiftly! We see family through Zoom, too, which is a gift without price, but which I confess I find a mixed blessing because of the ultimate need to say good-bye. I couldn’t recommend more enthusiastically meeting via Zoom with your Westover classmates. They are replete with poignant memories and a lot of laughter!” Selden Dunbar Illick says: “I am a bit discombobulated in this world these days. After living alone for seven years and seeing my family for relatively frequent short visits, this past summer living in the heart of my family was a deeply appreciated gift. Now back home in FL, I am thinking about ways to stay distantly but meaningfully connected as the COVID Pandemic continues. I would love to add that talking to some of our ’58 Westover classmates a couple of times a month via Zoom provides a wonderful connection from our Westover days to today!” Lana Richards: “The year 2020 has not been any better for me than for many of you. I fell in January and broke my jaw. On the day I got the hardware off my jaw, my hot water heater blew and flooded my condo, requiring replacement of the entire floor.
Then came COVID-19! Thankfully, my family and I are okay. But the pandemic spurred me to explore Zoom, and I join several other ’58 classmates every couple of weeks! I am now looking forward to a move in December to a totally renovated cottage with a garage in a continuing-care community in Lewes, DE. It is beautiful and I can take my dogs. I am so lucky.” Deborah Morgan Luquer just notes that she has had a lot of “beside myself” months. And now, we wait for a President to recognize democracy in the United States. She still takes online classes and stays engaged with friends and family via Zoom, as many of us do. Mary Tremaine Soutendijk and Dirk now live full-time in Vero Beach, where she sees a lot of Brita Patten Gwinn and Selden Dunbar Illick. And Marcie McCormick Porter writes: There seem to be lots of new knees among us, including mine last January. Most of my husband’s and my ailments have been run-of-the-mill, but they manage to get us out and about visiting doctors and dentists. We do keep busy and are not bored for the most part, despite the long list of canceled trips and visits. We did see our kids last summer a couple of times on our island, where they could quarantine, a good break for them and a treat for us. We feel luckier than so many. Some of us, as you can see, have been keeping in touch via Zoom, phone, email. It’s a good time to reach out to old friends, reminisce, and just commiserate with kindred spirits. Hope you will all try to do that. Contact Penny Jackson Trask or me if you need any contact information for classmates as we have a good list. And via Penny: Betsy Patterson Lancaster: “After 42 years in the same house, which we built, Bill and I moved. If I had known what was involved, I might have chickened out. Our older daughter and family have lived in Asheville,
NC, for 25 years, and not having any children close by, Alex persuaded us to move close to her. We are now at Highland Farms in Black Mountain, NC, and love it. We feel so lucky and just wish the rest of the world would straighten itself out. All is well with our three children and seven grands: Ed is an electrical engineer; Mary and Will graduate from UNC this spring; Carolyn is a sophomore at Western Carolina; John is a sophomore at the U. of FL; Marli and Ted are high school seniors, headed to college. Anita Burroughs Fahy writes: “Our family decided to take an inclusive trip to MT in summer of ’18 instead of waiting for the big 80! I have learned to jump on opportunities in anticipation of circumstances I cannot control. Now we all use Zoom, text, and the phone to connect. I feel fortunate to spend half a year in my beloved Ossipee area of NH and winters on Cape Cod. I love being in touch with some of the class. What a wonderful class we have!” Debby French Glynn says: “It’s hard to write interesting news about staying home, gardening, reading, and taking long walks. I have never cooked so much. Winter is going to be a challenge. I spent my 80th with my sister in Annisquam, MA, which was a great getaway. Our son and his wife have bought a house in NH, where Fred and I are looking forward to visiting and helping to fix it up. I am so very grateful that we are both retired and have enough money to live on in a part of NY that is rural and relatively safe. I hope all of us can remain safe and sane.” Brita Patten Gwinn has been very involved with voting, connecting with people in Spanish and English. She says, “Because my hospice work has ended, I am involved with the turtles and a group called Coastal Connections in Vero Beach. Keeping in touch with family gives me great joy, but they are so far away: London, Seattle, Denver. Exercise is the key: an early walk
to see the sun come up, strength training, and aqua aerobics. I play bridge, too. Happy to be in sunny FL! I never thought about physically being with friends: to actually feel the warmth and engagement of another person is not only comforting but empowering as well. We all need each other and our lives are incomparably richer when we share our lives with each other.” And Penny Jackson Trask writes: “I am back to living alone again with Fritz close by in assisted living. Not fun in this time of COVID! My family is all well: Andrew remarried this spring to a wonderful lady who takes great care of him and the kids. His two are out of college, Emily in western VA and Grant in Virginia Beach. Phyllis is here in CO; both her kids are in NC, Wyatt a sophomore at Elon and Olivia a senior at Wake Forest. Christopher has been here with me for the past several months while changing jobs, but will soon head back to NC. Long walks and pickleball keep me busy outside. Now with the winter coming, there will be more reading and knitting. Please all stay healthy and well.” Ellen Lishman Robertson writes, “I lost my husband George in March 2019. We had 52 years together. My two daughters encouraged me to take online classes with Colby Sawyer College. I have also adopted a rescue dog named Alma.”
1959 LAURIE BLAKE SAWYER
laurieblakesawyer@gmail.com
Piper Perry Morris snuck under the deadline and writes, “Here we are, now into ten months — and counting — of living through this coronavirus pandemic of 2020 — with a whole new vocabulary and phraseology to go with it: Zoom meetings, social distancing, senior hour at the grocery store,
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Class Notes
face covering/masks, outdoor dining, toilet paper and cleaning product shortages, hand sanitizers, 14-day quarantines, remote/at home/hybrid learning, working at home, ‘new on Netflix this month,’ virtual concerts (and lectures and book clubs, even virtual commencements and college class reunions), flattening the curve, nasal-swab testing, positivity rate, overwhelmed ICUs, freezer-truck morgues, stores ‘temporarily’ closed, shut down, shuttered, ‘take-out and delivery’ only, ‘masks required,’ summer day camps and other activities and school/college sports all canceled. All cliches by now, but still unsettling, sad, wearisome.” And Piper continues, “Westover wants new alumnae news, but we are all sort of in the same-old, 4
5
same-old coronavirus boat. My last trip by plane was in early March, when I visited an old Harvard/Radcliffe friend at her condo in Vero Beach, FL, and returned March 11 to Boston with everything suddenly — and disturbingly — being shut down. Fortunately, I am in a ‘bubble’ with my Cambridge daughter Sarah, her husband Jeff, and their girls, Lillian, age 14, who is (surprisingly happily) doing her first year of high school on a Chromebook, and Cece, age 11, who is both angry and anxious about COVID-19 but still sweet and funny — and learning a lot more via Yahoo and Netflix than by virtual learning (which she hates). They are each allowed to get together once a week with three or four of their closest friends, outdoors and dutifully masked. I see Sarah and my granddaughters quite frequently, either at my house or theirs, and I often have Cece, and sometimes Lillian, over for the day, usually outdoors, for a change of scene for them. I made several car day-trips with Cece over the summer in New England (Falmouth on Cape Cod, NH, and the south coast of MA), several to Westport, MA, where, until this year with COVID in the mix, we as a family for 12 years had rented for a week or two in June a beautiful, spacious house on the water. My son Edward, his wife Susannah, and their son Theo, age 9, are in Syracuse, also in a ‘pod’ of one other close family, which includes Theo’s best friend. Theo’s small private school started the fall with a hybrid program, but recently switched to all-remote. Edward and Susannah are teaching remotely at Syracuse U. and going some weekends to their new place in Hudson, NY, where they had hoped to move this year but are postponing that until post-pandemic. (Luckily, they were able to rent out for a year their just-purchased new 4. Piper Perry Morris ’59 in August 2020 5. Sherry Williams Mills ’59 and Mimi Sammis ’59
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house there three days after the closing). I haven’t seen them in person since they made brief, super-careful visits here in late May and early July. The good news is that all my family — kids, grandkids, my sisters (Francie Perry Jacober ’65 and Cynthia Perry Colebrook ’68) and brother-in-law in CO and their families — are all still healthy. Edward and Sarah and their spouses are still working, and I am still working, now for over two years, for the Harvard Alumni Office, though for the past ten months at home on a Harvard-loaned laptop and sometimes via Zoom. I occasionally have a glass of wine and some dinner on my back porch with a friend or my upstairs neighbors. I have eaten outside at a restaurant five times in the last ten months. I have two groups of women with whom I ‘meet’ virtually once a month, one from my class at Harvard, and the other from an organization (of women over 60) which I helped to create and get off the ground three years ago at the Harvard Club of Boston. I am having Thanksgiving with Sarah and her family in Cambridge (just the five of us). And I am, warily, considering going to Syracuse (a five-hour drive) for Christmas with Edward and his family.” MC Seymour Garfield sends from her iPad, “Spent last six months at the Cape, where we just put in a large outside patio so all the family could gather with social distancing. We set up areas inside the house where some of the family set up laptops and workstations. It all worked out with modem boosters, etc. Except for my spinal stenosis, where I hobble from one couch to another, we are all healthy. Hopefully looking forward to a more stable and positive year. Hugs to all … MC.” Kitty Murphey Pell writes, “Given the state of the world, not much to report. Last fall we spent eight weeks in Europe and Morocco; no such luck this year. Italy’s borders are closed to US citizens and even if we could get to our house in Cortona,
we would have great difficulty getting back into the US. They tell us that it is the best olive crop in years, so we are feeling quite ‘home’ sick. This is the first harvest we’ve missed in decades. However, as a COVID escape, Tony and I, plus a good friend and her son, caravanned in two RVs for five days in September. An adventure to say the least, but fun and many laughs. Finally, the charter school I have been so involved with for years, opened the year in a new building in Dorchester. It is a wonderful learning space — so light and airy, with learning hubs, science rooms that open up with garage doors for presentations, practice rooms, and space for orchestral programs (Learning through Music is a core concept for the school; every student plays in an orchestra and composes as part of their studies). At the moment, however, the teachers are teaching in their classrooms but using distance learning. Tough times, especially for so many of our families. Sending you my best. Stay well. Kitty” Christie Renchard Huffman sends from her iPad in Great Falls, VA, “Lockdown. Face masks. Social distancing. 56th wedding anniversary. Instacart. DoorDash. Netflix. Prime. Hulu. YouTube: Jazz at Lincoln Center, Peter Cincotti, Pomplamoose, Whiffenpoofs. Seinfeld, Sedaris, Martin Short. Two Maine coon cats, three dogs. Zoom meetings with everyone in the USA and the UK. Facebook. Instagram. Phone calls. Closets. Letters. Emails. When will this all end?” Nina Truslow McKee writes, “Life is very different for all of us everywhere because of the coronavirus. I have not seen many of my family in over a year and there is no travel, etc. Basically, I am hunkered down here in Scarborough, ME. I read, knit, walk with my pug Daisy, play tennis, and pray and worry about our country! All of my family are well and happy and we are so very fortunate. I send love and health to all in our great Class of ’59.”
Class Notes
Libby Folk Tracey writes, “Hi, great people, sending love and safe thoughts your way. AOK here on Nantucket, where I continue to be happy and busy at the hospital managing the oncology program and palliative care. Children and grandchildren coping okay with COVID and a changing world. I encourage them all to ‘reach for the joy!’ I finally finished my chaplaincy program at Boston C., all the while celebrating you and the ways that Westover ’59 helped shape my life. Hope we can be together again! Lib” Phoebe Pier Fairburn writes, “Fortunately my family and I have been well and still are as the virus rages on in ME’s cool, now colder, weather of fall 2020. No families visited this summer as all children were conscientious about following health guidelines. Nina Truslow McKee, with her little pug Daisy, and I are keeping each other out of trouble and virus safe as we live in the same condominium association. We also have some wonderful neighbors right here and good friends up the road at Prouts Neck. Long walks in the woods and on the beach have given me an opportunity to get to know some friends better than ever before. Although no visitors to speak of this summer, enjoyed being right here. Played some tennis and enjoyed the beach and my little garden. Have to admit, it became a bit neglected as I would take off for the beach or walks with friends.” Nancy Jaques Lippincott writes, “Dave and I have lived in beautiful CO for over 45 years. We have lived in Colorado Springs since 1975 and raised our three kids here. One lives here; one in Olympia, WA; and one in Harrington, DE. They have given us seven wonderful grandchildren; all except one are young adults. After my career as a registered nurse in community health for 55 years, the last agency where I worked went out of business and so I am getting used to retirement. Dave is the president of a local trolley foundation. Over these years, we have traveled
extensively abroad to Europe, Africa, South America, Central America, Canada, Asia, New Zealand, and Australia. We have loved every trip and learned to be ambassadors for the USA. This country is just the best place, despite the political chaos, and we have made many friends across the USA and the world. We are lucky to be well, active, and great readers. I send love to all my classmates and other Westover relatives and friends. Come and visit!” Susan Sterling Monjauze writes, “December through April were months I’d like to forget. December 1, 2019, my brother, Bill, of 80 years had an embolism and died immediately. My sister, Judy Sterling Plunkett ’62, fighting Cell 1 non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma since January 2019, died at home March 8, 2020. I think of both daily, still cry, yet am glad they aren’t here to see the state of this country, etc. I got medical approval to fly out to CA March 5 with my caregiver, so I had time with Judy. Upon our return, we both got the virus. I spent five weeks in the basement bedroom of my daughter’s brownstone! A lucky camper to have a caring family blocks away. All back to normal now. Just getting ready for an election unlike any we will have seen. Hope you and yours are doing well. Stay well and safe. Much love and many a hug. Sue.” Laurie Blake Sawyer and John have had a fairly quiet year (duh!), with no trips off island. Son Parker and his family live nearby. He keeps us supplied with eggs from his chickens and delicious papayas and apple bananas from his garden. He also makes biweekly Costco and Whole Foods runs for us. Both daughters’ families are doing well in CA. Three oldest granddaughters are in college. Sabrina had her Lewis and Clark semester abroad in Morocco cut short by the pandemic, but with the help of the State Department was able to get a flight out and make it home safely. Ava and Cella are frosh (politically correct alternative
to freshmen — I looked it up) at Amherst and Skidmore. Other five grandchildren, ages 8 to 15, have not left their nests. Laurie misses her weekly golf and tennis, but keeps in contact with her buddies over the phone. The highlight of the year for her was a drive into town (Honolulu) to have her hair cut for the first time in eight months! John made it through another entire year without bringing home any more cats or dogs from the Hawaii Humane Society. He no longer plays golf or tennis, but gets some exercise taking the dogs for their evening walks on our beautiful Kailua Beach. Aloha.”
1960 PRISCILLA WHITE GIVAN
pwgivan@gmail.com
Many of us have been Zooming right along for several months during this pandemic. At first, we were Zooming once a week, and then changed the schedule to once a month. Carrie Loyd from the Alumnae Office has been instrumental in making this happen. Thank you, Carrie, for your training and monthly assistance! For the purpose of this article, we posed the following question to the class: “What have you been doing during this pandemic to keep yourself balanced and sane?” Here are our answers! Jennifer Jones writes, “First, we voted the current 45th President out of office; since then, my anxiety levels have subsided considerably. 2) Practice more forgiveness towards self and others: who doesn’t love carbohydrates, the occasional shot of Kings Ginger, and binge watching Grace and Frankie and seven seasons of West Wing? 3) In lieu of banned indoor water aerobics, I’ve set up weekly walking dates with buddies and hired a yoga teacher to give classes 2x per week in my condo garden. 4) Sharing Netflix and book
favorites with Westover classmates, book group, and church women’s group. 5) Careful meal exchanges with select neighbors; socially-distanced, outdoor BYO drinks, lunch or take-out suppers in good weather. 6) Buying the occasional lottery ticket for fun (considering it a donation to the state coffers in a time of need). 7) Reading bedtime stories to youngest grandchildren in London. 8) More-than-usual FaceTime calls from daughters, son-in-law, and grandchildren cheer me up immeasurably. 9) Planting lots of springflowering bulbs, 10) Paid for a postponable month-long trip to Italy next spring to motivate me to study Italian daily (now on day 65 on Duolingo).” Phew, Jennifer! You go girl! Tayne Clement Cutler writes, “The only thing I keep doing during this pandemic is tell myself I am balanced and sane. I am grateful for my husband and two doggies who agree with me.” Jody Johnson Olson writes, “Greetings! All is well out here in the shadow of Mt. Rainier. Our family is growing again. We are expecting our first great grandchild in March. Great excitement! Life is busy and full. I have discovered that my small kids’ art classes are really helping them in this pandemic time … me, too. Wish I could accommodate more … they are the ones really taking a hit now, and their parents who are trying to do it all. Wishing you all a happy and healthy and safe holiday season. Hope to get on Zoom with you in December. Lots of air hugs!” Lawrie Perry Diack-Wilson writes, “2020 was really difficult. My beloved husband died in April. Boulder is mostly shut down. I am spending time with Oka, a Swiss Burmese dog; Bean, a donkey; and Frankie, an Irish cob horse.” Lawrie, we all send you our love and sympathy. We’d love it if you would join us on our Zoom calls. Ann DiGiorgio Costigan writes, “I am keeping busy, like most people I know, with reading. I cook a lot, but then I always do as I
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Class Notes
enjoy it. We have some family Zoom meetings in order to keep in touch with our children and grandchildren. That will certainly be the case over Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. I enjoy seeing some of our classmates on Zoom (1960 was a very long time ago).” Sara Belcher Wardell writes, “As for sanity, we live in the woods and hills of NW CT, where we have had a stunning fall, so we’ve spent a lot of time walking the dogs, gardening, etc. I take our three-year-old Lab to a dog agility class once a week. It’s outside, only three dogs, and it’s a blast. I also walk with a friend nearly every morning, and do a distanced and masked Pilates class once a week. In addition to lots of reading, lots of jigsaw puzzles, FaceTime with kids and grandkids. The world is in a sad state in so many ways, but Richard and I consider ourselves very lucky. When life gets you down, go to YouTube and look for ‘baby laughing at ripping paper’ — believe me, you will laugh, too! Onward!” Tonia Lapham Wheeler writes, “I have very little reason to complain. VT has been such a safe place to be. In many ways one could say that my activities haven’t changed. There’s still Spanish, exercise, yoga, book group, even singing. It’s just that it’s all on Zoom. One ironic bonus of Zoom has been our monthly Westover reunion get-together, which wouldn’t have happened in ‘ordinary’ times. Thank you, Westover, for facilitating this — it’s been great fun! “In-person life is limited to grocery shopping, our neighborhood pod’s ‘quarantinis’ and walks, even tennis — albeit masked. What is absolutely the most difficult is not being able to pop on a plane to visit my daughter and her family in the UK. In fact, it is the lack of freedom to be with people that is difficult.”
Leezee Scott Porter writes, “Balanced and sane? Hmmmmmm … takes some thinking about that. On the other hand, I was lucky in timing, coming out to Portland, OR, in February, where my daughter, Erin Porter, and her family live two blocks away. Have been here ever since and am selling my apartment in Washington. After 55 years in DC, I got to vote for the very first time in my life for a Senator in OR! Since DC is not a state, we do not have representation in Congress, so it was great to vote for a Senator and Congressman in OR! I am enjoying my West Coast life and hoping to get some of my Class of ’60 Zoom buddies up here from CA in the spring. We are really having fun on our monthly Zoom call; hope more of you join us on our calls each month. It is so easy to do. Just click on the link that Carrie Loyd sends us from Westover. Stay safe and sane all!” Susie Behr Travers writes, “These are certainly challenging times. I have found getting out and being in nature is one of the most helpful things I can do to stay out of all that is whirling around. I have a lovely backyard with lots of wildlife to focus on, rather than staying in my own fear-based thoughts. I also have a wonderful little dog, who constantly reminds me and shows me how to keep loving and be grateful for what I have in the very moment. All else is well and may we be thankful every day as best we can.” Susan Simmons Phillips writes, “Blaine and I have settled down for the last eight months in our very remote house on the Eastern Shore of MD. I have spent some part of each day finishing my second volume called Nomadic Dreams, a book about wildlife conservation and adventure travel. If anyone wants it, it can be found on Amazon. Our Lab had a litter of nine adorable puppies last January. We will spend some time in the Gulfstream, FL, this winter. If
you’re heading this way, we’d love to see you. So far we have avoided the big C disease.” Babs Mallery writes, “Sooo, clearly my pandemic experience has been a rather cleansing one of serious clutter reduction, including removing furniture in my lake cabin. In NYC, clutter cleansing abounds, bag after bag after bag! But most central to the ‘coping’ reference began in the spring when our Zoom meetings started, a group from Pocono Lake Preserve Zoom meetings started, and in July a group of painters started weekly Zoom sessions, which continue just as ours do. Plus, I’m an entertainment junkie and find lots of episodes of outstanding efforts of mood elevators, small things but so moving. “So, in summary, home improvement: clutter control, attention to details needing work, friend groups on Zoom, TV entertainment and sports, and lack of day-to-day pressures. Easy to say when single, retired, and good with lots of R&R.” Pris White Givan, your class Secretary, writes: “Phew! Go away, 2020! Actually, I think we have made the most of this unusual year. I spend wonderful time with my daughter Amy and granddaughter Samantha. We live four miles apart and share meals together as often as possible. I am sailing less and playing golf more. I just love to play golf with my friends! I belong to a book club and am reading up a storm! There is so much to do in the Laguna Woods community. Amy and I bought a 28-foot Winnebago RV a few months ago and have found that this is a fantastic way to travel. We have a very active and interesting RV club here. This is all new to us, so we have a lot to learn. Figuring it all out is what keeps it fun and interesting! The RV is our boat on wheels!” I hope that more classmates will join us for our Zooming calls! We chat about such interesting topics … that is, in between belly-rubbing laughter! Love to you all!
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1961 Celebrating their 60th Reunion in 2021! SKIPPER SKELLY
skipper4488@hotmail.com
Hello Everyone! I was pleasantly surprised at the response I got from my news plea. Not surprisingly, no one had exciting adventures to report, but it seems all are surviving. As always, first came Mimi Jackson Price, who feels very lucky to be in a warm, sunny place with many friends and driveway cocktail parties and picnic suppers. She does miss her kids and grandkids because they are too far away and she sends hopes that we are all healthy, wearing masks, and social distancing. Cocky Lincoln Fisher was close behind. Besides COVID being so influential in her life, her personal news is that she had an ankle replacement operation in June, after 30 years of arthritis in the ankle because of a car accident. (Apologies to Miss Hibshman for the long sentence, but she couldn’t find a good place for a semi-colon). Merry Medina Murray has made good use of the last months by cleaning out all her closets, converting her house from propane to natural gas (a three-year struggle), trying unsuccessfully to learn croquet, watching her grandson go off to UCLA without ever having seen the campus or a classroom, and wondering why her wine supply was always low until she discovered that her daughter needed survival libation to survive home-schooling 3rd and 6th graders. But, so far all are healthy and she hopes we are, too! Happy to have her sons, their wives, and four grandchildren nearby, Sibyl Fulenwider Cohane has been able to see them frequently … outside. That had to end when cold Northeast weather arrived. Looong winter
Class Notes
ahead. I got a chuckle from Susan Russell Watson, who says she feels like she has been at home all year learning to do very little while trying to stay sane. So, she says “Hi” and reports that she and her husband are well enough for old folks and suffering comfortably at the “wrinkle ranch.” Ellen Thayer Vahan misses: interaction with people, entertaining, travel, shopping in person, travel, haircuts, birdwatching with others, prowling bookstores, hugs. What she has: living with a teenage granddaughter — not what she envisioned — soccer practice, online classes, amazing interest in cosmetics, different vocabulary, and fascination with all things on phones and computers. Luckily, Ellen has closets to clean, books to read, and her garden to play in. She recently filled out a form and under gender there were six choices including “I do not know.” Times sure have changed. Joan Atwood Kunzelmann is staying in FL rather than returning to NYC. This means she can swim and get going with golf croquet, which is great fun. New York is not fun without restaurants, museums, and theater. The isolation is not quite as awful for artists like Laurie Lisle and her husband, because they’re used to making art and writing by themselves. Besides gardening and hiking and seeing friends and family on her porch, she finished writing a memoir, Word for Word: A Writer’s Life, which will be out in the spring. While the rest of us have been staying put to avoid COVID-19, Mary Peck Burr has been staying put recovering from surgery last June to repair a herniated spinal cord and cope with some unfortunate complications that showed up afterwards. Ouch! So glad you are making progress, Mary. Keep it up! Marcia Haight Erickson says “Hi” to all. She’s grateful that she, David, and her family are all okay, for being able to see her grandchildren last summer, and for her bumper crop of
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tomatoes; and then there’s church online, walks, Zoom, and FaceTime. (There’s your semicolon, Cocky, though I don’t think I used it correctly.) Sheila “Sherry” Melum Whitney feels lucky to be in VT, where the virus hasn’t gotten much traction. Sad though not to be able to travel to their winter home in Corrales, NM, for the second year in a row. Keeping busy with their mostly non-contact volunteering. (You’re lucky. Ronald McDonald House had to stop all my volunteering.) Now that it’s too cold to hold their “outdoor — no one allowed in the house — wear your masks” lawn parties, Sherry is happy for Zoom calls with classmates. Jannie Whitcraft Mills writes, “What a year this has been. A year of great sadness as well as joy in the midst of this seemingly endless and frightening pandemic. For our family the year started off with heartbreak, as my sister and best friend, Melissa Whitcraft Mintz ’65, died after a difficult struggle with the after-effects of lymphoma. In spite of her long illness, I was not expecting or prepared for her death. I grieve still. Shortly after the pandemic hit, we rushed home to Toronto just as the border was being closed. In the summer my 25-year-old grandson, Caeden, was diagnosed with COVID and blessedly, although quite ill, he was not in hospital for long. An early message that COVID was not simply a threat to us elderly. He stayed well and is in his second year of teacher’s college, currently teaching kindergarten online. Hard to imagine. Thankfully, the rest of the family (my husband Paul, three married sons, and nine grandchildren) are doing as well as they can. Our joy was the birth in September of our ninth grandchild, third granddaughter, named Olivia Melissa, a tribute to Melissa and a gift to us. Sadly, we joined the legion of grandparents unable to hold their grandbabies or play with their grandchildren; relegated to distant, outside view. On a
more positive note, Zoom has helped to renew ties with some my favorite classmates. There will be better days ahead — particularly the day we will see the last of Trump and the beginning of hope and healing. Be safe. Stay well. I, Skipper Skelly, am also glad to be living in this time of Zoom and Facebook. My garden has never been so weed-free or my animals so well-groomed, and luckily I have a daughter close by with a lovely deck and now open windows and an air purifier. Like all of you, I am surviving. Katrina Rauch Wagner and the Reunion Committee (Abby Mason Browne, Laurie Lisle, and Linda Williams Cox Heins) welcome updates in calls, emails, and letters as we celebrate our 60th. Yikes! Let’s make this one as successful as our 50th. Remember how nice it was to see and catch up? Let’s do it again!
1962 Class Secretary Needed!
Submit your news at westoverschool.org/classnotes From Gretsie Kroll Ames: Dear Ones, How does one begin to describe this past year? I’d like to be mytho-poetic but I’m going to
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6. Lyn Bremer Chivvis ’63 at her 75th birthday in 2020 with Rachel, Dana, Lyn, Devon, Sumona, Beecher, and Chris, as well as grandchildren Usha, 7; Uma, 11; and Kiran, 5 7. Rosie Aguilar ’63 being serenaded on her birthday in March 2020
simply give you some snapshots. I do so love hearing from all of you! So here goes: I’m writing from our daughter Mandy’s, who just had her second chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer after a lumpectomy in October. This sudden development occurred after her summer visit to us in Cherryfield, ME, where we bought a 100-year-old farm with a great barn for Titus’s horses. She has great hope she will be fit as a fiddle for their son’s wedding in June. Everyone else in the family is either working as a teacher or in some kind of school from New England to OR with the Great Lakes in between. We still own
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Class Notes
our home in Savannah, where our two Westover kids, Chris and Robyn Ames, have been teaching remotely since Thanksgiving.
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My husband, while a retired Anglican bishop, fills in where needed and does some counseling. I find solace and strength in music (piano) and art (watercolor) and joy in our adopted rescue dog Winifred, aka “Wini” — an 11th century saint with healing virtues. She makes us laugh. May the beauty of this Advent-Epiphany season bring you light in the darkness and joy in your family. With love, Gretsie
1963 NANCY REEDER EL BOUHALI
nancyb@cyburban.com 9
ADELAIDE MACMURRAY-COOPER
adelaidemacmurraycooper@ gmail.com
8. Julie Slocum Dahlgren ’63 with daughter Tess in southern Utah in September 2020 9. Beth Markham Nicholson ’63 on Rico in November 2020 10. Raef, Eliza, and Xander, the children of Fraser and the grandchildren of Enid Fraser Robinson ’63 in summer 2020 11. Tigger, the pup belonging to Lynn Lanman Sheehan ’63 in September 2020 12. Linus, the grandson of Margaret McClave Snowden ’63, on his first birthday 10
13. Jackpot, adopted by Kitty Hawks ’63
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Rosie Aguilar celebrated her birthday in March, serenaded by a violinist at a lovely restaurant. In the photo you can see the sling she is wearing. She wrote: “How are you doing, inside your home! Me too, going nowhere! I fell down the stairs at home and broke the humerus bone. Fortunately, I did not need to see a surgeon, but I have to wear this thing to hold my arm. Keep well, and tell everybody to watch steps on the stairs, and also walking in the street!’ Lisa Bartow: Your editor did not hear from Lisa, but both of her books are available online. Where the Two Worlds Touch is a recently published sequel to her memoir, Don’t Go Back to Sleep. Lyn Bremer Chivvis sent a 75th birthday photo, which was very special because her husband, three children, spouses, and grands were all there. “Luckily the Chivvis Family has been healthy and that’s The Main Thing. Our CA daughter, Devon, was in NYC for a meeting when the quarantine hit, and so Beecher and I have been so happy to have her with us here in the suburbs this whole time. She’s been such fun and such a help (with all the new tech needs), and a real blessing to have with us. Dana has been working from her home in Brooklyn and has come out on several weekends. Christopher and family have been working from the office (that’s Chris) and from home (that’s Sumona) and their two daughters have had Zoom school, while five-year-old Kiran is actually going to nursery school! The first six weeks they managed without the nanny, and I probably averaged eight to ten hours a week on FaceTime with Kiran. Since the nanny has returned, I don’t get as much time with him, but it’s still better than none at all. Meantime, Beecher continues to teach via Zoom and he loves not having to commute to NYC. My massage therapy practice has been barely active, but that has left a lot more time for walking with Devon and with friends.”
Class Notes
Meg Butler Miles wrote from Asheville, NC, about her life during COVID and talked about the birds that have carved a place in the Miles’ hearts and household where dogs once presided: “Sadly, our dogs have all gone and we don’t have any more pets. But Elwood has set up a wonderful variety of bird feeders suspended on wires out of reach of the bears. He puts out different food for different birds. The bluebirds like mealy worms. The finches like Niger seed. Unhulled sunflower seed appeals to the larger birds with larger beaks, like cardinals. The hulled seed is the most popular and there is also a feeder with suet. The squirrels chase each other picking up the droppings. You can see how we entertain ourselves at home.” “Since staying at home, I get together with a small group of ladies once a week. We meet outside in a lovely small park nearby with an instructor who gives us exercises in balance. We each bring a chair, wear masks, and do things that strengthen our muscles to help our balance and posture. They are a dear group to be with, but I don’t know what we’ll do when the weather gets bad." "I’m so glad to hear from you all. Hope springs eternal." Martha “Sissy” Ferguson Buller: COVID has been hard on everybody, but Sissy has drawn every short stick in the bunch. In January, after a clear mammo and a “come back in a year” from the surgeon, and Bill’s shoulder on the mend from being badly torn, Sissy and Bill both signed up for refresher courses at Bee School. Sissy and Bill are accomplished bee keepers! But then the pandemic came, and in May Sissy broke (not a compound fracture) her T12 [a very important vertebra]. “I have been on my back except for dinner ever since. Luckily for both of us, Bill has become quite a proficient chef. I can stand long enough to bake brownies or cake, but have to sit down frequently.” Sissy was scheduled
for a two-part surgery in September. In November she followed up: “Other than having trouble breathing, I get exhausted talking, as they are both connected. I am having a Cardioversion (paddles) to synchronize my heartbeat, but my back doc thinks there could be something else. So, for now and through the winter, I [plan to] live in the dining room in the recliner lift chair and only venture out to see a doctor or have a test. I miss not being able to climb stairs so my sewing/quilting has come to a complete stop!” “Meanwhile, Anna Belle and family love SC, although my granddaughter Avery says she misses CT. My son Lee, who lives in CT, has been over a few times to help Bill with one project or another, and once he brought Quintin and Andi with him. I really haven’t seen them or my daughter-in-law since last January. Both children have birthdays and a joint party in November, but we weren’t really invited, as they knew we couldn’t come.” “The sad news in our family is that both ‘porch’ kitties passed away, so only Ralph, our Maine Coon, is with us now. And Otis passed about six weeks ago. We take comfort in knowing we gave him the best home he could have after all he went through before.” “Little Mattie will be turning four next week and has decided she’s my therapy dog. Bill feeds and takes her out since I can’t bend, nor can I lift more than five pounds — she weighs ten! Most nights she snuggles down next to me on my chair, and does the same during the day. We have taken a few rides in the car for a therapeutic change of scenery and have taken Mattie along. When we go to an appointment and don’t take her, she’s heartbroken.” Enid Fraser Robinson: “Nothing particularly noteworthy has happened these last eight months other than going from one lockdown to another. As grandparents, we haven’t been able to spend time with the kids, which
is really upsetting, and of course, there’s no hope of linking up with the CA gang this Xmas. Fortunately, the UK opened schools in September, so, although they missed the spring term, they are gradually catching up and nary a single COVID case in the children’s school.” “Unfortunately, CA has taken a different approach, and poor Lochlan has had to stare at a computer five hours a day trying to keep in the learning curve, developing an ocular tic in the process. Last week, there seems to have been hope of opening the second grade next week, but Lauder reported last night that suddenly COVID had spiked again in CA, so all hopes of 3D classes may be scuppered.” “George and I have tackled a few projects, such as cleaning out the coal cellars (all four) and working in our garden during the warm months. When Portugal became an ‘air corridor’ in August, we dashed off to our little place for a few weeks, but we had barely arrived when Portugal was suddenly put back onto the ‘no go’ area and we had to trundle back. What a yo-yo way of life! Now we are back in another lockdown with fingers crossed for having a breather at Xmas, but no promises.” Kitty Hawks and her husband, Larry Lederman, were “Top Dogs” at the gala for the SPCA in Briarcliff Manor, NY. The SPCA is building a very needed new shelter and Kitty and Larry have been generous sponsors. Your editor has adopted three dogs from this shelter and knows firsthand what a great job they do providing medical services and finding homes for all kinds of dogs and cats who come with medical needs and sad stories. Thank you, Kitty and Larry, for your generosity. A final note about how wonderful it is to hear about the dog shelter in Briarcliff. Enid Fraser Robinson and Polly Hayward Griffith are cheering from England and sending much admiration for the dedicated Kitty and Larry. You can follow the building of the
new shelter at www.spca914. org and maybe fall in love with somebody. Polly Hayward Griffith: “2020 started out as usual. Corona didn’t catch us till mid-March, but when it did, it came suddenly: one week, life as always; the next totally closed down and emergency lessons in how to use Zoom. We were lucky in that the weather was lovely, an early spring, so we moved outside, of which we have an abundance: fields all around and everyone sitting in their gardens visiting over the fence. Far from being lonely, the people of our community had to hide indoors if they felt unsociable! We are fortunate in every way: both we and our younger generation have health and jobs and security. We came out of lockdown in the summer and had a few months of relative ‘freedom’ — that is, we could go about although in masks and taking care.” “Jon and I made a quick tenday trip to Ireland, the main attraction of which was cheering Nina who ran a half-marathon there, the only one to survive the COVID restrictions in the UK. It is a popular annual event in Northern Ireland that usually attracts up to 5,000 runners. This year there were 80, the advantage of which was that it was easy to see her go by!” “Now we await the verdict on Christmas, whether it, too, will have to revert to Zoom. Never mind: we’re awfully good at it by now. Fun to change the backdrop: at the beach, in front of the Alhambra, soaring over the Golden Gate Bridge! Well, one can dream, and maybe someday we’ll be out and about again.” Nancy Higley Cudd: Last January 2020, Nancy wrote such a lovely, evocative piece about her childhood in New Canaan, CT, that I am sharing it because — well, it’s from Nancy — and also because she recreates a moment in time in an area not that far from the New England of Westover. This
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Class Notes
was written before the pandemic which was, of course, another time, another era.
were nearly the only ones in the Tokyo airports without masks, but paid not much mind.”
“Another Westover Nancy writing with a tumble of memories from my childhood at 562 West Road in New Canaan. I spent so many happy years growing up just three houses up the road from that iconic Marcel Breuer house in a cherished, white colonial farmhouse with a great red barn. I used to ride my bike down West Road with my black Spaniel, Nellie, racing alongside. My dad had gotten Nellie as a puppy from Nelson Rockefeller’s farm over at Pocantico Hills.”
“Sadly, you know the rest — we came home to the fast-moving reality of a rudderless country faced with an epochal crisis. The tragedies, disruptions, and disappointments, not the least being the destruction of our faith in our government and fellow Americans, are hard for privileged ladies growing up in the ’50’s to understand. Pretty crushing. Personally, an isolated 50-acre farm, a wonderful husband, lovely horses and dogs, and great farm help make for a pretty ideal quarantine, but a year of no opera, museums, parties, restaurants, travel, or health care seems pretty long.”
“It was a fascinating neighborhood with the Breuer home and, across the street, the Olivetti’s of typewriter fame. The next house over on that ridge was owned by actor Tony Bickley, later sold to Harry Connick Jr. It was such a great neighborhood for a carefree child, pedaling daily on her red bike, sailing down the road after school. [These] treasured memories came to life reading about your visit to Lyn’s house. Thanks for sharing Westover news and Happy New Year!” Nicky Johnson Weaver Cheek wrote from Ponte Vedra, FL, that it is “hard to summon the news to pass on. COVID has certainly kept us quarantined and prisoners of this surreal time. No travel, minimal shopping, holiday dilemma, minimal haircut opportunities — the new normal is challenging but doable, no matter how long.” “Am happy to get rid of one and maybe two of my 3 C’s — Campaign and Chaos. But we are still dealing with COVID. Wish I really had news for you, but maybe this is the year to say all’s well with the Class of ’63, given the challenges. Hope you are all well and staying safe.” Lynn Lanman Sheehan: “My year began wonderfully with a 75th birthday trip to Hokkaido in February to see the red crowned cranes and sea eagles in the snow. We did notice that we
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“On the bright side, we recently added yet another rescue dog to our little pack. Sally, from Bourbon County Rescue in KY, is a total delight and fit herself into our farm and routine with astonishing speed. Last spring, we also got Butterscotch, a huge Belgian draft retired from pulling a carriage in Central Park. And Tigger, found by our farm man near his housing complex, possibly left there when his family moved away.” “So, we carry on, thankful for what we have and hopeful a new president just might be able to reset the course of our beleaguered country.” Lolly MacMurray-Cooper: “David and I sold our beloved house in Cambridge last January and moved to Brookhaven in Lexington, a very congenial CCRC where we already had a number of friends. Pam Gundersen Miller, who was a glamorous Spanish teacher our last two years at Westover, is there now with her physician husband.” “We hadn’t even fully unpacked when this wretched virus arrived, but being mindful that we both are in the vulnerable category, we hightailed it up to NH. Now we’ve been comfortably ensconced in our longtime family gathering spot for nine months, but sadly missing
grandkids and other family members. Country life is not idle. What with long walks, new recipes, online classes, and numerous Zoom meetings, life is full. One project I’ve found fascinating is a memoir-writing class. It turns out I’ve had a pretty interesting life.” Beth Markham Nicholson: “We’ve all had a very tough 2020, there is no doubt there. The fires in CO had us worrying for our old cabin in Estes Park and my horses up Highway 36. Thanks to the courageous work of the firefighters and the good fortune of a heavy snow, the fires have ‘calmed’ and the cabin is safe and the horses are home from a one-night evacuation.” “One of the joys of this tough summer is Noelle’s wonderful vizsla puppy, Finn. She is a dedicated trainer and that is pretty essential with this barrel of energy.” “The horses and the barn community have helped me maintain my sanity. I have so much to be grateful for, not the least of which is living in this beautiful place with lots of open space.” Margaret McClave Snowden: When the pandemic exploded in March, Margie’s husband, Professor Frank W. Snowden, was in Rome, where he is a trustee of the American Academy. He had published Epidemics and Society in the fall of 2019 (available online) and “everybody” wanted to interview him, both here and abroad. He was the man of the hour with the book of the hour — well deserved on both fronts. Frank is a great guest on an interview show, being charismatic and smart but never condescending, so he remained locked down in Rome talking on the phone/computer and writing articles. Meanwhile, Margie stayed on her farm in the beautiful Hudson Valley and lamented not being able to visit her sons and grands. “Social distancing is very depressing when what you want to do is hug your grandbabies.
I am so frustrated that I can’t get out to the West Coast to see my honeys.” Julie Slocum Dahlgren: “I’ve been isolated most of the year at my ranch in Mackay, ID, so I have no earthshaking news. It was nice to be able to do lots of outside work, tend a rich garden, fish, and hike, but I did miss some trips planned, especially the one to Guatemala to help build another Bottle School. Fingers crossed for a reschedule June 2021. I participated virtually in the Democratic National Convention as an ID Biden delegate. My daughter, Tess, and I took a road trip to southern UT.” Mary Jean Summers Gulden: “Here is some non-news from Palm Beach, FL. It is almost Thanksgiving; no young ones are coming south for this vacation because of COVID. However, 2020 has been a good year. We departed from two weeks of golf in New Zealand last March, four days before the New Zealand borders were closed because of COVID. We added a black-andwhite Frenchie puppy to our collection of doggies, and we bought a new boat to be able to social distance at sea without wearing a mask. I did drive past Westover this fall, as I have a granddaughter at Taft, which is fairly nearby. All sorts of memories of the old days popped into my head. What a year!” Polly Turner Tackett Olson sent a spectacular photo of her grandson Tappey with the big red handlebars of his bike and a very serious grown-up helmet. Alison Wardrop: “This virus has put our telephones off the hook. It seems that some people don’t deal well with incarceration or time on their hands and have doubled up on the cocktail hour. We have gotten as many as ask for help into rehabs, but it is a daily struggle. Our organization is called CLEAR (Coalition for Learning, Education, Advocacy and Recovery). The lecture series that we have had has been on Zoom, so the 21st century has finally gotten me by the toenails.”
Class Notes
“We also run a pastoral care conference that deals with informing pastors and caregivers of all kinds about what is going on in the addiction world. This last year would have been our 20th year. We had such hopes for 20/20 — being perfect vision and all that. How wrong we were.” “We did a morning session on Zoom about the woes of the current church and why so many people are not going. It was a very good hour and it proved easier for people to get on line than take a day, which the conference requires when it is in full swing. It was still a most impressive day and one of the best things we do. We have sessions on Bullying, Computer Porn, Compassion Fatigue (which affects pastors and rehab professionals alike). The first time I was on the team, let me tell you how terrifying being with 200 pastors was. All your sins go across your chest like a ticker-tape parade. Now I am used to it.” “Still, with Zoom, I have discovered I have a great face for radio. Otherwise I am fine and don’t mind staying at home with my flowers and books. Unfortunately, we have to be out and about with what we do — but we are careful and I wash my hands more often than Lady Macbeth.” Belinda Winslow: “When the virus began, Chile was hit very hard because of cruise ships coming here during our summer (January and February). A very strict lockdown and curfew began and lasted five months with anyone over 75 forbidden to go outside. The days got shorter as we entered fall and winter and it was very depressing. Fortunately, I fled to the country just in time where I have been ever since (eight months!). My daughter Antonia and her sons are in a cottage next to me and they have been lifesavers. I have Zoom exercise five times a week and Zoom history classes twice a week. Now that spring is here and daylight savings time has begun, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. At first, I was
resentful of Chile’s handling of it all, as I saw photos of people going on with their lives in the U.S., but am now grateful and very worried about you all entering into a dark period. I hope you all stay safe. My best wishes to all.”
1964
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POLLY FERENBACH FRANCHOT
Polly6468@icloud.com
Gail Mallatratt has been living in London since 1972. She has three sons — a banker, a barrister, and a media guru — as well as six grandchildren. They all live in London. Though far away, Gail says she still has fond memories of Westover, a place where she made the transition from little girl to big girl. Anne “Wiggy” Wigglesworth Walker is still living in KS with husband Mac. Wig says their garden has been their salvation during COVID. Wig’s daughter, Kate Walker ’00, is the director of the dance department at the arts high school in Dallas. The grandchildren are growing so fast; one is off to college in 2021, one is a level 10 gymnast at age 14, and a third is playing the drums in a rock band.
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14. Members of the Class of 1963 — Sissy Ferguson Buller, Beth Markham Nicholson, and Polly Turner Tackett Olson — Zooming in April 2020 15. Tappey, the grandson of Polly Turner Tackett Olson ’63 in November 2020 16. Nicky Johnson Weaver ’63 with her 19-year-old grandson Sam in Ponte Vedra, FL, in December 2020 17. Cynthia Choate Bjorlie ’66 and Catherine (Kay) Curtis Allard ’43 have become friends over the bridge table.
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Class Notes
Pam Whitman is happy and busy living in FL but is missing her children and grandchildren, and a brand-new great-granddaughter. They are all living out west. Sandra Churchill Pabis Ticci is in the midst of olive harvest in Italy. They have 20 trees that yield enough oil for the entire year. Sandy’s children — Nicola, a lawyer, and Neri, an investment banker — live nearby, along with two beautiful grandchildren, Gaia and Elena. Charlene Claypool Hansen is still living in Cohasset. She has retired, so she and husband Larry hit the road in a Base Camp Airstream. Some of her highlights were a return visit to MN and time in RI. Sons Tom and Tucker and eight grandchildren live nearby. Two granddaughters, big lacrosse players, are studying at Northwestern. Alison Wickwire Olivieri, is happily living in Costa Rica, where she and husband Michael continue to enjoy the experience of living in another culture surrounded by a beautiful landscape. Alison and Michael stay in touch with their daughter and grandson in CT via Zoom and semi-annual visits. Polly Ferenbach Franchot is still living in Minneapolis and spending winters in the mountains in CO and summers at the beach on Cape Cod. One daughter, Alexandra, lives nearby in MN with children in middle school, high school, and college; the other, Jenn, lives in CT with two boys 35 in high school. Big surprise, all the grandchildren love sports: soccer, gymnastics, basketball, hockey, lacrosse, and baseball. She loves to cheer them on. Many of the Class of ’64 have been enjoying monthly Zoom meetings and encourage any and all to join in. Stay well, everyone.
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1965 Class Secretary Needed!
1968 SUSAN LOGAN WHITMAN
slogwhitman@yahoo.com Submit your news at westoverschool.org/classnotes Francie Perry Jacober was elected with 72% of the vote as the Pitkin County (CO) Commissioner; she was to be sworn in at the courthouse in Aspen in January and then was going to work. This is her first elected position (at age 73!). Francie lives in Carbondale, CO, with her sister, Cynthia Perry Colebrook ’68, a non-profit development consultant, and Cynthia’s husband, artist Teddy Colebrook, on a beautiful mesa overlooking mountains and the farm valley and Crystal River below. She has four kids — three sons and one daughter (all married, working and living in CO) and nine grandchildren, ages one to 21. She retired last year as a middle school teacher after more than 30 years.
1967 BEVERLY CUTLER
bevcut@gmail.com
From Amy Shepard Knight: “Dear Class of 1967, I hope you are all doing well, staying safe, and finding ways to enjoy your ‘hunkering down.’ I want to let you know that I have decided to relinquish my role as Class Agent. I have served in this role for over 30 years (yikes!) and it is time for me to step down. I have really enjoyed keeping in touch with you over so many years and I thank you for making my job easy with your continued support for our dear alma mater! Please take very good care! Love, Amy”
Dear Class of ’68, Just received our class list of 51 people, knowing that we used to be 62. The missing members choose not to be contacted or are no longer with us. In the past, a lot of effort has been made trying to contact you all — however, different parts of the class share what is going on within a smaller subgroup. So … the CA contingent needs to share with the CO group with the East Coast group with the Southerners, etc. Recently a 70th birthday Zoom was organized by Leigh Keyser Phillips (our glue), Patsy Simonds Taylor, and Annis Gilbert Kukulan. There were 24 of us on one screen and we all agreed that being with our grandchildren was the best (or worst, if not able to be with them) part of COVID-19. The past March 2020-present (November 2020) appears to have tested all our relationships, plus our abilities to live with ourselves in isolation. Westover, for the fall semester, was only day students while boarders were virtual. During our years there it was the reverse — we were all boarders in a “pod” — few weekends, living all together with no breaks — needing to adjust to coexistence. Good training for what we are all going through presently. The report from CA: Chris Knowlton enjoys life in Berkeley, and OR during the summer, but misses seeing her grandchildren on the East Coast. Caryn Cluett Gregg’s orchid collection is something I would love to see some time, as I have heard that she has real talent. I have enjoyed having lunches over the past several years in San Francisco with Jeannie Campell Sedgwick, Cynce Perry
Colebrook (when she lived there), Annis Gilbert Kukulan, and Caryn Cluett Gregg. Hope to see you all again soon. The middle of the country is best represented by Cynce Perry Colebrook, Marion Thompson Murfey, Wendy Payson Kerr, Karen Sawyer O’Brien. Natalie Conklin and Susie Criswell Fiordalis, please check in with someone. The East Coast remains the heaviest representation for our class. Yes, a few have moved south and Cyndie Gould is in England, but I still think of us all as Yankees: Leigh Keyser Phillips, Clinton Savage Standart, Patsy Simonds Taylor, Bev Johnson Jaques, Whitney Neville Harvey, Abigail Congdon, Catharine Barclay Fender, Helen Heard Hetherington, Weezie Hands Murphy, Barbara “Twich” Twichell McKeon, Bar Chadwick, Sally Bowen Wylie, Susan “the other” Henry West, Emily Thomson Williams, Lynnie Behr Sanford, Addie Gwynne Kurz, Mary Rockefeller Runestad, Muffie Stone Fitzgerald, Cindy Kroll Dwyer, Annie Markham Judd, Marietta Christie, and Gussie Off Moravec. Then there are those that we would love to hear about — Debbie Massey, are you now full-time in FL? Becky Coates Milliken — do let someone know how you are. Penelope Dillon — I have tried finding you and know you are no longer in Barre, MA — where are you? Julie Isham Ward — loved seeing you at the Brooks reunion. Ibby Taylor Greer, Derry Gibson, Tina Garfield, Debbie Brewster, Julie Burton, Penny Breese, Jocelyn Rose Thompson, Vanessa Wenzell, Louise Brookfield Ortstadt, Liz Reed, Elizabeth Tompkins Ortiz, Neve Curtiss-McDonald, KK Lawrence Cord, Rell Dean — you all are quiet classmates! Do contact me or any other classmate if you would like. Warmest regards to you all.
Class Notes
Susan Logan Whitman slogwhitman@yahoo.com, 203-622-0669 (home), 908-9386210 (cell)
1969 GAYLE GARIVALTIS-JAMES
bevcut@gmail.com
Class Secretary Gayle GarivaltisJames writes, “Our class started monthly Zoom calls in July 2020, and 22 classmates responded: Barbara Fearey West (moderator), Barb Braun Pettit, Bear Mandeville Hollis, Betsy Swift Mitchell (co-host), Candy Rundin, Carita Kruse Polin, Connie Hewitt Ruth, Cris Stevens Polk, Beth Green, Jacquie Brownlee Clark, Jane Belcher Phinney, Kim Hoagland (co-host), Linsley Pietsch, Rhu Melum McBee, Starr White Snead, Toni Walker Hamner, Wilder Dominick Witt, and me (organizer). Debs Merrick Brisbane, Holly Roe Mejer, Penny Scholle Farfan, and Tracy Levine couldn’t join calls at the last minute. Discussion topics range each month, but calls include updates on personal, family, careers, residence state, etc. We compiled and distributed an increasingly
important recommended list of books, movies, TV series. One call focused on the positive impact Dorcas had in shaping our volunteer efforts and commitment to service as adults, and we each shared charitable organizations that we hold dear. Each charity and good work that we continue to support is a testament to us, Dorcas/Westover, and our family upbringing. It was an impressive list of good works. And, with board members Starr White Snead and Kim Hoagland, we’re continually updated about news of and COVID’s impact at Westover. We look forward to more calls, fun topics, and reconnecting with even more classmates! Connie Hewitt Ruth writes, “I have lived in Ann Arbor since 1971 and have been married to Peter Madcat Ruth for 48 years. Our daughter Mollie is 29 and lives in the Catskills. I worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for 25 years and retired happily in 2015. The main focus of my work was on reducing emissions from transportation at the national level (even though I got to live in MI). I worked on national trip reduction programs, environmental justice near ports, and served as a liaison for tribes applying for grant funding to reduce emissions. I have been very
active in Siddha Yoga meditation. I occasionally ski, go camping, walk in the nearby woods, do Hatha Yoga and last year took up pottery. It was wonderful to see everyone who was on the October Zoom call.” Linsley Pietsch writes, “2020 allowed me to spend time with my children and their families before the pandemic changed everything; then, hard choices had to be made as to how best to proceed, without putting vulnerable family and friends
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18. The view that Cris Stevens Polk ’69 sees from her window during quarantine 19. Evan and Logan, grandchildren of Candy Rundin ’69 20. A Westover blazer belonging to Suzanne Petersen ’70 from her days as a student 21. Members of the Class of 1969 during a Zoom call: Barbara Fearey West, Betsy Swift Mitchell, Gayle GarivaltisJames, Carita Kruse Polin, Linsley Pietsch, Connie Hewitt Ruth, Kim Hoagland, Penny Scholle Farfan, Starr White Snead, Candy Rundin, Jane Belcher Phinney, Barb Braun Pettit, and Toni Walker Hamner
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Class Notes
I am really enjoying our class Zooms and connecting with classmates after 50 years.” Rhu Melum McBee writes, “Trudy Martin Barnes (Westover’s art teacher and my mentor and first boss) felt my obsession with dollhouses was frivolous. But last spring I started posting a photo a day of one of my dollhouse rooms. People across the world found comfort in the tiny rooms and my commentary, so I continued posting images for 60 days. It didn’t compensate for our canceled cruise in Greece, but it was a highlight of the past year. Gardening, political action, reading Agatha Christies, breadbaking, cheering on our Philly daughter who teaches 4th grade, sharing life with my wonderful husband — all this was 2020.” 22
22. Martha Dailey Iacovelli ’71 raking leaves with a member of her family
in harm’s way. I flew up to VA to spend time with family and stayed for two months, quarantining, social distancing, and masking. Thank God, everyone is well and safe, and I have a new granddaughter, Hannah, born October 5. My prayers have widened greatly, and I venture to say, ‘this is a time of Spiritual Community Building’ across the globe. I’m also incredibly grateful for Zoom gatherings and getting to know each other better, plus keeping up with Westover’s needs in these challenging times. Stay well and safe. Blessings to all.” Toni Walker Hamner writes, “COVID-19 has changed the Westover social scene here in Vero Beach and all of the alumnae pass by and wave and say ‘Hello,’ but we are definitely watching out for each other. My visits from classmates are way down, but Zoom is saving us all and bringing some of us back together for the first time since graduation. That is a real ‘yeah’ in my book. I’m gardening about four hours a day and
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landscaping office buildings. I have joined our community foundation to stay in touch with the needs of the community, so I am feeling productive. Thanks to everyone for staying home, staying healthy, and staying safe. COVID-19 will be over one day, and we will all get back together.” Barbara Fearey West reports that she and Mike welcomed their first grandchild in January, just in time for two visits before COVID-19 shut down travel to NYC. “Thanks to FaceTime, we can still see her daily while remaining at home in northeast FL. The virus also ended plans for eight cruises during 2020, though we did make it to the Emirates and India before all the ports were closed.” Betsy Swift Mitchell writes, “Jock and I just celebrated our 50th anniversary, and have lived in Buffalo all this time. We are blessed with six grandchildren and wish we could see them more often. We have lots of volunteer involvement in our beloved city of Buffalo. Surviving the pandemic with masks, limited travel, cleaning out and updating our house in which we have lived for over 40 years. And
Candy Rundin writes, “First, I want to thank those classmates who have donated to Westover already. After retiring in March 2019, I spent a large part of the summer going to the beach and working on my tan, and playing with my grandsons Evan and Logan, whose pictures I’ve attached. I worked a part-time job doing prep work til January 2020, when it all changed.” “I spent the early part of pandemic baking way too much and now I’m dieting! I have a part-time job doing food prep in another restaurant, MOOYAH. No contact with public but with the ‘kids’ who work there. I’m like the grandmother, LOL. Hearing music I haven’t heard before! I try to see my daughter Wilder and grandsons weekly. They are the light of my life. My son Rob lives in CA, so I haven’t seen him recently. I enjoy writing to our classmates and really enjoy the Zoom calls. I do wish more of our classmates would join us.” Beth Green writes, “Here I sit in IL, where I have been since March. My husband is basically holed up in his office in NYC, and Johnny is a freshman at U. of KY, where no one has seen his face except for his suite-mate. John and friends in NY say that they can’t believe there is more action in my IL town of 2,000
than in NYC. I don’t feel imprisoned, spending time at the farm and in my yard, where I don’t have to worry about germs. Over the summer I did water aerobics at a cousin’s pool, imagining that it was an English country house since her backyard overlooks a pond surrounded by a great lawn and trees. When I return to NYC, I fear that it is going to look a lot more like the ’70’s, with an abundance of homelessness, Squeegee guys harassing all drivers who enter the city, and prostitutes positioned at the Lincoln Tunnel and Grand Central. What a shame! All New Yorkers have enjoyed the past few decades made possible by New York’s Finest, the police. Hopefully, next year’s notes will be full of travel adventures as we return to normal lives.” Camilla Vance Shadley writes, “Sorry to have missed our Zoom calls. All is well on the farm — two new foals, and two one-year-old puppies are growing up and slowly mellowing. My husband Bob (Major General, Retired US Army) and I are still involved in national discussion www.NeverAloneAdvocacy, an effort to advocate for military sexual assault victims, advocating for their civil rights, which the military has denied, and hold senior leadership accountable. Sadly, sexual misconduct is rampant. We also work closely with the Congressional Armed Forces Committees to provide insight on what questions to ask to better understand what is really happening, and create a separate legal system that takes felonies out of the military chain of command (Vanessa Guillen Proposed Act). The CBS Evening News with Norah O’Donnell highlighted the victims’ plight and fight in a series that aired Nov. 17, 2020.” Camilla, thanks to all of you for helping, highlighting, and fighting for much needed change. Jenny Byers writes, “Doesn’t it feel like ages ago — ‘another life!’ as my elderly mother used to say — that we were all gathered on that sunny spring day for our 50th? Had a busy year,
Class Notes
remaining very much involved, as past president, of both the Edgerton Park Conservancy here in New Haven, and the Doolittle Lake Company in Norfolk, CT. Continued to be an academic advisor at Yale. As a life-long teacher, I’m glad to have retired before the pandemic hit and I feel sorry for those who are still ‘in the classroom.’ I believe I was one of the few people who still had a living parent at the time of our Reunion, but, sadly, my beloved 94-year-old mom died earlier this year.” “Several years ago, I became a Master Gardener, and it’s been a joy having more time than usual being ‘grounded’ outside, growing — and eating — my own organic (of course!) vegetables, and fine-tuning the perennial gardens around the house. Nourishment and beauty! I love the peacefulness, the hard, physical work, fresh air, natural rhythms, occasional disappointments, and unexpected delights that come from being connected to Mother Nature. And it’s a wonderful antidote to our usual binary thinking, as we sit, task-oriented, in front of our computers! I’ve enjoyed hearing about our class’s Zoom meetings and hope to join you one of these days … Stay well.” Carita Kruse Polin writes, “I really enjoy seeing familiar faces and hearing about everyone’s adult activities, from scholarship to pottery, philanthropy to grandparenting. I’m sure I’m not alone in that. Thanks to Gayle Garivaltis-James, Barbara Fearey West, Betsy Swift Mitchell, and Kim Hoaglan for making it happen.” Ellie Arnoff Sonis writes, “What can any of us report for this year of chaos, pandemic, and social isolation? Writing about what we did has now been replaced with how do we all feel. It took a while, but after a few months I started to realize that this would be a time where small joys, such as exercise and rediscovering all the utensils in my kitchen, might fill the void. With our two children (one in New Zealand and the other in Atlanta) too far
away to travel, we have, like all of you, learned to embrace Zoom, FaceTime, and shared photos. This has been a year of early morning sunrise and coffee on our deck, walks in the woods with backpacked picnics, socially-distanced gatherings on lawn chairs, exploring new recipes, sailing to humpback whale feeding grounds, and having a record harvest of cherry tomatoes in the garden. Hope all of you are healthy, safe, and have found simple joys as well.” Cris Stevens Polk writes, “Thank you Gayle Garivaltis-James, Barbara Fearey West, Kim Hoagland, Betsy Swift Mitchell, and everyone who has been helping our class stay connected. I have been enjoying our class’s Zoom meetings so much lately. It’s a remarkable way to stay in touch. Our class members have stayed active and instrumental in their communities. After 37 years of living and being active in Boise, ID, my husband Bob and I sold our home of 37 years in 2018 and moved up full-time to our 46 acres of forest near New Meadows, ID. The photo is of the view we have from our east windows. We are so blessed with the beauty here: elk, deer, open skies, changes of seasons. There are plenty of outdoor activities in every season from skiing to kayaking. It is not too far from our two oldest sons and their families in Portland, OR. Our youngest son lives in New Orleans. This past July, we were fortunate enough to have all our sons and their families here for a week. Everyone had been practicing social distancing before they drove here, and so we had a fine time of outdoor activity … river rafting, horseback riding, kayaking, hiking, fishing, using the zip-line, archery, horse shoes … it was a veritable Camp Polk! It was the bright spot in a year of having to make big adjustments in how we live our lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We have been fortunate that there has been no illness nor loss in our family. I am grateful to be able to say we are all healthy at this time. We continue to serve
in our community as best we can, given the limited contact. Even if it’s just preparing a meal for a neighbor in need, there are ways to share encouragement and care. Praying for a year of good health and creativity for each of you.” Gayle Garivaltis-James writes, “I have enjoyed my phone conversations with Barbara Fearey West, Betsy Swift Mitchell, Debs Merrick Brisbane and her daughter, my goddaughter, Dana, and Linsley Pietsch. Allen and I continue to enjoy our weekly golf outings and will continue to walk and play in MD as long as the weather angels are kind. Canceled our ‘snowbird’ plans in early 2021, and, ever optimistic, rescheduled our Paris/Normandy Viking Riverboat Cruise to fall of 2021. Cherish all our Zoom calls, and continue to be thankful for all the ways to stay connected and socially distance — driveway gatherings and ‘linners,’ landlines, gazebo gabs, cell phones, Zoom, WebEx, FaceTime, email, written notes, texting, ‘drive-by’ waves, etc. (If I were fluent in smoke signals, I’d use that, too!) Thanks to Betsy Swift Mitchell, I’ve just discovered a new passion — online bridge! I am finally reading and enjoying all the books I’ve collected over the decades and intend to read those recommended by classmates. My viewpoints are broadening, along with my derriere. Please stay healthy, safe, and positive!”
1971 Celebrating their 50th Reunion in 2021! LISA STOCKWELL
lisabstockwell@gmail.com
Fifty years ago, the Class of ’71 scattered across the country to put the lessons we’d learned and the passions we’d discovered at Westover to good use. We’d arrived three or four years earlier as innocent
girls. In fact, I remember vividly the evening I first entered the Quad in September of 1968. I’d traveled alone from San Francisco, dressed in what my mother insisted was the proper travel costume for a young lady attending boarding school: a white wool suit with short jacket and knee-length skirt and white kid gloves. It was over 80 degrees when my TWA plane landed at 4:35 pm at the Saarinen terminal at JFK. I was nervous and sweating as I raced through the airport to find and catch the 5 pm limousine to Waterbury. If I missed it, I’d have to lug my three-piece Malm luggage set to Grand Central Station and find someone from Westover who might meet me there. Happily, I didn’t have to test my strength (or ability not to get lost in the Big Apple). When I entered the Quad around 8 pm, I found a sea of girls looking up at me, all wearing jeans and tee shirts. Coming from CA, the mecca for surfing and brotherly love, I was not the blonde hippie child they might have expected. I was terrified. But that moment of extreme awkwardness ended quickly when my roommates to be — Jane Watson Stetson and Suzanne Hooker Ainslie — rushed up to me with warmth and excitement to take me to our room. From that time on, what I remember from that year was a lot of laughter, mischief, and new friendships. Living 3,000 miles away from home was like being at an extended summer camp, as I experienced all the different seasons — from fall colors, the first snowfall, fruit trees blossoming, and thunderstorms — for the first time in my young life. (We didn’t have real seasons in SF.) I felt largely insulated from the world outside our walls. But 1968 was a transitional year, not only for our class but for our nation. It was the year both Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. The Tet Offensive was launched in Vietnam. A major antiwar protest broke out at the Democratic Convention in Chicago.
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Class Notes
Columbia U. protested the plan to put a gymnasium in a nearby black neighborhood and inspired student sit-ins on campuses across the country. Two African American athletes gave a Black Power salute at the Mexico City Olympics. Feminists staged the first protest of the Miss America Pageant. The manned Apollo 8 circled the moon. Our class was later identified as uncontrollable rebels who brought the school to the brink of extinction. I believe we were simply a reflection of the turbulent times. Young girls trying to make sense of a world — and all the norms we were supposed to live by — turned upside down. I’d like to think of us as pioneers, navigating a new order. Based on where we all are today — those I’ve been able to keep in touch with — I’d say we did okay. Our classmates used the power of group email to share our lives with each other last fall. Too much detail to share here. But, I think that Ann Bickford Keller expressed the sentiment shared by all when she said, “It still amazes me how influential and important our time was at Westover on so many levels.” Ann and her husband moved/ retired to Wilmington, NC, in 2018, and enjoy being near their son and daughter-in-law. I’m pleased to note that Shelley Sagar Payer is the fourth member of our class to be elected to the Westover Board of Trustees and has been working with the board to assist Westover through this difficult time of in-person and virtual learning. Thank you, Shelley! She lives in FL, as do several other classmates. Francene Young, who has also served on the board, has been a true saint for her parishioners in Houston through the pandemic, checking regularly by phone on those older ones separated from their families. “Conducting worship services online has been interesting and a big learning experience,” she says. Also,
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“George Floyd graduated from high school and lived within a few blocks of the church. Many of my members are alum of the same school. There were lots of pastoral care calls and visits made during that time. I think we are on the other side of it, now.” Francene is also on the Board of Directors for the Piney Woods School in MS, having been recruited for that position by Jane Watson Stetson. Her service is inspiring. Jane Watson Stetson notes that “one of our classmates from our elementary school in New Canaan, CT, arranged a Zoom reunion for the class of ’68. I think almost all of us were there, including Heidi Swan and Nancy Reighley Cavanaugh. The goodwill and kindness expressed by all was a touching note to the enduring strength of a very good educational foundation, and softened the passage of time.” She lives in VT and worked with Joe Biden in the fall, raising money for his campaign, and is beyond delighted that he had the presence of mind to choose a woman as his running mate. Nancy Reighley Cavanaugh may get the grandmother-of-theyear award, hosting her growing family at the beginning of the COVID lockdown. She noted that in mid-March her entire family descended on them in FL for 10 weeks: 11 at her house — 4 under 5. It was way too much cooking and laundry for her, but she loved having her girls and grands together under her roof. They spend winters in FL, but also move between homes in New Canaan and Nantucket. Suzanne Hooker Ainslie is also in FL, just south of Nancy in Palm Beach, where she and her husband moved 23 years ago with their then 10-day-old baby, Serena. She left venture capital in NYC to raise Serena, and in the process discovered she loved real estate. She is still with Sotheby’s in Palm Beach. Heidi Swan downsized last year to a condo with a deck and water view in Marin County, CA. She loves having four of her five kids
nearby — and welcomed her first grandchild this past year. She wrote eloquently that, “As we ‘mature,’ I think the connections made long ago are the ones I cherish the most. We knew each other as teenagers and because we remain teenagers in a part of our hearts, it is easy to pick up where we left off.”
much the country was in denial about the seriousness of COVID. She notes that she is still doing interior design but is sad to have put showing their second show dog, a Cairn terrier, on hold for the duration. (She insists that when showing, she doesn’t wear those tight skirts and ugly shoes!)
Louise Bentley O’Dea is feeling lucky to have two homes, one across from San Francisco and one in Scottsdale, AZ, to split time between during the pandemic. She felt even luckier to be able to charter a sailboat in the Sea of Cortez with four friends and “sail in that lovely sea for a week with no internet or news the week before the election.” She has four children and six grandchildren.
Sarah Carleton Wechsler also got in a trip (to London) just before COVID went viral. She has lived in Dallas for many years and also spends some time in Cape Cod in the summer. She notes, as others have, that the one good thing about the pandemic is spending more time with our children (some of whom have moved home for the duration). In Sarah’s case, her daughter, a first-year med student, and her son, who works at Amazon, have moved home.
Louise is often on Anne Lloyd duPont’s mind. Anne writes from Kansas City, “I think of Louise often as we landed as roommates in that shadowy first year as freshmen. There were 12 of us and it took both Jules and I to remember all who were there ... lol. Talk about years gone by. That was like being in an episode of a Madeline book in a different century.” Anne has retired from 25 years working as a stone mason. She has been maneuvering through the loss of her life partner while celebrating the accomplishments of her two children, Alexis, an architect, and Leo, a corporate litigator and musician. Like many of us, Katy Angstadt Rahe is an avid traveler who has had to cancel planned trips to great places this past year — including her annual stay on an island on the St. Lawrence River, just on the Canadian side of the border. She is retired but she and her golden retriever, Indy, are part of a registered pet therapy team in an organization called Pet Partners. She and her husband Rod are grandparents of three little ones under three. Julie Bassett Aronson returned from New Zealand in February 2020, just as the pandemic was ramping up, happy to have had that trip but amazed at how
Martha Dailey Iacovelli is living the good life on her family farm in LA, having moved there from MA ten years ago. She returns to Chatham, MA, frequently to see her three granddaughters. Hilary Higgins Parker also enjoys her summer home in Chatham on Cape Cod, and connecting with Martha there. Both she and her husband of 44+ years have retired from their jobs at a boys’ boarding school and now live in Keswick, VA, the rest of the year. Peg Urvek (Gay Urvoas) is using this stay-at-home time to write a book, while her wife writes and makes art (in Southern CA, if I’m correct). Sheila Jackson Brown lives in MD on Jackson Hole Farm. “No grandkids yet, just six horses, two Labradors, and two barn cats.” But she has two very accomplished sons — one an ENT surgeon and the other an archaeologist. She and her husband recently bought a 38-foot sailboat that they hope to sail up and down the East Coast as time and weather permit. She was loving singing in a choir, The Canticle Singers of Baltimore, until COVID hit. Check them out on YouTube.
Class Notes
Tanya Kazanjian has used COVID times to learn to do her own nail and hair (she cut off two feet of hair) and watch every episode of The Great British Baking Show. She’s also taken four Oxford online courses, spent an hour every day learning Swedish, and joined the DAR to discover more about her Jamestown ancestors. Why does none of that surprise me? Becky Biggers O’Keefe writes, “We are still living a mile in the woods off the grid and, as someone mentioned at our last Reunion, I have strayed very little from my convictions and desire to live a simple life. With that said, is life ever really simple? When you have loved ones and passions that touch your heart, it is impossible not to be engaged.” She has retired from her career as a gardener and spends more time in her own garden and painting watercolors. She was expecting her fourth granddaughter last fall. Zoom to keep connected with others, notably K. Tammis Rehill Lazarus and Anne Lloyd duPont. It was wonderful to hear from Misty Carter Beyer after all these decades. She wrote: “I have been out of the Westover loop for 50 years and am so excited to listen in and find out where everyone is at this point in their life. After moving around the West Coast for 30 years, I landed back in Fairfield, CT. I run a non-profit called Music for Youth. We work in schools bringing live concerts and programs into classrooms, and we promote live performance opportunities for youth artists. I also have a music studio and have been teaching piano for over 20 years. Our MFY programs are now virtual. I teach piano using FaceTime. It’s been fascinating to reinvent a future without human contact.” Our healing thoughts are also with Beryl Brown, who has been struggling with nerve and spinal pain for several years. I sympathize as I’ve watched my mother wince through the pain, with the same determination to make
the most of life. I am so lucky to have both my parents alive and well — both mentally and physically, or as much as one can be physically fit at 94. The hardest part of the pandemic for me has been not being able to visit them in CO for the past year. We have weekly Zoom meetings to keep connected with the whole family, with any one of their five kids, five grandkids, and six great-grandkids attending. I keep busy with my healthcare writing business, and have no plans to retire. But I am planning a move from Santa Rosa to Sacramento, to get away from the frontlines of annual fires and be closer to my daughters and one grandson. (I have two other grandchildren, not far away, and have to say that grandchildren are truly the reward for all the challenges of raising children!) If nothing else, this pandemic has taught me the value of family and old friends, and those connections that can’t be broken by distance or time. I am hoping we will have the opportunity to meet in person to celebrate our 50th Reunion. But if that is not possible, I’m committing now to planning our own reunion somewhere fun when we get the all clear to travel. Stay well!
1976 Celebrating their 45th Reunion in 2021! BETH LUBRANO DWYER
beth_dwyer@verizon.net
I am hoping that these Class Notes find you all well. Sadly, our mini reunion planned for last October at Cathy Stewart’s home in VT got squashed due to COVID. Many of us were making plans for the trek north during foliage. Hopefully, we will be able to gather for our 45th Reunion at Westover in May 2021. Here we are in mid-November (as I write) preparing for Thanksgiving. It certainly has been a challenging, scary, but yet hopeful last eight
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months. Despite the tragedies and challenges of 2020, there is much to be thankful for and I will hold tight to that thought. It has been so great to be able to Zoom with all of you over these months. Zoom has become a lifesaver for being able to stay in touch with family and friends. Thank you to everyone who shared some tidbits with me for this edition of ’76’s notes. I know it’s tough to get motivated for these but I think we all really appreciate them, and Westover does, too. Eliza Montgomery Zimmerman shares the joy of her daughter Kat’s wedding this past September. It was a beautiful, personal celebration at their home in PA. Eliza and Peter adore their new daughter-in-law, Kelsey, and are thrilled that Kat and Kelsey live only about five minutes away. Eliza and Peter’s son drove cross country for the festivities. Eliza continues to work for Peter’s architectural firm, though from home. She also hikes and has taken up bird watching.
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23. Class of 1976 classmates Kristin Hartley Leithiser, Deirdre Sullivan, Lauren Caldwell, and Leilani Crane — socially distanced, but together 24. Eliza Montgomery Zimmerman ’76 and her family at her daughter’s wedding: Eliza and her husband, Peter, daughter Kat and her wife Kelsey, and son Peter in September 2020 25. Beatrice, the granddaughter of Vicky Darlington ’76, born in May 2020
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Class Notes
Vicky Darlington shared the big news of the arrival of her granddaughter Beatrice in May. She’s adorable. Deirdre Sullivan says that they are all safe and sound and healthy in CT. Deirdre, Annette Hall Quezada, and I got together a while back when Deirdre and Ed made a trek to Kennebunkport. The weather was lovely for our outdoor evening together. Cathy Bushkoff Collins received her lobster fix from ME in November. It was so much fun to see Cathy and Rip enjoy those lobster rolls. I got together with my ME neighbors, Annette and Mihae Lee, not long after moving north. We enjoyed a yummy lobster roll out at Portland Head Light. Mihae and Bill have been spending a lot of their time in their home in Cape
Elizabeth. Annette is working all over the state as a mobile notary/signing agent. She sees her grandson Eddie for regular visits to ME, where they specialize in muffin baking. Susan Dubin Nahley was able to join one of our first Class of 1976 Zooms last spring. It was so great to catch up. Susan had a tough spring fighting autoimmune hepatitis. Thankfully, she is recovering. She saw Katie Montgomery while she was in CT for the month of June. Stephen and Susan have been hunkered down in their apartment in NYC. They each have their own work space and meet in the kitchen for lunch. Their daughter Charlotte was home through September and then headed back to
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school at Carleton in MN. Susan had her deck garden, which provided a bit of nature in NYC. Marianne Barbino Dubuque is very thankful to have been blessed with an outstanding medical team at Sloan in NYC and an amazing outpatient physical therapy team at Gaylord in CT. Throughout the pandemic, she has able to participate in aggressive, athletic, in-person physical therapy twice a week. As a result, her walking, balance, and agility has greatly improved, so much so that she was able to resume paddle-boarding for limited periods of time. Marianne is working toward regaining most, if not all, of her active sports from before her surgery. Working remotely has had its challenges, but the IT folks managed to guide the firm through it. Marianne and her daughter also got a respite with a trip to Annette Hall Quezada’s spot in Kennebunkport. Kristin Hartley Leithiser’s year has been busy and crazy and full of challenges. Last March through June was full of the challenges of teaching remotely. That was stressful and difficult, but she was very proud of her district and its students for working hard to make it the best they could. Kristin really missed her summer travels and had a few regular get-togethers that will have to wait for better days. She saw Leilani Crane, Lauren Caldwell, Deirdre Sullivan, and Coila Worley Campbell ’78 this summer. Coila and Kristin share not just Westover but Camp Washington. Kristin officially retired after 35 years of teaching English at Hampden Academy in Hampden, ME, but has taken 26. A gorgeous hummingbird photographed by Lucy Thakara Kennedy ’78
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27. Members of the Class of 1984 — Ginny Cheston Spencer, Amanda Williams Dube, Andrea Combes, Liz Wahlers Connors, Emily Webber Brown, and Mary-Helen Velde Black — in Quad during a recent visit to Westover
on a part-time job (well, it is supposed to be part-time, but really hasn’t been yet). Kristin is still teaching AP Language and Composition, in addition to acting as the Coordinator of the BARR program. BARR stands for Building Assets, Reducing Risks and its focus is helping freshmen students in their transition to high school. It’s been a lot of work getting a new program off the ground (especially in these times with both hybrid and remote learning) but she’s enjoying the administrative/organizational side of things. Kristin is very excited to add Westover Governor to her activities. She’s heard from so many former Governors how much they enjoyed their time as Governors and she is looking forward to her own experience. As we all are, Kristin has been trying to get through all the craziness by counting her blessings and embracing gratitude — glad for music and books and friendships of many years — and when all else fails, binge watching Schitt’s Creek. Paul and I (Beth Lubrano Dwyer) were busy during the onset of COVID. We packed up our house of 30 years in Pembroke, sold it, and made the move to Old Orchard Beach, ME. We love our spot on the 5th hole of the DuneGrass Golf Club. I am enjoying the game of golf, which thrills Paul. Paul is working remotely. After a year of consulting, he is back to work full-time at John Hancock. Downsizing has been a challenge, but we are super excited to be close to our kids and grandsons. Another plus is we are only an hour away from our beloved Moose Pond. I miss my Historical Society crew in Pembroke but can volunteer for the society remotely. I’m looking forward to getting involved with the OOB Historical Society when it reopens. As I write this, COVID has invaded! Paul tested positive and I am awaiting results of my test, which I suspect will be positive as well. This damn thing creeps up from unknown hiding places. Thankfully, we are dealing with mild cases.
Class Notes
Any other year, this would be a cold. Please mask up; wash your hands, social distance, no unnecessary trips! Keep within your safe bubbles. Our lives are far less exciting and busy under these conditions, but we are a whole lot safer until treatments and vaccines are available. Praying that you and your loved ones stay well and that we can all gather again very soon. Stay in touch. Love to all.
1978 SHOTSIE BISSELL WILSON
Emily Renz Barron: “My whole experience, whether it was the School itself, the grounds, the traditions, my education, and the relationships I had between students, faculty, and alumnae.” Christine Gamble Brooks: “Cutting my uniform in half so it was just a skirt. Then all I had to do was to pull it on with whatever top I had on. Walking to MBS, screen printing with Lynn Sheldon, the connections made with the surrounding years’ classmates.” Elizabeth “Tibbie” Uhl: “Becky Davies’ laughter.”
Shotsiew@yahoo.com
Sara Rogers: “Carrying the lanterns down from the chimney into Red Hall while singing together.”
2020 certainly has been a different year on assorted levels for so many. Some have lost family members, some have retired (maybe of their own volition or not), some have changed jobs or lost jobs, changed locales or simply just kept trying to get on with day-to-day life. For some, responding to the request for Class Notes during these times can seem daunting. Therefore, I made it my mission for this round of Class Notes to ask for just one thing. Complete this sentence: My favorite memory of Westover is:
Debra James Case: “Sock hop dances on Friday nights.”
Here are the responses: Nina Sperry Cobb: “Lining up and participating in Wednesday Night Chapel. It was a time, all dressed up in our white Unis, that the whole school came together. It was a time to listen to the beautiful music, reflect, and be part of a community.” Lynn Sheldon: “From my student years was the magical sight of the rings of Saturn. Years later, I was given the opportunity to pass that gift on to my own students. What a privilege.” Davina Tucker Dickinson: “West and Over elections banging the desks, and the heads running up and down the aisles!” Susan Johnson: “Late nights telling stories in the smoking room, warm gingerbread at tea-time.”
Susu Cook Scott: “Walking up to the front door and enjoying how beautiful it all is.” Carla Skinner Malstrom: “Playing team sports each term — soccer, basketball, and softball.” Michelle Robinson Wrieden: “Lantern Ceremony.” Coila “CeCe” Worley Campbell: “Candlelight Service.” Clare Westerfield Evans: “All the traditions. Traditions that are still current today.” Jennie Emmet Lamonte: “Lantern Ceremony.” Teddy Burr Zeleznik: “My fall walks to the Seven Sisters Fireplace, where the apple trees would be laden with apples. Also, a special delight was coming down into Red Hall to listen to fellow Westover student Soomi Lee ’75 practice on the grand piano — those ‘concerts’ were worthy of large NYC paying audiences. Finally, I loved the extracurricular arts-related aspects — hearing the Undertones and Overtones choral groups, the guest speakers and singers, including a hauntingly beautiful Eastern European group, working the manual pottery kiln, and performing in, and watching, the annual student plays and musicals.”
Lori Bellini Cannistra: “All the beautiful Candlelight services and ceremonies.” Lucy Thackara Kennedy: “My favorite times were lighthearted, humorous moments with my peers.” Shotsie Bissell Wilson: “Toss-up between Wests and Overs and teaching Ann Pollina how to play volleyball.” Other updates: Carla Skinner Malstrom: “Like so many others, I am experiencing many changes in my life due to the pandemic. When my employer of 20 years asked for volunteers, I agreed to take an extended leave of absence from my job. With this new free time, I began visiting a stable with a friend, which led to riding lessons, which then led to the leasing of a horse! So, 46 years after having to give up my childhood pony, I am back in the saddle and loving every moment of it.” “While I am missing my usual travel and the opportunity to see family and friends, another side effect of COVID has been the reconnecting with longtime friends via video calls, etc., since many of us now have more free time than we were used to having, at least way back in March and April.” Teddy Burr Zeleznik: “Life as a diplomatic courier for the Department of State was incredibly busy until March. I went from expecting to be home six days during March to only traveling about 6-12 days per month through the summer. Since then, it’s been telecommuting, long and continuous round trips, and quarantining, quarantining, and more of it. So, let’s hope 2021 will be a more normal and pleasant year for all of us.” Lori Bellini Cannistra: “Seeing Shotsie Bissell Wilson and Steve on the Cape is great news! One of the best days of the summer! Also, was able to spend ten days with our kids on vacation on BIRI before Stephanie moved to CA and Anthony went back to Seattle. Now both kids on
the West Coast. So nice of Nina Sperry Cobb to connect with Stephanie and offer refuge if she needed to evacuate due to the fires. It was a scary time to move to the Bay Area in August.” Lucy Thackara Kennedy writes: “Living with chronic illnesses is challenging. Keeping centered in Buddhist mindfulness practice and meditation and being grounded in nature are my spiritual journey, allowing me to be present and supportive to the needs of those around me. Limiting world news input is crucially important. I can truly only offer guidance and support to the community around me, if my mind is not ‘flurried’ with anxiety.” Her daughter Claire, 30, is a nurse. She did the night shifts at Stamford Hospital, alongside the National Guard, on the COVID Ward. Lucy supported Claire’s efforts by doing all of Claire’s shopping during this time to relieve Claire of that one burden. Thank you, Claire, from the Class of ’78 for being on the front line during your time at Stamford Hospital. Lucy has also been doing a lot of photography. As for me, I have been learning way more about IT and making videos than I ever anticipated. My kitchen has become my recording studio for General Mills. I envy those who have hair and makeup show up on set, as well as a crew to set up, break down, and operate the camera. I am my crew!
1979 SARAH BLISS SEAMANS
sbseamans@me.com
The silver lining for our class during this pandemic has been reconnecting on Zoom. In March ’20, we started “meeting” bimonthly on Friday evenings for our “Zoomtails.” We invited friends from other classes to join us (Shotsie Bissell Wilson
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Class Notes
’78, Sandy Nichols Nash ’80, Kate Kennedy Hines ’77, Clare Westerfield Evans ’78). Some weeks, we had a few and other weeks we had ten or more. It has been a gift to chat about life, our activities, our families, our jobs, and how we have been surviving in this time of social distancing. It has truly been a gift to have the support of each other and we all look forward to the days we can reconnect in person. We were even able to have a Zoom call with Christine Chang Hanway and Joanna ScottSmith in the UK. It was great to see Elizabeth Spencer, Kath Cromwell Giovanni, Cathy O’Shea, Ann Cluett Kaplan, Karen Hall, Caroline Barhydt Francis, Susan Broderick Sherman, Leila Tighe, Nancy Hoft Harvey, Irene Bagley-Heath, Jodi Sum-
mit, Holly Gilbert, and Sarah Bliss Seamans on various calls, which will continue until we can finally hang out in person. Caroline Barhydt Francis announced that her son Zack had a very small (nine-person) wedding in October in Richmond, VA. Despite the pouring rain and restrictions on who could attend, it was a very special day. Karen Hall reported that, after selling her dental practice in November, she is dividing her time between private practice and teaching at the dental school in Portland, ME. Karen is also enjoying the reconnection with Westover as a member of the Board of Governors, despite having all virtual meetings so far. Congratulations, Karen! Cathy O’Shea moved to GA, and that now makes four classmates in the state. Cathy loves her new job teaching and she is enjoying
being near more family in GA. Leila Tighe continues with her own therapy practice, which has been busier with the pandemic. She lives in a cottage by the sea in Cohasset, MA, where she and her puppy can walk and be in nature. Her oldest daughter, Madeline, is engaged. Leila encourages all to try deep-sea diving, as she has found a new world underwater. She was happy to visit with Karina Landegger FitzPatrick and her husband when they visited Boston. Leila has also been in touch with Christine Gamble Brooks ’78 and Ann Cluett Kaplan regularly. Speaking of Ann, she and her husband Doug celebrated 37 years of marriage in November. She has been doing projects around the house while her photo business is on hiatus, and she was a poll observer in the November ’20 election in ME, which she found very interesting. Jodi Summit and her husband Marshall continue to be busy with their weekly newspaper, The Timber Jay, in northern MN. Jodi enjoys trail running and worked in ’20 to expand a town recreational trail.
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I continue at the library, where I still lead the book group and our popular holiday greens arrangement class, all meeting virtually. I am also a deacon at our church, where I have started a couple of online groups. I am grateful for daily walks and yoga to find balance in my day. Until we see each other in person, see you on Zoom.
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1980 SANDY NICHOLS NASH
sandy@cliffjump.com
From Sarah Knowles Dent: “Life continues on here in Metrowest Boston. We had a full house this past spring with all of us working/studying from home. Eldest daughter Sally is working for Cambridge-based Education First in traveler support services. Many of you can guess how that was going; yet, she is still employed and helping travelers navigate through rebookings and new trip planning for 2021, 2022, 2023 …? Middle daughter Caroline (aka CC) was denied her 2020 College of Wooster lacrosse season, summer job on the shores of Squam Lake in NH, and her fall semester abroad in Sweden — yet she, too, soldiers on back in OH with fluctuating learning models. My third daughter, Alex, is a senior here at Dana Hall, where I am now the Assistant Director of the Dana Fund. Alex is All-School Co-President with an ardent mission to get our boarding students back on campus as soon as possible. Husband Dan continues his work for Draper Labs as Media Relations Manager, writing about all sorts of cool innovations from the confines of our home office. It was so wonderful to see everyone on our Zoom Reunion call this past spring and an in-person gathering on campus can’t happen soon enough. Love to all!”
1982 28. Jen Eveland ’84 and her family on a cruise 29. Three members of the Class of 1984 — Hillary Huggins Fehsenfeld, Emily Webber Palmer Brown, and Amanda Williams Dube — got together at Amanda’s home in South Carolina. 30
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30. The Class of 1984 enjoyed a Zoom call in May 2020.
ALISON CHASE MOORE
amoore@bluepointmktg.com LEE HAMMETT PETERSON
LHP111@aol.com
Jeannette Matheson Lussi: “Tough year trying to keep all my seniors safe at assisted living. Stay safe, all!”
Class Notes
1984 LUCY LINCOLN FROST
Lucylincolnfrost@gmail.com
In the spirit of “To Think, To Do, To Be,” 1984ers were asked, “Given the complexity of life these days, what do you see as the greatest opportunities looking ahead? In other words, what — specifically or generally — gives you hope?” Can you guess who said what? (Answers are at the end.) Of course, many focused on the political climate and COVID: “Seeing young people really changing up the way they think (and talk) about race and women’s rights gives me hope for progress as a society.” (A) “Hoping that with 2021 and our newly elected President we will find more peace and unity in our country!” (B) “The generations coming up now and the inevitable end of the greedy, angry, white men in power.” (C) “First woman VP elected in the US. Not only great for our generation to see at long last, but it makes me smile to know that the younger generations will grow up with that as a given.” (D) “In 2020 we had the highest voter turnout in our country’s history — it’s great to see citizens tuning in to democracy! I hope all alumnae get involved (or at least vote!) in state and local elections.” (E) “That a vaccine will be available sometime in 2021 helps to affirm that life will be better and we will get through this. Positive thoughts always!” (F) “The human ingenuity in coming up with the vaccines is very impressive, as is a return to government by grownups.” (G) “Communication is the key to any relationship, whether it’s a marriage or a country. It’s much easier to hate from afar.” (H) “The fact that white people with privilege seem to finally be starting to wake up and see what’s been going on for centuries. The fact that grassroots
movements have made a big difference in what’s going on currently.” (I) And some see hope in their classrooms and in work: “Children — my own, but really more so in this circumstance, my first grade students. They have adapted to this COVID chaos better than any adult I know! A mask has become an extension of personality, whether it be glittery, superhero-ish or Van Gogh’s Starry Night. They aren’t complaining. Zoom and socially distant playdates are a drag, but they are playdates just the same! They give me hope and once again prove The Little Prince’s point that adults never understand anything by themselves and children will forever be explaining things and showing them how to behave. Oh, and my Westover friends give me hope — or at least support, as they are a wickedly funny and smart group of women!” (J) “My students give me hope. The six-, seven-, and eight-year-olds that I teach continuously demonstrate kindness, wonderment, humor, and empathy. They are beacons of what is truly important in this world.” (K) “I see hope and inspiration in the children I work with. Their willingness to start the school year with everything new and take mask wearing and socially distancing, and all the changes that we as adults see as difficult, in stride gives me hope. This has been a difficult time for everyone but the willingness of the young to adapt, adjust, and accept the changes give me great hope for the future.” (L) “Personally, I have high hopes because I have been going to college full-time for Hotel and Resort Management, and next semester is my last semester of actual classes.” (M) “Getting back to work. Feeling like I have a purpose every day I wake up. The shutdown was hard, because, like everyone, I was thrown into a tailspin. I think I was the only person in the world whose house was more disorganized and dirtier than when COVID hit!” (N)
SERVING IN THE FRONT LINES OF COVID-19 In the midst of the health crisis facing New York City in spring 2020, Dr. Debbie Jones ’88, an internist with a primary care private practice, returned to the Columbia University Medical Center campus last April for a seven-day rotation on the New York Presbyterian’s COVID ward. “I had my own ward that I ran with another internist,” Debbie said. “It was extremely challenging for many reasons. Following that week, I supervised a tele-health discharge program for patients with COVID after they had been discharged from the hospital. The program was run by medical students, who checked on the patients twice a day by phone after discharge to monitor their health.” Looking back, Debbie acknowledged, “That month was hard for me, not only because it was hard work, but also because, to be extra cautious, I lived apart from my husband and two boys.” By the end of April, Debbie’s services were no longer needed, as the number of patients in COVID wards shrank steadily. “On May 1,” Debbie said, “I returned to my private practice office to resume my primary care duties, and have been here ever since. Our office is adjusting to the new rhythm of medicine in the COVID-era.” Debbie noted that her husband, a psychiatrist, has also been busy with his own remote telemedicine practice. “I was happy in September when he and the boys returned to live with me full-time again in New York City. |
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Class Notes
A DESIGNER MAKES MASKS Romy Torres McCloskey ’92, a designer and the owner of Faden Design Studios in The Woodlands, Texas, made the decision in the spring of 2020 to temporarily shut down her studio to make medical masks for healthcare providers, first responders, and EMTs. In place of couture gowns and costume design, Romy provided and shipped masks free of charge to those who needed them. “Mask-making was definitely a labor of love,” Romy said. “I exhausted my supplies at a little more than 3,500 masks. I sent to local frontline workers, including 200 of our local postal service workers, and other neighbors in need, as well as anyone who wrote to me from around the country. After a few months, masks became very available, so I shifted gears back to work.” “In all,” Romy added, “it was a fulfilling experience, knowing that I could help out where needed.”
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Others find hope much closer to home: “The 750 bulbs I planted this fall! :-)” (O) “Watching and enjoying my children as they start their life adventures.” (P) “COVID has been an inconvenience, but it has brought us (family) back around the dinner table, long outdoor weekend fireside chats, ocean adventures, and a total appreciation for what we have ... each other, great family, friends, and a comfortable life! Appreciating your blessings will always give you hope, and now that we have a more mindful person at the helm, do I dare go down the political path? I’ll say only this: I hope this world finds unity, peace, and balance. Amen!” (Q) “Good health, family, and friends are getting me through these crazy times right now.” (R) “Hope for me at this moment is spending time with my year-old twin nephews, Birk and Oliver, keeping in touch with my family, and with the great outdoors that surrounds me here in VT. My husband Todd and his wonderfully positive outlook on life also brings me tons of hope in these crazy times.” (S) “My boys! Looking forward to their senior years in college and high school next year, and all their exciting opportunities, whatever they may be! Hoping for not just a return to normalcy, but also a greater appreciation for every day, everything, and everybody.” (T) “Ready to move on to 2021 and to put this pandemic behind us! The only positive part of COVID was more family time, loved ones working from home, lots of Zooms with old classmates and family, and of course my fave ... five months on Martha’s Vineyard!” (U) Grateful for friends and family. Grateful for FaceTime and Zoom, so I can see them. Grateful for my new love, Clay. Grateful for as much outdoor time as screen time. Grateful for my time at Westover. Class of 1984 definitely rocks!” (V) “Say what you will about social media, but I love keeping up with how everyone’s doing!” (W)
And finally, I think this classmate speaks this class secretary’s mind! “I am living my best life. For me, mid-50’s is a salve of sorts, and I don’t know that I use hope very often because I’ve learned through my ups and downs that (a) I have the most wonderful, smart support in my Westover friends who call me on my crud, love me when I feel unlovable, and make me see my inner beauty when I might feel and look like crap. I’ve also been able to realize, thanks to that support, that I will handle anything that comes at me. Might hurt, might be ugly, might not be what I want, but I can — no will — survive and thrive in large part thanks to the emotional support of my Westover friends and to teachers at Westover seeing more in me than I knew I had.” (X) And in other news ... Jen Eveland reports, “My little family has actually weathered the storm this year surprisingly well. We’ve had to make some major adjustments but it’s pretty much good stuff (touch wood). Ramon just started 9th grade. He’s still homeschooling and we’re both loving it. We’re reading Shakespeare now, and I’m having flashbacks to Pam Hardman’s class.” Michaela Pierce Williams proudly shares of her return to college that she has “held a GPA of 3.95 the whole time. This summer I will be doing an internship at a hotel on Canandaigua Lake, which hopefully will turn into a full-time job!” Hillary Huggins Fehsenfeld wrote, “While taking Willem to UTampa in August, I had amazing visits with Jennifer Turner, Emily Webber Palmer Brown and Amanda Williams Dube. Can’t wait to do it again in May! Hope everyone is safe and healthy and we can all get together when COVID is tackled. Huggs to all.” Mary Helen Velde Black shared, “My son Luke graduated from The Winchendon School in May and is a freshman at Emmanuel C. in Boston — all virtual but enjoying it. I find my work at
Class Notes
Harvard Business School engaging despite doing everything over Zoom and email. As a family of four plus dog and cat, we’ve been splitting our time between Boston and our home in the country near Mt. Monadnock. The silver lining of sheltering in place is lots of quality family time, gardening, and home projects. We’re all healthy, as is my extended family and friends, and for that I’m grateful! Over the summer I spent time with Ginny Cheston Spencer, Liz Wahlers Connors, and Andrea Combes at Liz’s Cape home, and then again in Cambridge for dinner. Now we’re back to zooming.” Liz continues “to teach pre-K at a small, local preschool and truly love it! I have loved seeing Mary Helen, Ginny, and Andrea for regular social distancing dinners and beach days!” Katie Murray has “reunited with some alumnae from my high school and college in my Memoir 101 online class. I would love to see some Westover friends each week there, too!” [http://www. catharinehmurray.com/] As for me (Lucy Lincoln Frost)? I’ve retired after 30 years in fundraising and am enjoying life in HI with Jim, our two dogs, one cat, two horses, and nine chickens on Tinyville Farm. We’re having a go at small-scale farming, but mostly are enjoying the peace and quiet of rural life. As Emily Webber Palmer Brown said so well, I’m living my best life. Lastly, a plea from Marj Summit Anzalone, “Help me! I still have kids in high school!” Thank you to everyone for sharing your inspiration and updates. If you didn’t receive the invitation to submit notes, please email me at lucylincolnfrost@gmail. com so we make sure you’re included next time! Aloha from the Big Island! (Answers: A: Marj Summit Anzalone; B: Alex Hutchinson Kline; C: Hilary Rice; D: Sara Russell; E: Mary Helen Velde Black; F: Cathy Strong Mitchell; G: Carol Davidson Cragoe; H: Michele Cavallaro Dasse; I: Katie Murray; J: Ginny Cheston
Spencer; K: Patty White Schoenhuber; L: Emily Cooke Nolan; M: Michaela Pierce Williams; N: Lori Kinniburgh; O: Carol Davidson Cragoe; P: Andrea Combes; Q: Hillary Huggins Fehsenfeld; R: Cathy Strong Mitchell; S: Kirsten Jeppesen; T: Liz Wahlers Connors; U: Alex Hutchinson Kline; V: Sara Russell; W: Jen Eveland; X: Emily Webber Palmer Brown
1991 Celebrating their 30th Reunion in 2021!
FACING THE CHALLENGE WITH CONFIDENCE
ELIZABETH KOSTOJOHN
e.kostojohn@gmail.com
This has been a tough year for everyone. It’s good to hear some positive news from our class! Pia Guido Murphy says that after quarantining for six months, all of her kids were able to go back to school this September. Pia found that the time together in lockdown, while not all “roses and rainbows,” was a wonderful time to reconnect with her kids. Dolly Patterson tells us that she and her family are all surviving the year. They have had lots of family dinners, as everyone has been home since March! Dolly’s husband is now working from home, which has been great. Their daughter Mia is a senior at Choate. Even with all the restrictions, Mia was fortunate to be able to continue competing on the junior golf circuit all season. She committed to play for Lehigh U. in August and will be signing her National Letter of Intent! (Congratulations to Mia!) Dolly’s youngest child, Luca, has just begun his freshman year at Hopkins and is enjoying wearing his pajamas to classes on remote learning days. Dolly says that they are looking forward to 2021, where there is much to celebrate. Chris and Dolly will celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary around the same time that they celebrate Mia’s graduation from Choate, and we
For Dr. Nkiruka Emeagwali ’96, “The pandemic has been challenging in many ways, but has provided tremendous opportunities for leadership and community engagement.” In the early months of the pandemic, she was invited to volunteer with the New York COVID-19 Disaster Relief Response. “I worked as a COVID-19 IUC (Integrated Urgent Care) attending physician in New York,” Nkiruka said. “After the surge ended, I stayed on to provide care in the medical ICU. As of late 2020, we have reopened the COVID-19 ICU, so I am helping to staff both units. I am also preparing to head out west to continue to provide additional COVID-19 ICU care.” After graduating from Yale University School of Medicine’s Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship in June 2019, Nkiruka founded her company, Live Your Best Life, Inc. (LYBL Inc.), which is dedicated to providing travel medicine services to at-risk populations. She has been working in Connecticut and North Dakota, with plans to expand to New York City. “LYBL Inc. has provided pro bono strategic COVID-19 reopening consulting services to school districts, religious organizations, and businesses,” Nkiruka explained. “I have had significant personal growth and have also had the chance to prioritize and support my family, which has been very special.” Nkiruka was confident that the medical profession was ready to continue its fight against the pandemic. “Compared to the initial wave, we are better prepared and have more resources to help us.” |
WINTER 2021 55
Class Notes
have our 30th Reunion at Westover! Dolly says that she is hoping to see lots of faces there.
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Katherine Sredl sets the scene for her news. Picture it: Northside of Chicago. Summer 2019. Backyard fire pit. She and Maria Petrone burned all of Katherine’s love letters and relationship mementos, ahead of Katherine’s moving apartments in Chicago. Katherine is grateful for that friendship, and downsizing came in handy later that year. Fast forward to February 2020 and Katherine’s beloved Winston died of brain cancer at age 10.5, which is typical for Boxers. He went in 36 hours. (We’re so sorry for your loss, Katherine.) She says that she cried so much, and she thanks everyone for all of your texts and calls. Then, three weeks later, Chicago went into COVID-19 lockdown. Katherine fled to KY and taught online from her mom’s house in Paducah. Katherine says that she was very lucky to be there, as Paducah’s low population density made social distancing very easy. Loyola, where Katherine teaches, decided to continue online for fall. As a result, Katherine returned her keys to her landlord in Chicago, packed her laptop and her U.S. and Croatian passports, then flew to Zagreb. Katherine has been in Croatia since August 2020, and she is staying through May 2021, as Loyola just announced online teaching for spring 2021.
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31. Pia Guido Murphy ’91 and her family 32. Tomo Nakanishi Kubo ’96 with her family 33. Elizabeth & Anna — daughters of Megan Liebow Dunlap ’00 in summer 2020 34. A weekend at the Warnek cabin for Sarah Schipul Swift ’00 and Nikki Sieller Warnek ’00 with their kids 35. Alia Hussain ’00 and her family 36. The toothless grins of Sage and Carver, children of Nikki Sieller Warnek ’00
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She says that it’s great to be in Croatia in a different context. Katherine spends most of her time working in her apartment. She’s not sure why it feels so good, but it does. Nature is really pretty in Croatia. Even with COVID-19 controls, there are still things to do, like jogging on forest trails. Daily life feels very safe. Katherine says that she is shy to write more because she knows that so many have it so hard. She continues to research gender, marketing, and media, to teach marketing, and to consult on digital/social marketing. Katherine says that she misses everyone tons and sends a kiss from Zagreb. Heather Mannella Nuzzo says that it feels like nothing has happened this year except the “dumpster fire” that is 2020. Heather tells us that, during the pandemic, she learned to make sourdough and macarons while hiding in her house. She also discovered new outdoor locations in CT, when she dared to leave the house. Heather also got a (2nd) knee replacement, and she learned how to teach hybrid online classes. She has also learned, since September, a lot of 2nd grade phonics and math! Heather jokes that this is more than enough to show for nine months of a pandemic, right? Heather Donlan tells us that, like everyone else, this year has pushed her to try and come up with new ways to look at her business. The KindCarded (kindcarded.com) business, which she started with her three kids at the end of last year, has done very well during COVID. When the days were long and lonely during quarantine, Heather says that it was nice to know that kindness was still in the forefront of what people were holding as important. Out of COVID, Heather also created a graphic t-shirt line (Onyx + Bone), which gave her an outlet for her creativity during the first few months of COVID. In July, she bought a van, converted it to a mobile studio, and drove
Class Notes
for three weeks and 7,000 miles with her dog Elliott. Along the way, Heather photographed clients on this epic trip. She says that it was an incredible way to travel this summer, especially during a time when so much of our travel was limited. Heather tells us that her photography studio is still doing very well, and she is looking to 2021 to hopefully have her first coffee table book of her “Tutu Beautiful” sessions printed and for sale. Heather mentions that she was lucky enough to see Anabel Martinez last spring when she and her family were quarantining in Miami. Heather sends big love to everyone, and she is looking forward to what 2021 has to bring. Larissa Crane wanted to share that she reunited with Heather in Naples, FL, last February, right before the COVID craze! Larissa says that it was so great to see her. Kyla Reynolds P’an tells us that, in addition to her brief article in this issue about “life under COVID abroad,” she also has been lucky since moving to Portugal in August to have visits from not one but two Westover alumnae pals: Meredith Shirey in October 2019, and Leigh Vaule Steele ’87, who moved near her in Portugal in October 2020. (COVID is the only reason that you’re not having many more visitors, Kyla!) Michelle Kubiska Tscheppe says that her daughter Sadie has joined the Westover community and is proud to be a West! Michelle is hoping for our Reunion year to be in person so she can experience campus with Sadie as a student. I, Elizabeth Kostojohn, don’t have exciting news, as I spend most of my time making sure that my 7th grade son is actually doing his all-remote schoolwork, which feels like a full-time job. I’ve taken up inline skating this year to cope with the stress of 2020. It has been really fun. Sometimes, I skate around the city with the Inline Skate Club of Boston. There’s nothing like skating by cavernous potholes
and salty Massachusetts drivers to help you to forget your usual worries. It’s very zen. Thank you to all of you who responded to my emails with either notes or a quick “hello!” I’m not sure what our Reunion will look like this year, but it will be great to be in touch with everyone, no matter what the format. I hope that the entire Westover community is safe, healthy, and happy. For those who are suffering from the effects of COVID in any way, the Class of 1991 offers empathy and compassion. Let’s hope that 2021 will bring some normalcy back to our lives.
2000 NICOLE SIELLER WARNEK
Nicole.sieller@gmail.com SUSAN BROOMHEAD TAYLOR
Sbroomhead@gmail.com
Megan Liebow Dunlap says hi to everyone from her home just outside Washington, DC. She and Dave have been working from home while Elizabeth, ten, and Anna, eight, are doing school virtually. Megan works in real estate as a financial and development analyst and just had her 15-year work anniversary! She’s working towards her Argus certification (real estate financial modeling software), and hoped to have completed it by the end of the year! Karsten Solberg had an exciting year, leaving her architecture firm to venture out on her own. The primary goal was to find more freedom and be able to work from home … and then COVID hit. She summed up her feelings: “Life has a sense of humor, right?” Karsten’s still living in upstate NY and getting back into community involvement now that her kids — Alice, four, and Will, seven — are getting older. She sits on the boards of the Rochester Historic Preservation Board and Community Design Center.
SERVING THE NEEDS OF YOUNG ADULTS IN THE PANDEMIC As the Executive Director of Summer Search Seattle, Melanie Lyons ’98 has witnessed firsthand how the coronavirus epidemic has challenged the lives of low-income young adults in King County, Washington. Melanie’s non-profit organization provides mentorship, leadership experience, and postsecondary advisory services to young adults who face systemic inequities. “The pandemic has severely exacerbated the disadvantages our students face,” Melanie said. “Many of them work in the service or retail industries, so they have seen high rates of layoffs and reduction in work hours stemming from social distancing requirements. Many live in crowded housing and have poor access to health care or technology. Our students have been requesting help with basic, urgent needs, such as groceries, utilities, and rent. They have also had unexpected costs related to online learning.” In the midst of shutdowns related to COVID-19, Melanie moved the program online to provide important community resources and continued mentorship. “We diverted all available resources to maintaining staff, and adapted our program for virtual delivery despite financial difficulty,” she said. “Our staff mentors began helping students navigate the new reality and continued cultivating resilience, problem-solving, and self-advocacy skills. We redesigned our summer programming to be virtual. And we began offering students and families relief funding for basic needs.” “While the COVID-19 pandemic has not changed who we serve,” Melanie added, “it will keep our recruitment numbers flat despite clearly increased need among the communities we serve.”
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Class Notes
Rachel Clement has seen the pandemic up close and personal, taking care of COVID patients as an anesthesiologist. While learning as much as she can about the coronavirus, she has also been researching and learning as much as possible about the transgender and non-binary communities. Earlier this year, Rachel and Tucker’s four-yearold child bravely told them that she is actually a boy. They are so proud of both their sons for their resilience, while also carrying an element of trepidation for the future. They are grateful for the supportive and loving people in their life and will keep working to improve awareness and tolerance.
HELPING BUSINESSES TO NAVIGATE A CHANGED WORLD In response to the pandemic, Minim — the company that Nicole Hayward ’03 founded and serves as its CMO/CPO — launched a new WiFi system “to help businesses secure and co-manage remote employee networks,” an important service at a time when so many are working from home. “Now that the office has exploded into employee homes,” Nicole said, “we must ensure they have the assistance they need to prevent malicious hacking and bad internet, to lower risk and employee stress levels.” Nicole noted, “A recent Gartner survey cited that 74% of CFOs intend to permanently shift some employees to remote work. At the same time, employee burnout rates are through the roof; 75% of workers have experienced burnout, according to Mental Health America.” Being able to provide reliable and safe WiFi for employees will help in this new working environment, she added. “In spite of the pandemic and uncertain times,” Nicole said, “I’m actually really thankful and humbled to say I’m doing quite well hanging in my happy place — my career. I am reminded how important it is to encourage young women to pursue STEM careers.” 58 | WESTOVER SCHOOL MAGAZINE
Shelby Mastroianni Neal has had a whirlwind year! Her dad retired last spring after 35 years working at Westover, and campus feels different for her with him not there. The fall has also felt very different because of the pandemic. At the time of notes submission, faculty and staff were finalizing plans for boarders to return to campus in January for spring semester. Despite the challenges, Shelby is more grateful than ever to be working with such amazing students and teachers. Her kids — Ethan, ten, and Eliza, eight — were happy to be attending in-person school last fall. Vicki Viera has been keeping busy with work, helping with fundraising for nonprofits. Other pandemic activities have included dodging hurricanes (mostly successful), organizing closets, doing repairs around the house, reading, and planning dream vacations in her head. Vicki completed her final term on the Board of Governors this past June and is remaining active on the Development Committee. She wants to remind everyone that there’s a standing invitation to visit her in New Orleans when this pandemic is all said and done. Lynda Erbs had a memorable 2020, starting with her marriage to Adam Farquharson in February. They had a small
ceremony followed up by a honeymoon in Grenada, which they got in just before COVID hit. They were planning a summer wedding reception, but it had to be postponed due to the virus. In September, Adam and Lynda were blessed to welcome their first child. William Robert Farquharson was born Sept. 15, 2020. Because of the impact of the virus on Lynda and Adam’s industry, work has been very slow. On the bright side, it has given them the opportunity to spend a lot of time with family during their life-changing year. Alia Hussain started her own pediatric practice, Creekside Kids Pediatrics, in Tomball, TX, in October. It’s been fun but also challenging. Alia is also now a proud mom to three: Humza, nine; Danya, five; and Lyla, 15 months. Rhiannon Rhodes was supposed to marry her husband Mark in June 2020 with a large celebration in July. As you can guess, those plans got scrapped. The celebration is on hold with fingers crossed for 2021, but they did manage to sneak away to Disney World to tie the knot on 10/10/20! Rhiannon and Mark boarded a Skyliner gondola, accompanied by Rhiannon’s sister, Lindsay Rhodes Newton ’04. Their officiant and parents tied in via a Zoom call, and they got married! How’s that for a unique wedding?! Other than that, Rhiannon said life is the same old: “Working from home. Canceling lots of plans. Annoying the cats. Rinse. Repeat.” Maura Tansley sent an update with really exciting news! In her words: “I have exciting work-related news, but I can’t share it yet!” (Great, thanks, Mo!) Hopefully, by the time this Magazine is published we’ll know more and can send our congratulations! Maura also wanted to say thank you to everyone for the outpouring of love and support from Westover friends after her mom’s passing in September 2019. (We love you, Mo.)
Class Notes
Jacqueline Rowland Talbot was hoping that 2020 was going to be her year to be madly in love, married, pregnant, and cast in the Game of Thrones prequel! It didn’t work out that way, but she did get to play a witch, a voice in the woods, a philosopher, and a fun selfish role next to a cool blue car, and she was recently cast in an amusing audio project as the last woman alive in a post-apocalyptic world run by animals (especially cats). She’s been having Westover dreams recently and sends kindness and love to everyone! She also asks for prayers for two cousins lost this year and that love prevails in her life so she can catch up with all of us soon. Sarah Schipul Swift says hi from Brooklyn, where life is very different from pre-pandemic life in some ways and really similar in other ways. What’s the same: she spends most of her days at home with one-year-old June and four-year-old Cleo. Cleo attends a public preschool part-time and loves it. What’s different: For starters, her husband Sam works from home. Also, a lot of their friends have moved away. Luckily, they moved into a bigger apartment in Fort Greene right before COVID hit, and it’s been a lifesaver to have more space during this crazy time. Sarah and family escaped the city a few times this summer to spend time with me (Nikki) at our family cabin. Our four kids get along really well and we love raising them as cousin-friends! My update (Nikki Sieller Warnek) — I’ve spent the last eight months looking for silver linings to keep me sane during this pandemic. After 16 years of going to the office every day, I really enjoy working from home every day. Carver, seven, is in virtual 1st grade, so we’re spending a lot of time together. The increased family time has hands-down been the best part of this pandemic. Sage, five, attends in-person kindergarten, which we are all thankful for because it gets her out of the house! (She is energetic like her mama and never stops talking.) On a less rosy note,
the pandemic hasn’t been kind to our CrossFit gym. We were shut down for four months last March-June, and it sure feels like another shutdown is looming. Fortunately, we’ve been able to keep our heads above water and our spirits (mostly) high. We’re looking forward to celebrating 10 years of being in business in July 2021! Thanks to everyone who took the time to send in notes this year!
2001 Celebrating their 20th Reunion in 2021! RACHEL STOCK LESHER
rachelElesher@gmail.com
Jess Borchetta and husband Ted welcomed their second daughter just before Halloween this year. Zelda arrived on October 26 and Ursula, nearly three-years-old now, is loving her new role as big sister. Louisa de Heer loves her new job as a sustainability consultant, and holds out hope that our 20 year Reunion can still happen. She would love to see everyone. Rachel Stock Lesher is currently working as Director, Transformation Resourcing at United Way Worldwide in Alexandria, VA. Eleanor, five, and threeyear-old twins Graham and Theodore keep Rachel and her husband Nick busy, especially at home as remote learners and workers! This fall, the family took their annual visit up to ME, where Rachel was able to spend some — distanced — time with Jan Gilley, former Westover Dean of Students and Director of International Programs. She is grateful to stay connected to the Westover community and enjoys hearing from everyone. Rachel wishes everyone a happy and healthy 2021! Katie Perkins Marko: “Dear friends, I hope everyone is hanging in as best as you can these days. My family made the
PROVIDING FOOD FOR THOSE IN NEED As the president of the board for FISH of Greater New Haven, Sarah Welinsky Hoffman ’03 is committed to the non-profit organization’s mission to deliver “hope and groceries” to homebound neighbors. So, in March 2020, after the organization lost all of its partner agencies who deliver food for them, Sarah, her husband Charles, her friend Liz Kveton ’03, and another board member made all of FISH’s deliveries a few days later. Sarah then went to work and was able to recruit almost 100 emergency volunteers to deliver to the 900 households the agency had been serving. “Since the onset of the pandemic,” Sarah said, “a lot has changed at FISH. We hired a new, experienced executive director who has done an incredible job growing the agency. “FISH also absorbed the Pantry to Pantry (P2P) program, which started in March as a result of the pandemic, and is now serving double the number of clients than before the pandemic. P2P allowed us to access private and public funding that is specifically available for COVID-19 response work.” In January 2021, the agency also moved to a newer and larger location in New Haven, Sarah said, “so we will have more capacity to respond to this and future crises.” Anyone wishing to volunteer or donate funds may visit: fishofgreaternewhaven.org
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Class Notes
short-distance move from downtown Charleston to Sullivan’s Island this summer and we are relishing the laid-back lifestyle. I am still practicing criminal defense and was excited to discuss my love for it in an episode of the podcast Are You For Real? While I wish I could say I have had lots of visits with Westover girls, I do keep in touch regularly with phone calls to Rachel Stock Lesher and was both blown away and touched when I received a beautiful bouquet of flowers from Jenny Rodgers and Caroline Rodgers Swetenburg last spring when my grandmother passed. I miss you all very much and hold out hope that we will be together for our 20th Reunion! Xoxo” 37
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Sarah Bill Murray moved back to the DC area with her husband Ryan and one-year-old son Phelps in February 2020. While she’ll miss the HI weather, it’s nice to be closer to family and old friends. She’s keeping her fingers crossed to see everyone at Reunion next year! Alice Yoo: “My husband and I welcomed our first child, Cole Landon Romanoski in March 2020, one day after COVID was declared a pandemic. Despite this unsettling time, we feel fortunate we’ve been able to be at home with our son.”
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Laura Manteghian Capon reports that she, Caitlin Reynolds Marian ’02, Hannah Charlap, Amma Osei, Alyssa Menegat, and Jennifer Sullivan
37. Sarah Bill Murray ’01 with her husband Ryan and son Phelps 38. Rachel Stock Lesher ’01 and former faculty member Jan Gilley got together in Maine. 39. Sarah Cave ’04 (right) with her classmates — and fellow Over Heads — Laura Balzer and Taber Lightbourne 40. Charlotte, daughter of Sarah Welinsky Hoffman ’03
60 | WESTOVER SCHOOL MAGAZINE
Boyce spent time together last fall in NYC. They had the joy of meeting and holding Amma’s new baby. They cannot wait to all be together again.
2003 KARIMAH GOTTSCHALCK
Kag123biz@gmail.com DANIELLE STEWART KNOPE
Danielle.s.knope@gmail.com
Danielle Stewart Knope, husband Zach, and daughter Olivia have been riding the rollercoaster of 2020 from their home in Orlando, FL. They have appreciated being able to spend time outdoors, and recently took up biking as a family. They are expecting a baby boy to join the family in May 2021. Lauren Brady East, husband Joel, big brother James, and big sister Isabelle welcomed baby Robert Henry East to the family in August. Alexandra Rathbone Peterson and husband James are hanging in there through 2020, trying to keep their martial arts school in WI afloat amidst closures, mandates, and social distancing. They were closed for nine weeks for the first round of closures and had some success creating online classes. Mostly they tried to use the unusual amount of free time to explore other hobbies. After a long break, Alex is back to painting and drawing. She was looking forward to entering some art shows and working on a collaboration with James over the holidays. She is also keeping busy by helping to homeschool her stepdaughter Grace and taking care of two very cute and high-maintenance pit bulls, Sarge and Tazzy. She is hoping to travel back out east to visit friends and family once it is safe to do so. Sara Chaudhri Martucci and husband Paul welcomed a baby girl, Talia Roff Martucci, on Sept.
Class Notes
6, 2020. They report that they are slowly getting the hang of being parents.
Funny that Amanda’s niece lives around the corner from Liz and often babysits for Liz’s girls.
After the pandemic derailed their original wedding plans, Sarah Bronko was married to Ben Williams in a private ceremony in Woodstock, VT, on June 6, 2020. They also purchased their first home, in South Woodstock, VT, this summer and look forward to bumping into fellow local, Mr. Coffin!
Liz “Sunny” Alper continues to work as a television writer in Los Angeles and most recently joined the staff of the CW’s Two Sentence Horror Stories as a producer. When not writing, Liz still works towards improving inclusion and equity in Hollywood. This year, she was voted into the Western Council for the Actors Fund (a national human services organization here to meet the needs of the entertainment community), and her grassroots movement, #PayUpHollywood, has brought industry-wide awareness to the financial and social barriers underrepresented groups face when trying to break into entertainment. She just wrapped her first year on the Writers Guild of America West’s (WGAW) board of directors, where she heads inclusion and equity efforts to improve the work lives of writers of color. She lives with her boyfriend, dog, and cat in Los Feliz.
2004 ELIZABETH NORTH BOUCHER
Eliztaber@gmail.com HEATHER PYTEL
hpytel@snet.net CRYSTAL VELEZ
Velezcr860@gmail.com
Dr. Jin Lee is now a mother of three and lives in San Francisco. She’s the founder of two companies: LittleMeetings.com, which offers online Mandarin classes for kids under age 12, and FlourishAll.com, a holistic coaching service for women on career, relationship, and life issues. Jin is hiring interns for both startups. She’s also writing a book and hopes to get guidance from alumnae in the publishing industry. After volunteering for the Pete Buttigieg campaign in her home state of NH, Liz North Boucher decided to continue her political energy as a #Fight4HER fellow over the summer, eventually putting her career as a dietitian on hold to work on several campaigns this election cycle. The pandemic has offered her the opportunity to spend more time with her children while beginning new opportunities in political organizing. She lives in Concord, NH, with her husband, two daughters, and standard poodle puppy. Liz is excited that Amanda Kloc and her husband, Joe, are now NH residents too. Amanda relocated from VT over the summer to be closer to family.
Patricia Bugg has moved to Bristol, CT. She is engaged to be married to Arthur Richards in 2021. She and Arthur are building a home in Northfield, CT. Patricia works from home as part of the ConnectiCare Inc. marketing team. She was tickled to be included in a still frame in this year’s commercial for her company, which focused on building and raising the framework of a home with ConnectiCare and Habitat Humanity in Bristol, CT, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Heather Pytel is enjoying quarantine perhaps a little more than is generally considered acceptable, but wants to assure everyone that she does, in fact, miss you! She worked for the U.S. Census over the summer until school teaching started back up in Wolcott, CT (such as it is during a pandemic). She still teaches middle school music/ chorus and is cautiously optimistic about doing a “Zoomsical”
A YEAR LIKE NO OTHER For Dr. Alexandra Fonseca ’08, 2020 was a year of challenge, but also a year of new beginnings. Alexandra is now in her third year as a resident physician in anesthesiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital in Boston. During the height of the first wave of the COVID19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, Alexandra continued to work in the operating rooms caring for patients whose critical surgeries could not be delayed. “Anesthesiologists are actually in a higher risk group in the medical community,” Alexandra noted, because “we are the ones going directly with tubes into a patient’s respiratory pathway, where the virus can be. You definitely get the sense that you are on the front lines.” As the year progressed, however, and the number of virus cases decreased, Alexandra said, “As much as possible, we were able to return to business as usual, and we resumed more elective surgical cases.” In the midst of the pandemic, Alexandra faced another challenge, albeit a happier one: she was busy planning her October 23rd wedding to Joshua Guidon — a fellow doctor who serves in emergency services — in Newport, Rhode Island. Around the time of her wedding, however, there were signs that a second wave of the virus was returning, so she and Joshua were prepared to return to their duties. “I am so proud of my hospital and how they have handled it,” Alexandra said. “The overlying theme is to put the needs of your patients first and to keep them first, not just in terms of physical safety but also their emotional needs as well.” |
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Class Notes
with her drama club students in the spring. She still lives in Southington with her boyfriend, cat, and dog. Biz Bowen Dziarmaga is living in NYC with her husband, Jakub, and two-year-old daughter, Emma. In September she began working in the office of IBM’s new CEO.
HELPING PATIENTS DURING RECOVERY As a speech and language pathologist at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, New York, Molly Sheehan ’09 found herself at one of the COVID-19 centers serving the region, with more than 70% of its beds filled with patients battling the virus during April and May 2020. “We had to increase our ICU capacity by 200% and double our overall bed size,” Molly recalled. “As a speech pathologist, my primary concern is to assess patients to see if they have difficulty swallowing,” she said. “The majority of the patients we were seeing had trouble breathing, even requiring them to be on ventilators for several days and even weeks. The longest I saw was 26 days.” Patients who have tubes down their throats for prolonged periods of time experience weakened swallowing muscles and may lose their voices as well as sensation in their throats, which in turn weakens their cough response — normally a safety reflex. “My colleagues and I evaluate these patients to see when they may be able to safely start eating,” Molly explained. Otherwise, she added, “they can develop an aspiration pneumonia, which could further set back their progress, and is especially worrisome as these patients’ respiratory systems are already so compromised.” The first wave of COVID-19 cases eased by June, Molly noted, and by late fall the hospital was seeing an average of around 20 cases at any one time — a significant drop since the spring. But, she added, the hospital staff members were starting to have meetings to prepare for a second wave of cases. 62 | WESTOVER SCHOOL MAGAZINE
Markey Culver is currently living in Denver, CO, and continues to run The Women’s Bakery. She has hope for our future — a future that she is working with her team to make more equitable, just, and prosperous for everyone. Crystal Velez’s drive to educate is phenomenal. Despite the pandemic, Crystal has decided to return to school herself while continuing to teach chemistry and physics at Oxford High School, CT. She is working towards yet another degree, this time at Harvard for a degree in School Leadership with a focus in School Development. She recently became a member of Westover’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Taskforce where she is eager to improve the community environment and experience of Westover. However challenging, COVID’s presence has forced Sarah Cave to reexamine her priorities and goals. In September, she made the shift from Los Angeles to India again. To catch her breath, Sarah was gratefully staying with Laura Balzer and her husband Nick in Amherst, MA. Sarah also social-distance visited with Taber Lightbourne and her husband, Alan, as well as with Alice Hallaran and Tom and Tilde Hungerford. Ultimately, Sarah is working towards building world music programs for marginalized youth abroad. She is focusing on using music to cultivate not only creative expression but also self-esteem and resilience. She hopes to provide youth with a skill set to help mobilize them from poverty. Sarah also recently launched a business in music and healing. Through SoundBar, she intuitively concocts unique
improvisations (on the violin) for the client’s highest good. Sarah is excited for this next chapter and is also offering mini-trial SoundBar sessions, free to all Westover alumnae.
2006 Celebrating their 15th Reunion in 2021! MELISSA ARSENIE
melarsenie@gmail.com ALISA FORNEY
forney.alis@gmail.com ANN CASCELLA
ajcascella@gmail.com
Melissa Nalband Nesbitt recently completed a Software Engineering Immersive fellowship program and is actively looking for her first web developer/software engineer role. She and her husband Brad recently moved to Somerville, MA, and continue to enjoy long walks around Boston, hanging with their cats, and coding together. Meg North reports, “I am living in West Hartford, CT, and will graduate with my MBA from UConn in May. I’ll be sticking around the area to start a new job in June with a health insurance company. I enjoy catching up with classmates and look forward to the days we can be in-person together again!” Katherine Weiss: “Happy to share that I am now teaching at a wonderful Reggio Emilia-influenced early childhood center in Branford, CT. After 10 years in Brooklyn, it is so refreshing to be here on the Shoreline enjoying the Sound and all that the area has to offer.” Melissa Arsenie still lives in Waltham, MA, and works as a corporate event planner for Commonwealth Financial Network. 2020 brought an end to her usual travel and conference planning, but she has enjoyed the challenge of virtual events and thinking of creative ways to
Class Notes
bring people together remotely. She looks forward to reconnecting with the Class of ’06 for our 15th Reunion in 2021. Alisa Forney transitioned to a new role in IT within Bain & Company. After working for 10 years in Marketing, she is now focused on developing the internal data and analytics strategy for the firm. This includes setting up a centralized data platform to better arm senior leaders with insights to make strategic decisions. For the last three months of the year, she and her boyfriend temporarily set up shop in Chicago and traded Instagram food posts with Alyssa Smith Cochrane, who lives in the adjoining neighborhood. Otherwise, she enjoys frequent catch-ups with Melissa Arsenie, Melissa Nalband Nesbitt and Audrey Tiong. In her spare time, she serves as chair for a local non-profit, Greenlock Therapeutic Riding Center. Jen Lillian reports, “I’m a 3rd grade teacher, and I love my class. We are all figuring out this virtual education thing together. I also just went back to school to work on an ESL teaching certification.” Lawrese Brown writes, “I authored four professional skills books for my business, C-Track Training (https://ctracktraining.com/), and Ann Cascella partnered with me to edit the books. The four books: How To Speak With Confidence, A Guide To Self-Advocacy, An Introduction To Your Workplace Identity and How To Be A Successful First Time Manager, include client success stories, skill-building examples, quizzes, and workplace scenarios that address the complex interpersonal obstacles professionals experience on the job. They are available for digital download and in 2021 they’ll be available in print versions.”
2009 KAYLA HOWELL
khowell329@gmail.com CATHERINE HIN MOY AHKONG
cahkong@gmail.com REIA BROWN
Reiabrown@gmail.com
The Class of 2009 would like to hold a space for our classmate and friend, Samantha Mallette. She is very loved and dearly missed. Kayla Howell joined Teach for America and moved from CT to MS in July. She is loving teaching English remotely to her 50 absolutely amazing 4th grade students. She looks forward to the day when she can safely meet her students in person. Bridget Hinz married Harris Rosenblum on July 23, 2019, and celebrated with family and friends on October 19, 2019. Bridget has been working as a curatorial assistant at the Harvard Art Museums since 2018. She was finishing her graduate certificate in Museum Studies in December 2020 and starting her M.S. in Library and Information Science in Spring 2021.
Molly Sheehan lives in Peekskill, NY, and continues to work at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx as a Speech Language Pathologist. The hospital is currently preparing for a second COVID-19 wave. She encourages everyone to wear a mask, use proper hand hygiene and follow social distancing protocols. During the past few months, she has been enjoying catching up on her favorite shows, listening to Podcasts, and planning for future travels abroad.
41. Jenna Littmann ’09, a recent medical school graduate, at work during the pandemic 42. Emily Benoit ’20 (right) and Amanda Newberg Thomas ’03 had a chance encounter on the day of Emily’s virtual graduation! Amanda was out for a jog and saw the celebratory Westover sign and stopped by to say hello
41
Kate Truini continues to work as a professional cheesemonger and purveyor of American, farmstead dairy. Pre-COVID, she worked behind the counter at Saxelby Cheesemongers in Chelsea Market. She left the city in March, and found refuge back home in rural Litchfield County, where she spent the summer working on a vegetable farm. Kate is now in the beginning phases of starting her own mobile cheese venture, with the mission of supporting and promoting CT dairy farmers and cheesemakers (@newcurdsontheblock).
42
Jenna Littmann (finally!) finished medical school (Geisinger Commonwealth School of medicine), and is in year one of her anaesthesia residency at Westchester Medical Centre in NY (to be completed in 2024). Jenny Chen lives in Philadelphia, PA, with her husband Ian Roth, and daughter Iden Millicent Roth, born in June 2020. After maternity leave, Jenny returned to Zillow, where she’s worked the last four-plus years. Prior to Zillow, Jenny worked for The History Channel and Girls Who Code. Both avid travelers, Jenny and Ian are excited to introduce Iden to traveling once it is safe to do so again. Little does Iden know, she already hitched a ride inside mom and hiked around the Patagonia region of South America in the beginning of 2020.
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Passages
WEDDINGS
Victoria Campbell ’94
Tracy James ’90
Colette BeeBee Campbell April 2020
to Robin Sylvan March 2020
Lynda Erbs ’00 to Adam Farquharson February 2020 1
Rhiannon Rhodes ’00 to Mark Ray October 2020
2
Jada Clement ’01 to John Peter Booth August 2020
Sarah Bronko ’03 to Ben Williams June 2020
Adrienne Jones ’03 to Ian Barge August 2019
Lauren Borkowski ’07 to Chris Sordelet November 2020
Alexandra Fonseca ’08 to Joshua Guindon October 2020
Bridget Hinz ’09 to Harris Rosenblum July 2019
Sarah Boyer ’10 to RJ Thompson August 2020
Alejandra Madero ’11 to Mauricio Galan Zelaya March 2020
Emma Beaulieu ’14 to Zachary Collette July 2020 BIRTHS 3
4
Carrie Applebaum Gray Buchmann ’88 Summer Gray Buchmann May 2020
William Robert Farquharson September 2020
Jess Borchetta ’01 Zelda Reinert October 2020
Alice Yoo ’01 Cole Landon Romanoski March 2020
Lauren Brady East ’03 Robert Henry East August 2020
Sara Chaudhri Martucci ’03 Talia Roff Martucci September 2020
Hilary Davis-Kelly ’04 Liam Davis-Kelly August 2020
Lindsay Yannielli Bedoya ’04 Tessa Catherine Bedoya March 2020
Pamela Cassidy Ziegler ’05 Marie Rose Ziegler December 2020
Sarah Depaolo Elzay ’05 Odessa Elzay December 2020
Brooke Samowitz Shapiro ’05 Rayna Elise Shapiro October 2020
Mackenzie Buchanan Callahan ’06 Clare Hermione Callahan July 2020
Alyssa Smith Cochran ’06 Claire Cochran November 2020
Tatiana Fonseca DaSilva ’07 Leonardo DaSilva August 2020
Vanessa Li Hofacker ’07 1. Lynda Erbs ’00 and Adam Farquharson at their wedding in February 2020
Theodore Li Hofacker July 2020
2. Jada Clement Booth ’01 with her husband JP Booth and family members on their wedding day
Iden Millicent Roth June 2020
3. Emma Beaulieu ’14 and husband Zachary Collette on their wedding day 4. Sarah Bronko ’03 and husband Ben Williams on their wedding
64 | WESTOVER SCHOOL MAGAZINE
Lynda Erbs ’00
Jenny Chen ’09
FACULTY
Katie Leone Assistant Director of Admission Josephine Maren Leone February 2020
Passages
DEATHS
Sheila Rorick Book ’48
Georgina “Gina” Miller Bissell ’39 P’64
July 12, 2020
June 4, 2020
November 2, 2020
Marcella Phelps Chute ’39
Gladys “Gigi” Merrick Cutler ’51
May 8, 2020
Elizabeth “Lissie” Kaufman ’82 December 23, 2019
Sheila Grainger Edee ’49
FACULTY
Thomas Buchanan P’06 Assistant Business Manager (2010-2013) April 3, 2020
Anne Rogers Hawes ’39
June 9, 2020
February 13, 2020
Quita Woodward Horan ’52
Constance Lazo Tysen ’40
April 5, 2020
June 9, 2020
Barbara Ringe Ritter ’54
Jane Foote Kruse ’41
May 11, 2020
Receptionist (1975-1981) October 6, 2020
May 23, 2020
Sheila O’Connor Sevier ’55
Anita Oneglia Torizzo
Maria Randall Allen ’42 P’71
May 14, 2020
March 27, 2020
Cornelia Jordan ’57
Spanish Teacher (1964-1965) November 27, 2020
Ann Ford Morris ’44
March 29, 2020
October 16, 2020
Amy Orr Lear ’58
Suzanne Sayre McFarlane ’44
September 27, 2020
March 8, 2020
D. Michele Dubois Neff ’59
Nancy Barnes Coffin ’45
July 22, 2020
March 30, 2020
Carol Marshall Paumgarten ’62
Margaret Heard Perkins ’45
Sarah Vickery Hammett P’82
5. The wedding of Rhiannon Rhodes ’00 and Mark Ray, accompanied by Rhiannon’s sister, Lindsay Rhodes Newton ’04 6. Alice Yoo ’01 with her son Cole and husband Chris
February 1, 2020
September 24, 2020
Patsy Martin Siedler ’46
Judith Sterling Plunkett ’62
November 24, 2019
March 8, 2020
Barbara Whiting Lee ’47
Pamela Heymann Ricciardi ’67
February 20, 2020
Ellinor Robinson Mitchell ’48
5
6
7. Iden Millicent Roth, daughter of Jenny Chen ’09, born in June 2020 8. Jess Borchetta ’01 with her daughter Zelda and husband Ted Reinert
May 16, 2020
9. Talia Roff Martucci, daughter of Sara Chaudhri Martucci ’03
November 1, 2019
7
9
8
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IN MEMORY OF
MARIA RANDALL ALLEN ’42 P’71 WESTOVER’S FIRST ARCHIVIST
In recognition of Maria’s years of service as archivist, the Westover Archives were named for her upon her retirement in 2011.
By Rich Beebe
Maria began volunteering at the School in 1947 before working for a number of years in the Alumnae Office. For her valuable service to the School, Maria was presented with the Westover Award in 1986 and was the first recipient of an award named for her, The Maria Randall Allen Volunteer Service Award, in 1998.
A beloved presence at Westover for more than 60 years, Maria Randall Allen ’42 P’71, a former Director of Alumnae Affairs and a Life Member of the Alumnae Association Board of Governors, died peacefully at her home in Watertown, Connecticut, on March 27, 2020, at the age of 96. For several generations of Westover students and faculty, however, Maria was best known as Westover’s first Archivist. After establishing Westover’s Archives in the top floor of Hillard House, Maria could often be found there over the years, organizing and cataloging the School’s collection of historical materials — books, publications, records, correspondence, photographs, uniforms, and a wide range of School memorabilia, much of it donated by alumnae and their families. For decades, Maria served as a valuable resource for faculty, staff, students, and visitors seeking information about the School’s history, either by assisting them in finding the physical materials in the Archives, or by sharing facts and anecdotes drawn from her encyclopedic knowledge of the School. For many years, during the annual Founders Day celebration, Maria would give a presentation to the Westover community about some aspect of the School’s history.
Maria was born on July 21, 1923, in Riverton, New Jersey, the only child of Henry and Elizabeth Randall. A head of Wests, Maria served as Class Orator during her senior year and was an editor of The Lantern Magazine, the School’s art and literary publication. After her graduation, Maria attended Sarah Lawrence College, where she received an associate’s degree. She and her husband, Charles Brook Allen, moved to Watertown in 1954, where they shared a home until his death in 1984 after 38 years of marriage. In addition to her daughter, Heather Allen ’71, Maria is survived by a daughter-in-law, two grandchildren and their spouses, six great-grandchildren, and numerous nieces and nephews. In addition to her husband, she was predeceased by her son, Henry, and her son-in-law, Alan Wiener.
She has taken her bright lantern and gone Into another room I cannot find. But anyone can tell where she has been By all the little lights she left behind. Anonymous
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A TRANSFORMATIONAL GIFT: ALISON KIMBALL BRADFORD ’44 STUDENT COMMONS By Rich Beebe
This year, Westover's Student Commons was named in memory of the late Alison Kimball Bradford ’44. Following Alison’s death on July 11, 2018, Westover received a bequest of $1 million from her in the form of a Charitable Remainder Annuity Trust. We spoke with Alison’s daughter, Gigi Bradford Stanford ’70, about the role Westover played in Alison’s life and her mother’s decision to make a significant gift to the School.
What would you say Westover meant to your mother, and how do you think her Westover experience shaped her future life? Gigi: Westover helped her to grow into the person she wanted to be and supported her in helping form her interests in life. Westover nurtured her love of poetry, as well as mine. We both served as Editor of The Lantern. She also made very good friends — lifelong friends — at the School.
Why was it important for your mother to leave a legacy bequest to Westover? Gigi: My mother’s bequest served as a financial planning tool, suggested to her by her financial advisors. She wanted her legacy bequest to help Westover continue to grow and thrive.
Your mother was one of the student heads of school. If she were able to sit down and talk to one of the student heads today, what do you think they might talk about? Gigi: I think my mother would want to know how the School is moving forward, about the changes the School is going through, and how it is meeting the needs of the young women of today, which are radically different from what her needs were when she was a student at Westover during World War II. My mother wouldn’t want to think of the School as becoming ossified, as not having changed. She would not want to leave a bequest to an institution because she thought it was going to just glorify the past. I think my mother would have expected Westover to use those funds to move the School forward to meet the needs of students today.
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A FAMILY LEGACY Gigi Bradford Stanford ’70, daughter of Alison Kimball Bradford ’44, talked about the impact Westover School had on their family throughout the history of the School. By Rich Beebe
Westover has been part of your family for generations. What was it like for you and your mother to share that common experience with other women in your extended family? Gigi: My mother valued not just her own experience at Westover, but also those of so many family members — her mother (Esther Ward Kimball ’1918), her aunt (Alison Ward Burdick ’31), her sister (Cynthia Kimball Hoagland ’42), and other relatives (Cynthia Burdick Patterson ’60, Kim Hoagland ’69, and Emmy Ward Neilson ’81) — who had attended the School. When we look back at photographs, share memories, and reflect on our experiences, we realize there is a legacy that is multigenerational. We all had been students at different times in the same building. We found ourselves comparing how the unis had changed over the years, and we talked about the different mascots and class songs — we all joke about how we sang to trees while we were students there! And so, it definitely was a bonding experience over the generations for our family. That sense of history — that sense of young women growing into themselves over the years and going ahead into life — I think that was important to my mother, my grandmother, my aunts, and my cousins. It certainly was a part of my history, a part of my growing up, and I am sure my mother felt the same way.
The Alison Kimball Bradford ’44 Student Commons has become an important campus location. In a typical year, it serves as a vibrant center for Westover girls to gather and build friendships. At any given moment, students would be working on group projects, holding a study session, playing a game, or enjoying a smoothie. It’s a space that represents what Westover is: a school that helps enrich the lives of students and empower a community of authentic voices. Despite the need to maintain safe physical distances and prevent gatherings because of COVID-19, the Student Commons remains an important part of Westover’s campus for the 2020-2021 school year. Because of its large size and vaulted ceilings, this room has played a crucial role in helping Westover safely bring day students back to campus. During the fall semester, it was transformed into a hub for seniors with individual desk areas placed six feet apart. The dining hall staff also set up a lunch line in the Student Commons to allow students and faculty to take their meals to go. The renovation of the Student Commons has created a multipurpose room that allowed the School to meet many changing needs. These important campus renovations would not have been possible without such generous philanthropic support. Westover is grateful for the tremendous impact Alison made and thankful for each and every Hillard Society member who has chosen to make a difference at Westover through a planned gift.
68 | WESTOVER SCHOOL MAGAZINE
Leave your legacy. JOIN THE HILLARD SOCIETY.
Making a planned gift is a rewarding and meaningful way to contribute to Westover’s future. Membership in the Hillard Society allows Westover to thank you and celebrate your legacy now and always. Join over 300 alumnae who have shown their support with a planned gift.
www.westoverlegacy.org
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Robin Smith Melvin ’80
Izukanne Emeagwali ’01
Trustee and Co-Chair, Board of Trustees’ DEI Task Force
Trustee and Co-Chair, Board of Trustees’ DEI Task Force
ALUMNAE LEADERSHIP OF WESTOVER’S DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION WORK Westover is committed to incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as part of the very fabric of the School’s culture.
Alicia Lyttle ’94 Governor and Co-Chair, Board of Governors’ Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee
The Board of Trustees has partnered with the Alumnae Association Board of Governors and the Westover community in this important work to establish a framework where DEI is central to our ability to support Westover’s mission to “Empower young women to lead lives of consequence.” In that effort, the Board of Trustees has created a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force co-chaired by trustees Robin Smith Melvin ’80 and Izukanne Emeagwali ’01. The Task Force has been assisting in the creation of a school-wide vision and implementation strategy for DEI work at Westover, ensuring alignment of this vision with our mission, values, and strategic priorities. The Task Force is also designing accountability frameworks for leadership and board oversight, grounded in clearly established metrics. A critical information source for this work will be students' voices and feedback. The DEI Task Force is engaging with students to better understand the student experience both in and out of the classroom.
Melissa Franqui ’97 Governor and Co-Chair, Board of Governors’ Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee
The Alumnae Association Board of Governors has created a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee of the Board. The committee is chaired by Alicia Lyttle '91 and Melissa Franqui '97 and will focus on alumnae support for and engagement with our diverse alumnae community. If you have questions or would like to offer your input regarding these DEI efforts, please feel free to contact Robin, Izukanne, or Alicia at alumnae@westoverschool.org.
70 | WESTOVER SCHOOL MAGAZINE
Westover is such a unique place where young women learn to fulfill their own potential. I owe so much of who I am now to what I learned there. I want to ensure that future generations have the same opportunity. Maria Petrone '91
Westover played a huge role in my development as a person, and I want to pass on this gift to the young women coming behind me. Janet Sykes '08
Your gift to the Westover Fund truly matters. Each donation benefits Westover students directly, and the collaborative support from alumnae, parents, and friends helps make the Westover experience possible. To make your gift to the 2020-2021 Westover Fund, please visit westoverschool.org/donate or use the enclosed envelope.
Thank you!
The Alumnae and Development Student Ambassadors thank you for supporting the Westover Fund.
FPO
1237 Whittemore Road Middlebury, CT 06762 203.758.2423 | westoverschool.org