C L AS S NOTES
disappointed. • Last October, I invited Fred Rice and his lady friend, Teresa, to dinner at our rental home in the Sea Pines Plantation of Hilton Head Island, S.C. Fred and Teresa have bought a retirement home in Sun City Hilton Head, a gated retirement community, where they plan to spend the winter months away from Maine. We expect to see Fred and Teresa at our 65th reunion. • Toni Browning Smiley and her daughter, Sim, are inveterate travelers. They were both in the south of France last summer visiting a friend in Grasse, the perfume capital of the world. They later traveled to Nice, where the super-rich keep their mega-yachts. Sim lives near Toni in Washington, D.C., is fluent in Italian, and works as a translator for the State Department. In January 2018, Toni and Sim traveled to Panama to visit Toni’s former husband, Robert. He has a coffee farm on a volcano, where one can see both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. Toni still maintains her thriving CPA business in downtown D.C., specializing in IRS tax work for her many clients. She has been a great assistance to me in my ongoing travails with the IRS. • Jim Fannin and his wife, Minxie, received the 40th Annual Massachusetts Preservation Award for the work they’ve done over the past 30 years in preserving historic burial grounds. They have worked on over 60 historic cemeteries over the years, located mostly in New England. Jim promises to be at our 65th reunion. • Susie
Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at the Northfield School for Girls in the fall of 1952, when he was a doctoral student at Boston University and not yet widely known to the public for his civil rights leadership.
Antonia Post Fiske ’53 says, “I was electrified
by his talk, and that day at lunch and dinner in Merrill-Keep, we talked of nothing else. In 20 minutes, [King] converted me to pacifism!”
Alumnae of the classes of ’53, ’54, and ’55: Do you remember Dr. King’s visit to Northfield? Fiske believes it probably took place on a Wednesday, when “current affairs talks” were held during chapel. Barbara Clough ’29, a Quaker, had just become headmistress. If you have any recollections of this day, we’d love to hear them. Send us an email at nmhmagazine@nmhschool.org. We hope to hear from you!
Craig Hastings, Debby Brown Boots, and I were hoping that Cathy Olney Irzyk could join us on Hilton Head Island in the winter months, but she wanted to stay close to her old family homestead in Dunstable, Mass., in case any winter storms cause damage. Cathy was also planning to travel to the West Coast to visit her daughter and friends during March. • Ann Newman Sundt and Ed Sundt’s daughter, Hannah, will graduate in May from the Naval Academy in Annapolis and plans to attend medical school, all paid for by the U.S. Navy. She will then become a ship’s surgeon for the Navy. We look forward to seeing Ann and Ed at our 65th reunion, as they’ve always been loyal returning alums. • Ralph Perry and his wife, Betsy, will attend our reunion, as will Phil McKean. Betsy is a professor of Spanish history at Claremont College in California. Ralph, Phil, and their respective wives spent time together at the Hunting Gardens in Los Angeles. Phil and Deborah Adams McKean ’56 live in Claremont, Calif., in the winter months and in Cushing, Maine, in the summer months. • Dave Jansky is still active, particularly in serving as an umpire in women’s softball leagues. There is a major tournament held every year in Harrisburg, Penn., that he enjoys. He regularly attends the “Jansky Lectures,” honoring his father, who is considered the father of radio astronomy. The lectures are held each year at the University of Virginia. Dave sees his old roommate, Jay
Toni Browning Smiley ’54 and Lady Champagne
Crawford, on occasion, as Jay lives in Lexington, Va. Dave looks forward to being at our reunion. • Your loyal scribe delivered his last yacht from New Jersey to Portsmouth, R.I., in August 2018. It was a tough, slow trip on a very old sailboat. I also took my last cruise on the coast of Maine, having sailed it since 1972. I sailed with my lifelong friend and another person from the local yacht club, departing Manchester-by-the Sea, Mass., and going on the Saint John River in New Brunswick, Canada. Everyone should at some time in their life tour the coast of Maine; it is just beautiful and the lobsters are so good. • My youngest grandson, Logan, will graduate from NMH in May. He is committed to attending Colorado College. • Thank you all so much for your generous contributions to the McVeigh Scholarship Fund. We established the fund at our 45th reunion to honor our beloved cross-country and track coach and French teacher, Fred McVeigh. We started with pledges of about $33,000 at our 45th reunion. As of December 2018, the book value of the fund is $195,101. The book value is the amount of money we have all contributed. The market value of the fund, which is invested and fluctuates, is now $208,327! The scholarship supplies roughly $10,000 of student financial support. Every year, we receive a nice thank-you letter from a scholarship recipient. The scholarship is open to anyone, but preference is given to students who run on either the girls’ or the boys’ cross-country or track teams. So, stay healthy, eat wisely, and get plenty of exercise, and we’ll meet again in June. Save the date!
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Northfield Mount Hermon Lisa Tuttle Edge etedge@aol.com • Don Freeman d.freeman4@verizon.net From Don: Sherry and Mike Carter have a grandson who is a senior engineering major at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. • Judy and Ben Lindfors have moved — contact me to get their new address in Austin,
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