PHILLIPS
Blake Flint 1762 Bay St., #401 Sarasota FL 34236-7751 941-955-9396 cbflint@comcast.net
Brad Murphy did not attend the reunion this year, as it conflicted with another family gathering. Since Brad has been our regular returnee, it may be that no one from our class attended. Brad and his wife, Margaret, are doing well and celebrated their 60th anniversary in September 2014. They have nine grandchildren but no great-grandchildren as yet. Brad and I did some reminiscing. We were both very fond of Latin and history instructor R.I.W. “Bill” Westgate and his wife, Sheila, whom we came to know as good friends. We recalled the Latin play, which Dr. Westgate originated and which became an annual event for many years. And don’t forget the hurricane of September 1938 or the terrifying wails of “Kali-i-i,” which sent the faculty into something akin to apoplexy. Bill Casey is in independent living at a continuing care facility. He spends his days reading and monitoring his investments. He is proud of his grandson, who was selected to work with a very prestigious group in Sweden working on the “origins of life.” His granddaughter, having excelled in tennis and played the circuit for several years, turned her attention to skiing. She was on the U.S. Ski Team and is now a senior executive with a Sierra Nevada ski group. Best of all, she calls her grandfather every single day! George Gibbs is doing well, still playing club tennis three times a week. His wife, Sally, fell and broke her hip and now gets around with a walker, whereas George does not even use a cane. Their daughter and granddaughter have moved in with them and are a great help. George spoke about the movie Earthlings, which deals with animal cruelty. It impressed George so much that he became a vegan. George and Sally have three great-grandchildren—two living in Michigan and one in the Marines, back from a tour in Afghanistan. Sad news: Jack Cuthbertson died on May 25, 2014. Jack was beloved by his classmates as a warm, selfless, and altogether charming human being. They elected him president of the lower middle class, president of the upper middle class, and president of the senior class. Jack was on the varsity football, basketball, and baseball teams. He was president of the student council and found time to be in the choir, the glee club, and the Latin club. After Andover, Jack went to Amherst then served in the U.S. Army Air Forces, rising to the rank of captain. Following the war, Jack was president of Plummer’s, a family-owned retailer in NYC. After a stint at Xerox as a senior sales executive, he moved into real estate, which became his consummate love. He headed the Cape Cod Board of Realtors and then moved to Naples, Fla., where he continued his real estate career for many years. It was a joy to know Jack. R.I.P.
58
Andover | Winter 2015
1941 PHILLIPS
[Editor’s note: William Cochran has stepped down from his role as class secretary. The Academy greatly appreciates his service. Any member or members of the Class of 1941 interested in taking on the class secretary position should contact Laura MacHugh at lmachugh@andover.edu or 978-749-4289. The Academy has received word that Harvey M. Kelsey Jr. passed away on July 30, 2014. Please see his obituary in the In Memoriam section.]
1942 ABBOT
Ann Taylor Debevoise Pinnacle Farm 222 Daniel Cox Road Woodstock VT 05091-9723 802-457-1186 Ann.T.Debevoise@valley.net
[Editor’s note: The Academy has received word that Rose Wind Stone passed away on Sept. 16, 2014. Please see her obituary in the In Memoriam section.]
PHILLIPS Robert K. Reynolds 185 Southern Blvd. Danbury CT 06810 203-743-0174 rreynolds06@snet.net
It seems strange writing class notes for the winter of 2015 in summer of 2014, but we have a long lead time that must be observed. In my fall notes I mentioned that in June I appeared in a video filmed in Portland, Maine, about the Depression of the 1930s, having qualified because I lived through the Depression and have clear memories of it. The video is scheduled for release in April, and although it will have limited distribution, I can report that my performance was outstanding. For those of you who feel that your advanced age prevents you from making any more contributions to society, I am living proof that you are never too old. I recently learned of the death of John Russell Treadwell on Feb. 16, 2014. John was a graduate of West Point and received a master’s degree from Princeton. After teaching social sciences at West Point and at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., he retired from the military and was vice president of United Brands in New York. His survivors include two daughters,
three grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and a brother, James. He was entombed at West Point. Back in August, I received an e-mail from Jack Raymond thanking me for sending him a copy of my essay on our senior year at Andover. His memory is better than mine, and he recalls that at the student assembly in George Washington Hall on December 8, the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a sound system was set up so that we could all listen to President Roosevelt’s address to Congress requesting a declaration of war against Japan. Jack recently contributed to the Library of Congress his collection of some 20,000 audio recordings—music from American and European stage and screen musicals dating from the 1890s to the present. It’s nice to be able to leave one’s footprints in the sands of time. Also in August I received a nice letter from Al Raphael, currently living in North Andover. He recalls that on Dec. 7, 1941, he was reading Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy. “Singularly appropriate,” he says, “since I was not disturbed by the war until I got to Yale,” from which he was drafted into the field artillery and became a gunner on a 155 howitzer. He credits the Andover typewriting course with allowing him to do reasonably well at Yale and Harvard Law, his penmanship then and now being indecipherable. Al and his late wife, Dorothy, lived for 30 years in Vermont (near Sugarbush ski area), where he practiced law, skied, golfed, and traveled. His son, Bruce Raphael ’81, is a PA graduate, and his grandson, William Raphael ’18, has just begun his junior year at Andover, making three generations of Raphaels attending or having attended Andover. I’m saddened to report that Lane McGovern died on July 31, 2014. After graduating from Andover, he attended Harvard briefly then served in the U.S. Army 742nd Tank Battalion for three years during WWII. Returning to Harvard, he graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, then earned a JD cum laude from Harvard Law School. His distinguished career as an attorney included arguing cases before the United States Supreme Court. In addition to his wife, Ann McGovern, his survivors include four daughters and seven grandchildren. On a happy note, congratulations to Jack Power and his wife, Lee, who celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary back in June 2014 in Port Charlotte, Fla. Jack served in the Navy during WWII. He and his wife raised eight children— probably a class record. He was last on campus in 2012 to watch his granddaughter, Hannah Beinecke ’12, play on the field hockey team. Our surviving members are dwindling in number. I have a copy of our class day exercises from June 11, 1942, which lists 296 graduates. Of those, 247 have died, including five in WWII, leaving 49 living members, a 17 percent survival rate.