stay connected... Linda Gilbert Cooper also began the new year in a party spirit, though for a different reason. Her son, Kevin, married his fiancée, Lauren Brophy, on Jan. 11 in a spectacular setting overlooking New York Harbor and the Statue of Liberty. Both Kevin and his bride are completing their third year of law school, and both are already set with positions when they graduate. Among the wedding guests were Kevin’s aunts, Sally Cooper ’73 and Dana Halsted ’75, his sister, Anna Cooper ’98, and our own Joy Beane Brieant. Jessica Straus wrote to say that she couldn’t join our New Hampshire party because she was headed south instead, to Peru to install an exhibition with fellow artists from Boston Sculptors Gallery at the Saint Dominic Priory Qorikancha Museum in Cusco. Jessica is taking carved and painted ears of corn to this former Incan temple, which originally housed a life-size field of corn made of gold, alas subsequently melted down by raiding Spaniards. Linda Calvin has been partying in Washington, D.C., in an altogether more genteel way. To celebrate the start of a new season of Downton Abbey (!), she got out her best china and invited friends to an English tea party. Alice Sweeney Miller came along, which was just as well, because someone has got to keep up standards. Lady Miller scoffed at a Harrods cookbook’s suggestion that whipped cream could be served with scones and sent Linda out for the proper clotted stuff, enjoyed by all. Linda also mentioned that she had seen Chris Pollard ’71 last fall. She and Chris grew up in the same little U.S. Steel company town in Venezuela, and they met at a reunion held regularly in Orlando, Fla., for those who lived in the town when the mine was operating. Chris is now a lawyer, living in Texas. If all this party talk has got you in the mood, then start thinking about September, when Missy Baird is hoping to organize a much bigger version of our February get-together, probably in or near Andover. Date and details tbc, but let Missy or me know if you have any ideas of how we can carry on celebrating together the end of our sixth decade on Earth.
PHILLIPS Tom Rawson P.O. Box 1361 Eastsound WA 98245 206-632-8248 tomrawson@spamcop.net
No doubt the passing of Jack Richards, dean of students during our tenure at PA, will be covered extensively elsewhere in this journal. It merits a mention in this column. Much has been said over the years about the trials we faced attending Andover at a turbulent time in its history. Perhaps not as much attention has been given to the challenges faced by the educators who were charged with helping us keep our moral compasses aimed at true north while society at large could not agree on what qualified as moral. Mr. Richards had the unenviable
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task of bringing the social and academic structure of student life at PA into line with late-20th-century America while simultaneously keeping a check on our adolescent impulses. He performed these thankless duties with grace and compassion. Tony Hewett attended the memorial for Mr. Richards in December and sent the following account: “The chapel was packed, and the service featured some of the great luminaries of our time. Carroll Bailey looked good but definitely slowing down a bit. Joe Wennik ’52 and wife Inga both looked like they could run a marathon. The highlight for me in terms of our years was seeing Hale Sturges. He and Jack Richards shared strikingly parallel lives: both were sons of boarding school teachers, both attended Harvard, both ran track, and both taught at PA for four decades. Hale gave the remembrance, and in his very perceptive remarks referred to our years as the ‘protest’ years, during which ‘a dean of students was to the student body like a fire hydrant is to a dog.’ The place exploded in laughter. Other members of the Andover community spoke, as did Jack’s wife, children, and grandchildren. All in all, a wonderful event. I especially wanted to attend because ‘Jack Dick’ is one of the few people in my life whose true wisdom in decision making I can truly say had a profound impact on my life—meaning that early in spring term our senior year, after an unidentified individual had been spotted walking across campus with shopping bags full of beer, there I was in Dean Richards’s office, a proctor at Will Hall with a mustache and long hair that made me look about 23 years old, literally sweating bullets… because he knew I had bought the beer and I knew he knew, but he had the wisdom not to throw out of school an immature 17-year-old kid just trying to be ‘cool.’ My only regret the day of the memorial was missing a chance to catch up with Sam Butler— just as the service started I saw him on the other side of the chapel but couldn’t find him before I left.… That’s the way it’s always been for me with Sam— he’s always just a step ahead of me.” Big thanks to Tony for chronicling this event. Our condolences to the Richards family and our gratitude to Jack Richards for his service as dean, history instructor, and track coach. Doug Westberg reports from Vancouver, Wash.: “Had an unbelievably perfect Christmas party with all four kids and their partners. Between this and my 60th birthday party, I’m feeling like Jimmy Stewart in the last scene of It’s A Wonderful Life. No exaggeration. I don’t know what God’s name is anymore but I know there is one and I’m grateful to her.” Doug is empty-nesting with longtime partner and relatively new wife Carol Holden, is currently working on a career as a freelance writer/editor, and has written several books, including The Depressed Guy’s Book of Wisdom. He hasn’t abandoned his musical ambitions and would take a regular little piano-bar job in a heartbeat. Checking in from Woods Hole, Mass., Toby Lineaweaver tells me he has recently reunited with his one true love, Penikese Island and its school for troubled boys. Penikese closed in 2011, temporarily
forcing Toby in another career direction—battling on the front lines of the opiate addiction epidemic— while Penikese’s board entertained various suitors to partner with and get Penikese going again. In early 2013, Penikese successfully entered into a relationship with a top-notch New Hampshire–based nonprofit, Becket Family of Services, to repurpose Penikese as a substance-abuse treatment program for adolescents and brought Toby back to kick the island back into gear for an April 2014 reopening. While all this hectic stuff is going on, Toby continues to raise and adore his three sons, play his signature brand of porous goal in hockey, and quest for the meaning of life, just like the rest of us. In other PA ’72 hockey goalie news, Bruce Poliquin hopes to join the United States Congress as the representative from Maine’s 2nd district. He is running for the Republican nomination for this open seat. The National Republican Congressional Committee sees the race as a rare opportunity for the GOP to pick up a seat in blue New England. Bruce is one of 36 candidates nationwide listed as “on the radar” by the NRCC, and his campaign is generating much interest with Republican groups both in and out of Maine. Bruce served two years as Maine state treasurer, and he is well known and admired throughout the state. After running for governor in 2010 and senator in 2012 (when he just missed getting the GOP nod), Bruce is hoping that the third time is a charm for the June 10 primary. I know I speak for many PA ’72ers across the political spectrum in wishing Bruce good luck in his race and success in helping to break political gridlock if he is selected by the voters of Maine to represent them in Congress. So, if you’re in Maine—or anywhere else—don’t forget to vote. Democracy works when we all participate. I learned that from Mr. Allis.
1973 ABBOT
Jane Cashin Demers 43 Morton St. Andover MA 01810 978-470-1684 (home) 978-502-8733 (cell) jane.demers@gmail.com Noreen Markley 783 Wooddale Road Bloomfield Village MI 48301-2468 248-645-0536 noreenmarkley@aol.com Marcia B. McCabe 10 W. 66th St., Apt. 22B New York NY 10023 917-796-1594 mbmg55@gmail.com
Last year was a year of reunions! Catherine “Cathy” Armsden shared news of a West Coast mini reunion in December. Cathy, Molly Prescott Porter, and Cornelia “Connee” Petty Young