stay connected... Hotchkiss, and St. Paul’s. Well over half of all Yalies had attended private school. “Compare with a more current four-year period: PA still served as one of the top five feeders (tied for first place) but at a much diminished levels— now down to just over 40 entrants across the four years, a number not much different from those of the other four top feeders (still including Exeter). Today, not even one in 100 Yale students would have entered from PA. And the two Phillips schools added together wouldn’t even make up 2 percent of the population. Well over half of students now come from the public school system. Interestingly, in the last tally the other top feeder school, tied with Andover, was Harvard-Westlake, in the LA area, I believe. Good-bye to Eastern domination.” Einar continues, “Of course, one of the illustrious PA grads ‘fed’ to Yale was our own Bill Hamilton, who roomed with fellow ’58ers Lije Hubbard and Steve Ripley in his years there. “Fast forward about 54 years to the Yale Class of ’62’s 50th reunion, with Bill leaving a special lasting memento. The official tote bag provided to class members for accumulating our swag celebrating the occasion was prominently emblazoned with an iconic Bill Hamilton cartoon—making this item an instant collectible, now of course carrying even greater significance. It all brought back memories of his inestimable graphic contributions to the PA ’58 yearbook, on whose editorial team I toiled. “Would that Bill were still with us, as now one can only speculate about what he might have dreamed up a couple of years down the line for a tote bag commemorating our Andover 60th Reunion. Riccardo Boehm writes, “For the past eight years I have become more and more active in my Rotary Club in Palm Beach, FL. I am currently the president and trying to do good works in the world. “My club is one of several that help sponsor a remarkable school in the jungle on the Rio Dulce near Livingston, on the Caribbean coast of Guatemala. Ak’ Tenamit is a boarding high school for 500 students, both boys and girls. I have visited the school several times and always return amazed at what they are achieving. “The students are very poor indigenous Maya from all over Guatemala, with a number of local Garifuna kids as well. They graduate with a high school diploma and with internship experience in tourism and community development. Almost all of the graduates are employed or continue their studies at a university. They are able to support their families and don’t make the dangerous journey to the United States. “Education and a sense of self-worth are particularly important for the girls. They might otherwise get pregnant at a very young age and face a life of child bearing, child care, cooking, washing clothes, and having few opportunities to earn money for their families.
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www.andover.edu/intouch “I recently spent a month in the beautiful Lake Atitlan area in the highlands of Guatemala. Unfortunately, the lake is becoming more and more polluted, which is tragic for the lives of people who live around the lake. This will result in even greater health problems and lead to the destruction of a major income-producing tourist destination. I am starting to work with some organizations that are trying to help save the lake. I am very pleased that I can still do some of these things, even if at an increasingly slower pace. I only went to PA for a year, but non sibi became a part of my life.”
1959 ABBOT
Nathalie Taft Andrews 2407 Ransdell Ave. Louisville KY 40204 502-459-5715 dulcie@iglou.com
Over the summer I received a letter from Steven Ritchie informing me of his Aunt Shirley’s death in April. Shirley Ritchie passed away on April 2, 2016, shortly after her 92nd birthday. She was buried at Ewing Cemetery, Ewing, NJ, with honor as a Navy service member and reservist during WWII. Steven wrote, “Although she was failing and required additional support during the last 10 months, she never failed at being enthusiastic, cheerful, and kind. All who met her enjoyed her company and she theirs. We lost our mother to cancer in 1990, and Shirley became our surrogate mother for her remaining life. She was involved in our daily lives and enriched them beyond belief. We will miss her dearly.” As shall we. As you all know, Susie Goodwillie Stedman and David Othmer ’59 organized a 75th birthday celebration for our combined classes in August. David and Maureen Othmer hosted the party at their farm in New London, PA, on the hottest August 13 on record! Duncan Moose Whittome, Jean Roundy Sullivan, and Susie had a jolly good time while the rest of us who couldn’t get away stayed home. The ladies looked pretty good in their swim attire as they lounged by the pool. Then, in a recent exchange of emails, Goodwillie revealed the following: “Guests through Sept. 12, then I take off on the 18th for nearly a month in Italy and the UK with a dear old pal/new love.” Sounds like fun! Well, as they used to say in Looney Tunes: “That’s all, folks.”
PHILLIPS David Othmer 4220 Spruce St. Philadelphia PA 19104 215-387-7824 davidothmer@aol.com
By the time you get this copy of Andover, we’ll be close to the end of celebrating our 75th—and some 76th and 74th, and of course, one 73rd—birthdays, and what a great celebration it’s been. But more important, what a great three-quarters of a century it’s been! When we got to Andover there were no commercial jet airplanes, no transistor radios, no color TV, no birth-control pills, no hints of what was coming just a decade later; the only computers filled entire floors of buildings, and the only phones were inexorably tethered to a wall. But not everything has changed: When we were born, the U.S. was at war; while we were at Andover we were at war; and…we’re still at war. In 2011, thanks to efforts by Susie Stedman ’59, Tina Treadwell ’59, Bill Bell, and Lee Webb, a bunch of us gathered in Maine, braved Hurricane Irene, and celebrated our 70ths. We repeated the party this summer at Maureen’s and my farm— formerly vineyard!—in southeastern Pennsylvania, and on a glorious, not-a-cloud-in-the sky day, Joyce and Peter Moock, Susan and Quinn Rosefsky, Susan and John Smith, Susie Stedman, Lee Webb and Susan Petersmeyer, Susan’s sister Nancy, and Duncan Moose Whittome ’59 all enjoyed the weather and each other’s company to celebrate our 75th. The party was remarkable because we all have so much to say to each other, because we all have had such varied, interesting, and challenging lives, and because so little of what was said was about our PA or AA days, yet all of it was, in one way or another, formed by those days. So it’s been a remarkable 75 years, and thanks to you all for being a part of the year-long party. Lex Rieffel was in Myanmar/Burma for a month this summer to lecture and lead discussions about economic development with students, business leaders, and government officials. His visit was funded by his classmates and other U.S. taxpayers via the State Department’s Fulbright Specialist Program. He is now in his 15th year as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where his policy research has focused on Myanmar’s economy for the past seven years. Lex also played a key role in the 10th Anniversary Forum of the Building Bridges Coalition (BBC), held at Brookings on June 14. The BBC is the association of U.S.-based international volunteer-sending organizations and grew out of work Lex did at Brookings in 2005. The keynote speaker in June was General Stanley McChrystal, who chairs the Service Year Alliance. SYA is working to make a year of national service as much a part of growing up in America as going to high school. BBC is partnering with SYA to certify international volunteer
programs that will be eligible for SYA support. You should be hearing a lot more about SYA in the months and years ahead, and there will be ways you can help to make it succeed. Lex continues, “Next January and February, my wife, Alaire, and I will be teaching a course in global economics at a startup liberal arts college in Yangon. Myanmar/Burma is in the midst of a historic political transition led by democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi [who, as I write these notes in mid-September, is dining with President Obama at the White House! Who’d a thunk it?]. The challenges she faces in this task are monumental, perhaps greater than those facing any other leader in modern history, including Nelson Mandela. A big question is whether outside pressures, including those from the USA, are making her job easier or harder. My conclusion from all the evidence I have gathered is toward the harder side. I might add that the time to visit this country is now, before it has been ‘spoiled’ by modernity like all the other Asian countries.” Bill Anderson reported, “My son, Spencer, and his wife and two young children live in Hong Kong. He has been working for the Reuters office there (he used to be with them in London) for 20 months as a journalist, writing about Asian debt. This winter will be our third trip to see them there.” Bill will try to connect with John Charlton when he’s in Hong Kong. Finally, another AA ’59er, Connie Laurence Brinckerhoff, received the Andover Alumni Award of Distinction. Susie Goodwillie Stedman was honored a couple of years ago.
1960 ABBOT
Virginia P. Agar 41 Dix Point Road Bernard ME 04612 207-266-1705 virginiaagar@gmail.com
Greetings! Work, friendship, families, travel, and health appear to be our priorities going into 2017! We lost our classmate Marcia Saliba Newcomb in February 2011. Marcia and I were at Pike School together in Andover; she was always so helpful with our Abbot alumnae duties. Cyndy Smith Bailes writes that she has a new position as finance director for her local Habitat for Humanity organization. Family, competitive bridge, six cats, and travel occupy her time! Jane English has sent us her news via email with her three websites, www.eheart. com, www.cesareanvoices.com, and www.the ceremonycards.com. Lynne Furneaux Clark writes that husband Dave is “not doing well.” Hannah Jopling writes that she is “teaching race and ethnicity at Fordham, and also organizing
adjuncts on campus to demand better work conditions.” Hannah has recently enjoyed visits with Phyllis Ross Schless, Aida Sharabati Shawwaf, and Mary Feldblum. Mary, she says, “is the executive director of the largest and most diverse coalition in the history of New Mexico, the Health Security for New Mexicans Campaign. Their website is www.nmhealthsecurity.org.” Susan Lothrop Koster says that www.home exchange.com is her “two cents” of news. She and her husband are enjoying their 12th “exchange” this fall in New Zealand! Her meaningful reading is the book When Breath Becomes Air, by Paul Kalanithi. “It is one of the most powerful books I have read in a long while,” she writes. Mary-Candace Mize has finished writing her historic novel, The Flypaper Witch. Now she needs a publisher! Charlotte Palmer Moreno greets us with, “Best wishes to you all; keep happy and safe.” Sarah von der Heyde Richards reports that “after 40 years as a primary care pediatrician working with the poor, immigrants, and refugees, I retired! I do miss the people, my patients, their families, and my colleagues. I have been traveling this year to Australia, New Zealand, the Canadian Rockies, Kenya, and Tanzania. I welcomed my ninth grandchild on Valentine’s Day. Being a grandmother is wonderful!” Phyllis Ross Schless adds to her previous comments regarding the merger of Abbot and Andover in 1973. From the meeting of the Brace Center for Gender Studies, which Phyllis and I attended in April 2016 on the Abbot campus, Phyllis adds that “during and after the merger, the arts are the arena where the initial coordination of the schools occurred, where the union of the schools is especially effective, and where Abbot has a strong and lasting legacy at Andover.” Aida Sharabati Shawwaf tells us most of her time is spent “working to support two foundations that are very close to my heart. One is the U.S.-based public charity Friends of Kayany, which supports schools for Syrian refugee children in Lebanon.” Its website is www.friendsofkayany.org. Maggie Elsemore Sipple writes, “Both our children are now working in international schools. Matthew is beginning his first year as director of the International School in Riga, Latvia; Alice and her husband have taken new jobs outside of Cairo, Egypt, in the American International School.” Kathy Stevens is reading Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. She writes, “We have been reflecting on how fortunate we are to have choices about how and where we live during our 70s and 80s. Otherwise, like everyone else, we are downsizing our possessions, doting on our grandchildren, and reconnecting with neglected old friends.” Kathy and I had a great visit in Andover in June after I was finished with my interview project at the SHED Children’s Campus on our former Abbot campus. Dorothy Tod has had a tough bout of Lyme disease. However, through antibiotics and magnets,
she has conquered the ill effects. She too is involved with the downsizing of possessions. Family and community are positives for her. Cally Sherman Williams writes, “Our oldest granddaughter graduated from a Dallas suburb high school.” Cally is all set for the next reunion, asking, “Where shall we go?” Joyce Matteis Wilson writes that the three roommates are still in touch. Joyce saw Andie Valkenburgh Smith on Cape Cod for a bowl of clam chowder and met Annie Kales Howson in San Francisco for a Giants game. Annie continues to travel extensively. She writes, “Jeff and I have traveled many times with Overseas Adventure Travel. We especially enjoyed the Southern Africa trip with the Capetown extension, Patagonia, the boat trip to Cape Horn, and Turkey (Turquoise Coast).” My news from Mount Desert Island, ME, continues to be positive: house and property on the market, family doing well in Arizona and California, health stable. My favorite read recently has been Peter Barton’s Not Fade Away: A Short Life Well Lived. Thanks to each of you for your contributions to our class news! —Ginny
PHILLIPS Mike Burlingame 111 North Sixth St., Apt. 301 Springfield IL 62701 217-206-7364 (work) 217-299-9306 (cell) mburl50@gmail.com
I regret to report that Roger Hardy died. After spending most of his career in Connecticut working for Travelers Insurance, he retired to Wolfeboro, NH, where he quietly passed away last January with his family at his side. Eight months later, the wife of Dick Leete (née Jean Frances Markella) also died, two days after she and Dick celebrated their 51st anniversary. Speaking of anniversaries, in the marriagelongevity sweepstakes, we have a photo finish: Mike O’Brien nosed out John Doak by six days! Mike reports that “Vana and I celebrated our 52nd anniversary on August 22. We spent the weekend camping at a pretty little lake in the Cascades.” John reports that on August 28 he and Ann celebrated their 52nd! John adds, “Meeting Ann at a Wheelock mixer was the best thing I got out of four years at Harvard, and marrying her was probably the best thing I ever did.” They have two children and five grandchildren. After a long stint in business, John reinvented himself as a mechanical engineer. In 2006, he began designing a lightweight, folding, portable battlefield surgical table that could be deployed by military doctors in front-line combat areas. When those physicians treat wounded troops, time Andover | Winter 2017
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