CLASS NOTES
IN MEMORIAM NOREEN STONOR DREXEL
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An era ended when Noreen Drexel, grandmother of Liam ’11, Fergus ’12, Aidan ’14, and Finnian ’16, died peacefully on November 6 in Newport, R.I., after suffering a stroke, just ten days after celebrating her 90th birthday in good health, surrounded by family and friends. Born The Honorable Noreen Stonor in Henley-on-Thames in England, Mrs. Drexel was the youngest daughter of Lord and Lady Camoys of Stonor Park in Oxfordshire, the Stonors being one of the most ancient and staunchly Catholic families in the peerage. She was privately educated and came to Newport as a teenager with her mother (née Mildred Sherman, daughter of William Watts Sherman), on the eve of the Second World War. Through her mother, Mrs. Drexel was a descendent of Rhode Island’s founder, Roger Williams, and of Nicholas Brown, the founder of Brown University. None of this background prevented Noreen, as she preferred to be called, from undertaking a lifetime of good works. She was a volunteer in three wars—World War II, Korea and Vietnam—and a tireless advocate, mainly through the Red Cross, of maternal and child well-being and mental health. She was hands on—a nurse’s aide at the Newport Naval Hospital, working on blood drives, helping in the emergency room and on the hospital wards, even driving an ambulance! And all of this was done with the utmost loving, personal kindness. It has been said that the definition of a gentleman is one who always strives to put others at their ease. If that is so, Noreen Drexel was the ultimate lady. She opened her charming Victorian house on Bellevue Avenue to the great and not-so-great. Every year, after presiding over the summer season, she had a reception for the charities she supported, and they were many. In the 1970s she was appointed to be the Representative of the League of Red Cross Societies at the United Nations. She was the 2011 honoree of the Newport Hospital Gala. The hospital’s Noreen Stonor Drexel Birthing Center welcomes children to Newport, a city that Mrs. Drexel, through her chairmanship of the Aletta Morris McBean Charitable Trust and other philanthropies, did so much to improve. Indeed, Portsmouth Abbey was the beneficiary of the McBean Trust, and Noreen’s generosity, when it stepped forward in 2004 to fund the initial engineering study, and later some of the renovation costs, for the Pietro Belluschidesigned Church of St. Gregory the Great. Noreen married John R. Drexel III, a kinsman of Mother Katherine Drexel and a descendant of the founder of Philadelphia’s Drexel University, in 1941. They had three children, Pamela, Nick, and Nonie O’Farrell, and seven grandsons. Fergus, one of those grandsons, shared special thoughts about the woman his family called “Maman”: “She was an amazing woman; she loved to laugh, dance, give and share. She devoted her life to charity and her love for new life, and in her 90 incredible years had an immense impact on innumerable people. My favorite memory is of her playing a game with Aidan and me called ‘cat and mouse,’ a variation of hide n’ seek, when I was 9 or 10 years old. She would chase us all around the garden at her
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Daniel Kelly published his memoir, The Buffalo Tail, in October 2012. The book covers everything from his Portsmouth Priory days to his liquidation of his family’s mercantile trading company to his adventures as an insurance company owner in Santa Fe for uranium mines, ranches, apple orchards, and Santa Fe artists. You can find the book on Amazon.
46 I Noreen Drexel with three of her grandchildren, from left, Fergus ’12, Liam ’11 and Aidan ’14, celebrating Liam’s 1,000-point mark in basketball.
house, pretending to be a cat, and Aidan and I would run away like mice. Those were the days.” In more recent years, Noreen was her grandsons’ biggest booster at Abbey games and other School functions. Aidan spoke for his entire family when he said, “In regards to my grandmother’s involvement with the Abbey, she truly did enjoy coming to the Sunday Mass here. These services were deeply meaningful to her. Second, and much more important, she gave my brothers and me the opportunity to go to school here, and, for that, I am eternally grateful. The Abbey is a place I love and cherish. It provides education, goals, and answers as well as questions. Being given the chance to attend school here is the greatest gift my grandmother ever gave me.” Noreen’s funeral at St. John the Evangelist Church in Newport on November 10th was presided over by the Bishop of Rhode Island and attended by many dignitaries, including the Hon. Lincoln Chafee P ‘11, Governor of Rhode Island, former R.I. Governor, Donald Carcieri, and U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. The next day Noreen’s body was taken to England for burial beside her mother in the Pishill village cemetery high in the Chilterns, with a beautiful view of her birthplace, Stonor Park. “I’m a frustrated nurse!” Noreen liked to exclaim. No one ever gave more, more kindly, or more lovingly, than Noreen Drexel, and her example will be her greatest legacy. “She truly was an extraordinary person,” reflected Fergus. “The most important lesson she taught me: that family, sharing stories, and service to others are the most powerful keys to building peace. “She will forever have a special place in my heart and in the hearts of many others.” The Portsmouth Abbey School and Monastic communities mourn the passing of Mrs. Drexel, and we offer our sincere sympathies to the O’Farrell family as well as to Mrs. Drexel’s extended family and many friends. – By James MacGuire ‘70
P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL
John Lyons wrote in December: “Generally good health for my age. Retired from teaching at Dartmouth six months ago.”
William K. Howenstein (Class of 1952) I enjoyed a wonderful time with Jim in Detroit earlier in November. It was not exceptional because every time we have been together over the past forty years has been a positive and fun one for us and for Portsmouth Priory and then Abbey School.
58 I Lawrence Cavanagh ’61 writes, “My brother, John Ludlow Cavanagh, died at his home on September 8th. After a year at Georgetown, John spent six years with the
Trappists (in Berryville, VA) and then earned degrees from New York University (BA, Psychology) and University of Wisconsin (MA, Sociology). For the past 20 years, John lived in Plymouth, New Hampshire. He is survived by his daughter Katherine, who lives in New York City.” John Tepper Marlin was published in the Huffington Post in October. His article “shows a connection between the Stars and Stripes, the George Washington coat of arms, and the Benedictine abbeys of Durham and Selby in England, and the Durham College chapel before it was demolished with the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII.” John is now the chief economist at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.
50 I Until his recent retirement, Michael Putnam had been the W. Duncan MacMillan II Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at Brown University for nearly 50 years. He was recently the recipient of The American Philological Association’s Medal for Distinguished Service. The award is occasional, not annual, and is presented to those who have devoted themselves to the profession of classics and the American Philological Association.
MAke a gift to Portsmouth Abbey and receive more than just gratitude in return
Creighton McShane (Class of 1950) Jim arrived more than 20 years after I left. However, he has visited our house in Vero Beach several times. I have always enjoyed Deb and Jim’s visits since they kept us up to date with the school’s changes. We also played golf and I always enjoyed their company.
56 I Joe Healey, “I have written a new book: Building the Church as Family of God: Evaluation of Small Christian Communities in Eastern Africa. The updated version is available as a free Ebook on the Small Christian Communities Global Collaborative Website.”
A Charitable Gift Annuity is a way you can make a gift to Portsmouth Abbey and get something back! CallCall us today totoexplore CGAoptions: options: us today explore the the CGA Development&&Alumni Alumni Affairs Development Affairs Patrick J. Burke ’86Jones Anna Eustis Longstaff Assistant for Development SeniorHeadmaster Development Officer 401.643.1291 401-643-1280 ajones@portsmouthabbey.org pburke @ portsmouthabbey.org portsmouthabbey.plannedgiving.org portsmouthabbey.plannedgiving.org
WINTER BULLETIN 2013
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