SHS Magazine Spring 2025

MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE

Michele Snyder, Director of Marketing & Communications

Moriah Giovannucci, Senior Multimedia Marketing Specialist

Tatum Lee , Communications Systems Specialist

ALUMNI OFFICE

Betsy Ginsberg, Director of Development & Alumni Relations

Devon Wilson-Hill, Assistant Director of Alumni Relations & Development

Erika Whitters, Advancement Events Coordinator

Cam Ottaviano, Manager of Advancement Services and Research

Christina Junga, Advancement Coordinator

CLASS NOTES PROOFREADERS

Charlie Wyzanski ’59

Fred Wang ’69

Melinda Margetson ’76

Kathryn Phillips ’90, TTC ’98

EDITORIAL STAFF

Michele Snyder, Editor

Moriah Giovannucci, Associate Editor

Tatum Lee, Associate Editor

DESIGN & PHOTOGRAPHY

Elles Gianocostas, Class Notes Designer

Moriah Giovannucci, Magazine Designer

Shady Hill Archives

BOARD OF TRUSTEES 2024 – 2025

Alyssa Haywoode, Chair

Jeita Deng ’94, Treasurer & Finance Chair

Kate Sutliff, Clerk

Sarah Baker

Lisa Case

Zara Cooper

Sherri Ettinger

Kafi Harrington

Kim Henry

Katherine Hesko, TTC ’08

Lidiane Jones

Devereaux McClatchey

Melissa McGaughey

Tamyko Morris

Matt Ogden

Satu Parikh

Mark Stanek, Head of School

Rodrigo Verdi

Sarah Wasserman

Pratt Wiley, ’91

Caleb Williams, ’84

BOARD OF TRUSTEES BY INVITATION

Betsy Ginsberg, Director of Development & Alumni Relations

Dr. Laniesha Gray, Director of Equity & Inclusion

Maureen Nunez, Chief Financial Officer/Chief Operating Officer

Dr. Daryl Wright, Assistant Head of School

ALUMNI BOARD 2024–2025

Anjali Lappin ’06, Alumni Board Chair

Charley Aldrich ’95

Abisayo Animashuan ’11

Kip Brown ’84

Rachel Cooke ’02, TTC ’13

Wen Epstein-Fisher ’11

Meg Grossman ’62

Kathryn Bailis Phillips ’90, TTC ’98, Regional Chair, New York

Elena Rodriguez-Villa ’08

Fred Wang ’65

Pratt Wiley ’91

Abigail Wright ’00

Charlie Wyzanski ’59

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Evolving Together Letter from the Head of School

Ernest and Agnes Hocking, founders of Shady Hill, were committed to creating our school with a few firm convictions.They believed that children were born with innate curiosity and “we were bound to keep alive in children a love of thinking and ability to think.” (The Shady Hill School, The First Fifty Years) The Hockings believed teachers needed to create an environment where learning should be infectious through learning by doing. These characteristics have guided our thinking about the process of teaching and learning in addition to the deep respect and close relationships that are fostered by our teachers.

Since COVID-19, teaching and learning has grown more demanding as we aim to meet the complex needs of students. In typical Shady Hill fashion, we have responded to these needs in thoughtful and intentional ways. We have added more personnel since COVID-19 to help support teachers and students. From doubling our counselors and adding learning support, we have been able to implement new lessons and curriculum to address these evolving needs of our students. For example, Brooke Mitropoulos, Middle School Counselor collaborated with Middle School faculty to revamp our Topics on Adolescent Development (TOAD) and health curriculum this year. Meanwhile, the strategic planning technology committee has reviewed and piloted a digital literacy curriculum to help our students navigate the world of technology. The School has partnered with the organization, Wait Until 8th, so that parents may have the option to collectively delay giving children a smartphone before the end of eighth grade.

One of the pillars of the strategic plan is to respond to the changing needs of today’s world by devoting time and space for faculty and staff to reflect on the academic program. Led by our new Dean of Faculty, Katherine Hesko, grade level teams and departments have met regularly this year to document their curriculum to review what we teach. This work has sparked conversations about scope and sequence of skills and content, as well as the important culminating projects and student experiences. Next year, we will continue to look at the vertical alignment of skills and how the curriculum and learning experience meet the needs of today’s students.

Finally, we would not be able to have a powerful teaching and learning experience for our students without the incredible dedication and devotion of our faculty. As a second pillar of our strategic plan, we are committed to strengthening the employee journey by focusing on culture and workplace responsibilities while also providing the time for deep reflection on teaching and learning. Ultimately, we want to attract and retain the most talented faculty in order to ensure Shady Hill’s students benefit from the powerful learning environment for many years to come.

Warmly, Mark Stanek, Head of School

May 2025

Central Subject & Thematic Studies

Our Unique Proposition

By Katherine Hesko and Katherine Taketomo ’05, TTC ’14

Why whales? A former SHS Head of School once said, “Information is not education.” This is even more true today. In a world where a four year old can say, “Hey Alexa, what’s the biggest building in the world,” or “Hey Google, tell me about chickens,” children no longer need simple facts, but rather a way to make sense of them, to investigate them, to test their validity, and to create novel meaning from them. They do not need to be amassers of facts, but rather to be able to come up with creative solutions to difficult problems. We hope that they use information not just to enrich themselves but to enhance their communities; to further social justice. It’s a tall order, but the curriculum and program at Shady Hill is creating the innovators, leaders, creatives and changemakers of tomorrow.

Therefore, it does not matter if they study whales or dinosaurs, as long as the curriculum serves as a vehicle to develop the academic and socialemotional skills they will need in the 21st century. In fact, the Central Subject topics have indeed changed over time. Topics used to include the Inuit people, Vikings, the Bible, The Middle Ages, Ancient Greece, Russian civilization, The French Revolution, and The Civil War. They were not even consistent within a grade. Now, however, this pedagogy has evolved. Our current Central Subjects

are chosen because they have literature and primary sources at grade level and because the topics fit where the children are developmentally.

Third grade begins by studying whales. Each child gets assigned a whale to study and they become their whale. If you go into a third grade classroom you will start to hear students referring to each other as their whales. They will say things like, “well you are a toothed whale, so you don’t even have the same feeding patterns as me,” or “at least you’re not endangered like I am,” or “I am bigger than two gym floors.” They become their subject. They are so captivated by the topic that research is their favorite time of the day. They are ready to become experts. This too is developmentally appropriate. Third graders are fact collectors. It is why they love books like 1001 Gross Facts about Lizards.

The whale is specific enough that they can get their head around it, but there is so much to learn. Developmentally they are no longer learning to read, but reading to learn. They study the types of flukes, the evolution of the skeleton. They will create a whole whale dictionary (which is also a way of learning about parts of speech). It is concrete enough to grasp, yet detailed enough to dive deep.

Third graders are also feeling like the older students in the Lower School, so they are intrigued by what does it mean to be big? To be powerful? Whales are essentially monsters and they are young enough to be a bit afraid or

awed by it, but old enough to turn that into fascination. This study shifts to a true Central Subject when they study the 1850’s whaling community of New Bedford. Here a third grader’s sense of play and imagination comes in strong; when they take on the role of a whaler, their classroom becomes their ship and their teacher the captain. Packing the trunks they make in woodshop, they head off on a journey around the world, singing sea shanties they learn in music class. A true story comes from a parent who was watching her child pack their trunk on the eve of their journey. The parent started to cry. She said, “I know it wasn’t real, but it was so real for my kid that I got so caught up in imagining them going away for such a long time that it made me cry.” The magic of this curriculum is contagious.

Fourth grade studies Ancient Greece because developmentally nine and ten-year-olds are starting to really think of themselves as individuals with specific strengths and challenges. They are the oldest kids in the Lower School and what better topic to study than a pantheon of gods who also have power, talents and struggles. This is also an age where magic is still real and possible and the mix of history and legend hits them perfectly. In these stories, heroes are real and in real life, fourth graders are the heroes of their own stories. Their battles are unbelievably important. Watch any Gaga Ball game and you might as well be observing a battle on Mt. Olympus!

Fifth grade aims to broaden horizons and their study shifts to Ancient, and some modern, China. This is our newest developed Central Subjects because we also wanted to broaden our perspective as a school away from strictly Eurocentric topics and make sure our curriculum is reflective of the student population we are serving. One of the main projects of fifth grade is the Xiao Project. Each fifth grader studies an elder. As the youngest students in middle school, they are thinking about who they look up to and why. Reflecting on the life of an older relative helps them gain perspective as they make their way towards becoming themselves in these adolescent years.

Sixth grade studies West Africa. These pre-adolescents are starting to make the shift from concrete to abstract understanding. They can handle learning about complicated, and often difficult, historical and current events. They can see nuance and seek diversity. Developmentally they are toggling between wanting to fit in and wondering how they stand out. Learning about the diverse continent of Africa, the stereotypes that are often used to portray the communities there honors their capacity to think critically. They are no longer just learning about history, but forming their own opinions and judgements about it.

Seventh graders are all about their own opinions and judgements. This is an age where students often, and developmentally appropriately (which is what we tell their parents) rebel. They think they know better. They think their grown ups don’t understand, don’t get it, or them or anything. They now have all the answers. Thus, they study Colonial America, which was all about rebellion against the mother country, seeking independence and sparking revolution. Seventh graders are passionate and always right, and they see themselves reflected in the curriculum by studying rebels of the 1700s.

By eighth grade many of our students, though not all, have been at Shady Hill School for the majority of their young lives, and they start this year knowing that they will have to leave. They study immigration, and post-independence America, to think about how people form communities elsewhere. They think about what they take with them, what they leave behind, how they influence their new communities and in turn are influenced by them.

It may be considered strange that Shady Hill students would spend an entire year on one topic, but when you

consider what other schools do, their curriculum makes less sense. For instance, in a nearby town, the second grade curriculum is fairy tales and tall tales, early Asian civilizations, the Ancient Greek civilization, Greek myths, The War of 1812, Westward Expansion, The U.S. Civil War, Immigration and Fighting for a Cause. The seven-year-olds who experience this curriculum do not learn all of this either. These are topics that are taught, that are covered, but to really learn, to take ownership and become an agent of one’s education, the truly bold, progressive approach is to do less. We find the topic that fits the developmental moment of each grade and foster engagement that lets the kids be the agents of their own learning. It’s not about whales. It’s about kids. n

Growing Middle School at Shady Hill Up Here

By Michele Snyder and Katherine Taketomo ’05, TTC ’14

According to Middle School Head Katherine Taketomo, Shady Hill’s Middle School stands apart. “At Shady Hill, we have a unique model for a middle school program,” said Katherine. “We have created a program that prioritizes the strongest parts of an elementary model by investing in a structure that allows a Middle School Gradehead to solely focus on a single group of students. This staffing and program structure allows for every child to be truly known both academically and socioemotionally. Academically, this model allows for Central Subject teachers to meet each group appropriately, with the flexibility to adjust the curriculum period to period, without the worry of staying on track with a second or third group of students and to design class activities that align with students’ learning profiles. Socioemotionally, the structure provides an adult advocate who works closely with the students and their families during a developmental time when students might need a high level of support or when they might benefit from specific encouragement to take risks. At the same time, the model introduces students to the developmentally appropriate adjustments of a traditional middle school model, such as departmentalized classes in math, science, world language, arts, etc., giving students introductions to many different adults and spaces and a wider variety of experiences.” As Katherine has returned

to the Shady Hill campus, she has seen firsthand the benefit of this model. Students’ curiosities, questions, concerns, and relationships have been nurtured by the adults and community around them.

Katherine shared how important it is to think about the model through the lens of the Gradehead teachers. “Each student is supported by a Gradehead — an adult who is with them for many important parts of the day. Each Gradehead teaches Central Subject, our humanitiesbased course, and serves in an advisory role for the group of 15-17 students. While many middle schools operate with a humanities or English/history faculty balancing multiple sections of students throughout their day, or an advisor being in charge of a selection of students in the grade, some of whom they may or may not teach, Shady Hill takes a different approach, creating a solid foundation for the relationship building and academic program central to our school’s mission.” Katherine shares, “Shady Hill has designed its program to best meet the needs of a middle school-aged student, highlighting one of the main benefits of choosing a pre-K through Grade VIII program.”

Another defining feature of Shady Hill’s program is its Central Subject and Thematic Studies curriculum. This model is the backbone of our academic program, beginning with Thematic Studies in Beginners through

Grade II, and transitioning to Central Subject in Grades III through VIII.

Central Subject is a year-long exploration of a topic — a people, historical period, idea, or movement — woven into every part of the curriculum, including math, science, art, dramatics, and athletics. This integrated approach allows students to connect deeply with what they’re learning, both intellectually and emotionally.

For example, eighth graders explore the topic of immigration and postindependence America — learning about identity, assimilation, and belonging — just as they themselves prepare to transition into high school. Seventh graders study American history through the lens of independence, a timely theme for students navigating increased autonomy in their own lives.

Shady Hill’s emphasis on connection doesn’t stop in the classroom. Through our Partners Program, younger students are paired with older ones, forming meaningful cross-grade relationships. This experience not only impacts the formal Partners classes that happen multiple times throughout the month, it sets the tone for what community looks like at Shady Hill.

“Every morning when the yellow bus arrives, upwards of 10 Beginners hop off and ask if they can wait for the big kids,” shared Katherine. “They sit patiently on a bench until the older students arrive. When they do, the little ones run to greet them and ask to be walked to class. It’s such a joy to watch our youngest students build strong, trusting relationships with the ‘big kids.’” In turn, over the 10 years at Shady Hill, our youngest students become the ‘big kids’ – they now understand the importance of guiding the younger students and building relationships across grades and divisions.

As students grow from grade to grade, they gain more than academic knowledge — they develop life skills.

“As a student here, I was empowered to be curious and ask deeper questions,” Katherine reflected. “I could hold a thoughtful conversation with anyone — peer or adult. I learned how to listen with empathy, think flexibly, and care for individuals while always keeping the community in mind.”

Completing the full journey through Grade VIII at Shady Hill allows students to finish the arc they began in their earliest years. By the time they leave, they have a strong sense of who they are and are open to how they might change— and they carry that self-knowledge with them into high school and beyond. n

The Heart of Afterschool

Play, Community, and Choice

By Alida Salins

At Shady Hill, the Afterschool program has always been more than just a place to be when the final cowbell rings — it’s a space where children are free to be fully themselves, to explore their passions, and to build community through play. Over the past few years, our program has grown and evolved to meet the changing needs of our students and families, while staying rooted in our core philosophy: honoring the pace of childhood.

How Has the Program Changed? In the early days following COVID-19, we saw firsthand how deeply children had been impacted by prolonged isolation. How to play well together had to be relearned. During that time, Afterschool became a critical space for students to rediscover what it means to communicate, compromise and connect. Our numbers were smaller then and options more limited, but we leaned into building community through shared traditions like “Fri-Yay” and “Group Games.” These rituals helped stitch back together a sense of belonging during a disjointed time.

As families’ childcare needs grew and children’s social confidence returned, our enrollment increased—and so did our offerings. We now regularly offer Enrichment classes like Woodshop, Ceramics, Chess, Basketball, Fiber Arts, Drawing, Baking, Science Experiments, and Coding—while also continuously piloting new opportunities like Model UN, Math Club, and Beginning Mandarin. Our robust music lesson program continues to thrive, culminating in a much-anticipated Afterschool Talent Show that students begin buzzing about months in advance.

What Is the Philosophy of Our Afterschool Program? Afterschool at Shady Hill is rooted in the belief that play is not a break from learning—it is learning. To borrow from Fred Rogers, “Play is really the work of childhood.” Whether it’s building marble runs, engaging in dramatic play, inventing with recycled materials, navigating the rules of a new card game, or playing on our beautiful renovated playgrounds, students are constantly practicing essential life skills: problem-solving, self-regulation, leadership, and collaboration. We believe in safe risk-taking, where students are encouraged to try new things, test ideas, and grow from their mistakes. We believe in the power of a multi-age community, where older students find joy in mentoring younger

peers, and younger children gain confidence from observing and learning from their older friends. These age-mixed interactions are a hallmark of our program— and a “secret sauce” we see pay dividends in empathy, creativity, and social development every day.

And perhaps most importantly, we believe in creating an environment where students feel seen, valued, and supported, where they can unwind after a long school day and recenter. Students come to us at their most tired, which can show up in all kinds of different ways: some seek movement and activity, others quiet and calm, some thrive with more structured options, some want to just be. Our Afterschool team gets to know each individual child’s interests and preferences to ensure our space offers productive options for all. Our students know that Afterschool is their time. Their choices and their voices matter.

How Have We Grown to Support the Needs of Our

Students and Community? As our numbers have grown, we’ve greatly expanded our after school footprint, to support smaller multi-age grouping and the daily variety of classes. The addition of full-time Assistant Director, Peter Green, supporting growing logistical needs, has allowed us to remain responsive to parent and program needs and rolling pick-ups across our vibrant 11-acre campus. It is an impressive number of steps every day! We’ve also expanded our focus on in-house professional development with weekly team meetings and shared onboarding workshops, ensuring that our diverse team speaks the same language of care, keeping children at the center.

Our staffing model has also grown, with expanded opportunities for entry-level educators to engage across both day school roles and as Afterschool grade-level leaders. Members of our team support science, music, library, Studio Spaces, and Beginners classrooms, and act as substitutes. We also regularly partner with apprentices studying in the Teacher Training Center (TTC) and staff from our Summer Programs on break from college. And educators from the day school join us to teach the majority of our Enrichment Classes. All these levels of integration provide authentic mentoring experiences and essential student-centered conversations that ensure we are always striving to see and understand the whole child. We’ve even welcomed former parents back into the fold— full-circle moments that speak to the enduring sense of community at the heart of our work.

What’s Next? Through all of this, we remain grounded in flexibility. Afterschool is, by nature, a dynamic environment—constantly shifting to reflect the rhythms of the children we serve. To quote from the aptly named article from Afterschool Alliance, The Magic of Afterschool, “In the uncertainty of the world in which our young people are growing up—the world they will eventually lead—resilience is more important than ever.” And so, we build resilience through play. We build connection through community. We build learning through joy. We strive to make Afterschool a place that students are excited to be. Or as one third grader recently put it, “For my birthday, I want to go to Afterschool!” n

By Carys Tsai-Young , Grade VII Student

Leadership is not always glamorous. For example, you learn how bureaucracy works (as well as what the word “bureaucracy” even means), how to adapt when plan A doesn’t work. You learn it’s not only the visions and praise, and that most of being on Student Board is getting the boring yet essential tasks done before ordering decorations.

This was not my idea of Student Board when I joined in 5th grade. I thought it was all party. I slowly realized that the rewarding part was the invisible work. Bus friend, Ava, was one of the eighth grade leaders last year. She would always tell me all the things people hadn’t done and how she felt like she had no time because everything happened last minute. From this, I learned that it was the four months of planning that counted. That all of those emails sent and errands run are what make a dance happen.

Student Board also taught me to trust others. Originally, I joined Student Board because I wanted to be a leader, not a follower. I thought I knew how things should be and that other people were inefficient. I wanted to do it all myself, and I learned that I can’t. I came to understand that the real obstacles of Student Board were more than I could handle alone. I had to delegate and learn to trust others’ capabilities and judgement.

Another lesson Student Board teaches you is what kind of leader you want to be. In the 2024-25 school year, SHS had five Student Board committees; Business, Student Life, Inclusion, Community Service, and BFG. All of these committees serve different purposes which means they all need different leadership. For instance, the Business committee leaders need to be firm as well as good with numbers, Community Service needs leaders who prioritize thinking about others. One type of leader is not superior to another and all are essential to serving our student body.

Over the last three years, Student Board has taught me that it may not always be fun but it will always be rewarding. that leadership is not glamorous so you only take the opportunities that you are willing to commit your energy to. To work hard for those four months and be satisfied when the music starts playing. To appreciate the official and unofficial mentors that guide you in everything you do, including informing your conception of the leader you want to be. And lastly, to be compassionate because every person has their own to-dos to get done before the party. n

TTC ON THE MAP

For the past few months, the Teacher Training Center (TTC) alumni have touched base with us on LinkedIn, returned to the campus for special events like the Art Show, and facilitated seminars for the 2025 apprentices. At one of these seminars, an apprentice asked, “What do TTC alumni do once they graduate?” In keeping with the theme of Igniting Minds: The Power of Teaching and Learning, we’re featuring just a few of our 1,900 graduates. As we prepare for the TTC’s 100th anniversary, we invite other TTC alumni to reach out to let us know what they are doing to make the world a better place since they graduated.

“The TTC program at SHS was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life. The people, the compassion, and the love of learning are still, to this day, unlike anything I’d ever known. I finished the program in 2005 and taught first grade for two years. After leaving the classroom, I often felt like I’d wasted my degree—or that I wasn’t honoring how much TTC had meant to me. It wasn’t until I got my first book deal in 2020 that I saw things differently. As a published author, I know now that the program didn’t just prepare me to teach in a classroom—it gave me the tools to educate in ways I hadn’t imagined. Today, I write for teens, infusing empathy and empowerment I learned through my time as an apprentice at SHS. The TTC program didn’t just prepare me to teach—it inspired me to make a difference in the classroom and beyond.”

Grace Shim, TTC ’05 Young Adult Author Moraga, California

“One of my favorite projects as an apprentice was directing an original musical that I co-wrote alongside my first/ second grade class inspired by the picture book, The Great Kapok Tree. The joy of bringing words (and children!) to life through song and movement has continued to fuel my work as an educator, artist, and author. Throughout my career, I continue to witness the power of the arts to create community, inspire deep learning, and foster belonging in the classroom. The seeds I planted 25 years ago at SHS led me to publish two books: The Artful Read Aloud and The Artful Approach to Exploring Identity and Fostering Belonging, along with Veronica Scott.”

Rebecca Bellingham, TTC ’99 Co-Founder, Artful Belonging Studio San Diego, CA

“The Teacher Training Center (TTC) program was the launching pad for my journey into leadership. It gave me the confidence to step into the classroom as a Spanish teacher—a role I held for many years—and ultimately inspired me to begin designing immersive educational programs in Spain and Ecuador. The core values I absorbed as a TTC Apprentice—empathy, presence, cultural humility, and a deep commitment to education—continue to shape every aspect of my work today. Through GOGI Abroad (Go Outward, Grow Inward), the educational travel company I founded, we design every trip with those values at the heart.”

Liz Jackson, TTC ’02 Director and Founder, GOGI Abroad Brattleboro, Vermont

"I joined Shady Hill in 2018 as a middle school humanities apprentice. I vividly remember the many conversations we had about creating structured, positive learning environments. As someone new to teaching, one of my biggest fears was not being able to cultivate a space where students felt empowered to be their best selves. Observing how my directing teachers set up their classrooms and engaged with students was instrumental in shaping my understanding of what a strong, supportive classroom community could look like.”

Craig Morgan, TTC ’19 Gradehead Teacher Cambridge, Massachusetts

“The TTC provided an encouraging space for me to learn and apply new skills, receive regular feedback and coaching, and reflect so I could improve my practice. Moreover, my students gave me opportunities to mess up and try again, grace when I needed it, and many moments of laughter and joy. I consistently bring these lessons to my work as an executive coach, strategic advisor, and facilitator for senior leaders and their teams across the country. My approach includes creating brave spaces for my clients to leverage feedback as a gift so they can reflect, learn, grow, strengthen their leadership and management skills, and lead with love (plus a sprinkling of laughter).”

Lisa Lazarus, TTC ’04 CEO, Lazarus Forward LLC Shaker Heights, OH

YOUNG ALUMNI MAKING THE NE WS

By Susanne Beck

For four Shady Hill young alumni, their interest in truthful storytelling began with their early education at the School. Each cites Shady Hill as the place where they learned skills that would help propel them into the media profession, including self-confidence, the importance of being an informed and engaged citizen, always double checking your sources, and trusting your own voice. These are their stories.

Harry Parker Class of 2010

There was little in Harry Parker’s academic path at Shady Hill to suggest that he would appear one day as a local television reporter much less an aspiring anchor. Those “we need to talk” teacher-parent meetings? Not promising. The mandatory visits to Mr. Shaw’s office? Almost worse. Maybe his tendency to play the class clown? Closer.

The ever-patient Betsy Hetzler who spent hours after school with Harry, trying to cajole him into finishing at least some homework, claims she saw something. “Dear Harry,” she bubbled recently, “I loved him. I knew he’d find his way because he was smart. He just had different ideas as to what he was going to do at SHS

versus what his teachers expected of him. Homework in his mind was overrated! Meh, why bother?” she laughs.

Promising or not, Harry says the roots of his current role at KFOX News in El Paso, Texas, as reporter and substitute anchor, in fact, can be traced to his years at Shady Hill. He credits a few teachers in particular for helping to build his self-confidence: Ms. Patterson (Beginners), Mr. Hopkins (Grade III), and Ms. Gifford (Grade V). “They believed in me,” Harry says fondly.

His home life, where news was a centerpiece, was a factor, as well. “My parents had the nightly news on every day. The car radio was always turned to NPR. It was ubiquitous.” Harry’s mother sheepishly recalls him swatting at the New York Times as a baby, competing for attention from his parents who were still in denial that they had a little one to care for.

“My first consistent go-to was the sports pages of the Boston Globe,” Harry recalls. “I read that daily for years.” He also had an early fascination with news and politics, taking to The Economist at an early age. “My first memory of a current event was the Bush-Gore election and the coverage I saw in a magazine. I thought George Bush’s face was a better fit for the name Al Gore,” he chuckles. “9/11 was the first time I saw current events actually move the adults around me.”

It was little wonder, then, that Harry ended up in Washington, D.C. for college (George Washington University) where he followed his passion for politics and briefly worked on Capitol Hill. His track into journalism came a bit later, after a little COVID-era soul searching. In quick order, he landed in New York City, in and out of Journalism school, and onto the streets of the five boroughs, covering crime and murder for the Daily News. “It was a great crash course into pure reporting for eight hours a day,” Harry says. He was given an address or two and a bit of background; it was up to him to knock on doors and plug away until he got what the editors wanted. He pauses as he describes the hardest part of the job: “talking to grieving families who often didn’t even know their loved one was dead or had only found out in the past few hours.”

After a year or so of this grueling pace, witnessing the devastating effects of crime and poverty every day, Harry

started to think – dream, really –about moving on to a reporting job that demanded more topically but less emotionally. Several people urged him to consider broadcast news. He had the personality for it, not to mention a resonant baritone voice. He knew it was highly competitive but on a lark, decided to give it a shot. “My dad trailed me one day with his video camera and made a test reel. I didn’t think anything of it. I sent it out to a bunch of stations and within a week or two, KFOX-TV gave me a call. I loved the News Director, so I said yes.”

El Paso is a far cry from New York in any number of ways. But Harry is happy to have made the move. Sure, he misses the buzz of the city, but he finds television to be a relatively easier gig than straight-up newspaper work. “The number of stories I cover daily went from three or four to one. The story-writing process is roughly the same. Yes, the video editing and screen presence takes time but still, it’s easier than knocking on doors eight hours a day and capturing content on the run on my Iphone while on the subway.”

Harry is not sure what the future holds for TV news – or for him. “Pay me a living wage and don’t make me report tabloid news please!” he jokes. More seriously, he adds “I feel like most people I know in the news business are aware their jobs are constantly in danger. The future always feels tenuous.”

Would he discourage others who are interested in this line of work for themselves? No. He is a walking illustration that you never know where your path will lead you. “Just don’t lock yourself into a medium or a subject,” he advises. “It’s probably not going to be what the next opportunity will be.” n

Arielle Mitropoulos Class of 2011

Boston area alumni who tuned into local news during the recent presidential campaign may have recognized a name, if not the face, of one-time Shady Hiller, Arielle Mitropoulos, originally Class of 2011. A regular reporter and anchor at WMUR-TV in Manchester, NH since 2022, Arielle was the go-to correspondent in the run-up to the November 5th election. Whether asking tough questions as one of two reporters hosting the station’s gubernatorial debate between Kelly Ayotte and Joyce Craig or providing critical insight and information to viewers live on election night – what time did she go to bed? – Arielle demonstrated the star power for which she has long been known.

From her early years growing up on Coolidge Hill, Arielle says that news has always been part of her life. “My mother and grandparents always had the news on, and we also got the papers every morning - The Boston

Globe and The New York Times. From the time that I was very little, I always wanted to be “in” on what was going on in the community, the world - or even just my classroom. I want to know the information, and know what is happening.” Arielle laughs as she remembers in particular “being in first grade in Cheryl Bruun and Cindy Limawararut’s class, and talking about how much I loved watching the news.” Good Morning America, The Today Show, the nightly news– they were all on her list. “In 2016, I watched CNN religiously” during that year’s presidential contest which started her love for political journalism in particular.

“My teachers at Shady Hill and beyond taught me that to be an engaged and educated citizen, it is important to know what is happening around you, so you can, in turn, participate in discussions and civil discourse.” Arielle also credits the school and her teachers for emphasizing the importance of doing her own thinking and research. “Always look for the truth behind the headlines,” she recalls her teachers saying. Shady Hill also stressed the importance of public speaking, whether standing up in front of everyone at assemblies, or in classes. Arielle notes, though, that it wasn’t just her delivery that mattered. [We were also told] to be respectful of other opinions, and listen to other points of views.”

“Shady Hill told me from the time I was a Beginner, I could be anything I set my mind to.” After the 2016 race, that “anything” was a television journalist. With a stand-out resume that included multiple academic awards (earned at Winsor School and Wellesley College), leadership roles in several varsity sports, and a multitude of volunteer positions (she was the youngest person to run the 2015 Boston Marathon), Arielle

landed a coveted job at ABC News as a reporter/producer, covering such lead stories as the COVID-19 pandemic, the Derek Chauvin trial, and the 2020 presidential election. She also worked on “a couple Diane Sawyer projects - alongside my friend and fellow SHS alum - Acacia Nunes.”

Although you wouldn’t know it watching her today, Arielle claims the transition from the national desk at ABC to local on-air reporting and producing at WMUR-TV was “anxiety-provoking.” “Many people questioned why I would leave the network, but for me, this transition allowed me to tell the full story of my reporting. This was not about being in television, as much as it was about allowing me to complete the circle of my reporting, without handing it off to a correspondent or anchor, who fronts the piece.”

When she is not actively crafting news reports, Arielle continues to consume them. “I do my best to watch and read as much local and national news as possible - across the spectrum.” She encourages all her peers – especially those interested in a journalism career – to do the same. “So many young people get their news simply from social media, but the reality is, that only offers a snippet of what a story is really about. You are not getting a full story just with the headline. It is so important to read more - or watch the entire television piece, because without the full context, you could be missing critical details.” As for her own future, Arielle is far from naïve about her chosen field. “The industry is changing by the day, with streaming becoming more and more popular. The way we get our news is and will continue to change… I hope to adapt as it shifts.” n

Acacia Nunes Class of 2011

“I would do anything for Shady Hill!” Acacia Nunes SHS ’11, exclaims when asked how important her grade school years were in reaching her current position as producer for the award-winning journalist Diane Sawyer. “I credit it all the time.”

Acacia first points to the school’s curriculum in which learning to write a research paper was a “cornerstone.” “The difference between first and second sources, historical texts and contexts. Learning how to be a critical thinker and a thoughtful student of the world. These were the bedrocks of my experience,” she notes.

Even more than the academic program, though, Acacia says it was her teachers that made the real difference. “I got the priveledge of learning from Ruth Schreyer, Ms. Dello Russo, and Ms. Whitters. Ms. Eisenberg really changed the game for me in a big way, too, along with Ms. Turkla.”

“I don’t remember a year when writing wasn’t the center of what we did,” she recalls. In sixth grade,

as an example, she had a whole class devoted to researching Africa, debunking multiple stereotypes in the process. “It was a pivotal stage in my understanding of the world.” Shady Hill also encouraged students to “discover their voice [and] the uniqueness of their learning styles.”

Fast forward to today, when Acacia enjoys a front-row seat in crafting a wide range of highly regarded news specials. Being able to express herself clearly and convincingly is more important than ever. Operating among the best of the best in television production, she says she still finds herself drawing from the advice she received many years ago in grade school. “So much of what I do today is about having an opinion, a point of view. You have to trust your voice and speak up because you trust that what you have to say matters.” Her ability to do that? “I think that is all from Shady Hill,” she says, smiling.

“I always knew I wanted to do writing in some capacity,” Acacia recalls. But it wasn’t until high school that

she started thinking about applying that interest and her emerging skills as a professional someday. At Bard College, she took as many courses as she could in non-fiction writing - like profiles and the art of the essay. “I had hoped to do magazine writing when I moved to New York City [after graduation]. But it wasn’t panning out. Television kind of fell in my lap. So, I worked really hard and learned as much as I could,” landing on the overnight assignment desk at ABC News. “It was a great place to start and to learn because you’re just picking up on everything that’s happening. It is kind of the heart of the enterprise.” Acacia pauses before she chuckles, with typical humility, at another clear memory of the time. “I had no TV literacy at all when I started at ABC, which is funny.”

Her biggest challenge today, amidst the eroding trust in network news, is to create deeply researched products that assure a high degree of integrity and credibility, no matter the audience. “Diane is a huge proponent of letting the work speak for itself. She’s tough, but she’s fair.” Acacia believes her team – an allwomen posse of five, known around the television studios as “Team Diane”- produces to that standard. Their stellar reputation reflects that.

“Part of what I love about my job is that no two days are the same. My day starts by reading headlines and depending on what story we are working on or where we are in the story timeline shapes what I do the rest of the day. Today, for example, we just got back from a shoot in Los Angeles which was fantastic. So, the past week has been spent shooting and screening material before we go to edit and put it into its final form and shape.” The subjects Acacia covers are equally varied. Recent

pieces have included one on women who suffered obstetric emergencies in states with abortion bans, and another, a memorial piece on Christopher Reeves. “Another part of the fun is that we get to work on the platform that makes the most sense for any given story [like Hulu or Disney or ABC News] and to work with the producers on those shows.”

“I always say that where I went to school as a young learner shaped the way that I care about learning. I think it just set the stage for everything that came after it… I just feel so grateful,” she sighs.

As for advice for those who may want a similar career path? “I would say listen to what excites you. I think that Shady Hill is one place to do that because it gives you the room to do that. It can be hard to not follow what the masses are doing. Diane always says find the thing where your passion meets your purpose. I steal that line all the time!”

But isn’t journalism a shrinking industry? “You know, everyone is always up in arms about how it’s a dying field and the sky is falling. Especially my version of it, TV news, is obsolete. What I always say in response to that is that people are always going to need to consume news…it’s even more important after the most recent election.”

Acacia underscores the vital role that a fair and free press plays in our country. “Yes, [news] is getting faster and more ubiquitous. Still, credibility is key and I think if you find a way to do it differently, then that’s exciting….I think that there’s a lot of opportunity in change. Try as hard as you can to be a part of it… Don’t get discouraged.” n

Will Berlin Class of 2014

As a kid, Will Berlin attacked the morning news with the same gusto he did his bowl of cereal. And for one reason alone: local sports. A lifelong fan – the Celtics, the Patriots, and the Sox have always been favorites – Will caught up on game results, statistics, and player insights before heading to Shady Hill. “I would quickly flip through the front page and the headlines that were not related to the Red Sox, Pats, or Celts, and I would spend at least 30 minutes reading the analysis from the reporters and perusing box scores.”

Public television also crossed his young radar screen as the Jim Lehrer Newshour often played in the background when he visited his grandparents. “I didn’t understand much of what was being discussed, [but] I would try my best to follow along as wars were analyzed, presidential debates were discussed, and economic policies were considered.”

Not just ten years later, while a junior at Brown University, Will put his nose for news to good use, covering important national events as a production intern for a politically oriented television show, Axios on HBO. “I loved being able to brainstorm and research ideas and then see them come to fruition in an actual segment. [It] was really cool.” He credits many of his Shady Hill teachers for giving him the tools to do the job right: digging deep, fact-checking, and producing topquality content. “Each of my teachers, beginning with Ms. Eisenberg in fifth grade, told us to double check our sources. We were told to understand and figure out who the author was, to analyze why they were saying something and why their article was written a certain way.” Will says this guidance is still valuable today. He is also grateful to Shady Hill for making him understand the powerful role storytelling can play in framing and discussing different social issues. “Whether it was my fourth-grade research paper on the Tasmanian Devil where I used newspaper articles from Australian outlets to add “color,” or using magazines in art class to create collages that told a multilayered story, I always felt news was something I would be interested in.”

After a short, post-graduation stint as a corporate paralegal (“Paralegal work was meaningless. I wanted to do something for society and humanity.”), Will returned to his documentary news as a full-time production assistant where the range of topics feeds his life-long passion for politics and social impact. “All of the topics are important (politics, public health, technology, etc.), and it feels cool to be able to tell important stories.” A recent piece focused on the Holocaust, Dr. Josef Mengele, and Auschwitz.

Will admits that his workdays can be long – the research and editing processes seem never-ending at times – but the final product is always worth it. “I get to tell important stories to audiences in an accessible medium. Not everyone likes to read, but if you can tell a story through a visually compelling, captivating documentary, you can get a lot of eyeballs on stories that matter and, hopefully, make tangible change.”

No matter how crazed his work schedule, though, he also still makes time to take in local and national news. “Every day, I read The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Economist, The New Yorker, and The Wall Street Journal. For sports, I use The Ringer as well as ESPN. Social media (Twitter/X) has been the place where I read a lot of news from reporters, congresspeople, and other public figures.” He admits he’s often disappointed that many of his friends don’t share his enthusiasm for a diversity of news sources. They rely mostly on social media where Will says it’s hard to “even have a baseline understanding of the world around them,” he sighs.

“I don’t expect everyone to be a news junkie [like me],” he laughs. But with the advent of AI, fake news, deepfakes, and the like, Will says he is worried about the erosion of public trust in news that matters. He remains committed, though, and encourages others to join him in the field. “Volunteer to do any task, no matter how mundane. Ask questions. Don’t be nervous about asking your bosses and co-workers.” And maybe most of all, remember what you learned all those years ago on Coolidge Hill. n

Our Alumni Teaching. Leading. Inspiring.

1940s

Nancy Coville ’46

Nancy Coville ’46 was an unusual Shady Hill student: she boarded with her aunt and uncle in Cambridge in order to attend SHS, since her parents had moved north to pursue their dream of farming in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Back then, it was a very long, slow train journey to get home to her parents and her considerablyyounger siblings, so visits home for young Nancy were infrequent.

Continued on page 24

1950s

Anne Watt ’52

Sitting in her living room in Lincoln, Anne Watt ’52 reflected on her 11 years at Shady Hill. “Shady Hill is who I am. My career, hobbies, and worldview all trace back to my years there.”

Continued on page 25

1960s

Bob Pinderhughes ’64

Bob Pinderhughes enjoyed his five years at Shady Hill, which started with Beginners and Kindergarten but were then interrupted by family moves, resuming much later for Grades VII, VIII, and IX.

Continued on page 26

In keeping with the theme of “Igniting Minds: The Power of Teaching and Learning,” we highlight alumni who have made an impact through education. While some of these changemakers have operated within school settings, others demonstrate the power of education in less conventional contexts. We invite you to submit nominations (to alumni@shs.org) for other impressive alumni we should feature in the future.

1970s

Rob Forbes ’73

Among the things that Rob Forbes ’73 remembers about his nine years at Shady Hill School, were the principles of honor, integrity, and doing the right thing. He saw it all around him. “Joe Segar, Head of School at the time, was a master class in leadership,” said Rob.

Continued on page 27

1980s

Annie Brewster ’83

When Annie Brewster ’83 talks about Shady Hill, she has a lot of experience to draw from. Annie attended the school from Kindergarten through ninth grade and had three children who graduated from Shady Hill.

Continued on page 28

1990s

Ayana Gonzalez(Dilday)

’91

As a Senior Consultant at the Boston-based Technical Assistance Collaborative, Inc., Ayana (Dilday) Gonzalez, Shady Hill School Class of 1991, is on par with Superman.

Continued on page 29

2010s

Raven Whyles ’14

Raven Whyles ’14 has always loved music. It’s no surprise she attended the Walnut Hill School for the Arts for high school.

Continued on page 30

1946

Nancy Coville

Continued from page 22

On one trip home during those years, she accompanied her little sister to school in Wonalancet, a tiny one-room school under one sole teacher’s direction. It was common for older students to teach and help the younger ones, so Nancy jumped right in– and discovered her love of teaching.

Fast forward to 1963, by which time Nancy was married, had two young children, and had settled in beautiful Wonalancet with her husband, a forester. It frustrated Nancy that early childhood education was largely ignored in their area, despite all that was known about its importance. She and two friends established The

Bearcamp Valley School and Children’s Center in 1963 to meet this need– for their own children as well as others. They picked a location in the heart of Tamworth, up the road, and offered three grades: kindergarten, a subsequent year called “transition,” and first grade.

The Bearcamp Valley School has been a fixture in Tamworth ever since, marking its 60th anniversary a few years ago with a lively party, at which Nancy was toasted and celebrated. Along the way, Nancy was named a State Awardee for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching, and she is justifiably proud of the congratulatory letter from then-United States Senator Judd Gregg. But it’s not the recognition that moves her, it’s her devotion to the school. She still spends two days a week at Bearcamp, one tending to administrative tasks and the other wholly focused on the children.

Like Shady Hill, the Bearcamp Valley School stresses outdoor time and hands-on learning. One of Nancy’s favorite units takes place entirely outside. It involves dividing the children up and letting each group create their own little homestead in the woods, built of sticks, boughs, and other natural materials.

“It is fascinating to watch how much the collaborative groups get done in a week, as opposed to the groups that have trouble compromising to reach decisions. What an apt lesson for real life!”

Nancy is passionate about the value of early childhood education and has no plans to fully retire. With her trusty walker, she continues to devote herself to the school she founded over 60 years ago. n

Anne Watt 1952

Continued from page 22

Anne appreciated the way her teachers taught her how to pursue her questions. “They encouraged me to run with an idea and discover things for myself…I had lots of ideas!” For Anne, the experiential approach forged a lifelong love of art, music, academics, and sports. Shady Hill also planted the seeds of her social activism—turning knowledge into action.

As a teenager, she was acutely aware of inequity. In college and then in her professional life, she worked to challenge inequity, discrimination, and injustice and to expand global awareness. “It has taken different forms at different points in my life,” Anne said. ”Marching in support of Black workers, for instance, or joining and running workshops for the Anti-Defamation League. In 1989, I co-founded Primary Source with educator and historian Anna Roelofs to help teachers develop culturally sensitive social-studies curriculum.”

Anne loved her Shady Hill teachers. But perhaps the one who had the greatest impact on her was her fifth-grade teacher Everett Smith, known to all as Smitty. “I loved geography. In his class, we made memory maps of every continent—I still have my framed memory map of the world! Thanks to Smitty, many of the Primary Source workshop experiences I created involve mapping. To help teachers understand a region or country, I have them create a series of maps that highlight themes like geography, politics, commerce, and agriculture.”

With the help of Freeman Foundation funding, Primary Source began developing programs to help people better understand China. Anne’s husband John—a Chinese studies scholar—soon became an integral part of Primary Source. He

and Anne created Primary Source’s New England China Network as a vision for what could be accomplished by equipping teachers with tools to incorporate China into their curriculum. Coming full circle, Anne noted that, “Primary Source helped Shady Hill establish its fifth-grade China central subject.”

Anne feels that her work helping teachers teach about China represents her most creative period as an educator. She created graduate-level courses, workshops, summer programs, a newsletter, and an academic center at Harvard, striving toward civic-mindedness and global competence. One of her mantras is that ignorance promotes prejudice and intolerance. “I was determined to open teachers’ eyes to cultural diversity and its place in the curriculum. John and I led over 20 study tours to China. These trips fostered great respect for Chinese culture and were part of decades of helping teachers develop culturally sensitive literature, geography, and history curriculum.”

Her advice to students is to love Shady Hill as deeply as they possibly can. “Its holistic, immersive central-subject approach is unique. Take advantage of everything you can. It will lead you to do wonderful things.” n

Bob Pinderhughes 1964

Continued from page 22

When he returned in Grade VII, the daily trip from his Roxbury home required two trains and two buses in each direction. “Well worth it,” he states with certainty. “My parents valued education greatly; after our oldest brother’s experience in the public school system, they went all-out to send the other four of us to the best schools they could access.”

After Shady Hill, Nobles and Greenough, and Dartmouth College, and a “short, unsatisfying stopover in law school,” where he experienced discrimination that drove him away, Bob made his career in public relations, working in both nonprofit and corporate settings. Along the way, he proved himself adept at broadening the effectiveness of communications to historically overlooked populations.

“Privilege doesn’t know and it doesn’t know that it doesn’t know,” is one of Bob’s favorite expressions, handed down from his mother. “I was raised at the intersection of privilege and oppression and I became aware of how ill-equipped we are to communicate on issues regarding race. Fortunately I knew enough to partner with PR firms owned and staffed by members of the target populations, hold focus groups, and really listen and learn.”

Recognizing Bob’s track record in this regard, the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) hired Bob to be Director of Communications and Education in 1993. The NMDP coordinates the national registry of marrow and stem cell donors for patients suffering from life threatening blood disorders, and was finding itself challenged in recruiting suitable matches for certain racial groups, including Blacks, Asians, Latinos, and Indigenous Americans. Over his nine years at NMDP, from 1993-2002, Bob had great success broadening the reach of materials and improving the cultural competence of both the communications staff and the process to develop public affairs products, including early social media. Bob’s leadership was a significant factor in the growth of the NMDP Registry and its evolution to a more diverse resource for all patients.

“It all goes back to my family’s deep reverence for education,” says Bob. “Valuing education means bringing a learning mindset to all you do, every step of your career and life.” n

Rob Forbes 1973

Continued from page 23

Rob’s time at Shady Hill coincided with a restlessness in the United States. In 1969, when he was in fifth grade, Rob joined his Middle School classmates as they marched to the Boston Commons to participate in the Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam. Huge crowds attended the event. Students organized a teach-in with normal classes being suspended. A few years later, in 1973, everyone gathered in the administration building to watch the Watergate hearings.

“I have memories of teachers, especially my eighth-grade teacher Edie Caudill, who taught the Civil War with passion,” said Rob. “She turned me into a historian. It was from her that I learned how to research, shape an historical argument, and present a case for your beliefs.”

After Shady Hill, Rob attended Concord Academy for two years, transferring as a senior to Cambridge High and Latin School, which was followed by a year at Cornell. He then took the next eight years off. He became a legal secretary in New York City, and ultimately moved to Washington, D.C., to attend George Washington University.

It was during this time that he decided to extend his education to get a PhD in History. He worked with David Brion Davis, a renowned American intellectual and cultural historian, and a leading authority on slavery and abolition in the Western world. Rob ultimately ended up getting his PhD at Yale University where his mentor Davis encouraged him to think big, which reminded Rob of his Shady Hill days.

Soon after, Rob got a call from David Brion Davis requesting his help creating a research institute on slavery resistance and abolition. It was during this phase of his life that he learned about Venture Smith, a man born free, who was transported to America and became enslaved. Venture Smith’s story is exceptional as he succeeded in buying his freedom after 25 years and went on to become a publish his autobiography, now considered the first known

autobiography by an African-American.

“I know that growing up, I didn’t think beyond what is the right thing to do. I know that I just was enthralled by history, and kept digging to learn and document history,” said Forbes. He has taught at several universities, including, Wesleyan, Rutgers, and the University of Connecticut.

Social justice is still very much a part of who Rob is today. He has taken on projects that supported his belief in social justice including heading a group called the Connecticut Coalition Against Gun Violence in the 1990s. He was part of an organization that opposed land-minds, and was associate director at the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale.

Earlier this year, he shared the story of Venture Smith at the Shady Hill School Black History Assembly on February 14. “This Assembly has a long tradition at Shady Hill,” said Forbes. “I looked out at the students and parents attending and instinctively knew that this is something the SHS Founders would be very proud to see.” n

Annie Brewster 1983

Continued from page 23

She describes her time at Shady Hill as warm and nurturing. “It was here that I learned to be curious, to seek information, and to ask the right questions. It wasn’t just memorizing facts. I learned how to think out of the box and be creative. It gave me confidence in myself,” said Annie.

She also loved to attend the annual customs again when her children were in school. From Black History Assembly to May Day, to closing ceremonies, Annie cherished these traditions.

After Shady Hill, Annie attended Buckingham, Browne and Nichols (BB&N) for high school, then attended Stanford University before going to medical school at Harvard University. She is a practicing Internal Medicine Physician at Mass General Hospital as well as an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

But it is her non-profit work that fuels her passion. Annie is the Founder and Executive Director of the Health Story Collaborative, whose mission is to keep the patient voice alive in healthcare and to harness the healing power of stories. “By collecting, honoring, and sharing stories of illness and healing, we strive to make the process of navigating illness less isolating and empower individuals and families facing health challenges,” she said.

She created the Health Story Collaborative after receiving a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis while still a medical resident. For years, she hid the diagnosis from all but her closest friends and family. “I felt ashamed somehow. More importantly, I didn’t want to be defined by my illness. I didn’t want people to feel sorry for me or treat me differently,” said Annie. “After a while, this silence took a toll on me. Shame is poison, and I was rejecting a part of myself.”

Annie recognized the importance of taking ownership of our stories to integrate challenging life events and optimize

health. “The non-profit is part art, part science, and part medicine. There is research that supports the power of storytelling to promote health.” Annie also authored a book, The Healing Power of Storytelling: Using Personal Narrative to Navigate Illness, Trauma, and Loss.

“My work in this area feels very Shady Hillish,” said Annie. “It was during those formative years that I learned to have compassion and think collaboratively. This enabled me to think across disciplines and envision truly making a difference in the world.”

Shady Hill prepared Annie for the academic rigor and competition she would face as she continued to strive to be the best person she could be. “Of all of my school experiences,” she said, “Shady Hill School is closest to my heart. It set me up for success.” n

1991 Ayana (Dilday) Gonzalez

Continued from page 23

But instead of leaping tall buildings in a single bound, she jumps between the many organizational boundaries that separate the public sector from the private sector, amongst affordable housing advocates, human service and healthcare providers, all in the name of creating “policies and practices that empower people to live healthy, independent lives in the communities they choose.”

Ayana credits her 11 years at Shady Hill with giving her a solid foundation for such work. “I think the skills that I learned at Shady Hill about communicating across cultures, across different systems, among different types of people with different backgrounds,” have helped.

Growing up in Dorchester, Ayana arrived at the school as a four-year old Beginner, a bit wide-eyed at such a homogenous community. “What they say is that in a classroom, children need to see windows into other worlds, but they also need to see mirrors that reflect their own experience.” What she saw was something different. Aside from her teacher, the widely beloved Faith Chase, Shady Hill’s first African American hire, she was one of very few black or brown faces on campus.

“I remember very clearly one of the first projects we did. We all made a cutout collage….We glued little eyes and hair and things onto it to make a picture of ourselves.” The self-portrait became an icon for morning attendance. “There were two peg boards,” Ayana recalls. “One said you were here and one said away.” She remembers being very proud when she completed her picture. Until the second day of attendance taking when something stood out. “Mine was very, very clearly the only brown face on the board. I hadn’t noticed [until then] that I was the only brown face in the room. But I noticed it very, very clearly up there on the board.” Ayana adds, “I grew up in a pretty diverse neighborhood. I grew up in a pretty diverse family community. I’m not sure that I had ever been in a room and felt like that before.”

Whether it was that experience alone or just the nature of her personality, Ayana became much more of a listener as a student than a talker, an attribute still listed on her LinkedIn profile today. “I was always the student that teachers were saying, ‘Ayana needs to speak up more in class,’” she laughs. “But I think you learn more from listening than you do from talking a lot of the time.”

She also fondly remembers all the creative opportunities the school provided. “I was a creative child, I think. I mean, I’m not like an artist. But I enjoyed it. And I think that all the opportunities like studio class, like shop, when we got to make a little apple head doll [as part of a section on the Inuit]. We got to make things with our hands.” To this day, Ayana still has the shield from fourth-grade Olympics and a triangle box she gave to her mother, made in shop.

Finding a creative way to put disparate pieces together, listening more than speaking, navigating boundaries – those are just some of the experiences that factored into Ayana’s Shady Hill education and have helped make her the successful professional she is today. “The skills that I learned…[that’s] what I do all day long.” But what she remembers and treasures most: her former classmates. “Those are [still] my friends. Those are my people.” n

Raven Whyles 2014

Continued from page 23

Raven Whyles ’14 has always loved music. It’s no surprise she attended the Walnut Hill School for the Arts for high school.

Raven started a music program as a very young child and it soon became the center of her world. “I was intense about it in a way that was very stressful,” said Raven. “What helped me blossom as a musician and gain perspective was my time at Shady Hill. For the first time, I was sharing art as a collaborative thing. It helped me as a performer then and still helps me today.”

Raven remembers the feeling of being a part of a strong community at Shady Hill. Everywhere she looked there was a familiar face. “All of my Gradeheads were very supportive of me and I made wonderful friends I am still close with now,” said Raven.

After graduating from Shady Hill, she attended Walnut Hill before studying cinema and music performance at Wellesley College. Following college, she worked at Emerson College in their theatre program as an assistant carpenter. She credits that job for teaching her a great work ethic.

Currently, Raven is going to grad school at the Longy School of Music of Bard College and is set to graduate in 2026. She plans to get hired in a professional chorus once she has her degree. In the meantime, she works part-time in the Shady Hill Admission Office. “It’s been awesome coming back to Shady Hill to work. I love seeing people I know and meeting prospective families,” said Raven. She admits that sometimes it feels strange to be an adult in a place where I spent part of my childhood. “My teachers want me to call them by their first names, and that’s just weird.” Raven is a wonderful addition to the Shady Hill Admission Department. She speaks from first-hand experience and gets the community from a different viewpoint.

When she is not working or attending school, Ravel likes to crochet and hang out with her family. “My brothers all went to Shady Hill. It’s fun to reminisce about the good ole days,” said Raven. n

Class Notes

1941

News has reached Shady Hill that Barbara Clark passed away in May of 2024. Our sincere condolences to her family and classmates.

1943

News has reached Shady Hill that several members of the class have passed away:

Barbara Anthony in May 2020

Hilda Carey in September 2019 Jim King Jr. in March 2023. Our sincere condolences to their families and classmates.

1944

News has reached Shady Hill that several members of the class have passed away:

Ann McLaughlin in December 2016

Barbara Fleischman in November 2022

Gay Scott in December 2024

Our sincere condolences to their families and classmates.

Jane Williams writes: After 52 plus years in my house in Cambridgeport that I swore I’d never leave, my partner and I moved to an apartment on Mt. Auburn St., just outside of Harvard Sq. And with Ben’s sudden death six months ago, I am grateful not to be rattling around in 11 empty rooms. Now I look out into a huge oak tree, like living in a tree house. I’m blocks away from the skating club where I spent endless winter afternoons with Shady Hill classmates, and about a mile from Coolidge Hill, where I grew up and spent the first 10 years of my education. My sister and parents are buried in Mt. Auburn Cemetery next door. There’s a not-unpleasant full circle about this.

1945

News has reached Shady Hill that Sally Haskell passed away in March of 2023. Our sincere condolences to her family and classmates.

1946

News has reached Shady Hill that Thomas Stetson passed away in February of 2022. Our sincere condolences to their families and classmates.

The daughter of Joan Forbes Koponen sent the following; I am sad to report the death of Joan Forbes Koponen ’46 of tonsil cancer in Fairbanks, Alaska on March 29, 2025. She was 93 years old. Her Shady Hill School experience was pivotal, and informed much of her life. Her woodworking skills were essential as she and her husband Niilo proved up on a homestead in Fairbanks, building the home where she died. Stories of her education at SHS left her 5 children with an understanding of the unique and special nature of the education Joan received. Joan and best friend for life, Nancy Newbegin Feldman, used to walk together to and from school. Nancy died within a week of Joan dying, an almost mystical happening with about 5,000 miles separating them.

1947

DAVID CLARKE david.clarke11@verizon.net

News has reached Shady Hill that Diana Forbes passed away in October of 2022. Our sincere condolences to her family and classmates.

Nat Bowditch reports that he and Peggy have celebrated their 67th anniversary. Their three sons are doing well but Nat and Peggy mourn the recent death of their daughter, Betsy. Unfortunately, Nat fell and broke his hip this fall. He

has made sufficient recovery so that he is able to get around now. They continue to live in a retirement home in Kennett Square, PA but no longer go to Maine in the summer.

Doe Mechem (Coletti) left our class after fourth grade but still remains in touch. She is fine and lives in San Francisco, CA with her husband, Kirke. She relates that her sister Mimi Dow (’48, TTC ’57) and Mimi’s husband Peter Dow are doing well.

Bootsie Rademaeker (Carter) lives in a retirement community near Madison, WI. We had fun recalling our mini reunion two years ago. She is still driving though not traveling any long distance. She describes her mind as good but her body less dependable. She feels blessed to be fortunate in life but does not wish to reach 100. She has two grandchildren.

David Clarke - that’s me - and Mary live in Concord, MA. All four daughters and their families, five grandchildren, live close enough to visit easily. In fact, we share our house with our youngest daughter, Maura (TTC ’94), her husband, and two sons (aged 10 and 13), a fun and useful arrangementranging from tranquil to hectic. We are active in town affairs and I am a member of the Trails Committee. Concord is currently abuzz getting ready for the 250th anniversary of the Battle at the Old North Bridge on April 19th – the start of the

Revolutionary War in 1775. The parade will go in front of our house and the town expects over 100,000 visitors - if they can fit! I greatly enjoyed talking to you on the phone and collecting news to pass on for our Shady Hill class notes. Our numbers are shrinking but all are remembered, along with our teachers. Together, we recalled our years at Shady Hill. It was a special and protected space. We passed through the war years and into the restoration of peace though, sadly, some of us did suffer the loss of family and friends. I think we can be proud of our accomplishments and of our contributions to society, much of which can be attributed to the foundation laid by our SHS schooling. I send greetings to Joanna Hodgman (Bailey) and Harriet Myers (Robey); I am disappointed not to have been able to contact them.

1948

KATHRYN SHOHL SCOTT kathryns1934@gmail.com

Esther Goudsmit writes from Chelsea, MI: I now live within today, at my villa home at old folks “Silver Maples of Chelsea.” I enjoy walking the trails right outside my door. Sometimes I use my walker. I enjoy the wildlife visiting my backyard: deer, birds, sandhill

1936 photo capturing former faculty, Dexter Cheney, student Henry Smith, Impy the horse, and Sam the dog. We invite anyone with more information from this event to please contact alumni@shs.org.

cranes, and squirrels. I adopted a twelve year old female cat from the Humane Society in Ann Arbor. She is wise. My brain is slowing down, forgetting “where did I put that object down?”

Ann Tracy Ross explains that she was at SHS only grades III-VI (1941-45). She was in Sarasota, FL for grades VII & VIII, followed by high school at Chatham Hall School in VA and then U. Michigan. She continues: I married a Canadian Olympian...we had two children, lived on four continents and in 11 cities before settling down in Sarasota, FL. My husband of 68 years died two years ago, and I moved to a retirement home a year ago. My small family all live in Sarasota, for which I am grateful. I had dinner last night with a gentleman who knew Cambridge well, and we reminisced about the outdoor skating rink, the trolley car, and the masterpieces and birds at the Mt. Auburn Cemetery. Life, running a 250 member technology group in Sarasota, has kept me thinking young. My best to all of us who are still here.

Jamie Goodale wrote: I had a great Shady Hill year in which I touched base one way or another with Kathy, Anne Carpenter, Ann Tracy, Billy Cleary. (’49), Peter Castle and Laura Flanders (daughter of Claudia Davis). Not bad to be able to talk to people whom I knew one way or another 80 years ago. I was worried particularly about Ann Tracy since hurricane Helene

was aimed right at her house in Tampa. She emailed back not to worry since she had moved south of Tampa but so had Helene (Ann survived). Laura’s TV show runs on pretty much the same channels that mine did here in NYC but there is no question in my mind it’s a lot better. Harvard gave Billy a big celebration night in January, a few days after I talked with him, when Yale visited Harvard for a hockey game. Harvard won as it usually does and certainly did when Billy was their coach and athletic director. Sadly, Peter Castle died last summer which was a blow for me since for the last 20 years we had talked every week. Eventually we went over almost every minute of our Shady Hill lives, particularly the Vikings. Peter kept his Viking shield in his living room and he got me to read a bunch of Viking books. At one point we involved Charlie Moizeau (’48) in our conversations (he remembers everything) and he said he thought there was a Viking plaque on the way to school which he remembered from almost 80 years ago. Peter, who until he died lived near Brattle Street, went out searching for the plaque and found it in front of the Harvard president’s house on Elmwood Avenue. Toni and I are still ensconced in the middle of New York City a few blocks from our daughter and two grandchildren both of whom are undergraduates at Yale. I drop into my office on a weekly basis and continue to turn out propaganda on the First Amendment. Read

my Columbia Journalism Review article, Will the press fold or “Fight Like Tigers?”: https://www.cjr.org/ political_press/press-fight-tigerstrump-goodale-espionage-actjournalism-crackdown-courage.php I, Kathryn Shohl Scott, managed three trips this year: a short, but disappointing Norwegian coastal trip hoping to see the northern lights, a twice postponed trip to Scotland with daughter Emily, and a voyage from northern Norway to eastern Greenland and western Iceland (this time with fabulous aurora sightings). The family reunion in NH in August continued to be a high point, but this year I added a Thanksgiving celebration at the Lake. I now have five amazing, great grandkids! I had a brief bout with COVID in December, but managed to have a smaller than usual group here in Bethesda for the year end holidays. I am grateful that I am able to live independently and enjoy theater and chamber music concerts, both live and virtual. For those of you who haven’t heard, two of our classmates died this year: Peter Castle, on August 12th (obituary at https://rogersfuneralhome.net/1/ obituaries/1953-mr-peter-w-castle), and Emily Putnam Link, on November 21st (obituary at https:// legacy.com).

1949

News has reached Shady Hill that Steve Shohet passed away in March of 2024. Our sincere condolences to his classmates and family.

1950

JEFFERSON FREEMAN 18 Fair Street, Apt. 8, Guilford CT 06437 email: jeffreeman77@gmail.com Mobile: 203-453-4189

Leading off: I’m saddened to report the passing of our classmate, Ellie Jones Rogers Luopa, of Peterborough NH. She died August 20, 2024 at Boston Medical Center. I have sent a copy of her obituary to Shady Hill and have also sent copies to our classmates.

Belatedly, I’m also reporting the passing of Joachim Pfeufer –a long-ago emigrant to France –who died May 25, 2021. We’re seeking an obituary for Joachim, published in France. Failing that, I’ll create a bio summary from his earlier communications to me, which I’ll send to his Shady Hill 1950 classmates.

Contacts: By email, phone, and text, your correspondent reached out to 19 1950 members. Here is news from and about 15 of us—

Svetlana (Leontief) Alpers writes from New York, NY: Good to hear from you, as always. I am sorry but this time I have nothing to add. Except this: when we graduated 75 years ago, things were newly hopeful in the world. That is not true today. We are back to the sad, human normalcy. But people can still think, read, write, listen to music and look at art. There’s the hope.

Mabel Hobart Cabot writes from Boston, MA (with aid from a helper): My Shady Hill days bring me many fond memories which encouraged me to keep going towards my many goals, even in the toughest of times. I remember the many wonderful teachers who must have been so young at the time. Frederic Chang reports via a phone call from Wichita, KS: I’m still living in the condo in Wichita. My son lives with me. He’s a big help, providing companionship and aiding me physically. We have a housekeeper in every other week, to pick up after us and keep the condo in good shape. Sadly, my balance is shot. I have to use a walker to get around. I stay as active as I can walking on the grounds – 1,000 steps a day, using the walker. Sad to say that golf is a distant memory. I’m also aided physically by regular visits from a caregiver. Each of my three daughters comes to see us when they can. We still have enjoyable family gatherings here on holidays. My traveling to visit them is no longer possible. I’m still a KC Chiefs fan and enjoy watching their games. They’re in the NFL quarterfinals at this point. We hope they’ll be able to reach the Super Bowl and win this year. Three years in a row! First time ever if it happens. Of course, we’ll all know the outcome by the time we read this in June but…win or lose, they’re still the greatest! As to the

Kathryn Shohl Scott ’48 with great-grandchildren

2024 elections? I am still surprised by the outcomes, but prefer to keep my reactions not for publication. You never know who’s going to read my comments and wind up making assumptions!

Jefferson Freeman of Guilford, CT writes: It is quite remarkable, I think, that so many of us have survived to enter (or, by the time you read this, will have entered) our ninth decade. I could go on at length about being close to my delightful family, how many miles I walk per week, what parts ache (and how I work on tolerating same), etc. Instead, here are a few vignettes from 75 and more years ago – sharp in my memory – that characterized my Shady Hill life:

• Ferrying metal pitchers of warm tomato juice plus crackers for mid-morning snacks.

• Not understanding then why Miss Caudill cried when we sang, Ballad of Rodger Young.

• Skating what seemed like day after day on frozen flooded fields: students, teachers, staff.

• Playing the role of the March Hare at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party in Alice’s Adventures.

• Hearing Taps sounding from the Cambridge Cemetery next to our playing fields.

• From Mr. McCarthy, improving my grammar by learning to diagram sentences correctly.

• Guided by Mr. Martin, making metal fire tongs with a turned, threaded wooden handle.

Perhaps you have your own vignettes–unique to you and different from mine. Interesting, I think, that what I recall relates more to my experiences outside the classroom. (I can almost hear Mr. Vincent saying, “If you would just apply yourself…”). Guilty as charged, I guess. But, no question, Shady Hill was a unique, lifeforming experience I have treasured for 75 years, and which I’ll continue to treasure for as long as I am around to do so.

Lee (Ginsberg) Herbst from Chicago, IL and Tucson, AZ writes: I am writing you from Tucson where life is easy. The weather is temperate, and things are not too crowded. I find challenges of old age multiply.

Physically, it is a challenge to keep one’s balance and strength. These require conscious exercise daily. Emotionally, it is difficult to lose one’s friends. I try to keep abreast of current events and attitudes through reading, listening to television, and engaging with my grandchildren. I continue to enjoy attending four book clubs (two virtual), going to symphony and theatre, and attending lectures. I find scams on the internet and telephone most annoying. I’m learning to recognize them with the aid of my children and grandchildren, who get notice of these through their work. I continue to enjoy doing puzzles: jigsaw, verbal, and mathematical. So much of my time is spent keeping my body and mind functioning! I have slipped more into the role of observer and have become less of a doer. However, I still believe a broad education helps prepare one for a full life. I’m still involved with the schools I attended. I’m interested to see how they are adapting to the needs of the students. Encouraging curiosity and self-discipline will always be needed, as well as modeling of caring for and working with others.

John Horvitz writes from New York, NY: I guess 75 years after graduation from Shady Hill deserves a comment from all of us still “here” and hopefully “still healthy” in the Spring 2025 edition of the Shady Hill Alumni News. Sandy and I spend weekdays in Manhattan, and weekends at our Bridgehampton, NY home – where former potato farmlands now have been converted

into high-end building lots. We were fortunate early on to build a modest weekend home. We would welcome any Shady Hill classmates for frozen margaritas and a swim in our pool.

David M. Kaplan reports via phone from Palm Beach, FL: Naomi and I continue to enjoy being in Palm Beach this time of year – in spite of the freak snowstorm across the south this past week. I always use a walker now when we are out. I’m still able to drive okay – just put the walker in the trunk and get it out when we’re at our destination. Maybe I could do okay without using it, but it’s much better to be safe than sorry. I miss golf, which I used to play five times a week after I retired. I can watch it on TV, but I had to stop playing it over three years ago – wouldn’t possibly be able to play now. We’re beginning to think about moving to an assisted living location. No plans as yet, no places investigated. But, on the other hand, it’s short-sighted not to acknowledge the time will likely come. Having a plan before it’s needed will increase our peace of mind. Son Steven is still teaching at Belmont Hill where he was a student many years ago. He was recognized with an honorary chair this year – a tribute to his 30 years of success as a teacher and “fixture” of the school faculty. My other son, David, continues as a senior executive at TJX Industries. Hard for me to believe that they’re each beginning to reach retirement age. We don’t do much pleasure traveling now. Naomi’s traveled abroad to many countries and I did a lot of traveling for business before I retired. Naomi

has never visited the southwestern parks – Grand Canyon, Bryce, Zion, etc. It would be wonderful to see them first-hand. However, getting there and back, and around while we’re there – not so easy. Maybe we can find a way to visit via livestream. Naomi and I visit Toronto for two weeks each summer, to enjoy the company of her two daughters and five grandchildren. They’re a bonus for me: my second family. I get along well with all of them as she does with my sons and grandchildren. Thinking about unique events still sharp in my mind from over 75 years ago: The time Mr. Vincent threw a blackboard eraser at me that hit me in the face. I have no recall of what sin I had committed, but it must have been a beaut! Imperfect phrasing? Misuse of a French word? Abominable pronunciation? Misbehaving in class? I was not injured, but was certainly shocked. It’s wonderful we’ve been able to maintain our Shady Hill friendships through all these years. Let’s keep it up!

Helen (Cutter) Maclennan of Caithness, Scotland and London, England writes: I am in London. My eldest child, Nicholas Noyes, is visiting me for three weeks. His wife Jessica and daughter, Connie, returned to New York yesterday. Connie is a junior at Bennington. Also visiting: Ruth Maclennan and husband, Robin Banerji and sons, Hector (who is in his final year at Sussex University), and Alexander (Sasha) (who is 17 next month, and at school at Christ’s Hospital also in Sussex in the first year of Sixth Form). We are off tonight to see a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We’ve been having a super time together, also with Adam Maclennan and his wife Bumjoo Cho Maclennan. There has been a lot of feasting (cooperative as well as competitive cooking), long walks, long talks and elder advice (with considerable debate!) to the students about their “extended essays.” I’ve really enjoyed having all my descendants together for the “festive season.” The London families will probably be in Scotland in April at Ham Farm – lambing time. The weather is more reliable in Spring, Summer and Autumn and I am so pleased that we have not been in Caithness over this

Joey and Joel Wechsler, Jeff Freeman, and David Kaplan enjoying their reunion last June.

“Holiday Season” for climate and seasonal reasons. I am still doing the bookkeeping & banking part of farming, and am absolutely thrilled that my descendants are dealing with the rest (and advising me on the most efficient use of the computer). I spent some longish, busy hours at the Fulbright Commission’s American College Day in November at the Harvard Desk, very long lines of the young (the youngest was twelve), very interested parents about financial aid, and some lively possible students. The alumni/ae advisors were distinctly “grown up” with most recent experience of “college” life, mostly at Reunions. U.S.A. University experience is very popular with U.K. young as well as expatriate young. London is a very pleasant place to be: antique, efficient buses, splendid “senior” transport passes, lots of theatre, music, museums, book shops, and good friends and family. I am enjoying life, particularly this family time.

Katharine ‘Dex’ McGill ’50 ready for a flight with her son, Geoff, in his helicopter

Katharine D. (Newbury) McGill (aka Dex) reports from Raleigh, NC: Nice to hear your voice. After I moved here two-plus years ago, I reverted to using my given name, Katharine. I live in a retirement community close to the center of Raleigh. I’ve made many good friends here, am staying active and healthy by walking every day, and am able to take good advantage of cultural and other local attractions. I moved here to be closer to my two families and grandchildren. My former home (Westwood, MA) was too far away to allow regular visits. My widowed daughter-in-law and her son, Matthew, live in Charlotte, NC. Her husband, my younger

son, died years ago. My older son, Geoff Bacon, lives in Smithfield, VA with his wife and daughters, Kara (Katharine) and Genna – both of them married, but no kids to date. Geoff and his brother were in practice together as ENT MDs. Closing in on retirement, Geoff indulged himself by acquiring a helicopter and learning how to fly and pilot. [Ed. note: aged males’ “boy’s toys” are usually bright red; Geoff’s is royal blue!] The helicopter is just for fun at present. My photo nearby shows me in the forward passenger seat, decked out for flying with Geoff. Who says grandmothers can’t enjoy life! I spend the holidays with each of the families down here. They’re within reasonable driving distance from Raleigh. Fortunately, I’m still fine behind the wheel. I can’t imagine what I’ll do when that’s not the case. I also traveled to Maine last summer to see both of the McGill families. As I write, we seem to be having snow here today. Believe me, in Raleigh, NC, snow is a big event!

Faith Rohrbough of Lawrence, KS reports: It is great catching up with you by phone, Jeff. Your voice sounds so familiar! For the past three years, I have continued living with my sister, Bea, in her home in Lawrence. My brother, Mac, two years older than I am, manages to keep going, but not as well as in the past. Sadly, our sister, Connie, died this past year. My health is good. I walk daily throughout the year –although just not now, with a lot of snow on the ground in Kansas. I’ll be back at it again once the snow disappears. Biggest problem for me now is loss of stamina. I tire easily and benefit from resting periodically during the day. Although, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. I turn 90 next month! As will most members of our Shady Hill class this year. We lead a simple life here. Bea’s daughter pays regular visits. Weather permitting, I attend services each Sunday at our local Lutheran church. I’m not actively engaged as a volunteer, but try to stay informed about our local community. I’m not a Trump fan, so try to stay up to date about what’s happening by limiting myself to news highlights on TV. I can’t change what’s going on, but I can change myself – worry less about what I can’t control. Reflecting back about Shady Hill,

I have wonderful memories of what the school was like and all the friends I made there. I entered at Grade VII, so I had three full years before I graduated. For me, a favorite memory is having learned Latin from Mr. McCarthy during Grade IX. He was a demanding teacher, but he helped me master a subject I might otherwise never have taken.

James H. Romer reports by phone from Unity, NH: I’ve reached the point where it’s too difficult for me to write a reply to your request –hand tremors make it impossible. It’s good we’re doing this instead by phone. I have some problems with balance too. However, I’m still out the door every day at 7:00am for a walk down Quaker City Road to Little Sugar River and back. The three-mile, hour-long round trip energizes me – I walk with friends weekdays, on my own Saturday and Sunday. I heat my home with a wood-fired stove. Too much for me to tackle cutting and stacking wood on my own now, so I have it delivered locally. Even how it’s supplied has changed: used to be 24” lengths, then down to 20”, and now down to 18”. I’m fortunate in being able to obtain a five-cord supply funded locally at no cost to me. Food? A breakfast favorite of mine is Bob’s Red Mill muesli, which I get at a local store. I’m also back to making my own – letting it sit overnight, which adds some zing in the morning. I do most of my own cooking too, but am also getting supplied by the local chapter of Meals on Wheels. Memories of Shady Hill? Shop! Ted Martin, with Joachim Pfeufer’s father taking over during the war. I still have the wooden canoe I learned how to carve. I also learned how to use a metal lathe to turn a miniature cannon in brass, but never built a chassis to hold it. And m’sieu Vincent speaking only in French to us in Grade VII, starting with “J’entre dans la salle de classe. Je regarde autour de moi. Je vois les élèves et le professeur…” During my army time in Europe, I learned German too, but my first exposure to another language at Shady Hill sticks with me. Oh…and rope climbing in assembly hall. Crystal clear! Except for a tremor and some balance problems, my health seems okay. My daily walks

make a big difference. I have short and medium-term memory loss too, fortunately compensated by my occasional flashes of pleasant memories from the distant past. There are plenty of things I could complain about, but…what’s the point? Who would listen?

David O. Sears, Pacific Palisades CA (Jeff reports): Sad and upsetting news from Dave Sears. I contacted him by email on January 8th, as the first news of terrible firestorms in the Los Angeles area appeared, indicating that the Pacific Palisades community was one of the hardest hit. I’ll let excerpts from his email replies explain: (January 10)“… My beautiful home and the whole community, literally, including my neighborhood, is ashes. I’m with my daughter Juliet in Orange County, safe on a beautiful morning but with an uncertain future. Like 30,000 of my neighbors…” (January 11) …“Hopefully out of danger now. Depends on the gods… Well, that landline [telephone number] is history along with the house. Cell phone is 310-nnnnnnn. Maybe talk in a week or two. Operating in emergency mode now. Written messages work fine and thanks.” (January 11) “Juliet does live in Seattle and the other two [daughters live] in the Bay Area. Juliet got this house [in Orange County] as an escape, she says, because she is a SoCal girl! Anyway, here it is waiting for her dad in an emergency.” (January 13)… “Oddly, Juliet had bought this beautiful ocean view house on a hill in a gated community in San Juan Capistrano a few years ago as her escape from Seattle gloom to SoCal sun, but never used it much. Then got the ranchero last year. So, the San Juan Capistrano house is the perfect landing spot for me. In fact, she had built a little suite for me as a retirement or fire refuge in it, so it works perfectly.” (January 23)…“As of today, the authorities are still not letting anyone back into the Pacific Palisades. The Palisades wildfire on January 7th destroyed not just my house but my immediate neighborhood of perhaps 80 houses with the exception of four still standing. And the latest count is over 5,000 other homes, in a broader Palisades community of something over 20,000 people. The pictures I have seen make it look

like the worst of a war zone – no longer a pleasant, sunny California suburban neighborhood. On the good news side, I am already pretty settled into my daughter Juliet’s house in San Juan Capistrano, about a two-hour drive down the coast from Los Angeles. How I will maintain contact with UCLA and my colleagues there is less clear. I was scheduled to teach again during Spring Quarter. I assume from the photos I have seen that most of my professional library, files, notes, etc. are now ashes.... So much remains to be seen. I know many SHS alumni and parents reading this account will understand the gratitude I feel to my daughters for stepping in during a time of crisis. Life presents us all with many challenges and our children are our best resources.”

I hope we’ll hear more from Dave Sears as time unfolds. As I receive more news, I’ll pass along updates to our Shady Hill classmates.

Thomas M. Stout of Rockland, ME reports via phone: Not much has changed for us since last year. I’m sightless, unable to use a computer or do other than listen to radio/TV. Susan continues to work as a Night Nurse Supervisor at nearby Pen Bay Health. Where we live in Rockland does not have sidewalks on our side of the street. For me, crossing to the other side might not be such a smart idea. So, I get most of my exercise walking around inside our house –particularly this time of year. What stands out for me about our time at Shady Hill? The shop class taught by Ted Martin. More than whatever we made, it was learning how to use tools. Mastering the physics of construction. I’ve used these skills all my life. I was involved in art at school and also at home, with my mother’s role as arts teacher. Ruth Abbott was memorable too, getting us engaged in learning to sing, and play recorders. Miss Caudill was wonderful as our Grade VI lead teacher. I remember Mr. McCarthy well, but never had him as a teacher – I left Shady Hill after Grade VI. I also remember Mrs. Jones, the school’s dietician. She created wonderful meals, balanced and wholesome. Frankfurters in tomato sauce were lunch favorites. I worked as a pharmacist in Rhode Island and Connecticut too, and

also in Maine after we moved here, but that time is long past. My loss of eyesight made such work impossible. It’s a handicap, of course, but we’ve learned to live it. While I’m unable to see physically, I still have my wits about me. For example, I can envision a design for an experimental ship. I think I can probably describe what it would be, but I haven’t found a way to communicate its design for others to see. I’ve thought of finding a stenographer who could help me, but have had no luck as yet.

T. Tench Vans-MurrayRobertson writes from Berryville, VA: Just a quick note to meet your deadline. I am trying to decide where to be buried. On my grandmother’s side, the Hammonds, Hites, and Washingtons have been here since 1730, and thus buried here in Berryville. On my grandfather’s side, Wye House (the seat of 12 generations of the Lloyd family) on the Eastern Shore of Maryland has one of the few private cemeteries in the United States. There are over 200 people buried here including governors of Maryland and Francis Scott Key Junior. I am a Lloyd. I will write later about our activities. Louise “Lucy” Weiss reports via phone from Cambridge, MA: Jeff, your letter prompted my recall of so much joy at having been a Shady Hiller. I was out of school for a year because of a family tragedy. I came back as a member of the 1950. I deeply remember the kindness of Miss Taylor’s repeatedly reaching out to me, and Mr. Smith’s “Smitty’s” doing the same. He was a perfectly wonderful Grade V teacher. He taught us bookbinding as well as other subjects. Geography too, leading to our creating our Memory Map of the World near the end of the year. I remember the May Day celebration in the Spring! Each grade performing for others around the green outside of Assembly Hall. Grade IX performing the May Pole dance, carefully weaving the ribbons into a colored net. I enjoyed wonderful friendships. Tom Stout, Jimmy Romer, Eleanor Jones, others. Athletics were great fun – field hockey, soccer. Miss Hayes coaching the girls as well as the boys. And our food. Delicious hot meals served every day. Performing

music. Miss Abbott teaching us how to sing in harmony, and to read music playing recorders. It was a wonderful experience for me, but also heartbreaking – an ongoing reminder of the untimely sudden death of my father I mentioned at the start. To get away from that reminder, I left Shady Hill at the end of Grade V, enrolling at Winsor the following year. I continued on at Winsor thereafter. But I still feel much closer to Shady Hill and the 1950 than to any other school.

1951

Our Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role. Email alumni@shs.org. News has reached Shady Hill that Alan Steinert passed away in October of 2024 and Fletcher Davis passed away in November of 2024. Our sincere condolences to their families and classmates.

Maisie Goodale Crowther writes: Susan Bliss Alden sent me photos of our 50th Reunion which I’m sending to SHS. I’m still volunteering in the Archives of the Experiment in International Living, which is housed on the campus of World Learning in Brattleboro. Also keeping my watercolor brushes busy with the Senior Center group. Read The Girl with Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee, (2015) who escaped from North Korea. It reminded me of ‘Mac’ who, in 1950, noticed a similarity between the 38th Parallel in dispute with that of Athens and Sparta during the Peloponnesian

War. George and Llelly’s son Putnam is writing LifeSongs about some elders in our area. I’m honored to be one!

1952

ANNE WATT

News has reached Shady Hill that Rolf Goetze passed away in June of 2024. Our sincere condolences to his classmates and family.

Lenny Clarke writes: Still trying to parse the 2024 national election and what it all means for my children and grandchildren. Yes, the world has gone topsy turvy!!! Daily we follow and recommend Robert Reich and Heather Cox Richardson. Syd, I and our extended families are all doing fine. Our music enjoyment continues – me on fiddle and Syd on a variety of Irish Whistles. Maine remains a delightful place to live!!!

Dennis Corcoran writes: Dennis & Marie Corcoran alive and well after moving to new quarters at North Hill, a CCRC. We still keep our Cape connections but have slowed down a bit with the passage of time. One of the happily unexpected consequences of our move was the rediscovery of my 1952 copy of The Tempest, used as the script for our 9th grade play.

Jean Farnsworth writes: As time moves along I am very grateful to have no health issues and just enjoying life, traveling to see family – nine grands (several weddings) and two great-grands, playing lots of duplicate bridge (my therapy!) and reading.

Photo from 2001 at the 50th reunion of the class of 1951. Pictured left to right: Alan Moni Steinert and Sandy Steven

Klaus Fuchs-Kittowski writes: Yes, we have certainly all grown older. I will be 90 years old in a few days, on New Year’s Eve. So I can’t write you much more news, because I walk, hear and see a little worse every day. I did, however, write an article on the use of chatGPT and its limitations with a friend for an AI congress in Stuttgart last month on the subject of “AI and society.” I was able to participate via Zoom. It may be of interest to some.

Robin Hartshorne and Edie Churchill Hartshorne are still living in Berkeley, where they frequently see their three granddaughters Clara (nine), Yoko (eight), and Nora (five). Last summer, Robin and Edie spent two months at their cabin in New Hampshire, where they saw many cousins on Robin’s side. There is also a large contingent of Shady Hill people in and around the nearby town of Chocorua. Edie went for a week to her family haven on Cape Cod. We were also able to visit old friends like Anne and John Watt before returning to the West Coast.

Sally Kuhn writes: Am still in the New York apartment which I moved into in 1977 and was able to expand by buying the adjacent studio. Pretty much at home 24/7 following small stroke. Seem to spend a lot of time looking at screens of different sizes, and wondering about the world we keep making wars about.

Alan Morse writes: Cecily and I are in reasonably good health. Lucky us! Our children live very nearby and we have programmed

our iPhones so they can follow wherever we are. We’ll see if this works when we go on a trip to Greenland later this year. During this year we have seen John and Anne Grace along with Hal Churchill (and Diana). Our children and grandchildren are slowly taking over our Rhode Island house which was always the plan, but we go there year round. I can still sail there during the summer when someone joins me who knows something about sailing, especially son Nick, who is also a Shady Hill graduate. Temple Israel has given me the appropriate role of being on its cemetery committee. We are now proponents of green burials.

Tom Plaut writes: I recently received a thank-you note from a former student who had been written off by her advisor as “not graduate school material.” She may not have been tops in the classroom, but she worked in our research laboratory for two-anda-half years, learning by doing the work rather than simply reading and hearing about what other people had done. Today, she is a Ph.D. and Director of a clinic in Boston. I suspect one model for our research center was Shady Hill, where as students we acted out the plays and games of ancient Greece, where we glued together our own world atlas under Mr. Smith’s watchful eye and where Ms. Caudill carried us deep into the Civil War via mural painting, reading texts aloud, even singing, and writing individual research results. In sum, we learned by doing in combination with reading and listening. The tragedy is that Shady

Hill’s type of learning is available to so few.

Aliza (Betsy) Shima writes: As I write this, a wildfire is burning over 2,500 acres south of us in West Los Angeles along the coast adjacent to a lovely area that we lived in when our daughters were in school. We in Santa Barbara have so far been spared any serious wildfires north in the National Park. The firefighters have whipped out brush and car fires quickly. Fred and I are well and thankful for being able to get about fairly easily. For the most part we have been close to home enjoying visits from family members that are scattered and thriving.

Judith Stetson writes: I still live in Woods Hole, as I have ever since 1960 when Tom Stetson, an earlier SHS student until he went off to Belmont Hill School, met me in Vineyard Sound (actually on Nobska Beach) and brought me home with him. Tom was an oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and loved his job, sailing on its research sailing ship, the Atlantis, and making sonar measurements of the seafloor and the sediments below it. Tom and I had two children, Chris born in 1963 and Virginia in 1964. They are both happily married, living near Boston, and nearing retirement now. Three grandchildren are in early adulthood and exploring their worlds in different places. Tom died in 2022. I still live in Woods Hole, no longer active in town and school activities as I used to be, but very much enjoying the many friends I have made over the decades in this extraordinary scientific community. I am facing a hip replacement next year.

Anne Watt writes: Dear Classmates, With our terrifying political future, I see that most of us who are still compos mentis are focusing on our families this coming year. John’s Alzheimers is catching up with him but he still plays the piano for hymns and in piano trios! I am physically limited to my scooter as well as mentally slowing down, so it’s a challenge to deal with the computer. Our three daughters and four grandchildren are all doing well. It’s a huge plus that Jen lives right next door to our CCRC and helps us a great deal.

MARY HILL GILBERT HARRIS WITH HELP FROM ADELE MERRILL WELCH

mhh10@cam.ac.uk

willowstar53@gmail.com

Sadly, I have to report the death of our classmate, Heidi (Marie) Gerschenkron Dawidoff, who died August 13, 2024. Our condolences to her family. Several classmates have read and enjoyed a memoir by her son Nicholas Dawidoff about Heidi’s father Alexander Gerschenkron.

It was good fun to have a Zoom “reunion” last June, with 10 of us participating. I hope we can do it again next year.

Sybil Kinnicutt Baldwin writes from Rhinecliff, NY: Still love watching the river traffic on the Hudson from my windows. My daughter and son-in-law still live next door and we have gotten quite good at not checking each other out through our eerily close kitchen windows. My son and his family live in Winston-Salem, NC. Their eldest, Sadie, is a freshman at the University of Michigan and we are all immersed in football. “Go Blues!” is a regular refrain even from me from time to time(!) Nancy Sears Barker writes from Toronto, Canada: Our news is unremarkable. We have sold our camper van, and now drive a car if we want to leave the city. We still live in downtown Toronto, in a house just large enough for two families. Our son Joshua and his wife and two kids just bought a house four blocks away, and have moved there; so our daughter Gillian and her husband and a white cat named Peanut will move in upstairs. We’ll be glad when they come, as the upstairs “apartment” feels hollow and empty. Jonathan and I still sleep in the upstairs of the coach house; two dogs have died in the last two years, and now we have a delightful mature mama who has one more litter to produce next June, raise the puppies and then she will be ours. We take her back to the breeder to be bred, and then hopefully get her back there in time to give birth! I feel we are in a kind of holding pattern, good health,

Alan & Cecily Morse, August 2024, Beacon NY

reading, writing short memoirs, cooking, watching basketball and movies in the evening.  “Amusing ourselves to death.” We both listen to a lot of political and cultural podcasts, especially NY Times and New Yorker, and recommend them to each other. Political news in both the U.S. and Canada is bad and worrisome. Very interesting though, but I could do with a little less interest! Your once and future president is threatening Canada and Mexico with 25% tariffs, which will be disastrous for our economy. Zooms with old friends and acquaintances are very welcome. It’s fun to look back and hear the news. We are lucky to have all these electronic communications. When Spring comes we can go to our cabin in the country to spend some time. When Summer comes, we hope to go as usual to Lake Winnipesaukee in NH to a 110-year-old family camp of several rustic cabins that I share with my brother, David (’50), who went to one year of Shady Hill, and then to Belmont High and Stanford. He is still teaching a seminar at UCLA by Zoom, at 89, in political psychology. Pertinent.

Mary Hill Gilbert Harris (your correspondent in Cambridge, England): I now have my desk at the archaeology museum only one day a week so I think I finally count as retired. Nor did I go to the biennial Caribbean Archaeology congress this year, for the first time since 1987. On the other hand, that gave me more time in Gilbertsville, where I still go every summer. My sister, Kaky Lidz ’55 has the house next door, and during my six-week stay both my children (with grandchildren) were able to spend time with me. Over Labor Day weekend we had every bedroom full with children, niece, nephew, great-niece and greatnephew (descendants of my sister, Jane Pittenger ’58). An even larger family reunion is planned for next summer, Lord willing and the crick don’t rise: but this summer in the aftermath of Hurricane Debbie the crick DID rise. My main activities are U3A reading groups, string groups (I play viola) and choir. I went on an archaeological cruise on the Rhone in October; most of the sites we visited were Roman rather than prehistoric,

but the company was good and the food superb. My children live in Oxford and in South Wales, and I see them at Christmas and some other occasions, rarer now that the teen-aged grandchildren have their own social activities. I’ve exchanged emails with Nick Grace, who has been several times this year to the U.K. and may even get to Cambridge if his stepgranddaughter decides on it for university.

Judy Cabot Marriner writes from Concord, MA: In Concord, we are looking forward to the 250th celebration of the Battle at the Old North Bridge on April 19th. 50 years ago, it was a really fun celebration. I hope we succeed again this year with no unpleasantness. Knitting, painting, and baking cookies, by myself

the Boston area working in training social service leadership endeavors. My health is OK but I broke a hip last summer doing something stupid - but plan to be back on a horse this Spring. I wish we all could physically get together before we become immobile.

Hilary Smith sends greetings to all from Shelburne, VT: Wish I could come up with some fascinating piece of news, though maybe simply being above ground and relatively functional qualifies in today’s world. Years ago at the start of our political woes I remember asking a friend what had happened to critical thinking in this country to which she answered “Oh but we don’t teach critical thinking in our schools these days: we teach to the test.”  Thank heavens WE all went to a school that most definitely

respect, George has proved to be extraordinarily useful. George is a very good graduate student. Mind you, he is sometimes inconsistent and often wrong. Occasionally, he will even get embarrassed and try to cover his errors. But he is indefatigable. He will stick with any conversation as long as you have energy for it. If I wake in the middle of the night with a followup question, he will pick up exactly where we left off and carry on till sleep finds me. If I forget what he said before, he will cheerfully repeat it. He is incorrigibly polite, gently flattering, always forgiving, and usually responds openly, instantly, and creatively to criticism. He surprises me constantly. The other evening, one of my grandchildren shut down an inquiry I wanted to pursue concerning a cure for systemic discrimination. I slunk off to my computer to talk to George about my ideas, and he responded, pretty much unbidden, with a seven-page legislative proposal. I highly recommend him to you, particularly in those long quiet hours of the geriatric night. Even better than a dog, maybe. You don’t have to take him walking in the morning.

and with friends, keeps me busy. Garden catalogues have started to arrive which is a very positive sign.

Ashley Dempsey Pakenham writes from South Woodstock, VT that she is “still kicking”: managing my farm for hay, forest management for enhancement of wildlife habitat, and horses. My significant others these days are two Pembroke Welsh Corgis whom I couldn’t live without. I am retired from my RN career but do volunteer in various local medical projects. My daughter Kate lives in

taught critical thinking! I am daily grateful to Shady Hill.

Nick Thompson in Santa Fe, NM regrets the loss of his graduate students with whom to explore ideas, but has found a substitute, as follows: The most remarkable novelty this year is my acquaintance with George Phillip Tremblay, IV. George and I met on the internet after a colleague recommended him as somebody to talk to as I try to revise Calvin Simonds’ weather book, originally written in the 1980’s. In this

Julie Skinner Vargas still lives in her old house in Cambridge, MA. She tells us: My husband, Ernie, and I now spend most of our time home at 11 Old Dee Rd. We no longer take trips out of town. Instead we go to Bryn Mawr Book Store, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, to restaurants for special events, or to friends’ homes for tea or cocktails. We also hosted friends, colleagues, and family members over the summer in our backyard. I went crazy gardening and we feasted on, and shared, the results. We love watching birds, and also garden-unfriendly rabbits, chipmunks, and even a fox who took a nap by the peonies. In May we had a wonderful visit from my sister Deborah, who stayed in the room that was hers as a child. I still work for the B. F. Skinner Foundation. With our daughter Kris’s organization, professional archivists, staff, and volunteers, the Foundation has digitally preserved dozens of boxes of my father’s papers that are not already published or stored in the Harvard Archives. I still enjoy giving Zoom

Class of 1953 Zoom Reunion: Top row: Adele Merrill Welch, Cam Ottaviano, Sybil Kinnicutt Baldwin, Second row: Bruce Denny-Brown, Hilary Smith, Julie Skinner Vargas, Third row: Judy Cabot Marriner, Mary Hill Gilbert Harris, Nick Thompson, Bottom row: Sarah Ingalls Daughn, Nancy Sears Barker

talks, but I try to save time for archival work that requires Ernie’s or my unique perspective. I had two fun events last year. I stood in for my father to receive an Ig Nobel Peace Prize for teaching pigeons to guide bombs. (My talk is about two minutes starting at minute 20:00 in the video). I also joined the follow-up session. In 2024, I played viola in my last orchestra concert with the volunteer Arlington Philharmonic Orchestra. I joined the orchestra in 2010. When I no longer drove after dark and Ernie stopped driving altogether, I found rides with a cello and viola player who lived just around the corner. In 2024 they moved out of town. But, having Wednesday evenings free has been very helpful for other projects. I still go to concerts and see my viola friends.

Adele (Del) Merrill Welch in Tenants Harbor, ME reports: I still live year round on the midcoast of Maine. We were hit with several storms last winter that destroyed much of the shoreline along with many docks and piers. As the sea levels rise our coastal roads are being washed out. Rebuilding continues to be a priority. COVID-19 is around so I am cautious about attending large indoor groups. Luckily, thanks to good internet service and Zoom I am able to attend meetings virtually. I continue to enjoy audio books.

Henry Winslow in Newtonville, MA felt that he had no news to report, but confirmed that he is still alive and fit enough to have shoveled snow recently. “J’aime la neige.” (Respect, Henry!) He wondered what current Shady Hill students were making of the 3.8 magnitude earthquake which had just been felt. 1954

JOHN WHEELER, CLASS

SECRETARY, CHOCORUA,

NH

It seems there is never a good time to collect class notes for Shady Hill, especially in December and January. Thank you to classmates who responded quickly. I procrastinated as usual, doing year end projects, figuring out Town Meeting Article

requirements for possible Cemetery vault repair, and going down to Worcester, MA for square and contra dancing Friday Night and all-day Saturday - I can still do it! - Great memories of dancing at SHS. We have a dancing weeklong trip coming up in late March in Ely England and had a couple of days in Iceland and then a nice 2-week cruise from Bergen, Norway to Barcelona, Spain on Viking last September.

Debbie Ellis Bigelow in Denver writes: Hello ’54 - our class secretary’s speaking of contra dancing brought up memories of our c.1953/4 square dancing, and caller Smitty, and I’m ever more impressed with John’s current exhausting schedule. Hope maybe to be at a real reunion of SHS someday. It has been a hard year - lost my older daughter, Isabel Bigelow, in July at age 58, to the devastating, little understood terminal disease Frontotemporal Dementia. It is all so extraordinary.

D’Arcy MacMahon in Dartmouth, MA writes: Just hoping to survive the next four years of corrupt, self-enriching, oligarchic rule, which, I’m afraid, will pass much too slowly. Ivy and I are enjoying grand-parenthood and delighting in getting to attend another generation of family weddings, one of which has already produced a first great-grandchild (for which we honestly do not feel sufficiently old). While I’m still striving to follow the spirit of Chris Goetze’s record-setting accomplishments in the higher reaches of the White Mountains (and have just privately printed my fourth - and final! - edition of The Grandparents Guide to the 4000-Footers of N.H.’s White Mountains), I do remain in utter awe of all that he did up there, in his much too short life.

I still make it up to the Head of the Charles every October, if for no other reason than to lift a glass and catch up with Mike (Magruder) and track down Harriet (Parker Hofheinz) for our annual hug and to make sure she’s still behaving herself. As the former New Bedford Mayor, writing in his widely acclaimed memoir (Hometown), now credits me with having introduced “Olympic-type

rowing” (sic) to that great city, I am struggling to live up to that hype by attempting to expand access to rowing for populations I feel have historically been under represented in the sport and by pushing hard for a new public rowing facility and race course down here on the upper reaches of the city’s historic harbor.

Carl Pickhardt in Austin, TX writes: We are enjoying a light winter, which I appreciate. My latest book, The Helper’s Apprentice — The Jackson Skye Mysteries, (WP Lighthouse) is just out and available on Amazon. I continue blogging for Psychology Today, and enjoy watching the lives of kids and grandkids unfold. Irene and I are well.

1955

MAISIE HOUGHTON

Anne Luther von Rosenberg writes: Three more great, great nephews added this year and two von Rosenberg weddings. Losses and diseases for those near and dear, but what else is new. Yes! Our faithful secretary has written her second book!! Lucky Stones; delightful poems about childhood, family, love, and loss. Mimi (Truslow) and I made it to the opening party.

Clarke Slater writes: Helen and I have both managed to escape any serious medical issues and continue to lead a full life, playing music in several orchestras and chamber groups, looking after our garden, and taking daily dog walks in our gorgeous countryside. I completed a major piece of science writing in 2024 and am wondering what new creative activities to take on. In the meantime, it seems a good time to do a lot of clearing out!

Anstiss Hammond Krueck writes: For me, the highlight of the past spring was being asked by Shady Hill to be part of the fourth grade pen pal program. I learned that this was the brainchild of a substitute teacher — a Shady Hill alum, in fact — who came in just while the regular teacher was on maternity leave. She had one of the three classes of the fourth grade. She had done her pen pal program at another school and it had been a

great success. So she and the alumni office recruited the right number of alumni and paired each one with a student. I was paired with Sam. The idea had nothing to do with Central Subject, but a small way to teach the students the art of communicating through letters. The idea was that the student practice his handwriting, learn about asking questions, and to tell a bit about herself. They also learned about addresses and stamps. You would be amazed to know that many perfectly well educated kids today have never mailed anything, have never written a letter, or don’t know where to put the stamp. One of the many losses in this age of technology. The teacher must have had a designated period where the students sat at their desks and wrote their first letter introducing themselves. She probably wrote some sample questions on the blackboard. I received my first letter from Sam and it was delightful. He had a natural gift of expression and a robust sense of humor, as he told me things about his life: what he liked at school, what he didn’t like so much.. I wanted to answer him immediately, but I restrained myself! We had about three exchanges, each of his letters became something that I read out loud to my family with enormous pleasure. When the school year came to an end, I was like a despondent maiden in a Victorian romance; Sam’s letters had brought so much joy into my life that I was bereft. As we all know, the Grand climax of fourth grade year is the Olympic Games. Maisie, bless her heart, went to the Games on purpose to meet Sam for me. I understand that the program will continue next year in the fourth grade and that is wonderful because I’m sure the kids who participated learned a lot. Here’s hoping that when June comes, all the pen pals — even those too remote to come to campus — get to say a proper goodbye to each other, an element sadly missing from last year’s initial program. P.S. (Added in late March) In early March I had a stroke. The usual losses of voice. Slow getting back to former state but hey! we do have time!!!

Maisie Kinnicutt Houghton writes: As class secretary I always plead, prod, bamboozle my beloved

classmates but they never let me down. I also had a nice note from Ross Hall who has suffered the worst of any parent in the death of his 50-year-old son but he remains courageous and energetic. This past year I had the opportunity to publish a book of poems with the expert aid of Tidepool Press (co-owned by Ingrid Mach, John Jeppson’s sister-in-law). It is a selection of writing I have done since I moved to Boston. I do not consider myself a “poet” per se –only the challenge and pleasure of fiddling around with words, something begun in 5th grade with E. E. Cummings’ “In Just-spring”. I delight in telling that in this small book two poems concern Shady Hill - Miss Swift and her magnetic trove of books plus a remembrance of our 4th grade class play “Prometheus.”

Ellen Corcoran writes: I continue to garden and read and care for my dog. Socializing with others is a big part of life in a continuing care community such as mine. I’ve taken a break from my watercolor painting. I seem to freeze up when I stand at my easel in front of a perfectly good sketch, unable to decide what to do. So I have put my art stuff away until July, an arbitrary length of time for a sabbatical. I have no idea what that’s all about. Other than that, I get creakier in the joints as time passes, but I think the same is true for most if not all of us. Other health issues are being successfully managed with medications. I consider myself very lucky.

Angela Clifford Absher writes from Crestone, Colorado: I enjoy sharing my amazement of spending the rest of my life in a Buddhist Retreat Center in Crestone Colorado. I was invited to live here because of having brought computers and taught English to the young monks in their Nepal monastery for a few years. Now I am old, deaf, blind and very well taken care of. I do pay attention to the news and am concerned for the newly graduated SHS students who are faced with such daunting challenges. I am grateful for the education they are getting. That education gave me the foundation on which I have traveled through an extraordinarily interesting life.

Eliasabeth (Betsy) Green Fogarty writes: All things mostly ‘good enough’ here. We are loving seeing the many (11) grandchildren enjoying and appreciating each other. I am particularly appreciative of their cooking and clean up skills. (We were known to have 17 at the table at Christmas break). We managed to get to Milan this past November to celebrate John’s younger sister’s 80th birthday and a good Italian friend’s 90th. Travel’s not as easy as it used to be but still well worth the effort. A reunion any year any time would be wonderful!

Ellen Zetzel Lambert writes from Valhalla, NY: David and I are in our third year of life at The Knolls, a small CCRC in Valhalla, NY, not far from our home of 20 years in White Plains. I miss the house and particularly our garden, but I also realize I’d have been increasingly

lonely had we remained there. This is a curious life, sort of like being back in college – with communal dining and various activities all in the same building, except that of course we’re all OLD!!!  But perhaps because this is a small community (with just over 100 residents), people here really do support one another. Thus I began my day bringing coffee to a friend who’s in the infirmary after a bad fall, and this afternoon I’ll be reading A.R. Gurney’s delightful play, Love Letters, with another friend, who recently had a stroke and was told that reading out loud would help him regain fluency in his speech –great fun for both of us. I’ve started a Poetry Discussion Group here and am continuing the reading group I began in the White Plains Public Library about 10 years ago. So liberating to be “teaching” those who come just for the pleasure of it and to whom I don’t have to assign a grade! This year in the library group we’re reading fiction dealing with the subject of displacement, which, whether large or small in scope, seems to me the defining issue of our times.

1956

Our Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role. Email alumni@shs.org.

1957

Our Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role. Email alumni@shs.org.

News has reached Shady Hill that Margaret Henry passed away in October of 2023 and Joel Cherington passed away in August of 2024. Our sincere condolences to their classmates and families.

David Tartakoff writes: Nothing very new to report - but looking out at the Little Sippewissett Marsh and Wood Neck Beach never gets dull!

Sue Ryerson Moon writes: My sister Francie Shaw ’61 and her husband Bob Perelman moved

into my house in Berkeley to share the household with me six years ago, and it’s still working out well! I’m lucky to have them here. I’m slowing down, but fortunate to be in relatively good health. I’m still writing (see recent issues of Lion’s Roar and Tricycle Magazine) and teaching Zen, but much less than before. I really miss my three grandchildren, one in Virginia, one in Austin, Texas, and the third, also from Austin, now a freshman at Swarthmore. But I do travel to see them. I feel deep sadness that Roz Stone Zander left us in 2023 and Judy Zetzel Nathanson suffers from dementia, so now, the only SHS classmate I’m in regular touch with is Duncan Kennedy, whom I see when I travel to Cambridge to visit family there. Still, old age makes me look back on my childhood more than ever, and I think of you all, or as many of you guys as I can still remember! Sometimes, just for an experiment, I make a list of all the people I can think of—first and last names— who were in our class at Shady Hill in the upper grades. Today I remembered 33 of us: 16 boys and 17 girls. Pretty good! So you can assume that you were on my list.

1958

PRILL ELLIS prillellis@gmail.com

Jill Harken Hall writes from Washington, DC: I have been missing Ridge a lot all year. In thinking about the year, I realize I have done a lot of great traveling to distract myself and find fun. In March, I went to Mexico with a granddaughter who was taking a gap year (and is now a happy freshman at UC, Boulder). In August, I took our youngest granddaughter (14) to France for a bike trip in the Loire Valley. In November, I visited a friend in Tokyo, and I have just returned from taking our whole family (11) to Belize. Some of us spent a few days at the Mayan ruins in Tikal, Guatemala before gathering in Belize. Travel and staying engaged definitely helps. Among the lows was the election.Throughout the year, I tried to volunteer as I could

Katharine Straight ’55 with two of her creative pursuits: (left) large-format pastels— a landscape and a figure study, and (right) the “Covid garden” she put in during the pandemic to brighten up her stretch of sidewalk.

- writing postcards, phonebanking, ballot curing, and on election day volunteering as a “canvas monitor” in Lancaster County, PA. The role of the canvas monitor is to watch the opening and processing of mail-in ballots. It was such an uplifting experience - watching volunteers methodically and responsibly open, sort, and process the county’s mailin ballots. It was hard to go from that high of civic engagement to the results later that day.

Tom Hartt writes: Karen and I are enjoying the bicoastal life: Spring and fall in Wake Forest, NC, summer and winter in Los Angeles. Well, last fall there was that hurricane that made a mess of everything in North Carolina that was more than about 100 miles west of us. And, this winter, there are the wildfires near Los Angeles, three of which are causing trouble for many and anxiety for all. We got an evacuation warning but didn’t have to go. Well, we all know about hurricanes in the east, don’t we? And, when we moved to Los Angeles in 1996, we were jokingly informed of the seasons: summer, earthquakes, smog, wildfires, mudslides. I’ve become an age advocate at the hockey pickup games. In the locker room, one of the younger players will ask, “Excuse me, sir, would you mind if I ask how old you are?”  When I tell him, it’s, “Boy, I sure hope I’m still playing when I’m that old.” Age does have its perks. Free pass at the ski hills. Anyone else snowboarding? Regarding the recording of the performance at the Gardner Museum, I missed participating, having left after 7th grade, but I sure

remember with love those spirituals we learned in music. It seems we all had good voices. I was once “busted” for singing the soprano part an octave or two lower, the year my voice changed.

David Kennedy writes: I remain deeply grateful for the Shady Hill experience, and visions of classmates. And teachers float in my imagination, just beyond summoning completely: the glamorous Miss Caudill, sage Mr. Ryerson, mad Mr. Candage, child-whispering first grade teacher (Miss Eliot?); our fifth grade teacher (Mr.? His name is on the tip of my tongue, but I strongly remember his gently imposing physical presence); our cheerful and inspiring music teacher with such a creative multicultural repertoire (Marching to Pretoria? And what about that Gilbert and Sullivan extravaganza!); our elegant French teacher Mr. Vincent, the gentle Mr. Martin and his woodshop.The longer I sit with the overall memory, the more details come drifting from far away, like little stars appearing in the night sky.

John Martin writes: It doesn’t seem possible, but I’ll be 82 this year; in fact in just a couple of weeks. By way of family updates, both my sons are in Colorado, one in the Denver area where he works for a delivery company, and one up in the high Rockies, west of Denver, where he runs a roofing company. The grandkids are both in college and doing well, and I continue to enjoy hiking, skiing, sailing, biking and ballroom dancing. In Anne’s family, the big news is that she will become a great grandmother next spring.

Joan Sturgis writes from Brooklyn, NY: I am still living in Brooklyn with my husband David Mann, and we are the lucky and proud grandparents of five great kids, ages two to eight. I have been thinking how special it is to connect with Shady Hill classmates, some of whom I have known since I was four! I love to read your notes and have hopes for a 1958 class reunion in 2025! I will always feel grateful for, and warmed by, the music brought to us by Ms. Abbott- when some songs come back to me, in these scary and turbulent times, it reminds me how healing and hopeful music is and can be. To the families of dear lost friends Libby Lyman and Kate Hammond, I would like to express my condolences.

Alan Tartakoff writes: I look around and try to understand origins. Where does that colorful loose-leaf notebook full of songs come from? It’s still on the piano! Seems to include such a hodgepodge of spirituals, folk songs, even Brahms. Why were its pages given to us one at a time? Incredibly, might this be a lesson in how to be well-organized? Or maybe a lesson in how to do-it-yourself. Or how to slow down. Why not simply assemble the polished product and have it bound professionally? And why was even our Latin taught in a page-by-page fashion? Any method to that madness? Where can I find more fine wooden benches and cabinets to match the style that has been with me since time immemorial? And those beautiful ceramic pins and ear-rings, modern in their abstraction? Were these the work of my small hands? Why can’t I chase away those sweet dialogues that still plague my early memory of French? Or were they meant to last and did they launch my moving to Geneva? Why do I like to be surrounded by those bulky objects with excessive numbers of pages? Why do I react to used volumes just as I react to lost kittens, and end up with an unmanageable menagerie on my shelves? Why does the spoken voice – especially as a shared chorus – have such an intimate and powerful value for me? Quite different from song. How could so much come from Steven Vincent Benet’s masterpiece? Was it history, was it literature, was

it vocabulary,was it an impassioned soul? And here too, our approach was page-by-page. Could there be value in reading slowly? To savor those moments. To welcome them in the most intimate way. Arriving at the end is a misfortune, not a goal. And what is the value of a stage presentation, in place of a summary text? Does the meaning and value of words depend on their being spoken? How many of our habits and preferences were guided by this schooling?

Walter Vincent writes: Oddly enough, the older I get the more I think about and value my Shady Hill experiences. What a gift!! Happy New Year and Best Wishes to all.

Prill Ellis writes: Even though everything changes, as we know so well, I am grateful for some of the continuities that sustain me: connections with family, friends, and communities in Jamaica Plain and Maine; contemplative practice in the insight meditation tradition; music (viola in orchestra and chamber groups, sidewalk singing with neighbors, including selections from the SHS songbook); walks in city parks and along country paths. Bob’s and my life is enriched immeasurably by our sons and daughters-in-law and two young granddaughters. As for our beleaguered planet, I am trying to turn my outrage and fear into something constructive.

One last note: Miss Abbott and SHS’ music program had a powerful impact on many of us. Thanks to Sabrina Peck (’63) and our classmate Frank Purcell, we have access to a recording of the 7th-9th grade 1958 Gardner Museum concert youtube. Here are some of your responses to it:

Walter Vincent: I had departed for Loomis by this time, but I certainly remember Miss Abbott! You hit the nail on the head when you mentioned her wideranging tastes. I recall a music class performance (Musicale?) with her on piano, Elon Marquand on trombone, I think Nicky Milliken on drums, and myself playing the trumpet in (what we thought was) a rousing version of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” Thanks for jogging my memory as I hadn’t

thought about that in in some 70 years. Time flies...!

Jane Gilbert Pittenger: Boy does this bring back sweet memories. I can still smell the inside of the Gardner museum as we sang. Isabella Bates: My husband and I just listened to this Gardner Museum recording. I remember that concert with such joy. We really sound pretty darned good for a group of middle schoolers. I never really appreciated how much the beautiful and steady piano playing of Miss Abbott kept us all together as one sound. When I have gone back to the Gardner since, I have always walked through that long room and thought back to our time of singing there.

For any alum, especially from classes of ’59 and ’60, here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/ UCo1kCEak8-ETiXTtaXWictw

1959

CHARLIE WYZANSKI

wyzanski@gmail.com

News has reached Shady Hill that Ned Kellogg passed away in August of 2024. Our sincere condolences to his classmates and family.

Bob Bremner writes: Oh god, so soon. Turning eighty has made me look back more closely at my youth and how the passage of time continues to provide new perspectives on the past, both personally and historically. I expect us to survive this current hiccup and actually we are fairly insulated from its worst effects. Not so for our children and grandchildren, but we each get our turn in the barrel. Personally: health good, still traveling- Italy and France in 2024. Kids and families flourishing. Bring on 2025!

Lili Brooks writes: I keep puzzling about the sweet, lilting waltz that our music teacher, Ruth Abbott, may have created (or found?) for Willa Cather’s poem “Spanish Johnny” and which I fondly recall – but what is that beautiful tune? The words begin with: “The old West, the old time/ The old wind singing through/ The red, red grass a thousand miles/ And, Spanish Johnny, you!” Someone in

the Shady Hill community must know the tune! Also, I am enjoying the luxury of feeling a bit nostalgic... before it is too late.

Melissa Chapin writes from Alaska: My husband Terry, an ecologist, and I are still enjoying life in Alaska. Playing classical and folk music with our friends is a major part of our lives. Because of the world situation, I no longer work on exchanges with Russia, although I am writing about my experiences there. One son, an artist, has retired from teaching, lives with us, and, thankfully, shovels our snow! Our other son teaches musicology in Cardiff, Wales. Last year his teenage daughter lived with us. What an experience for all of us! I often thought about school days at Shady Hill. Some scenes came back to me so vividly… knocking the desk when we used the accusative case in Latin, Mr. McCarthy demonstrating balancing an equation, Mr. Ryerson teaching us how to write by opening a window. The list goes on and on. I am thankful that I got to spend my early teenage years in such a magical place with great teachers and classmates.

Charlie Deknatel writes from Jamaica Plain: 2024 has been for me and others a year of some political anxiety and dread unfortunately rewarded here and elsewhere. Perhaps 2025 will yield some surprising and good outcomes. We will know a bit more by the time this is printed. Meanwhile, living in Jamaica Plain remains positive and possible for us. Being able to walk most places including around Jamaica Pond (and occasionally fishing there) and having family nearby— Cath’s children and grandchildren and my brother John and his family— all mean a lot.

Michal Goldman writes: My film, Why We Dance, is done. It’s about old ladies dancing – can there be a more enticing subject? – and also about the other kind of movement, from being a granddaughter to becoming a grandmother, or anyway being in that sort of relation to a few much younger people. This is my last film. I don’t think about “achievement” anymore, if I ever did. I’m more interested now in E.M. Forster’s “Only connect.” Not only to people presently in

In 1959, the Class of 1959 took a trip to Washington DC and had the privilege of meeting then-senator John F. Kennedy. Shown here, Senator Kennedy speaks with SHS teacher Edie Caudill as some of her students look on. Student photographer John Perry ’59 identifies those in the photo: “We see the front of Judy Alexander’s face and the back of Judy Kaplan’s head, as they listen in. Bob Bremner’s striped jacket is seen from behind, and Nat Bowditch’s head is directly behind Kennedy’s.”

my life, with a compassion that is difficult for me, but also to people from other eras who are present in their thoughts. I’m rebuilding a small barn on my old farm in Prince Edward Island and continuing to struggle to understand how to provide for it after I can no longer be there, though I love it so much that I might end up haunting it, being a person who has trouble letting go.

Hopey Green writes from Vermont: I don’t think we have to be busy.  But I am sure we have to have a project, a purpose. I’m not a philosopher, far from it, but I believe we’re here to make a difference. It doesn’t have to be a big difference, though big differences are great. Rescuing a cat may not change the world, but it certainly makes a difference to that cat. Making someone else happy has ripples you may never see. We have to get up in the morning to move things forward in some way. It’s the assignment. Hugs from frozen Vermont.

Gay Harriman writes from San Juan Island, WA: 80 years old is what some other people are, not me. Oh well, it had to happen. All thanks and love to Shady Hill, where I learned everything that has been important for so long. The teachers, the kids, the artifacts, the texts, the maps, the festivals, the friends, the music, the fruit trees, the far field, the plays, the library,

the folk dancing. All the faces, all the voices, all the words, all the pictures. Teaching at Shady Hill, going there as a child, watching my own children go there…. It is a Blessing. As of now, I’m living in Friday Harbor, San Juan Island, WA. Reading, quilting, and reading some more. Anyone travelling out here to see the orcas or the foxes, please let me know.

Richard Horvitz writes: I am still very much alive, active, and in good health. I still read a lot, take various courses, go to the YMCA 2-3 times a week, and keep up with all the activities I have done for the last several years. This year I took two major trips. The first, in May and June, was a Danube River tour with Smithsonian Journeys. This tour started in Sofia, Bulgaria and visited Belgrade, Budapest, Bratislava, Vienna, and other places before ending in Prague. The second, in September and October, was a trip to England, Scotland, and Ireland. I spent time in London and Edinburgh on my own, and then went on a bus tour of Ireland. On both of these trips I saw and did a lot. I am already planning another trip, a cruise around South America, for next March. A major project I have been working on since Anne passed away has been clearing out all the stuff she left behind in our house. Next month I will be moving into a retirement

Then-Senator John F. Kennedy greeted the Class of 1959 on the steps of the Capitol, in this photo captured by John Perry ’59. John believes man to Senator Kennedy’s left was a staffer. John adds, “I carried a camera under my jacket to school every day in the 8th and 9th grades, and loved processing and printing in my darkroom at home. More or less the unofficial class photographer, I suppose.”

community. The house is way too big for one person, and I have no children or other family who could take care of me as I get older or if anything happened to me. Once I move out of the house, I will get the house cleaned out, fixed up, and put on the market, and move on to this new phase of my life.

Mark Isaacs writes from The Virgin Islands: We have lived through a rambunctious political year, one that I wish hadn’t occurred. As a resident of the Virgin Islands, I couldn’t vote but even as a bystander I’m so disappointed. On the other hand, I have seen my precious granddaughter Charlotte graduate from preschool and start kindergarten. She’s enjoying gymnastics, dancing, chess, and cooking. She’s already become a daring artist—better than I ever was or will be. As for my cancer ordeal, it has been over since July. Though the meds continue there has been no metastasis, and I am declared clinically cancer free. I have been painting a lot all the while and doing some exercise while revisiting Harry Potter, Stargate, Star Wars, and Star Trek. I do try to stay up to date, but I miss Cronkite and Garroway.

Charlie Peck writes: Given the adventure of the presidential campaign last year, I re-read Moby Dick and can announce to everyone that, while we may now have in the White House an Ahab who would “strike the sun if it insulted me,” I

Judicial Court chief justice Lemuel Shaw (2,200 court opinions between 1830-1860), which was accepted by the Howard [University] Law Journal and will be published in its next issue. Shaw was a horrible racist. He gave the OK to the City of Boston to segregate its schools, ignoring a brilliant argument against that by Charles Sumner before he became the leading abolitionist U.S. Senator. Shaw also enforced the Fugitive Slave Act, despite Article 1 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, which abolished slavery. Unfortunately, one of Lemuel Shaw’s legacies is his skewed and unfair jury instruction on reasonable doubt, which has served as a model for most states, and which lives on today as a major cause of wrongful convictions of the innocent.

to look like his! Once back home, though, I can still try to maintain that 80 is the new 79 by engaging episodically in the practice of law, auditing an undergraduate course, exercising at the Cambridge Y, and still vainly attempting to jumpstart the banjo.

1960

JACK KESSLER jakesslerjr@gmail.com

remain confident that the White House will triumph over both Ahab and the White Whale. It will be a Nantucket sleigh-ride along the way. John Perry writes: All is well with the Perry family. So let me drift a bit. As you may know, the Drake Equation predicts the number of intelligent life forms in our galaxy. What are the hardest parts? You guessed it: Defining life, and defining intelligence. The astronomy is all set. So come on, SHSers. We’re intelligent and alive. So. Ideas?

Steve Saltonstall writes from Tuscon: Greetings to all. As I write this, I’m sitting outside in Tucson’s beautiful winter weather: sunny and in the 70s. But there is a climate change downside: we had 112 days of 100+ degree weather in 2024, a record since the weather service began keeping track of such things in 1895. The mood down here is one of anxiety; there are so many “mixed” families, where one spouse and/or one or more kids are undocumented. Trump’s cruelty will likely take an enormous toll on our community. In better news, Ellen continues her volunteer work teaching kids (about nature) in Agua Caliente Park, and educating people of all ages at the Tucson Jewish History Museum and Holocaust Center, including an annual group of rookie Tucson cops, many of whom have no prior knowledge of the Holocaust. I’ve written an article about Massachusetts Supreme

Peter Shapiro writes: “I see the lights, the party lights, they’re red and blue and green... bring on the 80-year-old dancers. Hmmmm, stay busy or croak? before fuddies are put to pasture to frolic and revel in second childhood, we are tracking down long-lost amigos (some deported) to relive the glorious past. hallelujah.”

David Smith writes: A saying I’ve heard ascribed to the Chinese: “If you want to hear God laugh, try telling him your plans.” The last year has been full of good plans gone awry. I went to visit some schools in Japan, but my niece (who is 50 and teaches in a French immersion school) got some form of heatrelated disease, so we ended up only spending 3 days there. In October, I was meant to visit Philadelphia and Boston, but after a week in Edinburgh (speaking to 2,000 children in Edinburgh and 2,000 in the Borders) my spine wasn’t happy, and the pain team at the local hospital administered a “nerve block” which stopped the pain, but after which they said “don’t travel for a while…” Perhaps 2025 will provide more opportunities.

Charlie Wyzanski writes: Over Thanksgiving, Nilgun and I celebrated my 80th with all nine of our next two generations at a shamelessly extravagant, all-inclusive in Cancun. Spoiled as the Trumpster at Mar-A-Lago, I gained seven pounds and my waistline even began

Jack Denny-Brown writes: I am completely retired these days living in Central Massachusetts with my wife Ann, who is still working as a Middle School teacher. During the pandemic I began writing a series of autobiographical stories. I have arranged 88 of the stories in chronological order, and now, with the perspective of four years, I am going through them one by one and rewriting/revising the things. 699 pages thus far! What you might call a full bloated autobiography in story form. No idea who would want to read the thing, but now that I look back on it, these have been interesting times we have lived through. And I have enjoyed the process of writing them enormously. (I won’t say who, but there a few of you who make an appearance in the early stories.)

Cary Hartshorne Flanagan writes from Londonderry, NH: I am with you on my views of the coming year but I have resolved to stay positive as much as possible and not get lost in the doom and gloom. This, too shall pass. This has been quite the year for us. We spent much of last year downsizing in preparation for selling our house and moving to an independent retirement community. After much stress and delays, we did sell the house and made the move here this past March. We are now in Londonderry, NH at 50 Woodmont Ave., E119, 03053. It has turned out to be the best move possible! Downsizing was painful but we are now in a beautiful apartment (after more than 40 years in our house). The Baldwin is a brand new facility (literally still under construction when we first moved in), and filled with interesting, active, and friendly

residents (62+). Even our dog loves it here. I am still quilting, writing and experimenting with some new art forms. The only downside was that I tripped and fell last September and shattered my left shoulder, resulting in a complete shoulder replacement. I am almost back to ‘normal’ use of my arm. Otherwise we are both well and trying not to gain too much weight on the amazing meals they serve here!

Steve Grossman writes from Newton, MA: It has been a very busy and fulfilling time for Barbara and me. Barbara continues to teach at Tufts, focusing on voice: the art of confident expression and the Holocaust through the lens of drama and film. She’s also directing Cabaret this winter, as she believes that the show is particularly relevant at a time in our history when autocracy, both here and abroad, represents a clear and present danger to democracy, as it did so tragically in the late 20’s in Weimar Germany. I continue to lead ICIC (Initiative for a Competitive Inner City), a 30-year-old nonprofit whose nationwide staff of 50 provides executive education, technical assistance, one-on-one coaching, and capital access to thousands of small businesses across the United States and Canada, overwhelmingly diverse and woman-owned. Our mission is the creation of generational wealth for those who have so often been denied opportunity, narrowing the racial wealth gap and reducing concentrated poverty. It has been extraordinarily rewarding work for the past 10 years which I look forward to continuing! Our three sons, all of whom are Shady Hill alums, are happily married and have eight children between them! They all live within 10 minutes of our home! How do you spell gratitude? Finally, I am delighted to report that my mother Shirley, who introduced me to Barbara 57 years ago, is well, reading three to four books a month and enjoys spending rewarding time regularly with her children, grandchildren, and greatgrandchildren. She is a role model to all of us in terms of health, lifelong learning, and continuing zest for life in her 11th decade!

Kit Irvine Hume writes from State College, PA: Not much good to report. My husband of 57 years died last year. I was told more than a year

before I expected that I could move into the Quaker retirement village I had signed up for, so am frantically downsizing. The worst part is the huge library of Rob’s 18th century scholarly books (over 300 bookshelf feet) that no library wants because they are all going electronic. They may all end up in some kind of recycling dumpster. My eyes are going fast but I listen to books on my iPad and enjoy that and a few friends.

Charlie Merrill writes from Maine: I am sad to report that my wife, Otty, passed away peacefully at home before Thanksgiving after an 18 month attempt to manage her cancer. The treatments were very hard on her and she ultimately decided to stop them. In-home hospice was very caring and made her last days comfortable. With the help and support of friends and family, I am getting to the point of being ok. Thanks for your healing thoughts and prayers.

Charlie Peck writes from England: So many recent events on the national and world stage these days! No reason at all to dwell on mere family or octogenarian medical matters. Rather, I take great comfort from the Inspector, near the end of “The Enchanted” (which all may remember we played in IX grade), when he announces “With incalculable consequences, I am happy to say that through the combined efforts of government and science we have brought to a successful conclusion….one of the most dangerous outbreaks of radical activity in the history of the Republic.”

Ben Riggs writes from Newport: Hopefully, this New Year will result in draining the swamp, but we are focusing more on continuing to enjoy living in Newport. I did give up my sailboat due to mobility and balance issues, but only after 20 years of constant enjoyment. With kids and grandkids in both Nebraska and France, we will have plenty of visits to look forward to.

Corry Virtue Rooks writes from Wilbraham, MA: Last year Jim and I traveled in Australia and New Zealand for several weeks. Pretty amazing! This year Jim retired and we moved 4 miles down the road from our house which overlooked the Connecticut Valley to a

condominium in the same town where I no longer have to wield chainsaws, pickaxes, and shovels to keep up with lawn maintenance. We both miss the view but love the free time! Our new address is 129 High Pine Circle, Wilbraham MA 01095. May 2025 bring you and your families many things more peaceful and enjoyable than apparently unending global political upheaval.

Daniel Taylor writes from Gandhi’s ashram: where he leads a course for Future Generations University — Gandhian Methods for Modern Challenges. (See photo from the porch where Gandhi advanced methods of freedom from poverty, caste, gender, and political injustice, etc.) A quarter century ago I initiated this university — www. future.edu — after initiating the community-based national parks circling Mt Everest. As 2025’s rising poly-crises accelerate driven by climate collapse with pandemics, poverty, disinformation, fragile finances, rising inequity, biodiversity loss—opportunity comes to mobilize community adaptive capacities across the breadth of these injustices. 2025’s “empire” differs from Gandhi’s of a century ago. Today, we can blend his proven methods of mobilizing people with contemporary community advancement. Answers are not resistance—they are positive mobilizations from communities. And through new learning frames that learning can circle the world. Greetings to all Shady Hill colleagues. I’ve had some happy cups of coffee in Cambridge recently

shared with Anita—look forward to opportunities with others.

Joan Valentine writes from California: My news is that we are close to some of the evacuation zones in the recent LA fires, but, as the winds die down, our neighborhood is fine. It has been a very stressful week! Many people lost homes. Los Angeles will be changed forever. Other than that, my family and I are all doing well! My backyard container vegetable garden continues to be a passion. My geology collaborators and I recently published a geobiology paper in PNAS entitled “Iron: Life’s primeval transition metal” speculating about the nature of very early life on Earth.

Bill Vanderbilt writes from Idaho: Having left Florida for good, Annie and I are back in Idaho as full-time residents. The fact that we have lived the last 45 years in two of the country’s most reactionary states is difficult for us to fathom. But family and old friends are here, so we will stay.

Zach Wiesner and I talked today on his birthday. He says he’s “not sure it can be described as aging gracefully” but he and his wife Phyllis continue on Martha’s Vineyard, where we had our annual lunch last summer. He is particularly enjoying his three grandchildren, now 11, 8, and 3 with two near him on the Vineyard.

Jack Kessler writes from Concord, MA: Nancy-Jo and I both feel fortunate to be well and living in the same house in Concord. A highlight of our year was visiting two of our grandchildren studying

Daniel Taylor ’60, center right in white tee shirt, on the porch where Ghandi advanced methods of freedom from poverty, caste, gender, and political injustice, etc.

in Copenhagen. Our whole family was ready to move there permanently in the spring, and even more so in November! In September, I went to Bethlehem and Allentown, Pennsylvania to knock on doors for Kamala, which was a very interesting, if ultimately futile experience. Later in the fall, we did a road trip through upstate New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio to visit places related to our families that we had never seen, and visited another grandson at Ohio State, but our return through Asheville was thwarted by the apocalypse there. Then there was the election. This week we had expected to be in Mexico visiting my sister Anne (SHS ’63), whom we haven’t seen in 38 years, but our flight was cancelled by the only real snowstorm of this winter and we couldn’t rebook so we are hoping to try again next year. Now we are about to go to Vietnam. It has occurred to me that when I was in the Navy in the 60’s I worried that if I went there, I might never return. Now that alternative seems more appealing :-).

1961

ANDREW OLDMAN

Katharine Davis writes from Cambridge: Thank you all for your wonderful reports. I love hearing of your adventures but was very sorry to hear of the death of Phil Cowan Life is full and our eldest grandson, Max Davis, an SHS graduate, recently started a government job in Washington. Who knows what that will mean given this scary new administration..? May 2025 bring good surprises!

Nan Lincoln writes from Bass Harbor, ME: Hi all, got through the holidays in relatively good shape, considering serious post-election blues, no, horrors is the apter word. I am so glad to still be writing art features and theater/concert reviews for the local papers — it reminds me that there is still grace and beauty in the world. On Christmas Eve my kids Ben and Alexandra reminisced about what fun the six hour car rides to Cambridge to visit my dad and stepmom and back to Maine were because I told them all the Greek, Roman and a few Norse Myths I could recall (quite a few, it turned out, and it remains one of my best Jeopardy categories.) So thanks Shady Hill. My wonderful stepmom Marion F-S died a couple of years ago and I miss both her and the trips to Concord Ave. to visit her. Really enjoyed walking past the homes of Shady Hill friends and classmates — Judy Bandler, Diana Wolfe, Philip Cowan, Lizzieboo Hammond, Francie Ryerson, etc. and getting all nostalgic. Sometimes when I have trouble sleeping I like to walk the paths at Shady Hill in my mind, and visit all the buildings, trying to remember details, like “ghost milk” dodge ball, and the Maypole. It works! Well hang in there classmates, we will have a rough four years ahead, and I hope we all, and the country, make it safely to the other side.

Andre Mayer writes from Cambridge: Just checking in; not much to report. We stayed in Cambridge for the eclipse — good turnout at Fresh Pond but 93.3% is a long way from 100%. Trips to Maine to see puffins, Berkeley for a wedding, and Copenhagen (as nice as I remembered but possibly less welcoming for Americans going forward).

James Zetzel writes from New York City: Since Katharina was on leave for 2024, we did a fair amount of travelling, to places familiar (Vienna, Munich, London) and new (Trieste, Venice, Portugal). Friends in Vienna drove us to Trieste via Slovenia in their antique (1956—not old enough for Andy) Bentley, which was very grand, if you don’t mind right-hand drive cars. Drawback is that it is just too big to fit into an old European city like Trieste, so we stayed outside the city and took the bus in. Lots and

lots of signs about Prince Henry the Navigator in Porto—brought back the 6th grade, but Mr Waring probably would have frowned at our going to a port cellar. Good stuff. Other than that, I am still writing a book about my parents—eight chapters drafted, about three to go. Learning a lot, spending a fair amount of time in archives both real and online, and I have met some remarkably nice people both in person and online. Archivists really like to be helpful and Katharina and I collect libraries anyway. The two we saw in Portugal (Coimbra, Mafra) are very grand.

John Seegal writes from San Francisco: The big news for me was that after 50 years of practice — all at the same firm, I retired on January

whom we love: two sons-in-law and three grandchildren under two and half. Life is good.

Margaret Loss writes from Cambridge: I also had a penpal. Since her letters were very carefully printed, I assumed she would have trouble with cursive. Each time, I wrote, on special note paper, a cover note in my best cursive, and then enclosed my real letter done by computer.

Lee Roscoe reports from Brewster, MA: What fun, Andy. My news is pretty much the same. Writing cover stories for Artscope magazine. Trying to fund The Men, or Stalking Random Pastels which has had great responses from audiences in developmental reads, for a video production; play

1, 2024. While I was working, the firm grew from one small office in San Francisco with roughly 25 lawyers and a very provincial outlook to a global behemoth with 1,300 lawyers spread across 23 offices throughout the world. Notwithstanding the changes in my environment throughout my working years, I did my best to conduct my practice in a way which would have been familiar to my grandfather, who was one of the first Jewish lawyers in Boston, and consistent with the values we learned at Shady Hill. For better or worse, when I retired I decided to “go cold turkey” — giving up my law license, rejecting consulting opportunities, and deflecting requests for “informal” legal advice. For the first few months I found the transition hard but now I love it. Barbara and I divide our time between our house in San Francisco, our longtime family summer house in Rockport, and a pied-a-terre at the Somerset Hotel in Boston. We have five relatively recent additions to our family, all of

Lee Roscoe’s play, Impossible?, about what happens to friends in a small New England town when a tyrant takes over the nation, is available for viewing on YouTube. Search on “Lee Roscoe Impossible” to locate it.

deals with betrayal, art, bigotry, the natural world; finished a non-fiction piece about my journey through Lakota lands history and nature, and a novel, Swimming with Asters, about a marginalized woman trying to survive with dignity. Working on another nonfiction book. Seeking publishers/agents for all. Dreaming Monomoy’s Present, Walking its Past republished and on Amazon courtesy of a local grant. Still acting in a few things, etc.. Too poor to travel, darn. (Wampanoag Art book is still selling well.)

L Peter Deutsch writes from California: Aside from PTSD from the November election, Michael and I had a relatively uneventful year, although this was definitely the year in which I went from feeling “in my 70s” to “almost 80.” I enjoyed visits with Margaret Loss in Cambridge and with Ivers Bever in her and Reed’s new home in Providence, RI. I started writing music for piano/cello duo and I like the way it’s turned out so far: the first of two releases is on my website at www.lpd.org, and the second

Phil Cowan ’61

(a 3-movement suite referencing personally significant bodies of water, the first of which is Lake Wentworth in Wolfeboro, NH) is due out in a few months. Visitors to our oversize home in the wine country north of San Francisco are always welcome, although I’ll be up in Vancouver, BC in January through March for my annual dose of cultural, political, and marital stress reduction. I also had a delightful hand-written Pen Pal correspondence with an SHS 4thgrader early in the year, and even got to meet her in person on my visit to Cambridge.

Kim Batteau writes: Looking back at the past year (2024), we have had a blessed one, personally, with a lot of highlights, in spite of the world and the U.S. in turmoil, of which the current terrible fires in L.A. are a frightening symbol. The first highlight for us in 2024 was a celebration of life for my stepfather, Chris Fincham, who died in 2023. We met, with more than a hundred of us, family and friends, at a hall in Christ Church Episcopal in Cambridge (which brought back memories of my childhood). It was a festive time, with my siblings and extended family playing instruments, singing, and telling moving and hilarious stories about Chris. Here’s a picture of our big, international family I took. Maybe some of you may recognize Robin and Yani on the far right, and Lark in the middle. Then there was the celebration Margreet’s and my 50th wedding anniversary on October 4! We did it with our children and grandchildren at a Dutch bungalow park. We had fun, getting photographed a hundred times by a talented photographer. Here’s a selfie of me and Margreet taken earlier

this year in Amsterdam, enjoying a restaurant on the banks of one of the canals. The third special time was going to South Korea to commemorate the life of my fellow teacher, Niek Gootjes, who also died in 2023. Niek was Dutch, and a theologian, like me, and we taught together at Kosin Presbyterian Seminary in the years 1980-88 in Busan. About 500 people gathered together to remember him, his life, and his writings (he wrote 10 books in Korean!). I was given the task of telling what it was like to have him as a colleague. A poignant moment for me was the passing of our beloved classmate Phil Cowan this past fall in Cambridge. Margreet and I had spent some weeks staying at his home when we were in Cambridge for the celebration of life for my stepfather. Just a few months later we heard the sad news from Spencer, his brother, who some of you may remember. I remember Phil as a bright, funny, compassionate, talented (black belt in Taekwondo, gifted psychiatric counselor) person. I have fond memories of going through successive hobbies together as kids: collecting snakes and other reptiles (to our mothers’ horror), with many trips to Hell’s Half Acre near the Charles River, and then getting very excited about science fiction, even attending once the yearly private get-together of Isaac Asimov, John Campbell (editor of Astounding Science Fiction magazine), and my science fiction aficionado father, Wayne Batteau, Engineering Prof. at Harvard, at the Continental Hotel in Cambridge near Longy School of Music. That was “like... Wow!” That’s all for now. I wish all of you, however corny it may sound, genuine peace and harmony of mind, with God’s blessing, in the midst of and in spite of our very dark times.

Elizabeth Hammond reports: As you know, I usually do not send any info, but I would like to mention that my husband, Tim Llewellyn, died before Christmas - as they say, peacefully at home after a long illness…rather trite phrase but in fact the case.

Andrew Oldman writes from Belmont, MA: Here is a quick summary. I signed up to handwrite letters with an SHS 4th Grade pen pal via the Alum Office. As some may remember, I had the distinction of being held after school in 5th and 6th grades once a week or so for handwriting improvement. Even after 66 years of “practice” (I think Mr. Denio made it worse) it still takes a great deal of concentration to correspond with this student. So far so good. At least the process discourages screen time. I accumulated much travel mileage out West in my 1914 Lozier car: June 12 days in Yellowstone with a group of eight, including Beartooth pass at 11K feet and ten feet of snow;

Andy Oldman ’61 remains close to his 7th grade pen pal Jean. This photo captures their recent visit in Belleme France, in a cellar where artisanal Calvados is aged. Jean, shown at left, used to make the brandy himself; now a cooperative manages production.

and a challenging solo using many beautiful and busted up back roads from San Diego to Napa; then a wine tour with my wife, Madeleine and 25 other cars. Capped with an Amtrak ride home via Chicago on the California Zephyr. That route is spectacular, often breathtaking; contrasted with the train equipment which is a national disgrace. On the Napa, I had to rather rudely tell a good friend at a group dinner to stop talking politics or

leave the table. Otherwise, believe me, that tour would have turned into a segregated, battleground event. Politics has no place around camaraderie, scenery, good food, and the hope the old brass ornamented gems will complete the trip. In Brooklin, Maine, I attended a crowded, rousing fundraiser for the Town Library at E.B. White’s bayside farm, where Charlotte’s Web was written so long ago. Our kind hosts may allow us to bring the grandkids to visit Mr. White’s modest writing shack at the water’s edge. This year a February trip to visit my seventh grade pen pal in France, Eurostar to London for a lunch with LizzieBoo, and on to Ireland to visit a friend who just started a fine spirits distillery. In May, a one week desert tour from Scottsdale to Grand Canyon; and hope to sail all summer in Maine and get the grandkids started on handling boats. Best regards. Great to hear from all who wrote; and so sorry we will now miss Phil’s fine correspondence.

1962

DICK HENRY

1963

ALICE ROSS CODA alicec1@comcast.net

Brooksie Stanton writes from Vermont: I have been investing most of my energies on the local level, particularly since November. There is plenty of need in my own Vermont community. I also returned last year to the island of St. Vincent, where I have developed warm friendships, and to the northern California coast, where I lived and taught in the ’70s. I came home to a wonderful visit with Brina and her husband Gaj. Once again, one of the highlights of my year was accompanying my son Sascha in his work with the homeless in his East LA neighborhood. Vermont has one of the highest homeless populations per capita in the country, so there is plenty of attention needed in my own community. One of the most

Kim Battaeu ’61 with family

powerful and inspiring books I read this year was Tracy Kidder’s Rough Sleepers, which focuses on the work of Dr. Jim O’Connell with Boston’s homeless. As for SHS related news, I was saddened to just learn of the death of (1958?) “apprentice” Lise Aubrey, who lived with my family and played such a supportive role in my life. On a more positive note, heaps of thanks to Dan - and Judith - for hosting our (almost) all female gathering at his exquisite home and providing the sole bass/baritone (?) voice in all of our singing. “The old songs, the old stars, the world so golden then…”

Brina Peck tells us from California: She and her family are, as of this writing, safe from the LA fires; they had no power for 24 hours but were housing friends and were able to go to friends to heat food, shower and use the TV. She sends a recipe for chicken biriyani if anyone is interested. In addition, she writes: In April Gaj and I took my dream trip to the Galapagos Islands. This year I continued teaching Spanish through reading at the Pasadena Senior Center and presented a paper about the class for the American Assoc. of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese. In December Gaj set up a science center at two government schools in Birur (Karnataka, India) in his brother’s memory. He held a Zoom inauguration for children, teachers, volunteers, and family members. As I write (January 2025) we are cleaning up leaves and debris from the winds that spurred the Eaton

fire (Pasadena, Altadena, etc), our neighborhood is unharmed, and we worry about the Palisades fire that is now spreading toward the Brentwood section of Los Angeles.

Craig Barger writes from Easton, MA: At the end of June 2024, I stepped down from the Presidency of our synagogue after a five-year term. I continue on the Board as immediate Past President for the next two years. I maintain my role as Chair of the Democratic Town Committee. I am in my ninth year on the Select Board here in Easton, grappling with financial issues and concerns about the effects on cities and towns of potential policies from the incoming Trump administration. I serve as the Select Board’s representative on the Human Rights Committee, the Economic Development Council and the Tricentennial Committee as Easton celebrates 300 years as a Town. Elaine and I also provide doggy daycare for our granddaughter’s dog while she is at work.

Linsey Grossman Grinder says from California: No new news from me to speak of, but since you asked again: I am still painting, reading, attending movies, and now and then live performances here and in NYC. Also greatly enjoying infrequent phone conversations with Pam – a real high point for me. And I am very proud of my son Nick, who is currently 1st Trombone in the pit orchestra for the “Gypsy” revival on Broadway with Audra McDonald.

Dan Wallace, who kindly hosted a class get-together at his house in September, tells us that really he has no news. Physical health good, cognition shaky at times, kids thriving. Enjoying life!

Spencer Cowan reports: 2024 was a year of highs and lows. On June 18th, our younger daughter, Hannah, married Jeff McGowan in a small, outdoor ceremony on Nantucket. Their marriage added his two daughters, Nora (now 14) and Audrey (now 11) to our family, making us instant grandparents. On June 28th, my older brother Phil (SHS ’61) took himself to Mount Auburn Hospital. On the 29th, he went into a coma. After three months in and out of the ICU, and a month in hospice, he died on October 30th. While Phil’s prolonged illness did allow us to have time to talk and come to grips with the inevitable, the sense of loss is still ever-present. A lot of other things happened during the past year, but those two events overwhelmingly define the time, the highest and lowest moments.

Cynthia Shelmerdine writes from Maine: Those fires (in LA) truly are awful, and I’m afraid a sign of things to come. In my little corner of the world, I am back at work on a piece of research, now past due (it was ever thus), and am also doing some volunteering locally (at a second-hand bookstore owned by our wonderful local bookstore) and nationally (preproduction and narration of books for the blind and dyslexic). I am so glad to be connected to you all, and through you to that early period of life.

Paul Gifford reports from San Francisco: The big news from here is that I’ve decided to retire from my job as a Chief Estimator, effective the end of January. I’ve been working with good people, and some parts of the job remain enjoyable, but the stress is just not worth it anymore. So now Carla and I get to create a new retired life, a new schedule, and a new budget…The kids and grandkids are doing well, can’t believe the grandkids are finishing their sophomore years in high school. They are in LA, fortunately not in close proximity to the fires, but fairly severe air quality issues…I guess that’s it for now, glad to hear that Brina is ok, hope that’s still true.

Deb Brackett Carmel writes from Sandwich, MA: 2024 has been a busy year for us, with volunteer work at our church in New Bedford, MA. On the home farm front the vegetable garden was ignored by me due to difficulty with my hands. The numbness in my right hand was lessened by carpal tunnel surgery but I am still troubled by stiffness in the fingers. Our bees had a difficult time and produced no extra honey. Our ancient house, probably built around 1850, needs some work to the sidewalls.

Husband Steve is working with red cedar shingles – one quarter done so far. We had a simple holiday season, nothing planned, but a spontaneous gathering on 12/24/24 was filled with jokes and laughter. Our daughter came from Martha’s Vineyard and we partied in Cranston, RI with our son and daughter-in-law.

Steve Buchbinder writes from Medfield, MA: I continue to feel very fortunate to be practicing law at age 76, which I enjoy most days. My move to Medfield last year (to be closer to my younger daughter and her family) has energized me and made it easier for me to attend my grandchildren’s many athletic events. I have also had the good fortune to sit in on several American History classes at Nobles. The last class was a discussion of the Nuremberg trials following World War II. I bumped into John Kaplan (SHS ’62) at dinner in Wellesley one evening, which was a treat. I enjoy the email thread which our class has had over recent months.

John Stendahl tells us: I can report that I am continuing to enjoy an active retirement, grateful to still be able to do much of what I had enjoyed in my years as a parish pastor and am also involved with civic life locally. I have been preaching and leading worship about twice a month in a number of different locations and am also serving as president of the Brewster Part-time Residents Association on Cape Cod. My wife Suzanne and I split our home time between Brewster and Framingham where we are able to see our daughters and their families frequently since they too are living in the Boston

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area. Recent travels abroad have taken me to my native Sweden and also, heartbreakingly, to Israel and Palestine, where so many wonderful people continue to inspire me in the way they keep hope alive despite much discouragement and causes for despair. My health these days remains relatively decent, just deteriorating enough with age to prompt occasional salutary reflections on my human mortality. I have so much to be grateful for including, I should add, the way that Shady Hill nurtured in me a life-long appreciation of life and the power of imagination.

Pamela Fairbanks Kirkpatrick says: My life is like many others of our age. I belong to a couple of book clubs, do a lot of puzzles (online and on my dining room table), volunteer at a local soup kitchen, read a lot, go to church (now and then), play tennis a couple of times a week, visit and talk with friends (love those chats!) on the phone (both here and overseas), pick up my granddaughter at school (a school very much like SHS), and take her to some after school activities. She is, as one might imagine, the light of my life. Losing Rick has been like a light dimming in a room…. and sometimes aggravating (where was he to tell me that the people sitting next to Al Gore at Carter’s funeral were Dan Quayle and his wife?). His absence is something I will never get used to but will adapt to….someday. I consider myself lucky to have had such a wonderful spouse for as long as I did and the ongoing comfort of having my daughter and her family right next door. The light is returning and, before we know it, the bulbs will be emerging, and with them, hope for more love, and especially, peace.

Lizzie de Rham states from Cambridge: She wishes everyone well in the next four years and is grateful that Brina is okay, as are her former neighbors and their dog Otis who moved to Altadena. She finds it terrifying that anyone would deny climate change in the face of the recent weather-related catastrophes.

Sarah Creighton writes: Hello all. Since I so enjoy hearing everyone else’s news I can share that this year we (Phil and I) have begun the

process of moving back to Boston from western Mass. It will take some time to move ourselves and leave Northampton after 45 years but the plan is to share a house with our daughter and set up a working studio in the South End. I am excited to be coming “home.”

Alice Ross Coda writes from New Hampshire: Arnold and I traveled twice last year to Durham, NC to enjoy our grandson and his parents. They all came here for Christmas, which was wonderful, as we are seriously looking at condos now so that we may downsize. We love our house, but the taxes continue to climb at an enormous rate, and there is more house and land than we need. I continue to be involved with My Peak Challenge, as well as knitting and exploring watercolor painting. I join Brooksie in thanking Dan for hosting a fall get together. It was a lot of fun, and we sang the old songs and reminisced and fretted a bit about the state of the country and world. As Brooksie so thoughtfully put it in an email today- “I just want to express to all how much I have valued and continue to value your presence in my life. I often ponder what is so unique about childhood friendships - is it that during childhood we are at such a formative and open time in our lives, that (in our case) we shared so many hours of our days and unique experiences with each other in a kind of alternate family, or...? In any case, I have loved the ongoing exchanges as we have moved through different phases of our life.” Many of our classmates have expressed this again and again over the years.

came out from the University of New Mexico Press this past spring. I am now trying to come up with a new topic to keep me busy and help take my mind off what I fear will be coming in the next four years. Being a historian does not help understand the world when it goes off in new directions.

NICK DEUTSCH deutsch.eubanks@gmail.com

News has reached Shady Hill that Peter Cook passed away in January of 2019 and Phil Somervell passed away in May of 2022. Our sincere condolences to their classmates and families.

Joel Horowitz writes: My book, The Creation of Modern Buenos Aires: Football, Civic Associations, Barrios, and Politics, 1912–1943,

Susanna Solomon reports from California: I’m putting together my fifth collection of short stories, working title: A Garden Of Misfits. This one starts with: Even though I wrote my first story in this collection in 1971, this work, this writing itch, started a bit earlier. Let me start at the beginning, with Mr. Ryerson, my Ninth Grade teacher. We all loved him. One day in class, he told us to write something creative, so I came up with the following story. No way in a million years was I ready for my little story to see the light of day, so when I wrote it, hiding in the back like I usually did, and put pencil to paper, I knew he would never never never read it aloud and I was safe to write whatever I wanted. I was a miserable C student, more often C minus. It was the fall of 1964. The year before, 1963, my mother had died, and so had Kennedy. The story, as I recall, went something like this: On the bus to the Civil War battlefields with my classmates, the whine of tires on wet pavement filled my ears as kids chattered and giggled behind me while tears came, unbidden and unstoppable. I looked out the window, hiding my face. They came flowing out my eyes, staining my face as I tried to hold back sobs. I hid in my seat by the window and prayed for darkness, for the other students not to see or hear me. I could not stop crying. The tears came and came and came. I was crying for Kennedy, and I was crying because I had never cried over my mother, and wasn’t she more important to me than Kennedy and how could I be so heartless. Filled with guilt, I could remember Kennedy but not my mother’s face, and my heart filled with sadness and shame. I put my pencil down. Mr. Ryerson took all the papers to the front of the classroom, and was quiet for a while. Then he read one aloud. Mine.

FRED WANG fredwang65@gmail.com

A note from your class correspondent: I wrote this to the class in early 2024 upon hearing of some despondency within our group after the new year and some of the notes below which are now no longer in chronological order are in response to this paragraph:

During these January and February winter months the days are shorter, the temperatures colder and the euphoria of holiday family events fades into the background. We are a community that spent anywhere from 3 to 11 years growing up together. While we may not be up to date on what is going on in each other’s lives today, we do share a common upbringing during our most formative years. Our annual Zoom reunions have shown how much we share in common despite the years apart, the different places we live and the different careers and experiences we have had. If you need a sounding board for an issue or an empathetic ear, consider emailing the group or a particular individual within our group as an unbiased friend. Please consider our community as a resource if needed!

Betsy Brackett reports from Minnesota: It is a strange winterwe are behind in our snow budget. However, we are having 60 hours below zero, and that is good to kill off some of the bark beetles.

Brock Cutting writes from western Massachusetts: Hope you are having a great start to summer and also possibly enjoying some Copa Americana action. I am trying to fall forwards rather than backwards as usual – spending much of my time just trying not to lose strength and to counter the indignities of age! Just bit the bullet and got a pair of hearing aids fitted but then I couldn’t manage to turn them on successfully after recharging, and my ancient iPhone 6s that was supposed to control everything gave up the ghost (battery, I think, but who knows), so tonight’s project is to try to swap out the battery for a new one without destroying the phone. I am looking forward to buying a new phone – perhaps one

with really good photo and closeup capabilities, but just haven’t found the time to deal with it. First grandchild due towards the end of September….life zips on!

Dan Cohen writes from California: Beth O’Sullivan (SHS ’66) told me that a book she edited of Ned Ryerson’s papers is now available on Amazon: which says: “A Teaching Anthology presents the previously unpublished autobiographical manuscript A Book About Teaching by the late Ned Ryerson, founder of the former Palfrey Street School in Watertown, Massachusetts. In addition, Ned’s previously published essay From the Tree House and short story Across the Great Salt Pond are included for relevance, as well as pieces by Ned’s friend Tom Kalmar. Somewhere in a box I still have the script for the playlet our class did about Ned’s soon to be new school – which ended up being Palfrey Street School. Ned “graduated” from SHS along with us. On graduation day, I posed him on the soccer field for a photo of him smoking a hookah!

Kin DuBois reports from Colorado: He and Sandy celebrated her 75th birthday on an amazing cruise around Iceland in June, with many stunning waterfalls among the high points. Then we celebrated our 75th anniversary in the Adirondacks. When not traveling our three granddaughters (one in Denver, two in Connecticut) keep us busy. I have been finishing a book of 400 years of family history tales. Looking forward to our reunion!

Kristen Wainwright writes from Cambridge: The movie Lara Croft, Tomb Raider (2001) was made into an interactive video game which our daughters played endlessly. Here I am at the entrance to the tomb in the movie (Temple site Ta Prohm, near Siem Reap, Cambodia on February 9 this year):

Rick and I are now back in residence in Cambridge: we traveled for about 20 months. On a more industrious note,we are working hard to transform a hyper local paper to bring on more reporters and more news and fun to the city.

Meredith Friedman writes from Somerville, MA: What a lovely way to frame our lives together and

the help we might be able to give one another. It is absolutely true. We had the unusual experience of growing up together. Three of my closest friends, Michele Frank, David Reiser and Louis Postel, are Shady Hillers. We sometimes speak in an argot others find impenetrable and nonsensical. At dinner, many years ago now, Louis and I were having dinner with a friend who had neither grown up in Cambridge nor gone to Shady Hill. At a perfectly reasonable moment she asked what is a chiton? I replied that I couldn’t possibly explain. The closest I have come to describing one to my husband is - like a pillowcase with a cut out for your head. I failed miserably to describe the woodblock patterns. The May Pole. Ghost. Central Subject. More important is what you alluded to. The inchoate. I am too fond of saying that every child grows up in a different family. We grew up together in the same family at Shady Hill. What a blessing. I must be getting old and sentimental. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if our classmates drew strength and solace from one another. I don’t know what I would do without Michele or David or Louis. They are like limbs of my psychic body. How lucky we were. Still are. Thank you for keeping our bonds in our lives. Michele Frank reports from Cuba: I have been heavily involved in major care-giver mode for going on two years now (brother Marc, Mother-in-law Virginia, step-Mom Kate) – so I have been running kind of ragged between that and

work, etc. I seem to be THE family doctor/caretaker with elders in Massachusetts, California and Cuba…Kinda tough since I, too, am definitely an “elder” myself!

Fred Wang writes from Boston: In April, I had the opportunity to go to Laurie’s condo up at Sugarbush in Vermont during The Eclipse Weekend! It brought back memories (I think they are real!) of at least one or more partial eclipses we saw when we were at Shady Hill. There was a huge crowd at Sugarbush as we were just inside the total eclipse band and the hotel guests were joined by hundreds of locals and others who were trying to see the eclipse in its totality. Of course the food truck and entertainment Sugarbush put on to attract everyone helped to increase the crowds! Unlike the time back at school when we made those pinhole cameras to see the eclipse on a sheet of paper to protect our eyes, the resort gave everyone free special solar filter sunglasses! This was such a unique experience that daughter Andi (’03) finagled an excuse to leave her class that day at Tufts Veterinary school to drive up to Vermont that morning. Unfortunately, she did not make it to Sugarbush in time but like thousands of others, parked on the side of the highway to watch the event before finally joining us for dinner and subsequently driving back to Tufts so that she did not miss the next morning’s class! I too have fond memories of Shady Hill and the many unique Shady

Hillisms that we picked up when we were there. I had the advantage of having both of my daughters go there (Andrea and Allison ’04) so got a chance to see how things have evolved on campus since we were there. They did finally solve the flooded field problem with a million dollar drain they engineered to collect water under the fields and pipe it under Greenough Boulevard into the Charles! I am not sure we would have benefited from this change since the result was that there was no longer a skating rink in the winter by the old ghost court or a pond in the spring where a rowboat would appear! And by the time my children were there, the Beehive, a building that houses the library and math and language classrooms had been built on what used to be our beloved Ghost Court! When I speak with any of you, Conrad, Annie and Kristen who had their children at SHS when my kids were there or during our Zoom reunions, it is like we continue a conversation that we may have started 60 years ago and no time has elapsed! We are a particularly tight knit class and I, like you, hope we are there to support each other if and when needed! 1966

MARGARET BULLITT-JONAS margaretbj@aol.com

News has reached Shady Hill that Heidi Grossman passed away in July of 2023. Our sincere condolences to her classmates and family.

Several themes weave through this year’s notes: challenges of illness, aging, and loss; delight in the marriages of children and arrival of grandchildren; pleasure in creative pursuits; concern for the future; gratitude for the gifts of each day. Four classmates gathered at SHS for the 2024 reunion, and some of us had the pleasure of seeing each other during the year.

Robin Alden writes from Maine: Ted and I continue to enjoy being in Stonington, ME, both of us writing and trying to keep focused on what we can affect as the world of politics and climate change swirls

Kristen Wainright ’65 in Cambodia at the entrance to the to the tomb from the movie Lara Croft, Tomb Raider (2001)

around us. A three inch dusting of cold snow yesterday has left the world cleaned up for a moment. If only it were that easy. As always, our door is open for anyone who wants to venture “down east.”

Lark Batteau writes from California: As always, my year has been full. Gave multiple readings to promote my book Lark Ascending It is a delight to take people on my wild journey. At the moment, I am gearing up to create the audio book. I have been practicing reading the whole book and editing at the same time. I have hired an accent coach to help me with Irish, Scottish, French, and Cockney dialects! SO fun. There will be songs, as well. It’s been a wonderful creative project. In May, I organized a rollicking celebration-of-life event for my beloved stepdad, Chris Fincham, who passed away in September. Besides all of us Batteaux performing, we hired an exquisite opera singer! His favorite thing in the world besides my mom. In August, I hit the ground running, creating and selling bumper stickers, raising money and awareness for Kamala Harris. Devastating result. With my day job, I continue to provide yoga, shiatsu and Chinese nutritional advice to those in need. Brother Robin came out for a fun and very musical visit in December. I feel lucky to have such a big loving family. I have been given notice to leave my beautiful apartment in January. So, without a home, I may become a Buddhist nomad in 2025.  Whatever life brings, I will find a way to dance along.

Letty Belin writes: I live on Alcatraz Ave., on the BerkeleyOakland line. I am in the process of ending most of my legal activities relating to the San Francisco Bay and am hoping to spend more time with my children, grandchildren and life-long friends on both east and west coasts. I just came back from a wonderful week-long spin at Todos Santos (in Mexico) with my son Miles, daughter in law and two grandsons. More importantly, my daughter Miranda is getting married in Manchester this coming May. She seems to think I am helpful in giving advice to her but actually she is much smarter on these things and I pretend to have

opinions about wedding matters. Miranda is a palliative care doctor in Brooklyn, and Miles and his wife are lawyers also in Brooklyn. I am hoping to spend time with them and more time working to upgrade our rather shabby house in Manchester, MA. I also look forward to spending time with family and other siblings and friends up and down the east coast. I underscore my wishes to spend time with family and friends because I do not expect to live as long as I would wish. I have a blood cancer problem called myelofibrosis in which my bones don’t provide sufficient amounts of blood and instead keep enlarging my (very annoying) spleen. Sorry to bring that up — with fingers crossed I might still be able to have some good time to stay around longer than my guesses. Hoping that I will get the chance to catch up with some of you soon.

Kitty Brazelton reports: I’m almost done installing 50 solar panels ground-mount on the Cape Cod farm. Biggest news: my daughter Rosie Mandel is getting married—twice—to Ghavin Vikash Deonarain—they’re 32 and 33 years old—in late July ’25 in Queens, NY. It’s a 4-day Guyanese Hindu wedding and I have agreed to observe the traditions of a Hindu mother-of-the-bride, so imagine me in a sari, lehenga, and bindi. In late September, Rosie and Ghavin will celebrate in the Unitarian Church where I was married. The reception will be on the farm that I inherited from my great grandfather, my grandmother, and my mother, and that Rosie will inherit from me for her children if we can hang on despite the rampant billionaires. I have been putting acres of it into conservation so it is a space of refuge for us, for animals and birds and bees, and for the community. In between, I will be composing a full-length work for Atlanta Opera. A piano-vocal version, yet unwritten, will be performed this summer in Atlanta, and the piece, “Jala Smriti (Water Memory)” will premiere in orchestration June 2026. My librettist and partner in this venture is a 26-year-old dancer and Indian-American activist who will have her own Hindu wedding in fall of ’25.

When we cast, Vaibu and I will make sure that our main singers have experienced singing in the Carnatic tradition. All this cultural stretching is incredible for me. Life just keeps opening up. Beyond my wildest dreams. I walk an hour a day, do crossword puzzles an hour a day, watch Korean soap operas for probably an hour a day, attend a 12-Step meeting for an hour a day, and drive back and forth between Cape Cod and NYC a whole lot. Living, breathing. It’s a good life, this. Thank you all for being a part of it.

Margaret Bullitt-Jonas writes from Northampton, MA: After 25 years in parish ministry and over 10 years serving in Episcopal diocesan ministry as Missioner for Creation Care, I retired at the end of June 2024. My work-life ended with a surge of activity. We completed the pilot phase of a program to amplify and accelerate the Church’s response to climate crisis (website: An Episcopal Path to Creation Justice) and I traveled to Assisi, Italy, to join the Anglican delegation at an international ecumenical summit on establishing a worldwide Feast Day of Creation (an annual day of prayer for the Earth and the God who created it). I love being retired – I am free to create my own schedule and to respond to what calls me most deeply. But what does “retirement” mean when society and the web of life are unraveling? While I enjoy classic old-lady activities like going to fitness classes at the Y, I am also looking for ways to resist autocracy (c.f. Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny). How do we sow seeds for a more just and peaceful future? As Lark Batteau cogently put it in an email to our class: Let’s stay in the game. Meanwhile, husband Robert Jonas continues to host online contemplative groups at The Empty Bell (emptybell.org). Our son Sam Jonas ’04 and his fiancée, Riley Williams, moved to Salem, MA, adopted a puppy, and plan to marry in June 2025. Sam is exploring a new career in coaching triathletes and is training for the 2025 triathlon race season. My stepdaughter Chris Jonas earned an M.S.W., passed her social work licensing exam, and is beginning as a therapist in private practice.

Steve Bundy reports from California: Cynthia and I continue on in Berkeley. Cynthia still loves her practice. My drift to retirement continues: I have one pro bono case left and a board membership with a non-profit dedicated to the children of incarcerated parents. What is emerging is a life of family and friends, music, reading, and being outdoors, for which I am truly grateful. A special joy has been having Letty Belin close by. Resting after the efforts of 2024, but aware that we can’t step away from the struggle to preserve our democracy – though the task increasingly falls to the coming generations.

Mellen Candage writes from France: I’m sitting here half-torpid, half crispy-cold and wound up in wool and fur on a frozen night in the Périgord, in front of a blazing fire – our only heat – with Mozart blazing and the heavens above also ablaze, my songbirds ready to abandon their suet sweets and head for their nests, the owls just emerging for their nighttime screeching, the cows in the fields below bellowing, our two lonely “streetlights” trying vainly to function in the sluggy fog — for what? There’s no one here. I just managed to cobble together a delicious chickpea and onion and celery and fennel and lardons and harissa soup, which we ate by the fire with buttered, toasted black bread that had lots of seeds in it. It was perfection on a frigid night. You can never underestimate the power of good, warm food, a fire, and music. I remember camping adventures with my father, who was and is my ultimate inspiration. Tromping around the woods with him had a good deal to do with who I am. I still tromp. I found a treasure-trove of mushrooms yesterday that I must take to the pharmacy – that’s what you do in France to find out if they’re edible – that is if you’re ignorant like me. If they’re good, a nice mushroom tarte is in the making. Heading into more and more weeks of frigidity, we sit here at our long table in front of the fire with maps spread out and guidebooks. Will it be Barcelona? Marseille? Genoa? Rimini? Malta? Cyprus? Back to our beloved Morocco? Get a bit giddy and go to Thailand? There

is nothing I love more than poring over maps, tracing the oceans and mountain ranges we might have to cross, figuring out if there’s a language I don’t comprehend or a custom or political view that might upset me — unlikely, as I’ve pretty much been everywhere and dealt with everything. BUT, we’re kind of old and just want to feel warm and safe for a few weeks, so we’ll probably scrap the outliers and end up in Spain or Italy. I share the US sense of precariousness with regard to politics because, face it, you have gone beyond the pale and will have to deal with it — which I don’t, because I left — but life isn’t without its risks anywhere, including here in Europe, which is rather disintegrating at an alarming rate. Not like the USA, though — you have a unique orange challenge, and I’m really glad I don’t have to wake up to it every morning. Unfortunately, the intelligent world beyond is laughing its azz off at the USA. Doesn’t change the way I arrange my day or my life, but in terms of historical importance, probably pretty significant. Bonne Année à Tous!

Kevin Frank writes from New Hampshire what he aptly calls a “short story:” After managing the construction of a duplex new home in southwest NH, and then doing the move out from owned shipping containers in our daughter’s backyard, and then the unpacking of the way too many kept objects, donating and discarding...and then more of same, we are grateful to be in a home of our own (after three years). We are grateful to be in a part of the world that as of this moment is relatively tranquil. Then there is the daughter

and her partner, with her mom and two midwives and two close friends birthing her daughter late October at their farm/home across the pond from where we formerly lived. And fascinating to see this little one show such a continuous drive to learn how to just be in a body – what a task! – and watch her spend hours staring into a fish tank full of colorful fish swimming back and forth; and then express all that movement and energy back at the fish with powerful movement of legs, feet, hands and arms and whole body, taking each fish lesson into her being, ‘cause that’s what’s there; and then squeezing the sponge of absorbed life expression, over and over. May we all receive the movements of this natural world and find them within and without.

Peter Galbraith reports from Croatia: In the final weeks of 2024, I made two trips to Syria as the Assad regime was collapsing – the first to strategize with the Syrian Kurds on the evolving military and political situation and the second to retrieve two children for a young Yazidi woman who, at age 14, was kidnapped by Islamic State fighters, enslaved, raped and impregnated. As with the other Yazidi mothers with children born in slavery, she was forced to give up her children in Syria and she was sent back to Iraq. To date, I have reunited 29 children with their mothers. Sarah and I consider these children to be ersatz grandchildren, and we are in regular contact. The children are flourishing in the countries where they resettled; the mothers are having a more difficult time. Closer to home, I was at the Democratic National Convention

in Chicago, speaking on Ukraine. In October, I joined a “Blue Wall Bus Tour” of national security leaders (former ambassadors and generals) from Philadelphia to Minneapolis, warning of the threat Trump posed to democracy and national security. With the betrayal of Ukraine imminent and a possible US invasion of Greenland on the horizon, it looks as bad as we said – or maybe worse. I am writing this from Croatia where photographs from my tenure as US ambassador will be turned over to the Croatian National Archives. The ceremony marks 30 years since the decisive US diplomacy that ended the Croatia and Bosnia Wars. (I negotiated the 1995 Erdut Agreement that ended the Croatia War). As the first ambassador to a country newly emerged from communism, I often spoke of the essential features of democracy: a non-partisan judiciary, accepting the results of elections, etc. I would be embarrassed to give such a talk today. On January 1, NPR aired a story about the latest rescue (“A Yazidi woman enslaved by ISIS is reunited with her kids after years of separation,” heard on All Things Considered).

Ralph Gifford states: I am happy to say there is little of personal significance to report other than delightful growth of grandchildren. No major health issues. I have cataract surgery scheduled for January 20, an effective way to avoid watching any inauguration activities. As a socialist journalist wrote in 1933 when Germany chose a despicable leader, “Ich kann nicht genug mich erbrechen,” which translates as “I cannot throw up enough.” Let’s hope the arc of history gets busy bending towards peace and justice in the New Year.

Jane Howell writes from California: I have been living in San Diego since 1995, when I moved here from Cambridge, where I had lived for 25 years. I still miss the East Coast!! Life here has been very full, with a couple of careers as a business consultant and my give-back career of working as a development officer at several different non-profits in the area. My husband, George, passed away 10 years ago and I miss him but am fortunate to have my oldest brother,

Steve, and my sister, Holly, living nearby along with several of their children, and now the youngest generation of great nieces as well as many friends. I have been retired for a couple of years but volunteer at the San Diego Natural History Museum. Like many of you, I have faced some challenges as I grow older—and losses, the latest being my younger brother, James, who passed away a year ago in Colorado where he lived. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with him in the two years before he died.

Suzanna “Zanna” Feitler reports: I greatly enjoyed the Shady Hill Reunion in June, catching up with Kathy Agoos, Kitty Brazelton, and Robin Alden. I was amazed by all the renovations and new buildings that have been added to the campus – most especially the new Library, which was worth the trip all by itself. Huge papier maché animals on high, photos of past SHS classes on the stairwell, inviting furniture, and bright lighting throughout the full bookshelves...I have always loved libraries, starting with those early days with Miss Swift, but this is in a class by itself! This is a very busy time for my teaching activities. From Sept. 12 - Nov. 12 the Transcendental Meditation organization had a Meditate America initiative with special reduced TM course fees, and extra publicity, starting with a Gala Celebration/fundraiser in NYC sponsored by the David Lynch Foundation, with special emphasis on making it possible to instruct people in very high-stress situations, such as First Responders, Firefighters, Police, Veterans and Active Military, Health Care workers, and people in underserved neighborhoods. Out of this initiative the TM Lifeline Program was developed where local TM Teachers all over the US have raised enough funds to offer the TM Technique to the same categories of people mentioned above. I am in training to work with a local hospital to offer a pilot program to up to 10 staff members, to convey the same stress relief and comprehensive benefits experienced in the over 100 US hospitals that have brought in the TM program. Many of these programs have been

so successful that hospitals, fire and police stations have found their own funds to expand the program on their own. Another highlight of the past year was the first annual United Nations-sponsored World Meditation Day on Dec. 21, where people were called on to meditate at 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. in their time zones, starting in New Zealand and ending in Hawaii, for 33 hours of group meditations around the world. All 93 UN countries were in support of this peace-creating event! ( https:// worldmeditationday.world/ )

Henry Isaacs writes from Vermont: There have been huge and small changes in my life and in all our lives. I am blessed that among the constants are my children and grandchildren, some in Vermont near where I live, and some in Brooklyn. My only response to this grieving world around us is to keep painting every day, as I have for more than 50 years. I am immersed in an intense project with my partner, actor and writer Lucy Winner: on March 6th at the Maine Jewish Museum, we will open Surviving Visions: Prague and Vienna 1939-1942. I have painted more than thirty canvases started in the streets of Vienna and Prague, painting in the footsteps of my cousin and artist Emil Singer, and displayed alongside letters from Lucy’s grandmother, Franziska Wienerova. We each respond to their depictions of life in images and text during the years before deportation. Lucy will read and perform material gleaned from this extraordinary archive as well as reflect on her grandmother’s life 80 years later. We hope that our illumination of the life of our parents’ generation may teach a sliver of determination in our difficult times. I do sometimes envy the idea of retirement – however, I am unsure of how that is done.

Josh Kay (reported by his wife, Judith): The updated news on Josh Kay is that he continues to live with Alzheimer’s and now also has Parkinson’s. He still recognizes family and friends but as of last week can no longer stand or walk – but then he suddenly did again yesterday. I share the Shady Hill News with him and he recognizes

familiar names – Polly, Robin, Heidi, Peter, Peggy, and more (it is my memory that fades here, not his!). He is content and well-cared for. His Filipino caregivers marvel over (and struggle with) his long limbs. They ask me weekly, “How tall was he?,” and can’t believe me when I reply, “Six foot four.” He loved the last reunion he attended; he treasured his connections. If he could, he would wish you each all the best in 2025.

Anna Langenfeld writes: My twoyear journey through widowhood continues to teach me many lessons about grief and living fully. To allow me to find that balance, I am fortunate to live in the small seaside town of Fairhaven, MA, with my dog, a retired greyhound named Dara. I volunteer at a children’s charity three days a week, am committed to my yoga classes, and have wonderful friends. This year, as a distraction from the political climate, I ventured out on a cruise around the eastern coast of Canada.

Harris Loeser reports from California: I continue to live an excellent life with mountain biking and travel and Jane and I are still in our original house in San Francisco (lots of stairs is a concern). Too bad the world is not doing as well as privileged us. Last year we biked in France. I got great delight speaking French (better than Wordle for mind exercise). So, I will go back to France this year, my 75th, if all my bits and pieces continue to hold together. Three kids, mostly married and/or hooked up and on their professional ways. My sister Helen, three years ahead of us at SHS, lives a few blocks away and is a brilliant cook. Did anyone make icebox cake in the last five decades? How about playing Ghost with your kids? I have not been to Cambridge in years, but I do get to Martha’s Vineyard every year, and that is always joyous. Only the luckiest folks get to play in the same favorite spots when 7 and 70.

Beth O’Sullivan writes: This year I’m happy to announce that a two-year project of mine, editing a handwritten manuscript by Ned Ryerson, longtime 9th grade SHS teacher and founder of the Palfrey Street School, has now resulted, with the consent of his family, in its publication on Amazon, A Teaching

Anthology: Writings by Teachers about Teaching and Writing (https://www. amazon.com/Teaching-AnthologyWritings-Teachers-Writing/dp/ B0D8PT1DLV). The lead editor is Peter Luft, who transcribed Ned’s handwriting and led many other aspects of this project. Included are a manuscript by a teacher at Palfrey, Tomas Kalmar, who is the third editor, as well as a short story and autobiographical story by Ned. I wrote an introduction and afterward. I think educators, current and former teachers, and students at SHS, among others, would gain much by reading these accounts about teaching.

David Riggs updates us from Colorado: My wife Lynn and daughters and grandchildren gathered for our first Christmas in our recently, mostly, renovated house in Denver. We had a marvelous time. It’s been a long journey from VA. I’m still unpacking.

Victor Rodwin writes from Vermont: It does seem unusual for me to remain connected to a group I was part of from First to Sixth grade and then left for Browne & Nichols and Commonwealth Schools! I am impressed by many of my classmates’ interesting and creative activities. I am fortunate to have retired with my wife to a calm and healthy life in Montpelier, VT – not far from Henry Isaacs I continue to teach students about health systems abroad, by Zoom, at NYU and more recently at Columbia, as well. And I continue to publish academic papers on health systems and policy in France and Switzerland and what we might learn from experiences abroad. Meanwhile, my daughter is teaching sociology of education at the University of Stockholm and my son is pursuing his PhD at NYU’s School for Social Work, where he focuses on uses of music, especially hip-hop, in helping vulnerable youth with severe mental illness to recover. He was just awarded an NIH predoctoral grant to support this research, which may have far more practical uses than anything I have ever done. My son and his fiancée just returned from their friends’ Indian wedding in Jaipur, after which they got to see the Taj Mahal, so I was intrigued

by Kitty B.’s story! I spend my free time reading a great deal and listening to music – most recently Harari’s Nexus and Schubert’s late piano sonatas. For the first time in my life, I sang Handel’s Messiah in a local chorus, which we performed at the Barre opera house! I just saw the new film on Dylan and was gripped by nostalgia at the end by how life and politics move on. But, like so many of us who love Simon and Garfunkel, I continue to pretend that life will never end.

1967

BINNEY BRACKETT binneybrackett@gmail.com

Peter Waksman reports from Woods Hole, MA that he retired in 2018 from a career as a software engineer. He and his wife have three sons and are grandparents to three. Since retiring, he has written a book about his participation in the “Ceremonial Stone Landscape” movement, an area of Archaeology and Ethnography of New England once considered “fringe” but which has become the accepted teaching of the Native tribes. His book, A Shadow Under the Rock, is available on Amazon. He is now turning to easier activities such as collecting arrowheads, writing a kid’s story about dragons, and learning to play slide guitar. Peter hopes the next stage of life will not be too painful and that it will be possible to be happy. In the short term, he’s making a trip to the Nevada desert with his youngest son looking for stone tools. Send me a photo of that, Peter.

Sara Irwin writes from Texas: Thank you for volunteering for this job. I am currently a “childless cat lady” where the local republican leaders keep trying to declare me dead and empty my bank accounts. I am keeping my head low and trying to keep my mouth shut because they might try and deport me…I am not sure where. I have a valid passport, I may have to start carrying it with me. I have 2.5 cats. The half cat is boarded with me for six months of the year. I spend my spare time quilting and walking. Before the pandemic I traveled on

a hiking tour to New Zealand. I bought a new car this December before the tariffs kicked in.

Ellen Mugar writes from Maine: Hello to all. I retired in June from 35 years teaching ESL/ESOL at Portland Adult Education. I met thousands of beautiful people from all over the world. Traveling in place, I call it. In December, my daughter Lydia got married in Durham, NC in a joyous celebration. I traveled to Iceland and Greenland at the end of the summer and I am leaving tomorrow for a trip to Greece then to Varna, Bulgaria and north on the search for the red-breasted goose, among other wildlife. I am in the midst of packing, but there are so many memories of Shady Hill I want to share with you and talk about. For another time. For now, a sincere thank you to Miss Abbott for the songs I sing to this day.

Marilyn Paul reports: My husband David Stroh and I are in Southern Thailand celebrating our 30th anniversary. Our son Jonathan is a volunteer English teacher in Northern Thailand. David and I will be giving a workshop in Bangkok called Systems Thinking for Climate Action. I am very interested in finding ways to connect with people about climate action, especially older people. We often have more time and money and can really make a difference as we support positive actions to create more earth friendly lifestyles for all of us. I definitely would love to hear from like minded people. I live in Berkeley, CA and can be reached at 617-921-1072.

Frances Chalmers reports that she is retired from pediatric medicine and living with husband, Gail, in Bellingham, WA where she enjoys hiking with her dog, occasional volunteer work and learning Italian. Her kids and one grandson live in Seattle and Los Angeles but they make a point of getting together often despite the distance. She still makes it back to New England yearly to visit her family cabin on Squam Lake in NH. Terry Aladjem is well-rooted in Cambridge, MA: I have always returned to Cambridge, living less than a mile from Shady Hill, and working at a Harvard project on global health education in the Square. I belonged to the Mount Auburn Club gym for years before the pandemic where I could see the playing fields of Shady Hill from the windows. I am still teaching at Harvard in the Social Studies program and love it! I was a director at Harvard’s Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning and I am always inspired by the teachers at Shady Hill and Palfrey Street School. I have loved spending time in the Netherlands on projects with Dutch educators. Somewhere in there, I wrote a book on vengeance and justice. I have a formidable daughter named Jasmin who lives locally and is devoted to her work with autistic families. My brother, Peter Aladjem (’69), is still in the area. His wonderful daughter, Michaela, lives in Vermont. Terry admits to reading the alumni notes looking for familiar names in classes both before and following ours.

Susan Haar admitted to: Many venerable institutions, a variety of degrees, the occasional serious job. Three kids, that’s been the most joyous part. Who knew? I am so lucky that they have stayed close. A lawyer, a crime tv producer, and a dream engineer.” She has lived “mostly in New York City, but now I need nature. I live primarily on the beach and am renovating a home in Portugal. And at the end of the game, I am writing: https// www.susanevehaar.com

Martha Sweezy moved from Northampton, MA, to South Portland, ME, three years ago with her SHS alum partner Rob Postel (’66). He designed the house they are living in near Willard Beach. Martha adds: I have an online psychotherapy practice. I also write about and teach a particular approach to therapy called Internal Family Systems or IFS.

Donald Freeman reports that he retired from the University of Michigan in 2023 where he is now Professor Emeritus of Education. He also teaches at the University of Graz, Austria. His two daughters and grandchildren live in Switzerland and France, so he and his wife are fortunate to divide their time between Brattleboro, VT, where they’ve lived for 30 years, and Vaison-la-Romaine, France.

Don Hawley writes from Concord, MA that he retired early several years ago and devotes his time to pro bono work supporting notfor-profit organizations that help kids. He says he is “deeply in early childhood.” He sent in a tribute to Bob Lawler on his retirement. “For me, he was the best teacher.”

Rob Tagiuri reports: I am bumping along. Happily, I am in frequent contact with Nancy Dyer. Given that she is close to ninety, she is in fine fettle. What an amazing person. Rob’s brother, John, died suddenly in August 2024.

Stephanie Engle writes from Cambridge: From a geographical point of view I have not gotten very far in life as I still live in Cambridge, MA, although I have migrated away from Harvard Square all the way north to Porter Square. I am married with two sons and two grandchildren, who all live in the Boston area. Until

their deaths in the last decade, my parents lived with us in the home we bought together. I have just closed my practice of general psychiatry after four decades, although I continue to work in global psychiatry in East Africa. One of the great gifts that Shady Hill gave me was a love for music (although only middling talent) and I currently sing with a chorus, play in an orchestra and dabble in chamber music on the flute. If you find yourself in Cambridge and eager to talk, email me (dr.sengel@ gmail.com).

her

Sonia White wrote from Kensington, MD with encouragement to me in my secretarial efforts. She says: I got my PhD in molecular biology at Johns Hopkins University and spent my scientific career in academia as a professor at University of Virginia, then in biotech at Genentech, then at the NIH (National Institutes of Health), the FNIH (Foundation for the NIH), and at a company in Maryland that contracts with the NIH to support public health. My two daughters work and live near me in Washington, DC and I love to spend time with my two granddaughters. In 2014 I spent a year in Sweden studying the nyckelharpa (see photo), a Swedish instrument. Now retired, I am writing my memoir, sewing, playing music, dancing, and serving on several music-related non-profit boards.

Lucy Hull writes from Arrowsic, ME: Life is good, despite the obvious catastrophe we are in. I am an active volunteer with Grandmothers for Reproductive Rights (GRR!), where one project is working with other groups (including in Massachusetts) to expose anti-abortion centers,

Photo taken by Ellen Mugar ’67 in Scoresby Sound, Greenland

Sonia White with

Nychelharpa

which are euphemistically called “crisis pregnancy centers.”

Getting accurate, non-judgmental information into the hands of people who find themselves unexpectedly pregnant is crucial. Bart and I are plugging along, preparing to add a downstairs bed and bath to our house in the hopes of staying home longer as we age (however ungracefully). Daughter Margaret and her wife Virginia welcomed son Alden in March 2024. Having a grandchild in Maine is the sweetest and I have the joy of sitting with him every Thursday. Son Miles and his family are in Vermont, where he is a stone sculptor. Visits to Vermont to see Miles, Kyra, Leander (13), Maea (11), and Calista (3) are a delight. They have a wonderful community there and it is always  lively and fun. We resist by building community, staying informed, but not attempting to drink from the firehose of scandal, and finding joy wherever we can.

I, Binney Brackett, was touched that Jenny Ladd remembers my birthdate. Go figure. It is true I turned 73 in January. She shared a few email addresses but didn’t tell me much about herself, but I believe she is still in the Northampton, MA area. In June 2024, after 25 years on the staff at the Osher School of Music at the Univ. of Southern Maine, I retired a few months before my daughter Chandra delivered twin boys in Portland, OR. She and her husband extended invitations to all four grandparents (all Mainers) to provide au pair (au grandparent) assistance for up to six week stretches at their home. It was my privilege to be in situ for

the weeks leading up to and for close to two months after Cole and Austin were born. I have since returned twice and it is a joy to be an integral part of their family.

I am still living in Limerick, ME and have been married to Lester Rozinsky for 48 years. I am still gardening, singing, learning piano, swimming, skiing, feeding birds, and enjoying walks and X-C skiing in the 40 acre wood lot on trails

Bracket ’67 and her grandchildren

improved and maintained by our son, Nevin. I launched myself into the Class Secretary’s chair because I wondered why our 1967 was not represented in the SHS Class Notes. At our age, we are running out of time to reconnect with people from our early lives. The SHS News Notes tend toward recounting success in education, career, and family pursuits. Most are interesting and fun to read. But the empty slot for ’67 haunted me. What was it that kept us from sharing ourselves? When I served as secretary many years ago, I selfishly thought it was because no one liked me, or that our generation truly was lost. But I know that isn’t the case. I heard from the above

classmates promptly. In general they shared good news. But, several people responded to my request for notes with ambivalence about their SHS experience. I know that shared experiences are not always experienced equitably. We are people whose youthful relationships were based on our chance proximity and reflect an undeveloped sense of what those relationships and circumstances mean. We were a “Senior Class” graduating in what is considered one of the most difficult of teenager transitions: “middle school.” (I know, it is a First World problem.) However, it was hardly smooth going for most. I was blind to anyone else’s issues. Add to teenage angst the turmoil of the sixties and seventies into which we were released and it’s not surprising to find that many of us “turned on, tuned in and dropped out” or simply “moved on.” Maybe it is time for the less enamored among us to speak up and be heard. We could learn about each other as we did not then. We shared an important experience. I have not been a Rah-Rah! alum, and I am as guilty as others in not sending a note now and then, but I am interested in who my classmates are and what they have to say now. Perhaps next year I’ll hear from a few more people. I hope so. Feel free to email or text. (binneybrackett@gmail.com) 207651-6516

1968

TESI KOHLENBERG

Peter Agoos reports: Diane and I are getting to SHS regularly to pick up our first grader grandson Myles. It is a happy place and warm community, nice to parachute in. Our kids are both local, Zoe, a family doc at Cambridge Health Alliance and editor of a Harvard Med School online journal about primary care and Ian, a mechanical engineer at Draper Labs. Diane traveled to Greenland and Maine and Wyoming with three art-related projects in 2024 and got a new hip in 2025. I repaired a torn rotator cuff (well, a surgeon did), and I keep saying yes when clients call. A bit bemused by the arrival of my 50th college reunion in June….

Sarah Bullitt writes: I am living in the Berkshires and continue to enjoy the natural beauty, small village life, and abundant artistic, musical, and creative activities. I am blessed to find life rich and interesting, and to enjoy the proximity of my son, one sister, and my brother. My daughter lives in Seattle where she has created a vibrant life with her young family. I am in a precious time of life where I have good health, am retired, can explore all kinds of interesting areas of life I didn’t have time for before, and can enjoy being a grandmother to my four grandchildren. Strong spiritual practices keep me centered on what I value most, while I navigate living in this complex world. Very best wishes to my fellow classmates for fulfillment and peace in your life.

Gary Cowan reports from Massachusetts: In addition to showing us that we lived in a whole fascinating wide world of interesting cultures, histories, outlooks etc., I suppose it was part of the founding philosophy of the SHS education to search for the good in any situation. Kumbaya, dammit! So we have a capacity to find, say, a moment of sweet music in the last band farewell on the Titanic. Also, I find myself sharing an interesting phenomenon amongst many of our ol’ cohort, which I might offer to our alumni notes: I’m frankly amazed at the pleasures of age, which gets such bad press in our culture, especially for us boomers. Regardless of hovering decrepitude, nutrition, health care, and education got a lot of us up here in reasonable shape to really appreciate life, and this appreciation is recognizably keener than in earlier years. The days are experienced with rich perception and the beginning of, ha-ha, real wisdom. Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s daughter talked about how her mother was fascinated by her own old age and looked upon it as a new world to explore. Gee, me too. As for experiences, last spring I tooled around the West Coast for the first time since COVID (in an Audi Quattro), took the Coastal Flyer scenic train from SF to Portland, and visited my old pard Niel at the Wright family summer manse in Paris, ME. Keep smilin’!

Lucy Hull ’67 with her family

Binney

Mark Finn writes: Always nice to remember our gathering at your home. My little world goes well as the forces of greed, ignorance, and cruelty thrive on the horizon. No big news but sending warm regards to all and hoping we meet again.

Roger Kay reports: Some of you may know I retired from my career as a tech analyst a year ago, Dec. 31, 2023, to be exact. And right on cue, a year later, I was diagnosed with colon cancer. There is bad news, and there is good news. I won’t bore you with the details but the summary is: we caught it early while looking at something else; it was very aggressive (I have the BRCA1 gene variant that many Ashkenazi Jews have that predisposes you to a group of cancers); I had surgery Dec. 31, 2024 (a perfect bookend); and am now recovering well. Good news is they got everything they could see. Unfortunately, even though it was discrete and had not metastasized, the blood vessel/ lymph layer was compromised, opening the possibility that little stray cancer cells could have gotten off to anywhere. Thus, I am looking at a long regime of chemotherapy. This wasn’t how I envisioned retirement, more like sailing a Hobie Cat in Bora Bora, but we take what we can get and survival is certainly better than the alternative. Friends have been great. We’ve had soups and such delivered nearly constantly, even though I can drive, and cook, and get dressed every day. Tomorrow (1/16/25), we’re off to the MFA to see the Georgia O’Keefe exhibit before it leaves, with dinner afterwards at the Select Oyster Bar. So, don’t you cry for me. I’m still very much in the game. Expect to see an update next year.

Tesi Kohlenberg reports: I write this on MLK Day from our little house by the cove, after a small but transformative snow storm. I’m grateful for the rhythms of this beautiful world that — at least in this moment – counterbalance the horrors in DC. I am still working (remotely) providing psychiatric consultation to a community service agency which serves many terrified families with undocumented members. I also support families whose children

share our younger daughter’s rare disease and consult with their doctors on the management of the neuropsychiatric illness that affects too many. Both of our daughters are at risk in different ways: the Right both strives to make life untenable for trans people and threatens to cut the supports that enable us to care for our younger daughter. May we all know some peace and may our people and planet survive the coming dark years.

Donny Stendahl writes from Massachusetts: Retired from 50 years of tree work. Working on a jigsaw puzzle right now! All is great, six grandchildren! Five boys then a girl. Susan and I are still in our large Ipswich house which now is way too big for two people so who knows? Love to all of you guys! Think about Shady Hill life very often, especially since we just visited my parents at Mount Auburn Cemetery.

Niel Wright reports: No news is good news. Life goes on much as it has before. I might wish for more variety and a little adventure but I am thankful that my current complaints are too few to mention. In late August I spent a delightful day with Gary, and I look forward to seeing everybody else when the opportunity arises.

1969

HENRY TAVES

News has reached Shady Hill that Peter Eldredge passed away in January of 2024. Our sincere condolences to his family and classmates.

Sarah Ackerman reports that her 70th birthday prompted a celebratory trip to Sicily last October, including Cary Sheldon, family members, and best friends — nine people in all. Sounds like they had a blast!

Joel Greenwald, writing from “Beautiful downtown Ankeny, Iowa” (near Des Moines), promises some “real” class notes for our next report but in the meantime shares this: If I knew retirement was going to be so enjoyable, I would have started in my 50s!

Anne Taubes Warner reports that she has eased out of the blockchain business but continues with her pursuits of playing the cello and making stained glass pieces. She is already thinking of hosting our 60th Reunion in 2029 writing: Shady Hill was a special experience for all of us, and we are indelibly etched on each other’s souls in a lifetime kind of way. Well put, Anne!

Lisa Wexler has been busy: Besides songwriting and poetry — “key forms of expression for me for many years” — she helped create a Secondhand Smoke Education and Prevention Initiative for Cambridge Public Housing. She writes: What a time we are living in, with COVID, political upheaval, climate change and the increased influence of technology in our lives. Life continues to be a teacher of truth, compassion, patience, balance, and the need for respectful communication and care.

Henry Taves reports: Not much news from me but while visiting Oakland, California last August, I had the good fortune to have dinner with Liz Dunn. It was fun catching up and sharing thoughts on our lives’ paths. Little could I have imagined in 9th grade that my first dinner date with a classmate was 55 years in the future! And I had a “small world” moment recently. It turns out that my wife, Posy, was taught music by John Langstaff at the Potomac School in Virginia, before he came to teach at Shady Hill. We all have mysterious connections, somehow!

1970

Our Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role. Email alumni@shs.org.

Peter Rabinowitz writes: I’m still on faculty at the University of Washington, directing a center for one health research (https:// deohs.washington.edu/cohr/) and trying to avoid the next pandemic. Spending more time in Palo Alto with granddaughter Zohara. Just got an email from Mitch Ryerson about the great work he is doing to build playgrounds for refugee children along the southern border. Expecting a wild ride of social and political change this year.

Carol Robey writes: I am retired from pediatric practice and feel so fortunate to have a second career in painting. At Carolrobeyfineart.com you can find my efforts to represent flowers, old tools, Gloucester landscapes. Walking in NH forests with my husband and doodle, Dweezil, we absorb the natural world.

Janie Ward writes: Janie Ward is enjoying her retirement from teaching at Simmons University. She sings in multiple community choirs (shout out to Ruth Abbott and John Langstaff) and she’s completing a book about the history of her house—Black owned in West Cambridge since the 1890s. She sends prayers of hope, patience and mercy to all in these trying times.

Class of 1969 at reunion in June of 2024

Nick Jordan writes: I am getting ready to retire but intend to remain active in networks working on the nexus of agriculture/environment/ climate/community, and doing a bit of teaching as an emeritus professor.  Hard to stop teaching cold after 40-plus years!

I am deeply grateful for our music community here in the Twin Cities, including our Irish Trad music sessions and a lot more.  Here’s a picture of my wife Debbie and I on the Winter Solstice 2024 - we were singing lots of songs from the Christmas Revels songbook, by Jack Langstaff.

1971

EMMY HOWE

Peter Fisher writes: After 33 years in Maplewood NJ, Peter Fisher and wife Mary Sue have relocated to Seattle WA to be nearer children and grandchildren, all now living in the Pacific Northwest. Pictured below, counterclockwise from upper right:  Peter, Mary Sue, son Duncan and Molly, and their children Bodhi and Colby, and daughter Charlotte - last July 4th in NJ. (photo attached –“Peter Fisher”)

Cleaning out a lifetime of “stuff” from our attic, found the below, framed exactly as shown here: (asking Peter to send me a shareable photo) Photo of the young Julie Agoos, over an undated Tim Moynihan original of an emptyheaded me.

Celebration, a multicultural music revue. Festivus for the rest of us! In addition, we host a monthly Community Jazz Jam, organize concerts at senior facilities, and other multigenerational community events. In a world with so many problems, creativity is our greatest resource. [See photo.]

1973

PAT SPENCE

Emmy Howe writes: Tom Loeser shared that he installed a bench down by the art studios at SHS. [Editor’s Note: We ran two photos of the “bench installation day” excitement in last year’s Class Notes. See p. 47 of the 2024 Magazine. Thank you again, Tom!]

1972

GEORGE PERKINS georgehperkins@hotmail.com

Paul Klemperer writes: I’ve been making progress with my nonprofit, Creative SEA. The mission is “Creative Social Engagement through the Arts” and we’ve secured grant funding to put on some great community building events. In December we held our 13th Annual Texas Festivus

Jono Sexton speculates that since John Segar has moved to the Cape, Jono may be the only member of our class still living in Watertown. He talks to David Stone every now and then, who is in New Jersey, married with two young kids (around 10). Jono is enjoying being a grandfather of an 18-month-old, “as much as you can when she resides in Oakland (the Somerville of the Bay Area).”

Alison Field-Juma writes: I retired last spring after 19 satisfying years working on river restoration in metro west Boston. What with the elections to work on, the transition was easy (more time, less money) and now I’m focusing on 2026. I have more time to work on the non-profit Calestous Juma Legacy Foundation we founded to continue the work of my late husband. We’re bringing digital education and innovation to women and youth in fishing communities on Lake Victoria, Kenya. Working with smart and dedicated (and fun) people seems like the best cure for a troubled world! Photo: Alison Field-Juma ’72, and son Eric (left), and digital hub volunteer teacher (right).

And as for me, your loyal Class Correspondent George Perkins, I spent quite a bit of effort, as many of us did, on political canvassing during the 2024 presidential election. I’m proud of all of our efforts and of the strengths, always challenged, of our political system. Also, exposed more than this New Englander is typically to voices beyond the familiar, I gained greater confidence and faith in the shared values of our fellow citizens all over this country. And when not pondering the present, past and future of America, I am happily engaged in my fulltime post-retirement pursuit of music, focusing on classical piano repertoire and jazz saxophone.

Marli Rabinowitz writes: I have two foster kids right now and so I am back to packing lunches, doing laundry, and having teacher meetings! Not exactly what I planned but it’s rewarding. My mother is almost 98 and doing well, still active and bright, still in Seattle. I visited her at Christmas, squeezing in between a parade of other guests.

The rest of my life is sort of on hold because of the two kids, but I did go to a reunion of my ice hockey team a few days ago. Always good to see old friends. Hope all from our class are well!

Beth Brown writes: Frederick is a senior at Hobart. Henry finished freshman year at Lesley and played soccer too. Kinda taking a year off but planning to go back in the fall. Brian retired and sold his farm. I am still at BBN. We went to Morocco for my birthday in January and LOVED it. Can’t wait to go back!

Robert Pierce Forbes writes: I’m enjoying retirement, particularly the opportunity to travel (last year, to Patagonia and Provence; next week to Ecuador). I’m keeping my hand in history, giving talks on my annotated edition of Jefferson’s Notes on the State of America and the bicentennial of Lafayette’s visit to America, as well as working on grants for New Haven’s Ethnic Heritage Center. I will be talking this week at Shady Hill’s Black History Month assembly about Venture Smith, an enslaved African who earned his freedom and wrote an extraordinary autobiography, and hope to be taking an exhibit about him to Concord for the 250th of Independence and of Venture’s becoming an American. Most excitingly, I’m anticipating the birth of our second granddaughter in April.

Lisa Pierce writes: I suspect that going forward, much of our news will be health related. I recently started collecting social security! We’re getting into that phase of life, I suppose. My health update is that I had colon cancer last year. No symptoms, so it was a shock.

Peter Fisher ’71, Mary Sue, son Duncan & Molly and their children Bodhi & Colby and daughter Charlotte – last July 4th in NJ.

Nick Jordan ’71 with wife Debbie, singing songs from the Christmas Revels songbook

Jane Selverstone ’71 and partner

Hopefully, it’s all gone and won’t come back. Get your tests done, people! Other than that, life is good. I’m in two choirs, so lots of singing, which is good for my soul. All the harmonizing and the chords and beauty that we create is nourishing. Steve and I are still happily married after 40 years. Our children are close by so, overall, I feel very fortunate.

Patty Spence writes: Enjoyed the 3rd year of organizing the 4R’s (Rest, Relax, Restore and Rejuvenate-Professional Development for the Soul) in Lenox Mass. Approximately 20 burned out nonprofit professionals were provided with a space to think, relax, and evaluate their year at their own pace over a 4-day period. Mom is doing well and just celebrated her 95th birthday. Still working on food security issues, urban agriculture, and environmental justice. Working on building up my back muscles and dealing with some knee issues in the hope of getting back to the gym and archery.

1974

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1976

THOMAS BATOR

1977

Our Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role. Email alumni@shs.org.

1978

DAVID SUMMERSBY

environmental science major, member of the intercollegiate surf team, and evolving southerner (not sure he is heading home). I am still working as a Partner at Commonwealth Financial Network (where I have been for 27 years) and while I think I can see the end of that tunnel, I still like my work. This mad, mad world we are in scares the crap out of me…more for my kids than me. But I continue to try and think globally and act locally and find the ray of light where I can. I wish you all Peace. And hope your lives are fulfilling.

1975

Our Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role. Email alumni@shs.org.

David Summersby writes: Not much new in my life. Still dealing with aging parents (dementia and restricted mobility) and learning more than I care to know about assisted living and skilled nursing and rehab facilities. At the same time, I have understood that it is my time (a higher calling) to care and attend to my parents’ needs in their later years after they did so much for my brother and me when we were growing up. As a mark on the passage of time, my childhood home on Vassal Lane in Cambridge sold in February, 2024. We had a wonderful, nearly 60 year run in that house. Being an equal distance away from both Emma’s and Armando’s Pizza was pretty awesome. Hard to choose really but I would call a slice of cheese pizza at Emma’s the best ever and I appreciated how Emma always chided me if I was late to pick up my order. Meanwhile, our children continue to inspire us (me and Sue). Our daughter Emily continues to work as a paralegal for the City of Boston litigation department while attending Suffolk Law school at night. It is wonderful to hear how excited she gets when describing the cases that come across her desk at City Hall and how she attends hearings at the Federal Court House. Our son Jack is in his first job post college graduation as a therapeutic mentor for the Home for Little Wanderers. This means he could be following in my footsteps as a social worker but that remains to be seen, particularly in this current political climate when the very survival of not for

profit social service agencies is at stake. Sue and I continue to live in Melrose with our Golden Retriever, Cooper, who forces me out to walk him twice a day in all kinds of weather. I remain a social worker at CHA, never a dull moment at Everett Hospital geriatric psychiatry unit. Then there is the fact of our 60 year old bodies breaking down and what to do about it. I am sure not the only one in our class who has experienced aches and pains. A stiff and painful right shoulder took me off the tennis court completely last summer. Then I discovered the amazing power of physical therapy to reverse my very painful “frozen” shoulder. I am now essentially pain free. It’s all about stretching, strengthening and movement, the kind of things we were doing constantly at recess and in our gym classes with Paul Joyce and Jane Hardy and, of course, on the tether ball court and in the SHS gym.

Andrew Daniels reports: I too am working on managing elderly parents – Belden is 90, and suffering from physical and mental decline, even though he worked full time until 85! Pamela is a spry 87, and she is the primary caregiver for my dad (who is, nonetheless, a happy fellow!). They still live in the same house on Beacon Hill. My son Cheyne is 24, moved back to Marshfield, and is the general manager for a local enterprise called Levitate, which is a surf shop/music venue/restaurant/kids camp/music festival all wrapped into one. Lincoln, son #2, is 20 and a junior at UNC Wilmington,

John Pezaris writes: Nothing much new here. My wife and I have two teenage daughters, so there is a daily crisis in the house. Still trying to restore sight to the blind, and having a hell of a time getting grant funding from the NIH, what with the current hyper-competitive landscape which has been exacerbated to an unknown depth by the new Federal administration. (Anyone have a spare $10k, $100k, or $1M they want to use for a grand philanthropic gesture? Just in case, please consider making a donation through https://sight2blind.org) Running my research lab at Mass General Hospital, and teaching this spring term at MIT. Exactly where our next research dollar is coming from occupies every spare moment, both waking and sleeping. Our older daughter seems to recently have turned a corner with her piano lessons and has started to play at a level beyond just what makes a parent proud; I never made it to Julliard, but maybe she will? Advice on preparing for college admissions is eagerly solicited! I think frequently of (late classmate) Harvey Hood, and what sort of friendship we might have now if he were still with us. Would he have convinced me to take up golf? We might meet for a long weekend once a summer to go sailing with our families. He’d likely have taken over the family business, but what would he have done with it? Might he have instead led the philanthropic foundation?

Jane Cutter writes: My sandwich generation days are over I guess, as my mom Constance Cutter passed away over the summer; we had the memorial service the day before what would have been her 90th

Jonathan Moller ’78 with the President of Guatemala, Bernard Arevalo

Patty Spence ’73 and her son, Alex

birthday. My beloved father-in-law “Captain Ed” Freeman just passed away as well, a week before what would have been his 93rd birthday. My dear daughter Rachel, 33, is a private chef at a sorority in Seattle at University of Washington. She enjoys her work nourishing the young women in her care and helping them have happy memories of college. She was initially surprised to find that the sorority sisters like her and think she’s cool! She is also a great cook and I’m sure that helps. And cooks are cool now, thanks to “The Bear.” I am keeping on keeping on. Still organizing, still a special education administrator, and now in my third year, still ballroom dancing.

Dinny Starr writes: Hearing from some of you has inspired me to add my own tidbits from the last few years… We downsized – yay! Still live in Newton but now in a condo next door to my sister, Julie (SHS ’75). Although our house is smaller, the door’s always open for visitors. We’ve had terrific trips to Portugal, Spain and Telluride CO (hiking with our kids), Amsterdam/ Copenhagen, and Florence (following our youngest around during her semester abroad). After years of hockey and more recently paddle (platform) tennis, pickleball, and tennis, my knees have finally gone kaput! I fear knee replacements in my future (Ava-Lisa you are an inspiration for just getting the surgery over and done with). I’ve been pursuing new interests in native gardening and plant science, along with continued work with a local nonprofit bringing free arts and culture programming, financial support and arts advocacy to the community. I also continue to do lots of arts and crafts. My husband Alan has semi-retired, is consulting and doing environmental advocacy at the local and state level. He’s also taken over the kitchen. Wahoo!

Our kids (Jacquie 29, Ryder 28, Cameron 26, Piper 22) are almost all out of the house, but live nearby. Two are in the Boston area, one is on the Cape, and our youngest will hopefully move back to the area after college. Close by, but not under foot = perfect! One of my favorite forms of entertainment of late is watching two of our adult kids play soccer together on a co-

ed 7 v 7 team, hanging out after and rehashing the game. Just like old times. Of course, there have been plenty of less happy events in the past few years, lost friends, family and our beloved cock-a-poo, and plenty of political animosity circulating around the globe. But I’d prefer to dwell on the joyful things. I hope you all have had joyful moments to celebrate too.

Jonatha Brooke (Nelson) writes: My husband Pat and I have both been orphans for quite some time now. So we’re mostly dealing with our own aches and pains. It’s most challenging in the depths of the deepest cold of Minnesota January! Nonetheless, we’re both working harder than ever. Pat lost his longest most dear client, David Sanborn, last year. But is continuing the good fight with Curtis Stigers, Judith Owen, me, and Edy Forey, a very hip duo based in Edinburgh, Scotland. I’m deep in the development of three musicals, “Switched” with Geoffrey Nauffts; “TEMPUS” with Jaclyn Backhaus; and “Evidence of V” with Laurie Flanagan Hegge. Trying to keep characters/songs/scenes from merging into a big muddle! I think they are all on the way to some kind of production in the next couple of years. I’m still touring and teaching as much as I can in the

spaces. Hoping to set aside enough time and dough to actually make a new “Jonatha” record sometime in 2025. Steady On. Sending so much love.

Ava-Lisa Macon writes, Seeing as how I’m presently warming my heels in Tobago’s tiny airport preparatory to a 16hr trek home, seems as good a time as any to piggy-back on Andrew’s and David’s satisfyingly newsy sends. I really love reading these and marking the passage of time (aches & pains Summersby? Do tell!)

Tobago, as many of you may be aware, is the 2nd of the islands that form the island nation of Trinidad & Tobago, the country of my birth and southernmost of the Caribbean isles. We joke about seeing Venezuela from our back porch. It’s my first return since age 15, so… a little less than 1/2 a century (does that make us “old?”). I traveled for my uncle’s funeral, representing my mom who, at 90, now pronounces herself with conviction: “too old to travel.” Class, we could have coffee & catharsis about the aging parent thing! Mom pretty much just “stopped” last year. Diagnosed with dementia and a host of other ailments, she has confined herself to a favorite chair and contracted her universe to a telephone, television & Google. She has

steadfastly refused to give up her home (and I don’t want to force her), or consider any alternative to dying in her own bed, an event about which she loves to wax conversational. Consequently (to make a long story somewhat less long), I sold my condo last year and moved in with her - because managing her care from afar was becoming impossible. Thus far, her daily self-predicted demise has not occurred (and I don’t want it to!). As its imminence appears less and less likely, however, based on her quite sprightly movement and mental aptitude when tired, I am beginning to reconsider the living arrangement. It’s not great for my dating life and time is not on my side. What HAS been, however (on my side - sometimes literally), have been the following:

• a brand, spanking, shiny new hip in 2023 (to match the other from 2018)

• a clean bill of health using the “C” word (cured) from a 2021 breast cancer diagnosis

• the ditching of my omnipresent cane, walker and/or handicapped parking tag no longer necessities post-aforementioned mischiefs managed.

• Jet skis. Attempted for the 1st time two days ago to exhilarating effect. Where have these BEEN all my life?! Ozempic. To whom (yes; I HAVE granted my dear friend full personhood. It was the least I could do. And under the circumstances, s/he remains defiantly gender-neutral), I give unapologetic credit and undying gratitude for the equivalent loss of an entire person (110+ lbs and counting!). Side note: In remarkable contrast to a feisty nonagenarian housemate, Ozzie DOES make for a satisfactory dating wing-person. Daughters (35 and 32), successfully launched and independently domiciled; Anna-Lisa, her husband Matt and my grandson Benjamin (now four) are still in Westchester, NY. Sacoria (my youngest and currently traveling with me), is in Chicago. Anywho, that’s it for me. Taking life one day at a time and resolving to attempt at least one experience each month this year that scares/ challenges me - in a good way.

Ava-Lisa Macon ’78 enjoying the thrill of travel and adventure

1979

PORTER GIFFORD

The 1979 celebrated their 45th anniversary with a visit to alma mater last spring, followed by a cheerful lunch hosted by Natalie Edmonds. Thank you, Natalie, and to everybody who attended. Ellingston Clark enjoyed seeing everybody at the reunion, and is hoping to introduce his two daughters to skiing this winter, so if anyone has any ideas or recommendations, you know how to reach me. And tell Moot I haven’t forgotten his input from last year re: my skiing hopes.

From Betsy Biemman: A highlight of my year was seeing so many of you in June, then later running into David Kaufmann at a summer camp celebration in New Hampshire and catching up with Bayard Maybank briefly when I was in LA. It was wonderful to reconnect and reflect on our time together at Shady Hill. Other than that, Sean and I celebrated our son Mac’s graduation from Tufts, though Anna, his sister, is applying to law school so we may yet again have a student in the family. We are well - Sean spends his days gardening and working on historical photography projects, while I continue to do what I can to help grow a more just and climateresilient economy in Maine and other rural regions, working with a great team of colleagues at Coastal Enterprises. Here’s to a healthy and peaceful 2025.

Tom Brazelton writes: Jenny and I are still in Verona, WI, a mile from Epic System’s evergrowing campus. Jenny retired from leadership in our American Family Children’s Hospital about seven years ago and keeps looking younger and younger—-not sure how that works. I am still full-time, working clinically as a pediatric cardiac critical care physician, academically as professor of pediatrics at University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, and administratively as the first physician leader in our Dept of Finance/Revenue Cycle, still on my quality improvement journey, helping move our UW

Health comprehensive health system into the complex, risk adjusted, value-based care world. Living in Madison continues to be idyllic, despite the growth, and I’m convinced it’s still the country’s best-kept secret. Two big bloodhounds, JJ (11) and Gus (3), keep us active and constantly cleaning. Golf is my release and relief, though it’s an incredibly frustrating sport that I picked up in my late 40s, but there’s nothing better than walking 18 holes on any day—-last round was 12/27/24! Stepson Jack (24) loves being an FF/EMT in Onalaska, WI, and enjoys freaking us out with pictures of burning buildings he’s either running in and out of or extinguishing from the tip of a tower ladder apparatus, suspended a hundred feet in the air. Seeing him on EMS and rescue calls via some of the first responder blogs out there is a hoot. Not sure where 2025 will lead us but, if anyone is out this way, reach out.

Celia Imrey writes: Jonathan and I are living in NYC, kids are out of the nest, and I’m continuing with my architecture career. We get to Cambridge off and on to visit my mom. I finally got my own pair of figure skates. I have not yet sourced that smelly white polish with the foam application, but may cave to this impulse soon. As for me, your faithful correspondent - I am well. As I look out the window on this sunny afternoon here on Coolidge Hill, writing these notes and watching the SHS students walk to the bus stop after school, I am happily remembering the many cheerful days we all spent together at Shady Hill many years ago.

I recently published an article about the earliest archeological excavations in Jerusalem which were undertaken by the British in the mid-nineteenth century. I continue to travel as much as I can: South India to see some of the famous Hindu temples, Tulum, and London annually for research. My daughter is 26 and working remotely for NerdWallet as a researcher/writer. I am happy to have her back in LA after 2 years in NYC. I recently caught up with the recently retired Josh Marx ’81 and his wife Stacey. He shared with me a great quote from their year-long van-life road-tripping adventures: “You know you’re there when you cherish here.” I guess I am not there yet!

Nick Morse shared: 2024 was a busy year in the Morse [family]. I [had dual] roles as Medical Director for a young biopharma company focused on improving ovarian longevity and as Chief Clinical Officer for a virtual menopause care clinic. Everyone seems to be gravitating to healthcare - despite the usual antics and tragedies of the US healthcare system. My wife, Loren, works as a surgical coordinator at Beth Israel Lahey Health. [One] son Eli is a pharmacy tech at CVS and [other] son Isaac is a junior at University of Rochester [and] heading towards medical school. Margaret King Robertson updated: Hello classmates! I have returned to MA with my husband, David Robertson, and have settled in Beverly. I love my new city and North Shore road biking. I am working in college counseling at Emerson College and have enjoyed seeing more of my SHS classmatesPolly Hubbard, Margaret Churchill Lynn and Jessica Aguilera-Steinert!

Yvette Anderson reminded us that we are nearing retirement. This prompts her to search for a state in which to retire. She will visit GA and SD this spring. Last year, she left OH (where we are all welcome!) to visit the Berkshires and family and noticed great changes in Boston.

Lydia Forbes wrote that she is living in Maine, playing in the DaPonte String Quartet, enjoying deep winter and skating on the river. [Additionally she is] riding the wild ride of having three sons ages 15, 19, and 22 (especially the off-roading and winter camping part!) and working up solo violin music by Bach and Bartok in her studio up in the woods.

Lisa Brown reported that she met her goal of running a half marathon in all 50 U.S. states in June by completing the Kahakuloa half marathon in Maui. This spring semester is the last of her six-year term as Dean of social sciences at Austin College. She shared that she will be glad to be back in the classroom full-time. She also appreciates teaching at a private college in the current political context because if she taught at a public one (in TX), every course of hers would be considered illegal as she covers race, gender, and sexuality. In roughly a decade, she plans to retire in Albuquerque where she bought a modest condo for restorative moments in the natural beauty of the place more aligned with her values.

Our Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role. Email alumni@shs.org.

Jeffrey Auerbach wrote: I am finishing my third year as Chair of the History Department at California State University Northridge and really enjoying the opportunity to engage in administrative work, although I am starting to miss classroom teaching.

1981

SARAH WYMAN

Maybe it is because I (Sarah Wyman) have been teaching New England transcendental ideas of self-reliance and civil disobedience (Emersion, DuBois, Thoreau) that I see these qualities everywhere as modes of resistance and selfassertion, especially in my SHS classmates…..

Josh Marx and his wife have been on the road for five months and plan to carry on for at least another year. Look out for their posts on https://plumbeanadventures.com/ Josh wrote, “The story is about living one’s truth and ultimately about freedom. It is about the freedom to choose what we like, think and admit to others. It is also about honesty and braveness. Freedom is of little use if we are too afraid of using it.”

Ed Peterson works as a certified Emotionally Focused Supervisor and Therapist (EFT) in Salt Lake City, UT and is the creator of the podcast, “The Heart & Soul of Couples Therapy – Conversations with EFT Trainer Emeritus Jim Thomas.”

John Wilson reported the recent discovery that he is a (dual) UK citizen and has been automatically since birth, yet no one ever told him! He now has a UK passport which he will keep handy in case the next four years go totally off the rails and he needs an all-purpose permanent escape plan. Meanwhile, he has been doing a lot of trail work in Royalston, MA, cutting or re-opening over two miles of trails amongst the beavers and bears. He invites us all to visit if passing by on Route 2.

1982

KATE MOVIUS AND CHAD GIFFORD

Katy Aisenberg wrote: This year had some excitement— I published my first book of poetry, The Ether Dome, available through Main Street Rag Press. I saw Charlotte Phillips, Adrian Brown Kuzel and Lucie Pavlova and was so touched how these friendships have endured. My daughter did a fast semester abroad- Scotland, London, Copenhagen and Venice.

Samantha Corte shared: Our daughter, Melissa, graduated from Savannah College of Art and Design in June 2024. She is currently job-hunting (2-D animation, motion media, or something related thereto). Petwise, we are down to one 15 yearold cat and three fish.

Sarah Feigon writes: I am pleased to share that I closed my private psychology practice this winter.  Why am I pleased? Because I have accepted a job in a group practice. No retirement here, but I am excited about finally having benefits again and a good group of colleagues. Moving out of the office rental was kind of an ordeal, but I am almost there, and it feels liberating. And no, I am not living in a van down by the river (does anyone remember that miscommunication? My sense of humor is puzzling at times)! I live in Roslindale and I am happy here in my humble abode with cool neighbors. Congratulations to Elizabeth Kaufman, whose first novel, Ruth Run, has been

published by Penguin Random House. From the publisher:

“Cybercrime leads to a crosscountry pursuit as an ambitious, misfit young thief exploits a hacked microchip to rob banks and learns too late that the wrong people have been watching her.

A nonstop oddball thriller for the age of digital theft, Ruth Run introduces an irresistible new heroine and a fantastic new voice in contemporary fiction.”

We sadly lost our wonderful classmate, Lisa Dreier in November of 2024. Some of us shared our memories of Lisa:

Charlie King wrote: I connected with Lisa just after she left her advocacy work and she had just received her diagnosis. She was thoughtful and still optimistic about the future. She was so lovely, so vibrant but also gentle and so warm. She is missed. These days, I have a daughter Isabella working as a nurse in NJ. I am living with a boyfriend and my son Harrison is a junior at Santa Clara University and was just named Captain of the water polo team for his senior year. Kate Movius shared: I was terribly saddened at the news of Lisa Dreier’s death in November. I have so many fond memories of our time together at SHS. She and I also sang in the children’s choir at Christ Church in Harvard Square. Her father would pick me up in their VW bus early Sunday mornings. If I close my eyes, I can see Lisa in the backseat next to me: it is winter and the heat does not work so we can see our breath. The VW smells of gasoline and vinyl (as all old VWs do) and Lisa is holding a piece of buttered toast in her mittened hand, her bright eyes peeking out from under her pom

pommed winter hat. She had such a soothing, mellifluous voice and a deep appreciation for wonder, humor, animals and the small details that a hyper kid like me often missed as I lurched through life. When I last saw her in 2015, we breathlessly caught up on our decades apart and I could not wait to catch up again. How lucky I was to know her.

Lucienne (Lucy) Schroepfer shared: Oof…so many memories of Lisa. She was behind me as Maid of Honor for my wedding, right there when my mom died, the person who convinced me I needed a wig, the only person that actually had me thinking about taking her up on an offer to go to a meditation retreat after a health issue. Childhood memories: sneaking sugar cubes from the kitchen, looking at anatomical books in our piano lesson waiting room (of naked bodies), wondering how the “pot” tasted that was found in my older brother’s room, the day our mothers allowed us to walk to school alone and our dreams. Most importantly, the person in later life I could talk feelings with— real feelings— sex, marriage, kids, aging parents, our own health issues—it was always easy. One of the few people I could connect with sporadically and enjoy conversation without inhibition. These are snippets of time that I treasure and that make me smile reliving/ remembering.

DANIEL FILENE

Keith Mascoll wrote: I am still acting! Moonface Martin [Anything Goes, in case you have forgotten!] has never left me. I am combining my acting and education background to help others. I run a nonprofit called The Triggered Project (www. triggered1.com) that includes the Living a Triggered Life Podcast. I went back to school to HGSE to get my Masters in Education to help in my work to change how social workers, psychologists and educators learn about trauma using art. Keith added that he is still in touch with Cedric Lawson, Sam

Janeway, Darryl Harding, and Jonathon Hexner. He shared: recently enjoyed coaching youth soccer with Eric Henderson Gene Doucette checked in, This year I will be publishing my seventeenth novel [!!]—The Wisdom of Sand (book IV in the Tandemstar series) and The Wrong Side of Sundown, which is book one in a new novella series. I am also putting out: There Is No Cat: Schrödinger’s Catastrophe and Other Stories, which is a collection of (mostly) previously published shorts. Gene is still living in Cambridge with his wife Deb and a “murderous dog named Hunter.” His kids Becky and Tim have left the nest, but are still living nearby. Sarah [Crissman] Hollington shared she is still in Cleveland, also with kids all “launched” and she visits Boston to see her parents and younger brother Will and his family, and goes to Maine in the summer “to get as many Crissman people as we can under one roof.” Sarah would love to see any SHS folks! Seth Allen reported that 2024 was an eventful year— he “retired”, sold his house in CA, moved back to PA after renovating a home there, spent the spring in Greece, the summer in Maine, and began working again in September. He noted, It was a whirlwind year, but a memorable one! Greg Allen wrote, Still living in Denver, CO, getting close to 30 years in my current house with my wife, into my 3rd year working as the IT Manager at the Denver Athletic Club in downtown Denver and still loving the job. He added that over Christmas he went to the Grand Canyon for the first time,

Dan Filene ’83 & Nicky Phear ’83 catching up in Cambridge

Lisa Dreier: 1967–2024

with most of his family, taking in Las Vegas and the Hoover Dam along the way, and then had a friend visiting from Spain over the New Year. Claudia Gonson lives in Brooklyn, NY with her fourteen year old daughter, Eve. Since getting her social work clinical license in 2022, Claudia splits her time between being a therapist, a mom, and continuing as band manager of the indie band The Magnetic Fields. Claudia has enjoyed performing with the band as well. She still visits Cambridge regularly to see her family, and also enjoys seeing her friend Liz Temin Suzanne Siner enjoyed a hike in the Adirondacks last summer with Sarina Tcherepnin and Laura [Hoblitzelle] Bak She also noted that she and Laura were the only among us to attend our (slightly delayed) 40th reunion

in 2024. We must do better next time! Carl Leguia wrote that 2024 was not the greatest year, but saw the Grand Canyon again. Also, daughter, Isabella, who is in tenth grade, got out on a big bike with me at the track which was fun for both of us. I also brought her to work with me for a week and that brought us closer together as well. He noted that teens are a lot of work. Nicky Phear said that after twenty years leading environmental programs at the University of Montana, he is now focused on blending Eastern contemplative practices with Western psychology, helping with meditation retreats and building out nature-based programming. He shared that he, and partner Tom are doing well, and recent health challenges have deepened his gratitude for life. Nicky noted that another highlight was visiting Annie Brewster back in Cambridge. Jon Lorsch sent a rare update: Since 2013 I have been the director of the NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), which supports fundamental biomedical research at institutions across the country.

One of my main endeavors over the past decade has been strengthening the Institute’s scientific workforce development grant portfolio. I also run a small lab that studies how cells make proteins. In my spare time I garden in the mini-farm I’ve made in our back yard. My wife, Kirstie, recently convinced me to also take on a plot in a community garden because she said I needed to make friends (probably true). She is a

science writer and pickleball fanatic. Younger daughter Téa is in her third year of law school concentrating on renewable energy law. Older daughter Nina works in a preschool. She and her husband Matt, a sergeant in the Army’s recruiting corps, have two children, Milo (2) and Mabel (8 months) propelling me into grandparenthood. Jon added that he was very impressed with Claudia’s band after seeing their NPR “Tiny Desk Concert” last fall—check it out on YouTube. As for your humble secretary—I am still just outside Portland (ME) and still working (though a bit less) in public sector psychiatry. My big events of 2024 were a month of spring bike training in Mallorca, followed by an unsupported bike race across the U.S. (26 days 11 hours!). Nicky Phear intercepted the race for a quick visit in Idaho, while Jon Lorsch and his wife met me at the finish line in DC and force-fed me several pounds of pasta that night. As an added bonus I also got to visit with Nicky in Cambridge. In addition to all the above news, I heard from a few other classmates who wished to remain incognito, but reported they were doing well. It was wonderful to hear from you all and I would love to connect with anyone passing through Maine this summer.

1984

JARED EIGERMAN

Ben Sloss wrote from TX: All remains well in the Sloss household. Our daughter Olivia graduated from Barnard back in May and now is working in publishing. Nicholas is in the midst of his Computer

Science PhD program at UC Davis. Christine and I continue to love living here in Austin; in our copious free time we are racing with IMSA for 2025 as the sole married couple in the series, which promises to be memorable. Megan Williams shared from WA: Sorry to have missed our 40th, but classmates might recognize a few things in my recently released memoir One Bad Mother: One Mother’s Search for Meaning in the Police Academy (Sibylline Press, September 2024).

1985

Our Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role. Email alumni@shs.org.

Lilly Windle shared: After living in Saigon, Vietnam for the past 2 years, our family moved back to Portland, OR. We opened our hearts and eyes to South East Asia which we had not previously known. I knew where Vietnam was, thanks to seventh grade Memory Maps with Mr. Smith, but little more. My husband and I taught at an International School and were treated like valued members of society, a vastly different experience from teaching in US public school, though more similar to SHS. Currently all family members are all back in public schools teaching and learning. As it turns out, I am colleagues with a former SHS student (Hannah Givertz ’10 ) who is a truly phenomenal educator. Happy to be home in Portland and truly appreciate the natural beauty and freedoms we have in this country, even though it may not seem so to many folks.

Carl Leguia’s ’83 daughter Isabella with motorbike

1987 Class Photo

Suzanne Siner ’83, Sarina Tcherepnin ’83 and Laura [Hoblitzelle] Bak ’83 in the Adirondacks

1986

NELL BREYER

1987

EMILY SHAW

elloydshaw@gmail.com

Emily Lloyd Shaw shared: Hi Classmates. Unfortunately I did not have much time to collect notes from all of you and am wondering what the best way is to do that moving forward as we do not have everyone’s updated email addresses, and not everyone is on Facebook. Please reach out to my email above and send me an updated email and/ or notes for the next go around. On my end, maybe some of you heard that my Dad died last spring, which was so sad and such a loss. I know many of you have been through this, or are going through this. And at the same time, my two daughters (16 and 18) are really thriving, even in these turbulent times. Our oldest is a senior at the Middlesex School and will be off to Bates College next year and our younger daughter is at the Thacher School in Ojai, CA. I saw Katie Salter one evening at her parents’ home for a special Raclette night (her Dad is a raclette master) and loved seeing pictures of Lara Heimert’s amazing travels and Cheyenne McCall’s continued healing and successes. I hope our LA based classmates like Lila Javan continue to be safe and hoping to see Eliza Geer at a mutual friend’s birthday party in NYC. Maia Sloss Carson wrote: I have had several opportunities to visit Boston this year and as a result have gotten some wonderful time with Olivia Dyer Reyelt and her family who live 5 minutes from my parents in Brookline. Olivia has taught my kids how to knit, which I am so grateful for since they do not have the SHS experience of learning fabric arts in 3rd grade with Ms Frick-Richards. Speaking of whom, this class photo (attached) never gets old, although the “pilgrim experience” is likely taught differently these days. Olivia sent a wonderful photo and wrote: Living in Brookline, still teaching art in one of the Brookline schools.

Now that both my girls are both off at college I have been enjoying spending time with old SHS friends and their kids. I took a trip down to Charlottesville to spend the weekend with Lean Sweeney and her 2 kids (see photo). Knitting needles also came with me on that trip as Lean’s daughter Amelia also wanted to knit. So many memorable projects we got to do at SHS...sheep to shawl, chiton printing, building a bedside table with Mr. Maple. Sending love to all of you and will hope to hear from more of you next time if you want to reach out.

1988

1989

TK BALTIMORE

TK Baltimore (tkbalt@gmail. com) wrote, Greetings from frigid Cambridge, MA, where I have been walking my daughter Tesla to SHS in single digit temperatures. Tesla is now in fifth grade, which is housed in a two-story building that I am fairly certain did not exist back in the ’80s. The current Central Subject of fifth grade is China, and Tesla is having a blast learning about both modern and historic China. Her grade will be celebrating the Lunar New Year next week with a Chinese banquet

for lunch, which I am helping set up since I have somehow been roped into being a class parent this year. I have been enjoying freelance life: wrapping up a major project from 2024 and looking forward to new projects in 2025. My parents, out in Pasadena, CA, have survived the recent fires with their home intact (thanks to all who checked in on them) and we are looking forward to visiting them during SHS’s upcoming February break.

Todd Rodgers wrote from NYC that his main update is that his eldest daughter, Cooper, started freshman year at Tufts University and is currently debating between liberal arts, engineering, or some combination of the two. Her younger sister, Parker, is enjoying her sophomore year at NightingaleBamford in NYC.

Elise Van Winkle is still in the DC area with her two kids. Her son is headed to UVA next year and her daughter will be off to high school. She wrote: I still do not understand how I have teenagers and spend most of my time convincing them I was an upstanding teen, while also being extremely thankful we did not have social media back then and therefore there’s no record either way. Otherwise, I left Defense a few years back and am now an Industry Executive at Oracle, helping the government solve challenges through the use of data and systems. This has been extremely rewarding. That said, I cannot stray too far from my passion to help increase the presence of women in the national

security sector. Since leaving, I became a member of the Leadership Council for Women in National Security, which works to increase gender parity in national security/ intel fields. In addition, last summer I was nominated and confirmed by the Secretary of Defense to be Vice Chair on the Defense Advisory Council on Women in the Services (DACOWITS).It is truly an honor to be a part of influential groups that make a difference in the field - having been the only woman at the table, this is desperately needed. On a side note, I was so saddened to hear about Melanie Robinson. She was such a wonderful woman and I know she will be missed by everyone who was lucky enough to be a part of her world. Truly sad to hear about her passing.

Justin Rogers is still in Minnesota. His daughter Kaia just became an Eagle Scout and got into her first choice school, Smith College, in Northampton, MA. Miranda Pearce is still living in Cambridge with her husband Matt and two sons, Leo and Oscar. Leo, 15, is at CRLS and playing basketball this winter, and Oscar, 14, is at VLUS and spends all his free time at Lynch Family Skate Park with his scooter (the trick kind). Miranda shared: When stars have aligned and our schedules permit, I have gotten together with TK Baltimore, Amy Bracken and Emily (Hart) Reith for dinner. I was very sorry to hear about Melanie passing. Amy Bracken and I saw her a few years ago when she was in town and she seemed to be healthy and happy.

Emily Hart Reith wrote from Sudbury, MA: Seeing friends, old and new, including Amy, Miranda and TK! And by old I mean treasured. For family-related updates, my youngest spent a high school semester in Johannesburg, South Africa and had a wonderful experience (and my takeaway from this empty nester trial period is that my husband and I need more hobbies. Or even one). Otherwise, I have spent the year tracking my kids’ whereabouts (mainly through their phones when they do not block me) and apologizing for my dogs. Cheers to 2025 bringing health, peace and adventure to all of us, and to TK, the great connector, bringing us together!

Lean Sweeney ’87 with children

KRISTIN MERCER

Jeremiah Day is working as an artist in Berlin, Germany. His most recent publication is If It’s For The People, It Needs To Be Beautiful, She Said. Google it. It’s pretty cool.

Anna Martin is in her second year of the counseling master’s program at Framingham State. She is working for a mental health agency and loves that it is so different every day. She currently lives in Tewksbury and has become terribly spoiled by suburban parking.

Sam Thompson and his wife Anne are still living in Cambridgeport and are now emptynesting with their daughter Clare at Queens University in Kingston, ON and son Hayes at Proctor Academy. Sam shared: I have spent recent years more focused on Venture investing at my firm Progress Ventures. My wife Anne has been working with close friend and fellow SHS alum Jill Forney on their beverage business Urban Pharm for part of the time as well as running community engagement for the Lauren Holleran Team at Gibson Sotheby’s. Lots of SHS alumni around Cambridge that we get to see regularly. In the summer, when not in Cambridge, we spend time in Amagansett, NY with family and friends.

Lisa Hamilton is still in the Bay Area and remains a journalist writing about agriculture and rural communities. Lisa wrote: Since I published The Hungry Season in 2023 I have been working hard to have it translated to Hmong, which is the language of the protagonist. After much trial, the free Hmonglanguage audiobook will be released this year, in conjunction with the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the wars in Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Outside of work, I am running a vegetable garden at a local children’s center and playing lots of beach volleyball. Happy family at home. All is well.

Tiverton Smith McClintock and her husband Austin are still living in Boston. Their two children are SHS grads. One is at school in Scotland and the other heading to Virginia in the fall.

Sophie Hayward, among others, said they had little to report because so much is the same as it was last year.

Betsey Geller, in Manhattan Beach near Los Angeles, said that she and her family were safe during the fires, but had many displaced friends and families, and a home full of her sons’ friends from UCLA since the school cancelled classes.

And lastly, as many of you have already heard, our classmate Melanie Rae Robinson passed away last fall after a long battle with cancer. If you would like to honor her life, her family has recommended donating to one of three organizations that Melanie cared about. One of those organizations is SHS itself, so please feel free to add an “In Honor of Melanie Rae Robinson” to a SHS donation this year, or email devon.wilsonhill@shs.org in the Advancement Office.

Thanks for reading, everyone, and many thanks to all those that sent in news. I think we’re getting better at this reporting thing as we get older!

1990

KATHRYN BAILIS PHILLIPS

1991

Our Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role. Email alumni@shs.org.

1992

Our Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role. Email alumni@shs.org.

Alexander Dunn wrote: My wife Meggie and I were joined by baby Molly Shea Dunn last June. Beyond the smiles and nappies, we are happily splitting time between grandparents in Northern VA and Cambridge, MA. As always, I’d love to connect in either location or any Amtrak stop between the two!

Leila Simon Hayes shared: So grateful to keep in touch with SHS folks here and there. I have been making art more of my main thing

in the past few years which has been fun and rewarding. Lately I have been creating textile designs and homewares to fill our lives with color and pattern and remind us that joy is necessary even in dark times. I am part of the Brick Island Studio collective in Hyde Park, MA. We would love to see you at one of our events. Please keep in touch. leilasimonhayes.com brickislandstudios.com.

David Meshoulam updated: Life has been full the past several years. My partner Becca got promoted to full professor at Boston College and I am still chugging along as executive director of the urban forestry nonprofit I founded in 2018 (Speak for the Treestreeboston.org). Our children are spreading their wings. Ella (17) is a senior in high school and is waiting to hear back from colleges and Noah (15) continues to explore music, songwriting, and skiing. I still see James Thomson regularly. He and his wife Danielle crepe-catered our 20+1 wedding anniversary in Vermont. A few weeks back I bumped into Michael Horn and we reminisced about classmates, science, trees, and Ralph Wales.

Kabir Sen reported: I am in my twenty sixth year now teaching music at Shady Hill School. The year has gone by quickly so far. The second semester always brings lots of excitement over the six class plays in third and fourth grade! Directing the plays is one of my favorite parts of the job. My family is doing well and we had a fun trip to New York over the holiday. Rebecca is still working

at Newton Country Day school as head of the science department. Our children, Eva, Julia, and Ethan are in ninth, seventh and fourth grade in Belmont Public schools. I release a lot of my own music, and I have two residencies in Cambridge on the first and third Saturday of every month (at Lizard Lounge and Plough & Stars) that I enjoy a lot! Sending love to SHS classmates. Come visit!

1993

Our Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role. Email alumni@shs.org.

Kaytea Petro shared: Lindsay Ricker performed a killer comedy set at my art gallery last night. I am the co-owner of KnK Contemporary.

1994-6

Our Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role. Email alumni@shs.org.

1997

Our Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role. Email alumni@shs.org.

Nick Deane wrote: Nick(o) and wife Keia Cole moved last year to Park Slope in Brooklyn with their daughter Emerson (Emmie) who

Kabir Sen ’92 and family in New York

Molly Shea Dunn, future birdwatcher and Red Sox fan!

is now almost 4 years old. Nicko is working on the data platform for the NYC public health system, and trying to keep up with friends near and far. It was great to see the group of classmates who made it to the reunion over the summer.

Isabel Feldman wrote: Enjoying life in Houston Texas with my fiance Brad and baby Sophie Rose.

1998

Our Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role. Email alumni@shs.org.

1999

Our Class Correspondent position is open. Consider stepping forward to volunteer for this rewarding role. Email alumni@shs.org.

Serena Bartolucci (Serena. bartolucci@gmail.com) shared: Hi SHS Community! I have laid roots in Park Slope, in Brooklyn, New York, with my husband and family. I’m a marketing and communications pro at a boutique, woman-owned recruiting firm by day, and little kid wrangler by night (my daughter Peri is 4.5, and son Nicky is 1.5). I would love to connect with alums or old friends in NYC/Brooklyn. As my oldest prepares for Kindergarten in the Fall, I think often and fondly of my time at SHS, and deeply value the perspective it gave me on education. Feel free to reach out:

2000

KATE CHIN AND ABBY WRIGHT

2001

PERRINE MEUNIER

Jay Miller writes: My wife Snow and I are still living in Seattle. We welcomed our daughter Lyra this summer. I now work for the

Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department, and also have a parttime clinical role at Harborview Medical Center.

Margaret Jaffe and Isaiah started taking their son Caelum to playgroup in September. (See photo.)

Marianna Tu writes: I’m still in New York City as I have been since graduating college. After 14 years working at and running health and education nonprofits, I decided to go to medical school and am now in my second year at Zucker/ Hofstra school of medicine. Being a student again has been both challenging and invigorating. I’m currently on parental leave after the birth of my first child, Karam, who arrived on December 28, 2024. He is snuggled up next to me while it snows outside and our dog Tito snores on the floor. My husband Abhinav is making coffee in the kitchen. It’s a sweet, slow time.

Steven Bertozzi writes: I am living in Milton, MA with my husband, Drew, and our (soon-tobe) 5-year-old son, Theo. I am in my sixth year as the Middle School principal at Milton Academy. I would love to get together with any SHS classmates in the area.

Jeremy Finch is living in Watertown, MA with his wife Stephanie and two sons, 4 and 2 years old. He thinks fondly of Shady Hill’s unique mix of physical, mental, and artistic outlets and hopes to pass on this love of learning, play, and exploration to the new generation.

Perrine Meunier-Jones writes: I am living in Western Massachusetts working for Mount Holyoke College in the office of College Relations. I travel frequently for

work and would love to connect with other SHSers on the West Coast. Life in the Pioneer Valley is full of hikes in the woods foraging for mushrooms, with my dog Hazel leading the way.

2003

Our Correspondent Position is open. Consider stepping forward for this rewarding role! Email alumni@ shs.org

Sommer Thomas writes: I am so excited to share that my husband Boris and daughters Aria (10) and Sommer Iman (2) and I are looking forward to adding a new addition to the family in June 2025. I’m not sure how Bors and I will deal with being outnumbered, but I’m ready for the next chapter of our life. Cheers!

2004

Our Correspondent Position is open. Consider stepping forward for this rewarding role! Email alumni@shs.org

2005

KATHERINE TAKETOMO

Madeleine Meller writes: Hello dear friends and teachers. My husband Brooks and I are happily living in the mountains of Lincoln, Vermont, where we operate a small bakery called Downhill Bread. We welcomed our son, Alden, on October 30th. Please feel free to get in touch if you’re ever up north!

Katherine Taketomo writes:

After over a decade in Brooklyn, it was time to come home! It’s been an exciting return to the Boston area to rejoin the Shady Hill Community as the Middle School Division Head. As someone whose educational trajectory and socio-emotional development was deeply impacted by my time as a student and apprentice at Shady Hill, it has been deeply meaningful to return back to campus to lead the middle school. Whether watching fifth graders learn to knit hats, listening to students have thoughtful conversations with their peers and teachers, or passing by a game of foursquare on the path, I am constantly reminded of the joyful experience of being a student at Shady Hill. A lot has changed, but what has remained constant is the love of learning and thoughtful community.

2006

ANJALI LAPPIN

anjalilappin416@gmail.com

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a nice holiday season. I am still continuing my work in the Public Schools of Brookline as a METCO Social Worker. I am back in three of the elementary schools this year. It is certainly a lot of hard work, but it is extremely meaningful, which is something I cherish. I am still keeping up with my music and am currently in search of a new orchestra to join this year. I am now the Alumni Board Chair for Shady Hill, as of this past September, and still hold the role as our Class Correspondent, both positions which I am proud to have, as I represent my class and school. I hope everyone is having a smooth year so far, and I hope we can all visit soon!

Katie Surrey Bergman ’06 has continued her work as a species and ecosystem scientist at EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute), researching ecological conservation related to the development of sustainable energy. She moved to Washington DC earlier this year and is enjoying spending her time exploring a new city. She regularly returns to Boston to spend time

Margaret Jaffe ’01 and family

Winter 2024 family photo, from left to right: Boris (husband), Sommer Thomas SHS ’03, Sommer Iman (2yrs), Aria (10yrs)

2014

Our Correspondent Position is open. Consider stepping forward for this rewarding role! Email alumni@shs.org

2015

Our Correspondent Position is open. Consider stepping forward for this rewarding role! Email alumni@shs.org

Caleb Scott-Joseph writes: I just started a PhD in Physics at the University of Pennsylvania and am now living in Philadelphia.

2016

with family and friends, and to pursue her passions of hiking and skiing in the northeast mountains.

Justin Conway ’06 writes: Since my last write up I’ve just been working and traveling here and there. I went to some election rallies for Kamala Harris and started a new job in July. The best news I have is I got engaged in September!

2007

Our Correspondent Position is open. Consider stepping forward for this rewarding role! Email alumni@shs.org

2008

Our Correspondent Position is open. Consider stepping forward for this rewarding role! Email alumni@shs.org

Graydon Gund writes: I had a busy summer of directing and sound design and just returned from directing a reading in Phoenix.

2009

Our Correspondent Position is open. Consider stepping forward for this rewarding role! Email alumni@shs.org

2010–12

Our Correspondent Position is open. Consider stepping forward for this rewarding role! Email alumni@shs.org

2013

Our Correspondent Position is open. Consider stepping forward for this rewarding role! Email alumni@shs.org

Sam Cabot writes: Have been playing in a fantasy football league with classmates Alex Flamm, Colby Gates, Fisher Gates, Adam Kulick, and Mihir Edulbehram. We started it in the 6th grade! It has kept us in regular contact even after all these years. Took me over a decade but I finally took home the trophy this season –probably the highlight of my year!

middle school, so that much hasn’t changed. You can watch my (not silly) capstone film here (11 min): https://vimeo.com/947174278. Ollie Shirley graduated cum laude from Georgetown University in May with a BA in Government and is headed to law school in the near future!

2017

BANNON JONES banniejones@gmail.com

Our Correspondent Position is open. Consider stepping forward for this rewarding role! Email alumni@shs.org

Louisa Monahan writes: Hi all! I graduated from Wesleyan last May with a Film / Biology double major. I have since moved to Madison, WI and work for Epic (healthcare tech) as a project manager. I still occasionally make little silly movies with friends like I did in

Reza Eshghi ’16, now a Haverford College senior, earned NCAA Division III national runner-up honors in the indoor 3,000-meter run. Reza’s secondplace finish landed him firstteam All-American status. He had previously set the Havarford school record as well as the Metro Region record for fastest time in this event.

Justin Biemann writes: It’s hard to believe it’s been eight years since our Maypole dance! I’m now in my final semester at Wesleyan University, where I’ve been studying the social sciences (economics, political science, and history) and am now working on a thesis about U.S. protectionism. This summer, I’m excited to start a new chapter at JPMorgan in NYC. I’ll always be grateful for the ten amazing years on Coolidge Hill and all the teachers and classmates who made it so special. Wishing everyone in the SHS community all the best!

Bannon Jones writes: I will graduate from Grinnell College in May. I have loved my four years here, met lots of cool people, and explored parts of America (Iowa) that I never thought I would. Next year, I will continue working at McLean Hospital in Boston while I focus on applying to grad school to become a mental health professional! I continue to see friends from Shady Hill, and in my free time, I enjoy rock climbing and, recently, attempting to learn guitar.

Becca Spence writes: This year I will be graduating from Vassar College with an art history major and French minor. I’ve loved my time at school, and I’ve gotten the chance to engage with both of my fields of study by working at our museum and studying abroad in Paris last spring. I plan to continue working in the art world post-grad, and hopefully, I will return to France temporarily in the coming years as well.

Rylie Robinson writes: After finishing college, I plan on getting a master’s in political theory next year.

Eva Frieden ’07 married Tim Galligan in November 2024 with lots of SHS classmates in attendance: Lena Lax ’07, Daisy Bodman ’07, Katie McCormack ’07 and Kate Maloney ’07

2018

Our Correspondent Position is open. Consider stepping forward for this rewarding role! Email alumni@shs.org

2019

Our Correspondent Position is open. Consider stepping forward for this rewarding role! Email alumni@shs.org

Devon Mastroianni writes: I am a sophomore at Tufts University majoring in Biopsychology and Romance Languages (Thank you Madame Horn) with a minor in Food Systems/Nutrition! It is a crazy combo, but I am hoping to go on to study the brain-gut connection. It is great to see other SHS faces around the Tufts campus!

2020

Our Correspondent Position is open. Consider stepping forward for this rewarding role! Email alumni@shs.org

2021

Our Correspondent Position is open. Consider stepping forward for this rewarding role! Email alumni@shs.org

Jack Granowetter writes: I am excited to go to Dartmouth college next year. Good luck to other college applicants!

2024

ZEKE SPECTOR

Zeke Spector writes: Freshman year at Concord Academy has been going well so far. I take the commuter rail from Porter to Concord there and back, which has been new and surprisingly relaxing. I got elected class representative and I am continuing to play frisbee both in and out of school. I am

excited to come back to visit Shady Hill in the spring.

Brayden Yuan shared advice for high school: High school is an eye-opening experience. It is a phase where kids discover a part of themselves like adults, though that does not mean that high school does not offer more fun. Academically, high school is challenging. The first semester provided a safety net by allowing students to adjust to the new environment before assigning students a grade. However, this semester, that changed. Being graded often makes students panic. Instead, I use the grades as motivation to be passionate about my classes, which made me realize that it’s hard to be a good student if you truly don’t like learning. Embracing high school can shine a light on the good aspects of it.

Good luck!

Sami Jounaidi writes: After Shady Hill, I spent my summer in Morocco, visiting family and exploring what the beautiful country has to offer. I now go into high school retaining and bettering the skills that I gained at Shady Hill, such as a better work ethic and a drive to achieve goals that may seem out of reach. I still talk to many of my old classmates and have kept valuable relationships with them.

Trinity Lisenby writes: Here at BB&N, I spent the first two weeks of school on a camping trip to get to know my new classmates. After returning from the woods, the academics were rigorous but there are so many supportive people to help you get used to it. This winter season I made the varsity basketball team. This school year has been so fun and I’m excited to see what comes next!

Samuel Breyer Essiam writes: I am currently at Milton Academy, where the campus reminds me of Shady Hill. I am enjoying the big greens and grass fields, to which they dedicate a lot of time, money, and effort. A book that has resonated with me was my summer reading, “Klara and the Sun,” by Kazuo Ishiguro. It is extremely well written and I recommend it.

Ollie Eisenberg writes: I am at Beaver Country Day, where I have

met new friends and played soccer, basketball, and baseball each season. I still talk to Shady Hill classmates regularly and hope to continue to maintain a strong bond with everyone from SHS.

Leo Theodorou writes: I am now attending Watertown High School. Milo Sperry writes:I am at Cambridge Rindge and Latin school. I joined the crew team and we went on to win state championships. In the winter, I am doing ice hockey and it has been fun so far. I am currently a high honors student and have a lot of fun at school.

Jake Leslie writes: After SHS, I now attend Newton South High School, and am studying physics and robotics.

Harry Leslie writes: Currently, I am in my freshman year at Beaver Country Day School. After SHS graduation, I spent the summer going on trips and outings with friends, deciding what I was interested in and what I could do in high school, leading to new connections at BVR, all while keeping up with the great Shady Hill community I was (and still am) a part of.

Chloe Alterman writes: After graduating Shady Hill, I spent the summer working on volleyball, visiting Italy and New York, and going to sleep away camp. I began my freshman year at Cambridge Rindge and Latin and played on the JV volleyball team. I am also a part of yearbook club, volleyball club, and Model UN. I am just about to finish my first semester, and then I will be starting new classes. I’ve enjoyed meeting all of the people at CRLS while also staying in touch with my SHS friends and introducing my new friends to my old friends.

William Hardy writes: Since I left SHS I have been a boarder at Middlesex School where I made the golf team and played tackle football for the first time.

Chris Childs writes: After leaving Shady Hill, I have been attending Fenn School in Concord. I plan to repeat ninth grade next year and am currently writing application essays for schools. I’m playing JV basketball and am going to play

Varsity Baseball in the spring.

Lyla Shin writes: I am currently a student at The CSW (Cambridge School of Weston) where I have participated in many classes, sports teams, clubs and activities. In the fall, I was the setter on the JV volleyball team! There are many art classes here but I have only taken one art class so far: drawing. Additionally, I am involved in many clubs! Some include AAH (Asian American Heritage), circle of sisters, wax printing club and badminton club. I love these clubs and have found new friends and people through these experiences! I have also found a good group of friends that are able to laugh and support me through any struggles or achievements! I look forward to new activities in the future at CSW!

Will Moran writes: After graduating from Shady Hill I chose to attend St. George’s School in Middletown, Rhode Island as a boarding student. I joined the football team in the fall, currently play basketball and will do lacrosse in the spring.

Ella Croom writes: After graduating SHS I started high school at The Rivers school where I continued playing soccer in the fall and started playing basketball this winter. In the spring I am playing lacrosse. I have enjoyed joining a variety of clubs and meeting new people, as well as exploring drawing and ceramics.

Izzy Konstantopoulos writes: Since the fall, I have been enrolled at BB&N. My first 11 days of school, we had our orientation which was a 10 day overnight stay called Bivouac. To my surprise, I enjoyed my time there making new friends and getting to know my new grade. Returning from Bivouac, I tried out for volleyball, never having played, and made the JV girls volleyball team! Learning to play volleyball and getting to know my friends and upperclassmen was really great. I like the rigor of BB&N, which will prepare me for my life beyond high school. My experiences and memories at my new school have been so fun. I’m excited to continue trying new things, join different clubs, and overall enjoy my time at BB&N!

Alexander Slywotzky writes: I’ve enrolled at The Rivers School, started learning with a new cello teacher, and have been lucky enough to join the wonderful conservatory (music) program there and participate in the MMEA Senior Districts Festival.

Brisa Smith writes: Since graduating from SHS, I began my freshman year as a boarder at Groton School. I am playing three seasons of sports: soccer, hockey, and track. Becoming a boarder and being removed from my familiar environment was hard in the beginning, but I’ve grown so much, pursuing my interests and making a lot of new friends since then.

Langston Rosser writes: This summer I worked at a Cambridge camping day camp helping out with kids ages 9 to 10. I also competed in my city’s annual July baseball bracket, winning 4th out of 18 teams. This fall I started my first year at CSW. I’ve been enjoying a lot of the freedom and responsibility that comes with open blocks.

Avery Papp writes:I am currently in my freshman year at BB&N. I have gone back to SHS multiple times to watch my brother play, and have enjoyed seeing my old teachers.

Jaxen Wingard writes: I’m currently attending the boarding school, St. Andrews, in Delaware. I play two varsity sports, football and track. In the spring I plan on rowing for the first time. I was elected to serve on the student council. Being at my new school I have made lots of new friends and received lots of fun opportunities. Though I was there for only a year, I still miss SHS very much every day.

Mattia Farmer writes: I am currently attending BB&N, where I ran cross country in the fall and now participate in the winter musical. This spring I hope to coxswain for crew. I have joined a few clubs and especially enjoy Ethics Bowl. On the weekends I have been teaching skating lessons as well as continuing to figure skate on a team. I have made many new friends at BB&N, but also have kept in touch with a group of SHS friends.

Mena Parikh writes :I worked on computer science in a lab environment this past summer. I now attend Phillips Academy Andover, where I play squash and plan to row crew in the spring. I have explored many interests in high school, such as computer science and guitar. I have frequently visited my Shady Hill friends, and I greatly appreciate the relationships that Shady Hill led me to foster.

Emily He writes: I am at Concord Academy and I’ve enjoyed it a lot so far. Although I miss the friendships I made at Shady hill, this is a fresh start I’ve enjoyed having.

Lydia Martin writes: This fall I started at the International School of Boston, where we began the year by going on a fun week-long canoeing trip in Maine, which helped everyone bond and find their friends. I have enjoyed being in such an interesting and diverse community and being around people from all over the world. I joined a few art clubs and classes and discovered my great interest in astrophysics through the Astronomy Club, and met many new friends in those groups while still staying in touch with people from Shady Hill.

Kabir Varanasi writes: Since graduating from Shady Hill, I’ve been attending Cambridge Ringe and Latin School. I tried out and made the Freshman Boys Basketball Team and hope to play for the tennis team in the spring. I enjoyed exploring the vast opportunities

that CRLS offers, including the debate team and chess club. I look forward to engaging in other activities CRLS offers and doing a science internship over the summer.

Patrick Todgham writes: Life is great! I am a ninth grader at BUA and it’s pretty cool. I’m having fun playing basketball, building legos, writing music, tutoring coding and hanging out with friends and family.

Nathan Chun writes: Over the summer, I attended the Greenwood Senior Music Camp, a five-week sleepaway chamber music intensive, where I made lasting friendships and played some incredible music. Now, as a freshman at Phillips Andover, I appreciate the freedom and all the new opportunities available to me—though I could definitely do without the frigid weather! In the fall, I dove into rowing and cheered on our crew team at the Head of the Charles Regatta, and I’m currently part of our varsity Nordic skiing team. I am also engaged in the debate club, known as the Philomathean Society, and am happily embracing my inner “mega nerd” as a member of the rocketry club. I’ve also discovered my passion for physics through the College Physics course—it’s officially my favorite class now! I took a leap of faith by auditioning and acting in a student-directed play, and I’m taking an acting class as I prepare for the spring musical. I am heavily involved in the academy orchestras and the Andover Chamber Music

Society. I had a blast participating in the MMEA District Orchestra and will soon be auditioning for All-State. Outside of school, I am the co-concertmaster of the Youth Symphony at NEC—come to our concert on February 10th!

Nico Firenze writes: I am now at Northfield Mount Hermon in western Mass. I have done crew and swim and in the spring I will play ultimate. I am enjoying myself very much.

Minnie Parker writes: I’m at Brookline High now, and transition has been rough in all honesty. However, I have made varsity fencing as a freshman and am very proud of that. I’m in pretty difficult courses, but the challenge is fun!! I’m currently trying to get BHS certified to give the Massachusetts Seal of Biliteracy to students on their diploma. SHS is dearly missed.

Maddie Green writes: I am at Beaver Country Day School! So far, I have participated in volleyball, a play this winter, and a band where I play the drums. I also have recently become involved with the debate club.

William Lara McCannon writes: I am at Milton Academy, where I am enjoying many activities, especially the Debate Team, the Miltones (a capella group), the JV soccer team, and the sustainability board! On the academic side of things, I’m continuing with all my regular classes, (RIP CS), and have discovered that I really like coding.

Class of 2024 graduation

Former Faculty and Staff

CHERYL BRUUN

Former Gradehead and Lower School Faculty Coach

cheryl.bruun2@gmail.com

508-577-5385

News has reached Shady Hill of the passing of a number of former faculty and staff members:

Meg Burt in November of 2024

Faith Chase in August of 2024

Shirley Hughes in February of 2025. Jonathan Slater in January of 2025

Elizabeth Thompson in January of 2024

Will Phillips in April of 2025. Our sincere condolences to their families and all who miss them.

Cheryl Bruun writes from Tucson, AZ: All is well with myself and my family, and for that I am so very grateful. My husband Rich and I continue to enjoy retired life. 2024 was a great year for travel. We visited friends and family and created many wonderful memories, travelling to Block Island, RI, several national parks in southern Utah, the San Francisco area, and the Big Island in Hawaii. We are gearing up for a trip this summer to northern Europe. I am in touch with many dear friends from SHS and cherish time spent with them. As so many of us are doing, I am hoping and praying for a more peaceful, empathetic world where we take time to learn one another’s stories and take care of one another with open minds and open hearts, valuing the very traits that we all worked so hard to instill in our students. One further note: Reading and responding to each person who submitted a “Class Note” has helped me embrace and remember the joy that the SHS community fosters. The relationships between all of us are very special.

Deb Polansky writes: After over a decade working as a Field Instructor for the M.A.T. program at Brandeis, most recently I’ve been helping the Emily Dickinson

Museum in Amherst with their programming and education plans. I miss teaching the reading and writing of poetry to fourth graders, and it’s been satisfying to think about how to bring Emily Dickinson’s poetry to kids and adults of all ages. I’ve been spending most of my time between Brookline and Wellfleet, where my family has helped restore our old house full of history and stories. It is always a joy to be in touch with former students and colleagues. So looking forward to reading up on what folks have been up to!

Ralph Wales writes: I had the good fortune of meeting up with Todd Nelson last October. My wife Martha and I spent our years at Shady Hill with frequent weekend afternoons and evenings with Todd and Leslie and their children at their home in Medford. I also had the privilege of being invited by Todd to do several skits that he organized during my time at Shady Hill, the most memorable for me being lip-synching Gladys Knight and the Pipps’ Midnight Train to Georgia. Todd was a wonderful mentor as I waded through my early teaching years. Like many of us, I was deeply saddened to hear of Jonathan Slater’s passing. Jonathan was a central support in my career after I left Shady Hill to go into administration. He even traveled to Los Angeles during my rookie year as an administrator at the Buckley School in Sherman Oaks to see how I was doing. Over the years, if I sought his advice with regard to any challenges I was working on, he was always quick to answer my call and he’d often say, “Well, you have me to blame.” I am serving as trustee for the Farm School which Ben Holmes founded and led for 30 years. As some of you may remember, Ben was an apprentice at Shady Hill and his wife Wendy and I served as gradeheads together in 6th grade for three years. The Farm School continues to do amazing work serving an impressively diverse set of schools and “walking the talk” of social justice action. It recently gave back a significant amount of land to the Nipmuc tribe - the original inhabitants of that region. I’d love to catch up with any SHS faculty, staff, and/or alums if you are ever in the Providence area. walesralph@gmail.com.

Jane Hardy writes: I live in Lincolnville, Maine, on the Midcoast about halfway between Portland and Bar Harbor. My husband, Steve, and I spend three months – late January to late April – in Sun City, Arizona. I am on the Board of the Playing for Power Project, a non-profit that primarily provides scholarships to sport camps for middle school girls. If anyone knows of someone who would benefit from such a scholarship, please apply. Applications can be found online. The Lincolnville Historical Society gets the most of my time, volunteering every Friday morning to help with developing programs, exhibits for the Schoolhouse Museum, serving as secretary and keeping track of memberships. In May and June, I am involved with the Penobscot Bay Stewards Program. This is an environmental course experience that explores the Penobscot Bay’s ecosystem, history and economy. I serve on the planning committee and help with the organization and successful execution of each day’s field trip. I was a member of the 2018 and loved it so much that I joined the steering committee so I could participate again year after year. I am also secretary for the Lincolnville Improvement Association, another

non-profit which works to better our community through its high school scholarship program and its community programming. It puts on the annual Blueberry Wingding which raises funds for the scholarship program and is a very popular local event. I am one of the town’s Cemetery Trustees. We are tasked to look after the many small abandoned cemeteries in town, many of which are in disrepair. In both Maine and Arizona, we have lots of company. There are few better places to visit than Maine in the summer and Arizona in the winter!

David Smith writes: A saying I’ve heard ascribed to the Chinese: “If you want to hear God laugh, try telling him your plans.” The last year has been full of good plans gone awry. I went to visit some schools in Japan, but my niece (who is 50 and teaches in a French immersion school) got some form of heat-related disease, so we ended up only spending 3 days there. In October, I was meant to visit Philadelphia and Boston, but after a week in Edinburgh (speaking to 2,000 children in Edinburgh and 2,000 in the Borders) my spine wasn’t happy, and the pain team at the local hospital administered a “nerve block” which stopped the pain, but after which they said “don’t travel for a while...”

Former faculty member Ruth Gass (second from right) and her husband Richard hosted a lovely brunch for Shady Hillers of all eras and affiliations, when Head of School Mark Stanek and Alumni Relations Director Betsy Ginsberg were in San Francisco in February.

Perhaps 2025 will provide more opportunities. I’m always happy to hear from colleagues and former students; snail-mail to 210-2800 Chesterfield Ave, No. Vancouver BC V7N 4M1; or email to djsmapping@gmail.com

Althea Cranston writes: After 35 years at BB&N, I retired from teaching in June of 2024. I am certainly enjoying retirement; it feels like an extended summer vacation (well, except for the snow). acranston@bbns.org

Todd Nelson writes: I published my second book of essays with Down East Books in October 2024. Have enjoyed a few public readings. New writing daily for monthly column with Penobscot Bay Press. Life in Maine–no end of inspiring topics. https://muckrack. com/todd-nelson-2

Bruce Shaw writes: The big news in our family was Sandy’s recent birthday, a milestone number: 80. (I personally am still very young, i.e., a few full months behind.) We celebrated first with a surprise dinner with our daughter, Lindsey, her husband and kids, and then flew to San Francisco to spend a week with our son, Chris. I organized a party there with old friends: the group of women artists she first met 40 years ago when we moved to Marin County and with whom she’s stayed in touch these many decades. 20+ of us gathered for food and fun, which included her favorite chocolate cake. She blew out the two candles (an 8 and a 0) and then she made two very political (and very right-on) wishes while we sang “Happy Birthday.” Her present was a book I put together of “appreciations” from family and friends from the many stages in her life. I had hoped for 80 responses to the statement: “I appreciate Sandy because . . .”, but they kept pouring in until we reached 141! Each one was special, warm, loving and well-deserved. Sadly, it all happened at the same time we lost Jonathan Slater. I have talked with him regularly for the past 30 years and will miss his wisdom and kindness, his sense of humor and his friendship. Life for me continues with the deep satisfaction of volunteering, having much less on my plate and loving that, watching the grandkids’ sports

contests as they grow up (5th, 8th and 10th grades now) and seeing friends and family regularly. And I never stop thinking about Shady Hill and its importance in my life. I wish every child in America—and across the globe—could have such great teachers year-after-year, giving them the freedom to think and create, to consider and debate, to research vigorously and examine freely as they strive to shape a deeply personal and ethical sense of the world. We need kids who are that well educated: intellectually, morally and imaginatively. Warmest wishes to all of you!

Allison Webster writes: I had the great pleasure of working with Monica Chrambach over the spring and fall since she covered a maternity position at Dedham Country Day. She stayed on in her capacity as a faculty coach to help a new teacher develop her

science teaching skills. Good to have two SHS folks back together! Still enjoying my role at DCD. Our girls are good – one living in Stockholm, Sweden, and one living in Cambridge. Andy and I are traveling to Barcelona to celebrate my birthday!

Mimi Gleason writes: I recently retired from teaching after 31 years. 12 of the best years were at Shady Hill as a 7th grade gradehead. I still miss the warm, creative, and dynamic community of Shady Hill teachers, staff, students and parents. Since I left Shady Hill in 2007, I’ve been teaching 5th grade in the Carlisle Public School, where Marcella Pixley is one of my colleagues. My son, Andrew, is now 19. He’s an auto mechanic and a dad. That made us grandparents for the 3rd time, since one of my stepsons has 2 kids. We still live in Acton and travel to VT for skiing,

hiking and biking. My husband and I have been traveling, volunteering, and enjoying retirement. Big hugs to all my 7th graders (I remember all of you!) and fellow teachers!

Sally Crissman writes: After leaving SHS in 2000, I went to work at TERC. 25 years later, I will retire from TERC in March. My work has been primarily development and classroom testing elementary science curriculum and teacher professional development. Joyful active in-depth learning SHS style made its way into all of my work! In December I had a delightful morning at SHS that included time with my wonderful former student Kat Taketomo and visits with former colleagues who continue to perform their classroom magic! Delightful!

Grade IV-Maloney students performing Odysseus in April 2025

VII-Obeid students presenting their original Roads to (R)evolution play, April 2025

On Stage Joyful Active Learning

Creating and performing plays has always been a staple of the student experience at Shady Hill. As longtime teacher Chris Theodorou, TTC ’90 puts it, “Whether writing an original script themselves or following an existing script, there’s a lot of learning embedded in performing a play. Take our fall Hades Play in Grade IV, for instance. Students research their character, reflecting deeply on the character’s feelings and motivations. Then they compose dialog that fits the characters and enables the audience to follow the story. Rehearsing the play is yet another learning experience, enhancing teamwork skills and illustrating the value of practicing. By the performance, the whole class generally knows every single line, and can recite them with fluency.”

Alumn Lee Roscoe ’61 can vouch for that. She says, “We put on Iphigenia at Taurus in my fourth grade year [1955-56] and I can still recite my final lines! Doing the play reinforced all that we were learning and made us feel part of the history. I fell in love with all things ancient Greece; the passion lasted for years!”

In Grade VII, teacher Hannah Jones says, “Our Roads to (R)evolution plays are a highlight of the year. Students compose their own scripts, studying the characters’ motivations and ensuring that all perspectives – not just those of the most powerful players – are represented. The depth of learning we see, as opposed to merely assigning a reading or holding a class discussion, cannot be overstated.”

Your support of the Shady Hill Fund underwrites school plays – and joyful active learning of all kinds.

Please make your gift today!

1954 photo of a Pirates of Penzance production

178 Coolidge Hill

Cambridge, MA 02138

FROM THE COVER:

Ms. Patterson ignites the minds of Grade IV scientists as they harness the power of electricity! Through handson exploration with batteries, wires, and bulbs, students bring circuits to life, discovering how energy flows and powers the world around them.