NOTES & NEWS

Notes and News April 2020

Notes & News

Classmate: This consists of a miscellanea of items not published in the PAW or online about ’57 classmates and wives or of possible interest to them. TT

TOM DAILEY wrote the following in response to a ’57 Class Notes column on three classmates who attended the same high school in western Pennsylvania: “Four P’57 classmates matriculated from Columbia [NJ] High School. JIM MOSS died in medical residency at NYU from a brain abscess.  ART GOLD taught at Wellesley College for many years; he died.  DAVE MANDELBAUM and yours truly are very much alive and well.  The Maplewood – South Orange NJ School System was considered amongst the finest.” (8/17)

TIM SMITH’s widow, Linda Longmire, said she brought some of his ashes to Angkor Wat, Cambodia, a “favorite place” of theirs.  Accompanying her was a friend who did the same with some of her late husband’s ashes and 14 others including a granddaughter of Tim’s. “It was a beautiful and healing pilgrimage,” Linda said.  Tim died in 2018. (8/19)

“I do not make a lot of money but I get published every day somewhere in North America,” JAY LEHR writes of two new positions, senior policy analyst for the International Climate Science Coalition in Ottawa, Canada, and a writer for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow in Washington DC.  Jay generally does not believe that humans are responsible for climate change.  (8/19)

Kerry Farlie, granddaughter of the late BILL FARLIE, graduated from Princeton last year with honors and a degree in molecular biology, Barbara Farlie reported.  Kerry’s parents graduated 30 years earlier, with the Princeton Class of ’89.  For a treat, read Bll’s essay in the 50^th Reunion book.  He was mayor of Montclair NJ at one time. He died in 2012.   (9/19)

The Stockbridge (MA) Library held an exhibit (which The Berkshire Record reviewed) of RUDY HOELTZEL’s collages to honor him on the fifth anniversary of his death.  The library wrote, “Rudy’s unique perspective, precise nature and zest for life are reflected throughout the compositions.”  (10/19)

GOERGE WHITE’s eldest grandson, Nelson Rogers, got an early-decision acceptance into Princeton.  He will be 5^th generation.  The others were George’s grandfather, P‘1895; father, ’33, George, ’57; daughter, ’87, and now her son, ’24. (12/19)

BART REITZ’s grandson, Max Widmann, was admitted to the class of 2023 but is participating in a “bridge-year” program in India, so upon his return in September, he will join the Class of 2024, with Nelson Rogers.  Bart’s daughter was ’90, making Max 3^rd generation.  (12/19)

Princeton turned down two other grandchildren, despite near-perfect admissions scores, who would have been 5^th generation Princeton.  Their grandfather was LOU STRAYER.  ’57 Class Notes will feature a column in July on their mother, Anne Stayer, P’ 82.  The children come from the San Francisco Bay area.

The Cincinnati Day School chose TED JONES for its Chieftain Award at its Class of 1953 reunion.  The award honors an alumnus who graduated at least 50 years earlier for voluntary community service.  A classmate called Ted “the leader of our class and the glue that has held our class together.

DAVID MINIER wrote the following: “A third-generation Californian, I am escaping that state permanently this summer.  Enough is enough – sanctuary, taxes, homeless and socialism.  I’m still sitting as a judge twice weekly but I guess it’s time to retire.” (2/20)

MURRAY PEYTON read to those at the University chapel commemorating Princetonians whose deaths we learned of in 2019 these names: BOB ALFORD, JOHN APONICK, NICK BEAUCHAMP, BOB BECKER, TIM BENN, NED BRYAN, JOE CLEVENGER, JIM CRAWFORD, BILL DANFORTH, JOHN DEWEY, JACK ELIASSEN, CHARLIE FUQUA, BILL HINSHAW, DUNCAN HOXWORTH, JAMES HURD, GRESH IVEY, DANIEL KAHN, DON MAYER, JIM McCUTCHAN, ART MERRITT, JON MURPHY, MILLER REAM, TOM ROURKE, PERRY SMITH, HARRISON STEANS, RUSTY SWAN, AARON WIGDOR and JERRY WOLCOTT.  (2/20)

A sign of our times in the Coronavirus crisis:  A classmate visiting his wife in a nursing home maintained “social distance” in greeting her by tapping on her wheelchair with his cane. (3/20).

In the meantime, CHARLIE HAUSER came in second out of six racers in the 80-84 year-old age group in the Slalom and Giant Slalom races at an annual memorial ski meet in Park City UT.  A bonus, he said, was seeing BUD and Katy CANADAY and PHIL SMITH.  “I’m still getting better, he said.  He knows that at some point that must cease.  He might quit racing then.  (3/20)

Is this phrase (at the bottom of a two-hour History II final examination in 1955) familiar to you?  “I pledge my honor as a gentleman, that during this examination, I have neither given nor received assistance.” A classmate found it in sorting his files.  When is the last time you were referred to as a gentleman?  Is anyone a gentleman now?

A friend about our age does not miss in the periodic Sara Lawrence College alumni publication the absence of obituaries.  “I know who my friends are and I keep in touch with them.”  Should we care?  What would the PAW be without them, or your social or even metaphysical existence?  Some but not all the Ivy League alumni periodicals publish obits.

The PAW will be catching up for a while on a large backlog of ’57 classmate obits.  Helping reduce the backlog have been NATE BACHMAN, HAL BRAYMAN, CHARLIE BRODHEAD, SAM HOLT, PHIL SULLIVAN AND BRUCE ROSBOROUGH. The catching-up process is delayed, of course, by new deaths.

ORVILLE MANN obtained somehow a copy of an address the renowned jurist Harold Medina P’1909 gave in 1950 in which Judge Medina reminisced about his undergraduate experience. This included writing obits of his classmates (enrollment: 383) for the PAW at a time before the internet when telephone calls were if not awkward, expensive.  Judge Medina wrote letters, as many as 100 of them, in an attempt to try to know the life and character of a deceased. The address is touching.  It is 20 pages long and includes candid thoughts on his classmates and class spirit.

The following is the opening of an obit reflective of class spirit which is scheduled to be but not yet published in the PAW.  “No member of the Class of 1957 will ever be alone if he doesn’t want to be,” Jonathan E. Murphy concluded his essay for the 50^th Reunion book.  For the 20^th Reunion, he created the mantra, “We are family” and reminded us of that periodically ever since. He attended every annual class reunion.  He memorialized classmate deaths with a dirge on his harp.  He emailed to the class long monologues with acute intelligence but little continuity on a variety of current issues early in the morning after drinking, he said, a lot of Molson’s beer.

As of this writing, as far as we know, 331 classmates have died.  The official class roster is 767. Thus,  a coincidental 57 percent remain alive.

                                        NOTES AND NEWS Mid 2016

The following consists of items of classmate news which for one reason or another were not published in Class Notes in the PAW.

The New York Composers Circle arranged a tribute to John Eaton (before his death in December) on his 80^th birthday at Symphony Space in NY.  It consisted largely of excerpts from four of his 100 or so operas, one in Latin (a mass) and another in Spanish.  The Circle includes Louise Bessire, Henry’s widow, Fred and Barbara Borsch, Murray Peyton and John and Penny Solum.     John Eaton was professor emeritus at the University of Chicago where he taught music composition for 10 years.  He taught the same subject at Indiana University for 20 years.  The London Financial Times described him as "The most interesting opera composer writing in America today.”   (10/15)

"The Encyclopedia of Renewable Energy and Shale Gas” is the latest a series of encyclopedias put together by Jay Lehr for the academic publisher John Wiley. again with the aid of Jay’s wife, Janet.  Janet is responsible inter alia for the invitations of submissions by the prospective contributors and then their delivery.  Jay asserts that the world has "centuries if not millennia of this easy-to-get fuel.”   These books are bought principally by libraries around the world.  They are expensive.  Jay has prepared or written 32 books.

            Janet ran her best-yet Marathon in NYC recently.  Now a grandmother, she has been running the 26.2 mile race since      .  When not helping Jay and teaching 5^th graders about nature and farming and running a puppet program to warm school children of social dangers,   she also swims and bicycles, sometimes competitively.  Jay taught her to swim not long ago.  (11/15)

            Dottie Ford, Leigh’s wife, writes that they are living in a "lovely, small community . . . rustic, picturesque” near Stuart FL.  Leigh, she says, is in his fourth year of Alzheimer’s.  He is as well as can be expected, she says.  (11/15)

            Because of a stroke of his wife, Janet, Jac Reed has stopped substitute teaching at a Bethesda MD high school.  However, he is continuing to teach and take courses at the Osher Life-Long Learning Institute at American University.  His courses there, over the past five years, have been in chemistry, computer science and mathematics.  (12/15)

            "I never had a day when I wasn’t glad to go to work, Bob Bolgard told friends and family at his 80^th birthday celebration.   He found his work as a trusts and estates lawyer even interesting and sometimes surprising, he related, such as once being sent to count cattle being loaded on a rail car, evidently part of an estate.  (1/16)

            The Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC has accepted from the Harry Bruen family, Charlotte, Harry’s wife reported, pre-World War II movies in color, a rarity then, of the Korea where Harry’s parents were Presbyterian missionaries together with artifacts such as old farm instruments, clothing including horse-hair hats village elders wore and a straw egg holder.   Charlotte is unwilling, however, to give up a book on sorcery including instructions for the imposition of hexes and curses.  The owner had no need for it after she joined Harry’s father’s church.  The book, however, is written by hand in "old Korean” characters which were discontinued when the Japanese occupied Korea.  Finding a translator would be difficult.  (1/16)

            The late Bob Kent’s 25^th Reunion jacket (the one with the tigers frolicking in the jungle) is part of the Princetoniana Committee’s collection of Reunion jackets and other memorabilia.  It will be on display with some other Reunion jackets at the Frist Center in May.  Know that your secretary offered it as well to the collection of the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC.  (2/16)

            The latest classmate marriage: Lex Winans.  In December.  He and his now wife, Jackie, had been living together for the past 25 years.  Why did they marry?  He doesn’t know, he claims.  "We really didn’t have any compelling reason to,” he says.  They share six children and eight great-grandchildren.  "We kept it mum until Christmas Eve dinner when we sprang it on every one present and called the rest with the news.  What fun!” 

            Lex continues his coal brokerage business in Pittsburgh albeit less than full-time.   Winters the two of them go to Florida.

            Lex attended Jimmy Herr’s 80^th in Erie on Dec. 22.  "Mine,” he says, "is February 29.  So, as a Leap Year baby, I’ll be 20.”

            Your secretary’s correspondence by hand-written letter of 6 to 10 pages with a one-time Class of 1957 Scholarship holder, Quinton Beck, P’14, has resumed, after a hiatus of two years!  In the meantime, Quinton graduated magna cum laude and on a Fulbright spent a year in a miserable, lice-ridden city in southern Tajikistan teaching English to 400 students of varying abilities.  He loved what he did.  He is currently unemployed.  (2/16)

            Kim Townsend has retired after 51 years of teaching English at Amherst and moved to Bath, Maine.  He had Bob Edwards meet periodically for lunch.  Dave Sofield remains in the Amherst English department for now, teaching but half-time "the reading and writing” of poetry . . . Stuff I should know by now.”  He plans to retire in two years.  (2/16)

            From Bob Edwards: "Perhaps the last obligation of the aging – to maintain equanimity and good humor to the world.”   (2/16)