Onyx Anneau Spring 2021

Tamar “Tami” Bassett Greenwell misses being with her family but keeps busy volunteering at a thrift store and a hospice. She fills the rest of the time with crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles and “oodles of reading.” She is grateful for the beauty of nature in Homer, Alaska. Gretchen Stipher Cain and Jim have sold their home of 42 years and moved into a condominium. Daughter Mary Clare and family bought their home and are living in the home she was born and raised. Gretchen calls this “a real fairy tale.” Therese “Terri” Grein Bivona is busy taking online advanced art classes in colored pencil art photorealism. She and Mark are doing more walking outdoors but also watching lots of documentaries. Terri’s second carpal tunnel surgery has relieved lots of pain. Carolyn Bossman Conniff found new ways to enjoy life: Now she has discovered making candy, followed by making quick breads, followed by making “jump rings” and using them to make different kinds of chains. Now her creativity is used to sew masks for herself and friends! Mary Ann Kelly Hellmann keeps busy cleaning out closets and drawers, doing lots of reading and getting caught up on TV series. Susan “Sue” Fanizani ’20, our Woods graduate from Africa who lives with them, is studying for her MCAT. Mary Ann treasures the time to call friends and family. Terese “Terry” Robinson Herrera has loved binge watching The Queen’s Gambit and all the years of Bones. She abandoned the TV to read The Silent Patient and joined an online group to study the Old Testament prophets. She comments that Daniel was a remarkable man. Margaret “PK” Kelly Deputy is going nowhere. Fortunately, she has a hobby that she loves: cross- stitching. PK did not share, but some of us are in the know. PK is turning into quite the photographer, using her back porch to get marvelous pictures of the lake’s sunrises and sunsets. Barbara “Babs” Reder, SP has moved to Providence Hall at The Woods where she is Minister of Care for Providence Health Care. She is really enjoying visiting with the sisters and others on campus when not under quarantine! Rachel Eberle Ambrose had her short family trip back to Indiana turn into a month when COVID made traveling home a problem. She has been “Zooming” to stay connected with various discussion groups. She won tickets to “Hamilton” and took off for San Francisco and front row seats. Beverly “Bev” Snyder Thompson provided news of grandsons and not being able to share their magic moments: one, a college baseball pitcher and the other is missing his college graduation ceremony. She had son Brett and daughter Jill with her for Christmas and then traveled to New Orleans with Jill. Margaret Ann Mathews O’Neill and Patrick are a little bored not being able to travel. Now they have time to travel and cannot go anywhere. Big outings are to the store. Zoom visits with the grandchildren are now real treasures. Constance “Connie” Kramer, SP is using our COVID pandemic to slow down by being more C L A S S N O T E S

reflective but also to hone her technology skills, using webinars on Zoom. Her spiritual direction and grief ministry continue to grow but retreats for homeless women have been put on hold for safety reasons. Lois Fenlon Brinkman is grateful to be able to continue to do a bit of spiritual direction at retreats and on her back porch! A scaled down outdoor wedding for a granddaughter was the highlight of the summer. A trip to northern Michigan with Michael provided “enough beauty to sooth the heart.” Marcia Zeeck Spranger loves her weekly Zoom visits with Marianne Lautner Jones , Gloria “Gigi” Wegman Coen , and Stella “Sally” Cratty Bryant . Marcia shared a haiku written by one of her Braille students. Two recent falls and arthritis have slowed her down a bit, but then she moves into high gear and overdoes it, and never misses taking their dogs for a morning walk. Marianne Lautner Jones said her hair is going gray and long; projects are started and then abandoned until motivation recurs. She crochets prayer shawls and cooks more creatively. Family and friends are voices on the phone and faces on Zoom. But she and Tom have loved ones and friends to care about. Gloria “Gigi” Wegman Coen shared the trip to Russia that she and Jerry would have done but got cancelled. They enjoyed a “socially distanced” get together with Gigi’s family at Thanksgiving. Gigi is now able to attend Mass and even lector but is sad that the choir has been disbanded. Stella “Sally” Cratty Bryant keeps sane by walking outside with a friend a few times a week, and daily, doing the Taoist Tai Chi set outside. Sally walks to the top of a nearby sledding hill, saying it is a walking meditation. She loves that Zoom session with Marcia, Marianne and Gigi! Noreen Gorman Perrone said that Jim celebrated his 80th birthday in Florida with a gathering of the grownup children and the grandchildren. Celebrating a January birthday in Florida beats celebrating in Chicago. Miriam Wanjiru Chege loves having all three of her daughters back living in Kenya, with two of them living literally right next-door. The grandchildren come over to play in her front yard. She also still works in her kitchen garden and manages the details of her late mother’s property. Anne Coggins Humphrey has kept busy doing puzzles, trying her hand at watercolor, reading some new books, and playing bridge with her bubble friends. She is grateful that her family is well and hoping to plan a trip or at least spend some time with family this summer. Clara Anne McKenna shared hearing from Denny’s former students the amazing impact he had on their lives. She even received a note from General H. R. McMaster extolling Denny’s teaching of critical thinking. As Clara so beautifully put it: “It’s hard to write about grief in the face of a life so well lived.” Judith “Judy” Weaver Lewis now lives close to her daughter in Ohio and Zooms with her other children. She has taken up pickleball. Traveling

included trips to Florida and to Guatemala where she volunteered at an elementary school. During this difficult year, one of Judy’s brothers and a dear cousin died. Elaine Sowko Babcock retired from teaching her much loved high school special students. She has joined two virtual book clubs, a garden club online, and a zoom exercise class. She enjoys zooming with family, especially seeing the grandkids, away at college and finds “social distancing ways” to help at church. Rebecca “Becky” Caufield Peloff shares the love she receives from her brother, his wife, and her two daughters. Fortunately, everyone helped her get through a heart attack in January. Before that, her daughters helped her organize her new home that is just down the street from her brother. Patricia “Pat” Krizmis Bath moved to a larger house with a huge yard, much needed for her four grandchildren and two more children of Pat’s current daughter-in-law. Pat and her loved ones are well. Pat continues to work, although remotely, at NYC Legal Aid Society, helping people in desperate need. Mary “Meg” Monks reports that there is nothing to report! However, she is grateful to be doing well because, like many of us, she is not going out much. Pauline Gattie Busby hates not having the opportunity to be with her Arizona grandkids but had a delightful time making snow angels with one living close by in Michigan. She is grateful for good health and when reading an obituary of a remarkable woman, she tells herself, “You better get going.” Joyce Schumacher Toothman is lucky to have weather warm enough to golf and hike. She and Gary Zoom with friends, eat too well, and binge watch programs, some good and some not! Their New York family was able to spend a month close by and visiting them, after quarantining. Tel yo “Christine” Yoshida sent greetings at Christmas wishing all of us well and sharing that because of the COVID virus, she has cancelled all of her social occasions and is pretty much staying at home. Juliet Muro Oeffinger relates that her daughter, Donna, is recovering well after surgery to remove a large benign brain tumor. Juliet lives close by and helps with chauffeuring Braydon and Nathan (8) and Cameron (10) to school and soccer. She thanks for all the SMWC ’64 prayers and asks for continued prayers during recovery. Denise King Maddux has great news. After a medical situation two years ago, Denise had concerning news from the doctor. However, after many recent tests, the news is all is well! The icing on the cake: A much-loved grandson has just called with the news that Denise is now a great- grandmother. Anne Longtine and Marco had a glorious seventeen days in India before making an unscheduled trip home to beat India’s shutdown of flights in March 2020. She has done lots of reading and discovered that the Met Opera archive is available. She did some hiking in the White Tank Mountains of Arizona.

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