Onyx Anneau Spring 2021

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 C L A S S N O T E S

Mary Susan “Susie” Piszczek McPartlin reported, “No Hawaii travels but daughter Katie and family moved to Rhinelander,” and added “grandson Alex finally made his First Communion after five postponements!” Susie keeps in contact with Martha “Marty” Sullivan O’Neill , Elizabeth “Liz” Benstent Tuttle and Paula Rolfes . Susie added Ellen Rubinate Webster is in a wheelchair at an assisted living facility. Her address is Ellen Webster, Village of Buckland Court #145, 432 Buckland Road South, South Windsor, Connecticut, 06074. Barbara Roguski Mandal posted a card request on our Class website when Juanita “Jonni” Garcia-Maldonado Sayres’s was sick from cancer surgery and chemo as an example of how important our connections feel. Even months later, it helps to share prayers and condolences when we learn of losses. Prayers to Raleigh, North Carolina, for Linda Solomon Bamford on the loss of her husband, Paul, in September. Kathleen “Katie” Ryan Douherty said, “It is challenging to reflect on a year fraught with so many vividly bleak memories yet it taught me some unforgettable lessons. I learned that having time to think and reflect is incredibly important. I focused on my three ‘R’s’ — reflection, resilience and re- awakening.” Patricia “Pat” Pratka Womak said, “I cook more, garden a lot, tackle house projects and try to be faithful, in prayers, for the situation we are now in 2021. Gene and I are in good shape today. We hope the immunizations will put an end to this horrid illness.” Anne Hoban Jean reported from home in Chaptico, Maryland. “Paul and I got our second Pfizer vaccines, we both feel super good. No side effects at all. Maybe because the dark cloud of COVID is beginning to lift.” Eileen Janssens Nasif posted from California, “A big thank you to the volunteers and staff at Goleta Valley Hospital drive-through vaccine clinic!” Victoria “Vicky” Vallecillo had a Valentine’s Day greeting online from Puerto Rico; her Facebook page includes a petition-signing request re her advocacy work. We need to find a way, she said, “Congress must exempt Puerto Rico from the Cabotage Laws of the Jones Act of 1920.” Anne “Toni” Murphy’s note brought a smile among some of the shadows of this year. “I am saddened by Mary Sergan Shelangoskie’s death,” Toni said. “On St. Nicholas day she always left a treat outside the dorm room door.” The treats were always special and a surprise because I would always forget about St. Nicholas. And on holidays she would send beautiful handmade cards.” Judith “Judy” Lojek Mercer , art teacher and potter, wrote from Denver that summer 2019 was a bittersweet time for them. She and her husband celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary and two weeks later their older son Michael, 47, died of liver disease. Her note concluded with the reminder and hope that “happy memories and time have helped the healing process.” We read of Sue Spencer Wynn’s lovely, meaningful life journeys from a childhood in Milwaukee, to Green Bay, and Janesville,

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. Dear ones, as time goes by, we and those we love, are increasingly facing health challenges. Let us keep in touch and keep all of us in prayer. Hugs from Anne. ’65 Katherine Krider Satchwill 502 Helen St Kannapolis, NC 28083-3652 KKSKatherine@hotmail.com “Fie on COVID-19! We’ve all had our fill of that subject.” Bridget Allman Dederick’s perfect lead line for my Class of 65 Onyx notes collection. As most people remain apart, “Bridge and I rarely even see the people we know in our building,” Art wrote. However, amid this doom and gloom, and after COVID-19 sequestering and ongoing neo- natal care in NYC and Bethesda, newborn Rosalind Dederick, born in September, was able finally to rejoin her family in Germany. Bridget and Art’s holiday letter also reported family environmental work to “support a rich wildlife habitat and scenic views as a nature preserve forever” in response to nine-year old grandson Charley asking, “what can we do for nature?” Mary Ellen “Ellie” Wegman Yakamavich said, “Honestly 2020 seems more about the things we didn’t do.” She and Joe didn’t take a planned river cruise to Russia, “we also didn’t travel to Denver to visit our older daughter Jenny and family, or to Kansas City to visit family, or to our Woods Reunion, or to Branson, Montana, which we usually do in the fall.”

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