1955 Class Notes for 2021
Dear ’55 Golden Girls…Thank you for your news. The pandemic definitely cut down on responses. Enjoy this year’s news and let’s look forward to a healthy 2022 and lots of news. Dorothy Dannemiller Rogers-Abbey, Class Scribe
Wilma Kelly Kennedy Falmouth, ME
While I have no news, I’m moved to comment on the effects of the virus. COVID restrictions imposed on college people remind me of what an enormous privilege we enjoyed during our Trinity years. The excitement as freshmen beginning a new experience, meeting everyone and working together, new classes and teachers, living in our nation’s capital, etc. Is there a comparable experience? What a pity that these losses by today’s college people may never be recovered by them! Let’s hope remote learning will be limited in future and that in-person will be the norm. Finally, I pray that none of us or our loved ones were affected by the virus.
Mary Anne Smith Villeneuve Los Angeles, CA
I don’t seem to be doing much besides wearing a mask, social distancing, walking almost every day with neighbors (6 feet apart) and Zooming (one of the few good things from the pandemic). Our parish has daily and Sunday Mass streaming. I zoom for LMU prayer service, PEO Women‘s Group, Family get-togethers, Bible Buddies, friends who want to say hello and visit and two book clubs (one mystery books and one Jewish lit). I also went to the bay area for Thanksgiving and Christmas (one long trip). I have three grown children in the bay area and five grandchildren. I have one son in the San Fernando Valley near LA who has two children and one son in Pennsylvania who has three children. The last group I have only seen on Zoom. Many nieces and nephews (only two of us left in that category, aunts that is) who really look after me. Neighbors who check on me and with whom I have cocktails outside, distanced. I have talked to Beezie, Josephine “Joie” Lamb Krossa and Jeanne Zoli Danaher, my college roommate, whose husband died in January. I couldn’t reach Mary King Kayser. That’s the exciting news from here. Any possibility that the school could set up a Zoom call for1955 Gold Class? I would love to see and hear those of us who could do it. (Mary Anne, would you do it? Just go ahead! I’m sure the Alumnae Office would help. DDRA). Do you remember the old graduates who came to Trinity for Reunion while we were students!?
Mary Ellen Forbes McMillen Charlottesville, VA
My biography, Raffles, That’s My Name, of Sir Stamford Raffles (1781-1826), founder of modern Singapore and the London Zoo, was published in October 2020. The publishers, Pegasus Elliot Mackenzie Publishers Ltd., London, did a great job with it–beautiful cover. It is available on Amazon in both print and kindle format. I am very pleased! Raffles was a challenge and very engaging to write. Sir Raffles himself was both, also! The biography is directed toward young people–the style informal but the facts are accurate. One of my cousins suggested her book club take it on.I am still in Charlottesville, VA and one plus–if there can be any!–to the virus is that Frances came from Oakland, CA to work from home here. Thank heaven for technology! I hope all are well. PS, this ’55 classmate is published! Anyone else? Please let me know. Do I qualify with many Letters to the Editor and Op Eds over the years?! DDRA
Katharine Loftus Boucher Catonsville, MD
It is a grey day – heavily raining and evidently the first part of the storm that struck Louisiana yesterday. Ron came in with the mail and handed it to me. The weight of the Trinity book – I thought it was a magazine. I tossed it aside and then saw Sister Margaret’s picture, I didn’t move for over an hour. With our news I found myself mostly smiling but in a few places crying. Ginny Bennet lived in the same community we do. We had some good times sharing our memories of Trinity. I went through a year or so with medical issues which didn’t leave me much to do and took away from my work as a therapist. Oh, for another Reunion! Take care all.
Barbara Burns Weidenbruch Beezie Rockville, MD
Not a lot of news from an 87-year-old lady with white hair who has traded a hockey stick for a cane. Peter died the end of January 2018 and his last tax job was 45 years of teaching tax at Georgetown Law School. Our son, Bill, who lived with us, died the end of April 2018 after 39 years at the local Giant. I am still in our same house here in Rockville that we moved to in 1964. None of my other four kids live near nor do any of my 13 grandkids. I will be a great grandma in August. Doing fine, played golf until I was 80. 14 of our classmates married Peter’s classmates from Georgetown Law School so many parties thru the years! Love and happy memories to all my friends from 1955. Still remember arriving in DC after riding on the sleeper from Providence. Not a lot of news from an 87-year-old lady with white hair who has traded a hockey stick for a cane. Peter died the end of January 2018 and his last tax job was 45 years of teaching tax at Georgetown Law School. Our son, Bill, who lived with us, died the end of April 2018 after 39 years at the local Giant. I am still in our same house here in Rockville that we moved to in 1964. None of my other four kids live near nor do any of my 13 grandkids. I will be a great grandma in August. Doing fine, played golf until I was 80.
Carolyn Hendershott Martin Woodstock, MD
All is well with me thank heavens! It has been quite a strange year for all of us due to this COVID virus! I was vaccinated for COVID-19 in February this year, and three of my five family have also been vaccinated, with the others waiting their turn. Lots of take-out orders instead of eating out, staying home and live-streaming Mass, lots of long phone conversations, walking, reading books, listening to the TV, sometime cooking new recipes, chatting with neighbors always using my mask, and the usual doctors and dentist appointments – all filled my days! I have heard from Pat McCarthy and Patricia “Pat” Queenan Sheehan several times with delight! Such dear old friends! How fortunate we are to spend time together via phone! God is so good! My health is as good as it can be! I have not fallen for three years (since Mother’s Day 2018)! Walking carefully with determination and always using my walker – that is my mantra! And always with a good-natured smile! My family are all well, thank God! Two of my daughters have survived breast cancer and are doing very well! Everyone else is healthy and thriving! Stay well all. With love…..
Patricia “Pat” Queenan Sheehan Avon By The Sea, NJ
This season is a downer – been nowhere, done nothing sums it up. The good news is that those near and dear to me are all well. Moreover, I have a new Trinity College student in the family! My youngest grandson is attending Trinity College…Dublin, not DC in a dual degree program with Columbia in NYC.
Patricia Lang Fitzgerald Reading, MA
Being in touch stirs fond memories of TC and DC. Letting go of my car and drivers license was a difficult step. Missing the Boston chapter of the alumnae association. Looking forward to summer at Nyes Neck on Cape Cod. I moved two summers ago to be near my son in Reading, MA – some friends addresses lost in the move. I can be reached at 75 Pearl Street, Apartment 121, Reading, MA 01867. Cheers…..
Donna Demann Neville Dover, MA
Hello to classmates of 1955. Perhaps you, like me, have became more than familiar with Turner Classic Movies and a new life style this past year. Bringing some joy to this New Year was the April wedding of my first grandchild, Kelsey, at the St. Regis in Atlanta. I also was lucky to spend some time in Florida visiting family on “sabbatical “. Warmest wishes to classmates, hoping all of us can meet whatever challenges are on the horizon.
Dorothy Dannemiller Rogers-Abbey Santa Fe, NM
Somehow these memories surfaced this year: The TC western group took the train from Chicago, Joan Blais, Judith “Judy” Finn Walsh and Leo Harmon, picked me up in Akron, OH. We partied all the way to DC! A date had to go to the main entrance, register, and then had to wait on a Victorian horsehair chair for us to appear after we had been called. An endurance feat! I spent several Thanksgivings at my roommate’s home, Wilma Kelly Kennedy, in Jersey City, NJ. (It was too far to go to Akron!) We took the train to New York, had cocktails under the clock at the Biltmore (the clock is now gone) and I was enthralled with New York! We did matriculate…How about Father Eugene Burke’s Philosophy classes? Reading has sustained me through this horrid pandemic. My son, Bob, sent me John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row on Kindle and it kicked me into reading his works. What a writer! How did I miss him before? Another word of precaution regarding a knee replacement. I had this procedure in 2014 and as I mentioned before, as a result, I developed neuropathy (total numbness) in both lower legs and partially in my feet. I do not recommend this procedure to anyone 78 years or older. I have a friend who has worn a brace, as an alternative, for years. He is 91, runs around, drives. This changed my life completely to a cane and a walker for long distances. I no longer am able to drive which is a real bummer. We’re having a Myer (daughter Laurie and Colin) Birthday Reunion (grandchild Gus turns 30 May 1) on the Outer Banks, NC. After much consideration, with all adults vaccinated, with extreme precautions, we’re going for it! Son, Bill, and Sarah are in Chicago, Bob and Barb in Cranbury, NJ and son, Tim, and Yvette here in Santa Fe. Tim and Yvette’s eldest, Amelia, graduates May 8th from Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR. Ten grandchildren, all over the country and up to amazing things! Eldest is 35 and youngest is16, one married. Good-day and good-night sweet princesses and may flights of angels sing thee along thy way. (Shakespeare abridged….. apologies to Dr. Burns)……..Dorothy