1958 Class Notes for 2019

Class of 1958 annual January lunch in FL

Green Class of 1958

 

From her aerie condo in Reston, VA, Barbara McGeary Marhofer jump-starts these notes again with her poetic thoughts on “Being in a Special Place in Our Lives”.  Extolling the senses, she writes that she is “Experiencing a new sense of being.  Colors more intensely.  Beauty, composition everywhere.  Comfort from ladies locker room chatter.  Toddlers in strollers smiling easily.  Small dogs begging to be petted.  Food tasting better. This is your day!”  Her message – savor the moment!

Sally Santen Gleason in her Aida costume for her one-minute walk-on appearance in the Opera Naples production

Perfectly capturing that attitude is Sally Santen Gleason, resplendent for her one-minute walk-on role in “Aida” at the Opera Naples production in December.  She is a board member of Opera Naples, having been President of the Grand Rapids opera company for many years before Sally moved to FL.  Since moving, she has helped found a Women’s Giving Circle which now numbers 80 members, pooling their resources to aid needy agencies. The Christ Child Society is also a beneficiary of Sally’s time.

At this time in our lives, Jean Mazurek Kennedy rejoices having more time– time to text old friends like teenagers do, to take “girl trips” to bucket places, to enjoy the theatre, new and old movies and a glass of wine afterwards with girlfriends, and to read more books.  Current choices have been “The Quantum Spy”, “The Other Einstein” and “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Two fifth graders enjoy Jean’s time twice a week when she works on their reading skills.   Word has it Jean was seen chanting “Clean God’s house” in front of the Apostolic Chancery in DC, but not recently, as she is currently recovering from rotator cuff surgery.

Sheila Kallan Keegan and her husband, Arthur

 

 

They’ve moved again!  Look for Sheila Kallan Keegan in Scottsdale, AZ.  (Email me for her address.) Total landscape change for these sea lovers in October.  Now its scorpions, bobcats and rattlesnakes. “Don’t leave your garage door open”, Sheila advises, or you, too, may have a 4’ rattlesnake visit!  Remarking on the changed climate, Sheila said, “You know it’s cold there when the organ pipe cactus in a neighbor’s yard is wearing Styrofoam cup hats.”

Barbara Kennelly on Capitol Hill with Trinity students

 

Our congresswoman is moving on.  Barbara Bailey Kennelley has taught political science at Trinity for seven years, but will move back to Connecticut in June, having worked in Washington for the last 33 years.  “Having the opportunity to mold the minds of another generation of Trinity women has been an honor and a pleasure.”  She feels like it has been a two-way learning street.  Barbara and four of her students visited her congressional successor, Rep. John Larson on the Hill recently.

   Yvonne Thel Driscoll (Oradel, NJ), though retired from hands-on medicine, is voraciously reading articles about how doctors have contributed to the opiate epidemic of the ‘80s, which is growing more lethal every day.  “Pain has become a fifth vital sign,” Yvonne warned.  She and John are active in their parish.  John runs the Board of Education for the parish school, and Yvonne is a Eucharistic minister.

I need to add a new response category: “Oh, that’s funny!” Ginny Kilroy McKaig’s answer to whether we are still pursuing intellectual curiosity qualifies.  She confesses that her attempts amount to finding her car keys or her mobile phone. She was in the throes of organizing the 19th Naples, FL ’58 reunion in March. Always qualifying in the humor camp is Fran Palmison Collins, still playing tennis in Bethesda, MD and suggesting that she is occasionally at a loss for words, specific ones.  Not the Fran we know.

The Naples reunion included Ro McCrory Foley, who retired from practicing law three years ago and is now a residential realtor in Cleveland.  For 20 hours a week, she tutors Language Arts subjects at Notre Dame College in Cleveland.  According to Ro, Cleveland has a renowned system of metro parks called “The Emerald Necklace”, with walking, biking and hiking trails, encircling the entre Cleveland area, which she enjoys immensely.

Jane Locraft Head was at the Naples reunion, too.  Being with Trinity friends was tops on her list of favorite things – sharing being on their own, past memories, and of course, opinions on current happenings.  Half of the year Ruth Donovan Grady is in Naples, too!  Coincidentally, her sentiment echoes Jane’s.  “Just being with Trinity friends makes me a better person.”  Her motto:  “WWJD” (What Would Jesus do?), a consideration she learned from a priest, has been a helpful guide in making decisions.

When you think of Trinity memories, you think of singing, lots of singing!  I think of Verna Hook Siford (Hellam, PA), Nancy Jo Pyne Walker (Encinitas, CA) and Jeanne Curtis Dickson (Ocean Pines, MD).  Verna’s back at it, even climbing spiral choir loft stairs to play the organ after a knee replacement.  She still volunteers at The Horn Farm Center for Agricultural Education, a non-profit, but has curtailed her gardening to tomatoes, peppers, herbs and flowers.  Other pursuits, knitting scarves, gloves and slippers, and reading.

With tongue in cheek, Nancy Jo reported that as the list of things wrong with her grows longer, the better she feels.  She thinks the maladies are canceling each other out.  I think it’s her can-do attitude, still singing in the parish choir, and involved in anti-war movements. As for Jeanne, when not playing bridge, she also sings in the church choir and with a community group.  Reading is still a joy.  Jeanne credits the Trinity faculty for the “ability to think for ourselves and keep close to what is true in these trying times.”

In July Barbara Glunz Donovan spent a week in the vineyards of Portugal, thanks to the hospitality of “Wines of Portugal.”  Next was “The Big Move” from her long-time house to an apartment one block from Lake Michigan and five blocks from the Glunz Establishment in Chicago.  With that under her belt, Barbara has plans to visit Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan on the Black Sea in September with Lynn Pfohl Quigley.

Yes, Mary Frann Somers Heidhues, writing from Germany, did follow in Dante’s footsteps as anticipated in last year’s Journal, traveling from Florence to Ravenna and more.  She found it interesting to re-read his travelogue from hell to paradise, having read it at Trinity with Sr. Margaret.  She remarked, “While I was fascinated by his ‘hell’ as a student, I now found ‘heaven’ more intriguing.  We age.”  (I have her address and email for those interested.)

Let’s go to Egypt. Margo Ferranto Badran moves between Washington and Cairo and was in London in March for a conference on the centennial of the 1919 Egyptian Revolution which broke out when an Egyptian was prevented from participating the Paris Peace Conference.  She spoke on the women’s demonstrations and how their political activism led to the creation of the feminist movement in Egypt. She planned to be in Washington this spring.

Cathy Russell and Barbara Durand Zimmerman, snow tubing

There’s snow-tubing and there’s being 82.  Normally, never the twain shall meet, except when you’re talking about Barbara Durand Zimmerman and Cathy Russell.  They were seen doing it in MA recently.  Barbara still is the avid bridge player from “smoker days”, plus mahjong and is an occasional knitter.  When Cathy isn’t hurtling down a slope, or trekking across snowy terrain in snowshoes, she reads (recently it was Henri Nouwen’s “Prodigal Son”), contributes to food pantries, recently cooked up five lbs. of meat for a soup kitchen stew in Boston and sings in her parish choir and a choral.

In my “esoteric” question to you all, I wondered how you are passing on our blessings. Well, Margot Kennedy Walsh has been doing that for ages, running a small advocacy not-for-profit to ensure funding on local, state and federal levels for beach replenishment, including dunes and living shorelines.  Her book club just finished “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and her greatest pleasure is time with Trinity classmates!

There’s another philanthropy with a Trinity touch. Anne Ruthling Holmberg

and her late husband started a foundation in the Florida retirement community where they moved, giving qualified employees over 82 scholarships since its inception.  The result?  A bond between the employees and residents which has blossomed into a caring relationship.  On Monday nights Anne is at their rehab center, calling bingo numbers – a real challenge with players with dementia, loss of hearing and an urge to be disagreeable.  Anne’s solution?  See the humor of it all!

Over in Hobe Sound, FL, Ann Mulville Geupel is busy with The Arts Council of Jupiter Island, helping to find art for the new Town Hall.  The Council also brings a variety of artists, curators and architects to discuss their works and collections.  Annually they take art enthusiasts on a day-long bus trip to the “Art Basel” show in Miami, a world famous show which started in Switzerland.  A recent trip included a visit to the reopened Norton Museum in Palm Beach, FL.  In between you’ll find Ann on the golf course, or romping with canine friends, Patrick and Bridget.

Carrying on our noisy Green Class tradition, Janet Curran McDermott (Arlington, VA) dons green attire every year to be serenaded with “Top o’ the Morning” by her daughter’s kindergarten class (not at the unearthly hour we bombarded the sleepers!), after which they decorate and eat shamrock cookies.  One of the blessings Janet enjoys now is being able to attend daily Mass, praying for family and country.  She worries about the divisiveness and hatred spewed today.  I do like her guiding principle:  try to do small things with great love.

“Let’s keep learning!” This is Norene Kindstrand Rootare’s guiding principle.  She can usually be found in her home library, reading in Dunwoody, GA!  Not light reading, exactly.  The Summa Theologica, Part One and Part Two.  She also recommends the History Channel or any media which challenges the mind, taking time out to enjoy the beauty of nature frequently.

Terry Kelly Griffin, writing from Stowe, Vermont, gives back by mentoring a Chinese woman through a driver’s license and citizenship. She also is a weekly lector and leads the Divine Mercy Chaplet on Fridays after Mass.  She is an editor of “Painting on Light – a Restoration”, the history of Blessed Sacrament Church in Stowe and the restoration of Andre Girard’s dramatic windows and outside murals.  Girard is the 20th century master artist known for painting on and through light where you actually see both sides.  This collection of photos of the windows and murals is a treasure for art students and available on Amazon.

Another author, Gina Pleus MacKenzie, has had such success with her book, The Shirt on His Back”, that she has been able to send $1200 to the Franciscan Missions.  In February she went on tour with the book and in March gave three speeches and book signings.  Classmates can purchase it through Amazon or Barnes & Noble.  Proceeds help the missions.  Gina continues to be active in KAIROS prison ministry in the women’s prison in Columbia, SC.  In February she had an art exhibit at the Art Academy in Hilton Head. They’re in a retirement community in Hilton Head now, but it doesn’t sound like Gina’s retired!

Helen Murphy Moran, doing “a lot of reading” in West Somerville, MA, appreciates the background in theology and philosophy that Trinity imparted, and recommends two contemporary authors:  Robert J. Spitzer, SJ, “New Proofs for the Existence of God” and Guy Cosmolmagno, “God’s Mechanics:  How Scientists and Engineers Make Sense of Religion.”

 

Marybet Lawrence Moss (Springfield, VA) would add to that reading list the biography of Cardinal Newman, “Blessed John Henry Newman.”  She was also intrigued with 17th Century North American martyrs, among them, Isaac Jogues, and recommends “Fr. Jean de Brebeuf, Saint Among The Hurons” (Ignatius Press).  Oct. 19th is the feast day of both saints.

Now if you were a history major, as Lou Collins McCloskey was, your focus would turn to history, specifically historical biographies. “There’s so much to learn from the past that pertains to our present time,” Lou wrote. She and Pete have been at their vacation house at Bryce, VA since Christmas, hoping for snow but entertaining family nevertheless.

Ellie Moynihan Bagley is in a French class in Ridgefield, CT and has done several knitting workshops, resulting in many sweaters, scarves and cowls for grandkids, but more importantly, she’s a reader, a 22 year member of a book club.  It used to consist of hours of book discussions and then lunch. Now, well maybe five minutes and then lunch!  It’s become a sisterhood with an intellectual connection.  Ellie’s rule of reading:  if it doesn’t capture her interest in 100 pages, move on.  “The Rent Collector” by Cameron Wright and its lovely prose is her recommendation.  She’d love to hear classmates’ recommendations.

She’s still traveling and working with educators to keep kids in school, but Judy Fornili Pauley (Potomac, MD) had a huge setback a year ago, when she fell off the stage at Olney Theatre and broke her leg.  This meant no weight on it for three months, then two more months in a cast.  The highlight of the year, however, was being honored at the American Chemical Society dinner for 60 years of service.

    Susie Black Webb, writing in Chicago, retired a few months ago just in time to take on a new role as recovery nurse for her husband who ended up in rehab after falling in the kitchen.  Lest we suspect super-zealous cleaning, Susie says her floors were not wet from her scrubbing.

Our architect classmate, Lynn Pfohl Quigley in Forest Hills, NY, has come up with a creative summary of what our lives can be like now. “Fewer pastimes, fewer friends, but that means we have to hold on to them tighter.” She suggests though we have less work and fewer responsibilities, we now have more time to enjoy our children and grandkids.  And although I know she still plays tennis, she counsels that when we can’t run as fast, it gives us more time to notice the flowers and the setting sun. We have fewer party scenes but more energy for books and telephone chats with friends.

Lynn Shea writes to thank the class for their cards, letters and thoughts.  She believes they are making a real difference in speeding her recovery.

 

It’s my turn to answer my questions to you.  What am I giving back?  Well, I will not make your response so difficult again.  I will say “tell me anything.”  Any time I hear from you is good!  I will add that Trinity friends are the best.  I am trying to forge a new life without Dave.  It’s hard.  I’m not good at it.  I don’t like lonely dinners, so I am very well versed in MSNBC topics. Playing blessings forward, here’s my Irish wish for you:

“May the dreams you hold dearest

be those which come true;

The kindness you spread

keep returning to you.’’

 

And always, “May the Lord keep you in His hand and never close His fist too tight.”

 

Love,

Kate Malone Geddes

Kategeddes1@yahoo.com

13217 Triple Crown Loop

Gainesville, Va. 20155