1972 Class Notes for 2015
It was suggested by the TC Alumnae Office that we discuss a topic in addition to catching everyone up on the past year’s events. I asked for thoughts on retirement—good, bad and indifferent—since this is the year we get our Medicare cards! I want to thank everyone who took the time to write. I’m not being facetious when I say that I learned a lot from your responses.
Laura Kress wrote that after a major stint in the hospital and rehab she adjusting to her “new normal” life. Physical therapy has helped her to start walking again, but any activity is severely limited. Her doctors have told her that the reason for her problems with oxygen utilization is that genetically she’s a Viking, probably the shortest Viking in history. Laura’s views on retirement are socioeconomic—you can tell she’s a Trinity grad! As the “sandwich generation” many of us are involved with caring for both parents and grandchildren and retirement money is going for these duties. But on the plus side, Medicare is “the bomb.” Along with the supplemental insurance designed for catastrophic illness, Medicare has taken care of her medical costs and Laura “thanks God for Medicare everyday.”
Barbara York is thinking of retiring in two more years…! For now, she continues with “work, more work and more work” at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association. She has asked all her friends who have retired for their best advice. Here is her summary:
- Have a plan before you retire;
- Enjoy the time and space—don’t get hung up on the “to do” list;
- That said, have a “to do” list but make it flexible without hard deadlines;
- Set a schedule for the week—for exercise, hobbies and social get-togethers; and
- Plan to learn something new, but avoid deadlines and stress.
Having retired from the Fairfax County Public School System last summer, Vikki Zegel Bea shared her thoughts on her first year of retirement. Other teachers had told her “you’ll know” when the time is right, and Vikki confirms their wisdom. As with many who have retired, she is busier than ever volunteering for Catholic Charities, her parish food bank, and a local performing arts school where she teaches math. Vikki also has a part time job teaching with Mathnasium, a private, after school tutoring program. She works with five to 18 year-olds to develop skills from fractions to advanced algebra—but she lets other teachers teach calculus since “ I haven’t taken a calculus class since 1968-69 with Dr, Varnhorn!” Vikki recommends balancing volunteerism with a part-time paid job so that when additional hours are requested by either one you can honestly respond that you’re already busy. Another plus for retirement is the ability to travel freely, and with four children that’s a plus. Their son Christopher lives and works in Richmond; Celeste has returned after a year of travel nursing to Children’s National Medical Center in DC as a pediatric nurse; Claire and her husband Zach are still enjoying life in Europe from their post in Warsaw; and Carolyn is a licensed massage therapist in California. Vikki and her husband Keith plan to spend Christmas in Warsaw with Claire and Zach.
Marian Bo Ely Ward has taken the first step toward retirement by buying a dream retirement home on the White River in Indianapolis. It was a stroke of great luck to find it because houses on the White River rarely are on the market. It’s a “fixer upper” but Marian figures that with three years until retirement they should be able to get it in good shape in time to relax by the water. Marian and her husband came to Old Town Alexandria last summer to attend the joint burial at Arlington Cemetery of Marilyn Brazier’s parents and to visit the new retirement home where Marilyn and her husband have moved. Marian’s father passed awayJanuary 2015 “…he went the way he wanted, when he wanted, at home, with all his marbles, and socially active until the end!!”
While in a “career transition,” Fran Tolson feels that she receives “… so much from volunteer activities” and imagines retirement as a time when our generation will step up and save the world! She is taking time to relax by going to the National Gallery of Art and dog sitting in Lewes, Delaware. The future feels open and expansive: “ ‘[a]lthough I’ve spent my entire life in the DC area, I don’t feel as rooted here as I once did. So maybe retirement will be time to finally leave ‘home.’ “
Allan and Lynne McIntyre Zebrowski continue to enjoy retirement. Both are involved with their parish, St. John the Evangelist in Severna Park, MD, where they sing with the church choir as well as with the special Resurrection Choir for funerals. Lynne serves as a cantor for choir masses and for some of the funeral masses—a paid position—plus acts as a monthly Lector and often sings at weddings. Performing at the weddings of former students is really a lot of fun! She traveled to Dayton, OH, GA, NC, Venice and Lake Worth in Florida. They have a Pops Subscription to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and are “HUGE Orioles fans going to about 2 dozen games each year.Their oldest son Steven lives in San Jose, CA, where he is a Systems Administrator for NetFlix. They see him at Christmas, during summer vacation, and on Opening Day for the O’s. Their son Rob and his wife Caroline live close by in Columbia, MD. Rob works to ensure that all the digital books for the blind at the Library of Congress are top notch, and their daughter-in-law Caroline is a Media Specialist at two elementary schools in Howard County. Their youngest son Mark and his wife Jana live in New Haven, CT, where Jana is in a five-year doctoral program in Paleontology and Mark is working for the Dean of the Medical School at Quinnipiac University in CT.
Mimi Loferski Fleury continues to work as president and co-founder of the Community of Concern—an educational organization founded in 1999 to help parents, students, schools and other community programs keep young people drug and alcohol-free. Along with co-founder Dr. Jim Power, a former headmaster at Georgetown Preparatory School, Mimi has written a booklet “A Parent’s Guide for the Prevention of Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Use”. Over two million copies are used for programs in 36 states and four countries. The website for their program is: www.thecommunityofconcern.org. Over the year Mimi has seen Megan Murphy, Lynne McGowan Wheat and Kathy O’Malley Ross. All are well and “…look fabulous as the Class of ’72 approaches 65.” Mimi and her husband Al have three sons and one granddaughter.
After Patricia Teufel retired from KPMG in December 2010, she accepted a three year term as President and Chairman of the Board for the Casualty Actuarial Society, a professional organization. She also became an independent consultant and began teaching as an adjunct professor in math/actuarial science at the University of Connecticut. Pat is involved in a number of philanthropic efforts including projects for the Archdiocese of Hartford and the Actuarial Foundation. She and her husband Tom are reverse-snowbirds. They spend summers in Florida at their second home, and as teachers endure the winters up north. Tom teaches middle school at St. Timothy Middle School. Their daughter Rachel graduated in June with an MS in Nutrition/Dietetics from Drexel University and will be doing her residency at Yale New Haven Hospital. Their other daughter Sarah is working toward a Masters Degree in International Studies at Lesley University and has accepted a full-time position at Lasell College in MA in the International Studies department.
Brook and Mary Ann Brennan Newcomb are still working but are heading toward more part-time schedules. Mary Ann is “LOVING being a grandmother—five grandsons who are three and under…when they are all in residence it is ‘marvelous mayhem!’” Kathleen Hallahan Zeifang was about to come for a visit, and Mary Ann hopes to see more Trinity friends.
Trish Ely Dunn thinks about retirement all the time but is going about it gradually by cutting back to just over 30 hours per week. As the office manager/bookkeeper, Trish can schedule things so that she can go to dance or water aerobics, to Book Club and Garden Club—even to the range for shooting sporting clays (I had to look that up!) The drawback to working is that she misses doing things like fishing with her husband Chip. They continue to love living on Sugarloaf Mountain and to enjoy going to the Kennedy Center (only a 45 minute drive!) where they saw “The Book of Mormon” and “Once.”
Patricia Kenny Priest admits that she’s afraid to retire from her job at the Census Bureau—it is good for the mind—and was the only classmate to mention that she’ll start collecting Social Security benefits next year in addition to a paycheck. Her children both live far away—Eric Oberlander is a neurosurgeon in Baton Rouge where he lives with wife Carrie and sons Kai and Wren, and Danica is a student in London. Patricia continues to love gardening, swimming, reading, and jazzercising.
Pinkie Truitt Farrar retired from Verizon in 2009, earlier than she’d hoped, and gradually adjusted to not going to work everyday. Pinkie briefly worked at a local community college, but decided that she would rather have the freedom to be with her husband, exercise, read, and keep in touch with family and friends.
Jennifer Bruno Terry retired after 30 years in banking and “…doesn’t miss working at all!” For 10—15 hours a month Jennifer works as a bank consultant, but most of her time is spent traveling, exercising, sleeping, and spending more time with her four grandchildren and 94 year-old mother.
As an artist, teacher, and proprietor of a hand bookbinding business, Barbara Mauriello was used to accepting most jobs that came her way. Now her version of retirement is saying “no” to dull-sounding projects, and concentrating on collaborations with writers and visual artists whose work she admires. She is also focusing on her own art work. Barbara spent the month of April in a beautiful small town in Colombia, teaching and setting up a production studio to create handmade books. At the end of her stay she didn’t want to leave the incredibly loving community that had embraced her. Barbara is hoping for more life-changing events in the years ahead.
Another artist classmate is Kathleen Hallahan Zeifang. After losing both her parents and her husband, she started putting a lot more time into her painting and she travels with artist groups to beautiful and/or exotic destinations. After moving to Chevy Chase, Maryland, Kathleen became Vice President for Development at Trinity.
Life is both hectic and loads of fun at Madeleine Leveille’s household. When Madeleine retired from her school psychologist position three years ago, she joined her husband’s forensic psychology practice and became the associate director of the Kelly-Connolly Longitudinal Study of Marriage and Personality. Madeleine and her husband also have been doing a lot of traveling: they spent three weeks in the wild, rarely visited parts of Patagonia in Argentina, took trips to Thailand, Myanmar, and the several countries that once made up Yugoslavia. They were looking forward to celebrating the 102 birthday of her mother who regularly trounces Madeleine in Scrabble. Her mother is an example of their research finding that the personality trait of persistence is predictive of a long life.
Mary Curry Narayan started a Nursing Ph.D. program at George Mason University a couple of years ago to study professionalism in the practice of home health nursing. For her, the program is about continuing to learn (and showing off to her three engineer sons!) and is part of her Alzheimer’s Prevention Program along with exercise, red wine, dark chocolate, and studying Spanish. Her husband’s retirement and the addition of a grandchild may alter the time frame for her studies.
Beth Nelson also thinks of employment as Alzheimer’s Prevention Therapy as the celebration of her Medicare birthday proved to be a bit shocking. Beth ran a half marathon last June to prove that being 65 is just fine. She and her husband Will continue to live in Chatham, NJ. Their children Julia and James live in Hoboken (as do 10,000 of their friends) and work in New York City. Their son Ben is a senior at Wesleyan. Beth has been in touch with Ann Marie Curran Wheeler and Ellen Capro Vannucci, and visited with Brian and Katie O’Connell Harkins last fall when she was on a family trip to Washington, DC.
When a reorganization at work resulted in Elizabeth Cating being unemployed, she decided to fulfill a long time dream and go into business for herself. She started with a snack company called Muffin Ma’am which morphed, with the help of the local SBDC (Small Business Development Center—had to look that up!), into Elizabeth M Cating, LLC dba (Doing Business As—had to look that up, too!) The Blue Ridge Snack Company. Elizabeth produces roasted almonds and granola at home in her USDA certified kitchen. “So at the age of 65 I am having a blast and have no intention of slowing down until I’m over 70 when I hope to either sell my company or manage it from the beach.”
Late breaking news from Marilyn Newhouse—she has a new grandson, Zachery! All are happy about the wonderful addition to the family.
I have enjoyed reading everyone’s take on retirement. It was like sitting around in Alumnae Hall after dinner talking about classes with retirement being a class “writ large.” For my part, I’ve been trying to have a social life no matter how busy things become. I make sure to have lunch with friends as frequently as possible, and have had lovely meals with Fran Tolson and Marilyn Newhouse. I also went to a memorial service at Georgetown Law Center to hear Margaret Fisher, who flew in from Seattle, and gave a eulogy for her close friend and colleague Ed O’Brien who started the Street Law Project that Margaret has helped to implement not only here in the U.S. but in South Africa as well.
Several people have asked me to remind them how they can contribute to our class fund to help with reunion expenses and to pay for Masses for our deceased classmates. You can send contributions to the Alumnae Association of Trinity University, 125 Michigan Avenue, N.E., Washington, DC 20017. The check should be made payable to the AATC Class of 1972. We have almost $1,000 in the account. Here is the class funds listing
Thanks to all for writing!
Tina Darragh