1974 Class Notes for 2021
Michele Stefanelli Dillon is keeping busy working for a health consulting firm supporting CDC and NIH clients. When not on never ending Zoom conferences, she is entertaining Fione their 7 month old Schnoodle. Crazy for sure but just what we needed!
Andrea Croce Birch and husband Tony Birch still live in Gainesville, GA. Andrea is still the Dean of the College of Fine Arts and Humanities and a Professor of Philosophy at Brenau University. All is well.
Donna Schlegel started working at the City of Norwalk’s Health Department in 2016. Her part-time job as Emergency Response Volunteer Coordinator quickly became a fulltime+ job in early 2020. Members of the Emergency Response Team have been staffing food pantries, handling “warming calls”, delivering food to seniors and others in need, helping with drive-through food distributions, and since December 2020, staffing COVID-19 Vaccination clinics. The silver lining of the pandemic for her has been the amazing people she has met as result of the challenges presented by COVID 19. She hopes all of us are staying safe and practicing the COVID Trifecta. Wash your hands, wear your mask and keep your distance. Donna and her husband Greg Knowles, and all of their family members and dear friends, are healthy and smiling broadly as they look to the months ahead and make plans for family reunions and gatherings. Photo: Donna receives her Covid-19 vaccine.
Linda Schneider reports that for the past year she has been well except for arthritis, but keeping a low profile on account of this virus and waiting to get a vaccination appointment. Linda’s previous Seeing Eye Black Labrador, Teddy, died last August from cancer of the spine that metastasized to the lungs. Fortunately, in early October, Seeing Eye was able to pair her with the Golden Retriever/Labrador Retriever cross, Ives, shown in the photograph. He is a good friend, but she still misses Teddy. Since the beginning of the year, she has been working to publish her sixth short story collection, Tying up Loose Ends, with Author House, and it should be coming out soon. She is also looking forward to our fiftieth reunion in 2024, and hopes we are past the pandemic by then.
Photo: Linda Schneider and her Seeing Eye dog, Ives
Ann Payne Edlen retired as of 2020. She and husband Mark are residents of Idaho, living in Sun Valley. She is active on the boards of the Oregon Health Science Foundation and Literary Arts in Portland, OR, and the Sun Valley Museum of Art. Active as a writer, she is working on a memoir about her family’s immersion into the world of Alzheimer’s Disease, contributing to her blog, beforeiforget.live, sending out missives to publications and enjoying all the activities that high mountain living provides. She continues to support Mark’s work developing affordable housing and related social equity work around mental health, addictions and the chronically houseless. We love the time we have with our children, their spouses and our grandchildren, and are looking forward to travelling again.
Patricia “Pat” Fitzpatrick Niles and husband have been enjoying sunny Florida in their retirement. It has been easy to stay masked and physically distanced, though hard to stay away from their children and grandchildren. Both have recently received their two doses of the Pfizer Covid Vaccine and are up in Connecticut for a long overdue visit with their 3 year old grandson and his parents. They are also blessed with a granddaughter by their older daughter. She is now 7 months old and they have been able to visit them recently also.
Having retired two years ago from BlackRock and even with the complications of COVID restrictions, Connie Abrashoff Bentzen is totally enjoying her freedom. She reports that in some ways she’s never been so busy. She is playing the piano every day and while her technique is not quite there, she says she still enjoys making music. She has been doing a lot of reading and belongs to two book groups. One of them is comprised of Pittsburgh area Trinity grads. Finally, she keeps up with her French by reading a weekly Paris Match magazine even though most of the articles are about Americans. Her son is getting married in July to a fellow Notre Dame grad. The wedding will be in Vail, CO in July.
Connie Oprisch says “It was great fun connecting with other classmates and being on campus again at the Trinity reunion in 2019.” She continues to enjoy retirement. In the fall, Connie ordered bulbs from her father’s favorite garden center and planted snowdrops and crocuses that have fortunately bloomed. Along with many others, she has pivoted to a new pandemic lifestyle. Since last spring, she has been stitching face masks for friends, family, and a mask-making project at her church. The project has donated thousands of masks to COVID positive patients and their families being released from the emergency rooms of local hospitals. At the end of January, Connie became a great-aunt for the fourteenth time.
Photo: Connie Oprisch (right) and Connie Abrashoff Bentzen outside Main Hall at Trinity Reunion 2019
After teaching for 30 years, Margarita Wilson is happily retired and still living in Puerto Rico. This year has been challenging, but they have tried to stay focused on the silver lining of this terrible experience of having to put our normal lives on hold. Among the positives, everyone in her extended family is healthy and have been blessed with the first girl in our pack of 6 grandkids. They were able to travel to Florida and be there for her arrival. Now back home, she got vaccinated and is looking forward to slowly resuming sailing, traveling and gathering with friends.
Barbara Ann “Bonnie” McKinley just hit 6 years of retirement and loving every minute of it. They now have 3 granddaughters 7, 4 and 15 months. They also closed on a house in Signal Mtn TN and are now officially snowbirds. One of their daughters has a 15-month old a few miles from them. The other two are in St. Petersburg FL. She says they will keep their condo until they are too old and decrepit to maintain two residences.
COVID made Marcella “Marti” Kane Rodgers realize that life is too short so she decided to retire from her digital marketing job at IBM on June 30. She wanted to be available to help with the kids and grandchildren. She now has time to enjoy the little ones and help with online school. Their youngest daughter just had her first child on March 8 and its fun to have a newborn again. She stays in touch with Suzanne “Suzy” Cunningham Hird and Kathie Scattergood Moser from Philly. She also had a wonderful lunch with Barbara Schnitzler and Mary Ann Doyle on Shelter Island on a perfect fall day in November. Marti says it was totally last minute and was one of the most enjoyable days over the last year!
Catherine Marshall Hackett has been a widow since 1995. She has helped her children through college, and in 2011 retired. Since her father died in 1998, she has managed her mother’s household tasks; taken her to family, church and other activities. She helped care for her from September 2018, when surgery revealed she had cancer, until she died September 2020. Her daughter, son-in-law and 2 granddaughters, as well as her son, daughter-in-law and twin grandsons live in the Maryland suburbs, so she is able to enjoy spending time with them.
Karen Doherty reports that she is fine and enjoying retirement. Karen and her wife, Lori Mei, will be going on her archaeological “dream trip” this coming September to the Four Corners region of the U.S. Southwest. They will be part of a small group exploring Chaco Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, Mesa Verde and Hovenweep. Karen keeps busy researching history for her family stories blog, volunteering for Greenport Village on the Historic Preservation Commission, and enjoying nature in all seasons. She is distressed at the polarization in America. Karen says “We are in worse shape now than we were during the Vietnam War. There is a lack of civility in discussions. The sour breath of ideology is too prevalent in public conversations.” At this point, she plans to attend our 50th reunion (her first). She says hello and good wishes to all her classmates.
Marsha “Marcy” Wilson Aguilar is newly retired, adjusting to life without her little preschoolers and really missing them. Marcy guesses her timing was good though as she had decided to retire right before the pandemic hit! Her granddaughter graduates from high school this year! She is so proud of her. She is thankful that she and her family are healthy and safe and she continues to pray for everyone.
Patricia “Pat” Mizzi reports that she has lead a pretty unremarkable life. She is married with children and now 10 grandchildren. She has puttered around Sayville, working with Girl Scouts, growing a historical recreation chapter, joining a sailing club and generally enjoying life. She says that probably her biggest personal achievements were to run a marathon in Dublin to celebrate a new century and earning Dan ranking in both JuJitsu and Aikido. She has done some traveling but for the last decade most of my travel has been to daughters in Texas and Minnesota. Another daughter and her family live nearby. Currently she her husband, Paul MacMenamin, are refurbishing a Morgan 41 Out Island sailboat with the goal of being liveaboard retirees in the Caribbean for at least part of each year. (Not so unremarkable life! And anyone with more grandchildren?) Photo: Pat Mizzi (center right) and her family
Magalie “Maggie” Roman Salas reports that this past year has been challenging, yet rewarding. She is grateful not to have lost a relative or friend to the pandemic, but has struggled with the sense of isolation. To stay connected with family and friends, she has totally embraced Zoom and similar applications. This has enabled her to attend virtual classes, seminars, and events related to so many topics, ranging from race relations and social justice, to spirituality, religion, art, and music. Maggie is particularly happy to be taking voice lessons again, by Zoom, after more than 35 years. She also had the opportunity to spend more quality time with grandchildren, as she has been helping them with distant learning while her daughter and her husband work. It has been good to have time to focus on so many blessings she enjoys.
With COVID, Susan “Fredi” Fournier ran Camp Mimi & Poppa during the summer for her two grandchildren who live just blocks away. It really stretched our creative abilities to keep a then 5 year old boy and 8 year old girl occupied. Scavenger hunts, pool time in a large molded plastic pool on our deck and cooking and other related activities, board games, lots of puzzles and movies and popcorn on rainy days. Needlepoint has been my therapy for years, but never more so than this last year. I am also trying to perfect cross-stitch. I won’t go into the upheaval surrounding Jan. 6 and the fencing and razor wire we encounter on our walks around the Hill. For the first time in more than a year, Michael and I will venture beyond the metropolitan area next month to visit our 5th grandchild for her first birthday in Centennial, CO. GO NATS! Photo: Fredi and her granddaughter, Ashley.
Shelley Morrison Kowkabany writes, in spite of the challenges of the pandemic, the last year and a half have been professionally rewarding for me. After Trinity, I became part of the nuclear power program in the US, and obtained an MS in nuclear engineering, just in time for a very exciting industry to turn flat. However, during the past twelve years, I have participated in the birth and development of first nuclear power program in the Arab world. In 2009, I came to the United Arab Emirates as an engineering consultant and opened a Branch Office of a US-based engineering firm to support what has become the UAE-government-owned, four-unit Barakah Nuclear Power Plant in the Abu Dhabi Emirate, in an environmentally harsh area referred to as the Empty Quarter. My first engagement involved selection of a site. In April 2021, Barakah Unit 1 reached the milestone of commercial operation, and Unit 2 has completed fuel load and is presently undergoing power-ascension testing. Unit 3 is planned for power operation in 2022 and Unit 4 in 2023. My Emirati colleagues are extremely driven and focused, and mine has been a remarkable experience in collaborating with the best technical talent, both local and expat, that the world has to offer. My husband Bob and I have been living in the capital city of Abu Dhabi since this opportunity first presented itself, and we have experienced the evolution of the country’s economy, culture, and cities into world-class status among the community of nations.
Photo: Same site, 2009 and 2021. A plot in the desert has become the four Unit Barakah Nuclear Power Plant, the first nuclear power in the Arab world. I’m in the white shirt and brown hat (and very hot and heavy boots.)
Althea Megargee Daley married Pat Daley in October, 1974 and have lived in NY ever since. They raised six children (now age 42 – 31) and have all been a constant source of pride and joy. Althea says that they will never regret choosing to be a one income family while they were young. Once they were well on their way, Althea returned to work, decided to get a Masters in Education, and began a 20-year career in our local high school, loving (almost) every minute of it! Althea retired as planned in June 2020. Among their blessings they count 7 grandchildren and amazing friends. She wishes all good health and all the joy you can hold!
Nina Haidinger Ciak sends greetings from Tampa, FL. All is well there. The past year has certainly been an interesting one. Gary isn’t able to travel to customers so he has been working from home. Until their 6 year old granddaughter went back to school, Nina did FaceTime lessons with her while her mom and dad were working in the background. They live close by so they get to spend a lot of time together. She and Gary have done some traveling this past year. A couple of golf junkets, a beach trip to Jensen Beach, St. Louis in July to celebrate our son’s 40th and, most recently, Indianapolis to watch some college basketball. Pat Johnston McCaffrey and her husband, John, traveled from Connecticut to Florida in February. They rented a condo not too far from Nina for the month. Always fun to spend time with them.
Terry McNearney is living and socially distancing in Galveston, TX. She is a Senior Medical Consultant for a start-up company located in Houston, TX among sporadic clients. With the pandemic, she barely made it out of Hong Kong and flying back to the States, in Feb 2020. Since then, she started fostering rescue dogs to boost their adoption potential (with 100% success) and had two hurricane and one big freeze evacuations. Whew! Going forward, ready for better weather and hope our classmates are doing well.