January 2009
Dear Classmates,
As ’09 begins, it reminds us that we are getting very close to our 55th reunion in May 2010. Is it possible that our 50th is fading as memory and we must begin to look ahead with our planning? It does seem that life works “that way” these days----- way too fast and way too full. Were these not to be the golden years when we had a lot of free time to just hang out and be mellow?
Well, here we go!!! Lots to report from your many class constituencies.
ARCHIVES
If you are cleaning out old “stuff,” please remember the Mount Holyoke Archives. They are especially interested in any correspondence to and from you while you were at college, plus pictures and memorabilia of our 4 years. If you send pictures, let us know who is in the picture and what the occasion is.
Please send what you are ready to give up either to me or directly to the Archives
Juli Shea Towell 
Mount Holyoke Archives
96 Old Hollow Road c/o Joni Haas Zubi
Short Hills, NJ 07078 Mary E. Wooley Hall
PLANNED GIVING: Jane A. Barth and Juli Shea Towell
If/when you re do your Will, please remember to add Mount Holyoke into your estate plans. This is a great way to help our college in the future and potentially a great way to help yourself.
The Planned Giving Office will be glad to help you think out the best way FOR you to do this. Call the Development Office at 1-800-642-4483 and ask for Julie Tyson at Planned Giving or go to the Mount Holyoke web site (www.mtholyoke.edu) and follow the links to giving.
If you have already included the college in your will, please let the Development Office know. We would like to be able to include you in the Mary Lyon Society and say thanks.
CLASS SCRIBE: Betsy Winters Horton
As always, our scribe loves to hear from you and pass your news along to the class, both on the class website and in the Alumnae Quarterly. Remember you can read the full unabridged version of our class notes on our web site the minute they are submitted. Do e-mail Betsy with tales from your life!
ALUMNAE FUND: Betsy Pratt Marlowe and Sylvia Johnson Wilson Lucas
We are off to a very encouraging start for the Alumnae Fund 2008-2009 Drive. As your donations keep arriving, we are ever more aware of how much the Mount Holyoke education, experience, and friendships have meant to our class. In these uncertain economic times, all of us have been affected- whether in portfolio declines, reduced retirement funds, down turns in real estate values, or in other ways, such as health issue expenditures. Nevertheless, it seems apparent that many of you put MHC at, or near the top of your discretionary giving. For those of you who have already given, we send a huge thank you. And for the rest, we remind you that class percentages of giving are important. Our goal for this year is 100% participation, so that $10 or $20 donation will really help. With all of your help and generosity, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could reach our overall dollar goal of $155,000?
“BACK TO COLLEGE DAY”: Joan Winkel Ripley
Remember what a wonderful time we had when we returned to college soon after our 50th reunion? We spent our time as students, attending classes, experiencing the pace of college life, and being immersed in the school culture for a day or more. This experience elicited so many kudos from the participants that we have decided to do it AGAIN!!! The date of our “Back to College Day” is Wednesday October 21, 2009. There are over 100 of us who live within easy driving distance of the college so why not eat, meet, and learn? We will make the arrangements for overnights at Willits the evening before “Back to College Day” for those who want to go a bit easier (translate, not rush in the morning) or live further away. We promise a great lunch speaker and exciting classes to whet your brains and your appetite. Stay tuned to the class website for further updates and please use the website to tell us what is happening in your world. We really want to know
REUNION 2010:
Introducing the Fabulous Trio, otherwise known as Your Reunion Planning Team. They want your input into our next reunion: Juli Shea Towell, Jane Barth, and Ruth Harberg DuBois
Feedback: What did you especially like about our 50th reunion and would like repeated?
Ideas: We would love to hear your new ideas for our 55th reunion.
Volunteer: There are lots of jobs, large and small, which we would love to have you be part of
E-Mail Addresses: If you are not part of our e-mail list and the class Web site, send in your address as we are going to stay in touch with you over the Internet as well as through snail mail. (class webpage: www.mhc1955.homestead.com )
We have already signed up the Dean of the College, Donal O’Shea, to talk about the value of a liberal arts education on Friday night of reunion. A mathematician, he is one of the best speakers we have heard recently.
Ellie Graham Claus has volunteered to run the social program for the weekend and Nan Leach Mohr has signed up to do a class survey and put together some parade signs from the results. Joan Winkel Ripley has promised to put together a DVD of reunion. All three would love some help.
There are lots of other opportunities: are you interested in being part of planning and running a piece of reunion or would you rather have a task that you do at reunion itself? We have plenty of both types.
Deb Hazzard Nash, class president, promises to keep us on track and the Alumnae Office is well organized to help us.
So e-mail (juliintj@towell4.com) or write me ( 96 Old Hollow Road, Short Hills, NJ 07078 with your feedback, ideas, e-mail address, and most especially that you would like to help with planning for reunion 2010.
CLASS DUES:
If you have not paid your class dues of $75, they would be most welcome. Make your check out to Mount Holyoke College Class of 1955 and send it off to Joan Wharton Witkin at 113 Campfire Road, Chappaqua, NY 10514.
DECEMBER REFLECTIONS: Suzanne Donaldson Poor
With the economy the way it is, I decided that my holiday gifts would be my photographs -- printed well, matted and framed. After searching through thousands of new digital images and remembering film favorites from decades ago, especially one of my children and their father on one of our many bicycle camping trips, I marveled at how those captured moments seemed so succinct and close. Extracting black and white negatives from dingy sleeves to bring to a lab, I realized, though, that the picture was taken 35 years ago.
“It was just like yesterday,” I murmured to myself. I dwelt on those escapades for a bit and then began thinking – not how I’d like to bicycle across Nova Scotia again, but how those and other memories have shaped my life, giving it depth and meaning. "All photographs, even snapshots are art," Susan Sontag wrote a while back. These remembrances of things past are forces that stabilize today and catapult us into a future, rich in promise.
Most of us uncommon women are 75 years old, but who’s to say we feel three score and fifteen. I look at pictures of a group of us on one of our Mountain Days, for example, remember the girl drinking from a jug of cider and feel today exactly as I did that day.
All our tomorrows should be filled with the same kind of joy, gleaned from images of yesterdays that have indeed become works of art.
So there you have it. Your class is alive and well with many workers on board making the job of president quite easy, as well as being very fun (this would be the plug for future leadership). Please send your e-mail addresses to Juli. They are so important in the chain of communication and stay tuned for details on our “back to college day” and reunion plans.
Happy New Year to all. May you stay well as that seems to be of the essence in this decade.
Best in ‘09
Deb Hazzard Nash
