The Latest From Your Class Scribe
Sue Keller eagerly awaits your news. Here is a new and easy way to get your news to her.
Click on the email address and let her know what you are up, or not up, to.
Our class news will still appear in the Quarterly, but you can see the column here in advance.
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Sue Nutter Keller
This great letter from Sallie Barr Palmer.
In October, we flew to the UK. Visited family in Wales and London and came home by ship, accompanied by daughter Janine and a friend. The girls were into every activity offered on the ship and shore excursions. Peter and I relaxed, ate delicious meals and went to the Trivia matches.Took another, short cruise at Christmas.
Since then we've kept busy keeping up with old friends, the usual medical appointments, and now about to start putting together tax info. We're both suffering aches and pains, but manage to keep going. Out for dinner twice or three times a week with friends, Trivia competition with a team every Friday night -- we've come in first twice in January! -- I Zoom with my writers' club every week.
Son Mark is coming from Wales to stay for a month. We're supposed to be traveling to British Columbia for the funeral of a long-time friend, but the weather conditions are worrying -- might not make it.
Peter is still Commander of his Korean War Veterans Chapter. We meet once a month. Numbers are way down, of course, but he’s kept it going.
Hope to make it to South Hadley for our reunion.
I wake up every morning and take my pulse. If I find I've got one, I get up. So far, so good.
Sue Danielson Wood's daughter, Lucy and her husband visited MC Bachmann Churchill’s daughter and have spent a lot of time with MC, swimming and boating. MC remarks, “So much fun. Such a small world.”
Barbara Suchman Kasman lives in Chestnut Hills, MA in the home she has been in since 1962. After graduation she worked in NYC for J. Walter Thompson and Woman’s Day before getting into Social Work, in which she worked for 20 years, while also raising 4 sons. Her husband worked for Polaroid where he invented a product which was sold by mail order.
ps from Wink...Barbara has a 3 1/2 year old grandson that is being brought up bi-lingual, but the bilingual is Spanish and Italian. He's getting his English at Play School. How about that?
Mary (Chirpy) Wesseler Monroe and her husband live in an apartment in Danvers, MA on property owned by one of their sons.
From Sue: I love looking back on family trips. Do you?
March 2025
Barbara “Gatesy” Gates Johnson lives alone in a cottage at an independent living place in New Hartford, CT. Her daughter lives in Annapolis, MD, a son in Syracuse, NY and one in NC. Despite macular degeneration eye disease in both eyes she does some quilting and knits hats for preemies in the hospital (60-70 and counting). She tries to walk a couple of miles 5 or 6 days a week. Loves her iPhone, Apple watch and iPad. Gatesy says she has the normal 90 plus year forgetfulness, but obviously manages very well.
April 2025
MAY 2025
Barbara Mulvehill Gray lives with Rich, her husband of 69 years, in a CCRC in Cleveland, O. She and Rich formerly lived in Shaker Heights, O. Barbara was very involved in the community in Shaker, mostly in education. She served on the University Hospital Institutional Review Board for 12 years and was elected to the Shaker Heights Board of Education for 2 terms. Barbara and Rich have 5 children, 11 grandchildren and 1 great grandchild
Sue Danielson Poor’s daughter, Lucy and her husband visited MC Bachmann Churchill’s daughter and have spent a lot of time with MC, swimming and boating. MC remarks, “So much fun. Such a small world.”
Lois Gaeta is usually at home in Mitchell Place in midtown NYC and would love to have lunch or tea with any classmate. She is also happy to provide shelter from terrible weather or some disaster. “I’m serious!” writes Lois.
Nancy Schuster Hanson lives in her own home in Savannah, GA and keeps busy with her volunteer work in the local library.
Deborah Walsh Kennedy lives in Newtown, Pa near one of her daughters. Over the years she has taken several trips to Paris with her family.
Diantha “Dee” Lamb Barstow really enjoys the Savannah Book Festival.. This year she was in the audience for Anna Quindlen’s opening address. The Festival is a great place to meet authors and to expand your reading list.
Pam Moody Haskins enjoys her job as a bagger at Market Basket but when she discovered that every other employee had received a bonus she hadn't gotten, Pam said, No Way“ Positively pushy Pam" wrote a note to Headquarters about how lucky she was to have this job, but thought it very unfair that she had not received a bonus even though she does not work as many hours as the rest of the employees. Two weeks later Pam received a check for $200! Way to go Pam!
July 2025
Karen Zehner Lucas and her husband spend most of their time in the Chesapeake Bay area in a home that has been in the family since 1935. Her son, now retired, lives in a cabin nearby. Karen’s daughter is retired as well, but her job took her all over the world. Karen loved to visit and this was her innovative plan. Before she left she would send a large box of books to wherever her daughter was working. While Karen was there her daughter would be free Saturday through Monday and, when she returned to work on Tuesday, Karen would happily spend the rest of the week reading. Now her daughter has retired and lives in McClean, VA, in the same complex as Karen and her husband do during winter weekdays. Karen loves having both her children near but observes that now “she can’t get away with a thing.”
Mary Lou Judd Carpenter enjoys many activities at her CCRC in Bloomington, MN, especially concerts by the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra in the Guthrie Theater.
Peggy Henry Weeks lives independently in Lake Worth, FL. She does not golf anymore but plays a lot of bridge with friends. Her 3 daughters all have vacation homes nearby and visit her often.
Judy Vernon used her MHC education for a variety of jobs including working for Nabisco for 21 years but when she and her second husband moved to over 55 housing, she wanted to find a new challenge. She learned of an opportunity to volunteer as a mediator for the Hackensack, NJ Court. She took a course and then started to do mediating in the Small Claims court where people go for resolutions of personal problems and in the Civil Court which handles issues like property disputes or damage to property. After mediating she sends a report to the Court as to whether or not a resolution was achieved. Judy is one of a small group of these volunteers and usually mediates once or twice a week. She is enjoying this involvement and is happy that it allows her the freedom to follow other interests as well.
Sylvia Johnson Lucas returned home from our 70th reunion and immediately began repacking for another trip. She and a friend travelled on the Rocky Mountaineer train from Vancouver to Kamloops to Banff. There was rain and snow, delicious meals and excellent service, along with the spectacular scenery.
In between tending not only to her garden but to a neighbor’s as well, Joan Haskell Vicinus is thinking about some trips. Perhaps celebrating a friend’s birthday party in Toledo. Probably visiting a friend in Brandon, VT who lives in a converted barn. Positively attending the New Hampshire Music Festival with her sister, Anne Haskell Knight ‘59. There they will enjoy listening to beautiful classical music performed by professional artists from all over the world.
August 2025
Very Sad News---Obituary on our Memorial Page
I am forwarding the gist of a text I shared with the IFPO board last night. I am sorry to tell you of the tragic death of Juli Towell.
Juli was hit by a car at Winchester Gardens on Friday night as she crossed with her walker from her bungalow to the main building for dinner. The person who hit her was a guest whose foot got stuck or mistook the accelerator for the stop pedal. Juli died in the ambulance before she even reached the hospital.
Juli was a remarkable woman, a leader wherever she went, including at Winchester Gardens. Besides IFPO, she was behind the creation of Apostles House - another MEND food pantry in Newark, and numerous other initiatives for interfaith dialogue and racial understanding and education. She was 93 yr old and totally intellectually aware and engaged.
Juli was my role model for what I wanted to be when “I grew up” and that MHC bond was an added feature. She was remarkable and kind and such a good listener who never judged. We are all blessed by knowing her and very sad she is no longer with us.
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September 2025
Carol Monick Huth was sorry to miss our reunion but was still recovering from two hospital stays this past winter and spring. She had both surgery and then pneumonia, but she's back in the swing of things now and raring to go. Carol is still working believe it or not, and says she loves it. Her patients come to her and she listens and suggests and loves iher practice.
Polly Laszlo Brody lives in Southbury, CT and is grateful to have her daughter, Deborah, living with her. Son Chuck lives in nearby Simsbury and grandson Daniel with his wife Sarah live not too far away in Dedham, MA. Grandchildren Maya in MA, Peter in CA, and Winona in Hawaii complete her family. Polly still enjoys bird watching, now from her small electric wheelchair.
Joan “Wink” Winkel Ripley is not only our extraordinary Class President. She also leads our class agents, manages our monthly Zooms, adds to our class website every month and keeps us all involved in the Class of 1955 and MHC, Somehow she and her husband, Mills, also find time to entertain their 5 children and spouses, 17 grandchildren with numerous husbands, wives, boyfriends and girlfriends and 8 great grandchildren.
No matter what time of year, Jane Barth loves to visit her “summer home” in Michigan which overlooks Lake Huron. She has been going there since 1940 which is almost her whole life!
I, Susan Nutter Keller, visited the Frances Perkins National Monument, a beautiful site in Newcastle, ME on the shore of the Damariscotta River. Frances Perkins was FDR’s Secretary of Labor and the first woman to serve as a cabinet secretary. In the simple but elegant brick house on the site, Frances spent many happy summers visiting her grandmother who was an important influence in life. In the Homestead Barn there is a self-guided exhibit presenting an overview of Perkins’ accomplishments where, I am pleased to report, MHC is well represented. I also looked into the Archives at MHC and learned that Frances was president of her class her senior year (1902) and was voted “Girl who has done most for the Class.”
Diana Alexanian Jalelian lives in Arlington MA. She is cheerful and content in her own home with her daughters living nearby. One daughter, Cerise, accompanied Diana to reunion and took some wonderful pictures. You can see how young we all look on our class website!
October 2025
Nancy Schuster Hanson volunteers at a beautiful library in Savannah which is staffed entirely by volunteers, which seems quite unusual for a library, but works perfectly in this case. She also enjoys visits with daughter in Maine where she had lived several years ago.
Joan Haskell Vicinus, returning home from a wedding in New York City, survived a fall down a Port Authority escalator without breaking a single bone. She had some bruises and cuts but was very grateful because it could have been so much worse. Good news (and good bones), Joan!
Mary-Carey “MC” Bachmann Churchill had lunch with Ellis Batchelder Weatherly and her daughter in Southport, CT . They had a lovely time reminiscing about old times and catching up on all the new news.
Janice Williams Libby likes to spend time in Stonington, ME where there are kayaks and a sailboat for visiting family to enjoy. Jan is not alone among us in having dry macular degeneration. At home in Providence she has a small device, OrCam MyEye, which can read to her the text from any book or screen. Her iPad has an app that reads the text on the screen. Amazing technology.
Ann “Tommy” Tomlinson Edmondson reports that she has been galavanting. (Love that word!) She and a friend drove to southeastern PA to visit Westtown School, a co-ed college preparatory school where Tommy’s father had been business manager. Her family had lived in a brick house on campus, home to Tommy from age 3 until after MHC. It was about to be razed for the construction of a new dining facility so Tommy wanted to take a nostalgic look. While there they also visited nearby Winterthur, Brandywine Art Museum and Chanticleer Garden.
November 2025
