Class Notes

Dear classmates, as this letter reaches you, summer will be long gone, but wherever did, I hope it was a long and happy time for each. A couple of “housekeeping” details: The news you send me is not published by UMW until about four months after they receive it. For example, the news you sent in March didn’t appear until the summer issue, and the news you sent by July 1st is included in this issue. So, don’t be distressed if your news doesn’t appear right away. Along with your married name, don’t forget to include your maiden name, as that is the way we all remember you! Please also remember that UMW Magazine staff does the final editing because of space limitations. Finally, if after a couple of issues you don’t see your news, resend it to me. After all, it will be “new” news to all the rest of us!

I still work at the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Greenwich, Conn., and led a group of colleagues to France in July. The religious order that founded our school began in France in 1800, and our trip was a pilgrimage to see places associated with our foundation. One stop was the Rodin Museum in Paris, which was le Sacré-Coeur, our school in Paris, from 1820 to 1905. We now have schools all over the world, from Greenwich and New York City, where Ruth Pharr Sayer’s granddaughter is a student, to Japan, India, Italy, and Scotland.

Lyle Fowlkes is a government relations consultant, a.k.a. lobbyist, for Alexander & Cleaver, an Annapolis, Md., law firm that works with groups such as Lockheed Martin, the Discovery Channel, the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, and medical professionals. She and her partners have grown the firm from 25 clients to more than 70 in the 13 years she has been with them. Lynn bikes and travels, most recently to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Brittany in France, and San Salvador Island in the Bahamas. She said she can’t believe she’s still working (I think there are a number of us out there, Lyle!) and sends best regards.

Melinda Wilson Watterson of Miami, Okla., has been widowed since 2005; her late husband of 42 years, Chuck, was a veterinarian in Miami. Daughter Melissa and granddaughter Meredith live just a few blocks away. Daughter Juli and grandsons Jack and Charlie live in Norman, Okla., and enjoy family visits as often as possible. Melinda and friend John enjoy travel. I found Susan Orebaugh Nicholson’s blog makethemenu.com and her book 7-Day Menu Planner for Dummies very helpful.

Lynne Vanden Bulcke Libuha, who is from Mount Kisco, N.Y., married in Bedford Village, right near where I have lived since the early ’70s. Lynne keeps in touch with her five suitemates. The last issue of UMW Magazine featured a photo in Get the Picture that may be my former suitemates, Jeanne Klix Luce, Helen Clark, and Jere Menegus Lloyd. If you still have your magazine, take a look and see if I am correct. The photo was a “true blast from the past!”

Sharon Haythorne Stack has spent lots of time with family and friends after husband John passed. She said Linda Frederickson Boudman’s father died in March. Linda retired in April after a long career with Verizon and has spent much time helping her mother with paperwork. Sharon’s humor is as great as ever; she and I spent several years of our youth laughing our heads off, something we repeated at our 45th class reunion!

A regular correspondent to class news is Ruth Pharr Sayer of Princeton, N.J. Ruth and I keep trying to plan a “mini-reunion” in New York City, but something always gets in the way. Let’s go for it, Ruth! Ruth is feeling much better after a hip replacement in September 2010 and subsequent spinal surgery, and she planned to spend part of the summer on Nantucket. She still sells real estate, and her new grandson – one of seven grandchildren, only one of which is a girl – has her maiden name as his middle name. Ruth’s Mary Washington friend, Margaret Goode Watkins of Calvert County, Md., lost her husband, Grant, last spring. Margaret is retired, spends summers in the Adirondacks, and stopped to visit Ruth in Princeton on the way home last year. Betsy Van Leer Albaugh ’60 of New Bern, N.C., read our news and asked if anyone remembers Sharon Price Quill ’62, who recently died of cancer.

Patti Jones Schacht said the June heat in Florida was “infernal.” She met cousins for a family reunion in Virginia then did some genealogy work in North Carolina, where her ancestors had a land grant from the British Crown. She and her husband were “parenting” again; their 22-year old granddaughter was doing pro bono fundraising and computer work as an intern at a center that teaches life skills to underprivileged youth in Washington, D.C. Patti said many of the children have received scholarships and become the first in their families to go to college.