Class Notes

Many thanks to those who took the time to send any news in spite of new changing deadlines, the temperature rising, thunderstorms roaring, and so many power outages in our electronic world! If you do not use email, a phone call or postcard would be most welcome, especially sharing any new addresses or phone numbers. Enjoy the holidays!

Driving in the Outer Banks celebrating a family reunion with her children and eight grandchildren for the July Fourth week, Kathleen Sprenkle Lisagor suddenly received a call from her MWC National Dance partner, Sandra McGregor Craig, bearing the good news that she chats frequently with Nancy O’Neal Robinson. Nancy, who lives in California, says her newest granddaughter, Murphy, was born to her son Neal and his wife on February 1. Upholding a family tradition, Murphy arrived just before the Super Bowl kickoff, as had her mother! In the fall Nancy will be on the East Coast and plans to visit Jerry and Ann Tench Huml. The Craigs will be on the West Coast then!

Sandra is delighted to be teaching their 13-year-old granddaughter, Brighton, sewing machine lessons! Sandy’s community involvement includes being an appointee to the Historic House Foundation, which sets policies and raises funds for the historic museums owned by the city. She also had news of Carlisle Allen Pearson, who lives in Texas. She is the coordinator of the Austin area alumni network! Wonderful! It sounds as though there is a wide range of UMW grads there including two from 1962 through the class of 2014. Also, her daughter, Dawn Carlisle Buckingham, is running for State Senate, District 24! Sounds like a busy year ahead for that family! Best wishes!

Louise Couch Girvin and John have gone through much stress with their grandson, Albert.

He suffers with bi-polar disorder like his dad, and he had a serious episode at Christmas. With treatment, prayers from many, and home schooling, he was able to graduate and will attend a technical college. Their grandson Jonathan also graduated and will attend Eastern Kentucky University in the pre-med program. Their granddaughter Emily is a junior at the University of Kentucky, majoring in Education. Louise has always had a special talent in crocheting. She has joined a group of 30 women who meet every Tuesday to make afghans for nursing homes, baby blankets for hospitals, and scarfs and hats for the homeless. She sews labels inside that touch our hearts—WARM UP AMERICA.

For the Fourth of July celebration, Nancy Powell Sykes welcomed her two daughters to town to put the finishing touches on her downsizing to move to the beautiful retirement home in Newport News—The Chesapeake. Nancy had been a mathematician at NASA working with Kathleen Sprenkle Lisagor’s late husband, Barry, in aviation.

In March, Kathleen was invited by a special friend also from NASA to go with him to attend the Helicopter Association International in Orlando. He has a patent on strakes. Women in aviation were also a feature. Some of you may recall big sister, Eleanor Markham ’59, who earned her pilots license. She was a tribute to UMW for our time. The Convention Center was filled with an enormous amount of helicopters, especially the medical surgical ones, awesome for heart surgery. By coincidence, Peggy Downs Gerber was in Orlando with her family to escape the northern snow for a month, and a shared lunch was a special time to meet in the warm sunlight. En route home, Kathleen enjoyed a visit with Joyce Wilborn Lacy and Lou in their lovely home on Hilton Head Island.

Marcia Kirstein Fitzmaurice and Ed moved to Florida in late 2014. Their son had a lovely wedding in December to a young lady who was a soccer player for U.Va. and who is a marathon runner. Marcia, with her usual humor, said she was a new delightful type added to their family! Daughter Carey continues guiding TealToes to new heights, educating the public about ovarian cancer as she continues her own battle.

Rosalie Alico Turner and husband Frank continue crisscrossing the country with many trips seeing family and participating in speaking engagements promoting Rosalie’s books. She had a new book planned to come out in July 2015: The Winding Road. They sponsor a week long Civil Rights Movement Tour for 25 Texas A&M commerce students. Husband Frank headed up the Historical Railroad Museum’s gala opening in Tucumcari, New Mexico, his hometown.

Pat Mackey Taylor wrote that the Taylor clan is healthy and growing. She now has five granddaughters and two grandsons. She continues taking classes at a local college in their lifelong learning program.

Nancy Cheek Mitchell‘s son, who has been working in China, has returned to the U.S. and Nancy was looking forward to again having everyone together at Christmas. Her second granddaughter started her freshman year at Madison University in the fall of 2014.

A cute note from beautiful Barbara Elliott Adams! She said that she was an unmotivated student and seldom attended classes. She remarried and together with her husband raised five children and they are still madly in love! Barbara sold real estate in Houston and sculpted and sold expensive porcelain St. Nicholas figures. She is now a painting student and fondly recalled studying under Julian Binford at Mary Washington. One of his relatives lives in Austin and is now a dear friend of Barbara’s. She and her husband recently moved to a retirement community in Austin. At Christmas she was able to reconnect with her roommate, Carolyn White, something Barbara really wanted to happen.

In the spring, Donna Floyd Parker was able to be in Virginia visiting her sister. Donna, her sister, and her brother made trips back to places of their youth which meant so much to the three of them. They met Gale Taylor Drew and her husband, Lewis, and Joan Akers Rothgeb and her husband, Eddie, for a lunch filled with laughter and conversation.

Jeanne Craig Gough and her husband, Bob, had another busy year in 2014. Jeanne was in Jordan again for two weeks digging at the Tall el-Hammam site near the Dead Sea. They spend time between their Albuquerque home and their cabin near Durango in the summer to escape the heat. They also had a wonderful trip to Italy seeing cave houses, beautiful churches and temples, olive groves, and vineyards. It was a great adventure, according to Jeanne. Finally, they made a trip east and included a visit to the Mary Washington campus; Jeanne had not been back since the late 1970s and thus saw many changes.

With permission from Reba Calvert Bayliss, I am including information from a VMI publication that I received. The first Captain Paul Bayliss 1960 Memorial Scholarship was awarded this spring. This scholarship was established by brother rats of the class of 1960 at VMI to honor Captain Bayliss, who was killed in action. Captain Bayliss received many awards and medals for his service in Vietnam as an instructor pilot who then flew T-28s for ground attack missions. A wonderful picture of Reba and her son, Patrick, a graduate of the Naval Academy, was a part of the article, as they attended the presentation. A plaque in the Memorial Gardens at VMI also honors Captain Bayliss.

There is an old saying, “Good friends are like STARS. You don’t always see them, but you know that they are there!” Please keep sending news and making sweet memories!