Class Notes

After being your class agent for six years or so, I finally have figured out to ask you to format your information. When you send something, I request that you put your whole name and email address on the first line, so I don’t have to search or edit when I send everyone the news as it comes. If you’re not getting regular news from me, it’s because I no longer have your email address. Many of you have retired and not given me your current contact information.

Life is good in Atlanta, but I visit my children and grandchildren in California every four to six weeks. Sue Wooldrige Rosser, who recently visited me in Atlanta, had just returned from a visit with Carolyn Shockey Moore and Linda Cline Holden. They all are doing well and enjoy traveling and horse races. Joyce Gallagher Martin, whose son, Jonathan, was deployed to Afghanistan, keeps busy visiting her five children and 10 grandchildren. She visited her eldest son and family in San Diego in the fall then traveled to Yellowstone and Lake Tahoe. Husband Charles passed away in 2008. Joyce is an avid gardener, a garden club officer, and a floral designer. She gets together with Betsy Hudgins weekly. Carolyn Davis Lakin Davis got her name and address back when she met and married John Davis of Port Royal in 1983. They combined their two families and raised five children while working full time. She taught elementary school and retired as principal of Bowling Green Elementary in 1998. She lives close to Fredericksburg and family, with her 89-year-old mother nearby. She stays busy with mission work, traveling to the Dominican Republic; her church; the Caroline County Historical Society and Historic Port Royal; the board of the Caroline Library; and six grandchildren younger than 6. At her high school reunion, she saw Jane Burruss Hartz of Arkansas.

Harriet McGavock Vincent wants to write a memoir to let her grandchildren know what she’s done in her life. After Mary Washington, she taught life science in Virginia Beach for a year, then taught for two years in Kobe, Japan, as a Volunteer for Mission with the Episcopal Church. She lived in an ordinary Japanese neighborhood, sleeping on the tatami floor, going to the public bath, shopping at the local market, and improving her Japanese language skills out of necessity. She took the long way home, traveling through Asia, Africa, and Europe for more than four months and staying in various places in Taiwan, Tanzania, and England. Her excursions took her to Thailand, Cambodia, India, Nepal, Kenya, Greece, Italy, Austria, and Germany. She swore she’d never again be able to live in the South, but she met Tom, married, and has lived in Richmond ever since. Tom’s Parkinson’s disease has progressed for 12 years, and Harriet’s travels are now limited. Their son, Rick, lives in Boulder, Colo., with his wife and their daughter and son. Their daughter, Lisa Page, lives in the Richmond area with her husband and their three little boys. Harriet taught chemistry and biology for 35 years, including 29 years at St. Catherine’s School, where she retired in 2008.

Bobby Barrett Crisp’s sixth grandson, Andre Jordan Crisp Phan, was born in September in sunny San Diego. They were there for the birth and expected their seventh grandson on 11/11/11 in Charlottesville. Carol Hamblet Adams, who enjoys her new life in Boston, took acting classes and was in two Blue Cross/Blue Shield television commercials. She still loves her home on Cape Cod and the peace of the ocean. She still writes, and her first children’s book came out last year. Her three children are happily married and have given her four grandsons. Helen Hutton Smith spent much of last summer on a Mediterranean cruise with church friends. Husband John had a 50th high school reunion in Villa Rica, Ga., in June. They went with Joan Peatross to a 50th reunion at Lane High School in Charlottesville in August. Helen attended Lane but moved to Fairfax her junior year. She and Donna Gates Mason had their 50th reunion at Fairfax High School in September. Helen’s oldest daughter, Debby, lives with husband Joe in Ellicott City, Md., and home-schools her children, Tommy, 17; John, 16; Katie, 12; and Mark, 10. Helen’s youngest daughter, Elizabeth, works for the government and lives in Fairfax. Helen taught English for 26 years at Fairfax High School, where she continues to substitute.

Louise Stevens Robbins retired in May from the University of Wisconsin- Madison but continues to help raise funds for a library-community center for the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and, with colleagues, to help launch the school of social sciences and humanities at a new university in Astana, Kazakhstan. She now spends lots more time with her grandchildren and hustles to keep up with her big garden. Martha Firebaugh Hurst has been married to Gene for 46 years and has three children and nine grandchildren. When they celebrated their youngest’s second birthday in March in Northern Virginia, Gene ended up in ICU in septic shock from group B strep. The infection was in his blood, heart, back, knee, and feet. After three months of hospitalization, seven surgeries, and therapy, they were able to return home. After 13 years of small-town living, Linda Patterson Hamilton and Austin moved from Kansas to Denver to help son, Jeff, whose wife, Rachel, died in August after a difficult battle with cancer, with his two little daughters.