Class Notes

Welcome springtime, although as I compile these notes, a snowy winter day is predicted for tomorrow. Please note that future notes to me should be sent to my personal email address listed above. I hope you were aware that our 2017 fall notes were somehow omitted, but were presented on line with apologies of staff. Greetings were sent by Audrey Knapp, Libby Fordham, Dorothy Rice Clark, Jean Durham Busboso, Mary Montague Sikes and Ellen Hertz Hewitt.

First the sad news. Joan Calahan Frankhauser’s husband, Mahlon, passed away on July 10, 2017. Our love and sympathy go out to her.

Notes indicate that our class is very much involved in cheering on the younger generation and in volunteering in many areas within their communities. Libby Fordham recently attended her great-nephew’s middle school band concert in Fredericksburg. I enjoyed watching a Christmas parade in Apex, North Carolina in which my middle school granddaughter marched in her band while my grandson marched in the same parade with his robotics team float. Ellen Hertz Hewitt has been in her new apartment for a little over a year, and while enjoying the new atmosphere she and her husband have become known as “Granny and Grumps” to a special little boy next door. Ellen recommends downsizing, as she is enjoying her neighbors, even having fourteen of them for a Christmas gathering! Jean Durham Busboso tutors at a local school and takes regular turns being hostess in their local historical center. I continue singing with the community production of “The Messiah”.

Dorothy Rice Clark shared her recent travels. She was just back from Italy when the reunion was taking place, and she is planning to visit the Adriatic side of Italy in February. In the fall she visited Northern California, and she was able to see about five National Parks, some sadly, were burned in the big fires after they arrived home. She said, “The biggest change for me was that I now have a new cochlear implant. It is my third. A new phone to control the implant and a new hearing aid” complete the picture. “I thought I was losing it over the phone and making it control the cochlear implant. We finally understand each other”.

Mary Montague Sikes reports that she enjoyed seeing classmates and making a short talk to them at homecoming. She had a book signing at the UMW bookstore for her latest book An Artful Animal Alphabet. “I continue writing and hope to have another book out in 2018. During 2017, I had a show of my Mayan Ruins paintings at Arts on Main in Gloucester and a show featuring some of my watercolors on Yupo at RAL Art Center in Kilmarnock, VA. My painting, “Journey of the Dragonfly,” won an award of excellence in the annual members show at Williamsburg Contemporary Arts Center. Olen and I continued traveling with a trip to Costa Rica, one to Key West, Florida, and another trip for our journeys to a National Park each year. This was to Acadia in Maine and was planned by our daughter, Allison. I continue to have a gallery space in Crossroads Art Center in Richmond, Virginia.”

Fall 2018 class notes deadline is June 15. Let us hear from you.