Class Notes

Had a nice phone visit with Sally Wysong Puckett who lives and mows grass on ten acres in Maryland. A former phys ed. Teacher, who was Carolyn “Susy” Miller’s roommate, Sally also showed horses and dogs. Sadly, she lost her husband in 2011 and her daughter in a car accident in 1981.

Doris Sterling Kucera up in Steuben, Maine is a writer of children and adult books. She has two children and four grandchildren and has been a widow for seven years.

Anne Bradbury Lee returned my call and we had a great time talking. She actually lives in Stafford County but with a Fredericksburg address. Three of her four children live within six miles of her and one lives in Blacksburg. Anne lived I Laredo, Texas when her first husband, who was an Air Force pilot, died in a plane crash. Anne didn’t work outside the home until she was forty five and then became a social worker and retired seventeen and a half years later. Her second husband was a retired Marine, the last World War One veteran in the area and second most decorated Marine who passed away twenty one years ago at the age of ninety eight. Anne is active in her church and volunteers one day at Mary Washington Hospital.

Gretchen Shultze Mulligan called me from down in Luray. They have lived there for nineteen year, formerly in Alexandria. They have two children one of each who live in Front Royal and Fairfax, and seven grandchildren. Gretchen has been a flower show judge for twenty six years and a Master Judge for nineteen of them. She has taken lots of classes to be an accredited judge and can judge any show in the United States. I have never known anyone who is so capable and has such an interesting job.

Carolyn Curtis Seay was my dance partner in one of Mrs. Reed’s classes. She lives in Spotsylvania near Fredericksburg and has been married for sixty four years. She taught for thirty years and has been retired for thirty years. She and Calvin, who is recovering from cancer, traveled a lot and have had a wonderful retirement. They have two boys, both retired, and four grandchildren. Three are in college and one has graduated. All except one are at Va. Tech. One girl is at James Madison and will get her masters next year and wants to be a teacher. What a wonderful family.

Joan Farrell Shaw lives at Cumberland Crossing, a retirement community in Carlisle, Pennsylvania just about sixteen miles from me here in New Bloomfield. Her husband came to the Army War College there in 1972. Joan has three sons, four grandchildren and two great granddaughters in Alabama. She has been a widow for eighteen years. I didn’t know that anyone in the class lived this close to me.

Anne Grubbs Blitchington called and told me that her husband, an engineer with ATT, transferred from Greensboro, North Carolina to Midlothian forty six years ago. The live in the same neighborhood as two daughters and their families. They also have a son, eight grandchildren and six great grands. One granddaughter, Marjory Blanton, graduated from MWC in 2013 and is a Volunteer Coordinator at VCV (MCV) at the Medical Center in Richmond. Ann taught for two years in an elementary school. How nice to hear all her news.

Eileen West Grenfell in Warrenton, Virginia lost her husband seven years ago. She has three children, a son and twin girls, nine grandchildren and eight great grand children. What a wonderful Christmas that must have been with one of the twins doing most of the cooking. Eileen plays a lot of bridge, reads a great deal and is doing some writing about family members who have moved on. This is what many of us should be doing.

Jean Byrd Steelman down in Accomac, Virginia on the eastern shore, has run a preschool for forty six years. She taught second grade and then first for ten years. She was teaching in a private academy and then started the preschool. Her husband is 89 and has suffered a stroke. They have three children, eight grandchildren, and about (Jean’s word) 9 great grandchildren. I remember when Jean got married during our senior year.

Barbara Smith Holdeman has lived in Ashland, Ohio since 1974 and keeps in touch with Mary Papstein Carter and Carol Cooper. She has been married for sixty three years, has three children, seven granddaughters and nine great grandchildren, seven boys and two girls. She taught school in Illinois then went into real estate. Her father was in the service so she went to high school in Germany in 1947. I didn’t live in Ohio but I taught in a high school there when I lived in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Patricia Poulson Plymell has lived in the same house in Colorado Springs for sixty years. She and her husband, who she lost in 2018, built their mountain home and then added on to it. Patricia was a first grade teacher for thirty years. She has a son, daughter, six grandchildren and three great grandchildren.

Had a cute note from Joan Kleinknecht in Fairfield, Connecticut (for some reason I think of her as Joanie). She has quite a social life with bingo, pilates class, Texas poker lessons, weekly art classes, geneology, gardening, monthly serving breakfast at a charity food kitchen, Bible studies and church programs and more. She loves to drive the back roads and see the beauty. I bet that is great in the fall. Joan mentioned raising her brother’s children, are they grown up now?

Another very welcome note was from Ann Strickler Doumas in Fredericksburg. She mentioned their December 2018 family trip to Greece to the town of Trikala which was Bill’s father’s hometown. Mr. Doumas ran the Mayflower Restaurant which some may remember. Ann and Bill also enjoyed a cruise of the Great Lakes from Toronto to Chicago. How wonderful. Good to hear from you Ann and Joan.

My news is the addition of an English Springer Spaniel puppy, what was I thinking? He will be a year old in July and my Texas son says that things will get better then. I can only hope.

Thanks to everyone to talking to me and telling me all the news. I appreciate all of it. Hope to hear from more the next time.

One more for 1955

In December, Phyllis “Bee” Melillo Shanahan and son John made the trip from Connecticut to Deerfield Beach, Florida. It was a 30-hour drive, with two motel overnights, thanks to rain and stop-and-go traffic.
Daughter Betsy, a pottery teacher, broker her right elbow but was doing fine.

Bee is looking for a companion to travel anywhere, but she especially wants to visit Alaska.