Mi#I^shingtc>n College
No. 40, Buddy Hawley
senior, forward
EAGLES WIN
CHAMPIONSHIP
The mens basketball team at Mary Washington
captured the championship in the Eastern College
Athletic Conference (EC AC) Division III South
tournament this year. One of the reasons for the
team's success was the outstanding playing of No.
40, senior Buddy Hawley.
"Buddy Hawley is the best all-around player in
Mary Washington College's history," says his head
coach of the last four basketball seasons, Tom Davies.
And the senior from Annandale, Va., deserved that
praise. His statistics showed it. His awards and
rewards showed it. His talent, design and hustle
showed it. For everything he did — setting 22 school
records, being selected two years in a row (1985-86
and 1986-87) to the First Team, All-South Atlan-
tic Region, and being nominated for the 1986—87
Ail-American Honors — we salute Buddy Hawley, a
great basketball player! And we congratulate
Coach Davies and the entire team for their out-
standing season! Shown here (left to right) are the
five regular starters.
No. 23, Chip Suter
junior, guard
No. 44 Matt D'Ercole
sophomore, forward
No. 42, Mark Blackwell
junior, center
No. 20, John Yurchak
unior, guard
Mary Washington College
TODAY
SUMMER 1987 VOL 11, NO. 3
Table of Contents
Rita Morgan Stone 2
Career Posters Feature Alumni 4
Samplings of Scholarship 6
Where Are They Now? 10
On Campus 12
Alumni News 15
Class Notes 16
Editor: Paulette S. Watson
Assistant Editor: Kristine Vawter
Editorial Assistant: Camilla B. Latham
Copy Editor: Tracy Leigh Kerr
Editorial Board: William B. Crawley Jr., Michael B. Dowdy,
Carlton R. Lutterbie Jr., Elizabeth Muirheid Sudduth '69, Kristine Vawter,
Paulette S. Watson.
Cover Photo: Rita Morgan Stone by William B. Crawley Jr.
Photo Credits: Inside cover, The Free Lance-Star and Jay Bradshaw Photog-
raphy; p. 5, photos by Dennis McWaters, poster design by Talarico Communica-
tions; p. 9, David Cain; p. 13, Karina photo courtesy of Ms. Karina; p. 14, courtesy
of Sen. Biden's office; p. 15, Bobbie Burton 74; all other photos by Kristine
Vawter.
Design: Katie Roeper, Office of Graphic Communications, Richmond, Va.
Printer: Carter Printing Company, Richmond, Va.: Sarah R. Gouldin, Account
Manager; Scott Bradley, Systems Manager.
Mary Washington College Today is published by Mary Washington College for the
alumni, friends, faculty and staff of the College. It is published three times a
year, with issues in the fall, winter and summer. Mail letters and address
changes to Mary Washington College Today, Mary Washington College, 1301 Col-
lege Ave., Fredericksburg, VA 22401-5358. Mary Washington College Today wel-
comes your comments.
Mary Washington College Alumni Association Board of Directors 1986-87:
Nancy Powell Sykes '62, President; Denise Mattingly Luck 74, President-elect
and Chairman, Nominations and Elections; Angela Grizzard Wyche '48, Vice
President for Annual Fund; Anne Marie Thompson '83, Vice President for Home-
coming; Barbara A. Bingham '69, Vice President for Chapters; Susan Regan 73,
Vice President for Classes; Alice Schermerhorn Raines 78, Chairman, Alumni
Awards; Merrilyn Sawyer Dodson '68, Chairman, Student Recruitment; Cynthia
L. Snyder 75, Chairman, Student-Alumni Relations; Karl Frances Liebert '84,
Chairman, Projects and Travel; Daniel K. Steen '84, Chairman, Nominations to
Board of Visitors; Linda Morrison Douglas '63, Chairman, Budget and Finance;
Frances Liebenow Armstrong '36, Golden Club Representative; William M.
Anderson Jr., President, MWC; Michael B. Dowdy, Vice President for College Re-
lations; Melisa A. Casacuberta '84, Director of Alumni Programs.
Mary Washington College Today is printed with non-state funds.
Rita Morgan Stone
From Freshman to Rector:
A Journey of Commitment
Rita Morgan Stone '52 first heard about
Mary Washington College when she was
12 years old. Passing through Freder-
icksburg on a bus excursion, she asked
her older sister, Billie, "What is that up
on the hill?" Her sister identified the im-
posing brick structures as Mary Wash-
ington College and added, "Maybe some-
day you'll get to go there."
That first impression, even if a fleeting
one, was enough to pique Rita's interest
in the College. As she progressed through
school, she became increasingly aware of
the College's academic reputation and
made up her mind that this was where
she wanted to go. "I just had my heart set
on it," she recalls.
When the time finally arrived for her
to choose a college, her family presented
her with two alternatives. She could
either attend Longwood College, as sev-
eral of her sisters had done — a less ex-
pensive alternative since it was much
closer to the family home in Buckingham
County — or she could attend Mary Wash-
ington, provided that she worked to help
pay her own way.
The choice was an easy one for Rita.
She applied only to Mary Washington
and never regretted the decision for a mo-
ment, notwithstanding four years of
working in Seacobeck to defray the
expenses. It never occurred to her that
she would not only return one day as a
member of the College's Board of Visitors
but would eventually serve as rector of
the board, the position which she holds
today.
Looking back on her years at Mary
Washington, Rita recalls a college life
that was "pretty normal, I suppose, for an
undergraduate student at that time,
though it would probably seem rather
dull to today's students." She adds with a
smile, "These, after all, were the days of
Mrs. Bushnell" — a reference to the re-
doubtable dean of students who retired
midway through Rita's four years at the
College.
Some of her fondest recollections of her
student days involved special acts of
kindness by individual faculty members.
One particularly memorable episode oc-
curred at the end of her freshman year
when an attack of measles forced her to
return home before she could take her
final exams. Dean Edward Alvey Jr. in-
tervened to resolve the situation by for-
warding her exams to the principal of
Rita's high school (by chance a friend of
Dean Alvey's) who administered the
exams to her. To Rita's mind, this exem-
plified the kind of personal attention
which Mary Washington offered — and
still offers — its students.
Immediately upon graduation, Rita put
her English major to work by accepting a
position as an English teacher at Fairfax
High School. She also took with her the
concept of Mary Washington's honor sys-
tem and applied those principles in all of
her classes. Her success as a high school
teacher was attested by her selection as
the most popular female teacher in each
of her eight years on the Fairfax High
faculty.
In 1960, seeking (literally) new hori-
zons, she accepted a position as an En-
glish teacher at Kaiserslautern, the
largest American military post in Europe.
While she admits that she very nearly
"got hooked" by the excitement of life
abroad, Rita returned to the States after
two years and resumed her teaching ca-
reer in the Northern Virginia public
school system — first at James Madison
High School in Vienna, then at Hayfield
High in Fairfax. In 1971 she became
principal of one of the sub-schools at Rob-
inson High in Fairfax — a position which
she held for 13 years until taking early
retirement in 1984.
Rita was appointed to the Mary Wash-
ington College Board of Visitors by Gov.
Charles S. Robb in 1982 and was elected
by her peers two years later to serve as
rector. According to John A. Kinniburgh,
who preceded her as rector, she was "an
excellent choice" for two main reasons:
"First, she had already gained the con-
fidence and respect of every board mem-
ber, and, secondly, she possessed a keen
understanding of the educational process
because of her years in the public school
system."
While her prior career in education, es-
pecially in administration, helped in
many ways to prepare her for member-
ship on the board, she soon found that
being a member of the board entailed a
rather different set of responsibilities.
Throughout her tenure as rector, she has
stressed the importance of the board's
understanding that it is responsible for
making policy, not administering it. The
idea, as she puts it, is to "have a watchful
eye but not a meddling hand."
She firmly believes that the task of di-
recting the ongoing operation of the Col-
lege is squarely the responsibility of Pres-
ident William M. Anderson Jr. and his
administrative staff. It is also clear that
she believes this responsibility is in ca-
pable hands, noting in particular Dr.
Anderson's effective relationship with the
state legislature — a relationship which
has already led to increased faculty sal-
aries, as well as appropriations for the
new Student Center and library. Most of
all, she praises his "good instincts about
people" which she feels have contributed
immeasurably to the creation of a posi-
tive environment on campus.
In Rita's concept of the role of rector,
her primary responsibility is that of
maintaining a high level of involvement
on the part of all board members. "Our
board possesses such a wide range of ex-
pertise," she says. "It would be a shame
not to take full advantage of their abili-
ties." Despite their diverse backgrounds
and interests, she notes, the board is very
cohesive, held together by their shared
dedication to the welfare of the College.
Her methods have won the plaudits of
her colleagues. "She's very conscious of
the board as a team," says Virginia Lewis
Dalton '40, secretary and one of the six
alumni members of the board. "She sin-
cerely tries to get the feeling of every
member on every issue." According to
Mrs. Dalton, the real key to her success
as rector is that she is "superbly orga-
nized, but not to the extent that she loses
the human touch" in presiding over the
board. Mr. Kinniburgh puts it more suc-
cinctly. "She's a leader and a lady," he
says.
It is the rector's strong belief that the
"Commitment to Excellence" plan, devel-
oped by the board over a two-year period
and formally approved in June 1985, pro-
vides a sound strategy for the develop-
ment of the College during the coming
years. She emphasizes how gratifying it
is to see certain specific proposals in that
plan come to fruition, especially the new
Student Center and the library, both of
which are well underway. She views
these two projects as being not only im-
portant in a real sense but in a symbolic
sense as well: "It seems to me that these
two major construction projects clearly in-
dicate the board's twin commitments to
the academic and the social aspects of
college life, and I hope that they will be
viewed as such by our students."
While taking satisfaction in the pro-
gress of such bricks-and-mortar projects,
Rita points out that other elements of the
"Commitment to Excellence" plan must
be the focus of continuing effort by the
board. These include, in particular, the
improvement of faculty salaries and the
recruitment of highly qualified students.
"After all," she says, "the quality of any
college depends fundamentally upon the
quality of its faculty and students. Our
primary effort simply must be directed to-
ward maintaining excellence in these
basic elements."
Crucial to the successful implementa-
tion of the "Commitment to Excellence"
program is, of course, the securing of re-
quisite funding. This is an area to which,
according to Rita, the board — as well as
the president of the College — will be de-
voting increased attention in the coming
years.
It is also an area in which she envis-
ions alumni involvement as essential.
Pointing to the substantial rise in alumni
giving during the past year, she is opti-
mistic about the potential for growth in
the future: "It is evident that our alumni
are increasingly excited about the things
that are happening at the College today
— as well they should be. I'm confident
that the more they see firsthand and the
more they learn about what we are try-
ing to accomplish for the future, the more
supportive and the more enthusiastic
they will be."
Rita's own involvement in the life of
the College is extensive, as manifested by
Mrs. Stone admires the new Eagle sweatshirts for sale in the College Bookstore.
her frequent attendance at events on
campus, often accompanied by her hus-
band, Jake. During the past year, she has
been an especially visible presence as a
result of her membership on the Advisory
Committee on Student Recruitment and
Retention. This group, composed of fac-
ulty, administrators, students and board
members, was appointed by President
Anderson to develop new strategies for
attracting and retaining outstanding
students.
While Rita praises the other committee
members for their hard work, it is obvi-
ous that there is a mutual feeling of ad-
miration. According to one committee
member, Professor of History Richard H.
Warner, Rita's dedication was evidenced
by her attendance at virtually every one
of the group's numerous meetings,
whether held at 7:30 at night or 7:30 in
the morning. "I was amazed that she was
always there," he says. "It seemed that
she must have been living at the Col-
lege!" (While this was not actually the
case, she did have to leave her Alexan-
dria home at 6 a.m. to make the early
morning meetings.)
Her dedication to the College extends
also to the work of the Alumni Associ-
ation. Denise Mattingly Luck '74, presi-
dent-elect of the association, describes
Rita as "incredibly energetic" and praises
her for the support she has consistently
provided for alumni activities. "It doesn't
matter what we ask her to do," says Mrs.
Luck, "Rita always manages to be there."
Viewing the College from the combined
perspectives of former student and cur-
rent board member, Rita is encouraged
by what she sees. While admitting that,
like most other alumni, she often tends to
look nostalgically at the "good old days"
when she was a student — Saturday "tea
dances" at Annapolis, "Midwinters" trips
to VPI, and May Day festivities on cam-
pus each spring — she finds the overall so-
cial environment on campus now to be
"probably better, really, than it was
then."
But whether all the changes have been
to her personal liking or not, she recog-
nizes the inevitability of change, even at
bastions of tradition such as college cam-
puses. Quite possibly it was her years of
working with high school students that
helped her to accept the fact that atti-
tudes, customs and goals cannot be the
same now as they were when she was a
student. "The important thing," she em-
phasizes, "is that, in planning for the fu-
ture, we don't get 'hung up' on superficial
issues but concentrate instead on main-
taining and enhancing the real mission of
the College." To her, this "real mission"
is the preservation of the College's em-
phasis on excellence in the study of the
liberal arts and sciences. In this process,
she suggests, the institution's past
"should serve as a guide, not as an
anchor."
From her bountiful enthusiasm for all
aspects of the College, it is evident that
Rita is delighted to have a part in mold-
ing the future of the institution which
has meant so much to her own life. "Most
of the good things that have happened to
me," she says, "I can tie right back to
Mary Washington." In that light, she
views her current role as an opportunity
to help repay the College for all that she
feels it has done for her. This indeed is
the College's good fortune.
A medical student examines a patient's
throat. A forensic chemist takes a liquid
measurement. A job analyst advises a
corporate employee.
These are the photos in a new series of
colorful posters emanating from the Mary
Washington College Office of Admissions
that dramatically call attention to the
College as a serious possibility for high
school juniors and seniors. What's unique
about these posters is that the message to
the high school students is coming from
Mary Washington graduates. In brief
quotations, each graduate tells how a de-
gree from MWC helped prepare them for
their careers.
Alumni, of course, have always pro-
vided valuable assistance to the College's
recruitment efforts. Besides making fi-
nancial contributions, they have helped
with College Night programs at high
schools in their areas, helped organize re-
ceptions for newly admitted students, and
done individual recruiting by contacting
students they know. The posters, though,
provide a new way for graduates to speak
to high school students about Mary
Washington.
Conceived in the fall of 1986 and ready
for mailing in spring 1987, the posters
feature recent MWC graduates, photo-
graphed on their jobs, telling high school
juniors and seniors that Mary Washing-
ton College can help prepare them for
certain career fields. Jeffrey John, for ex-
ample, a software engineer and a 1978
graduate, tells viewers, "I double majored
in math and physics, a practical combina-
tion. It let me mix a pure science with an
application. It also prepared me for my
work, which involves software and hard-
ware development. It's very creative."
Others explain how their majors pre-
pared them for fields they did not an-
ticipate. "I wanted to be a psychology ma-
jor. But I didn't want to do the typical
things psych majors do," says Deborah
Barlow-Lawrence, a 1984 graduate.
"That's how I ended up in industrial psy-
chology." And Roslyn Roach, another
1984 graduate and a systems engineer,
notes, "When I decided to double major in
math and computer science, I never ex-
pected this. But I thoroughly enjoy it.
Computer science is such a wide-open
field, I guess you can never be sure what
direction you'll take. That's what makes
it so exciting."
Some of the alumni give credit for their
career choices to professors they knew at
Mary Washington. Susan Shaw, for in-
stance, a 1980 graduate now doing his-
toric preservation work, is quoted as say-
ing, "In my first year in college, I found
an excellent professor who gave me a lot
of good advice on choosing a major and a
career." Graduate Cedric B. Rucker '81,
currently a sociology doctoral student,
says, "I tried a sociology course and liked
it. Then I got to know one of the sociology
professors, who gave me lots of support."
And David Petersen, a medical student
from the Class of 1983, credits his pre-
med advisor at Mary Washington for
helping him prepare for medical school.
One graduate credits her internship as
leading to her job. As Margaret M.
Corcoran, Class of 1981, puts it, "I guess
it was my college internship that led me
into forensic chemistry."
Other alumni pictured on the posters
are Regina Boiling '86, a computer sci-
entist, and Joanne Marie Nikitakis '80, a
cosmetic chemist.
Whatever their fields and whatever the
reasons for entering them, all of the grad-
uates are pointing out the important con-
nection between careers and a liberal arts
education. Too often high school students
feel that specialized training is necessary
to enter such technical fields as chemis-
try, computer science, or historic preser-
vation. These posters put this notion to
rest by linking such professions as cos-
metic or forensic chemistry and systems
engineering firmly to an undergraduate
liberal arts education at Mary
Washington.
H. Conrad Warlick, vice president for
admissions and financial aid, says the
posters attempt to serve three purposes.
"First, we want high school students to
begin thinking about college in general.
Second, we want to tell students about
MWC specifically. And third, we want to
show the applications of the classroom to
the job market; we want high school stu-
dents to realize the important connection
between education and careers."
Dr. Warlick hopes that these posters will
be hung in secondary school classrooms
throughout Virginia and in some out-of-
state schools. "We deliberately chose to ad-
vertise the areas of chemistry, mathemat-
ics/computer science, and the social sci-
ences because students in those high school
courses are probably the ones thinking
most seriously about careers and a college
education. They are courses normally taken
in the junior year of high school when stu-
dents are beginning to think about apply-
ing to college.
"This may be just the beginning," Dr.
Warlick adds. "If the posters prove popu-
lar, we'll do another series, emphasizing
other disciplines at the College. We'll also
update the current series as new gradu-
ates obtain new jobs in those fields."
The posters themselves are four-color,
20-by-26-inch sheets with the graduates
speaking from dramatically placed paral-
lelograms in the center of the poster. "We
wanted the posters to reflect both the solid
traditions of Mary Washington's academic
disciplines and the contemporary flavor of
the job market," says Dr. Warlick. "To do
this we combined traditional printing and
the Mary Washington College logo with
contemporary shapes and color combina-
tions."
The design of the posters was the work
of Talarico Communications, a Freder-
icksburg advertising/public relations/
marketing firm. Acting on recommenda-
tions from the academic departments in-
volved, Wendy Talarico contacted the
nine selected students and arranged on-
site interviews with them.
Posters are not new for the Office of
Admissions; posters with tear-off cards
have been used before. But, Dr. Warlick
notes, posters featuring graduates are
new. "We haven't seen any like them, al-
though we'll probably have many imita-
tors now."
If the reaction of one high school guid-
ance counselor is any indication, the
posters should be a great success. Liesel
Witzel, counselor at Hayfield Secondary
in Fairfax, Va., spoke enthusiastically of
the posters: "I think teachers will be
vying to have them in their classrooms.
Teachers are always looking for things to
hang on their walls, and something that
speaks directly to possible careers in
their fields will be especially appealing."
omputer Science
& Mathematics
Great Careers
The job possibilities for Math
and Computer Science majors
are as exciting as they are
diverse. A few of the careers
you can choose from:
* Computer Research
and Development
* Budget Analyst
* Business Manager
* Statistician
* Mathematician
Let us help you choose the
career most suited to your
personality and talents. At
Mary Washington College,
our excellent staff and diverse
curriculum let you explore
the many applications of
your major.
Regina E. Boiling
Computer Scientist
'86
"From the beginning, I wanted to
work with math. But I wanted a
field with greater applications. My
computer science major prepared
me for systems research and
development. And I still get to work
with my favorite subject."
Jeffrey L. John
Software Engineer
'78
"I double majored in math and
physics, a practical combination.
It let me mix a pure science with
an application. It also prepared me
for my work, which involves
software and hardware development.
It's very creative."
mm
1 •
1
Roslyn Roach
Systems Engineer
'84
"Traveling is a pretty important
part of my job right now. When
I decided to double major in math
and computer science, I never
expected this. Computer science is
such a wide-open field, I guess you can
never be sure what direction you'll
take. That's what makes it so exciting."
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This is one of three eye-catching career posters featuring alumni. The actual posters are 20-by-26 inches and are in vivid color.
My Mother's Clothes:
The School of Beauty and Shame
By Richard McCann
"He makes me nervous," I heard my
father tell my mother one night as I lay
in bed. They were speaking about me.
That morning I'd stood awkwardly on the
front lawn — "Maybe you should go help
your father," my mother had said — while
he propped an extension ladder against
the house, climbed up through power
lines he separated with his bare hands,
and staggered across the pitched roof he
was reshingling. When his hammer slid
down the incline, catching on the gutter,
I screamed, "You're falling!" Startled, he
almost fell.
"He needs to spend more time with
you," my mother said.
Richard McCann
I couldn't sleep. Out in the distance a
mother was calling her child home. A
screen door slammed. I heard cicadas,
their chorus as steady and loud as the
hum of a power line. He needs to spend
more time with you. Didn't she know?
Saturday mornings, when he stood in his
rubber hip boots off the shore of Triadel-
phia Reservoir, I was afraid of the slimy
bottom and could not wade after him; for
whatever reasons of his own — something
as simple as shyness, perhaps — he could
not come to get me. I sat in the parking
lot drinking Tru-Ade and reading Betty
and Veronica.
Late that summer — the summer before
he died — my father took me with him to
Fort Benjamin Harrison, near Indianap-
olis, where, as a colonel in the U.S. Army
Reserves, he did his annual tour of duty.
On the propjet he drank bourbon and
read newspapers while I made a souvenir
packet for Denny, my
best friend: an air-
sickness bag, into
which I placed the
'amplmgg at
udtjnlarsljtp
Mary Washington College has al-
ways been (and remains) a teaching
institution. Faculty members devote
most of their time and energy to the
actual business of instruction and
working directly with students. And
that is how it should be.
Nonetheless, it is also true that
Mary Washington faculty members
are scholars in their respective aca-
demic disciplines. They were all
trained as scholars and researchers
at fine universities across the coun-
try and around the world and met
the same standards of commitment
and performance in their graduate
work as did classmates who chose
thereafter to accept positions in re-
search universities and leading
laboratories. So it should come as no
surprise to readers of Mary Washing-
ton College Today that most of our
faculty members are not only fine
and dedicated teachers but also ac-
tive and productive scholars. That is
to say, the academic profession is as
much a learning profession as it is a
teaching one. And scholarly writing
is just the act of sharing what has
been learned.
In the next few pages we are treat-
ing you to a sampling of this scholar-
ship, which we hope you will enjoy
and find stimulating.
Philip L. Hall
Vice President for Academic Affairs
and Dean
Chiclets given me by the stewardess to
help pop my ears during takeoff, and the
laminated white card that showed the lo-
cation of the emergency exits. Fort Benja-
min Harrison looked like our subdivision,
Carroll Knolls: hundreds of acres of con-
crete and sun-scorched shrubbery inside a
cyclone fence. Daytimes I waited for my
father in the dining mess with the sons of
other officers, drinking chocolate milk
that came from a silver machine, and
desultorily setting fires in ashtrays.
When he came to collect me, I walked be-
hind him — gold braid hung from his
epaulets — while enlisted men saluted us
and opened doors. At night, sitting in our
BOQ room, he asked me questions about
myself: "Are you looking forward to sev-
enth grade?" "Have you decided yet what
you'll want to be?" When these topics fal-
tered— I stammered what I hoped were
right answers — we watched TV, trying to
preguess lines or dialogue on reruns of
his favorite shows, The Untouchables and
Rawhide. "That Delia Street," he said, as
we watched Perry Mason, "is almost as
pretty as your mother." On the last day,
eager to make the trip memorable, he
brought me a gift: a glassine envelope
filled with punched IBM cards that told
me my life story as his secretary had
typed it into the office computer. Card
One: You live at 10406 Lillians Mill
Court, Silver Spring, Maryland. Card
Two: You are entering seventh grade.
Card Three: Last year your teacher was
Mrs. Dillard. Card Four: Your favorite
color is blue. Card Five: You love the
Kingston Trio. Card Six: You love basket-
ball and football. Card Seven: Your favor-
ite sport is swimming.
Whose son did these cards describe?
The address was correct, as was the
teacher's name and the favorite color; and
he'd remembered that one morning dur-
ing breakfast I'd put a dime in the juke-
box and played the Kingston Trio's song
about "the man who never returned." But
whose fiction was the rest? Had I, who
played no sports other than kickball and
Kitty-Kitty-Kick-the-Can, lied to him
when he asked me about myself? Had he
not heard from my mother the outcome of
my summer swim lessons? At the swim
club a young man in black trunks had
taught us, as we held hands, to dunk our-
selves in water, surface, and then go
down. When he had told her to let go of
me, I had thrashed across the surface,
violently afraid I'd sink. But perhaps I
had not lied to him; perhaps he merely
did not wish to see. It was my job, I felt,
to reassure him that I was the son he
imagined me to be, perhaps because the
role of reassurer gave me power. In any
case, I thanked him for the computer
cards. I thanked him the way a father
thanks a child for a well-intentioned gift
he'll never use — a set of handkerchiefs,
say, on which the embroidered swirls con-
struct a monogram of no particular ini-
tial, and which thus might be used by
anyone.
Richard McCann, assistant professor of En-
glish at Mary Washington College, has had
his fiction and poetry published in such peri-
odicals as The Atlantic, Shenandoah, and
The Virginia Quarterly Review. He recently
received grants from the Corporation of
Yaddo and the Virginia Center for the Cre-
ative Arts.
[This excerpt is taken from a novel,
Border Town, to be
published by Viking.
It originally appeared
in The Atlantic] s
Eudora Welty: With Ears
Opening Like Morning Glories
By Carol S. Manning
"[As a child], I loved to just sit in a
room with grown people talking, anyone
talking. My mother has told me how I
would sit between two people, setting off
for a ride in the car, as we used to do on
Sunday, and say, 'Now start talking!' My
ears would just open like morning
glories.'-Eudora Welty.
In "The Corner Store" (1975), an essay
about her childhood, Mississippi writer
Eudora Welty remembers people she saw
and adventures she had as she ran to and
from the corner grocery on errands for
her mother. Generalizing about this ex-
perience, she writes, "Setting out in this
world, a child feels so indelible. He only
comes to find out later that it's all the
others along his way who are making
themselves indelible to him." A sensitive
comment on the forming of a child's con-
sciousness, the remark also seems sugges-
tive about the making of an artist. Surely
Welty's own art has been influenced by
all that she has met along her way. A
keen observer and listener with a prodig-
ious memory, she has a vast store of
things seen and things heard on which
she draws. She said as much in an inter-
view when asked the source of the dia-
logue of her characters: "Once you have
heard certain expressions, sentences, you
almost never forget them. It's like send-
ing a bucket down the well and it always
comes up full .... And you listen for the
right word, in the present .... [W]hat
you overhear on a city bus is exactly
what your character would say on the
page you're writing." In "The Corner
Store" itself the author uncovers, perhaps
unconsciously, one example of this use of
memory. The song she remembers a
farmer chanting as he peddled his wares
on her street when she was a child is, the
reader will find, the original to the chant
that Fate Rainey, "the buttermilk man,"
sings as he hawks his wares in The
Golden Apples (1949).
Without writing a confessional litera-
ture or disguised autobiography, Welty
borrows directly from life. That we can
trace the actual origins of certain details
of her works, however, is not the point.
The point is, rather, that most of her
works are characterized by an apprecia-
tion of the ordinary happenings of every-
day life, an appreciation apparently born
of a lifelong receptivity to the life around
her.
But if ordinary life
alone defined her
fiction, the author would not have been
called a romantic as well as a realist or
have been said to write such varied fic-
tion that it defies generalization. There is
a second crucial influence on her fiction,
one that might seem to run counter to
the first. It is a love of stories and story-
telling. As Katherine Anne Porter wrote
in her introduction to Welty's first book,
"[A]lways, from the beginning until now,
[Welty] loved folk tales, fairy tales, old
legends, and she likes to listen to the
songs and stories of people who live in old
communities whose culture is recollected
and bequeathed orally." Welty has docu-
mented this love of storytelling and re-
vealed its birth in her early exposure to
oral and written narrative.
In the essay "A Sweet Devouring"
(1957), Welty describes the pleasures of
her childhood reading as "like those of a
Christmas cake, a sweet devouring." In
One Writer's Beginnings (1984), she re-
calls that she read through her family's
library shelf by shelf, devouring encyclo-
pedias along with Mark Twain, Ring
Lardner, myths, and slices of Gulliver's
Travels. Her eclectic reading in recent
years has ranged from the mysteries of
Ross MacDonald to the subtleties of
Elizabeth Bo wen.
Just as Welty has been, since earliest
childhood, registering the life around her,
so has she been, since earliest childhood,
absorbing all that she reads. In her writ-
ing, she draws as freely on the stories she
has consumed over a lifetime as she does
on the life she has absorbed. About her
use of mythology in The Golden Apples,
Welty has said, "I just used [myths] as
freely as I would the salt and pepper.
They were part of my life, like poetry,
and I would take something from Yeats
here and something from a myth there."
Without imitating what she has read,
Welty dips here and there into her store-
house of memories.
The love of storytelling has given her
more than a repertoire of story traditions
on which to draw. Whereas much modern
fiction is motivated by the authors' per-
sonal traumas or by concern with politi-
cal issues, Welty's fiction is motivated by
a purer interest in storytelling. This mo-
tivation grows not only from her vora-
cious love of reading stories but equally
from her voracious love of hearing
stories. Born in Jackson, Miss., in 1909,
she grew up in the South where, she has
said, "Storytelling is a way of life." Con-
versation there "is of a narrative and dra-
matic structure and so when you listen to
it, you're following a story. You're listen-
ing for how something is going to come
out and that . . . has something to do with
the desire to write later." In One Writer's
Carol S. Manning
Beginnings, Welty describes her child-
hood fascination with a neighbor's tale-
telling: "What I loved about her stories
was that everything happened in scenes. I
might not catch on to the root of the
trouble in all that happened, but my ear
told me it was dramatic. Often she said,
'The crisis had come!'"
Welty's fiction combines a realist's sen-
sitivity to everyday life, a story lover's. fa-
miliarity with many traditions of written
and oral narrative, and a storyteller's
imagination and pleasure in entertaining.
These two sides of Welty — the realist and
the lover of storytelling — reach a perfect
blend when the realist discovers her ideal
subject in the storytelling around her.
Progressively over her career — from the
gossiping and bickering of Sister in the
early story "Why I Live at the P. 0." to
the Beechams' all-day tale-telling during
a family reunion in the novel Losing
Battles (1970)— Welty has painted a
comically revealing picture of the South-
ern oral tradition. She is the poet and
historian of a storytelling people. Writing
in a conversational style born itself of the
region's active oral tradition, she proves
herself the oral culture's most discrimi-
nating admirer and its most incisive
critic.
Carol S. Manning is an assistant professor
of English and acting director of the Writing
Intensive Program at Mary Washington.
[This article is based on material from
Chapter 1 of Carol S. Manning's With
Ears Opening Like Morning Glories:
Eudora Welty and the Love of Storytelling
(Greenwood Press, Inc., Westport, Conn.
1985), pp. 2-6. Copyright © 1985 by Carol^
S. Manning. Used
with permission of the
publisher.]
"Treasure in Earthen Vessels:
Johannes Climacus on
Humor and Faith"
By David Cain
S0ren Kierkegaard, the great 19th cen-
tury Danish religious thinker, observes in
1838, ". . . in a flight of genuine humor
Paul speaks about the earthenware pots
in which the spirit dwells." The reference
is to Paul's words in II Corinthians: "But
we have this treasure in earthen vessels,
to show that the transcendent power be-
longs to God and not to us" (4:7). This
text appropriately accompanies Kier-
kegaard studies. For Kierkegaard, who
invests so deeply in and squeezes so much
out of human existence, nonetheless and
dialectically qualifies, with the help of
Johannes Climacus, one of his many
pseudonyms, the entire human endeavor
on the way to "truth is subjectivity." He
does so with the haunting, hectoring
little reminder that, Christianly, "subjec-
tivity is untruth" before it becomes truth
again by virtue of the shattering be-
stowal of a new subjectivity from outside
the self. Earthen vessel creatures are in-
deed empty pots, utterly treasureless,
apart from the transcendent power of
God.
What has this to do with Johannes
Climacus' treatment of humor and faith?
Humor belongs to the way down into the
self and into intimations of emptiness.
Faith is the name of the passion which
receives as grace decisive revelation of
emptiness and which risks loss of all con-
trol in the reception of external filling.
But the filling is relational, dependent
upon relationship, and not "once and for
all": one does not pocket the transcendent
power, the treasure, with a Mange tak or
Skaal, with an "aestheticising clinking
the glasses with Providence."
Humor and faith, then, are both to be
found in earthen vessels, but they come
to be there in different ways. The ca-
pacity for humor is resident within the
self as are conditions for the comic (the
relationship between the comic and
humor is decisive here); whereas the pos-
sibility of Christian faith, faith "sensu
eminentiori," faith "sensu strictissimo," is
divine initiative. This faith is surely
"treasure." What happens to humor in
the presence of this treasure? After being
exposed as non-treasure, is it eliminated?
Or, as with "the kings of the earth" who
"shall bring their glory" into the holy
city, new Jerusalem (Revelation 21:24,
emphasis added), shall humor be per-
ymitted to enter into the new creation, re-
constituted in faith,
there humbly to
serve?
Johannes Climacus declares starkly,
"the moment of death is the appropriate
situation for Christianity." Death here re-
fers to the death of the self to the self s
ingenuities in existence, to the selfs
strategies of sustenance and resources for
regulation, mastery, dominion, and con-
trol. Quite simply, one must be barren,
bereft, depleted, desperate, to have to do
faithfully with Jesus. Apart from such
desperation, Jesus becomes mascot, and
faith falls back into the aesthetic.
* * *
One must have some development in
existential pathos — a development which
Climacus insists is potentially open to
all — in order to be even a candidate for
offense or the passion of faith. Climacus
understates nicely, "For to be in existence
is always a somewhat embarrassing situ-
ation ..." This is the understatement of a
humorist. Climacus is in character.
The notes for Climacus' Concluding
Unscientific Postscript include the fol-
lowing: "That Christianity is like this,
that it is preceded by humor, shows how
much living out of life it presupposes in
order rightly to be accepted" — or rightly
to be rejected. That "-ly" signals the ad-
verbial emphasis of Kierkegaard and
Climacus upon the how, upon the way
one actually lives the "somewhat embar-
rassing situation" of existence, as dis-
David Cain
tinguished from what one professes con-
cerning existence. Apart from immersion
in existence, the "whats" of Christianity
jingle noisily and aesthetically. Rather
than to receive comforting "whats" at
secondhand, Frater Taciturnus' Quidam
(more pseudonyms) says he would prefer
"... to have heard the howl of the wolf
and to have learned to know God." This
is the existential situation of humor and
faith.
In Johannes Climacus' handling of the
"spheres of existence," the aesthete, the
ironist, the ethicist, the humorist, the re-
ligionist, the Christian — all encounter
contradictions, some suffering, some pain-
less, some confirming one view of life,
some disconfirming that same view. No
existence sphere or way of life is solely
confirmed — or solely disconfirmed — by
immersion in existence. Every potentially
honest way of life entails decision and
risk, the decision to cling to certain expe-
riences as hermeneutical clues to life in
all its intractable complexity, the risk
that apparently disconfirming encounters
can (or cannot) somehow be construed
from the perspective of one's chosen way
and sphere. The humorist comes upon
painless and painful contradictions as
does everyone else and, indeed, contrib-
utes to their formation and manifesta-
tion. If the humorist then flees such pain-
ful contradictions, humor as a way of life
is betrayed. Humor is thus "justified"
precisely as it owns painful contradictions
and construes them as painless — as if
they were painless — even when "no way
out" (ingen Udvei) is known. In this
sense, humor "reconciles itself to the
pain," seeking to wrestle painful contra-
dictions into painless ones, striving to
live painful contradictions as if they were
painless, and maintaining the life of
humor thereby. The humorist has made
the decision and runs the risk of reaching
out, taking painless contradictions as
clues to the real, and drawing the comic
within as the capacity to produce the
comic when painless contradictions are
nowhere to be found. To be a humorist is
to have one's life in one's humor, in one's
capacity to generate the comic from in-
side out, not simply to receive the comic
from outside in.
Can the humorist, as described by
Climacus, be a Christian? No. In
Climacus' terms, there is no bridge for
humor as a way of life across the chasm
into the Christian sphere. Precisely be-
cause the humorist knows a way out (or
lives as if he or she does), for the humor-
ist there is no way in. Climacus enters
imaginatively and dialectically into the
sphere of faith and fears from that per-
spective that humor will not take the
temporality-accentuating paradoxicality
of faith with proper existential earnest-
ness, the earnestness of "either offense or
faith". . .
Climacus is remarkably brief when he
comes, at last, to the breach with imma-
nence. After luxuriating in the existen^/1
tial, anguished tangles
of inwardness and
religiousness A, the
austerity o£.
^reli|
W befo
religiousness B (Christian faith) flashes
before the reader abruptly and — the end.
In Climacus' hands, humor becomes sud-
denly anxiety in the Christian context;
because the safety net of the eternal, en-
twined of immanence and recollection, is
gone. No longer will "neither death, nor
life . . . nor anything else in all creation
... be able to separate us from the love of
God . . . ." Now we can separate ourselves
from the love of God which has become
focused in time and history ". . . in Jesus
Christ our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39).
Hence, anxiety, as Climacus says. Hence,
as he does not say, a new humor.
"Behold, I make all things new" (Revela-
tion 21:5). "All things" includes humor,
not as a border sphere of existence, not as
a way of life, but as a compassionate ap-
propriation of the comic into the life of
faith. How could Climacus, an "old" hu-
morist, be expected to know anything
about this new humor, the humor of
grace, the humor which makes time
count decisively, not for finding or miss-
ing God in time but for being found — and
found out — by God in time?
This "new humor" is no longer humor
as a way of life which depends, after all,
upon one's own ability to handle painful
contradictions as if they were painless
and so comic. Now humor is envisioned
as ingredient in a new way of life. The
"martyrdom of faith" which is, among
other things, the absolute inability of
human beings, however clever, to under-
stand the absolute paradox, is the "mar-
tyrdom of endurance" through time. This
martyrdom is also the release of humor
from border sphere to bold subordinate,
from implicit control as a way of life to
explicit emptiness and adjunct to the life
of faith.
The humorist, Climacus has said, has
his life in his humor. The Christian does
not have his or her life in humor but has
humor in his or her life. Given Climacus'
rule that the "lower can never make the
higher comical" and given his ranking of
the spheres with faith as the highest,
Climacus removes from himself the possi-
bility not of making of faith a "divine
comedy" (such is God's prerogative) but of
allowing for the fruitfulness of humor in
the life of faith.
Because faith is risk, humor is the her-
meneutics of faith, the self-awareness of
faith, and the other-awareness of faith.
Risk and uncertainty give faith "room to
move." Room to move is room for humor.
The paradoxical congruity of the God-
man does not solve the incongruity of the
^ternal and the temporal which
inwardness suffers
and humor
discerns. Incom-
Kierkegaard and Copenhagen are inseparable.
mensurateness is intensified and be-
dazzled. Christian faith does not change
this — except that, because God has found
true concretion in Incarnation, faith per-
mits little intimations of incarnation.
And humor smiles in self-awareness,
without looking to the results. Regarding
other-awareness, humor within the
sphere of faith can bear witness to the po-
tential equality of all regardless of ex-
tremes of otherness. Climacus contends,
"The very maximum of what one human
being can do for another in relation to
that wherein each man has to do solely
with himself, is to inspire him with con-
cern and unrest." Climacus and
Kierkegaard do their best — with the help
of humor.
Humor looks back; faith looks forward.
The new humor of faith can respect time,
can be an aspect of the freedom of faith to
walk through the real valley of the real
shadow of the real death in real tempor-
ality, sustained in love for the odd God of
fearful glory encountered here in Jesus,
sustained by trust in the grace of the God
who will not let go if one is not dead set
on being let go of, grieving and crying
and living and dying in the drama of cre-
ator and creatures, a drama which aims
at dinner. God wants to dine with Adam
and Eve in the garden, and they go off to
eat by themselves. Jesus tells a parable
about a man determined to have a ban-
quet, even after invitations are declined
(see Matthew 22:1-14; Luke 14:16-24).
The eschatological curtain comes down
from one perspective and opens from
another on the Bride, the new Jerusalem,
and the Lamb, about to feast, no doubt,
on the twelve kinds of fruit of the tree of
life at the "marriage supper of the Lamb"
(Revelation 19:9).
The new humor of faith finds in Jesus
warrant for walking ahead. The humorist
faces painful contradictions as if knowing
a way out, glancing backward to make
sure the way out is there. The Christian,
with humor yet without being a humor-
ist, faces painful contradictions in faith
that God knows a way out different from
the humorist's way back and death's way
of destruction, in faith that not death but
the God present in Jesus who makes a
way through time is "infinite humorist."
# # #
A brief, enigmatic Journal entry from
1837 reads, "They forget that profound
observation about the cross: that the
cross belongs in the realm of the stars."
This line is in the margin of a preceding
entry which begins, "The humorous, pres-
ent throughout Christianity . . ." and
which finds humorous the idea that the
truth is hidden rather than revealed in
mystery. Miracle is related to this idea,
and "they" refers, presumably, to "the
professors of physics" mentioned in this
context. Is "the realm of the stars" ab-
straction? No, for this is a "profound ob-
servation." Is it eternity? Yes.
Kierkegaard's authorship variously
weighs the consequences of the claim that
the cross in the realm of the stars (was
there a cross in the heart of God before
the creation of the world?) becomes God's
stake in this world. A possible conse-
quence is treasure in earthen vessels: a
humble, freeing, grace-and-equality trust-
ing humor transformed and licensed by
this God in earth and time; and faith, the
desperate risk of wonder when the stars
come here to shine.
David Cain is professor of religion at Mary
Washington College and credits Dostoyevsky,
Kierkegaard, an abiding love of theatre, and
"great college teachers" with luring him in
that direction. He is an ordained minister in
the United Church of Christ.
[These excerpts are taken from a paper,
"Treasure in Earthen Vessels: Johannes
Climacus on Humor and Faith," pre-
sented by Professor Cain at a meeting of
the Kierkegaard Academy in Copen-
hagen, November 1986. Kierkegaard quo-
tations are translations
from Kierkegaard's
Samlede Vaerker and
Papirer.]
George M. Van Sant
Where Are They Now?
BY SIDNEY H. MITCHELL
Former students returning to the cam-
pus would have no trouble recognizing
George M. Van Sant. The top of his head,
at six feet five inches, still projects a foot
above most of those around him, and, as
he crosses the campus, his long stride and
Matt Dillon gait are the same as they
have always been. His hair has silvered
slightly. Cleanshaven until June 23,
1977, the day he was given a re-
tirement parade as colonel from
the Marine Reserves at the
Marine barracks in Washington,
he now wears a full but carefully
trimmed moustache. "When I
came back from that day and took
off the uniform for the last time, I
just started letting the moustache
grow." Always an imposing figure
on campus, his image must re-
main in the minds of many gradu-
ates, leading our commencement
procession as marshal of the
faculty.
As for where he is — that has
always been a problem, because
Van has always been engaged in
more activities than four ordinary
people. Keeping track of which ac-
tivity is occupying him at any
given moment has never been
easy. In the early days, we who
were his colleagues thought we
had some grip on who he was and
what he did. Back then, when one
asked, "Where is he now?" the an-
swer would probably be either,
"He's in class, teaching logic," or,
"He's off for the summer with the
Marines, at Camp Lejeune, or
Quantico, or . . . ."
It's not that simple any more.
He has steadily increased the number of
groups and significant causes —
professional, community and civic — with
which he is identified and now has added
to his earlier roles of college professor
and officer in the Marine Reserves his
more recent one of public servant and
elected official. Nowadays the response to
"Where is he?" might be, "Negotiating
the city of Fredericksburg's annexation of
part of Spotsylvania County," or, "Testi-
fying before the legislature in Richmond,"
or, "Engaging in the usual late Tuesday
night deliberations of the Fredericksburg
City Council," of which he has been an
elected member since 1980.
If it should happen that he is at home,
he will be on Washington Avenue, which
former students will remember as the
handsome street with the long central
green where Kenmore is located. There
Away from campus, Dr. Van Sant often can be found at City
Hall. Here he consults with Samuel T. Emory Jr., professor of
geography.
he and his wife, Susan Hanna of the
MWC department of English, live in the
large Victorian house that they have
made famous for its hospitality by open-
ing it repeatedly for gatherings of stu-
dents, colleagues and friends — both local
and from all over the world.
When asked, Van will confirm that the
three major segments of his life have
been his 32 years with the Marine Corps,
his 29 years with Mary Washington Col-
lege, and his 23-year engagement in
local, state and national politics.
Van's military career is a part of his
life that he aggressively defends in aca-
demic circles. "I had a very enduring re-
lationship with the military, and I still
have it. I have no illusions about the
military, but I knew a lot of really good
and fine and wonderful and sensitive
people in the military." And it is clear
that he caried his academic talents and
interests to the Marines. On the
wall of his office is a photograph
taken in 1969 that shows the
founding members of the adjunct
faculty of the Marine Corps Com-
mand and Staff College. "All 11 of
those individuals," he reports,
"are distinguished Ph.D. pro-
fessors at a number of insti-
tutions, and all are reserve lieu-
tenant colonels or colonels. A
couple of them made general after
that photo was taken." And next
Van proceeds to itemize each one's
name, field of academic special-
ization, and present academic in-
stitution. He skips over the image
of himself, standing backrow
center.
Van's Marine Corps experi-
ences were in fact what led him
into his academic career, for it was
during combat in Korea that he
made a personal resolution to re-
turn to school. "I could not devote
my whole life to the military. I
made the resolution that I would
go back and study philosophy and
be a philosopher." It was that reso-
lution that carried him through
five years of graduate school, until
1958, when he arrived at Mary
Washington College as an as-
sistant professor of philosophy.
The transition from the Marines to
Mary Washington College, he says, re-
quired some adjustment. He had had an
undergraduate education at all-male St.
John's College, two tours in the Marines,
and then five years of study in the Uni-
versity of Virginia's graduate department
of philosophy, whkh at that time had
only male professors and male graduate
students. "When I came here in 1958, in
10
my adult life the only way I had associ-
ated with females was either to date
them or to marry them. I was a male
chauvinist pig; there's no question about
it. I was a political liberal, but I was a
male chauvinist pig." He is not now. This
fall he appeared on a panel in the class of
a colleague in the Department of Psychol-
ogy and was comfortable identifying him-
self as a feminist. The final stages of his
transformation may have been assisted
by his wife, Sue.
Once here, spending his winters in the
classroom and his three summer months
in the Marine Reserves, he was able, he
says, "to live the best of both worlds."
Van has always been at the center of the
more significant events at Mary Wash-
ington College, serving on or chairing the
committees that produced the major
changes in the College. He was a central
figure in such actions as the revision, be-
tween 1969 and 1971, of the degree re-
quirements; he chaired the committees
that made all of the arrangements for the
last two presidential inaugurations on
our campus. Most recently he has chaired
the Committee on Campus Social Life, a
committee of seven administrators, seven
members of the faculty, and eight stu-
dents, established to propose new guide-
lines and policies for the two sensitive
issues of visitation and the regulations
governing the use of alcohol on the cam-
pus. For six years he was elected by his
colleagues to represent them as the sena-
tor from MWC to the Faculty Senate of
Virginia, and for two years he served as
vice president of that Faculty Senate.
In addition to the many courses he has
taught in the department of philosophy,
Van has amassed an impressive list of
published papers and addresses, a num-
ber of which reveal his ability to inter-
connect and interrelate his various ca-
reers. His paper, "Some Notes on Con-
scientious Objection," his monograph,
Mid-Range Objectives Plan for Marine
Corps Education, and his lecture, "Ethics
and the Professional Military Officer,"
will serve as examples. More recently,
the interrelatedness of Van's current ca-
reers is revealed in such titles as "The
Morality of Legislative Institutions" and
"Morality and the Legislative Process,"
both lectures.
Van traces his entry into political ac-
tivity to his graduate school days in
Charlottesville, a time when Virginia had
embarked on a course of massive resis-
tance to school desegregation. Van joined
with others who were seeking to combat
that policy at the polls and says, "My
first real work was trying to register
more blacks in Charlottesville." In 1964
he became a member of the Fredericks-
burg Democratic Committee, and except
Professor Van Sant is often surrounded by students after class.
for 1972, when he was on sabbatical from
MWC in England, has continued to be a
member, serving as chairman of the com-
mittee from 1975 to 1980. He is now the
senior member of that group in terms of
years of service.
Now in his second term in the Freder-
icksburg City Council, his greatest ac-
complishment— and one that has made
him a hero hereabouts — was as chairman
of the finance committee. Van detected,
as had no one in the state before him,
that the state funding of the independent
cities in Virginia, including Fredericks-
burg, was based upon inaccurate statis-
tics that deprived cities of their fair share
of public school revenues. His detective
work took him first to Richmond, then to
Charlottesville, and finally to the Depart-
ment of Commerce in Washington, where
the figures originated. "One thing you
find is that if you're an elected official,
you can get into offices. I got to the MAN
(Van's voice signals that he had reached
his quarry) in the corner office at the De-
partment of Commerce who was respon-
sible for all this. And the guy at the De-
partment of Commerce said, 'You know,
you're absolutely right.'" Van's savvy and
persistence has brought revenues of at
least $1 million to the city of Fredericks-
burg at this point.
His current challenge is his service, at
Gov. Gerald L. Baliles' request, as the
only elected city official on the General
Assembly's Study Commission on
City-County Relations.
Van will not retire from MWC for a
number of years yet and has several proj-
ects that he plans to work on before that
time. One of his intentions is to do more
reading and writing — articles for sure,
and perhaps a volume — on the com-
plexities of the ethics of legislative
decision-making. His years of service in
public office will permit him to approach
the subject with the knowledge of one
who has observed the process firsthand,
and he will probably acquire more expe-
rience yet in future terms on City Coun-
cil. If the voters choose to do so, he will
certainly continue to serve the city of
Fredericksburg, but he rejects any notion
of seeking elective office beyond the city.
Even after retirement, Van admits, he
might be tempted to re-enter the class-
room, should there be an opportunity to
offer his course on Immanuel Kant, and
so his ties to Mary Washington College
may not be completely severed. And be-
cause of his many ties to the city of Fred-
ericksburg, his home will remain, even
when it ceases to be Mary Washington
College, at least on Washington Avenue.
Sidney H. Mitchell is professor of English
at Mary Washington. He first met
Dr. Van Sant in 1932 when they were
children.
11
m
fiUVffitS
Sports
By Barry S. Packer
Mary Washington College has attracted
numerous student athletes from other
states. I talked with three of them to gain
some insight into their reasons for choos-
ing Mary Washington and how they feel
about MWC now that they've been here
awhile.
I spoke with sophomore Michelle Gobeil
from Biddeford, Maine, who is a 5-foot-8
forward on the women's basketball team;
Jean Marie Morrissey, a 5-foot- 10 soph-
omore from Long Island, who also plays
forward; and John Yurchak, a 6-foot-2
sophomore from Lancaster, Pa., who
plays starting guard on the men's bas-
ketball team.
Included in their reasons for coming to
Mary Washington were: the size of the
College, the opportunity to play for the
basketball teams, the academic life, the
social atmosphere, and — the classic rea-
son— getting away from home for the
first time.
"I'm glad I'm here because I have
learned a lot being a distance from
home," said Michelle, whose main reason
for coming here was "I didn't want to be
a number."
Jean Marie "wanted to come South"
but did not want to go to a university
with tens of thousands of students. Next
year she possibly will be heading to Paris
to study international business. But in all
likelihood, she will return to MWC for
her senior year.
John came here after one year at Mil-
lersville (Pa.) University. He was there
attempting to earn a spot on the Division
II Marauders but didn't make it as the
only walk-on. After considering MWC, as
well as some Pennsylvania schools, he de-
cided to transfer here.
When asked the reasons he selected
Mary Washington after narrowing his
choices, he said that the reasonable costs
at Mary Washington played a big role.
Another factor was that "I saw that the
guards (at MWC) weren't the best shoot-
ers and felt that I would be able to help
the team." John feels the strongest part
of his game is his outside shooting abil-
ity. "I'm glad I came here," he says. "I
like it better here with the emphasis on
academics. I also like the location, the so-
cial atmosphere, and the people."
The people. That is what all three stu-
dent athletes kept going back to. They
praised the people on their teams, the
people in their classes, and the people in
the town.
"Although there is more
of an emphasis placed
on academics than athletics,
the fans are
real supportive."
"Most of the people around here are
really nice," remarked John, whose
brother, Jason, now a senior at Lancaster
(Pa.) Catholic High School, may join him
in the Eagles' backcourt next season.
"Most of the people around here would do
anything for you."
Michelle saw this as "a chance to see
another part of the country. It is a differ-
ent climate, with different people who
seem more friendly. And I'm glad I am on
the team because of the people."
For Jean Marie, this basketball season,
which was a difficult one on the court,
"hasn't seemed like four months. The peo-
ple on the team have made it so that,
even though the record isn't that great,
the team is still a team."
And the teams are supported by the
fans. "Although there is more of an em-
phasis placed on academics than ath-
letics, the fans are real supportive," John
pointed out. "And I am sure they do get
more involved emotionally because of the
smallness of the arena, the enrollment,
and the closeness of the bleachers to the
court and the players to the fans."
Why, then, are the basketball coaches,
Tom Davies and Connie Gallahan, able to
recruit these students from out of state?
Because between the academics and the
athletics and the people, Mary Washing-
ton seems to be a school that gives the
student athletes what they are looking
for both on and off the court.
Barry S. Packer is sports information direc-
tor at Mary Washington .
Securing Mary
Washington's Future:
The Heritage Society
While gifts to the Mary Washington
College Fund provide important sup-
port for scholarship programs and
other educational enhancements at
Mary Washington each year, bequests
and other planned gifts are invest-
ments in the College's future.
The Heritage Society has been estab-
lished to recognize individuals who have
provided for the College's financial future
through charitable bequests in a will. A
listing of members is continually updated
and maintained in the Alumni House at
Trench Hill. We would be pleased to add
you to this growing list of members.
For more information on the Heritage
Society or how to include the College in
your estate plans, you are invited to call
collect or write in complete confidence to:
•E.S* **4a
Michael B. Dowdy
Vice President for College Relations
Mary Washington College
1301 College Ave.
Fredericksburg, VA 22401-5358
(703) 899-4645
12
Faculty Highlights
Marshall E. Bowen, professor of geog-
raphy, presented his paper, "Historical
Limits on Old-Timers' Recollections in a
Nevada Agricultural Colony," at the
Twentieth Annual Meeting of the Oral
History Association, which was held
aboard the Queen Mary in Long Beach,
Calif. He also participated in a panel dis-
cussion on "The Homestead Frontier in
Oral History."
In addition to these activities, Dr.
Bowen submitted a paper, "Abandoned
Countrysides: Dry Farm Homestead
Areas in the Northeastern Great Basin,"
at the Eighteenth Annual Meeting of the
Pioneer America Society in Rochester,
N.Y. Another of his papers, "Pioneer Suc-
cess and Failure in a Northeastern Ne-
vada Valley," was published in the 1986
issue of the Pioneer America Society
Transactions.
Samuel T. Emory Jr., professor of geog-
raphy and chairperson of the Department
of Geography, read his paper, "Flood, the
Threat of Flood and Human Response in
Fredericksburg, Virginia," at the annual
meeting of the Southeastern Division of
the Association of American Geographers.
His co-author was Gordon Shelton, a
Fredericksburg city councilman. The
meeting was held in Lexington, Ky.
R. Leigh Frackelton Jr., lecturer in
business administration and a Freder-
icksburg attorney, attended a three-day
seminar in Washington, D.C., on the Tax
Reform Act of 1986. The event was spon-
sored by the American Law Institute and
the American Bar Association.
Roy F. Gratz
Roy F. Gratz, professor of chemistry
and chairperson of the Department of
Chemistry, Geology and Physics, received
a monetary award and a certificate of
recognition from the administrator of the
National Aeronautics and Space Adminis-
tration. The honor was based on Dr.
Gratz's innovation, which was selected for
publication in NASA TECH BRIEFS:
"3F Condensation Polyimides Synthetic
Versatility Provides New High Tg Films
and New Melt Fusible Molding Resins."
The paper was co-authored with William
B. Alston of NASA's Lewis Research Cen-
ter in Cleveland. NASA commended the
innovation as a "significant contribution"
and one of potential utility beyond the
aerospace field.
Thomas L. Johnson, professor of biolog-
ical sciences, had a letter about panto-
thenic acid published in the December
issue of Prevention magazine. In fact, the
publication selected the missive as the
lead letter in the column headlining it
"Age Spots and Pantothenic Acid." Pre-
vention has a circulation totaling six mil-
lion readers.
Tania Karina joined the dance depart-
ment as the artist-in-residence for the
Spring Semester. Miss Karina, a highly
acclaimed ballerina, has taught as well
as performed throughout the world; her
performances include a guest starring
role in the prestigious Jacob's Pillow
Dance Festival. She also danced leading
roles with The Grand Ballet Du Marquis
De Cuevas and was featured as a princi-
pal dancer with the Ballet Russe De
Monte Carlo.
John C. Manolis, associate professor of
modern foreign languages, attended the
36th Mountain Interstate Foreign Lan-
guage Conference at Wake Forest Uni-
versity in Winston-Salem, N.C. His par-
ticipation in the meeting included
presenting his paper, "The Theater of
George Sand in the Middle of the Nine-
teenth Century: A Search for Critical and
Popular Success," and chairing a session
on French-Italian literature.
Shah M. Mehrabi, associate professor of
economics, organized and coordinated the
Annual Meeting of the Association for
the Advancement of Policy, Research and
Development in the Third World, which
was held in San Francisco, Calif. He also
granted an interview to Voice of America,
which was broadcast directly from the
site of the conference to the Middle East
and to Southeastern and South Asian
countries.
Dr. Mehrabi was invited to present a
paper on "Transfer of Technology" at the
Ninth National Third World Studies Con-
ference, held in Omaha, Neb. This paper
was published in the book of proceedings
on the conference.
At the Annual Meeting of the Ameri-
can Economic Association, held in New
Orleans, La., Dr. Mehrabi presented two
papers. One, entitled "Mineral Multina-
tionals," was given in a session on "The
Multinational Enterprise: Strategies for
Trade and Investments," and another on
"Planning and Policy Making" was pre-
sented in a session on "Contemporary Ec-
onomic Problems in the Middle East."
Tania Karina
Donald R. Peeples, assistant professor
of mathematics, attended the Symposium
on International Comparisons of Mathe-
matical Education: Policy Implications for
the United States, which was held in
Washington, D.C. The Mathematical Sci-
ences Education Board of the National
Research Council hosted the symposium.
When the MD-DC-VA section of the
Mathematical Association of America met
at Loyola College in Baltimore, Dr.
Peeples discussed the topic "A Mathemat-
ical Model for Risk Analysis."
Mark J. Rozell, assistant professor of
political science, had a paper entitled
"Civic Virtue and the Gods" accepted for
publication in Modern Age, a quarterly
journal of political thought. His article,
"Corporate Philanthropy and Public Pol-
icy: A Search for Normative Guidelines,"
was published recently in a book, Philan-
thropy: Private Means, Public Ends,
edited by Kenneth W. Thompson.
Robert S. Rycroft, associate professor of
economics and chairperson of the Depart-
ment of Economics, addressed the Freder-
icksburg Local of the National Associ-
ation of Letter Carriers on "The State of
the Labor Movement in America."
David J. Skaret, assistant professor of
business administration, had an article
published in Group and Organization
Studies, a business and management
journal. The article, entitled "Attitudes
About the Work Group: An Added Mod-
erator of the Relationship Between
Leader Behavior and Job Satisfaction,"
appeared in the September 1986 issue of
the journal.
13
Events on Campus
The Mary Washington College commu-
nity was in high gear throughout the fall
and winter months, sponsoring events in
music, theater and art.
October
Mary Washington College's Public Edu-
cation Services served as the depository
for elementary and secondary school
books offered by publishers for adoption
as textbooks in Virginia's public schools.
Students, teachers and the general public
were invited to review and evaluate the
materials ... On the cultural scene, nov-
elist David Leavitt and poet Janice Eidus
gave readings at the College as part of
the Poetry/Fiction Series . . . MWC hosted
the 17th Annual Meeting of the East-
Central Region of the American Society
for Eighteenth Century Studies. More
than 50 scholars presented papers on art,
history, literature, economics and other
topics with the theme "Traditions and In-
novations in the 18th Century" . . . The
Mary Washington College Chapter of the
Society of Physics Students (SPS) was one
of 37 designated "Outstanding SPS Chap-
ters for 1985-86" . . . Belmont, The Gari
Melchers Memorial Gallery, continued its
lecture series on miniatures entitled
"Portraiture in America: The New World
to 1900" with a presentation by Clifford
T. Chieffo of Georgetown University . . .
"Women in the Ancient World," a two-
part lecture program, featured former
MWC professor Elizabeth Clark as
speaker. Rebecca Hague, professor of clas-
sics at Amherst College, concluded the
program in November . . . "She Stoops to
Conquer," an 18th century English com-
edy, was presented by the Department of
Dramatic Arts and Dance ... To round
out the month's activities, the Zero-
Moving Dance Company came to the Col-
lege as part of the MWC Performing Arts
Series.
November
"The Health and Psychological Well-
Being of Black Women," a discussion
about the topic of mental health services
and ethnic minorities, was given by Dr.
Gwendolyn Puryear Keita of Howard
University . . . The Center for Historic
Preservation sponsored a slide lecture on
the classical tradition in French architec-
ture by architect Philippe Madec ... In-
ternationally renowned pianist John
Young performed in Dodd Auditorium in
a program commemorating the 100th an-
niversary of the death of Franz Liszt . . .
Artist Lou Horner had an exhibit of
drawings, paintings and constructions
concerned with food preparation and din-
ing activities, while Younghee Choi dis-
played her works reflecting her fascina-
tion with mythological subjects and the
Italian Renaissance . . . Belmont pre-
sented "The New Faces of Thomas
Eakins" with Kathleen Foster, curator
and director of research and publications
at The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine
Arts ... The MWC Student Affiliate
Chapter of the American Chemical Soci-
ety received its first outstanding rating
from the national organization for its ac-
tivities during the 1985-86 year . . . The
MWC Chorus and the Jazz Ensemble pre-
sented their fall concerts ... In the fall
production of the MWC Dance Concert
Series, students shared the stage with
several distinguished visiting artists and
performed to the work of an internation-
ally acclaimed composer. MWC artist-in-
residence Clifford Shulman also per-
formed . . . "The Freedom Fighters," a
three-part television interview series
hosted by MWC Visiting Commonwealth
Professor of History James Farmer, was
aired on WNVT, Channel 53, in Northern
Virginia. Mr. Farmer interviewed three
prominent civil rights leaders for the pro-
gram, the Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, Rep.
Walter Fauntroy and Mayor Andrew
Young of Atlanta . . . The Belmont lec-
ture series, "Portraiture in America,"
closed with a talk entitled "John Singer
Sargent and the Consequences of Por-
traiture" given by Trevor Fairbrother, as-
sistant curator of American paintings for
the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston . . .
"House Calls," a series sponsored by the
Center for Historic Preservation, featured
local restoration experts and came to a
close with a walking tour of downtown
Fredericksburg.
December
The holiday season began with tradi-
tional and anticipated concerts and activ-
ities. The Combined Choruses of MWC
gave a holiday concert in Dodd Audito-
rium . . . "Christmas With All the Trim-
mings," a popular holiday workshop high-
lighting decoration and entertaining
ideas, was sponsored by the Center for
Historic Preservation for the sixth
straight year . . . The Annual POPS Or-
chestra Concert was conducted by James
E. Baker, professor of music and chair-
person of the Department of Music ... A
"Presidential Open House" commemo-
rated the 200th anniversary of James
Monroe's arrival in Fredericksburg to
practice law. This event was held at the
James Monroe Law Office-Museum and
Memorial Library . . . Twelve students re-
ceiving Intermediate Honors were offered
"high commendation and since congratu-
lations" from the College.
January
An invitational art exhibit, "Fiber-
works 1987," featured the fiber art of 10
artists from New England and West Vir-
ginia . . . Thirty-two MWC students were
selected to be included in the 1987 edi-
tion of Who's Who Among Students in
American Universities and Colleges . . .
An official ceremony in tribute to Martin
Luther King Jr. highlighted a week of
special course offerings and events in
memory of the civil rights leader . . . Bel-
mont began its fine arts film series which
focused on modern development in the
arts ... Dr. Gregory Guroff, an expert on
Soviet-American relations, spoke at the
College about the cultural gap existing
between these two nations . . . For the
Fall Semester 299 students were named
to the Dean's List; 68 received all A's.
February
"The Freedom Fighters" television se-
ries featuring James Farmer was aired
again in February and a new series,
"James Farmer's Reflections," 12 video
tapes of Mr. Farmer's class at MWC on
the Civil Rights Movement, began on
Channel 53, WNVT, and Channel 56,
WNVC, in Northern Virginia . . . Lute-
nist Howard Bass gave an outstanding
performance at MWC . . . Soprano
Mattiwilda Dobbs was warmly received
and well-reviewed in Dodd Auditorium . . .
Sen. Joseph ft Biden Jr.
"New Directions in American Foreign
Policy" was the subject of a public lecture
given by Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-
Del.). Biden is the chairman of the Sen-
ate Judiciary Committee and an an-
nounced candidate for the presidency in
1988 . . . The training program for Volun-
teer Income Tax Assistance was held on
campus in cooperation with the IRS and
the MWC Department of Business Ad-
ministration . . . The U.S. Navy Band's
official jazz ensemble, The Commodores,
gave a free concert and instrumental sec-
tion clinics . . . "Nuts," an adult court-
room drama opened with direction by
Cheri Swiss, assistant professor of dra-
matic arts . . . Belmont featured "Etch-
ings by the Americans James McNeill
Whistler and Childe Hassam" ... A fac-
ulty art exhibit featured the work of
MWC professors.
14
Admissions News
By H. Conrad Warlick
Each year we always think that the
fall is the busiest time of the year for the
Office of Admissions and Financial Aid,
and it is true that those autumn days are
indeed full. The rest of the 1986-87 year,
however, was a perfect example of "You
haven't seen anything yet!"
The Admissions Committee had its
first task in selecting the successful ap-
plicants for admission under the Early
Decision Plan. Mary Washington College
subscribes to a national program of early
decision regulations, and applicants who
have MWC as their first-choice school
can apply under the provisions of this
program. Applicants sign a special form
indicating that they will accept admission
if it is offered by the College, and the
College agrees to notify them about early
decision by Dec. 1. This year we selected
42 top students under the provisions of
the Early Decision Plan.
Following rapidly for the committee
was the consideration of those candidates
who filed their applications during the
early winter. Those students who sub-
mitted applications before Feb. 1 and who
had superior academic records were of-
fered honors admission to the College.
This was a new program for 1987, and al-
most 300 students received this special
admission offer. In addition, these stu-
dents, along with those admitted under
the Early Decision Plan, were nominated
to participate in the Regional Scholarship
Program competition, Mary Washington's
most prestigious academic scholarship
award.
Our staff was kept busy with follow-up
activities for this group. These students
received a special letter of congrat-
ulations from President William M.
Anderson Jr., a letter from the chair-
person of their major department, and a
copy of the new student newsletter, the
Eagle. A telephone call of congratulations
was also made to these students by the
members of the Admissions Club at the
College.
Selecting the honors admissions candi-
dates was only the beginning! This year
the college received the largest number of
applications for the freshman class in its
history. The selection process was a diffi-
cult one, but the committee worked hard
to select those candidates who seemed
best suited for Mary Washington College
and its programs. Every person who had
applied before the March 1 deadline re-
ceived a letter from the College by the
beginning of April containing the com-
mittee's decision.
This group of admitted students, along
with those who had received the good
news earlier, were invited to receptions
for them and their parents in early April.
The office of admissions, in cooperation
with the director of alumni programs and
various alumni chapters, invited students
in the following areas to receptions: Pen-
insula, Tidewater, Richmond, Charlottes-
ville, Fredericksburg, D.C. Metro, and
Baltimore. Representatives from the ad-
missions office joined faculty members,
students and alumni at these programs.
Our alumni helped host these receptions
in a variety of places, ranging from pri-
vate homes to The Barns at Wolftrap.
Each day in April the campus was
filled with visitors who had been offered
admission to the College. The guided
tours offered by the members of the Ad-
missions Club had record attendance, and
the admissions staff looked forward to the
candidates' reply date, which is the first
of May. After that date we knew for sure
which applicants had accepted the invita-
tion to join us at the College, and we
were very pleased with the positive re-
sponse we had. Prospective students were
quick to seize the excitement of the new
facilities and the new developments at
the College, and the Admissions Commit-
tee was very pleased with the freshman
class.
Throughout the spring the admissions
staff was hard at work attending pro-
grams for high school juniors, who will, of
course, be the seniors we will be recruit-
ing next year. We attended national col-
lege fairs in Pittsburgh, Boston, Hartford,
New Jersey and Maryland. In addition,
the College was represented at numerous
other programs across the country either
by members of the admissions staff or by
alumni volunteers.
So, the admissions cycle has already
started again! Keep Mary Washington
College in mind when you are talking
with high school students or their parents
and encourage them to seek information
about your alma mater. Our graduates
and our students are our best recommen-
dation. We all look forward to having you
as members of our admissions team.
H. Conrad Warlick is vice president for ad-
missions and financial aid at Mary
Washington.
ALUMNI NEWS
Right: Connie Ferebee '43 hosted the
Tidewater Chapter's bean soup and corn-
bread luncheon at her home in Norfolk.
Below: A very special guest at the
Peninsula-Tidewater joint luncheon was
Jennifer Bryant, left, who will be a freshman
at Mary Washington this fall. Seated with her
is her mother, Frances Rodgers Bryant '68.
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GOLDEN CLUB NEWS
Kathryn Gallagher Spirito (Mrs. M.W.)
712 S. Riverside Drive
Shark River Hills, NJ 07753
I attended the annual Golden Club meeting
with the alumni at Trench Hill in August.
Most of the Golden Club activities were
already prepared by the Alumni Association.
Thanks galore!
In the interim I have been well-informed by
Frances Liebenow Armstrong '36. She has
sent me wonderful plans for more activities
and more conveniences for our Golden Club
members. Frances is our very diligent "go be-
tween" to the Alumni Association.
The Fredericksburg chapter of the Golden
Club had a delightful luncheon at one of the
local restaurants. At this luncheon each mem-
ber received a lovely gift.
Phoebe Enders Willis '31 entertained about
34 of the Golden Club members at an elegant
afternoon tea.
The Fredericksburg chapter is attempting to
"get the ball rolling" for the intermingling of
the nearby chapters, such as Richmond and
Washington. Other plans are in the making for
the extra free activities for the Golden Club
Homecoming '87. Many thanks are due
Frances and her alumni workers.
Connie Grant Chilton wrote to me inquir-
ing about Atwood Graves Abbitt '29. 1 fur-
nished the information for Connie. As a result,
she and Atwood are corresponding and pre-
paring for a meeting. How about Homecoming
'87?
Our kind and ever-so-faithful Homecoming
friend, Reba Collier Thorpe '33, sent me one
of the prettiest Christmas cards I have ever
seen. Reba thoughtfully sent me snaps of
Homecoming '86. Many thanks to you, Reba.
Last summer while on my way to Ashland, I
quickly stopped my car, backed up, and entered
a road that read "To Beaverdam." I decided I
would surprise Ola Murray Martin '31 (class
agent for 50 years) with one of my famous
"20-minute visits." Was exceedingly disap-
pointed upon learning that Ola had moved to
Richmond. Ola, I want to tell you that road
into Beaverdam is one of the most picturesque
and interesting roads that I have traveled in
Virginia. Please come to Homecoming '87. I'll
tell you all about the Concord]
1919
Mary Omohundro Horn
Route 1
Warsaw, VA 22572
1921
Virginia Dillard Bowie
604 Lewis St.
Fredericksburg, VA 22401
Lucile Hansford Brooks
826 Sunken Road
Fredericksburg, VA 22401
1927
Lucy Hobson McKerrow
604 Emory Drive
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
These are questions from Lucy: What hap-
pened to the graduates of my class? What are
you doing? Where are you living? If you can
write, give us a few lines about you and your
family.
After graduation, I went to New York City,
working as a physical therapist prior to taking
charge of corrective gym in a group practice of
orthopedic surgeons. I later had a position in
the pbysical therapy department of two other
hospitals before marrying a Harvard '27 social
worker. We have two children: a daughter, who
is a professor of occupational therapy at Boston
College, and a son, who is a pathologist at the
University of Calif, in San Francisco.
We have been active here in the beautiful
university town of Chapel Hill, N.C., and find
time to take courses. I have taken or audited
about nine courses here and one at the state
university in Raleigh. I find gardening real
therapy, and I enjoy playing golf. I have
worked as a commentator for our local radio
station, and I assist in working with DUIs who
work off their penalties by cleaning up public
parks. I belong to two garden clubs and have
taken ribbons in American Rose Society shows.
My husband has been chairman of the Coun-
cil on Ageing, the Orange County Commission-
ers, and treasurer of the North Carolina Botan-
ical Garden Foundation. He has also given
speeches on child abuse. After he graduated
from Harvard, he entered social work and later
retired from the Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Children in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Prior to retirement, I taught health and
physical education in N.Y. high schools. How
would you like 152 girls in a gym class? I am a
member of the Triangle Chapter Alumni Asso-
ciation and would love to hear from other class
members.
1929
Louise Gordon Davies
19 Indiantown Road
King George, VA 22485
Helen Van Denburg Hall
Box C-61
Locust Hill, VA 23092
1931
Kathryn Gallagher Spirito (Mrs. M.W.)
712 S. Riverside Drive
Shark River Hills, NJ 07753
My first wish is to thank each one of my
classmates for the letters and cards I have re-
DEVIL
ceived. Please keep sending the cards. They are
"quickies" and carry your news.
Emily Thruston Llewellyn traveled to Cali-
fornia last summer with one of her sons and
her granddaughter, who attends college in San
Diego. Emily is proud to let us know that she
has a beautiful new great-grandson born Dec.
13 in Asbury Park, N.J. Last fall Emily had a
setback with an angina attack. We have heard
since that she is up and at it again. Right on,
Emily.
Audrey Steele Smith stopped by Lynchburg
to visit Margaret Reinhardt McKenry in her
new apartment. Audrey also loves to visit VMI
to see her grandson. However, she is kept ever
too busy with the Hardin Realty Co. in Manas-
sas. Audrey has been a realtor for many years.
Kaye Gallagher Spirito and Margaret
"Skinny" Reinhardt McKenry still have their
telephone chats. Skinny and Kaye were room-
mates (how could you ever forget?).
I phoned Richie McAtee Gallagher '32
while visiting in Fredericksburg last summer. I
was ever so saddened to hear that her husband
had passed away. Nevertheless, Richie expects
to attend Homecoming '87.
Kaye Gallagher Spirito is busy making plans
for her 10th trip to Europe. Kaye came to
MWC from England in January 1928. She has
been to Europe four times on great ocean liners
and five times on various airlines. The big deal
this time, Kaye would like you to know, is the
Concord from New York to London. News in
next issue!
1933
Alma Murchison
1412 Beal St.
Rocky Mount, NC 27801
Isebelle Page Burden (Mrs. G.L.)
8522 Hanford Drive
Richmond, VA 23229
Greetings! Alma "Murk" Murchison sent
the following rhyme for your enjoyment:
THE CLASS OF '33
A look through The Battlefield of '33
Furnished the names of our grand old class
And so I've used them in this rhyme
To recall something of times past.
I realize that some are not with us any more
But we still have our memories so dear,
So this rhyme is a toast to all of us
Who graduated that wonderful year.
So here's to "Sammie," Marguerite and "Billy
Boy,"
Isebelle, Madeline and Maurine,
Dot, Hazel, Ellen and "Spec,"
Julia Lee, Joan and Josephine.
The two Annas, Alice Mae and Grace,
The four Virginias, Eugenia and Ruby,
Opal, Nellie, Louise and Sarah,
The three Alices, Lois and Lucy.
16
The two Marys, Myrtle and Marie,
Irene, Mildred and Lora,
Martha, Evelyn, Minnie and Mary Virginia,
"Mina," Miriam and Roberta.
Then there's Berta, Lucy and Patricia,
Lucille and Margaret — all shared the fun and
work,
And that leaves only one name left to use
So I'll end this rhyme with "Murk."
I received a long letter from Berta Watt
Whitehouse. She has been a busy lady since
we last saw her in '33. Besides teaching 26
years, she wrote three columns per week for 12
years for The Free Lance-Star, the Fredericks-
burg paper. She also wrote a very interesting
article for MWC Today about our class. She
titled it "The Depression Class of '33." We are
quite proud of you, Berta — only sorry you
didn't get to our 50th celebration.
Reba Collier Thorpe and Olie Mae Hope
enjoyed a lovely trip to Alaska. They also went
to Stuart, Va., and visited with Erma Colley
McKenzie, a former roommate whom they had
not seen since college days.
Thanks for your note, Dorothy Tucker
Marks. Dot attended the International
Woman's Club convention in Cincinnati, Ohio,
last year.
Many of you have asked about Virginia
Carmichael. Let me quote part of her card. "I
am all right. Still on a walker and thankful to
be able to get around. I enjoy hearing from
MWC and am real proud of the progress. Have
a good holiday season and tell the girls 'hello.'"
Nancy Jones Hurrle and husband now live
in the Presbyterian home in High Point, N.C.
Had a note from Alice "Prissy" Belote
Vaughan since the holidays. She has had a
few health problems but is much better now.
Prissy, we are all in the same age group. Need
I say more? She had heard from Nellie Mae
Stewart '34 recently.
Ethel Turner Horner never lets me down.
We share class news several times during the
year. I also had short visits with Julia Lee
Boston Bartha, Alice Hunter Irby Gordy
and Lois Cornwell Draper. There was also a
phone visit with Anne Bryant Arritt.
We all have our highs and lows in life, but
Alice Mae Brown Walden certainly had more
than should be expected of the low last year.
She said her friends and faith in God kept her
going. Alice Mae's highs were attending the
beautiful wedding of her granddaughter in
Columbia, S.C., and going with a group from
her church to the Senior Adult Chautauqua at
Ridgecrest Baptist Conference Center in N.C.
Our condolences to the family of Ina
Brothers Lane, who attended Mary Washing-
ton between 1929 and 1931.
Thanks to Ava Smith, Mina Poffenbarger
Hartman, Anna Hunter Adams and Alice
Early Thompson for their kind greetings.
Please let us know of any address changes.
Thanks for keeping in touch.
1935
(News of the death of Elizabeth Page Galie,
Class Agent for the Class of 1935, reached us
after our press deadline.)
On Aug. 18, 1986, our Frances A. "Legs"
Mays died. Irmalee "Teenie" Smith De
Hanas, Legs' roommate, wrote and sent to all
our class a tribute, which I think all MWC
girls should have the opportunity to read. It
said:
"I want you to know that last summer Bud
and I had been to North Carolina to move the
furniture of a dear friend who lived in Lusby.
Bud drove the rental truck, and I followed in
the car. On the return trip, sans truck and
furniture, we stopped in Stony Creek and had
a wonderful visit with Legs that I would not
now trade for gold if it were possible.
"She talked then about her physical condi-
tion. She said that she was not worried about
it, because she felt that her life had been ful-
filling and she was ready to go when the Lord
was ready to take her. It was said, not with the
least bit of sadness or regret, but more with joy
and satisfaction that all was well.
"Since the reunion, she and I had corre-
sponded regularly, and her letters were always
written in a cheerful, upbeat way.
"How clearly my mind is flooded now with
thoughts of the many times we ran up and
down the athletic field, chasing balls of one
kind or another — hockey balls, speed balls, soc-
cer balls. Just give us a ball and a field, and
we were happy! Legs was always between the
goal posts in her 'regalia' that protected her
from the flying balls and hockey sticks that
came at her with all the speed we could
muster.
"And there I was, the smallest one on the
field, doing my best to keep up with the others
who were so much faster, more athletic and
more accurate than I was but giving it every-
thing I had (which certainly wasn't much). But
I love the challenge! What a great life it was,
and what memories!
"We were dubbed with the nicknames Legs
and Teenie when we walked across the campus
together — a most unlikely looking pair — and I
treasure that name because it has a special
meaning for me.
"What else can I say?
"Let us not waste any more time. It doesn't
take long to write a note or send a card to a
member of our class, just to let them know you
remember and you care. Time is so short.
"This is my tribute to a dear friend and
former roommate: Legs. Love, Teenie."
For the past 12 years our classmate Loretta
Folger Duffy and her charming English hus-
band have made it to the Homecoming. For
five of them I have been there also. I always
enjoyed their charming presence. On Jan. 22,
1987, Loretta died after a five-year bout with
cancer. Should you like to know her home ad-
dress, here it is: Mr. Vincent P. Duffy, 11
Hazelton Road, Barrington, RI 02806. She
leaves one daughter. Loretta at one time was
class agent. I know she will be missed at
Homecoming.
Betty Griffith Schmidt missed Home-
coming last year because of her dear husband's
bad health. This past fall he passed away. On
top of this grief, she had a few medical prob-
lems. We hope you are getting well now.
Through Betty and Teenie, I am getting news.
I wish more of you classmates would send in-
formation about yourselves.
Helen Shurtleff Tyra, Betty's MWC room-
mate, wrote that she placed exhibits in the
county fair and brought home blue ribbons for
roses, apples and grapes. They took a four-day
trip through the Adirondacks to Cooperstown,
N.Y., where they went through Baseball's Hall
of Fame Museum.
Grace E. Herr has also been trying to get
news from classmates. She spent most of July
and August with her sister in Charlottesville,
Va. She wrote: "We were at the beach, Sand-
bridge, for two weeks in July. A weekend at-
tending the Herr reunion in Pennsylvania,
visiting Wakefield and Stratford Hall. My sis-
ter, a friend and I had a nice week in the
Finger Lake region of New York. I am ready to
settle down to usual activities, such as bridge,
volunteer work, bowling, needlework."
A few weeks before her trip to Alaska with
her grandson, Irmalee "Teenie" Smith De
Hanas had a health problem. She got better
and had a wonderful trip and took a lot of pic-
tures. This past winter she and Bud had a
lovely apartment in San Diego, Calif, on the
ocean for six weeks. Along with enjoying their
son and grandson, they have been to Los
Angeles to visit friends and to Tijuana, Mexico,
to do some shopping. She has been improving
and hopes that when she returns from Califor-
nia she can go back to playing golf. Her stay
near loved ones, the climate, and love of pho-
tography all have been good therapy for her
recovery.
I am lucky that Isebelle Page Burden '33,
sister, gets some good news about my class-
mates in Richmond. We could not be more
proud of Marie Krafft Kelleher's participation
in the Virginia Recreation and Park Society's
Golden Olympics. The 1986 statewide competi-
tion was held in Lynchburg, and there Marie
won four swimming medals: three gold and one
silver. Her husband, Michael, also received two
medals in the event. The Kellehers spend a lot
of their time swimming at the Jewish Commu-
nity Center in Richmond. The Richmond News
Leader had a nice article and pictures about
the Kellehers and the Golden Olympics.
I talked to Ruth Whitehead Owen. They
were "snowed-in" in Millbrook, N.Y. Her hus-
band was in the service, and they moved
around so much that since his retirement they
have enjoyed staying home. They have made a
trip to Scotland, Wales and England. They
visit a cousin in Cape Cod occasionally. Be-
cause Norfolk was home, she visits there often,
seeing Dorothy Seay Owens, Mary Hope
Harcum and Margaret Lambert Reardon in
Virginia Beach. They get together and have
fun. Last spring she and her husband went on
tour to the Tulip Festival in Ottawa, Canada.
I have not been well since Homecoming and
have not called many people to stay in touch.
I called Hulda Roane Hunt of Grafton, Va.,
so we could hear some news about her. She is
active as the adult Sunday School class teacher
of Bethel Baptist Church. She taught for 24
years and was a member of York Teachers As-
sociation. She has two sons and a daughter.
The oldest son is an engineer at NASA. The
second son teaches in the humanities depart-
ment at Tabb High School and is director of
physical education. Her daughter has been the
budget analyst for the Newport News ship-
yards for nine years. Hulda has seven grand-
daughters and five great-grandchildren.
17
I wish some of you who have not communi-
cated with us in a long time would write me.
Your classmates would enjoy hearing from you.
1937
Evelyn Riggs Ellington
711 Connecticut Ave.
Norfolk, VA 23508
Alice "Lib" Johnson Birtwell
1572 Pleasant Road
Apt. J27
Bradenton, FL 33507
From Evelyn:
By the time this issue of MWC Today
reaches you, we will have become members of
the Golden Club! Our 50th reunion will be over
for us, the last of the F.S.T.C.'s.
While I am writing this, I am hoping that
your eager voices will be singing and a large
number of you are making plans to be together
again "on the hill."
Your Homecoming Committee, Lucy
Pierson Welsh, Alice "Lib" Johnson
Birtwell, and I, along with others, were work-
ing several months to make our reunion a big
success. Your attendance will have made it
worth our while.
Thanks to Lucy Welsh for searching in
alumni files to find the words for "Eager
Voices Singing," the school song when we were
in college, and to Ann Lipscomb Kline for
writing down the music for it. Thanks also to
Alice Dew Hallberg for planning and present-
ing the memorial service for those no longer
with us.
We especially thank Lib Birtwell for plan-
ning and setting up the Nina G. Bushnell
Fund which will aid deserving students in fur-
thering their education at the college level.
The amount now raised is over $10,000. We
are proud of Lib's efforts on this project.
Thanks to all of you who made it a success.
Your committee gleaned a few items of news
and hopes to hear from more of you during
1987.
Jacqueline Clark Robertson, now in
Calif., had a bad time with the flu bug last
fall. She enjoys watching the migration of
whales from her oceanfront home. Sarah Gray
Wilson is now teaching part time at a junior
college in Del.
Dorothy Ball Eason and husband are en-
joying farm life in Lexington, Va., where he is
inspector of the Virginia Horse Center.
Selma Piland Johnston of Arlington has
not had a chance to travel recently because her
husband has been homebound. We hope she
will be able to arrange to be with us in May.
Martha Epes Deane is still postmistress at
Nottoway, Va. She will try to be with us for
our big occasion.
In January, our Tidewater Chapter visited
the Peninsula Chapter and had a luncheon at
Fort Monroe Officers Club in Hampton. We ex-
change visits with the Peninsula Chapter each
year. We always enjoy seeing our friends. Our
speaker was Porter Blakemore, assistant pro-
fessor of history at MWC. We also met Melisa
Casacuberta '84, director of alumni programs,
several other MWC board members and repre-
sentatives of the college.
Julia Harris Shelton and husband are
planning to move back to Virginia from Miami.
I talked to Eloise Trussell Kousz in Glen-
olden, Pa., on her birthday. We hope that she
will also be able to be with us for our big event
in May.
Frances Sherman Spencer and her hus-
band, who live on a farm in Monroe City, Mo.,
enjoyed a big reunion of the Spencer family on
the Fourth of July. They hoped to get down to
Texas to get away from the cold this winter.
They are planning to be in Virginia for our re-
union and to see friends in Norfolk.
Lib will be your class agent after we meet in
May. Please let her hear from you often.
Thanks for giving me the chance to serve
you these past five years. It has been an enjoy-
able experience. I still like to travel and plan
to do more while I am able. In the latter half of
June, I will be in London and surrounding
areas with the Moore family descendants, visit-
ing Losely Hall, the old Moore estate, and
many other places of interest.
From Lib:
Mary Chapman Mitchell has been ill but is
improving. She told her minister she had three
speeds: slow, very slow, and stop. His reply,
"As long as the first two are working, you have
nothing to worry about." Hang in there, Mary!
I received a note from Frances "Billie"
Mayses Agreen in Purcellville, Va. She plans
to attend our Homecoming also.
The Forrest Glasses (Buff Haley) of Hope-
well and Brookville, Fla., had quite a De-
cember. The ninth grandchild, Daniel, was
christened on the 20th at their Florida home.
Buff and Forrest then had a trip to the Ba-
hamas to celebrate her birthday. Katherine
Burgess Robertson and Buff will be coming
together to our Homecoming.
Becky Kalnen has had to slow down a bit
from her usual rigid routine. Each year she
has been busy building a house, landscaping it,
and putting it on the market for sale. Get some
rest, Becky, and come on up to Fredericksburg
in May.
Lucy Pierson Welsh had a busy Christmas
with her family. She is back to work on her
genealogy and is ready to continue with re-
union plans. Things are shaping up and look-
ing good!
Adele Crowgey Giles and Joe are enjoying
retirement and have made plans to attend
Homecoming. Joe has some arthritic problems
in his knees, but this doesn't keep him
housebound.
Sarah Gray Wilson and Chuck have taken
an apartment in Wilmington, Del., to be near
an ill sister. Sarah works two days a week at a
junior college in Milford, Del.
1939
Mary W.B. Hartley (Mrs. S.T.)
3464 Colonial Ave., S.W.
Apt. P-108
Roanoke, VA 24018
Kathryn Nicholas Winslow and her hus-
band went to Jordan, Israel and Amsterdam in
'85. For four years her husband had been too
ill to travel. Kathryn is president of Women of
the Church in her congregation. She is a very
active officer in DAR, Daughters of American
Colonies, and Daughters of Founders and Pa-
triots of America. She is in two Bible study
groups and active in Church Women United.
She swims each week at the JCC Club. Sounds
like a full, busy life, Kathryn. There was a
postscript to her letter about a wonderful week
in New York before last Christmas, full of
shows, shopping and gourmet dining.
Last fall, while in the grocery store, I ran
into Tess Boggs Wilson. A real surprise to
find Tess in my grocery market. Her son, Sam,
is an attorney in Roanoke and has lived not far
from me. Sam had been sent to France by his
law firm, and his wife went with him. Tess and
Sam Sr. were baby-sitting.
My daughter, Betty, who lives in Fla., and I
have just returned from visiting daughter Jean
and family in Pa. The grandchildren are grow-
ing up so fast. I hate to miss a minute.
With Christmas, there were cards with some
news. Kathryn Nicholas Winslow sent a won-
derful letter enclosing a letter from Bernice
Whipple Camp written in October. "Whip" is
active in the American Legion Auxiliary, plays
golf, assists with Meals on Wheels and helps
serve candlelight meals for the retired. Whip
has her own home in Englewood, Fla., which
keeps her busy. She and a group of friends
have season tickets to plays in the area. At the
time of writing, she was helping with her
church bazaar. Whip also helps when her
church serves pancake breakfasts every other
Saturday to over 1,000 people.
Kathryn wrote about driving down the Blue
Ridge Parkway in October to Asheville, At-
lanta and Charlotte where her grandchildren
are. After this, they planned to go to New York
in December for theatre and shopping. During
the summer the Winslows suffered a robbery at
the hands of teen-age boys who kicked in storm
doors, windows, and panel doors. All of the
numerous appliances they took were recovered
due to the vigilance of a neighbor who got
their auto license number. Two weeks later
they had a shock when a mother raccoon took
up residence in a chimney in the living room
fireplace and delivered three little ones. After
great effort by Kathryn and four men, they
were safely evicted. The chimney now has a
top on it!
Jane Sinclair Diehl's address has been
changed to 129 York Point Road, Seaford, VA
23696. Elnora Overley Johnson and Jack
spent part of February in Florida. This time
they took the Auto Train and liked it. They
have been busy keeping up with Elnora's
nephew's (the son of Florence Overley
Ridderhof '50) activities: graduation from
VMI, marriage, and birth of a daughter named
Lorna Elnora. In July, Elnora and Jack toured
the Canadian Rockies, Lake Louise, Banff and
environs. Ruth Flippo Moon's son was to be
married in Atlanta on Christmas Eve so Ruth
said her Christmas would be different this
year. After attending the wedding, she would
fly to Dayton, Ohio, on Christmas Day to her
nephew's.
Finally, Nelle Thomas wrote that she re-
cently had vascular surgery on her legs. Nelle
says she has been enjoying playing a lot of
bridge and going on bus tours. In March she
will go to New Orleans.
Now it is up to the rest of you gals to make
1987 the newsiest year ever. Write to me!
1941
Dorothy Day Riley
200 Yeardley Drive
Newport News, VA 23601
18
Marguerite Jennings Helbush, Margaret
"Rita" Kottner '40 and Betty Smith met for
lunch in Honolulu.
Jo Ewing Balzer and her husband, Dick,
spent a couple of months in Flagler Beach, Fla.
Before she left for Florida, Jo, Frances
Dugger Thayer, Clara Dugger Bruner and I
had an unexpected meeting at the reunion of
all graduates of our old high school here in
Newport News.
1943
Dorabelle Forrest Cox
135 Forrest Road
Poquoson, VA 23662
Hilda Holloway Law
6 Ensigne Spence
Williamsburg, VA 23185
Frances Wills Stevens
432 Oakland Drive
Raleigh, NC 27609
From Frances:
Christmas cards came from Nancey Inglis
Russo, Pris Macpherson Allen and Kitty
Pinner Grinstead promising letters after the
holidays. From Mary Huskey Farr comes
news that she and husband Edward are back
in Mississippi after three years of being volun-
teer "missionaries for the Lord" in Nevada. She
had some health problems but seems to be well
on the way to solving them. They had a won-
derful trip (flew to Tahiti and took a seven-day
cruise to the Polynesian Islands) and say that's
the way to take a vacation. In February they
flew to Australia (Sydney) and took a cruise
ship to ports in New Zealand and some Pacific
islands and all the way back to L.A. Mary's
son is a lawyer in Houston; youngest daughter
teaches kindergarten near Memphis, and the
other daughter has four children (one to
graduate from h.s. in June) and lives in Tenn.
From Ruth "Fergie" McClung comes news
that in 1985 her daughter, Ann, was in London
working in the office of the Commander-in-
Chief of the U.S. Navy for Europe. Fergie and
husband Mac had a marvelous trip to England,
Scotland and Wales. Since Fergie developed
health problems last February, she has been
"responding well to the treatments and making
much progress." Ann has since transferred to
the Pentagon. Son Wally is in the last of a
three-year apprenticeship at NORSHIPCO in
Norfolk. He will receive an associate degree in
marine engineering to add to a B.S. in
business.
Betty Rogers Zylewitz sends news she has
sold her home and moved into a duplex. She
made a visit to Virginia in October to see
Alice Glazebrook and Alice Williams
Carver, freshman roommates. Please send ad-
dresses! Peg Moran Logan and husband Dick
stopped to see her in August, and they "had a
nice visit. They looked grand."
Peg and Dick sent their most unusual letter,
"Then— 1970; Now— 1986," with pictures of all
eight "youngsters." They recapped their three-
month trip to Europe, which they planned in
order to see their nephew ordained in Rome.
They returned to the places of Dick's WWII ex-
periences: Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Ger-
many, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland
and Denmark. They attended LaScala Opera
and "found our roots in Germany." Peg also
found a cousin in Heidelberg with a daughter
who spoke English!
From Margaret "Migit" Gardner Snyder
comes news of an inland waterway cruise (to
Charleston, Savannah, Hilton Head, St. Simon)
and a June trip to Russia and a Volga cruise.
She is a busy girl with church work, choir
work, traveling, and serving on the board of
The National Cathedral in D.C.
My husband and I had an extended trip from
N.C. to Maine and all points in-between last
fall. I was very fortunate to talk by phone to
eight of you. I am sorry I missed others.
Marjorie Baldwin Roughton and husband
ran an auto agency in Norfolk, but her hus-
band has been ill. She has stepchildren and
four step-grandchildren. She does volunteer
work in the hospital and did much traveling in
years gone by.
Connie Ferebee is a retired Army nurse
and very active in the Norfolk Alumni Chap-
ter. She is also director of Meals on Wheels
there. She graduated from U.Va. Nursing
School.
Betsy Taylor Tazewell's husband retired
from the Navy in 1970; they have five chil-
dren. Sister-in-law Polly Green Taylor lives
nearby in Virginia Beach, and her husband is
an Episcopalian priest there.
I talked with Emma Jester Martin, on the
Eastern Shore, who has retired from teaching
elementary school. She spends her time work-
ing with United Methodist Women and an-
tiquing. She had a trip to the Amish country.
Ruth Ames is a retired librarian and is back
home on Nassawadox on the Eastern Shore.
Emma also told me she sees Helen Young
Evans who went two years with us and fin-
ished in 1947.
On to New Jersey, where I talked to
Katherine Resch Schwenker. Her husband,
Bob, v.p. for Johnson & Johnson's Research &
Development, has retired. They were on their
way to Montreal on a trip. They have two sons,
two daughters; one daughter is a writer, the
other is in Arizona; sons in California and
Wisconsin.
In West Springfield, Mass., I talked to a
daughter of Henriette Beck Watson.
Henriette is a librarian for Massachusetts Mu-
tual Life Ins. Co. She is a widow and has four
children: a son in Wilbraham, Mass., and two
daughters and a son at home. She has one
granddaughter with another grandchild on the
way.
In Southwest Harbor, Maine, I had a nice
telephone visit with Grace Edwards Riddle.
Her husband had retired from the National
Park Service before he passed away. They have
three daughters: two in Philadelphia, one in
Southwest Harbor, and seven grandchildren.
She works part time for a motel in this lovely
area.
Last, but not least, I talked with Debbie
Goldstein Simon on Long Island. She retired
in August and is president of the mums group
there. She travels all over judging flower
shows. They have a daughter, who is a nurse
in Miami, and a son, who is a music teacher on
Long Island. Her husband has a machine shop
and travels many times with her.
Betty "Tuck" Stoecker Gallant '42 lives in
East Sandwich, Mass., on the Cape. We spent
two days with Paul and Betty, talking MWC
news.
Make your plans for May 1988, our 45th
Reunion!
Note: A class ring with 1943 and initials
H.E.W. has been found in Georgia. Please con-
tact the MWC Alumni Office, (703) 899-4648.
1945
Virginia Gunn Blanton
369 Lexington Road
Richmond, VA 23226
1947
Class Agent needed.
1949
June Davis McCormick (Mrs. John)
18 Lynnbrook Road
St. Louis, MO 63131
Anna Dulany Devening
Route 1, Box 106B
Broad Run, VA 22014
From June:
The last news received from Anne "Miami"
McCaskill Libis was of an Adirondacks camp-
ing trip she and Claude shared with Peggy
Elliott Sweeney and Mickey last summer.
Miami wrote that Peggy and Frances
Houston Layton almost crossed paths last
April in Clearwater, Fla., but had to settle for
a phone conversation. Frannie's husband,
Roland, a friend of Claude's, is a professor of
history in Hiram, Ohio. They travel often to
England, and he conducts student tours to
Russia. Frannie and Roland visited briefly
with Miami and Claude last winter. Noting our
writing of Lee Marsh Baldwin '46, Miami
mentioned having seen her at church, on a
visit to Richmond, adding how dynamic Lee is.
That's right, Miami; she always was, still is
and ever shall be. After enjoying being the sole
'49er at Homecoming last May, reunioning
with Lee and the attending members of the
great Class of '46, my latest visit with her was
via phone during a short, sad trip back to
Richmond in late October owing to a death in
my family.
In August, Lucy Vance Gilmer ventured
forth on a 26-day, 6,000-mile trip through the
Southwest. Driving alone and taking in all
points of much interest, she toured New Mex-
ico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado before re-
turning to Bristol. Bet she took loads of great
pix! Lucy faithfully sent news of several '49ers
for this issue. Her MWC roommate, Patsy
McKee Rogers, lives in Palmdale, Calif,
where her husband, Clark, commutes to his
aerospace job at Long Beach. Their daughter,
Ruth, works part time for a local television
station, writes commercials and aspires to
scriptwriting. Their daughter, Mary, attends
college in Palmdale and also has weekend
duties at the same TV studio.
Lucy had a surprise New Year's phone call
from Phyllis Bingham McGaha in Parkers-
burg, W.Va. Phyl's husband, Pat, died in Oc-
tober 1985. Happily, their son, Tim, and his
wife live nearby on the same street. Phyl vis-
ited her sister in Frederick, Md., her brother in
N.C, and hopes to get together with Lucy soon.
On a trip to the Northwest two years ago, Phyl
had a lovely visit with Iris Godfrey Slippy in
19
Seattle. Hi, Iris; let's hear from you!
Mildred Vance Secular, Lucy's sister, had
planned a visit to Bristol in November but had
to postpone her trip until spring when Mildred,
her husband, Sid, and Lucy hope to attend
their niece's graduation from Tennessee Tech
University in Cookeville.
Lucy and Sarah Hayter Helton had lunch
prior to Christmas and saw each other again
while shopping (exchanging?) after the holi-
days. Sarah wrote of the gathering of all 14 of
the Helton clan for Thanksgiving and Christ-
mas: four sons, three daughters-in-law and six
grandchildren. That's a full house, "Sadie," or
is it a royal flush?
From Stone Mountain, Ga., a unique Eskimo
Christmas card came from Jackie McConnell
Scarborough, a lovely reminder of the Alas-
kan cruise and Vancouver/Victoria trip she and
Les took during the summer. Jackie said she
was then in the midst of cleaning and decorat-
ing while planning a jaunt to Gatlinburg,
Tenn., after Christmas for their wedding an-
niversary. Hope it was a very happy one for
them.
It took Andi Dulany Devening only 40
years to actually make her long-awaited trip to
New England with her roomie of that many
years back, Barbara Watson Barden. Andi fi-
nally did the area in August and declared it
well worth the wait. In September, Andi at-
tended Barb and Bob's daughter's wedding at
their home in Lancaster, Pa. While pronounc-
ing it perfectly beautiful, Andi treasures her
vivid vignette of the bride and groom, in full
wedding attire, playing a vigorous game of vol-
leyball with the other young guests. Ah, youth!
Andi took a sentimental journey in October
to attend "Quilters," the 1986 Play-of-the-Year
in Richmond. The all-woman cast included
Dawn Westbrook, the third of Irvin "Kitten"
Whitlow Westbrook and Roland's four daugh-
ters. Dawn played many different parts, that of
a small girl, a boy, young woman, older
woman, etc. By day, she also portrayed "Ra-
punzel" with the Children's Theatre, which
tours the elementary schools in Virginia.
Wouldn't Kitten be proud! Roland has retired
from his banking duties and plans to do some
traveling.
Inspired by her travels, Andi really put her
foot into it for the holidays. She drove to Ft.
Worth, Texas, to spend Thanksgiving week
with son No. 3, Rob, and toured San Antonio,
Austin and Dallas. Then at Christmas, she put
the pedal to the metal for sure, making a
600-mile swing through Virginia to spend
Christmas Eve and morn with son No. 1, Clay,
and family in Allisonia, then over to Lynch-
burg for Christmas dinner with son No. 2, Hal,
and family and the next-day celebration of her
granddaughter's 7th birthday. She'd shared
Christmas in Warrenton with son No. 4, Scott,
and his new bride before leaving. Picking up
and delivering presents around and back really
made Andi feel like ol' Santa himself, only, she
adds, her sleigh was an '83 Pontiac with some
98,000 miles. She spent New Year's in Hot
Springs, then planned to settle back into a
normal routine again. So for Andi, at least, '86
was the year of the wheel! To complete her
good news, Andi just received a promotion to
case consultant for the Social Security Admin-
istration. Did it the Houseman way, too; she
eeeaaarrned it!
More romance in the heirs: Frances
McGlothlin Borkey's daughter, Sharon, was
married in May and plans to live in Richmond,
which delights Frankie and Cecil. Their other
daughter, who married a year ago, works as an
accountant for the James River Corporation.
Now a proud, first-time grandmother,
Margaret "Myrt" Thompson Pridgen's el-
dest son, Bill, and his wife presented her with
Nathaniel in October. Myrt said her "cup run-
neth over." Her daughter, Inez, is an auditor
for Southern States in Maryland.
Another happy grandmother of 1986 is
Marion "Wendy" Selfe Kelly. Katie was born
to her daughter, Ann, and her husband, Mike
Rider. Wendy's broken leg mended well, and
she walks and bikes almost daily. She and
George still love their country gentry life in
Montross and stay much too busy to be bored
in retirement.
Andi talked with Betty Bond Heller Synan
during Christmas though they couldn't get
together as planned. Betty Bond had holidayed
in Hawaii and probably triggered some of that
volcanic activity while there. She is playing for
the Bedford production of "The Wizard of Oz"
and for the Lynchburg Theatre Group's offer-
ing of "Annie Get Your Gun" this spring. Both
titles bring instant memories of Judy and La
Merman, don't they? Keep 'em moving, B.B.!
For most of the Fabulous '49ers, this is the
year we reach another milestone: the big six-
oh! Happy birthday to us all, whenevah! Love
to y'all from "boffus."
1951
Anne Zirpel Josefy (Mrs. John C.)
2602 Shandon Ave.
Midland, TX 79705
Edythe Wagner Kleinpeter (Mrs. Hubert I., Ill)
Route 1, Box 520
Hiawassee, GA 30546
From Edythe:
I received news from Pat Wise Ritter in
Columbus, Ohio. It seems she is an avid ama-
teur photographer and took her skills to
Kenya, East Africa, on a photographic safari.
This has led to her being a docent at the
Columbus Zoo. Pat is a public information offi-
cer for a child welfare agency. Her older son is
a lawyer, and her younger son is following in
Pat's footsteps and is the "Laurence Olivier" of
the 80s. Pat is looking for MWC alumni in her
area of Ohio. Please get in touch with me, and
I will give you her address.
Lois Bellamy Martin is a third grade
teacher in Norfolk, and her husband is a gen-
eral court judge. She is the mother of two sons,
and she also is a docent for the Norfolk courts.
Barbara Baute Dowd, who is a pedi-
atrician in Reading, Mass., recently had a re-
union with Katherine Ash Carmine, our
mutual sophomore roommate. Katherine is the
mother of seven children and lives near Wil-
liamsburg on the James River. Kat's husband,
Waldon, has a family contracting business.
Kat, I would really like to hear from you.
Please write!
Getting back to Barbara Baute Dowd: Her
daughter, Nancy, has recently been named edi-
torial coordinator for Butterick pattern maga-
zine. Her design training was in Paris, so she
comes well-qualified.
Frances Chesson La Camera of St. Peters-
burg, Fla., has followed a career in music. She
has received many awards, one of which was
the Metropolitan Opera auditions for South
East United States. Her husband is a cardiol-
ogist, and they have four children.
Doris Harless has published several articles
on monetary economics and is employed at the
Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. She is cur-
rently the budget director for the MWC
Alumni Association.
Ann Penney Ross wins the award for the
mother with the "mostest." She has 11 chil-
dren, the biggest and most difficult achieve-
ment I can think of! Ann has found time to
pursue her hobby of archaeology and has been
on many "digs," including one to the Easter
Islands and one to Jordan.
Mary Oliver Darling is a counselor and di-
rector of guidance for Walsingham Academy in
Williamsburg. She and her husband, the choir
master of Bruton Parish Church, have five
children. Mary has done so much it's hard to
list everything. She is vice mayor of the city
council and chairwoman of the library board.
She also has received its woman-of-the-year
award.
Marie Rhodes Cappiello writes that she
and husband Frank spent two weeks in Cen-
tral Italy last October and loved it. Her daugh-
ter, Ann Marie, helped design the costumes for
Harvard's Hasty Pudding annual show.
Barbara Rush Engelke has been spending
time in Canada being treated for a rare eye
disorder called Blepharospasms. If anyone has
any information on this disease, please let us
know so we may pass it on to Bobbie. Bobbie's
son, Charles, has written a book, Introduction
to Computer Science. He expects to have it pub-
lished within the year.
The last time I heard from Ruth DeMiller
Hill, she was searching for an unknown ani-
mal living in her walls and also chasing her
boat dock down the lake after a storm. The
trials of living in the country! I know, I live in
the woods inside the national forest, and I
understand fully "strange critters" creeping in
to join the family.
I spent three weeks with the National Press
Club in Kenya on safari. What a great time!
My daughter, Gretchen, was just named ar-
chaeologist for Northern Arizona Museum, and
we are most happy for her.
Please answer my cards. It's fun to hear from
all of you, and, of course, it makes the job so
much easier and more interesting.
Don't forget our 40th reunion in 1991. We
want "you" there, as they say in the Army.
1953
Carol Smith Boyes
2214 McAuliffe Drive
Rockville, MD 20851
1955
Sally Hanger Moravitz
2268 Providence St.
Falls Church, VA 22043
20
1957
Ernestine MacLaughlin Lawrence
243 Main St.
Winchester, MA 01890
Joanne Insley Pearre
5520 Old National Pike
Frederick, MD 21701
1959
Edna Gooch Trudeau (Mrs. T.A.)
Route 1, Box 139 F
New Kent, VA 23124
The Tidewater Review published a very good
article on Duane Massey Carlton. She is now
principal of West Point Elem. School. She lives
in King & Queen County and taught there in
West Point before retiring to rear her twin
daughters. She has her master's from William
& Mary and returned to teaching in '83. She
served as coordinator for gifted education and
vice principal before assuming her present
position.
Ended '86 with a fantastic but too short visit
with Irene Piscopo Rodgers in D.C. where
she was representing Phillips Electric as a con-
sultant. She continues her busy, ongoing trav-
els for them, teaching, training and problem
solving as well. Held her still long enough for
dinner and an almost all-night talk session!
Irene has been on the road since June, stop-
ping in La., Colo., N. M. In Sept., she and Don
went to Norway and Denmark. While Don took
care of business in Holland, Irene visited rela-
tives in Malta. She said Ann Watkins Steves
will be a grandmother for the second time.
In August, Jane Tucker Broadbooks and
John visited his folks in N.Y. Jon Karl re-
turned to his summer job at McDonalds. He
really likes King College. Though a soph., he is
sr. editor of the school paper and writes his
own column. Jane received a delightful sur-
prise phone call from Celeste Shipman
Kaufman. Also sent news that Molly
Bradshaw had married Merle Wadsworth.
They honeymooned in Russia and the Scan-
dinavian countries.
Jane Howard Buchanan has two new ad-
dresses! She and Peter sold their home and
moved to a three-bedroom apartment closer to
Columbia. They also purchased a condo in Vt.
for their hideaway weekends. They planned to
be with all the girls there for the Christmas
holidays and the first two weeks in January.
Kathy is now employed with Filene's Dept.
Store as a distributor and spends her evenings
at the New England School of Photography,
her current interest. Susan relinquished her
paralegal duties and is seriously considering
law school, the Peace Corps or some type of
foreign service. Before that decision is made,
she hopes to make a long trip out West.
Elizabeth continues at Alfred University but
has traded ceramics for sculpture. Jane is a
student residence leader at Proctor Academy
and excels in soccer and tennis. She will soon
be making the college decision.
Carmen Culpeper Chappell and John
celebrated their 25th anniversary in England
and the Italian Lakes area. Wow! Then in
Sept. she was back again in Milan, London,
and on the way to France for several weeks. In
Dec. she visited her family in Puerto Rico
while John was in Japan and China. Daughter
Jennifer is at the Univ. of Michigan, and son
Eric is at Colgate. She has been in contact
with Dodie Reeder Hruby and, if all goes
well, they plan to get together this spring in
Washington, D.C, for the Big 50! Dodie said
Emily Babb Carpenter and Tom moved to
Texas in early fall.
Mary Carolyn Jamison Gwinn wrote that
Cathy had a great summer even though there
was a lot of flooding in their area. Cathy is
taking band, works as a candy striper and
baby-sits. Plus she is in the church choir, the
Pep Club, the Foreign Language Club and
finds time to keep the church nursery. They
visited friends in Florida this summer and saw
EPCOT and Disneyworld. Next on Cathy's list
is the dreaded driver's license. Meantime,
Mary Carolyn teaches eighth grade math, and
Burt continues as office manager at Alleghany
Hospital. Busy, busy!
Received a summer postcard from Audrey
Dubetsky Doyle from Hawaii! Their family
was enjoying sailing, windsurfing and tennis.
Audrey's mother has moved next door which is
really nice. Aud is teaching spec. ed. classes
and taking courses toward those credentials.
Ann Brooks Papadatos is finishing her mas-
ter's degree and recertifying to teach. It won't
be long now. She and Anastasia took their an-
nual trip to Greece in July and also toured Ire-
land again — one of their favorite places. They
rented a car and took to the roads! Greg was to
be home from Ft. Ord for the holidays.
New employment for Mary Massey. She
works as the employment manager for the Na-
ture Conservancy. She wrote that the work is
diverse, busy, and the people warm and enthu-
siastic, professional and dedicated. Sounds
wonderful! This organization is larger than the
National Zoo by whom she was previously em-
ployed. In the last few years her vacations
have also been wonderful. She's visited Kenya,
Hawaii, French West Indies and recently
Southern Arizona. She still enjoys hiking, jog-
ging and has taken up playing with a musical
group.
Phyllis Hartleb Rowley and golf, golf, golf!
Phyllis made a hole-in-one at Quail Ridge
Country Club! Yea! Now all five in the family
have done it. Phil, her oldest son, graduated
from Stanford with honors and Academic Ail-
American. His major was economics and politi-
cal science, and he is currently employed as a
management consultant for Peterson and Co.
in San Francisco. Phil married Jean Meyer in
November in Stanford Memorial Church. Dave
participated in the Florida State Jrs. in July,
the Int. Jr. Masters in Buffalo, and the Amer.
Jr. Golf Association Tournament of Champions
in Ga. Jay is enjoying his soph, year at Wake
Forest. The Rowleys were looking forward to
the Christmas holidays and a full house.
In attendance at Sigrid Stanley Jackman's
daughter's wedding in May was Beulah V.
Springer. Charlotte Wohlnick Wiggs and
Shelly Cohen Mand were also there. B.V.
wrote that her parents are now residing in
Charlottesville in an apartment to make it
easier on them since her father's heart attack.
After Betsy's wedding, Sigrid and Bill sailed on
the Queen Elizabeth II for England where they
had a great vacation. During the holidays, they
were expecting Tom home. He is a crime re-
porter for the Kansas City Times and loves it.
He really has some stories to tell! Billy was to
be in from VPI, and the newlyweds would be
there, too. This summer Sigrid received her
real estate license, so a new career is in the
making.
Speaking of new careers, Lois Gaylord
Allen's son, Gene, has joined the Navy and de-
cided to make it his career. He is now in an
elite anti-terrorist unit. Priscilla Brown
Wardlaw's sons are both in college now. Rob is
a soph, at Chapel Hill, N.C., and loves it. Chris
is a French major at the University of Dela-
ware but is spending a very exciting year in
Paris. So far, bomb scares and riots have not
dampened his ardor. Anne Saunders
Spilman's daughter, Karen, is at the Sorbonne
this year and is also managing to survive all
the dangers. Kathy is a senior at James Mad-
ison Univ., and Jim, a captain in the Army, is
stationed in Kansas and was married in De-
cember. Carol Ageson Dunigan is working
for Federal Express. Her son, Barry, is attend-
ing college in New England, and her daughter,
Kara, is beginning the big college search. She
sometimes hears from Joyce Kirby
Erlandsen.
The usual lovely Christmas photo arrived
from Celeste Shipman Kaufman. Last year's
photo was of Jeffs wedding, and this year's
was of Julie's! In May she was married to
Wayne Wailes. They are living in Tuscaloosa
while he finishes school. Julie continues her
bank auditor job. Jeff and his bride, Pam, live
only a mile away from "Pug" and Alan. Jeff is
traveling with Sandwich Chef, putting in their
new Wall St. Deli and Yogurt and Salad in
malls in N.Y., Denver, and Chicago, and then
FoodCourts operate them. Tammie graduates
from high school this year and hopes to attend
college in N.C. The entire family went to Nas-
sau after Christmas. Alan and Pug plan to
take Tammie to London for spring break.
Tammie and Pug had a glorious two weeks in
California this summer.
All these lucky, smart children we have!
Gloria Winslow Borden's youngest, Cynthia,
is involved in the foreign exchange program.
She spent three weeks in Barcelona this sum-
mer, and Alberto spent equal time at the Bor-
den's. Cynthia was voted Most Valuable Player
by her teammates in hockey and participated
on All District and All Regional teams. She
has applied to several colleges. She and Gloria
plan a trip to London at Easter vacation. (Hear
that, Pug?) Cliff graduated from the Univ. of
Pacific this year. Beth married Dan Lambdin
in California in December, and Caroline and
Mike had a rewarding first year working for
InterVarsity at several colleges in Atlanta.
They are expecting twins in February! Gloria
and Ed had a fun vacation in Salt Lake City in
the summer. They have a cottage in Sand-
bridge where the whole family vacationed in
July. They plan to make that an annual event.
They spent Christmas week at Lake Tahoe;
again the whole family was together for
Christmas Day. They are looking forward to
their future trip to Atlanta to see the twins.
Marcia Phipps Ireland's Christmas note
told that Kris is planning to move to Washing-
ton, D.C, to be with some of her U.Va. friends.
Kent will attend Rider College in the fall.
Gary and Marcia vacationed in the Caribbean
in November. They are ready to visit again
any time. A scare for Eleanor Markham Old
21
and Arthur this summer. Jim fell asleep at the
wheel and totaled his car against a highway
abutment. Thank God, he and his friends es-
caped with minor injuries. Jim received his
Naval wings in Pensacola in August. He is sta-
tioned in San Diego and studying to be a radar
intercept officer. He will finish in June. Arthur
and Eleanor took a trip West in May. They
saw San Francisco, Reno, Salt Lake City, and
the Tetons, Yellowstone, Mt. Ranier, Mt. St.
Helens, Crater Lake — whew! They toured a sil-
ver mine, played the slot machines, naturally,
saw moose, elk, mt. sheep and even ate buffalo.
Arthur is still teaching flying and working for
Armstrong. Eleanor is still an Amish tour
guide and with the Welcome Wagon. Jim and
his girlfriend, Beth, who graduates as an
architect from VPI in June, were expected to
be with them for Christmas.
Julia Coates Littlefield wrote that Bess
graduated from William & Mary in August
with a B.A. in government and is working on
Capitol Hill in the office of Rep. John Dingill
of Michigan. Scott graduated from Lexington
High School in June and is attending VPI and
majoring in theatre arts. He has already been
involved in several drama productions. He
comes home frequently, and Julia says that
does make the "empty nest syndrome" not
quite so hard to take. Her part-time job for
Sigma Nu often seems full time, but she enjoys
it and the tours she gives at the Jackson House
twice a month. She accompanied Mo to New
Orleans for the Grand Chapter meeting. It was
delightful!
A much awaited, up-to-date letter arrived
from Sally Warwick Rayburn. Jim stays very
busy at the lab, but they are hoping to take ad-
vantage frequently of the townhouse they pur-
chased at Wrightsville Beach. Sally opened a
florist shop, which she co-manages with her
son, Dickie. The name is "The Courtyard";
business is great; so all of you in the Greens-
boro area, check it out. Dickie is engaged to
Sharon, who graduated from NC State. She is
now at Wake Forest at the Physician's Assis-
tant School and will finish there in August.
Steve continues to work at the lab with Jim.
Ginny is returning to UNC in January. Sally
is a grandma, thanks to Bob and Dottie. Alan
will be two in March. Dottie works as a
teacher's aid in a day-care center, and Bob is a
flight test engineer with Boeing in
Wilmington.
Thanks so much for all the news with your
Christmas cards. Just write any time the mood
strikes! Keep those vacation postcards coming,
too.
1961
Peggy Howard Hodgkins
BoxH
Wilton, ME 04292
Lloyd Tilton Backstrom
1811 Mill Quarter Road
Powhatan, VA 23139
Spencer Maschino, son of Kay Butzner
Maschino, received a scholarship from the
Greater McLean Republican Women's Club.
The scholarship was awarded on the basis of
academic achievement and participation in Re-
publican activities.
1963
Barbara Prall Granger
565 Orchard Road
Southern Pines, NC 28387
Barbara Booth Green (Mrs. David W.)
6317 S. 69th East Place
Tulsa, OK 74133-1034
Patsy Branstetter Revere
103 Durrington Court
Richmond, VA 23236
From Barbara Granger:
Connie Waterman Lampert wrote that she
is now employed as an historical tour guide in
the Greater Boston area, including Lexington
and Concord, and is really enjoying her new
job. Her daughter, Amy, began her freshman
year at MWC in August. Son Jon graduated
from Georgetown and is working in New York
City. Son Andrew is attending St. Paul's
School in Concord, N.H. She also let us know
that Marianne Walker Jarrell's daughter,
Blayne, was married in June.
Amanda Whichard Cebrowski is living
outside of Milwaukee where husband John is
manager of national accounts and government
sales for General Electric Medical Systems.
Amanda has a sewing business at home and
does a fair share of volunteer work at school.
They have four daughters: Suzanne, a senior
business manager at the University of Wiscon-
sin-Madison; Elizabeth, a freshman in pre-
nursing also at UW-M; Caroline, a senior in
high school; and Catharine, a high school ju-
nior who is currently an AFS student in Porto
Alegre, Brazil.
Karen Vandevanter Chapman wrote that
she has taken the job of development director
for a local Catholic high school, Mercy of
Middletown, in Connecticut. Previously, she
taught history for six years and completed a
master's in administration and supervision.
Husband Kurt is a manufacturer's rep and has
had his own business for about three years.
Their oldest child will be a junior at Lehigh
this fall; their son will be a senior in high
school.
The Chapmans have been in touch with
Carol Van Ness Clapp and Dick, who have
recently moved to Washington, D.C., where
Dick works with Gannett. They have a daugh-
ter, who is a freshman at Gettysburg, and a
son, who is a high school junior. Karen has
also heard from Nancy Slonim Aronie who
lives in Hartford, where she and her husband
own a plexiglass store. Great news is that
Nancy is writing short stories, which are being
published. Congratulations, Nancy!
From Barbara Green:
I have been so negligent as class agent that I
was bound and determined to get our class
news rolling again — especially since our 25th
reunion will be coming up faster than we
would like. The 20th was just super, and I do
hope that many of you will start thinking now
of May 1988 at MWC.
The bulk of my news comes from Betsy
Lydle Smith. She and Pete set a goal to go
overseas with their two girls, Sarah and Kate,
now 13 and 7. When she wrote, Betsy was in
the process of updating her Washington state
teaching credentials so she would have a skill
to use in a developing country. She was still
working as an art consultant in the Seattle
area. Last summer she and her family traveled
back East and picnicked behind Willard at
MWC. Am anxious to learn where the Smiths
have ended up and do hope you will keep us
posted, Betsy.
Among the classmates Betsy reported on
were Susan Rutan Joehnk, Maureen Lyon
Johnson and Nancy Slonim Aronie. Susan
spent the summer of '85 studying in England
and traveling in Europe. She is presently at-
tending law school in San Diego and will com-
plete her second year this spring. Maureen,
husband Ken, and 3-year-old son Christopher
live in Belvedere, Calif., near San Francisco.
Ken is a lawyer, and Maureen recruits lawyers
for a San Francisco law firm. Betsy said that
she had heard Nancy two different times on
Public Radio's "All Things Considered."
Betsy also had a visit last summer from
Judy Wolfe Allen '62. Judy's husband, Jack,
is still flying for PSA, and Judy is busy with
volunteer work in La Jolla and San Diego.
Their daughters are Lisa, 14, and Allison, 10.
Christmas cards brought news of Rosalie
Moyer Schwarz, who now lives in Fairfax
Station, Va. Gene is retired from the USMC,
and their son, Andy, is a freshman at U.Va.
Jeanne Chabot Walk's lives in Fairfax, Va.
Wally still flies for Eastern Airlines. Their two
older boys, Tom and Bob, are on their own
now. David is a high school senior, and
Michael is 11.
David and I moved from The Woodlands,
Texas, (near Houston) last fall. I had been
teaching elementary school in California and
Texas but decided to investigate a new career
in Tulsa and have now landed a job as a travel
agent. So far I am enjoying it. Talked last
spring with Karen Vandevanter Chapman and
learned that Carol Van Ness Clapp's daughter
attends Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania.
DeeDee Clapp is the Class of '89, and my
daughter, Tracy, is the Class of '88 at Gettys-
burg. My son, Mark, is a freshman at Loyola
Marymount University in Los Angeles, so we
have a child on each coast.
Barbara Scherberger Offerman was in
Houston for a convention last fall, so we joined
her for dinner one evening. Her son, Stephen,
is attending the University of Southern Cali-
fornia. Barbara keeps in touch with Gloria
Moskowitz Fischel, who now lives in The
Netherlands.
Do hope that many of you will be inspired to
drop me a postcard or letter and give me your
news for the next issue. Please make sure you
write me soon, so you don't forget. It will only
take a few minutes, and we all need to get
back in touch. Remember, reunion in May of
'88!
From Patsy:
Betty Ambler Wambersie, mother of five,
is one of the owners of a temporary agency,
Experience, Inc., in Richmond, Va.
1965
Mary Sale Alligood (Mrs. F.M., Jr.)
2841 River Oaks Drive
Midlothian, VA 23113
Claire G. Cosby, who attended MWC from
1962-65 and returned in 1969 to graduate with
the Class of '70, has a most successful "side-
line" from teaching special education. She has
had three books published: Lord, Help Me Love
22
My Sister (Herald Press, 1986), Reflecting the
Lord's Radiance (Broadman Press, 1987), and
Junior High's a Jungle, Lord (Herald Press,
not yet released). The books look at the sibling
rivalry between two sisters as expressed
through their prayers; a student's adjustment
to the traumas of junior high school; and the
difficulties of modern women attempting to
cope with expectations of family, job and self.
1967
Eleanor Grainger Workman
2407 Kenmore Road
Richmond, VA 23228
Jeanne Torrence VanLear left her position
with the Senate Committee on Governmental
Affairs, where she worked with Sen. Roth (R-
Del.), in January 1987 to join the lobbying
firm of Robert Thompson Associates in the Na-
tional Press Building in Washington, D.C.
1969
Pamela Powell McWhirt
1002 Highland Court
Fredericksburg, VA 22401
1971
Doris Lee Hancock
9302 Cason Road
Glen Allen, VA 23060
Karen Laino
10406 Storch Drive
Seabrook, MD 20706
1973
Carter Moffett Welling (Mrs. D.C.)
13323 Ridge Lane Drive, N.W.
Silverdale, WA 98383
Hello to everyone from yet another corner of
our beautiful country — Washington state! I
have moved once again, and my appreciation
goes out to all of you who have been able to
reach me with class news. My apologies to you
for the confusing array of addresses — four in
the last five years!
I recently received the happiest of news from
several classmates and would be delighted to
hear from more of you. Our 15th reunion is
fast approaching in '88.
Deborah Heiman Hughes was married
Feb. 15, 1986, to Charles Albert Hughes III,
who works for the U.S. Senate and also de-
velops and renovates houses in Washington,
D.C. Sadly, soon after being married, Debbe
and Chuck each lost a parent, but they are
now living happily in Arlington, Va., in a circa
1916 family home, which Chuck renovated.
Debbe's glowing reports of a honeymoon in the
Bahamas followed by April in Paris and Lon-
don left me wistfully remembering where we
all hoped to go on our MWC spring breaks!
Bridesmaids at Debbe and Chuck's wedding in-
cluded '73 classmates and friends, Ruth Siko
and Susan Regan. Still more news — Debbe
and Chuck are expecting their first child this
May, and our congratulations in this column
may already be a bit late! Finally, as Debbe
seems to have no provisions for sleep, she
writes that she continues to teach senior En-
glish at Oakton High School in Vienna, Va.,
while making plans to perhaps teach adult ed.,
do free-lance editing, or start an import/export
business once the baby arrives. The busy get
busier!
More great news from Allinda "Lindy"
VanDerveer Rackiewicz, who with husband
David has a nonstop family and career in Vi-
enna, Va. Lindy and David are expecting a
new addition to their bustling family, which
includes Nathaniel, Rachel, Mary Martha,
Andrew, and Matthew. Lindy's warm and witty
letter admitted a glad anticipation of the newly
increased standard deduction for dependents!
The Rackiewiczes oversee a home-centered,
part-time business, IDA International, in addi-
tion to David's work with Naval nuclear
plants. They are distributors for many products
and services — from gift catalogs to satellite
dishes — and we wish them continued success
as they begin their second year of network
marketing.
Nancy Baughan, formerly a high school
basketball and track coach, has become a field
hockey official. After 10 years of coaching at
Stafford High School, Nancy felt the need for a
break. Along with her duties as an official, she
continues to teach math at the high school.
Pat Price was selected Teacher of the Year
by the District M Association of Teachers of
English, an honor bestowed for unusual skill
and enthusiasm in teaching. Pat teaches En-
glish to students ranging from sixth graders to
high school seniors. Previously, she taught En-
glish, French, and vocab. Pat completed her
doctoral work at U.Va. after earning master's
degrees in English and English education there
as well. Prior to returning to Shawsville,
where Pat currently teaches, she served as a
graduate instructor at the university, taught in
the homebound program in Montgomery, Va.,
and taught at Piedmont Community College.
After graduation from MWC, Barbara
Taylor Moore earned a master's in music
from Baylor University. She attended the 1986
Summer Organ Institute in Zwolle, Holland,
and was awarded a certificate in Service Play-
ing by the National American Guild of Organ-
ists. She has studied with many world-
renowned organists. Living in Charlottesville,
Barbara is actively involved in the local chap-
ter of the guild, the Charlottesville Music
Teachers Association, and the Wednesday
Music Club.
A final note from the great Northwest—
Craig and I love our new West Coast home to
which our family came as part of the crew of
USS Alexander Hamilton. Craig became the
Hamilton's commanding officer last year and
brought the submarine to the Pacific Fleet and
her present home at Bremerton, Wash. Days
are exciting but hectic as we work to help our
family relocate and adjust to our new duty sta-
tion. Someday I look forward to enough time
(and stability!) to pursue studies in interior de-
sign, but until then I continue to dream and
take great interest in the variety of lives and
accomplishments of our '73 classmates. Do
write and share a bit of your special lives with
all of us.
1975
Carol Kerney Peal
35 Edge Trail
Conyngham, PA 18219
1977
Karen Hertzel Pratt
RR 5, Box 280
Bangor, ME 04401
1979
Leslie Mayer
2502% Grove Ave.
Richmond, VA 23220
Gayle Weinberger Petrozino
12245 Thyme Lane
Woodbridge, VA 22192
From Gayle:
Hope everyone enjoyed the holidays and,
when this comes out, everyone is getting sun.
I've been busy taking care of my mom who had
major surgery. She is fine and now living in
Fla. Obviously, I've been to Fla. a couple of
times. I'm still teaching school, and the kids
keep me busy.
Back in the fall, I visited Judy Kemp
Allard in Richmond. She's doing well and has
since moved to a beautiful new home, not too
far from her other one. Her husband, Randy, is
doing well, as is son Christopher. While shop-
ping, we bumped into Margaret Andrews
Piancentini, who was with son Christopher
and husband Gary. They live in Richmond and
by now should have had their second child.
Further south, Lisa Carle Shields is busy
with husband Tom managing credit unions in
Danville, Va., and keeping up with son Ryan,
who is now one year old.
Speaking of babies, congratulations to Lisa
Bratton Soltis on the birth of her second child
in Feb. She is living in Roanoke with hubby Al
and daughter Jennifer, 5. Nancy Quaintance
Nelles also rejoices on the birth of her second
child. Nancy lives in Texas with husband Dave
and daughter Kelly. Mary McWhirt Murphy
and husband Mike and their daughter Katelyn
are happy in Mine Run, Va.
Newlyweds Caroline Carr Newlon and hus-
band Blaine reside in Fredericksburg, and
Caroline teaches at Salem Elementary School
in Spotsylvania County. Sally Hart Morgan is
busy planning in the county government of
Emory, Va., where husband John is a professor
at Emory and Henry College.
Karin Hedberg is busy traveling and being
a business woman. Shelley Roberts is enjoy-
ing her home in Drexel, Pa.
News from Margaret Watson is that she is
living in Jacksonville, Fla., and working for
Reynolds, Smith, and Mills as a transportation
planner. She is also engaged to a Navy com-
mander. Congratulations!
Please write me so I can put your informa-
tion in the next newsletter!
1981
Leath Burdeshaw
5003 Sentinel Drive
Apt. 26
Bethesda, MD 20816
Kathleen M. Ramsey
3712 Warren St., N.W.
Washington, DC 20016
Yvonne Walbroehl received a Ph.D. in ana-
lytical chemistry last spring from the Univer-
sity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While at
UNC, she served as a teaching assistant in the
Department of Chemistry and received the
23
1983 Graduate Teaching Award for excellence
in undergraduate instruction. Her dissertation
topic was "Theoretical and Practical Aspects of
Capillary Zone Electrophoresis." She has also
published three articles on this subject in
scholarly journals. Yvonne is employed as a
senior research scientist with Dow Chemical
Company in Midland, Mich.
1983
Estie Corey
Route 1, Box 247H
Centreville, MD 21617
Thanks to all of you who have shared your
news. Members of the Class of 1983 have been
busy lately with weddings, educational goals,
and exciting careers. First, a rundown on class
members who have entered matrimonial bliss.
Gail Vermilyea wed David Joseph Cherochak
on June 7, 1986, in Fairfax, Va. Diane
Connelly married Ron Hunt in December 1984
and is now living in Dahlgren, Va. Terri
Sullivan wed Jim Edmonson in May 1986, and
now they reside in Springfield, Va.
Martha Webber married Jed Jaffe in June
1986. Also wed in June were Lynn Ziernicki
and Bill McKay. Ann Reamy and Charles
Butts had a September 1986 wedding, as well
as Regina Perry, who wed Bobby Gunning.
The Jaffes now live in Washington, D.C., the
McKays in Stanford, Conn., and the Buttses
live in South Hill, Va. Kathy Enfield married
Timothy Jerow in December 1985. Timothy is
stationed at Andrews Air Force Base, and
Kathy is working in the airline industry.
Mollie Joynes Baker gave birth to a baby
girl in February 1986. Welcome to Mary
Elizabeth! The Class of 1983 has been on the
move recently into new careers and locations.
Jackie Lane and Martha Newcombe re-
cently moved to Northern Virginia, where they
are working for defense contractors. Ann
Marie Clark is in her second year of study at
UNC Chapel Hill. She is completing her M.S.
in biostatistics.
Robin Maurice is living in Monterey, Calif.,
and is employed as an account executive with
Armanasco Public Relations and Marketing,
where she is busy handling accounts for wine-
ries, hotels, and management companies. Also
in California is Karrie Nelson, who recently
moved there from New Orleans. Karrie is liv-
ing in Ervine and is working for a medical
sales firm.
Nancy Carroll wed Bruce McDaniel in Au-
gust 1985. They recently moved to Chester-
town, Md., where Nancy is working for River
Press. She is training in graphics and looks
forward to plenty of travel in her new job.
Terry Hudachek has been stationed at
NORAD in Colorado Springs for three years.
She is a 1st It. in the USAF and is currently
working as a systems manager for three com-
puter systems. Terry still runs; she is ranked
4th in her division; and she coaches high
school track. In addition, Terry runs on the Air
Force cross country team.
Patricia Garnett wed John Brooks '84 on
July 12, 1986, in Fredericksburg. They now
live in Charlottesville, where Pat is attending
the University of Virginia Law School. Marcia
Guida is working for Health America as a ser-
vice representative. Marcia plans to marry Dr.
Thomas James III in Norfolk, Va., on May 2,
1987.
Susan Leavitt is working in New York for
Paine Webber. She is involved with handling
foreign accounts. Susan recently heard from
Peter Neal, who is back in the U.S. after three
years in the Peace Corps. Peter is working to-
ward his master's degree in linguistics at
Georgetown University.
Dave Hardin received his master's degree
in geography from the University of Tennessee
in August 1985. He is currently at the Univer-
sity of Maryland working on his Ph.D. in geog-
raphy. Dave's thesis work is on the problems of
tobacco cultivation in the colonial Chesapeake
area. Dave will receive his Ph.D. in spring
1988.
Diane Frazier teaches eighth grade English
at her alma mater, Culpeper County Junior
High School. After being a substitute teacher,
Diane returned to school to receive her cer-
tification in English.
I received my master's degree in urban and
regional planning in May 1986 from Virginia
Commonwealth University. I am now in Mary-
land, working as a planner for Harford County.
Thank you for sending all of the information
for the newsletter. If you send news and don't
see it in the next issue, don't worry! Often I re-
ceive your letters long after the deadline to get
the news in, so keep those cards and letters
coming to the above address so that your news
can appear in the next issue.
Army Cpl. Linda M. Lincoln reported for
duty with the 437th Military Policy Company
at Fort Belvoir, Va. She is a military police
specialist.
1985
Rusty Berry
6030 N. 20th St.
Arlington, VA 22205
Kim D. Slayton
12018 Lockett Ridge
Midlothian, VA 23113
In Memoriam
Frances Walker Ashbury '26
Lewise Overton Cosby '34
Loretta Folger Duffy '35
Elizabeth Page Galie '35
Frances A. Mays '35
Donald Holden Jaretz '41
Dorothy Munden Lescure '41
Susan Matthews Fogle '43
Margaret Williams Wrenn '43
Helen Turner Anderson '59
We extend our sympathies to the families
and friends of the deceased.
Condolences to:
We extend our condolences to the alumni
who have recently lost loved ones.
Richie McAtee Gallagher '32 who lost her
husband.
Ava Smith '33 who lost her mother.
Alice Mae Brown Walden '33 who lost her son.
Betty Griffith Schmidt '35 who lost her
husband.
Audrey Alrich Silver '36 who lost her mother.
Kathryn Nicholas Winslow '39 who lost her
mother.
Phyllis Bingham McGaha '49 who lost her
husband.
Charlotte Trent Charles '52 who lost her sister.
Deborah Heiman Hughes '73 who lost her
mother.
24
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Other gift ideas available through the Boutique are
the Pewter Jefferson Cup, Pewter Kenmore Beaker,
Wine Carafe and (4) Glasses, Counted Cross
Stitch Kit, and prints of the College by Dr.
Atalay. All gifts are available for purchase at
the Alumni House or may be shipped with
additional shipping charge. Add 4.5%
sales tax to price of all items purchased
in Boutique or shipped to a Virginia
address. Make checks payable to
Mary Washington College
Alumni Association, P.O. Box
1315, College Station, Fred-
ericksburg, VA 22402.
(703) 899-4648.
A
<5>c
<4*V
>
v«%,
o
'O
Or
Spinning
Wheel
Boutique
Or v" / Now at the Spinning Wheel
&& $W *&~Jr Boutique ... THE MARY
fiKj?
WASHINGTON WATCH in
goldtone and featuring: *Full one
year manufacturer's warranty
*MWC seal on the dial *Adjustable blue
cloth band *Quartz movement. Gentle-
men or ladies available for only $45.00!
($65.00 suggested retail) Great gift ideas or
treat yourself!
_- »"h™c™ non-profit Organization
If ll lAV U.S. Postage Paid
A V>/AjBlVX Permit No. 304
Mary Washington College Richmond, VA
1301 College Avenue
Fredericksburg, Virginia 22401-5358
Distinguished Visitor in Residence
Joyce Carol Oates, award-winning author of more than 50 books, will be the Distinguished Visitor in
Residence at Mary Washington Oct. 28-29. Ms. Oates' latest book, OnBoxing, was praised in The New
York Times of March 2 as "a penetrating book on the subject .... It speaks eloquently and profoundly
about the fascination of watching two human beings hit each other in the ring." Ms. Oates will speak in
Dodd Auditorium on Wed., Oct. 28, at 8 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
The DVIR program, now in its 16th year, is funded by the Alumni Association.
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