As our alma mater opens up this Fall, let us give thanks that it and the world is returning to good health and peace of mind. So many lives have been lost in the past year including members and family of our class. Joan Cali Pecore and Doris Hische Brossy are sorry that our 60-year reunion did not happen last October. We are thinking about a future event, likely in conjunction with the other classes of our era.
Class co-councilors: Joan Cali Pecore, cueville@comcast.net; Doris Hische Brossy, dbrossy@aol.com
Bob Sweeney is dividing time between Hawaii and the mainland while his new home is being built in Florida. He is near completion of writing two books.
Sheril McCormack is happy for the return of Red Hat Society activities.
Class councilor: Sheril McCormack, vanillastar202@yahoo.com
Julia Imbo ’21 is the second recipient of the Class of 1964 Scholarship, established during our 55th reunion year. Julia earned a bachelor’s degree in Human Development and will enter the School of Education’s Special Education and Literacy master’s program this fall. Best wishes, Julia!
Pat Jewell McAlexander has spent part of her retirement writing novels. Her first novel, Stranger in the Storm, is a romantic thriller set in the Adirondacks of her childhood and was released as an e-book in 2020. Her second novel, Shadows of Doubt, is a suspenseful novel set in Athens, Ga., where Pat lives. It is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes Apple books in both print and e-book.
We hope that your life is starting to get back to “normal” after the COVID-19 pandemic. Please keep us informed of your activities and changes in your contact information. Stay safe and healthy.
“Time marches on…and on… and on…” – From the 1964 Torch yearbook
Class co-councilors: Bill Robelee, wmrobelee31@gmail.com; Columba DeFrancesco Heinzelman, heinzel779@aol.com.
The Class of ’65 Red Devil’s 55th-Year Reunion was delayed but not forgotten. We were reminded of the profound musings of the great Muppet Show philosophers, Statler and Waldorf: Why do we always come here?/ I guess we’ll never know./ It’s like a kind of torture/ To have to watch the show. But it was far from torture. In fact, the 19 Red Devils who got together via Zoom Feb. 11, 2021, had fun! Classmates from all over the U.S. gathered for an imaginary view of the campus, enjoyed phantom fish or chicken dinners, imbibed at the virtual open bar and shared lots of good memories.
Judy Koblintz Madnick kept control of the festivities and Ira Rubtchinsky tried to moderate, but once things got going, there was no holding back. The liveliest discussion came when Jeanne Bollt Krips Tobin remembered going to Europe during her junior-year summer and discovering in her Paris hotel room what she thought looked like a second toilet, or perhaps a foot bath for weary tourists. Fortunately, her travel companion and classmate, Roselle Warshaw Mironer, was more cosmopolitan. Roselle explained that the French all have “bidets” in their bathrooms. Kate Harvey Jacobs recalled that “My fear of attending Harvard University disappeared when I discovered that I was as well-prepared as those who came from Ivy League undergraduate colleges. After I had two master’s degrees and a doctorate, I had a fellowship at Harvard in 2001 and wondered if I had the background to be there. But once there, I felt totally equipped for my goal of investigating the connection between quantum theory and theology.”
We became reacquainted with classmates we hadn’t seen for a half-century, and, as promised, there was a prize for the most profound thoughts submitted in advance of the reunion. Kate Harvey Jacobs and Ruth Siegel Baker won UAlbany t-shirts.
With apologies to Dan Fogelberg: We drank a toast to innocence, We drank a toast to now, We reached beyond the many years, A healthy future for us we did vow! With that in mind, we are looking forward to our in-person 60th-year reunion!
Roselle Warshaw Mironer is excited to report that she has decided to tear herself away from teaching and retire. She is looking forward to seeing friends, traveling, reading, attending classes, dancing, enjoying her synagogue and the work that she is doing with AIPAC.
Linda Delfs retired in 2015. “My colleagues at State Ed. kept telling me I’d be better off financially retired than I was working. They were right,” she said. “It’s been Saturday ever since, with plenty to do and I’m doing as much of it as I can before the arthritis and joint problems get to be too much.” Linda enjoys volunteering, mostly for the Shaker Heritage Society in Colonie, N.Y. She plays with a fife and drug corps near Albany as well as one in Massachusetts, and is involved with a reenacting group – an artillery unit in the 18th century. Linda’s daughter is a lawyer for a non-profit in D.C. and has been working long distance from western Massachusetts, hoping to find work in New England. Linda’s other daughter lives outside Palmyra, working from home for the University of Rochester while homeschooling two kids. Her husband, who does quality control for a Clifton Parkbased company, is the only one who got COVID. “So far he seems to have gotten through it unscathed.”
Class councilor: Judy Madnick, jmadnick@gmail.com
Greetings Beloved ’67 Classmates. The organizing committee for our next reunion promises to go all-out for a grand celebration of our 55th Reunion in 2022. Over the coming year, a major goal is to connect with as many of our classmates as possible. Let us hear from you. Stay connected!
Sandra Rudy Interdonato provided an update on her wonderful group of five former college roommates. “Although the Pandemic was hard on everyone, I was fortunate to be able to Zoom weekly with Rosina Schneider Mulligan, Vicki Fox Friedman, Bonnie Tomaszewski Kisiel and Mary Santay Shevis. The five of us formed a very strong bond at UAlbany and that bond has strengthened throughout the years. Before the Pandemic we got together twice a year and hope to resume that tradition shortly, but we all agree that for us, Zooming once a week will go on indefinitely.” After graduating from UAlbany, Sandy moved to an apartment on the exciting East Side of Manhattan where she met her future husband, Bob, owner and trainer-driver of Standardbred (sulky) racehorses. Sandy then completed graduate studies in speech pathology at California State University Long Beach, returned to New York and got married. Four years later she had a son, Michael, and raised him on their 10-acre horse farm in central New Jersey. In 2005, Sandy retired from her 33-year career as a speech and language therapist, which included 24 years in the Toms River Regional School District in New Jersey. She and Bob have lived in The Villages in Florida for the past 16 years. Despite the pandemic, they’ve been able to enjoy Florida’s warm climate and participate in golf and other outdoor activities that allow for social distancing.
After teaching for many years, Bonnie Tomaszewski Kisiel and husband Don ’66 are enjoying the more relaxing pace of retirement. They still live in the big house with the big yard because it’s hard to downsize, but it does require a lot of time for upkeep. Bonnie and Don spent time at a nearby beach this summer. They’re thankful that loved ones have remained healthly amid the pandemic.
Class councilor: Canon Kay Carol Hotaling, FHC, aspenpaepke@msn.com
