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WINTER 2017
Periodical Postage
PAID
Philadelphia, PA
and Additional
Mailing Offices
FAMILY TREE
p38
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ISSUE
II
500 College Ave.
Swarthmore, PA 19081–1306
www.swarthmore.edu
VOLUME
CXIV
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN
LAURENCE KESTERSON
WINTER 2017
SWARTHMORE’S TAKING A BIG STEP FORWARD
On March 31, find out how: swarthmore.edu
FAMILY TIES
More than 30 members of Cornelia “Kinnie” Clarke Schmidt ’46’s family are Swarthmoreans, including, from left, aunt Cornelia Stabler Gillam, uncle Norman Stabler, grandmother Ida
Palmer Stabler, aunt Sarah Stabler, and mother Eleanor Stabler Clarke.
by Elizabeth Slocum
How Swarthmore shaped
her family tree—
and her whole life
Deeply Rooted
38
LAURENCE KESTERSON
in this issue
MOMENT IN TIME
Isabelle Andrews ’20, Phineas,
Lelosa Aimufua ’20, and Emma
Morgan-Bennett ’20 go Garnet.
swarthmore.edu/garnetweekend
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
1
BULLETIN.SWARTHMORE.EDU
WEB
EXCLUSIVES
by Jonathan Riggs
Five Swarthmorean
journeys of gender.
Becoming Yourself
by Jonathan Riggs
LGBTQ moments along our
shared path.
Touchstones
Explore a wealth of
LGBTQ resources
and materials. Share
yours, too!
OUR OWN WORDS
Proud plant parents
show off Collegegifted greenery.
FLOWER POWER
by Elizabeth Beier
Richard Lamb ’88 displays
superhuman generosity.
Make Mine Marvel
in McCabe
by Elizabeth Slocum
LGBTQ matchbox couples
who found love, light, and
lifelong commitments.
First Comes Love
18 34
26 42
FEATURES
Get the phoenix 411
and see a video of
Phineas seeking
birds of a feather.
MYTH & MASCOT
Scott Kugle ’91 cites
books that speak to
the Muslim LGBTQ
experience.
OUT ISLAM
Vaneese Thomas ’74, H’14
Peter Fritschel ’84
Liberal Arts Lives
Evan Greer ’07
Learning Curve
Swarthmore Stories
COMMON GOOD
9
Olivia Leventhal ’18
Global Thinking
Books
Elèna Ruyter ’14
Rewind
Friends Historical Library
An expanded version
of In Memoriam will
appear on our site
from now on.
FRIENDS FOREVER
Vaneese Thomas
’74, H’14 spins a
playlist of songs
and memories.
A WOMAN’S LOVE
ON THE COVER
Chalking by Phillip Stern ’84
Photo by Laurence Kesterson
Cartoon by Elizabeth Vogdes
Katie Clark
72
SPOKEN WORD
Lucinda Kidder ’66
Grayson Roze ’15
Profiles
Alumni News
and Events
45
Editor’s Column
Letters
Community Voices
2
CLASS NOTES
DIALOGUE
dialogue
EDITOR’S COLUMN
WE’RE HERE TO RECRUIT YOU
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN
Editor
Jonathan Riggs
Managing Editor
Kate Campbell
Class Notes Editor
Elizabeth Slocum
Designer
Phillip Stern ’84
Photographer
Laurence Kesterson
Administrative/Editorial Assistant
Michelle Crumsho
LAURENCE KESTERSON
Editorial Assistants
Cody McElhinny ’17
Eishna Ranganathan ’20
Editor Emerita
Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49
WINTER 2017
Send address changes to
records@swarthmore.edu
The Swarthmore College Bulletin (ISSN
0888-2126), of which this is volume
CXIV, number II, is published in October,
January, April, and July by Swarthmore
College, 500 College Ave., Swarthmore,
PA 19081-1390. Periodicals postage
paid at Philadelphia, PA and additional
mailing offices. Permit No. 0530-620.
Postmaster: Send address changes to
Swarthmore College Bulletin, 500 College
Ave., Swarthmore, PA 19081-1390.
Printed with agri-based inks.
Please recycle after reading.
FIRST DO NO HARM
“One Gave All” (summer 2016) works hard to make the
case that an alumnus was a war hero and martyr because he did his part to save the world by fighting the
fascists in the Spanish Civil War. Here is another viewpoint:
All wars are “justified”: Those bad fascists, communists, infidels, capitalists; God is on our side/chooses
us; we’re right, they’re wrong; it’s really self-defense,
etc.—all conflicting justifications held with equal conviction by the respective warring parties.
One war begets another. Deep resentment has a long
memory, as we saw even in the very period described in
your article. (Does anybody seriously think World War II
was unrelated to World War I and its ending?)
All war is terrorism, all warriors terrorists, despite
facile distinctions between “collateral” and “targeted”
civilian death. Intention matters only to the killers, not
the killed.
There are no war heroes, never have been, only
those sorely duped into wasting their nickel for the
prolific profiteers.
And all wars require their enablers, such as the
Bulletin, selling the idea of war heroism, effectively encouraging more tragic killing for a cause.
—ARTHUR “ARKY” CIANCUTTI ’65, Mendocino,
Calif.
STARS AND
GRIPES
I was chagrined to see
photos (“Infinite Jest,”
fall 2016) showing
disrespect for the U.S.
flag. The woman who
used it may not be
aware of the United
States Flag Code.
Violation of this federal
law (bit.ly/FlagCodeUS)
is unpatriotic.
—ALBERT MYERS ’53,
Fort Myers, Fla.
LIBRARY
LOVER?
©2017 Swarthmore College.
Printed in USA.
pr inted w
i
th
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
Send letters and story ideas to
bulletin@swarthmore.edu
nd
e
2
We welcome letters on subjects covered
in the magazine. We reserve the right to
edit letters for length, clarity, and style.
Views expressed in this magazine do not
necessarily reflect the opinions of the
editors or the official views or policies of
the College.
ly
H-UV
ks
JONATHAN
RIGGS
bulletin.swarthmore.edu
facebook.com/SwarthmoreBulletin
instagram.com/SwarthmoreBulletin
Email: bulletin@swarthmore.edu
Telephone: 610-328-8435
e c o-fri
I CARE about every Bulletin we
identify, to our shared team.
create. Deeply.
And so, my fellow LGBTQ folk:
But this issue, inspired by and
We want to hear from you, not
dedicatedto—but not restricted or
just for this issue but forever.
exclusive to—lesbian, gay, bisexWe want your documents for the
ual, transgender, queer, and quesCollege Archives (pg. 4). We want
tioning Swarthmoreans, means
our pages brimming with your
everything to me, especially in this
pictures and presence, your suctime of political change,
cesses and stories, your
when the sands seem
class notes and even
to be shifting under our
complaints. We want
by
feet.
you represented as fully
I’ve lived and breathed
and visibly as possible in
our magazine so strongly
the ongoing Swarthmore
this go-round not just
story.
because I am a gay man
We hope this issue
myself, but also because
sparks heartfelt converI have been moved to
sations and new contears by the scope and
nections. We hope that
power of your LGBTQ
it serves as a beacon
journeys. I am humbled by the
of unity and compassion in any
silence of those who have been
storm.
silenced and the suffering of those
But most of all, we hope that its
who have suffered. In all that I do,
collection of voices serves as
I swear to you that, even if I may
a touchstone going forward: a
sometimes fall short, I seek to hear
reminder that our greatest
and honor you—us—all.
weapon against injustice and
We all do here. My dear friends
our greatest opportunity for a
and teammates at the Bulletin are
better world are our shared
yours, too. With a nod to Harvey
voices raised together—LGBTQ
Milk’s famous quote, we are
and otherwise, Swarthmorean
here to recruit you, however you
all.
50 SHADES
OF GREY
LETTERS
in
Send your best memories of Swarthmore’s
libraries! Whether
you studied or slept,
worked or wept, lived
or loafed there, tell us
everything! bulletin@
swarthmore.edu
PORTRAIT
OF THE
ARTIST
I came across the New
York Times obituary
of Harriet Shorr ’60,
who died last April, but
I found no mention on
the College website of
her. She taught studio
art at Swarthmore, became a well-known and
highly respected painter/writer, and married
fellow artist Jim Long
’71. I think it would be
appropriate to recognize her life and work.
—MARGARET REECE
ALLEN ’71, Sebago,
Maine
Agreed! Read our tribute:
bulletin.swarthmore.edu
+ WRITE US: bulletin@
swarthmore.edu
We rescued Jonas (left)
and Bezzle through
Greyhound Companions
of Missouri. They are
gentle, funny, and wonderfully mellow. Are you
getting bombarded with
greyhound pics since
“Must Love Dogs” (fall
2016)? Greyhound ownership is like a cult.
—GREGG BASSETT
’89, St. Louis, Mo.
Red Nose, Big Heart
I read “Infinite Jest” (fall 2016) and enjoyed it very much. I graduated as a
circus arts and dance special major, also took Quinn Bauriedel ’94’s movement theater class, and am now involved in medical clowning as a student
at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine. I
am the liaison between the medical school, the LAC+USC Hospital, and
Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and I will also be teaching juggling skills
at the School of Dramatic Arts’s medical clowning class.
—JACKIE MORGEN ’13, Los Angeles, Calif.
PEOPLE’S INSTINCTIVE TRAVELS
Watching A Tribe Called Quest’s “Can I Kick It?” video, I noticed one
of the guys is wearing a Swarthmore hoodie. It would be a great piece of
investigative journalism to figure out who he was. How many other small
liberal arts colleges can claim to be represented in a pioneering hip-hop
video?
—LARA COHEN, associate professor of English literature
Enterprising Swarthmorean Facebookers (with additional reporting by
Bonita Applebum) solved this mystery: bit.ly/SwatTribe. Ken Randolph ’94
hasn’t responded to our attempts to contact him, but here’s hoping we all
keep flying high like a dove.
Picture Perfect
My granddaughter Rosalie Lawrence ’12 graduated with highest honors and competed on the swim team. As a result, I receive your sterling
Bulletin, a tribute to the creativity, intellectual excellence, and social challenges that Swarthmore College offers. What I loved most recently was
the summer issue’s clever cover and the photo on pg. 29 (“The Edible
Journey”), which depicts a cluttered, vibrant, lively scene. I have studied
that photo and its many elements and am especially drawn to Anna and
Furry Snuggly. The Bulletin speaks to me about a place where I would love
to have studied when I attended college in the 1950s. Swarthmore was
perfect for Rosalie and I am thankful.
—RUTH ANN INGRAHAM, Indianapolis, Ind.
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
3
dialogue
COMMUNITY VOICES
PETER ARKLE
MAKING HISTORY
Help ensure Swarthmore’s archives speak for us all
T
respecting equally all segments of the
HE ONLY record we
College community.
have in the College
Despite the best of intentions, gaps,
Archives of the
silences, and distortions remain in the
inaugural meeting
archival record. It is particularly chalof Swarthmore’s
lenging to collect records of organizafirst queer student
tions that are purposefully discreet, as
organization is a terse, 23-word
Gay Liberation at Swarthmore was in its
advertisement with the cryptic
early years. It also can be tough to collect
headline “GLF” in a 1970 Phoenix
records of organizations oppositional or
issue. Imagine what else there might
marginal to the mainstream. But these
be: fliers advertising the meeting,
are the cases in which it is
an agenda of what was
by
particularly important to
discussed, photographs
do so.
of the students who
Archives buttress comgathered. Did anyone keep
munity-building through
a journal in which they
history-making and memwrote about the event?
ory work. As Swarthmore
Some of these docuembraces a campuswide
ments may have never
commitment to diversity and incluexisted at all. If they did, it is likely that
sion, archives demonstrate the longevthey were discarded or lost over the
ity, resilience, and accomplishments of
years. But maybe, just maybe, there
the communities that make us whole.
are a precious few pages that were creSeveral recent student-driven projated, and were saved, and to this very
ects have done important work to highday are sitting in the back of someone’s
light the histories of campus groups and
closet. Perhaps, at this very moment,
make their archives accessible, includthere are documents like this in the
ing the Black Liberation 1969 Archive
back of your closet.
(blacklib1969.swarthmore.edu), a digThe mission of the Swarthmore
ital history project documenting the
College Archives is to preserve the docblack protest movement spearheaded by
umentary evidence of the College’s
the Swarthmore Afro-American Student
past and to tell, as fully as possible,
Society.
the Swarthmore story in all its infinite
Through the Intercultural Center’s
variety. That means every aspect of it,
FRIENDS
HISTORICAL
LIBRARY
“We issue this evergreen plea to the
alumni community: Please share
your Swarthmore stories with us.”
4
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
WINTER 2017
Archival Internship program, more than
100 items from Enlace, the Swarthmore
Asian Organization, and the Swarthmore
Queer Union from the 1970s to the present have been digitized and added to
Swarthmore’s institutional repository,
Triceratops (bit.ly/SwatICIA). We do
what we can to support projects like
these, but we are limited by the availability of documents in the College Archives.
And so, we issue this evergreen
plea to the alumni community: Please
share your Swarthmore stories with
the College Archives. If you have publications, photographs, videos, letters,
records of student groups, or other documents relating to your Swarthmore experience, consider donating them. We are
particularly interested in building our
collections relating to populations who
are often overlooked or marginalized in
college histories, including the campus
experiences of queer and trans people,
people of color, first-generation college
students, and people with disabilities.
On the Swarthmore College Archives
website (swarthmore.edu/archives),
you can see what we already have in the
archives and find guidelines for what
types of donations we accept. If you
have any questions, please contact us at
archives@swarthmore.edu.
Your story is an important part of
Swarthmore’s history. Please share your
documents with the College Archives
so that we can preserve them and make
them accessible for generations of
Swatties to come.
CELIA CAUST-ELLENBOGEN ’09,
CHRIS DENSMORE, SUSANNA
MORIKAWA, PAT O’DONNELL, and
JULIE SWIERCZEK are the staff of
Friends Historical Library.
REWIND: UNDER THE MANGO TREES
Creativity is key for Burkinabe girls—and us all
THERE IS AN HOUR in the
doesn’t bother me as much as the aspiearly morning when every beast
rational statement, which declares
in Burkina Faso takes to howlthat the center is intended to prepare
ing. Deep, cacophonous, and urgent,
young women for their roles as wives
this unconventional creature harmony
and mothers. When I learned this, it
rouses a lazy, yellow sun from over
seemed as though the center’s potenSolenzo’s mango trees.
tial as a women’s empowerment tool
This is my alarm clock. My first
was being purposefully snubbed.
morning chore is to head toward the
Do not misunderstand me: Being a
communal pump and greet the 30-orspouse and parent are among the most
so girls—my surrogate
challenging, rewardsisters—who live at the
ing, and important jobs
by
Center Marie Moreau,
a person can hold. I pera Catholic vocational
sonally look forward to
girls’ boarding centhat. However, I have
’14
ter where I also live
something these girls
and work as a Peace
are not as fortunate to
Corps volunteer. Many of these girls
have: the ability to make choices about
left school a long time ago and have no
my future based on an extensive liberal
plans to go back.
arts education. Despite the domestic
The nuns who run the center stress
skills my little sisters already possess,
a code of behavior that emphasizes
many of them have severe trouble with
three values: fraternity, work, and disreading, writing, speaking French, and
cipline. Each word seems perfectly
thinking critically—prerequisites for
inappropriate for a teenager. But this
interacting with the world beyond
ELÈNA RUYTER
their villages. I have taken these skills
for granted for most of my life. Being
at the center makes me think back to
my time at Swarthmore where I was
pushed to be innovative and think creatively in every class. That mentality
gave me the ability to build a life that
excites and fulfills me, and it is a point
of reference I am struggling to reproduce for my little sisters.
But I have met with groups of
Burkinabe men who told me that
women don’t have a place in politics
and must always be subservient to
their husbands. I have been told that
educating women leads to high divorce
rates and moral depravity. I have listened to their viewpoint that women
already have too many rights, and that
no man wants a woman who would
argue with him or who earns more
money than he does.
So when I approach these girls waving all my Western ideals, I can only
thank them for humoring me. Without
a high school education or any kind
of equivalency, the odds are highly
stacked against them augmenting
their positions in society. So who am
I to tell a group of already disenfranchised young women that I want them
to focus on skills they may never use?
What they need, you could argue—as
the center does—are fraternity, work,
and discipline.
If you are like me, however, you have
already seen the flaw in this argument:
Should we prepare our children for the
world we live in or the world we want
to live in? The answer, of course, is
both. I’m not just here to bolster what
is already being done, I’m also here to
push them to look beyond that, just as I
learned at Swarthmore. And as part of
that effort, I was able to convince the
nuns to add one more word to the center’s goals: creativity.
And with those four words nicely
framing my own goals here at the center, I sleep a little easier every night
under those mango trees, ready to
wake up to that strange, four-legged
symphony—and to another day of
dawning hope for these girls, and
myself.
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
5
dialogue
BOOK REVIEW
AUTHOR Q&A
WE ARE INFINITE
COMPASSION ABOVE ALL: SCOTT KUGLE ’91
by Bruce Easop
To gather sources for his award-winning Living Out Islam: Voices of Gay,
Lesbian, and Transgender Muslims (NYU Press), Emory University Associate
Professor of South Asian and Islamic Studies Scott Kugle ’91 traveled to five
countries. “Some of my subjects are Arabs, some are African-American, some are
Berber from North Africa, many are Pakistani or Indian,” he says. “Although I
could only highlight 15, all the courageous people I interviewed inspired me.”
WITH HUMOR, empathy, and nuance, His Steadfast Love (Lethe Press)
explores the meaning of love, loss, and acceptance for gay men in the
U.K. Paul Brownsey ’69’s collection of short stories presents a deeply
human portrait of gay life with a buoyant optimism and a playful spirit.
Here, love is found in an annual Christmas card, a white lie, a double
bed. Love can arise in a chance meeting; it can fall at the hands of a dinner party invitation. Love, it appears, is in the little things.
Brownsey’s stories also remind us that throughout the history of the
LGBTQ community, these fleeting glimpses of happiness have been
punctuated all too often by loss. In them, we find ourselves waiting by
a partner’s sickbed, joining the funeral procession of a sibling, huddling in a dark alleyway after witnessing a brutal attack, and numbed
by seemingly small slights.
And yet, the wryly romantic Brownsey still lifts our spirits with surreal exuberance, whether it’s what can best be described as a Judy
Garland fever dream, a glimpse into the mind of (gay) God, or even a
chance encounter with the queen on the heathery moors.
Ultimately, the unpredictable sense of possibility that emerges from
His Steadfast Love reflects the fullness of human life—something we
can all appreciate, for no matter how we identify, we are infinite.
Why are these voices
important?
They’re not speaking
about ideals or texts, but
about lived experience
growing up in families,
communities, mosques.
They speak of persecution, fear, violence.
Some had to leave their
family or their nation to
escape threats.
What did you ask them?
To deeply reflect on the
Quran, Islam, and the
Prophet Muhammad’s
example as relevant to
their own lives.
BRUCE EASOP is Swarthmore’s Presidential Fellow.
Are Islam and homosexuality reconcilable?
Many say no. But I say
the alienation of one
identity from the other
is based on stereotypes,
not on deep reflection.
If you ask people who
are struggling to live authentically as both, you’ll
find the situation more
ambiguous. I know from
personal experience—I
was only able to write
this book as a result of
my own struggles.
ings, so much reporting
on the mass murderer—
was it a twisted, violent
admission of failure by
a gay Muslim?—was so
shallow and steeped in
stereotypes. I want readers to develop a more informed, compassionate
way of understanding
and engaging with those
who are struggling with
this. After all, compassion is at the heart of every religion, but Islam is
perhaps even more insistent: To pray, every Muslim must say the name of
God as “the compassionate one.”
+ RECOMMENDED
READING: bulletin.
swarthmore.edu
What’s the takeaway?
After the Orlando shoot-
HOT TYPE: NEW BOOKS BY SWARTHMOREANS
Arthur Gelb and Barbara
Stone Gelb ’46
By Women Possessed
Marian Wood Books/
Putnam
6
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
WINTER 2017
The story behind the Gelbs’
third and final volume on
Nobel laureate and fourtime Pulitzer Prize-winning
playwright Eugene O’Neill is
poignant: Arthur died during
their final revisions, leaving Barbara to complete the
trilogy. Drawing on hitherto
secret letters and diaries, the
Gelbs illuminate the most
lauded—and tragic—years of
O’Neill’s life and the women
who shaped him and his art.
“Brilliantly weaving these
lives into the story, the Gelbs
have penned a history of our
modern theater as well as a
penetrating search for psychological truth,” their publisher writes.
Andrea Bear Rugh ’57
Christians in Egypt
Palgrave Macmillan
Rugh began this book
decades ago, inspired by her
in-depth study of Egyptian
Christians living in Cairo’s
poverty-stricken Bulaq Abu
Alaa quarter and the considerable challenges she
witnessed firsthand faced
by social welfare workers.
“Since independence in 1952
and up to and beyond the
Uprising of 2011,” she finds,
“Christians experienced
high and low points often
depending on the quality of
the relationship between
leaders of the church and
the heads of the Egyptian
government.”
Timothy Stewart-Winter ’01
Queer Clout
University of Pennsylvania
Press
“The story of gay empowerment in Chicago was in
many ways more representative [than in San Francisco
or New York] of the dozens
of other regional magnets for
gay migration—from Atlanta
to Seattle, Boston to Dallas,”
Stewart-Winter writes in
his first book. Tracing how
the LGBTQ community
achieved political power by
allying with other urban residents who dealt with police
harassment, especially
African-Americans, “Queer
Clout weaves together the
histories of a social movement and electoral politics
in the nation’s great inland
metropolis.”
F. Harlan Flint ’52
Journey to a Straw Bale
House
Sunstone Press
Building a home is so much
more than an act of creativity or construction—in
many ways, it reflects who,
where, and what we are. For
Flint, erecting a cabin in
the northern New Mexico
wilderness with the aid of
a descendant of the area’s
original pioneers marked
the culmination of a colorful
“life ramble” that helped him
better understand Hispano
culture, the American character, and himself. “This is in
part a story about building a
house,” says Flint. “It is also
about a lifetime leading up
to that project.”
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
7
common good
dialogue
SHARING SUCCESS AND STORIES OF SWARTHMORE
MLANGARINI FOR LIFE
All year, every year, she’s helping African schoolchildren
OLIVIA LEVENTHAL ’18 had just
completed ninth grade when she made
a fateful decision.
Inspired by Nelson Mandela’s words,
“Education is the most powerful
weapon which you can use to change
the world,” Leventhal joined 14 other
teens with the Putney Student Travel
organization to visit the rural village of
Mlangarini in Tanzania.
From mixing cement for local builders to planting a vegetable garden, the
students spent five weeks constructing a primary school classroom large
enough to contain 50 of the village’s
600 children, ages 4 to 14.
Local administrators demand much
of students. Attending classes in
English, Swahili, math, history, science, and geography, all children must
pass final exams every year to advance.
Teachers maintain discipline
through corporal punishment, such as
spanking and beating with sticks, and
girls face pressure by family members
to complete housework rather than
homework.
“That was hard for me to see,” says
Leventhal. “The system needs changing—unless you’re really bright and a
hard worker, it’s tough to succeed.”
In particular, her bond with one
girl—Salima, 7 when they met and now
12, with four brothers and the housekeeping responsibilities of an adult—
sealed Leventhal’s desire to make this
a lifelong commitment.
“Salima and her family have opened
my eyes to the lives of these children
and to what is truly at stake,” she says.
“The system in Tanzania makes it
almost impossible to get a higher education coming from a public school,
so anything we can do, big or small, to
help students succeed means everything to us.”
In fact, Leventhal was the only
8
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
WINTER 2017
one of the original student group to
return to the village, and she has gone
back every year since—founding the
Mlangarini Project, a federally registered nonprofit corporation to better the lives of these schoolchildren,
in 2011.
“As CEO,” she says, “I’m always
thinking of our next step. How can we
raise more money? What should our
next major project be? What smaller
projects need to be done?”
Backed by a team of advisers that
include the Mlangarini school’s current and former principals, Leventhal
and her parents raise funds for general
improvements to the school. They also
work with businesses in Tanzania to
purchase books, desks, building materials, school supplies, and uniforms—
it’s important to them to support the
local economy.
“Besides providing for the
Mlangarini School, it is nice to see
our efforts also help the community,” says Leventhal’s mother, Cindy
Kolodziejski. “The swing sets we built
have personally touched me the most:
I see them as hope and joy in a tangible form.”
Although Swarthmore has not
directly supported the Mlangarini
Project, Leventhal is applying for a
Project Pericles Fund grant for summer 2018.
ON
THE
WEB
LAURENCE KESTERSON
by Carol Brévart-Demm
OLIVIA LEVENTHAL ’18
CEO
Her next goal is to bring clean water
to the village; eventually, she plans to
go to medical school. No matter where
she goes or what she does, however,
her work in and for the village—and
especially her ongoing friendship with
Salima—will always guide her.
“Whatever I do, I’ll come back to it,
and Swarthmore’s part of that,” she
says. “At Swarthmore, I’ve grown intellectually and socially, and because of
this I value higher education more
than ever. I’m even more committed
now to giving every kid at Mlangarini
Primary School their best shot at
excelling because education is so
deeply a part of who I am.”
+ LEARN MORE:
mlangariniproject.org
GOING HOME AGAIN
Author Keiko Itoh ’74 on
her novel, inspired by
her mother’s experience
in Japanese-occupied
Shanghai during WWII.
+ TRAVEL WITH HER
bit.ly/HerShanghai
LESSONS LEARNED
Professor Emerita of
Spanish Aurora Camacho de Schmidt and
Muslim Student Advisor
Umar Abdul Rahman
discuss what religious
traditions teach us about
dealing with undocumented immigrants.
+ LISTEN
bit.ly/ACS-UR
PRIMAL SCREAM
’Twas the night before
finals, and all through
Swarthmore, every
creature was stirring ...
and then they all roared!
+ LET IT ALL OUT
bit.ly/SwatScream
VANISHING ARAL SEA
Historian Maya Peterson
’02 discusses this huge
ecological disaster.
+ HEAR
“Salima and her family have opened
my eyes to the lives of these children
and to what is truly at stake.”
bit.ly/PetersonSea
LAURENCE KESTERSON
GLOBAL THINKING
BIRD = WORD
Order
of the
Phoenix
by Kate Campbell
A FIERY SYMBOL of creative rebirth, the
phoenix has transfixed the imagination of
cultures through the ages. Its message of power
and hope, emblazoned on flags and pressed into
ancient coins, is examined at length in scholar
Joseph Nigg’s new book, The Phoenix: An
Unnatural Biography of a Mythical Beast.
To find out why, we spoke to him, and also
investigated an even more knowledgeable source
who lives at the Swarthmorean crossroads where
art and myth collide—Phineas!
+ OUR WEB/VIDEO PHOENIXCLUSIVE:
bulletin.swarthmore.edu
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
9
common good
Swarthmore College has committed to become a sanctuary campus for undocumented
students and community members, affirms
President Valerie Smith and Board of Managers Chair Thomas Spock ’78.
“At this moment, when there is a rising
national rhetoric of intolerance and acts of
hate that threaten people of color, Muslims,
LGBTQ individuals, Jews, women, and immigrants, among others, we affirm our protection of these groups, and we affirm our
intention to support all students in their
quest to pursue their education without government interference,” they wrote in a Dec. 2
campus-wide email. “To the fullest extent of
the law, the College will do everything within
its power to promote the safety of any member of our community who may face heightened threat.”
In addition to publicly supporting the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program
(bit.ly/SmithDACA), Smith will also convene
an advisory group of students, faculty, and
staff to help the College better serve undocumented students and community members.
globe and into the very
fabric of our language
and culture.
As for Harris, he apparently had no urge to
wander. After graduate
school at Harvard and a
teaching stint at Penn,
he settled in New Jersey, doing research in
perception at Bell Labs.
He prefers to identify
himself not as the fish’s
father, but as the cooriginator (with Lisa
Deutsch Earle ’59) of
the Swarthmore College
calendar and co-author
(with St. Anselm) of the
lyrics to “Waltzing St.
Anselm.”
Sit quietly for a moment. Become aware
of the presence of an energy in you: the
energy of being, different from doing. Every
day, ask whether two energies might be calling you. Are you more invested in one than
the other?
+ READ THEIR FULL MESSAGE:
Hurrying expresses a wish to be in the
future, speeding yourself away from the
present moment. Say “I have time” out loud
to send yourself a message to delay action
for a nanosecond.
bit.ly/SwatSanctuary
Light a candle and focus on it. Return to
your doings with the flickering flame in
your mind’s eye. Sit still for a moment as
you visualize your self still watching the
candle.
+
REFRESH, RECENTER:
findingtimeforyourself.com
SINCE THEIR EARLIEST DAYS, Quakers
challenged gender norms, but in the 1770s,
former Quaker Jemima Wilkinson went
further, becoming the first American-born
woman to found her own religious sect.
Wilkinson was ill for many days
before—according to her—she died,
Jemima’s soul ascended to heaven, and
her corporeal body was reanimated by the
spirit of a divine messenger beyond gender
known as “The Publick Universal Friend.”
Favoring celibacy but not requiring it of
10
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
WINTER 2017
followers, the Publick Universal Friend adopted
a style of dress, grooming, and manner that
blurred gender lines. The physical presentation and spiritual message of the Friend
proved hugely charismatic yet controversial,
and eventually her followers, the Universal
Friends, removed to the Finger Lakes in
upstate New York.
After “leaving time” in 1819, the Friend’s
remains were buried in a secret location that,
according to local lore, is known only to two
people in each successive generation.
—CHRIS DENSMORE
PHILLIP STERN ’84
The Messenger
RECYCLING
“Nearly 2,000 members of our community have asked that Swarthmore become a sanctuary
campus,” President Valerie Smith and Board of Managers Chair Thomas Spock ’78 wrote. “We
wholeheartedly pledge to do so.”
COMPOST
GARBAGE
WHERE IT
ACTUALLY WENT
In the Yale Book of
Quotations, only one
entry cites a Swarthmore origin: “Like a
fish without a bicycle,”
attributed to Charles
Harris ’59.
Harris was an honors
psychology major who
minored in humor, working on Auk! and writing
“Quote,” a humor column for The Phoenix.
On April 7, 1958,
“Quote” included a line
Harris had scribbled in
philosophy class for the
amusement of his class-
mates: “A man without
faith is like a fish without a bicycle.”
Carried by peripatetic Swarthmore alumni, the aquatic aphorism
spread.
On reaching Australia, it inspired a feminist
variant: “A woman without a man is like a fish
without a bicycle,” often
attributed to
Gloria Steinem but
coined by Irina Dunn,
then a student at the
University of Sydney,
who scrawled it on a
bathroom wall.
In its many finned
forms, the famous fish
has pedaled around the
WHERE IT COULD
HAVE GONE
BIG FISH
FEEL OVERWHELMED? Between
a magazine career, volunteering, and
raising three children abroad, Patty
Welch de Llosa ’54 certainly did,
leaving her questioning how to find
time for herself—and her self.
Now a life coach, de Llosa shares a
few self-fulfillment tips from her latest
book, Finding Time for Your Self:
OUT OF 1,680 POUNDS OF CAMPUS WASTE:
CARA EHLENFELDT ’16
A Sense of ‘Self’
LAURENCE KESTERSON
SANCTUARY CAMPUS
20.6%
10.9%
68.5%
34.4%
47.2%
18.4%
WASTE NOT ...
In September, President’s Sustainability Research Fellowship (PSRF) students
Vanessa Meng ’19 and Adina SpertusMelhus ’17 spearheaded a campus waste
assessment.
With 35 volunteers, they examined
1,680 pounds of campus waste, finding
that most of what went into trash could
instead have been recycled or composted. With education and effort, Swarthmore’s garbage footprint can be greatly
reduced.
“We have two goals for improving campus waste streams,” says Sustainability
Program Manager Melissa Tier ’14, “reducing the overall creation of any type of
waste, and diverting as much waste as
possible away from trash and ideally into compost.”
This year, 10 PSRF students are working on seven projects to enhance Swarthmore’s sustainability goals.
+
THROW AWAY MORE THOUGHTFULLY:
swarthmore.edu/sustainability/waste
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
11
common good
How Green
Is Your
Love?
LAURENCE KESTERSON
CALLING ALL “parents” of Scott Arboretum plants: Be part of our web story
on the most memorable multicellular
eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae that
Swarthmore gave you.
Show us happy plants, emotionally
sensitive plants, or alive-despite-yourbest-effort plants that have survived—
or even thrived in—dorm rooms,
campus renovations, first apartments,
life lessons, travels, moves, or becoming
an Aunt Ivy or Uncle Basil.
Bonus points for matchbox plants
or plant-ituaries for dearly departed
Swarthmorean florae friends.
—MICHELLE CRUMSHO
+ EMAIL STORIES AND PHOTOS:
mcrumsh1@swarthmore.edu
HAMMER TIME!
BUILT TO LAST
NEVER
FORGOTTEN
“What you leave behind
is not what is engraved
in stone monuments,
but what is woven into
the lives of others.”
—Pericles
From now on, our In
Memoriam column (pg.
55) will also appear in
an expanded version
online.
We invite you to
share tributes, photos,
and links to obituaries
of recently deceased
alumni with us:
bulletin@swarthmore.
edu. To report alumni
deaths, email records@
swarthmore.edu.
—KATE CAMPBELL
Kendell Byrd ’17 canoodles with a kalanchoe.
12
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
achy, but I turned on
my pump-up songs and
danced my butt off on
the boat between my
swims,” laughs Regan.
A math and physics
grad, Regan is pursuing
an applied math Ph.D. at
Notre Dame. Today, she
swims as an antidote to
her academic pursuits.
“I can relax my mind
while pushing myself
physically,” she says.
“I’ve been swimming
and racing for so long
that it’s all intuitive.”
Twelve hours and 29
minutes after beginning,
Regan’s team reached
land on the channel’s
French side. As for the
dance party? It worked.
“I was cruising on my
second swim,” she says.
“I felt like I could keep
going forever.”
—AMANDA
WHITBRED
WINTER 2017
Team hours of
swim time
Life-changing
Beyoncé jams
12:29 4
Total team miles
swum
31.5
LAURENCE KESTERSON
Maggie Regan ’14
looked into the pitchblack English Channel,
took a deep breath, and
jumped in.
“Mostly,” she says, “I
tried not to freak out.”
The six-person team
—crossing the channel
to raise money to fight
childhood cancer in
September—had been
swimming, one by one,
since 1:55 a.m. The dark
water was still freezing when Regan started
her first of two hourlong
swims just shy of 5 a.m.
That was the hardest part of the journey,
and after she got out of
the water, she dreaded
the thought of getting
back in. So she tapped
a trick she’d perfected
with her teammates on
the Swarthmore swim
team.
“I was tired, cold and
KEITH OILLER
CHARGING THE CHANNEL FOR A GOOD CAUSE
“I think a lot of Swarthmore alumni want to buy local, sustainable products, and it can be a
struggle to find them,” says Ben Young ’09, with one of his company’s handcrafted tables. “Hugo &
Hoby is our solution: not only local and sustainable, but also affordable.”
T
HE AVERAGE person
might not see much
in the underside of a
table, but Ben Young
’09 finds meaning in
these neglected areas.
“The first things I notice are the
materials,” he explains, “and also how
it’s built and constructed—whether it’s
a piece that’s maybe going to fall apart
in three to five years or a piece that you
can see from a distance was built for a
lifetime.”
The pieces of his own future
fit into place at the Yale School of
Management, where he met roommate
Frederick Kukelhaus.
“We were commiserating over the
frustrations of buying cheap furniture,” Young says. “We found out that
we both built furniture as a hobby.”
The two opted to build their own
desks and tables, which garnered
admiration from friends and family.
This led them to co-found the handcrafted e-commerce furniture company Hugo & Hoby, named for their
craftsman grandfathers.
“We started the business partially
to solve our problem,” Young jokes,
but Hugo & Hoby is tackling an even
bigger one: bringing beautiful, wellcrafted, and affordable furniture to
ever-wider audiences while maintaining a network of local craftsmen and a
commitment to sustainability through
environmental initiatives like their
partnership with 1% for the Planet.
“We obviously want to create products that people like, but there’s so
much more to what we’re doing,”
Young says. “We’re utilizing renewable
hardwoods, supporting our domestic crafters, and building a brand that
our customers can trust and products
they’ll cherish for a lifetime.”
The Swarthmore community is
already enjoying Young’s handiwork—
he’s crafted and delivered four tables
to campus: three to Trotter and one to
the Worth Health & Wellness Center,
with more College furniture to come.
—CARA EHLENFELDT ’16
+
DISCOVER hugoandhoby.com
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
13
common good
CROSS COUNTRY
Indy Reid-Shaw ’17 collected All-Centennial Conference honors for the third
consecutive season.
John Gagnon ’17 was
named Centennial Conference Scholar-Athlete of the
Year with the highest GPA
of all conference runners.
WOMEN’S SOCCER
Swarthmore qualified for
the NCAA Tournament for
the third consecutive year.
ROY GREIM ’14
MEN’S SOCCER
The Garnet completed its
100th season of varsity intercollegiate competition.
Swarthmore beats Haverford to advance to the Centennial Conference championship.
Golden Spikes
by Roy Greim ’14
THIS SEASON, every eligible
member of the Garnet volleyball
team earned a spot on the Centennial
Conference Fall Academic Honor
Roll, which recognizes non-freshman
student-athletes who have achieved a
cumulative GPA of 3.40 or greater.
In 2015, Swarthmore led the conference with nine out of a possible
10 selections and saw Sarah Wallace
’18 named the Philadelphia Inquirer
Academic All-Area Performer of the
Year. The Garnet also received their
seventh consecutive Team Academic
Award from the American Volleyball
Coaches Association and 11th total
under head coach Harleigh Chwastyk.
14
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
WINTER 2017
Not bad for a team finishing a year
with a program-best 27 wins, its seventh playoff berth in eight years, and
one of the best winning percentages in
Division III. Swarthmore also won 23
contests in straight sets and captured
its second consecutive Eastern College
Athletics Conference title.
Chwastyk, who was a two-sport
student-athlete at Connecticut’s
Trinity College, made the studentathlete balance a core principle of the
program and designates a Faculty &
Staff Appreciation Game to give the
academic community an opportunity
to see the multitudes contained by our
students.
“Our intelligence is a huge
strength—we are able to think outside
the box strategically and be unconventional,” she explains. “In the classroom
and on the court, our student-athletes
work in harmony as teammates and
leaders.”
FAREWELL,
FRIENDS
Tom Lapinski (1944–2016)
coached football from 1975 to
1984, turning a 29-game-losingstreak team into a winner with
three consecutive conference
championships. His 1984 squad
was inducted into the Garnet Athletics Hall of Fame in 2014.
“He was a dynamic leader able
to inspire great men to perform
beyond what most believed to be
possible,” says Jeff Selverian ’86,
a member of the 1984 team.
+ bit.ly/TLapinski
Ray Scott (1957–2016) served for
23 years as athletics equipment
manager and is remembered for
his generosity and kindness.
“Ray handed out more than
bats and balls,” says men’s head
tennis coach Mike Mullan. “He
distributed goodwill, cheer, and
genuine friendship to all.”
LEARNING CURVE
ART AS A WEAPON
Songcraft is a means of social change for Evan Greer ’07
by Gina Myers
EVAN GREER ’07 always aimed to right the world’s
injustices, but it wasn’t until she started sifting through
her father’s Vietnam War-era records that it clicked how
activism, music, and art were inextricably linked.
While still in high school, Greer performed her first composition—an anti-war song she wrote after the U.S. invasion
of Iraq—and successfully organized one of Boston’s largest
protests against war since the Vietnam era.
“Representatives for speakers like Howard Zinn and Susan
Sarandon would call the house,” Greer recalls. “My mom would
say, ‘Evan’s taking the SATs right now,’ and they would be a little surprised.”
When Greer entered Swarthmore, she continued her singleminded focus on activism, using music as a means to organize.
She perservered even when she recognized balancing life as a
full-time musician and student was untenable.
By the end of her second year, Greer dropped out. She immediately began touring, playing 250 gigs a year, regularly booking 30 shows in 30 days on 30 Greyhound buses, taking one
week off, and then doing it all over again.
When Greer went from supporting herself as a musician to
supporting a child and a partner, she soon came to grips with
the challenges of life on the road as a parent. Taking a break
from live performing, she joined Fight for the Future, a nonprofit focused on freedom of expression that is best known for
its Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) protest, which included an
internet blackout of more than 115,000 websites.
“It was an awesome opportunity to get involved at a time
when the internet is a day-to-day resource that people depend
on—to find a job, book a doctor’s appointment, and so on,”
she says. “We depend on it as much as water and electricity.
Protecting and increasing people’s access to the internet can
combat injustice and inequality.”
A trans/genderqueer activist and community organizer,
Greer continues to use music to effect change, whether it’s her
GAETANO VACARRO
FIELD HOCKEY
Ursula Monaghan ’17 and
Zelda Bank ’19 were named
All-Centennial Conference.
political concert series, Rock Against the TPP (Trans-Pacific
Partnership); her monthly Boston LGBTQ dance party, Break
the Chains; or her upcoming album.
“I’ve got a feeling that we’re winning,” she sings on her
debut album, Never Surrender, “as I hear more and more and
more of us say: I want something that’s better than this. And
I’m not sure exactly what it is, but I think that we could build
it if we try together.”
+ FRIENDS, NOT FANS: evangreer.org
“It’s about taking back what’s left of our ideals
and trading in our egos for our dreams.”
—From “Fame” by Evan Greer ’07
+ bit.ly/Ray-Scott
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
15
common good
LIBERAL ARTS LIVES
VANEESE
THOMAS ’74, H’14
Home is where her heart and soul are
+ LISTEN to Vaneese Thomas ’74, H’14
SANDRINE LEE
THE VOICE
Rainy days at Swarthmore set Vaneese
Thomas ’74, H’14 dreaming of home.
“My classmates kidded me for inhaling
big and saying, ‘Oh, it smells like Memphis,’”
she laughs. “Memphis has good dirt and it
imparted something musical to me.”
Daughter of iconic entertainer Rufus
Thomas and sister of the music legends
Carla and Marvell Thomas, she lived and
breathed Memphis’s rich cultural swirl of
song. On her sixth studio album, The Long
Journey Home, she pays tribute to her soul,
gospel, blues, jazz, R&B, pop, and country
roots, by way of Swarthmore.
“Growing up, I knew I had a voice, but I
was shy. In college, I used to hide behind a
screen in the original Tarble and play and
sing quietly,” she says. “When I finished,
I realized two things: I wasn’t hiding very
well and my songs seemed to move people.”
A key founder of Swarthmore’s undergraduate and alumni gospel choirs and a
still-fluent French major, Thomas felt an
instant kinship to how the College’s values
of social justice echoed those of her family.
“My mother, Lorene, was a civil-rights
activist and took me everywhere she went,
so if she was at a sit-in or on a picket line, I
was there with her,” she says. “My activism
is as important to me as my music.”
Inspired by the rich memories of a lifetime, including friends and collaborators
like Carolyn Mitchell ’74, Thomas is proud
of the person she has become and the
acclaimed career she’s built as a solo artist,
backing singer, and songwriter/producer.
So she takes another breath to savor her
journey home, musically and otherwise.
“I’m grateful to Swarthmore and to
Memphis,” she says, “for the music I’ve
made and will make, the people I’ve met and
will meet, and the experiences I’ve had and
will have.”
“Memphis imparts so much to so many great musicians, like Aretha Franklin,” says Vaneese
Thomas ’74, H’14, who sang backup for her. “In fact, the evangelist Rev. C. L. Franklin, Aretha’s
father, was the pastor of my mother’s church and married my parents.”
LIBERAL ARTS LIVES
by Jonathan Riggs
16
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
WINTER 2017
sing and discuss her songs:
bulletin.swarthmore.edu
LAURENCE KESTERSON
Singer-Songwriter
“I always thought I’d see gravitational waves, but it certainly took awhile,” laughs Peter Fritschel ’84 … and it did—a billion years.
COSMIC
CONNECTOR
He’s helping us ‘hear’ the
universe
by Amanda Whitbred
PETER FRITSCHEL ’84 waited
almost 30 years for a chirp. That chirp
would turn out to be the sound of two
massive black holes colliding, more
than a billion years ago, so forcefully
it created vibrations in the fabric of
space-time that rippled across the universe until eventually reaching Earth—
where they were first detected on Sept.
14, 2015.
Fritschel, senior research scientist at MIT’s Kavli Institute and the
chief detector scientist for the Laser
Interferometer Gravitational-Wave
Observatory (LIGO), has studied gravitational waves for decades—in fact,
they were first detected at LIGO using
technology and instruments he helped
design. The detection validates a major
implication of Einstein’s general theory of relativity and, according to
Fritschel, “opens up a whole new way
of looking at the universe.”
Until now, “everything we knew
about the universe came from electromagnetic waves,” explains Fritschel,
captured through telescopes and
recorded as images. Gravitational
waves allow us to “hear” the universe,
and to detect objects scientists have
only theorized about. Also, he adds
eagerly, “there’s always the potential to
measure something we didn’t expect or
haven’t even predicted yet.”
Although most of Fritschel’s day-today work is getting the LIGO instruments he helped design “to work the
way we think they should,” he was also
selected to co-chair the six-person
committee charged with writing the
paper announcing the September 2015
“chirp” detection.
“Writing the paper really hearkened
back to my liberal arts education,”
says Fritschel. “I learned the science
that got me to where I am today from
Swarthmore, but I also learned how to
write.”
And so, when LIGO’s collaborators were looking for a chief architect
for the paper, Fritschel was a natural
choice: “They knew I could represent
the work—the science—and also write
a good paper.”
+ READ the full paper: bit.ly/SwatSpace
PETER
FRITSCHEL ’84
Scientist
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
17
MOMENTS
ALONG
OUR
SHARED
PATH
story
Jonathan Riggs
chalkings
Maria Aghazarian
Phillip Stern ’84
photography
Laurence Kesterson
18
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
WINTER 2017
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/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
19
AFTER THE RAIN, A RAINBOW
We’ll never know how far back our Swarthmorean LGBTQ
story truly goes. To say that it’s a different world today than
in 1956—let alone 1864—is an understatement, but it’s still
wrenching to think of any of our queer voices lost, muted, or
silenced over the years.
Robert Norman ’49 remembers how his now-deceased
roommate, “a really handsome, blond, tall, blue-eyed fellow,”
would be inundated with invitations from lovestruck ladies
to the Women’s Student Government Association dance. “He
fled the campus for a few days so as not to have to deal with
the problem,” he recalls. “The term ‘gay’ was so remote from
our environment that I never heard it.”
“As a heterosexual male, I look back and know that I was
friendly with a number of students who were gay then or who
subsequently realized that they were, but it was never discussed,” adds Tom Webb ’66. “I came away from Swarthmore
uneducated as to what life was like for those who were gay or
lesbian. I consider that a lost opportunity.”
After all, honoring these voices—and each unique one that
has or will come after—only inspires us all to draw closer
together.
“RUN AWAY with me,” Charles Jackson ’60 wrote, his heart in
his throat.
Vulnerable, he wanted to say more but didn’t have the
words; first love’s effusive confusion smote him speechless.
“Everything became focused on this older boy who transferred in our third weekend,” Jackson remembers. “I didn’t
know anything about him—I still don’t—but I just thought he
was so gorgeous. I would sit in a window in Mary Lyon One
and wait for him to walk past.”
“Run away with me,” he wrote, his heart on the page.
Alone, he burned—the closest they ever came to interacting was when the older boy asked to borrow a bar of soap and
their fingers accidentally touched.
“I’m 78 now and I know how this sounds,” he laughs, “but
that moment—despite everything that happened after—
remains one of the most emotionally heightened of my life.”
“Run away with me,” he wrote, his heart in the campus mail.
It was 1956; the older boy turned the anonymous love letter over to Dean William Prentice ’37, who had no sympathy
for the mystery writer’s loneliness or longing.
“Run away with me,” he read and saw only “a dangerous
menace to the community” who needed to be exposed.
And so, when a trembling Jackson received a summons to
Prentice’s office, the tenderhearted freshman—who believed
himself the only gay person in the world—knew he would
face a public outing, expulsion, or worse.
Clothier Hall was locked, so he couldn’t jump off the bell
tower; instead, he swallowed a stolen bottle of pills.
20
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
WINTER 2017
‘ONE IN TEN, WE MEET AGAIN’
“I am interested in organizing gay alumni,” Kate Wilson
’84 wrote to Diane Wilder ’83 in a letter dated Jan. 13,
1987. “Why I want the network among gay and lesbian
Swarthmoreans is probably similar to why anyone wants an
alumni group … we want connections with people who share
our experiences. … How can this be done?”
Wilder, Swarthmore’s assistant director of alumni relations, responded in less than a week: “I’m not sure what kind
“Last year I published a
book called Gender Inequality in Our Changing World,
a college textbook focused
on the present-day U.S.
but in an international and
historical context,” says Out
Together editor Lori Kenschaft ’87. “I’ve thought a lot
about this movement from a
much bigger perspective, but
Swarthmore is where I got
my start and I draw on the
perspective I gained there all
the time.”
of response you will get—whether enthusiastic or negative,
many or few, but I think the idea is a terrific one.”
After the April 1987 Bulletin solicited submissions,
autumn saw the publication of the first issue of Out Together:
Swarthmore Lesbian and Gay Alumni Network. Coordinated
by Wilson and Wilder and edited by Lori Kenschaft ’87, the
newsletter took shape via a complicated process intended to
maintain readers’ privacy.
“Looking back at that now, it gives me pause to remember
what was at stake for some people if their sexual identities
were shared,” Wilder says. “There wasn’t any institutional
resistance here—we were all enthusiastic to help—but we
wanted to proceed cautiously because there could have been
real consequences for some alumni.”
Kenschaft, who came out as bisexual halfway through her
time at Swarthmore, had long been involved in LGBTQ activism, helping rally 10 percent of all the then-current College
students to join a Philadelphia demonstration protesting the
Supreme Court’s 1986 anti-gay ruling in Bowers v. Hardwick.
Crafted with the help of many alumni, including
Jacqueline Lapidus ’62, Liz Mackey ’82, and Dave Allgeier
’86, Out Together featured class notes, cartoons, personal essays, political perspectives, project lists, histories,
addresses, and a sense of exuberance.
“I’m impressed at the levels of organizing we were able
to do with such limited resources,” says Wilson. “I see that
as one instance of a political ethos that values gathering—
for example, helping run the ‘lesbian tent’ in the 1995 U.N.
Women’s Conference in Beijing—and recognizes the crucial
role of ‘ordinary’ documents.”
Although the publication only lasted for a few issues, it
meant a great deal to those who received it and took heart
from the power and promise of its deceptively simple title.
“It was thrilling to hear from older gay alumni, about what
their worlds were like and what they were doing,” Kenschaft
says. “Getting glimmers of other gay alumni at all stages of
life was exciting and gratifying. It meant so much to just
know: You’re out there, you’re out there, we’re out there.”
LISTENING AND LOVE
Looking back at all the roles she’s played, the most important for Kelly Ann Lister ’63 might just be the one she’s focusing on now: listener.
“I’m 75 and I could be these kids’ grandmother,” she
laughs, describing the transgender community group she
regularly attends in Cleveland. “When I started going, this
was a tiny meeting but now it’s huge. I do my best just to listen to and connect with as many people as I can.”
Although she’d questioned her gender identity as early as
junior high, it wasn’t until Lister was 50 that she was able to
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begin exploring transitioning, and 54 when she actually had
surgery. That longtime dissonance between her internal and
external selves made it hard for her to interact with people,
and she remembers her time at Swarthmore—even if it did
help launch her to the Peace Corps—as lonely.
The distance between her College experience and today’s
is vast: Not only is there now a transgender student support
group, but this year’s campus vigil observance of Nov. 20’s
Transgender Day of Remembrance had 50 students in attendance, up from six in 2015.
“That is an indication to me that the work we’re doing to
support the population is starting to pay off—and that our
numbers of the community might be increasing,” says Jason
Rivera, director of the Intercultural Center (IC).
Maximizing the resources and support available to the
campus LGBTQ community has been a priority of Rivera’s
since his arrival in July, when he received a report from
staffers who identified challenges and opportunities they
wanted him to address.
Now an official LGBTQ advisory group to the IC, that
group includes Title IX Fellow Becca Bernstein; Center
for Innovation and Leadership Director Katie Clark;
Presidential Fellow Bruce Easop; Violence Prevention
Educator and Survivor Advocate Nina Harris; IC Assistant
Director Mohammed Lotif; and Associate Dean of Diversity,
Inclusion, and Community Development T. Shá Duncan
Smith. Through next December, the College has also hired
Graduate Fellow Nyk Robinson, whose sole responsibility
will be to focus on the campus’s LGBTQ population.
That spirit of improving collaboration and inclusion isn’t
limited to current students, either, according to Andrew
Moe, associate dean of admissions and director of access and
programming.
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“I tell prospectives that we are a campus where student
voices are important and queer identities are supported,”
he says. “What I love about Swarthmore is that we’re actually thinking about access, not just for LGBTQ students but
across the board— students of color, first-generation college
students, low-income students, undocumented students—
reimagining how we can be friendlier to all.”
That resonates deeply with Lister, who sees herself as a
compassionate listener who seeks to nurture where she can.
Being of gentle and loving service to hospital patients, transgender youth and their families, or even—she hopes—LGBTQ
Swarthmore community members is healing, both inwardly
and outwardly.
“All this work is helping me, little by little, to erase the
guilt of the past and replace it with hope for the future. Mine
is a happy story, even if I didn’t always see it that way,” she
says. “I am who I am and I would not deny the beautiful thing
that has happened in my life. My journey has helped me realize how important it is to listen to each other—with love.”
BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR
Fortunately, Charles Jackson ’60 awoke in the hospital after
his overdose physically unharmed; fortunately, his story was
not defined by suicide or shame.
Completing the school’s required treatment by a Collegeapproved psychiatrist over a one-year suspension to determine whether he would be a danger to classmates, Jackson
was buoyed by the help and love of his friends, especially his
roommate, Bill Lyon ’60.
Even though they’d shared a tiny dorm room and talked
about everything else, they had never been able to reveal the
secret they had in common, until Lyon surprised Jackson by
taking him to his first gay bar. Knowing that he was no longer
alone, and that anyone telling him to be ashamed was wrong,
forever liberated Jackson.
“There are power places in life that have a great physical effect on you—I’ve been here dozens of times since graduation but whenever I see campus again, I just think, ‘Oh my
God,’” he says. “I used to dread coming back, but now I see
that I was born again here. It freed me and I was able to make
choices about my life based on reality, not a fantasy. That’s
why Swarthmore has huge power for me.”
After graduation, Jackson went on to build a rich, full
life, and he delivered a talk at his 50th Reunion, “Gay at
Swarthmore, Then and Now.” Even after Lyon died in 1995,
Jackson never forgot the memories they made together as
roommates and friends.
Bonding over their shared background as sons of workingclass fathers—Jackson’s a janitor; Lyon’s a milkman—
they’d adopted friend-to-the-friendless Eleanor Roosevelt
as their patron saint, pasting a picture of her on their wall.
“At the time, the highlight of
your Swarthmore career was to
become the playwright laureate of
the school by winning the William
Plumer Potter contest,” says
Charles Jackson ’60. “After I was
back, I wrote a play—something I’d
never done before. It was about a
prostitute in prison in Latin America, Barabbas. It won everything it
could and what made me so happy
was that I had the opportunity to
watch that dean sit through the
whole thing and to talk to him after.
Basically, my main character tells
her story and says, ‘I am who I am,
and I’m not changing.’ I said it; he
had to listen to it. It was lovely.”
When Lyon and Jackson were reunited after his return to the
College, their bond and this idea took on a deeper meaning.
“That was my real education—we’d ask ourselves, what
would have to change for everyone to accept us?” Jackson
says. “We developed this idea, Bright Blue Day, where we figured that if everyone woke up on a given day and those people who were attracted to their own gender would suddenly
turn bright blue, that would be change enough to make everyone accepting.
“Our Bright Blue Day was Eleanor Roosevelt’s birthday,
Oct. 11,” he says. “Every October after, we’d always say to each
other, ‘Maybe this year we’ll have a Bright Blue Day. Maybe …
just maybe.’”
+
READ Charles Jackson ’60’s tribute to Bill Lyon ’60; issues of
Out Together; and more: bulletin.swarthmore.edu
BRIGHT BLUE DAY, EVERY DAY
Chalkings have long been a vivid but impermanent campus
means of making a statement. Our chalked stones are
actual Swarthmore pavers worn down and walked upon
by generations of community members; they reflect the
rockiness of our road and the strength of our shared
foundation, illustrated with great care and vibrant color to
last forever.
These pages and portraits, links and lives are by no means
definitive or exhaustive; these are merely selected stones in
the road, and we invite you to add yours, too. Help pave our
way: After all, this is our shared Swarthmorean path—and
none of us needs ever walk it alone again.
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SWARTHMORE SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
QUEER HISTORY MATERIALS: bit.ly/QHistory
•
•
•
•
A timeline of queer life at Swarthmore
Sager Committee records, 1988–2002
“Queer History of Swarthmore” by Lauren Stokes ’09
Critical Politics in a Neoliberal Institution: Gay and
Lesbian Organizing at Swarthmore College, 1988–1993
by Alison Roseberry-Polier ’14
A $4.3 million gift from board member
James Hormel ’55 (bit.ly/JHormel),
the first openly gay U.S. ambassador,
and spouse Michael Nguyen ’08 will
expand and renovate the Intercultural
Center (bit.ly/JH-MN). They celebrated the announcement with President
Valerie Smith at an on-campus reception in December.
Allan Troxler ’69 and
Carl Wittman ’64 (bit.ly/
WittmanGM) founded the Sun
Assembly English Country
Dancers in 1980, where “you
will find men dancing with
men, women dancing with
women—gender balance is not
an issue, everyone who wants
to dance can.” More on them
both: bulletin.swarthmore.edu
Although many call her the
College’s first trans employee,
Professor Emerita Kaori Kitao
resists labels, as she
describes in her blog post
“Transgender”:
bit.ly/Kitao
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“In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association was just
about to vote on whether or not homosexuality should
still be in the diagnostic manual as a mental illness when
Jesse Ford ’73 and Tina Crosby ’74 approached me with
the idea of a student-run course, ‘Homosexuality.’ That
isn’t something you’d have at all institutions, so I’m proud
Swarthmore did.”
—Jeanne Marecek, professor emerita
MORE: bulletin.swarthmore.edu
QUEER PAST
EXPLORED
Watch video of 2014’s
“Queer Histories of
Swarthmore: A Panel
Discussion” (bit.ly/QHPanel),
which brought together:
• Farid Azfar
• Pieter Judson ’78
• Nayan Shah ’88
• Timothy Stewart-Winter ’01
• Lauren Stokes ’09
• Alison Roseberry-Polier ’14
In 2002–04, Swarthmore successfully used shareholder resolutions to get three Fortune 500 companies to bar discrimination
on the basis of sexual orientation in their equal employment opportunity policies. The resolutions were the work of students, administrators, and board members on the College’s Committee for
Socially Responsible Investing.
SEE THE STORY: bit.ly/2002Shares
A RICH TAPESTRY
LGBTQ alumni, students, and community members share their stories in their own words, including:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Bruce Leimsidor ’63
Jennie Boyd Bull ’67
Mark Sherkow ’67
Arlene Zarembka ’70
Shoshana Kerewsky ’83
Roger Latham ’83
Stephen Demos ’84
Seth Brenzel ’94
Timothy Stewart-Winter ’01
Matthew Armstead ’08
Tatiana Cozzarelli ’08
Teddy Pozo ’09
Andrew Dorrance ’15
Margaret Hughes ’17
George Huber, librarian, 1964–
2005
Read theirs, add yours:
bulletin.swarthmore.edu
In person and online, explore our mementos, like the
Swarthmore Queer Union records (bit.ly/QHistory) and
ask how to donate yours (archives@swarthmore.edu).
FACEBOOK.COM/GROUPS/SWATALUMLGBTQ
OUT OF THE CLOSET, INTO THE ARCHIVES
PRIDE@SWARTHMORE.EDU
“To say it is personally gratifying
to see the work that the Sager
Committee has done over the
years would be an understatement. I’m incredibly proud that
it has led to so many amazing
symposia, lectures, and social
events, and eternally grateful
to the students, alumni, faculty,
friends, and staff who have contributed.” —Richard Sager ’74
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BECOMING
YOURSELF
Five Swarthmorean journeys of gender
by Jonathan Riggs
photography by Laurence Kesterson
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BECOMING PATRICK
“There’s this narrative about transgender people where
you always knew you were trans, but that wasn’t true for
me,” says Patrick Rock ’09, who radiates an easy, endearing warmth. “As a child, I wore my older brother’s hand-medowns and played sports. I did not angst over my gender—my
mom had been a tomboy, too.”
It was only after his family moved to Israel that he realized his constant chafing against that country’s strict rules
of femininity meant something deeper. Upon the family’s
return to the States, the 15-year-old came out as a lesbian
and, shortly afterward, as transgender.
“I’d cut my hair into a pink mohawk at summer camp and,
at the Philly Folk Festival, people kept perceiving me as a
boy,” he says. “I kept having these moments of, ‘Wow, that
really feels right.’”
Even so, when he applied to Swarthmore, he didn’t out
himself in his application. “Thinking back to being told by
family friends that telling the truth could’ve kept me out of
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college is the kind of thing that today drives me to advocate
for policies,” says Rock, who came out to Swarthmore administrators after being accepted to the College.
He remembers not only how helpful they were in facilitating his needs, but also the unique pressures he faced as one
of the first students to officially enter Swarthmore as trans—
something he brings to his work as a professor at Glendale
Community College in California.
“Without the values Swarthmore nurtured in me, I don’t
think I would have realized what a powerful setting teaching here is for me,” he says. “Trans youth are more likely
to be kicked out of the house or high school for who they
are, so they’re less likely to have the support or academic
“I went through a list of English, German, and Irish girls’ names, all the way to Z, but something about ‘Alice’ just felt good. So I did that thing
where I wrote ‘Alice Grimm’ in cursive all over a piece of paper, practicing my new signature,” says Alice Grimm ’08. “I’ve always had terrible handwriting, and my hand was shaking at the courthouse when I submitted the name-change petition, but the clerk was kind. He said, ‘This deserves to be
done well—why not write it again? I want you to do it right on such an important day.’”
STEPHANIE YANTZ
ANNA PETERSON ’83 IS AFRAID.
Under a cut-crystal Idaho sky, she—the word hard-won—
holds herself tightly, seated on a rock along the Lochsa River.
Her long, blond hair whispers around her face; the mottled
stone’s chill bites through her slacks. For luck—like a bride—
her girlfriends helped her dress for today, wrapping her in
their love along with a cerulean scarf, the better to set off her
carefully painted nails.
Upriver, the photographer balances at the water’s edge. He
stares into his camera and not yet, she thinks gratefully, at her.
My executioner. She blinks, a gallows-humor gal always,
yes, but she is more than that, too: a writer, a movie-crier,
a therapist, a father. She is not an adjective, a tragedy, or a
question to be answered. She is not “brave.”
“That’s what people like to say, but I’m just being myself.
I haven’t changed in my person, I’m just expressing it more
authentically,” she says. “I’m a late-transitioning girl. I’m visible. I know that if anyone looks at me carefully, at any given
moment, no matter where my presentation is, they can see it.
I live with that awareness.
“I move through the world knowing that the mere fact
of my existence activates all this primal shit in everyone I
encounter. I can trigger looks of disgust in random people I
pass on the street. It’s hard to know what to do with that.”
And while she now carries pepper spray in her purse,
Peterson believes in the healing power of an honest smile or
sisterly tears. She may be afraid, but she faces the camera’s
unblinking eye, knowing how far what it sees today in this
river, on this rock, will travel.
“It will be weird to disclose my identity in this way to people I haven’t seen in decades,” she admits, “but I believe in
the importance and necessity of trans visibility.”
“It’s awe-inspiring to see how far we’ve moved in such a short time,
but not everyone grows up in Los Angeles or Philadelphia,” says Patrick
Rock ’09. “I try not to forget that most kids are still living in places
where being trans is not accepted; I try to remain humbled by how much
work we still have to do.”
preparation to apply to or succeed at a four-year college.
Disproportionally, trans folks end up in community colleges,
which are doing an incredible service.”
In addition to his teaching, Rock is also the director of
education at the Youth and Gender Media Project in Los
Angeles, where he leads sensitivity and inclusivity trainings
and workshops with teachers and students. And, in a lovely
full-circle moment, his high school invited him to a ceremony
dedicating a gender-neutral bathroom in his honor.
It’s all enough to make most people’s egos swell, but Rock
is much quicker to laugh than to brag, and credits his girlfriend, whom he met on OkCupid, for helping keep his feet on
the ground.
“I knew we had potential when we both had user names
that included references to social justice and food and our
first conversations were about cheese,” he laughs. “We both
care a lot about making the world a better place, terrible
reality-TV dating shows, and each other.”
BECOMING ALICE
A physics and math honors double major with an infectious laugh, dark-haired Alice Grimm ’08 wanted to attend a
Swarthmore Halloween party as Goldilocks, so she reached
for the bleach.
“My hair turned a hideous carrot orange, and, because I
did it myself, I missed a spot,” she laughs. “Still, there was a
moment when this guy thought I was a girl, and it felt good.”
Ever since middle school, when she read a Boston Globe
article about children who were trans that asked, “How
would you know?” Grimm had lived with and explored the
question in a very personal way. From occasionally painting her toenails as a teenager to wearing a dress on Sundays
around the house as a grad student at the University of
California, Davis, Grimm continued to ask it of herself, even
as she weathered major life changes like ending a seven-year
romantic relationship or exhausting her doctoral funding.
“At first, I thought if I were transgender, it would be
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obvious to me, but then I came to realize: The fact that I
wasn’t certain—the fact that I was afraid—didn’t mean
I wasn’t trans,” she says. “When I eventually saw it as a
choice—about who I wanted to be and be grouped with—that
I didn’t need to ‘prove’ or ‘justify,’ then it was clear.”
Although counseling helped give her perspective on all
these changes, it was difficult for Grimm to even broach the
topic of her gender identity in therapy, but once she did, she
was able to begin her hormonal as well as social transitions.
“As a college freshman, when I understood myself to be
a straight cis man, I didn’t feel uncomfortable trying on or
buying a dress,” she remembers. “But 10 years later, I had
heard stories about the mistreatment that some women who
are trans experience, so I was terrified of being thrown out
or yelled at or publicly shamed—even if I knew logically that
this was unlikely in a thrift shop in Berkeley.”
After a first try, where she circled the women’s section
before bolting, Grimm returned to buy two dresses: one floral, one white-and-navy striped—the only two that (mostly)
fit her. She packed them up for her move to Massachusetts,
where, pre-transition, she had interviewed for and then
accepted a teaching position at Deerfield Academy.
Although she began her tenure at Deerfield presenting as a
man, Grimm eventually came out in two special assemblies:
one to the entire faculty, and then to the entire student body.
“People were like, ‘You’re so brave,’ and it’s like, no: This is
what I need to do to survive,” she says. “It ended up enriching
my relationships with everyone.”
Although some days are easier than others—stubborn
beard stubble, an unfinished math dissertation, and roundthe-clock contact with and work for students can really
wear on a girl—the process has been smoother than she’d
ever dared hope. In fact, Grimm’s found her calling in the
classroom, where her students appreciate her for who she
is: a gifted teacher, voracious reader, and heart-on-hersleeve vegan-cookie-baker with a weakness for Dungeons &
Dragons and math.
“I find an amazing, even meditative beauty in the complex mathematics that brings out a nonverbal part of me—it
speaks to my love of knowledge,” she says. “Fully engaging in intellectual exploration with my students is the most
important part of my day, and it feels great to share the
things I find fascinating with them.”
BECOMING KAYLEY
An intensely focused student of mechanical engineering and
robotics at Rice University, Kayley Whalen ’07 wanted something more, and made the bold decision to transfer.
“When I saw that the humanities were treated with academic rigor here, I realized how important they were to me,”
she says. “I discovered myself through discovering the arts
and humanities at Swarthmore.”
Poetry, theater, and women’s studies courses opened her
eyes to the possibility of life beyond the gender binary, and
she became one of the most outspoken LGBTQ student activists on campus when she spearheaded the 2006 Coming Out
Week’s controversially explicit chalkings.
Postgraduation, however, she had to temper her firebrand
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name Lenore Gore. Afraid that she would be kicked out for
being trans without being two years post-op, Whalen was
forced to remain in the closet. After a piece she wrote—under
the pen name Uzi Sioux—about her roller derby experience
made a splash in Kate Bornstein’s Lambda Literary Awardwinning Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, Whalen came
out to her sport and to the world at large.
Today, she is the digital strategies and social media manager for the National LGBTQ Task Force and runs campaigns,
trainings, and events in addition to organizing panels and
community briefings at the White House. An amateur painter
and student of color theory and design, Whalen aims to be an
advocate who listens to and respects all.
“I’m very out as bisexual, transgender, Latinx, and someone
with a mental health disability because I feel like I have to
stand up for those communities and use the privilege I have
of having gone to Swarthmore,” she says. “A lot of the work
I do is informed by that anti-oppression lens that I learned
there, and I’m really excited to be a leader putting forward the
stories of multiple marginalized identities.”
BECOMING DANIEL
When he returned to Swarthmore as a sociology professor
last semester, Daniel Laurison ’99 was surprised with how
history repeated itself in an unexpected way.
“My undergrad ID picture popped up in Swarthmore’s system, linked to my faculty self,” he says, smiling. “I grew a
beard about three years ago, but even with switching gender
categories, my nearly 40- and 21-year-old selves really don’t
look that different.”
Laurison first came to the College as an out lesbian teen
activist and Lang Scholar. For his Lang Opportunity Project,
he organized Philadelphia’s inaugural Dyke March, which
taught him bruising but invaluable real-world lessons about
meeting your heroes, and ran the Women’s Anti-Violence
Education (WAVE) nonprofit after graduation, teaching
feminist safety and self-defense skills.
Ultimately, however, Laurison felt conflicted about identifying as a woman, which became clearer every time students
in his WAVE courses mistook him for a teenage boy.
“I don’t feel like I have a deep, true, essential gendered
“People told me that I’d never use my women’s studies and English
literature degree after college, but I write every day about social
justice issues,” says Kayley Whalen ’07. “I draw on what I learned at
Swarthmore in all I do, especially my intersectional work that crosses
boundaries to say we are proud LGBTQ people who stand with all those
oppressed by this racist system.”
nature when she went to work as a credit risk analyst at
Fannie Mae after a friend told her the company’s health
insurance was planning to take the then-radical step of covering gender reassignment surgery.
“But when the housing crisis hit, Fannie Mae used public
perception as an excuse not to follow through,” she says. “So
I suffered through 3 1/2 dehumanizing years at an inherently
racist, predatory company to be able to afford the $20,000plus out-of-pocket dollars I needed to feel whole and complete in the body that matched my gender identity.”
After suffering a breakdown, Whalen went on disability before being let go. As she recovered and recalibrated,
she thought back to how meaningful her work as an activist
had been, everything from her undergraduate time interning with the Trans Health Information Project to her more
recent work with Occupy Wall Street and Greenpeace, rappelling off buildings to drop banners.
Her activism had even crept into her favorite hobby—the
four hard-hitting, hell-yeah-on-wheels years she spent skating with the DC Rollergirls roller derby league under the
“When we’re having gender-segregated anything, we should ask: ‘What’s the real reason?’ and ‘Do we actually need to?’ For
example, do we need to have ‘M’ or ‘F’ on our driver’s licenses? Why are toy store aisles so aggressively gendered?” asks Daniel
Laurison ’99. “The more we let people have whatever gender identity they’re going to have and the less we enforce gender boxes
on people overall, the better off we’re all going to be.”
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“I have beautiful sons. I
told them, ‘Hearing this must
be strange.’ My older son said,
‘It is, but it’s OK.’ And it was
so simple and so perfect,” says
Anna Peterson ’83. “People
worry about their kids when
they come out and transition,
but mine have been great: I’m
still their father, their female
father. Normal for them is
telling their friends, ‘I’m
talking to my dad; she says
hi.’ Having that has been a
revolution in my life.”
self, although lots of people feel they do,” he says. “It came
down to this: How would I feel best in my body and the
world? When I thought about it that way, rather than with all
the gender theory at my disposal, my answer was clear.”
His transition came at a surprising price. He and his partner had always taken pride in being part of the queer community, but Laurison’s change—which he originally thought
would make him more queer—actually cost them their visual
LGBTQ identities. In daily life, they are now frequently read
as a straight couple.
“We talk about that a lot: how the resulting privilege saddens us. Still, I never forget that my experience of being trans
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is not most people’s,” he says. “I’m the most privileged kind
of trans person you can possibly be: I’m female-to-male; I’m
white; I have financial resources; my family, partner, and
work were supportive; and I came out at a time that benefited
from previous generations carving a path.”
His experience informs the way he approaches his
research, his classroom teaching, and his parenting. And,
from the moment his daughters—now 9 and nearly 7—were
able to ask, he and his partner have been open and honest
about society’s gender roles and their personal journeys.
“There aren’t a lot of kids’ books about ‘my daddy is transgender,’ and at first, my older daughter worried she might
accidentally grow up to be a man,” he says. “Now she gets that
she has full control over her gender identity and expression.”
As he and his family settle into life in Philadelphia—and
adjust to leaving England, where he completed postdoctoral research at the London School of Economics—Laurison
couldn’t be happier with how everything has turned out, even
if life’s been full of surprises.
“I, for one, never thought I was going to be an academic—I
wanted to be in the real world,” he says with a smile. “But to
be back here now, with a community of friends and a job writing, thinking, reading, and teaching? I won the lottery.”
BECOMING ANNA
For sheltered, shy Mormon-raised Anna Peterson ’83,
Swarthmore was a thrilling, terrifying new beginning, especially after she told her deepest secret to a campus therapist.
“I wasn’t expecting to talk about it, but I just started sobbing and confessed that I had been secretly dressing in
female clothing,” she says. “It was the first time I told anybody. Even though I had the feeling she wasn’t quite sure
what to do, it was a huge relief to have said it at all.
“And so, before I had the capacity to know who I actually was, before the word ‘transgender’ was available to me,
there I was, wearing skirts around campus,” she says. “I don’t
think people knew what to make of me. I barely knew what
to make of myself.”
Her confusion grew after graduation, when she retreated
into the closet, married a woman she met in Provincetown,
Mass., and the two moved to Missoula, Mont. The affectionate joke that sparked their connection—“she was the guy and
I was the girl”—had more truth in it than Peterson had initially been able to acknowledge.
“I’d be undone by teenage girl movie characters—I can cry
just mentioning it—and my wife would tease me,” she says.
“It was weirdly open, all of it, and I would say, ‘This is what
I feel like,’ and yet, through 20 years of marriage and raising
two sons, I wasn’t going all the way to say it actually is me.”
Only after their marriage ended four years ago did
Peterson make the decision to not only wear what she
wanted, but also to transition. It caused disruption in many
of her relationships, but her sons were understanding, and it
was their love and acceptance—to know that it was possible
to be out, to be her true self, and to still be worthy of love and
respect—that changed everything for Peterson.
“Now, for the first time ever, I feel right in the world,
in myself. Whenever someone refers to me as ‘ma’am,’ I
just light up inside,” she says. “It’s this weird paradox: By
embracing my difference that in so many ways sets me apart
from other people, I actually feel more a part of humanity.”
An endlessly compassionate therapist, secret musician,
and jeweler-precise author of autobiographical essays,
Peterson devotes the rest of her time to her sons, to her army
of friends, to figuring out what’s next.
Something she’s learned and lived with is how, for anyone who transitions late, your world can narrow itself down
to grief: grief for the things you’ve missed, grief for the time
you’ve lost, grief for the person you could’ve become sooner,
if only …
Today on this rock, she takes a deep breath.
“When I chose my name, I wanted an elegant, dignified
old-lady name—Anna Louise Peterson. I was not going to be
a Britney,” she says. “With a certain kind of delight, I look
ahead to that deepened phase in my transition: Oh, I get to be
an older woman. What’s that going to be like? I don’t know.
But I want to find out.”
The flash of light catches her by surprise; the photographer is adjusting a silver-foiled reflector. He smiles.
“Are you ready, Anna?”
“Yes,” she says.
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
33
FIRST
COMES
LOVE
Thousands have met their match at Swarthmore—it’s called
the ‘Quaker matchbox’ for a reason. Here, we highlight
LGBTQ couples who found love, light, and lifelong commitment
along their College journey.
by Elizabeth Slocum
34
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
WINTER 2017
MEGIN + KATIE
Megin ’97 and Katie Charner-Laird ’96
knew each other only peripherally in
college, but fate still caused their paths
to cross—in California.
As aspiring teachers at Swarthmore,
Megin and Katie connected—separately—with a common mentor at
Penn, an education professor who
pointed them each to the progressive
Prospect-Sierra School in Berkeley.
“We ended up doing recess duty
and teaching an after-school class
together,” they say. “Because, after
all, don’t we all want to hang out with
Swatties everywhere we go?”
Those hangouts turned into a relationship, which turned into talk
of marriage, even in the face of
discrimination.
“One place we called as a possible
location for our wedding hung up after
kindly informing us that it would ‘be
illegal,’” they say.
Though the laws have changed tremendously in the 16 years since their
wedding, Megin and Katie continue to
make careful choices about where to
travel or raise their children, opting
for more welcoming communities like
Berkeley and Oakland, Calif., and, most
recently, Cambridge, Mass., where
Megin is a professor and Katie a school
principal.
“Each of us definitely felt like we were in a
distinct minority at the school,” say Megin ’97 and
Katie Charner-Laird ’96, with children Quinn, 13,
and Wylie, 6. “It seems like we were at Swat on the
outer edge of a time when being queer was becoming
more accepted and slightly more mainstream.”
“Because of where we’ve chosen to
live, we rarely encounter overt discrimination,” they say. “However, the
need to be careful is itself an indication of how much further we have to go
as a country.
“Still, we’ve watched the broader
landscape change around us, and now
we virtually never have to cross out the
‘father’ line when filling out paperwork
for our kids, because usually they say
‘Parent 1’ and ‘Parent 2.’”
Much of Megin and Katie’s free time
revolves around their children, Quinn,
13, and Wylie, 6—shuttling them from
cello lessons to swim meets and school
events, and enjoying the outdoors and
reading as a family. A planned visit to
Swarthmore this spring for Megin’s
20th Reunion will include a prospective-student tour for an enthusiastic
Quinn.
“Swarthmore is always a part of our
consciousness,” they say. “The Quaker
roots that we gained from our time
there are definitely present in our lives.
“Honestly, we talk about
Swarthmore a lot, and it’s wonderful
that our kids are familiar with the
school and understand how important it is to us. It is not a secret that we’d
love our kids to go there.”
JASON + ROBERT
For Jason Albright ’99, First-Year
Orientation brought new beginnings
both expected … and not so much.
“We didn’t immediately think we
would end up in a relationship,” Jason
says of now-married-partner Robert
Ruiz ’99, whom he met on Parrish
Lawn his first day at Swarthmore in
1995, “but we got to know each other
over the next few months on campus.”
By the spring of 1998, the pair were
in a committed relationship, benefiting as a couple and individually from
the examples of LGBTQ classmates,
staff, and faculty, including professors
Pieter Judson ’78, Kaori Kitao, Nora
Johnson, and Patty White.
“There were a handful of people who
came to Swarthmore with less-open
views about LGBTQ individuals, but
they were a very small minority,” Jason
says, “and most of those views were
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
35
transformed considerably in our time
together.”
After moving to Miami Beach
for Jason’s law studies, and then to
upstate New York for graduate work at
Cornell, they moved to D.C. for a job—
and a future together.
“We decided to get married in 2015
when we were planning to buy a condo
together,” says Jason. “We chose the
D.C. Superior Court because we were
thinking about marriage as a formality
of an existing relationship.”
A small dinner party followed a simple ceremony on a chilly Friday afternoon in February, a low-key tribute to
20 years of friendship.
“It’s really a great time to be a gay
couple,” Jason says. “What we’ve been
impressed with is how quickly the
LGBTQ community has achieved a
number of core political and cultural
goals that initially seemed like remote
aspirations. Nonetheless, legal and
institutional inequalities persist. It’s
important to remain aware of them,
active in fighting them, and resistant to
any attempts to retrench the advances
we have made.”
JOSH + TAMAR
Tamar Datan ’85’s mother had a sense
her daughter would end up with
college sweetheart Josh Gamson ’85.
They had a special bond with each
other, and to each other’s families—
Josh’s mom as a professional mentor and surrogate mother to Tamar;
Tamar’s mom as a loving letter-writer
and guardian angel to Josh.
“Before she died,” Tamar says, “one
of the last letters she wrote to him
said that the reason she was so sad
that we broke up was because she was
really looking forward to a grandchild
between us.”
And in a way, they delivered.
Although Josh and Tamar split up
shortly after graduation—due to their
realization that, even though they
loved each other, they were not destined to be together—they stayed in
touch, with “that fondness you have for
old friends,” Josh says, reconnecting
once or twice a year over the phone.
Years later, each married and in
their 30s, the two separately began
to think about parenthood. Josh and
36
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
WINTER 2017
“Swarthmore was an incredible place to spend a uniquely formative moment of
early adulthood,” says Jason Albright ’99, with married partner Robert Ruiz ’99. “We’re
very thankful to all those who made it possible for us.”
“I made this pro-con list,” says Tamar Datan ’85, with Josh Gamson ’85, “and every
single reason not to was based on fear, and every reason to do it was out of love and hope.”
husband Richard hoped for a baby, but
the logistics and legal landscape of the
early 2000s made for a daunting process. Tamar and her then-husband,
Andy, decided a baby wasn’t for them.
“Then Josh calls and says, ‘I had a
dream that you were pregnant,’” Tamar
says. “I laughed and said, ‘That’s really
funny, because I just decided not to
have children.’”
Her biggest regret, she told him, was
that she’d never have the experience of
pregnancy and childbirth.
“And without hesitation, he said,
‘Have ours.’”
Tamar agreed to be the gestational
carrier for Josh and Richard’s baby,
a story lovingly detailed in the opening chapter of Josh’s book Modern
Families: Stories of Extraordinary
Journeys to Kinship. Another donor
supplied the egg, with one of the
fathers—Josh is careful not to say
who—providing the sperm. In early
January 2006—after a surprise success with the first IVF transfer, followed by a friendly lawsuit to establish
paternity—Reba Sadie was born, to the
delight of her fathers and her “belly
mommy,” Tamar.
“Emotionally,” Tamar says, “I’ll be
attached to her forever. I knew I wasn’t
going to raise her but that she’d always
be a child in my life.”
Reba and younger sister Maddy—
born with a similar story but different
donors—are both part of Tamar’s family, visiting their “auntie” in Virginia
annually and regularly attending her
family reunions. The girls were also
flower children in Tamar’s wedding to
wife Sandy in 2014.
A different kind of matchbox couple, “we are forever connected through
Reba,” Josh says. “We were connected
before, but this extended our link
beyond our own lifetimes.”
KEETJE + SARAH
When we asked Keetje Kuipers ’02 and
Sarah Fritsch Kuipers ’04 for their love
story, they responded in true Swattie
fashion—an essay, written by Keetje:
Sarah and I met when I was in
Grapevine, Swarthmore’s oldest women’s a cappella group, and she decided
to audition. I was a junior and she was
a freshman, and during her audition
“What I remember from the fall of 2001,” says Keetje Kuipers ’02, with wife Sarah Fritsch
Kuipers ’04 and daughter Nela, “was that I had found something steady and true and powerful in
the midst of a post-9/11 world that felt dangerously unpredictable.”
all of us older Grapes were totally
charmed by her beautiful voice and
sweet demeanor. At the time, Sarah
was dating her high school boyfriend,
and I also had a boyfriend who was a
student at Swarthmore. We became
friends through singing together, and
more than a year later, a new kind of
connection started to develop.
Our romance unfolded primarily at
various parties we attended at the two
fraternity houses on campus. We were
regulars at these weekly social events,
but we began to use our attendance as
an excuse to sneak off together. For the
first few weeks when we were testing
out our romance, we kept it from our
friends. But when we decided to share
our happiness with others, we were
met with enthusiasm and joy. In fact,
at the end of the year, an acquaintance
told us that if Swarthmore had a “cutest couple,” we would win.
We were devoted to each other for
the next three years. I moved to New
York after graduation and traveled
back to campus often on the weekends to be with Sarah. However, when
I decided to pursue an MFA at the
University of Oregon, we made the
decision to break up. It was incredibly
painful, and for the next seven years
Sarah remained, in my mind, the one
who got away. We hadn’t spoken in
more than a year when, in early 2011,
Sarah emailed me. We got on the phone
and the rest is history.
We got married on a ranch in
Montana on New Year’s Eve 2015. We
recently relocated from Alabama to
Seattle; I gave up my position as a creative writing professor at Auburn
University to give our family a chance
to live in a more accepting community on the West Coast. I am the primary caregiver for our daughter, Nela,
who is almost 4, and who knows that
she’s very special to have a Mama and
a “Rara.” Together, the three of us (and
our dog, Prairie) love to get out into the
Pacific Northwest landscape for hiking
and fly-fishing. We hope to continue to
grow our family in the coming years,
and since Sarah is a fifth-generation
Swattie, it looks like our kids will have
even more incentive to follow in their
parents’ matchbox footsteps.
+
LGBTQ MATCHBOX COUPLES, send your
love stories! bulletin@swarthmore.edu
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
37
Abigail
Schmidt
’16
T
DEEPLY
ROOTED
How Swarthmore shaped her family
tree—and her whole life
by Elizabeth Slocum
38
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
HERE WAS NEVER any doubt where
Cornelia “Kinnie” Clarke Schmidt ’46 would
go to college.
“The story I always heard was that sometime after I was born, Mother and Dad registered me for Swarthmore,” she laughs. “I
never applied anywhere else.”
It was simply expected—“and fine with me,” she
notes. A birthright Quaker, Kinnie was also a birthright
Swarthmorean: Both of her parents attended the College
(Classes of 1917 and 1918), as did two aunts and an uncle
(1920, ’22, and ’23). A half-dozen cousins followed in their
parents’ footsteps, taking the lead from Grandma Ida, the
Swarthmorean who started a trend that would trickle down
for five generations, spawning 20 Swarthmore descendants
and 10 Quaker matchbox marriages ... so far.
With so many Garnet branches on the family tree, it’s easy
to lose track of who’s who.
“We’ll tell you when somebody isn’t an alum,” Marshall
Schmidt ’47 interjects over lunch overlooking the Springdale
golf course in Princeton, N.J., near the Schmidts’ home. The
couple have been married 69 years—almost as long as their
relationship with the College.
But the family are more than alums: Kinnie’s kin include
board members and benefactors, class agents and athletes, even a non-alum College professor—a tree whose
Swarthmore roots run far deeper than most.
Like any longtime love story, there have been bumps and
bruises, near break-ups and reconciliations. But through
Kinnie’s 92 years, Swarthmore—like family and faith—has
been front and center: “the foundation of my whole life.”
Eleanor
“Peggy”
Schmidt
Clark
’71
William
Schmidt
’76
Kenneth
Clark
’03
Robert
Clark
’71
Griffin
Stabler
’49
Cornelia
“Kinnie”
Clarke
Schmidt
’46
William
Clarke Jr.
’49
Harlan
Stabler
Sexton
’79
Edward
Stabler Jr.
’76
Charles
Grinstead
Laurence
“Janney”
Stabler Jr.
’50
Courtney
Clark
’98
Lois
Kelly
Stabler
’49
Charles
Stabler
’50
Edward
Stabler
’51
Marshall
Schmidt
’47
Patricia
Peters
Stabler
’74
Laura
McKnight
Stabler
’49
Clifford
Gillam Jr.
’47
Mildred
Webb Gillam
’47
Bolling Byrd
Clarke
’49
Sarah
Stabler
’22
PLANTING SEEDS
Ida Palmer, Class of 1898, was young and in love.
The daughter of Quaker parents in Chester County, Pa.,
she came to Swarthmore from the George School, where she
had been handpicked for its inaugural class. A year in at the
College, though, she left to marry Charles Stabler, a teacher
at the Quaker boarding school 22 years her senior.
But that one year at Swarthmore made an impression on
Ida—and a lasting impact on her family.
“They had four children—my mother being the oldest—
in about six years,” Kinnie says, “and then, unfortunately,
Charles got TB and died. So my grandmother was a widow
with four children at the age of 28.”
Ida persuaded her father to buy a home in Swarthmore,
“her idea being if they had a house there, all four children
could go to the College as day students,” Kinnie says. “And he
did. But even so—and Mother talked about this many, many
times—they were on scholarship.”
Three of the four children would marry fellow
Swarthmoreans, including Kinnie’s mother, Eleanor Stabler
William
Clarke
1917
Family member,
by generation
Non-alum
professor
WINTER 2017
PHILLIP STERN ’84
“Quaker match”
(spouse)
Eleanor
Stabler
Clarke
1918, H’72
Norman
Stabler
’23
Elizabeth
Miller Stabler
Fetter
’22
Ida
Palmer
Stabler
1898
Cornelia
Stabler
Gillam
1920
Clifford
Gillam
1920
Richard
Stabler
’74
Eleanor
Gillam
Christiaens
’47
5
th
4
th
FOOTBALL: PLAYING FOR PRIDE,
RECLAIMING THEIR SPIRIT
“As a collective force intent on realizing a
long-time dream, this year’s football team
achieved landmark victories and established
itself as a respectable and talented group of
scholar-athletes. … The Tide closed the tradition of Swarthmore football with undeniable
pride, determination and heart.” —2001
Halcyon
MARCHERS DEPLORE BLUE ROUTE PLANS
“Rain threatened, but that did not discourage approximately 150 people from walking
through Smedley Park … to follow the path
of the Blue Route, officially called Interstate
476, the Mid-County Expressway, and to see
for themselves the place where the approved
6-lane highway will be constructed.”
—Teresa Nicholas ’76, 1975 Halcyon
rd
3
MAKE WAY FOR NAVY
“On the first day of July, 1943, about three
hundred men in all varieties of civilian dress
arrived on Wharton’s hallowed quad. … The
men in the Naval Unit faced not only problems of officer-training, but also problems of
becoming acclimated to Swarthmore. … We
hope only that those who came from elsewhere will remember Swarthmore as a good
friend.” — 1945 Halcyon
nd
2
A WAR YEAR
“The Phoenix had three main objects in view
during the past year. These were to keep in
close touch with Swarthmore’s sons in the
Service, to knit the Alumni closer than ever
to their Alma Mater, and in constant unrest
of the post-war period, to aid in directing college sentiment and student opinion towards
the ultimate right.”
—Drew Pearson, Class of 1919, 1920 Halcyon
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE
“At the close of this the most successful year
of the College thus far, the Managers used
the following language in their annual report:
… ‘Although the outward and material establishment of Swarthmore is well-nigh finished
… others must continually take up and carry
on the work in the same broad spirit of liberality in which it was conceived.’”
—Edward Magill, 1898 Halcyon
1
st
BEARING FRUIT
Kinnie entered Swarthmore in 1942, months
after the U.S. was thrust into World War II. Her
parents, Eleanor and William Clarke, had set
down roots years earlier across the Crum from
the College in Wallingford, building the stately
“Crumwald” where Kinnie was reared and relatives gathered for holidays and reunions.
Her grandmother’s nearby home was also a
hub for the family, who sent seven cousins to
Swarthmore in less than a decade.
A couple of miles away lived Marshall
Schmidt, a Swarthmore High grad who hoped
to attend Amherst but instead stayed close by,
in large part because of the war: “There was no
gas,” he notes. “You didn’t drive anywhere.”
The pair began dating three weeks after
“THE STORY I ALWAYS
HEARD WAS THAT SOMETIME AFTER I WAS BORN,
MOTHER AND DAD REGISTERED ME FOR SWARTHMORE. I NEVER APPLIED
ANYWHERE ELSE.”
—KINNIE CLARKE SCHMIDT ’46
40
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
WINTER 2017
The pair settled in Swarthmore borough, had three children, and maintained a warm relationship with the College—
Kinnie as a long-term class agent, Marshall as Alumni Fund
chairman, as a board member, and in multiple other roles.
They also provided the funding for a scholarship, with preference for Quakers, in the name of William and Eleanor
Clarke. In 1971, after William died and as children and
grandchildren began to move on, Kinnie’s mother gave the
family home, Crumwald, to the College.
LAURENCE KESTERSON
GARNET GENERATIONS
Clarke, who would later serve on Swarthmore’s
Board of Managers for 36 years, 16 as secretary;
she received an honorary degree in 1972 for her
dedication to the College.
And even if she didn’t return to Swarthmore
herself, Ida Palmer Stabler clearly recognized
the importance of education. She furthered
her own at Columbia University, finishing her
bachelor’s and earning her master’s degree
while relatives helped look after her children.
That educational ideal—steeped in Quakerism
and progressive for the time—was instilled
upon future generations.
“There was no question,” Kinnie says. “I
remember my parents telling me women must
have an education, because someday I might
have to support myself.”
“When you meet people from different classes from Swarthmore, you
can pick right up and talk about interesting things—but not just cursory
things, meaty things,” says Cornelia “Kinnie” Clarke Schmidt ’46, with
husband of 69 years Marshall ’47. “That’s the great thing about Swarthmore: the background.”
arriving at Swarthmore and had a normal freshman year. “It’s
hard to imagine now,” Kinnie says, “but the dining room had
tablecloths, we were waited on, and as I recall, if you were
late to breakfast, you were fined 25 cents.”
But reality set in as the war intensified and male students—
Marshall included—were shipped overseas. The couple said
their tearful goodbyes in 1944, as the war pulled Marshall to
the Pacific on the USS Wisconsin BB 64.
“The Class of ’46 was a class of girls,” Kinnie says. “We
were very fortunate, our age group: Even though our men
were in the service, we only had three, four casualties,
because we were just a couple years younger than the first
ones who had to go.
“But we all had a good time at college,” she notes—hanging
out of Parrish’s west-wing windows to watch the Navy V-12
march to meals, penning letters to loved ones with pics from
back home, and simply being young and naïve.
Marshall returned in 1946, finished college in 1947—“and
we were married five days after I graduated,” he says.
“Well there again, it was because of the war,” Kinnie adds.
“Everybody wanted to get on with their life.”
BRANCHING OUT
Though Kinnie and Marshall never pressured their kids
to carry on the family tradition, two of them did, including daughter Eleanor “Peggy” Schmidt Clark ’71, who transferred in after two years at Mount Holyoke. “She didn’t want
to go to Swarthmore right away because she was a townie,”
Marshall says, “but she came for her junior and senior year
and married the football team co-captain, Robert Clark ’71.”
And Peggy and Bob’s kids came, too: Courtney ’98—the
fifth generation of her family’s women to attend—and her
brother, Kenneth ’03—like his father, a sports standout.
“Kenneth was the star of the football team that President
Bloom canceled,” Marshall laments, noting that his grandson still holds the Centennial record for most carries in one
game—52, in 2000. “Sixteen-year record. In all these schools,
no running back has ever carried that often.”
The elimination of the football program brought
Kenneth’s athletic career to a temporary halt and left him
scrambling to find a new school and team. Kenneth would
find a place at Williams and Pomona for the two remaining
fall semesters, then return to the College to graduate with
his class.
The loss of the program created nearly irreparable cracks
in the family tree’s Swarthmorean branches, which, fortunately, time has healed. For now, though, it’s unclear if a love
for Swarthmore will bloom among future generations.
An era ended last spring as one final grandchild, Abigail
Schmidt ’16, crossed the same stage in Scott Amphitheater
that her father, her grandparents, and dozens of other relatives crossed. Kinnie and Marshall’s great-grandchildren,
not yet in grade school, may choose a path far beyond the
arboretum campus—but that’s OK, Kinnie says, because of
the roots that ground and unite them all.
“One of my dad’s professors once said, ‘The trouble with
you Swarthmore graduates is you don’t move far enough
away,’” she laughs. “And that was true—so many of us in the
war years stayed in Swarthmore; so many of our family and
friends are right there. Now, they’re all spreading around,
flying away. But Swarthmore will always be there.”
WINTER 2017
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Swarthmore College Bulletin /
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44
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
WINTER 2017
class notes
A TREASURY OF ALUMNI-RELATED ITEMS
ALUMNI WEEKEND
2017
May 26–28
Start planning your
trip to campus now to
join classmates and
friends for the Parade
of Classes, Alumni
Collection, and so much
more this Memorial
Day Weekend! More:
alumniweekend.
swarthmore.edu
BECOME A FRANK 5
FELLOW
The Aydelotte
Foundation is looking
for alumni under 30
who are passionate
about their work and
value their liberal arts
education for this pilot
program. Nominate
someone or apply
after Jan. 18. Learn
more: swarthmore.edu/
aydelotte-foundation
ROBERT O. WILLIAMS
ALUMNI
EVENTS
Scott Friesen ’97 and other current and former members of Sixteen Feet perform at a reunion concert during Garnet
Homecoming and Family Weekend in October. More: swarthmore.edu/garnetweekend
1934
Marian Hubbell Mowatt, a
clinical psychologist and
former professor, died
July 9 in Lacey, Wash.
After Swarthmore, she
earned a Ph.D. from Bryn
Mawr in 1938. She married
Allan Mowatt in 1939,
and the pair later adopted
two children, Allan and
Janna. In 1960, Marian
and the children moved to
Seattle, where she opened
a psychology practice and
taught part time at the
University of Washington.
Marian was the author of
the book Divorce Counseling and co-author of A
History of the Washington
State Psychological Association. She is survived
by her children and three
grandchildren.
1937
Jane Veasey Stehn of
Bloomington, Minn., died
June 9. After some time
at Swarthmore, Jane
attended the New England
Conservatory of Music
and received a bachelor
of music in piano and
musicology in 1940. She
later taught music history
and piano at Western
Maryland College, now
McDaniel College, and
remained a performer,
accompanist, and teacher
all her life.
Jane’s husband, John,
preceded her in death.
She is survived by a
daughter, two sons, nine
grandchildren, and 15
great-grandchildren.
1939
Mary Whitford Streit
died July 13 in West Palm
Beach, Fla. Mary majored
in French, earned a
master’s from Columbia,
and did further graduate
work at UCLA. She taught
high school French and
Spanish on Long Island,
N.Y., for 20 years and was
the first president of the
Levittown, N.Y., chapter of
the American Association
of University Women.
She and her husband of
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
45
class notes
72 years, the late Victor
Streit, also established
Wesley College in Grenada, under the auspices
of the General Board of
Global Ministries of the
United Methodist Church.
Mary is survived by four
sons, a daughter, a sister,
10 grandchildren, and six
great-grandchildren.
William Boom died
peacefully Aug. 19. Bill
was commissioned in the
Army Air Corps in World
War II and became a
multiengine–rated pilot;
he was appointed air
attaché to the American
Embassy in The Hague,
Netherlands, in May 1945.
He later held executive positions with the
Boeing-Vertol Co., where
he received permission in
1959 to land a helicopter
in Vatican City and have
it blessed by Pope John
XXIII. He retired in 1985 as
European director of the
Budd Co. in Paris. Survivors include wife Helen,
sons Andrew and Jan
Jacob Boom-Wichers ’87,
three grandchildren, and
seven step-grandchildren.
1941
Libby Murch Livingston
lizliv33@gmail.com
I came upon a wonderful
article from the May 17,
1964, Philadelphia Bulletin—imagine—a column
by Drew Pearson, Class of
1919, who was, as stated
in the paper, “best known
as the bureaucrat’s hair
shirt.” This great article, “I
Remember Swarthmore—
Progress Has Come, but
Swarthmore’s Charm Has
Survived It, Says Washington’s Crusading Columnist
on the Occasion of the
College’s Centennial,”
46
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
should be reprinted.
Drew and his family were
staunch Swarthmoreans.
There is so much that I
would like to note about
his views of the College
and his family’s involvement in the school. There
is also much about Drew,
who was a freshman
when my mother, Elinor
Robinson Murch, Class
of 1915, was a senior, so
it is special to me. Drew
continued as the College’s
booster. We need to hear
his words again. Maybe
this has already been
done—if so, good!
Back to 2016: I had a
good chat with Ann Driver
Miller. She enjoys her
pleasant life by the sea in
New Jersey. Her neighborhood was shocked Sept.
17 by a bombing at the end
of her street by a terrorist
who went on to bomb
other spots in New Jersey
and NYC. Ann was happily
unaware of the event until
afterward.
Nice chat with Barbara
Ferguson Young. Busy as
usual at White Horse Village in Newtown Square,
Pa., where she is running
the library and probably
everything else. I hope
I heard her say that she
is expecting three more
great-grandchildren (the
old ears are unreliable)
and that a grandchild
is moving to Portland,
Maine, right in my backyard. Maybe she will visit.
Our family gathered in
Denver for a wedding in
September. It was a fun
event with guests asked
to wear plaid to be part of
the Scottish-Irish theme.
Bridesmaids (three daughters of bride Maureen and
three daughters of groom
Randall) wore plaid tams.
Wish I could show you a
picture of the bride and
groom, gorgeous in their
authentic clothing—but
not of my effort to look
Scottish in my too-large,
WINTER 2017
1943
1942
unauthentic plaid shirt
from Eddie Bauer.
Betty Glenn Webber
bettywebber22@yahoo.com
616-245-2687
Mary Weintraub Delbanco
delbanco660@gmail.com
Let’s make a class notes
comeback—we’ve been
absent too long. What’s
new with you since we
last participated? Please
contact me.
Here’s the latest from
Baltimore, my current
base. I live at Roland Park
Place, a retirement community with outreach to
the neighborhood and the
larger community and a
host of in-house committees and activities. Warner
’46 and Lois Hosbach Love
’43 were also residents
here, and they invited me
to join a cocktail hour at
their apartment. (Sadly,
Lois died in July, and Warner has moved away.) The
Baltimore chapter of the
Swarthmore Book Groups
meets in my building.
Members are from a wide
range of classes and enjoy
a mix of perspectives.
That brief update is just
to get us started. Please
help us return to the alumni news circle by providing
updates on you, your family, your community, and/
or special episodes in your
life. A renewal of sharing!
FOLLOW US
on Facebook at
facebook.com/
SwarthmoreBulletin
The day I’d hoped to avoid
has come, when I have
received nary a word
from our classmates. The
College, though, sadly forwarded news of Lois Hosbach Love’s death July 22
from lung disease. Born
and raised in Ocean City,
N.J., she was the only girl
in her high school class
to go to college, financed
by owning and operating
a boardwalk hamburger
stand. After Swarthmore
and a Ph.D., married with
school-age children, she
had to battle for admission
to med school. Lois and
another young mother
were rejected by Johns
Hopkins but together tried
the University of Maryland; they were grilled by
five interviewers instead
of two, were accepted,
and graduated as the only
women in a class of 97.
Her physiology Ph.D. from
Penn preceded a career as
a distinguished psychologist around Baltimore.
A tribute from one of her
colleagues described her
as bringing great humanity
and humor to her patients.
Daughter Rebecca Love
wrote that her mother
had been active in a
Swarthmore book club.
She is also survived by
son Michael and five
grandchildren.
Here in Grand Rapids,
Mich., we are celebrating the eighth year of
ArtPrize, with entries from
hundreds of artists viewed
by thousands of residents
and visitors. It’s unusual
in that awards are made
by popular vote and juried
panels, and very generous
awards they are. There are
works on building walls,
street corners, parks, in
convention halls, hotel
lobbies, office buildings,
museums, and even in the
river. The event lasts a
couple of weeks in early
fall when we hope for good
weather, and each year I
do as much of it as I can
handle with my cane at
the ready and a few lucky
breaks finding parking.
Every time I go I marvel at
the eye-popping gimmickry of some of it and at the
transcendently beautiful
work also on display.
That’s what I’m doing.
How about you? While
I’m reminding you, bring
us up to date on anything
you’d like to share. Your
classmates will be glad to
hear from you.
1944
ALUMNI IN ACTION
Liza Dadone ’97 protected 18
endangered Rothschild’s giraffes
last January in partnership with
Ugandan wildlife experts.
The founding members of Grapevine
(Classes of ’86, ’87, and ’88) caught
up in April to meet current members and
sing at Clothier Hall.
Delaware’s newly elected
governor, John Carney,
appointed Doug Gramiak ’88 as his
chief of staff.
Alumni and parents
gathered at Politics &
Prose Bookstore in D.C. for
a talk by Sara LawrenceLightfoot ’66, “Growing
Each Other Up: When
Our Children Become Our
Teachers,” introduced by
President Valerie Smith.
The event was hosted by
owners Bradley Graham
and Lissa Muscatine,
parents of Cole Graham ’17.
From left: Keith Benjamin ’09,
Marilyn Holifield ’69, and Tracey
Patillo ’90 ran into one another at the grand
opening of the National Museum of African
American History and Culture in D.C.
+ SEND YOUR PHOTOS/BLURBS TO BULLETIN@SWARTHMORE.EDU
We send condolences to
the family of John Zerbe,
who died July 11. He grew
up in Chester, Pa., graduated from Swarthmore
High School in 1941, and
received a mechanical
engineering degree from
the College. After naval
service in aero research
in Mountain View, Calif.,
Jack married Emily Noll.
He received a master’s
from Stanford in 1947 and
then joined Westinghouse
Electric Corp., where he
helped establish the Atomic Power Program. After
35 years there, he joined
the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and retired
as director of the Office of
Policy Evaluation. He and
Emily had children Linda
Pitner and Jeff Zerbe ’80,
five grandchildren, and
two great-grandchildren.
After extensive travels,
Jack and Emily built a
home in St. John, Virgin
Islands, where they had
resided part of every year
since 1994.
Our sympathies to the
family of Beatrice “Bippie”
Stoalabarger Grubbs,
who died Sept. 6 in Vero
Beach, Fla. Bippie was
born in Enid, Okla. She
majored in English and
economics then moved to
NYC to work as a publicist.
After she and the late Okla
Grubbs were married,
they moved to Darien,
Conn., where they raised
three children. Bippie was
an active member of the
Wee Burn Country Club
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Jared Solomon ’01
was named among
City & State PA’s 40
Under 40 Rising Stars for
Pennsylvania.
Gary McCabe ’80, Jeff
Reid ’81, and their
wives, Donna and Lisa, met
up at a fall wedding in Italy.
Esther Ridpath Delaplaine
edelaplaine1@verizon.net
in Darien and the Riomar
Golf Club in Vero Beach.
She was president of the
U.S. Woman’s Golf Association and an accomplished
bridge player. She is
survived by three children
and four grandchildren.
I, Esther, flew with 10
children and grandchildren from the East Coast
to San Francisco to celebrate the Oct. 1 wedding
of Emily Delaplaine and
Nick Miller beneath the
redwood trees in Huddart
Park. Emily is my son
Mark’s daughter and
teaches math in an Oakland, Calif., charter school.
After the event, son Bruce
and I spent several days
getting acquainted with
Emily’s maternal relatives
Dot Watt Williams ’50
(seated) hosted a minireunion in September at her
Grinnell, Iowa, apartment
with (from left) Maura
Strassberg ’77, Lesley
Wright ’79, David Harrison
’89, Paul Tjossem ’81, Paula
Smith ’82, and Jane Hooper
Mullins ’50.
and revisiting favorite
sites in the city.
1945
Verdenal Hoag Johnson
verdij76@comcast.net
My life is divided into two
hemispheres: my individual, personal, private
half and my open, aware,
involved community half.
In the personal half, another milestone has been
passed. Just before our
70th wedding anniversary, Edward ’46 entered a
full-time care facility. His
physical being and mind
reached a point where I
could no longer care for
him. I’d had another bad
fall and was having a hard
time caring for myself.
Thank goodness we had
prepared our home for
old-folks living—a chairlift
on the stairs, raised toilet
seats, and no throw rugs;
those of you near my age
know these recommendations and more.
I have been cared for
by the wonderful Visiting
Nurse Association, and
Edward is in a beautiful Catholic long-term
care unit. The facility is
next to a parochial high
school, so he has plenty
of visiting volunteers
from the school, and he
hears the shouts from
the athletic fields. It is
very strange because my
Edward doesn’t live in
that body anymore, but
he recognizes me and his
children and introduces us
to his nurse every time we
visit. I am not as lonely as
I anticipated because he
is in every corner of our
home and does not leave
my mind. The only time it
is difficult is when I must
go to bed alone.
I have had little time for
my community half—especially the election,
which so smothered our
domestic news—but I
have returned to meeting,
which I missed. This election really frightened me. I
can’t believe that we lived
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
47
class notes
BARBARA NORFLEET ’47, H’14
RENOWNED PHOTOGRAPHER
Documentary photographer Barbara Norfleet ’47, H’14
received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the
Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, Mass.
Norfleet, a senior lecturer emerita at Harvard and former
photo curator at the Carpenter Center for the Visual
Arts, built a distinguished career exploring American
social history through photography; she is still actively
working. Norfleet received a Ph.D. in psychology from
Radcliffe-Harvard in 1951.
with these campaigns
for so long with so much
disrespect, so much vituperative language, so little
statesmanship. Are there
no statesmen or stateswomen available to run
our country? Is there no
integrity, no honesty, no
class left in our public life?
At this point I can’t think
of a single public figure
whom I would gladly vote
for. It seems as if most of
my life I have voted for
the lesser of two evils.
The only solace is that
the country has survived
so far, but what comes
next? I am delighted that a
woman ran for president,
but there are so many
shadows over her image.
I left a community part
of my life: my volunteer copy-editing and
proofreading for the
state historical society.
After several years, it had
become almost a chore. A
great facet of volunteering
is that when it is no longer
fun, you can quit and go
on to something new. A
really fun activity would
be to win the mega-lottery
and disburse cash to organizations that need money
to further their activities—
just lots of dollars with no
strings attached. I would
be really good at that!
48
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
1946
Nancy Fitts Donaldson
n.f.donaldson@gmail.com
Bob Bergner, who attended Swarthmore as a
member of the Navy V-12,
died July 15 in Easton,
Md. After Swarthmore,
he attended American
University, received a
master’s from George
Washington University,
and completed the Naval
War College. He served in
the Navy for 26 years and
later spent 30 successful
years in life insurance.
We send our sympathies
to his two children, four
grandchildren, and three
great-grandchildren.
Please send news of
your lives, children, and
grandchildren, as without
your input there is nothing
in our class notes. I know
that’s hard to do as our
lives are more restricted
by the limitations of age.
Personally, I have a happy
life in this retirement
community where all my
needs are met, but it does
require getting away now
and then. I managed two
short trips, one to Newburyport, Mass., to hear
music composed by my
granddaughter’s husband
and one to the mountains
of Pennsylvania for a long
WINTER 2017
weekend with another
granddaughter. Both were
welcome changes. By the
time the Bulletin gets to
you, I will have returned
from a 10-day visit with my
son and his wife in sunny
Florida, another welcome
break. I am grateful to be
healthy enough to make
such trips. I hope all of
you can still make trips to
see family and friends.
1947
Marshall Schmidt
kinmarshal@aol.com
We celebrated the
induction of Gloria Evans
Dillenbeck Dodd into the
fifth class of the Garnet
Sports Hall of Fame Oct.
28 at the College. It was a
terrific evening, and Gloria
was most deserving.
Our 70th Reunion is
fast approaching. Our
advancing ages may make
attending somewhat difficult, but perhaps nearby
residents can utilize
community transportation
to attend. Kinnie ’46 and I
hope to see you there.
Please note our new
address: 2417 Windrow
Drive, Princeton, NJ
08540. We have relocated
from our villa home of
17 years into a lovely
fourth-floor apartment in
the completely enjoyable
Princeton Windrows, a
hybrid senior community
with all services, except
assisted living.
Stay healthy!
death by husband Robert
Dixon and daughter Mary
Wehrle Adair, and is survived by son John Wehrle,
two grandsons, and a
great-grandson.
1948 1949
Philip Gilbert
plgilbert@aol.com
I had a long, wonderful
phone call with Lucy
Hoisington Carver, who
says, “I feel very lucky
to have done so much—I
have been married twice
(James Bentley ’50 and
Bill Carver) and bore two
children (James Jr., a
musician, and Lucinda, a
writer/artist/polymath).
I have been employed
as a babysitter, designer of college posters,
dining-room waitress,
lab tech for selenium
rectifiers, summer camp
counselor, photojournalist,
cartographer for Maine
towns, art teacher, and
more.” I enjoy checking in
with classmates and will
continue to make calls.
Sadly, Barbara Sosman
Munson died July 13. The
College received little information about Barbara,
so please share any memories you have of her.
Dorothy Gotwald Dixon
died peacefully at home
July 23. A businesswoman
in West Virginia, Dorothy
rose to become president
of Kanawha Investment
Co. and Edgewood
Realty Co. She was the
first woman to serve
on the Charleston Area
Chamber of Commerce
board and the Charleston
Renaissance Executive
Committee, and was a
past president of the local
League of Women Voters.
She was preceded in
Robert Norman
robert.z.norman@dartmouth.
edu
Marjorie Merwin Daggett
mmdaggett@verizon.net
Anne “Dilly” McLaren
Abbate writes, “Few
of us are still doing
‘startling’ things. I live in
a retirement community
in Columbus, Ohio, and
am astonished at the
backgrounds of friends
and neighbors here. My
husband, Mario, died of
Alzheimer’s last year; our
seven surviving children
are on the East Coast from
Massachusetts to Florida.
Two are retired; the others
are engaged in activities
with what they call ‘redsoval’ (redeeming social
value). Although only one
went to Swarthmore, the
Swarthmore standards are
in them all.”
Like Dilly, I, Bob, live in
a retirement community
and am astonished at
residents’ backgrounds.
They have traveled to
exotic places through
foreign service, business,
academics, and “redsoval”—I like that word.
Several residents devote
many hours to redsoval.
I regret to inform you
of the July 28 passing of
Colgate “Coke” Prentice at
Medford Leas Retirement
Community, Medford,
N.J., home also of Jean
Michener Nicholson.
During World War II, Coke
joined the Army Air Corps
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and served in the Pacific
theater as a chief gunner
on a B-29. After the war,
he developed an interest
in politics and government
at Swarthmore. While visiting Smith College, he met
Harris Wofford, founder
of Student Federalists,
who inspired him to join;
Coke eventually served as
its president. Through the
group, he met Bryn Mawr
student Pamela Davis;
they married Sept. 2, 1950.
After earning a master’s
from Princeton, Coke
began a long career in the
U.S. government, working
with three senators, as
an executive assistant to
then-Vice President Richard Nixon, and in the State
Department, including as
the deputy assistant secretary for congressional
relations. Coke is survived
by three children, seven
grandchildren, and four
great-grandchildren.
Richard Conner died
Sept. 21 in Vineland, N.J.
His studies at Swarthmore
were interrupted by a tour
of duty in the postwar
Army. After graduation
and following in his physician father’s footsteps, he
enrolled at Temple medical
school, but left before
finishing and moved to
Millville, N.J., where he
became a partner in PDQ
Products, a manufacturer
of flying model airplane
kits. In the mid-1950s,
Richard started Rennoc
Games and Toys. Later, his
company transitioned to
the manufacture of textile
Christmas decorations.
In 1972, the company
became Rennoc Corp.
in Vineland and grew
to become the world’s
leading manufacturer of
plush Christmas decorations and later quality
team jackets. He made
significant philanthropic
efforts in the community,
including the founding of a
halfway house for people
recovering from substance
abuse. He is survived by a
brother, six children, and
five grandchildren.
Editor’s note: This is
Bob’s final issue as coclass secretary; if you
are interested in helping
Marge Daggett compile
class notes, please
contact Class Notes
Editor Elizabeth Slocum
at eslocum1@swarthmore.
edu. We thank you,
Bob, for your service to
Swarthmore and the Class
of 1949.
1950
Dot Watt Williams
625 Broad St., Apt. 301
Grinnell, IA 50112
william4@illinois.edu
A group of Swarthmoreans gathered at my
apartment in Grinnell,
Iowa, in September (see
Alumni in Action, Pg. 47).
We reminisced about our
Swarthmore days and
thumbed through old
editions of the Halcyon.
Joining me were Jane
Hooper Mullins, Maura
Strassberg ’77, Lesley
Wright ’79, Paul Tjossem
’81, Paula Smith ’82, and
David Harrison ’89.
Editor’s note: After
four years of faithfully
gathering 1950’s class
notes, Dot is retiring as
class secretary. If you are
interested in being the
next class scribe, please
contact Class Notes
Editor Elizabeth Slocum
at eslocum1@swarthmore.
edu. We thank you,
Dot, for your service to
Swarthmore and the Class
of 1950.
1951
Elisabeth “Liesje”
Boessenkool Ketchel
eketchel@netscape.com
Nancy Weber Kaye writes,
“We are finally settled into
our retirement home on
Cape Cod, where we have
a large backyard patio
surrounded by woods. The
patio was finished just in
time for our daughters to
host a cocktail party to
celebrate our 60th wedding anniversary.” I have
been to this lovely home,
but before the patio was
finished. I can just imagine
how nice it is.
Woody and Merrillan
Murray Thomas ’53 write,
“This summer has been
the hottest on record for
[upstate New York], with
very little rain. We had a
record number of days
above 90 degrees. So
far, our well has gone dry
three times. We have finally broken down and are
putting in air conditioning.
“We were disappointed
by the small number of
classmates at the reunion.
We enjoyed the camaraderie with those who were
there, including David and
Anita Dabrohua Wesson.
Their daughter is an active
member of the Unitarian
Church in Rochester, N.Y.,
and we see her often. We
were pleased to greet
Swarthmore’s new president, who moved around
shaking hands with as
many alums as she could.”
Woody also sent an
article written about how
he got started in photography. It began when he
noticed a photographer on
a square in Cuba at age 5,
while returning from a visit
to his military grandfather
at the Panama Canal.
Three years later, that
same grandfather gave
him his first camera, a Kodak. Woody later worked
for Kodak for 33 years as
a photographic engineer,
and for the next 16 as a
motion-picture producer.
“Photographs are an infallible memory bank,” he is
quoted as saying. “I don’t
throw many photos away.”
This habit has allowed him
to give photos to grateful
friends and acquaintances
who have lost loved ones.
Ralph Lee Smith is
writing a book, tentatively
titled Old Mountain Songs:
Beautiful Songs of Early
Days in Appalachia. He
says, “When you hear
songs like ‘The Dear Companion,’ ‘Pretty Saro,’ and
‘Black Is the Color of My
True Love’s Hair’ played
on a mountain dulcimer,
you will dream of Appalachian spring and want
to take dulcimer lessons
yourself.”
Walter Blass writes from
southern France, “Arrived
Sept. 5 after 23 hours
transiting the Atlantic.
Now visiting six countries
in 25 days. At our age,
that’s not bad! Finishing 41
years on Guilford College
Board of Trustees and
will be able to come to
reunions henceforth.”
Jean Matter Mandler
writes, “I now live in London. George and I moved
here a few years ago, but
sadly he passed away
in May (almost 92). We
moved here because our
sons, Peter and Michael
’81, live here, and we got
tired of going back and
forth so often between
here and La Jolla, Calif.
Now I plan to come back
to the cognitive science
department (which I
helped found) at the
University of California,
San Diego for the spring
quarter every year. It’s
wonderful to live in two
such great places, but
sorry for both to be so far
from Swarthmore that I
don’t get to reunions.”
Hedi Schmid Randall ’53
writes, “Guess I have been
remiss about getting in
touch with you—Charles
Randall died in April 2013.
I do still read our notes, so
I hope you get some useful
replies to your email.”
Thanks, Hedi, for letting
us know, and as you see,
I did!
1952
Barbara Wolff Searle
bsearle70@msn.com
I’m a numbers person.
Pursuing this propensity, I
asked the alumni office for
two numbers: how many
people were in our class
when we graduated, and
how many are alive today.
They tell me that back in
1952 we were 247. When I
made the request, we were
135. We’ve lost a few more
since then, but more than
half of us are still alive. I
find that astonishing. After
all, we’re all over 80! (I
remember referring to my
father as “elderly” when
he was in his 50s; today
my children are in their
50s.) I’d love to hear your
thoughts on this strange
state of affairs.
Not only are we still alive,
but we’re surprisingly
productive. Jill Morrel
Coleman writes, “It strikes
me that another reunion
is coming up in 2017. In
2012, I attended and it
was wonderful. At that
time, I announced that I
was in the early stage of
writing a biography of my
father, who invented what
is now called the traffic
collision avoidance system
for aircraft in flight. Recently, I finished the third
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
49
class notes
revision—458,000 words.
With any luck it could be
published this year. What
I need now, of course, are
an editor and publisher. If
there is any help out there,
I would be so grateful. I
feel as if I have earned another college degree, with
courses in avionics, physics, strength of materials,
mathematics, American
history, psychology, political science, and religion.
In honor of Swarthmore, I
collected my notes in my
battered, genuine, antique
Swarthmore College
three-ring notebook.
Swarthmore certainly
gave me the discipline to
persevere and the ability
to research. Thank you.
“I am also indescribably
grateful to Swarthmore for
its swim team. Late in life,
I discovered U.S. Masters
Swimming, which means
that I have resurrected my
butterfly stroke and do my
workouts and swim in relays with young whippersnappers of 70 and 75.
“Like many of us, I am
now a widow. My three
daughters are approaching middle age: One is at
Johns Hopkins medical
school, managing money;
one is a lawyer; and my
youngest is in Rio in the
Foreign Service. She was
to finish there after the
Olympics and then head
to Australia for her next
posting. A grandson and
four granddaughters
round out my family. I
listen open-mouthed to
the amazing things their
generation does.
“I look forward to seeing
classmates in June.”
An updated edition of
Christine Parker Ammer’s
1980 book, Unsung: A
History of Women in
American Music—chronicling hundreds of women
composers, conductors,
instrumentalists, orchestra and opera managers,
and music educators—
50
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
has been released. The
expanded text now covers
women’s activity in American music from the late
1700s to 2016. Christine
writes, “I just returned
from Michigan where
I heard my trumpeter
son David ’93 play in an
all-women-composers
concert. They’d asked me
to talk about the book,
which was fun.” Unsung is
available on Amazon.
Last quarter I told you
about Harlan Flint’s latest
book, Journey to a Straw
Bale House: The Long
Road to Santa Rita in an
Old Hispano Neighborhood on the Northern
Edge of New Mexico (review, Pg. 7). The College
forwarded a notification
of a book reading, so
the book is out there,
waiting for us all to take a
look. Harlan also writes,
“Another thing we all do at
this stage is to enjoy the
accomplishments of our
children and grandchildren, all of whom have
the advantages of Lake
Woebegone. Our oldest is
Tina Flint Smith, Minnesota’s lieutenant governor
and often mentioned as a
potential candidate after
Gov. Mark Dayton’s term
ends. We have mixed feelings about Tina’s decision
to turn down Swarthmore
for Stanford. Son Harlan
started a 20-plus-year
career at Instinet right
out of Cornell that took
him to London, New York,
and Hong Kong. He is now
enjoying a second chapter
as a partner in a Santa Fe,
N.M., investment-management firm. Third child
Mason has been with
Microsoft for more than
20 years and has learned
to enjoy the long, rainy Seattle winters, but he loves
coming ‘home’ to Santa Fe,
as they all do.
“My two years at Swarthmore were important for
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bulletin@swarthmore.edu.
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go to Page 70.
WINTER 2017
me in many ways. As an
underachieving student, I
often think of how much
more I could have benefited from my time there
if I had applied myself
with more discipline and
rigor. But there’s no time
for regrets, and we can
better focus on the many
things that have gone
so right in our lives. I
have warm memories of
Swarthmore—memorable
moments in class; the
start of strong friendships
interrupted by the different roads we have taken.”
As always, I look forward
to hearing from you.
1953
Carol Lange Davis
cldavis5@optonline.net
In August, I moved to
be near my two oldest
daughters who bought
homes across the street
from each other in
Stratford, Conn. I found
a small house around the
corner and took the giant
step of buying it. I am still
trying to find things in the
new house and hoping to
sell my condo in Norwalk,
Conn. My email address
remains the same as does
my phone number, 203838-1613. I do need news
to write this column, so
please keep in touch.
I received a nice letter
from Marguerite “Margy”
Morey Zabriskie. She
writes, “Watching the
outstanding women at the
Olympics and keeping up
with our granddaughter,
Acadia, who plays varsity
field hockey, ice hockey,
and lacrosse, reminds me
of athletics at Swarthmore. We did have varsity
teams, but so few women
showed up for tryouts,
reflecting the times.
“Even when our daughters were in public secondary school, the athletic
program for girls was pathetic. Our boys reported
displacing them from the
gym on several occasions
because the girls played at
an intramural level and the
boys played varsity sports.
After Title IX legislation,
the girls’ coaches would
not push for equal access
or equal pay and we, as
parents, offered to back
them. How things have
changed.
“With 12 grandchildren
and one great-grand,
life never gets dull. Two
grandsons have won
national theater awards in
the past two years, earning 10 days on Broadway
with coaches from top
shows. Everett was in a
production with Pepperdine students in Scotland,
dealing with rape culture
on American campuses.
At the Fringe Festival in
Edinburgh, they won a
Broadway Baby Bobby
Award for the outstanding
production.
“Sandy and I keep busy
exercising. I still play
tennis doubles; we kayak,
walk, and try to keep on
the go—the secret of
longevity, I’m told. We
enjoyed a river trip on the
Rhine this summer and
time in Maine with lots of
family coming from Alaska, Colorado, Maryland,
and Vermont. So far when
home [in Burlington, Vt.],
we stay put with Lake
Champlain and Whiteface
Mountain in plain view
through our sliding doors.
“I am starting a project,
Building Bridges with
Friend Families. This is an
effort to combat overt or
subconscious racism by
developing relationships
between families from
different cultures, races,
and religions. It grows
out of church work with
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Instagram: @swarthmorebulletin, #swatbulletin
Dismantling Racism and
several years working with
refugees in Burlington.
More on this later—if we
can get it going.”
Our class president,
Stanley Mills, has finished
his first year as a consultant at Memory Lane,
the organization that took
over his music company.
He has one year to go
before retiring completely.
I hope the lack of news
reflects that everyone is
busy and happy.
1954
Elizabeth Dun Colten
lizcolten@aol.com
Submitted in September,
this column will not be
published until the winter.
So happy holidays and
New Year’s greetings, one
and all.
As we age, does summer
pass faster each year?
And do birthdays arrive
with alarming frequency?
Since they are off the
California Association of
Teachers of English board,
Punky ’55 and Anne Chandler Fristrom don’t travel
as much, but in August,
they attended the Oregon
Shakespeare Festival for
the 36th consecutive year.
They were joined by son
David ’83 and his family,
including his 11-year-old
daughter, a veteran theater attendee. There they
saw other plays, including
a reworked Yeoman of the
Guard by Gilbert and Sullivan, in which Kate Hurster
’03 had one of the leads.
Marlee Turner delights
in Maine summers, swims
daily in Crescent Lake,
enjoys bridge with Rotary
friends, and by continuing to run her Northern
Pines bed and breakfast
in Raymond, meets many
people from “away.” Being
an avid Amtrak enthusiast
allows her to visit family
and friends in Texas as
well as those on the East
and West coasts.
Most of Raymond and
Mary Wren Swain’s farflung family visited during
the summer, but they also
took a short guided tour of
Nova Scotia, transported
from Portland, Maine, to
Yarmouth, Canada, on the
speedy catamaran ferry.
The Make-A-Wish
Foundation granted my
granddaughter Eliza a trip
to London to attend the
Harry Potter spectacular, and I joined her
and her mother for an
action-packed six days.
It was fun to see a city
that I once knew quite
well through the eyes of a
15-year-old.
Peter Bart writes that
summer for him and
his wife consisted of
entertaining (at staggered
times) 10 grandchildren,
ages 6 to 17, at their house
in Avila Beach, Calif. An
ongoing family argument
is his claim that he prefers
the West Coast over Martha’s Vineyard (where the
Barts settled in 1925).
A political note from
Peter Sielman: “My latest
project is to try to get the
U.S. House to change its
rules so that votes are
weighed by the number of
constituents represented
by the representative. In
the last three elections,
the Democratic candidates got more votes than
the Republican candidates
by a substantial margin,
but, due to gerrymandering, the Republicans have
a large majority in the
House.”
The summer 2016
Bulletin noted Barbara Hill
Lindsay’s October 2015
death. Neither the College
nor I have obituary details.
Can anyone enlighten us?
Tom Beatson died unexpectedly July 25. He lived
in Phoenix and was employed by General Electric
until his 1987 retirement.
Although diagnosed with
diabetes at age 10, Tom
led an active life, logging
more than 100,000 cycling miles, and for many
years, supported diabetic
causes and organizations.
Tom had been planning a
2017 celebration to mark
his 75 years of living with
Type 1 diabetes.
1955
Sally Schneckenburger
Rumbaugh
srumbaugh@san.rr.com
My apologies—I should
have sent out more requests for news. However,
two goodhearted people
responded.
Mel and Miriam Eerkes
Jones have been in their
Williamsburg, Va., home
for more than 20 years,
which has provided them
with opportunities for
continuing education and
entertainment from the
nearby Restoration and
the College of William
and Mary. It also enables
them to get together with
Bill and Phyllis Klock
Dominick ’57, who live in
Richmond. The couples
enjoy theater performances, football games, and,
“of course, good dinners
before the theater and
after the games.”
Paul Marcus wrote while
sweltering in NYC’s August heat and was thankful for his air conditioning.
Daughter Jessica ’94 and
her family live in Brooklyn,
close enough to ensure
that Paul and wife Annette
see a lot of grandchildren
Asha, 4 1/2, and baby
Joe. They all spent the
last part of the summer
in “glorious upstate New
York” on an old farm under
the Taconic ridge, east of
Albany, which they have
owned since Jessica was
born. Paul’s list of fresh
produce from the farm
explains why anyone,
especially someone from
the heart of NYC, would
treasure upstate farm life.
The farm produces beans,
corn, tomatoes, beets,
carrots, lettuce, scallions,
peppers, and eggplant
during the summer, with
cabbage, leeks, and celery
root coming after frost.
Unfortunately, there was
no fruit this year because
of an April super-freeze
that killed everything in
the bud stage.
Occasionally, Paul sees
Steve Fox, when he visits
NYC from LA; Jay Weiner,
who lives nearby in
Danbury, Conn.; and Ron
Decker, who visited last
winter with his wife. “Glad
to say they are all in great
shape,” Paul reports.
Ann Imlah Schneider,
who moved into a lovely
retirement-community
apartment overlooking
Rock Creek in D.C.,
finally sold her big house
and disposed of all the
furnishings. Last I heard
from her, she was at Wolf
Trap National Park for the
Performing Arts enjoying
the music of Yo-Yo Ma.
This column is only as
good as the material you
send; please send me your
annual holiday message,
or just drop a line.
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SwarthmoreBulletin
1956
Caro Luhrs
celuhrs@verizon.net
I am sad to report the
death of Knowles Dougherty Sept. 1 in Minneapolis. Many classmates will
remember Knowles as
Swarthmore’s superstar
cross country captain.
After graduation from
Swarthmore, Knowles
joined the American
Friends Service Committee, working for four years
in Guatemala, El Salvador,
and Mexico. He received
a master’s in mathematics
from the University of
Wisconsin and a Ph.D. in
education from Harvard.
He and ex-wife Darlene
May Vertrees founded the
alternative K–12 Warehouse Cooperative School,
which flourished in Boston
from 1969 to 1975. After
some years in Missouri
as a teacher, farmer, and
book publisher, Knowles
moved to Minneapolis. His
interest in running led him
to publish the Cross Country Journal—a publication
for high school and college
runners and coaches—for
almost 35 years.
Knowles is survived
by partner Veryl Andre,
daughter Elizabeth Kelly,
stepson James Vertrees,
three grandchildren, and
two sisters. Knowles and
Veryl were at our 60th
Reunion in June. We will
long remember how wonderful it was to see them.
Our thoughts are with his
family.
Tom Fetter didn’t get to
our 60th Reunion, but he
was well-represented by
lovely daughter Annie ’88
and brother Bob ’53. As
some of you know, Tom’s
wife, Susan, died three
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
51
class notes
years ago after a long,
hard battle with pancreatic cancer.
Tom keeps in close touch
with Bernie Marshall,
who left our class after
one year for Claremont
McKenna College and now
lives in Claremont, Calif.
Tom met Susan at Bernie’s
wedding; she was the
bride’s best friend. Tom
hears from Eddie Stainton
’59 in Encinitas, Calif.,
and Everett Heath’s sister
is a neighbor in Thetford
Center, Vt.
News from our slightly
more than 200 living
classmates is scarce.
It’s nice to hear from old
friends. Add a note to your
alumni donation, call or
email me, send a carrier
pigeon, drop something off
by drone—but please let
us hear from you!
1957
Minna Newman
Nathanson
jm@nathansons.net
Ferris Hall, who stays
in touch with his former
medical school roommate
Gordon Power, passed
along news of the death
last summer of Gordon’s
wife, Margaret “Peggy”
Condon Power ’59, sadly
one month after the death
of their son Ronald. Our
condolences to Gordon.
The Garnet Sages of the
D.C. area are combining
with the Scarlet Sages of
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SwarthmoreBulletin
52
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
Haverford and the Golden
Sages of Bryn Mawr to
attend cultural events
and gather for drinks and
discussion afterward. The
fall 2016 Sages’ event
featured a guided tour
of a National Geographic
Museum exhibition of
5,000 years of artifacts,
The Greeks: Agamemnon
to Alexander the Great.
1958
Vera Lundy Jones
549 East Ave.
Bay Head, NJ 08742
verajonesbayhead@
comcast.net
Ginnie Paine DeForest
enjoyed a visit with Sally
Teller Lottick and Marilyn
Hughes Johnson when
she was in Connecticut
for her grandson’s high
school graduation last
June. The three women
mourned the death of
Karen Hultzen Belleau,
a good friend. They also
thought we should plan
something special for our
60th Reunion, perhaps
a class lunch or dinner.
If you have ideas, please
let me, Ginnie, or class
president Babette Barbash
Weksler know.
Margaret Clark Ha’s
grandsons Andrew and
Zachary are each married
to women named Heather.
One grandson lives in
Portland, Ore., and the
other in Boiling Springs,
Pa. Marg’s youngest son,
Peter, and wife Angie have
a girl, Violet. “At last a
girl in the family,” writes
Marg, who has five boys.
“To top that off, Zachary
and Heather had a girl,
Alyson, last June, so I am
a great-grandmother, too.”
Son Steve has serious
heart problems, so he
WINTER 2017
and wife Sharon live with
Marg, who still works on a
limited basis at the Landis
Valley Village & Farm
Museum, a living-history
museum of Pennsylvania
Dutch culture.
Janet Smith Warfield
was interviewed on The
Spiritual Voice podcast,
where she talked about
life-changing consciousness shifts, freeing
ourselves from fear, and
what we do with words.
The Association of Global
New Thought selected
Janet to deliver one of its
webinars, “Dancing with
Words, Dancing with Wisdom,” and she was also
named Top Professional of
the Year in Consciousness
Education by the International Association of Top
Professionals.
Joan Sawin Heald died
Sept. 8 of complications of
Alzheimer’s disease. She
is survived by her husband
of 57 years, Emerson,
three daughters, including
Alison Heald ’82, and four
grandchildren, including
Amandine Lee ’13. “She
really appreciated her
Swarthmore education,”
Alison writes, “and was
very proud to be the oldest
of three generations of
Swarthmore alumnae.”
My grandson, Jack Cote
’20, is a freshman at
Swarthmore this year—
the fourth generation from
my family to attend. His
mother is my daughter,
Gwyneth Jones Cote ’84;
my father, Harry Lewis
Lundy, graduated in 1926.
1959
Miriam Repp Staloff
staloff@verizon.net
An election story: A few
years ago, Hendrick “Hal”
Serrie’s granddaughter
Olive complained that all
the U.S. presidents on
her learning placemat
were men. Her mother, an
accomplished artist, had
just completed a poster
with Hillary Clinton as the
first woman president.
Hal subsequently wrote a
letter to Olive suggesting
that she might one day
become president. She
responded, “President
is nice, but I’m going to
become a ballerina.”
The Artful Blogger
interviewed Jonathan
Shahn, the charismatic
sculptor and teacher,
several years ago as he
prepared for an exhibition
in Roosevelt, N.J. As you
may recall, Roosevelt is an
arts community first designed to enable workers
to escape the tenements
and factories of NYC to
the light-filled homes,
cooperative farms, and
workplaces in the country.
Jon began drawing as a
little boy. “I was not a big
career planner,” he says
in the article. “I never
thought I would be a doctor or an airplane pilot.”
He attended Swarthmore,
but after two years, he
and the College decided
to separate. He went
to the Boston Museum
School, where he majored
in sculpture because
he “wasn’t good at neat
things.” Later, he lived and
worked in Rome. He works
in clay, plaster, bronze,
and wood and has a special affinity for portraits.
The article, published in
2010, notes, “He may work
on several portraits at
once, compelled to move
from one to another. …
Shahn may give his visions
solid form, but he does
not take from them their
mystery.” So what are you
up to now, Jon?
The class offers its condolences to Theodor Nelson on the death of wife
Marlene last year. Since
then, Ted has married
Lauren Sarno. He remains
active with Project Xanadu
and has a number of video
lectures on YouTube as
TheTedNelson.
We also mourn the loss
of Margaret “Peggy” Condon Power, who died June
17 after a six-month battle
with brain cancer. She
was born in Puerto Limon,
Costa Rica, and moved to
Cuba at age 6. Growing
up, she danced ballet
professionally and left
Cuba just before Castro
assumed command. She
met husband Gordon ’57
at Swarthmore and then
earned a nursing degree
from Johns Hopkins
University. Peggy worked
for many years as a school
nurse in California and
then became a massage
therapist. She was active
in the Inland Valley (Calif.)
Quaker Friends Meeting
and volunteered with
Family Services, Friends
Outside, and Step-byStep. She practiced tai
chi, yoga, and meditation
and became a passionate
advocate for alternative
and holistic medicine.
Besides Gordon, Peggy
is survived by daughters
Tracy Mack and Laurie
Power McNaughton ’89
and eight grandchildren.
Son Ron died just three
weeks before her.
1960
Jeanette Strasser Pfaff
jfalk2@mac.com
Continuing the conversation about postretirement
occupations, Linda Habas
Mantel writes, “I have
become a student and
collector of art. Unlike
many classmates, I don’t
make art, but I have
started to collect works by
Northwest artists, primarily objects and paintings.
Kenneth and I now have a
sizable collection of interesting and unusual works.
Along with the collecting,
I have spent time on arts
boards, first at the Museum of Contemporary Craft,
where I was president for
four years, and now on the
Contemporary Art Council
of the Portland [Ore.] Art
Museum. And I have been
taking art history classes
at Portland State University, catching up on things
I have looked at for many
years but now understand
at a much more sophisticated level.”
Elise Landau writes, “I
can’t imagine that I will
ever really retire, even
though I know it’s inevitable. I’m working per diem
at two hospitals on their
psychiatric units. I have a
regular job, a few days a
month, supervising a new
social worker and doing
part-time psych work.
It is perfect: gives me
structure and colleagues
and even the feeling of
doing something useful.
I feel quite lucky. What’s
been a flop is the wish to
do more traveling. Hasn’t
happened. Oh, well, maybe
later, if I’m even luckier.”
John Harbeson started
taking organ lessons
again, not having had any
time or opportunity since
he left New York. He’s
also very much involved
with an organization of
foreign-affairs professionals in D.C., predominantly
former foreign-service
officers but also a few
academics.
I regret to report the sad
news that Joan Bond Sax’s
husband, Daniel, died
Oct. 27. A month before
his death, Joan had written, “Daniel is improving
his walking (slowly with a
walker) after a diagnosis
that he made and convinced his neurologist of,
namely chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy.” She also told
about her postretirement
plans: “I am gradually
decreasing my translation
work and looking for a
volunteer opportunity. One
thing I am thinking of is
becoming a guardian ad litem, representing children
in the social-services legal
system.”
Gordon Dass Adams reports on another fabulous
trip: “My partner, Esther,
and I went on a nine-day
kayaking trip in the Broken Islands of Canada’s
Pacific Rim National Park.
Our party of six had to
take all our water and food
for the trip in the kayaks.
We camped every night,
often moving from island
to island. It’s a privilege to
live within a day’s travel of
such a wild and beautiful
place.”
Since no one had a story
about a new endeavor that
was a flop, I, Jeanette,
will share mine. About
five years ago, I thought,
“I wish I’d learned to play
the viola da gamba when
I was young.” And then …
“Well, why not now?” So
I acquired an instrument
(a rental at first) and a
teacher. I learned to read
the alto clef (I have a
tenor viol) and, having
never touched a string
instrument, struggled
to stay on one string at
a time. I worked pretty
diligently. The result? I
can’t play the viola da
gamba. The experience is
not a total flop, however.
I still have my gorgeous,
handmade viol in my living
room. I sometimes tune it
up and play the few simple
pieces in my repertoire.
It’s humbling but not utterly discouraging to meet
one’s limits.
I have a question for
classmates who read this
Share your pics—on campus and off—on
Instagram: @swarthmorebulletin, #swatbulletin
column—perhaps even
turn to it first—but have
never sent in news. I’d like
to know why. I can imagine
some answers: “My life
is too boring to share”;
“My life is too exciting
to share”; “I’m a private
person”; “I’m in the public
eye”; “I don’t belong to the
listserv so I feel out of the
loop”; “I don’t have the energy”; “I’m too busy” … you
tell me. I will print results
anonymously unless you
say I can use your name.
Hope to hear from you!
1961
Pat Myers Westine
pat@westinefamily.com
After a very hot summer in
Northern Virginia, I write
as September unfolds
with a few cooler days. My
thanks to 55th Reunion
attendees whom I emailed
over Labor Day for updates. Dorothy Garrison
Swift in Rhode Island
shares that she particularly enjoyed meeting
Beverly Burt Henderson
West’s granddaughter
Abigail Henderson ’15 (a
computer science teacher
at Greenwich Academy in
Connecticut), who joined
them for a meal during
Alumni Weekend. Dorothy
still teaches microbiology for science majors,
now at the Community
College of Rhode Island.
Over Labor Day weekend,
she visited the Massachusetts Horticultural
Society garden, where
she was surprised to see
three huge Rhododendra
Dorothy Swift plants.
(The plant was named
for her by its hybridizer, a
University of Connecticut
professor, after Dorothy
put it and another of his
hybrids into tissue culture
for propagation purposes.) Dorothy is a serious
gardener and leads a
group for the Rhode Island
Wild Plant Society whose
goal is to propagate native
plants and produce plants
for their annual fundraiser.
Beverly Burt Henderson West in Ithaca, N.Y.,
retired from teaching in
2003 but is busy with
math-related editing, writing, and organizing. Her
large family has spread
ever wider, and there’s
community work, as well.
Ilene and Yale Richmond
have used retirement to
travel and pursue food
and wine interests. They
have a subscription to the
Philadelphia Orchestra
and travel yearly to France
to visit son Graham ’95,
his wife, Anais Loizillon
’95, and two grandchildren, ages 7 and 4. Yale
keeps his collection
of grandfather clocks
running and is secretary
of the Huntingdon County
(N.J.) Medical Society.
He plays tennis and maintains the forest that has
surrounded his house for
47 years.
Jonathan Galloway in
Burlington, Vt., attended
the reunion with daughter
Jennifer Galloway
Decker ’90 and enjoyed
hearing Maurice Eldridge’s
Collection address, “The
Fullness of Life.” Speaking
of Maurice, our class
president is fully retired
from Swarthmore but remains on town committees
and still works with John
Alston and others on the
Chester Children’s Chorus
and the board of the
Chester Charter School for
the Arts. The school broke
ground on a building in
Chester, which was ready
to receive K–11 students
in the fall. Maurice is also
on the board of Pendle
Hill. He is very proud of
his oldest grandson, a
Morehouse College senior.
Wife Patricia Brooks ’60
has a contract with a
London-based publisher
for the first book in her
four-novel historical
series set in pre-Civil War
19th-century America,
as perceived by a young
indentured girl recently
arrived from London.
Linda Cooley Weinberger
moved to Middleberg, Fla.,
after “downsizing with a
vengeance.” She works
part time doing taxes,
though the commute is
difficult and her husband
has faced serious health
challenges. She plans to
retire at the end of the
year. Greta Reed Seashore
in New Haven, Conn., is
officially retired. She was
one of only five women in
her Yale School of Medicine class (1965) and has
been a pioneer in human
genetics.
Sheila Maginniss Bell
missed our 55th because
of a 17-day trip to Spain
with a high school friend
(sister of the late Susan
Ware Bauer ’63) to visit
museums in Madrid,
Toledo, Cuenca, Bilbao,
and Barcelona. Sheila is
involved with Art Goes
to School and found
the trip “enjoyable and
educational.” In July she
hosted her two Greenville,
S.C., grandchildren for
two weeks in Swarthmore
and then took grandson
August, 12, to Quito, Ecuador, and the Galapagos
Islands (his choice) to
see animals he wouldn’t
see anywhere else. They
lived on a small ship with
other grandparents and
grandchildren, traveling
among islands that offered
unique sights of wildlife,
plants, orcas, and dolphins. Sheila even climbed
375 steps up a volcano.
I was delighted to be part
of the D.C. area’s Swarthmore Send-Off in July and
Move-In Day in August
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
53
class notes
as granddaughter Kira
Emmons ’20 joined the
freshman class. She lives
in Mary Lyon, is interested
in engineering, and
enjoyed her first weeks of
College life.
Hearing from you makes
my day; please send me
holiday letters, updates,
and news of retirement
activities, travel, grandchildren, etc. Thank you!
1962
Evelyn Edson
268 Springtree Lane
Scottsville, VA 24590
eedson@pvcc.edu
A long, fascinating
letter from Peggy Kaetzel
Wheeler describes her
edgy travels in eastern
Turkey, Iran, and Uzbekistan in May 2015. Most of
the trip was by train. In the
Kurdish area of Turkey,
they were asked to close
the curtains and stay away
from windows. She heard
big stones being thrown at
the train, but fortunately
no windows were broken.
The reception in Iran, even
before the nuclear accord,
was very friendly. “We
were greeted like celebrities, with a crush of media
reporters interviewing
all of us, an official delegation of greeters giving
each of us a red rosebud
and a basket of souvenir
media, and a juice-andcookies reception in the
alabaster-lined VIP lounge
(complete with portraits
of ayatollahs) in the train
station.” In Uzbekistan, a
highlight was a visit to the
Savitsky Collection in Nukus, which features 1920s
and ’30s expressionist art,
considered degenerate by
the Soviets and secretly
collected by Igor Savitsky.
54
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
She got a personal tour by
the museum director and
a visit to the conservation
lab—“very special!”
Sue Ehrlich Martin’s
travels include Andalusia,
Spain (by bike); Ecuador;
Aspen, Colo.; Los Angeles;
and Albuquerque, N.M.,
where she visited Marsha
Swiss and husband Ron
Costell. “Gotta do it before
infirmity or worse sets in,”
she writes. She still makes
pottery and takes Osher
Lifelong Learning classes.
Mary Murphy Schroeder is on “senior status,”
carrying a 60 percent load
as a 9th Circuit judge. She
checked in, somewhat jetlagged, on her return from
Papua New Guinea for a
conference of judges in
the South Pacific region,
including Guam, Saipan,
and Hawaii. “Very worried
about the future,” she
writes—a common theme
from my correspondents.
Betsy Rodman Salandria lives in Philadelphia,
where she is a landlady for
apartments in Center City.
She is shocked by some of
the news from Swarthmore; The Philadelphia
Inquirer reported that
freshmen are not graded
on their first-semester
courses, but are allowed
to study whatever amuses
them. “One was studying
costume design,” she
says. “I mean, give me a
break!” As for herself, she
says the operative word is
“spry.” May the same be
said of you.
I love hearing from you.
1963
Diana Judd Stevens
djsteven1@verizon.net
From Dan Menaker,
regular contributor to ’63’s
WINTER 2017
notes: “Racking my brain
for news. None found,
except that I now have
a racked brain.” Other
classmates did find news,
including John Warn,
who was browsing in the
Granby, Conn., library
and found the DVD Billy
Collins: On the Road with
the Poet Laureate, which
included commentary by
Dan.
Backtracking a bit—at
the April 2016 Donor-
Scholar Luncheon, I met
1963’s class scholar,
Natalie Semyonova ’19,
whose energy, thirst for
learning, and creativity are
inspiring. On behalf of our
class, I gave her a Barbara
Seymour bookmark and
pack of Seymour Swarthmore notecards. Speaking
of Barbara, her watercolor
prints are available in the
new bookstore. At the
luncheon, I also sat with
the recipient of the David
Gelber and Kyoko Inouye
Scholarship and Bryan
Wolf ’84, who sang the
praises of Peggy Anderson, who taught one of his
Swarthmore seminars.
Summer travelers: Jerry
’60 and Ricky Strong
Batt accompanied their
son and grandchildren to
a karate tournament in
South Africa. Though most
of their time was spent in
Cape Town, they did take
an overnight safari. During
the trip, Ricky enjoyed
meeting and getting to
know people from more
than 60 countries. Dave
’62 and Suzi Merrill Maybee traveled to Hawaii.
Jerry Gelles celebrated
his 75th birthday in England, including Wimbledon. Netherlands resident
Ellen Perchonock had a
wonderful visit in the U.S.
seeing family and friends,
including Nancy Braxton.
Ellen had thought this
might be her last U.S. visit.
She found traveling with
wheelchair assistance
made it easier so she
hopes to return. Ellen
said the trip made it even
harder to decide where to
live in the future—the U.S.
or the Netherlands.
Carol and Clyde Prestowitz spent their summer in
Maui, where Clyde earned
apprentice gardener
status from Carol for
his work on her tropical
garden. Clyde took a break
from gardening to speak
at the FutureChina Global
Forum in Singapore and to
do interviews in Tokyo for
the Japanese edition of
his book Japan Restored,
which continues to receive
positive reviews.
Visiting national parks
along the way, Carl and
Holly Humphrey Taylor
drove from their home in
Flagstaff, Ariz., to Yachats, Ore., for an annual
reunion with friends. A
note from Russ Fernald
asking classmates to let
him know when they visit
the Bay Area is a reminder
to consider arranging
reunions with ’63ers
when you travel. Kathie
Kertesz did this when she
had visits with Linda and
Bill Steelman and Rosalie
Berner Fedoruk on a trip
east for her high school
reunion.
Dick Kittredge and wife
Tatiana Korelsky became
first-time grandparents
in August. One daughter
is in LA pursuing a career
in acting and production,
and the other is on leave
from her Cambridge University research position.
Ten years after his retirement from the University
of Montreal, Dick continues to maintain a house in
the Laurentian forest.
Pat and Kevin Cornell
celebrated their 15th
anniversary in September.
In October, Leo Braudy
celebrated the release of
Haunted, his book on fear
from the Reformation to
horror literature and film.
Having spent 51 years as a
librarian, the last 44 at the
Library of Congress, Mary
Kay Dewees Pietris retired
Sept. 30. She and John
have moved to a life-care
community in Winchester,
Va. Polly Glennan Watts
still enjoys her 55-plus
community in Florida and
loves the chance to be
close to family (43 strong
in four generations).
Pat Horan Latham is
working on 25 arbitration
cases, with hearings
scheduled over several
years. She serves on the
supervisory committee
of a federal credit union
and is president of the
condo owners’ association
in Florida where she and
Pete ’62 spend about
half the year. Henry and
Monica Pannwitt Bradsher
are grateful they were only
slightly inconvenienced
by the torrential rains that
caused such devastation
in Baton Rouge, La.
The photography exhibit
Bruce Cratsley: Shifting
Identities—featuring work
by John Cratsley’s late
brother, Bruce ’66—was
listed in The Philadelphia
Inquirer’s “Great Art in
Small Spaces.” In September, John, wife Holly, and
Claire Thurman (widow of
John Thurman) attended
the exhibit’s opening
in List Gallery, which
included a lecture by art
instructor Ron Tarver.
As many of you know
from emails I sent, two
classmates died recently.
Fred Hoffmann passed
away Aug. 21. Fred
practiced law for nearly
50 years. His passions
ranged from photography
to symphonic music, from
history to sports cars.
Claire Bishop Nyandoro
died Sept. 13 in Zimbabwe,
her home since 1986.
Claire was a teacher and
advocate for children
and education, opening
her home to nieces and
nephews after she retired
and after husband Timon’s
passing in 2007.
Closing with a word from
our sponsor: Visit the
Bulletin’s website, bulletin.
swarthmore.edu, and
like Swarthmore and the
Bulletin on Facebook.
1964
Diana Bailey Harris
harris.diana@gmail.com
swarthmore64.com
Sad news: Peter Grubmeyer’s daughter Jill
Lanzilotta reports that her
father died peacefully in
his sleep Oct. 4 in hospice
care. He was diagnosed
with pancreatic cancer
last February.
After Richard Sah
reported his successful
battle with lung cancer
at our 50th Reunion, he
was diagnosed with colon
cancer. He died Aug. 26.
Our condolences to the
families of Peter and
Richard.
Peter Freedman writes,
“Dan Pope ’66 and I have
reconnected, as he’s
between Eugene and Portland [Ore.]. Like everyone
else, I suppose, I’m facing
this November with fear
and trepidation lest a professional con man become
our president. But life is
good as both Lynda and I
are healthy and active.”
Pete Setlow and wife
Barbara “spent a great
week on a small boat in
Prince William Sound,
Alaska, with our son and
his family, including 11and 15-year-old grandchildren. No internet service,
so grandkids could not
hide behind ‘devices.’
Twelve passengers on the
boat, six of them Setlows;
kayaking and hiking
every day surrounded by
truly spectacular scenery.
There is something very
decadent about sitting
on the bow of the boat in
70-degree sunshine with
a glass of wine waiting for
a glacier to calve, with no
one else for miles around.
Still working and coaching
soccer—although now 11and 12-year-old boys.”
John Simon’s still working, too. “Off to Visalia
[Calif.] in September to
train local poets to teach
CPitS [California Poets in
the Schools]. Then I come
home and start teaching
poetry as ancient history
(Epic of Gilgamesh and all
that) at Claremont Middle
School.” He read at the
21st annual Watershed
Eco-Poetry Festival in
October in Berkeley,
along with many of his
CPitS students and poets
Jane Hirshfield, Alison
Hawthorne Deming, and
Juliana Spahr.
Bennett Lorber sent me
his article “Learn to Look
and Be a Better Doctor”
(bit.ly/BLorber), very
appropriately published in
the journal Perspectives
in Biology and Medicine.
It reminds me of my
insistence during my years
in Intel’s high-tech world
that a liberal arts education is the best foundation
for any field because one
learns to analyze, synthesize, and communicate.
Paul Booth notes, “By
the time the magazine
appears, the election will
have come and gone, and
I expect I’ll be engaged in
the postelection transition
process.”
Carol Seabrook Boulanger still practices
law—and she’s a new
grandmother. Daughter
Adriana had son Kenai
Jacques, weighing 8
pounds, 9 ounces, Jan.
28, 2016.
Rosalyn Rivkin, a clinical
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IN MEMORIAM
Alumni death notices received by the College from
Aug. 7 through Nov. 12, 2016.
View expanded memorials at bulletin.swarthmore.edu.
1934
1948
1959
1937
Lois Ledwith Frost
Nov. 1, 2016
Margaret Condon Power
July 17, 2016
James Kindall
Unknown
Laurence Stookey
Oct. 16, 2016
Barbara Sosman Munson
July 13, 2016
1961
Marian Hubbell Mowatt
July 9, 2016
Jane Veasey Stehn
June 9, 2016
1939
Mary Whitford Streit
July 13, 2016
1937
Joseph Hafkenschiel
Oct. 26, 2016
1939
William Boom
Aug. 19, 2016
1942
Margaret Davies
Ottenberg
Oct. 31, 2016
Dorothy Gotwald Dixon
July 23, 2016
Richard Turner
Oct. 14, 2016
Elinor Lee Fisher
Oct. 19, 2016
Frederick Fuglister
March 6, 2015
1962
T. Alan Broughton
May 17, 2013
1949
Richard Conner
Sept. 21, 2016
Rebecca Brown Corwin
Oct. 18, 2016
Montgomery Hyun
Aug. 3, 2016
1963
John Kietzman
Oct. 13, 2016
Frederick Hoffmann
Aug. 21, 2016
Ruth Wolf Page
Oct. 30, 2016
Colgate Prentice
July 28, 2016
Claire Bishop Nyandoro
Sept. 13, 2016
1943
Jackson Taylor
Aug. 25, 2016
Lois Hosbach Love
July 22, 2016
1964
Peter Grubmeyer
Oct. 4, 2016
Navy
Mary Jane Felix Smedley
Aug. 15, 2016
Kyle Woodbury
Dec. 10, 2014
Richard Sah
Aug. 26, 2016
Peggy Bebie Thomson
Oct. 27, 2016
1952
1967
1944
Beatrice Stoalabarger
Grubbs
Sept. 6, 2016
Ellen Hook Norbom
Unknown
1945
Thomas Beatson Jr.
July 25, 2016
Marie Malige Hild
Oct. 13, 2016
1946
Robert Bergner
July 15, 2016
Mary Bartle Hall
Aug. 15, 2016
Nancy Garver Hoover
Nov. 2, 2016
1947
Robert Creed
Nov. 21, 2015
Clyde Willis
Unknown
Frederick Webster
Oct. 11, 2015
Frederic Jenkins
March 10, 2016
1972
Thomas Aldrich
Sept. 5, 2016
1954
1973
Hugh Cort III
Aug. 3, 2016
Norman McAvoy
Aug. 13, 2015
Judith Meighan
Aug. 9, 2016
1956
1975
Knowles Dougherty
Sept. 1, 2016
Susanna Perkins Jaeger
June 17, 2016
1957
Marianne Durand Frey
Jan. 9, 2016
1958
Joan Sawin Heald
Sept. 8, 2016
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WINTER 2017
2017
Grace Ewing Huffman
June 10, 2009
1976
Gregg Gilbert
Dec. 31, 2014
1977
Melvin Daughtry
July 9, 2007
1990
Bridget Drury
Aug. 1, 2016
// Swarthmore
Swarthmore College
College Bulletin
Bulletin
55
55
class notes
social worker, writes, “I am
not sure about continuing
the military consultant
gigs (on and off for the
last eight years). The program has changed for the
worse, the all-too-common scenario of taking
something very good
and trying to leverage it
for various self-serving/
monetary reasons; the
insurance companies be
damned. I am sure about
reducing my private practice (partly driven by the
sheer tedium of dealing
with those same insurance
companies … may they be
double-damned). After
50 years plus(!) in this
field, I still love the work,
but love the thought of
discretionary time more—
might even bake a soufflé
or a reasonable facsimile
someday soon.”
Ros also mentions
that she and husband
Michael enjoyed a visit
from David and Elizabeth
Morrow Edwards, who
were preparing for their
second-straight year “of
visiting every national
park—and state ones, too,
in California. They are
dauntingly systematic in
this regard, which is impressive and fun because
they never lose their sense
of humor in the process.”
Sue Eisinger writes,
“Steve and I continue our
travel with a medical focus. In December 2015, we
went to Cuba with People
to People. This trip was
fascinating because it was
before the big changes in
Cuba had really begun.
In October, we are going
to Morocco with Nanda
Journeys. We have found
special interest in travel
with a focus on sharing
something we know about.
It is a great way to get to
know the people and the
place. I plan to work at the
polls again this year, but
I don’t know how many
more 17-hour days I have
56
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
in me.”
Barbara Kline King and
husband Mike travel for
family, including “the high
school graduation of our
second grandson, Jason.
Now Jason has moved
into his dorm at Princeton to start his freshman
year as a ‘legacy,’ where
older brother Evan is in his
senior year.
“Over Labor Day weekend, we attended the bat
mitzvah of our only granddaughter, Rayna, north of
Chicago. Brothers Mason,
10, and Jordan, 7, had
small parts in the service,
leading the congregation
beautifully in responsive
Hebrew readings. It was a
true ‘kvelling’ moment.”
1965
Kiki Skagen Munshi
kiki@skagenranch.com
My summer ended with
back-to-back trips, one
through some of our
magnificent national
parks, then a fast Labor
Day jaunt to New York
for the 50th reunion of a
Fulbright-to-India group.
Both were enhanced by
meeting classmates. I
stayed with Dick and Gay
Sise Grossman in their
intentional community,
Heartwood, outside
Durango, Colo. It’s a lovely
place, graced by native
flowers, fruit trees, the
laughter of children, and
great conversation. Two
days later Earl Tarble and
wife Meg drove up from
Albuquerque to Santa Fe,
N.M., to have dinner with
us. Earl showed unexpected expertise in topics
such as steampunk as we
chatted with my somewhat
younger companions over
New Mexican food. He and
WINTER 2017
Meg have settled into their
new home close to the
children and quickly found
local landmarks such as
a kolache factory. Then in
New York, John and Judy
Johnson Thoms provided
equally good conversation
in a very different setting.
We left their apartment
at the same time, they to
the Met Breuer for the
Unfinished: Thoughts Left
Visible exhibit and I to the
Rubin Museum of Art—
New York does have some
advantages.
I missed seeing Ron Hale
in Santa Fe because he
was abroad. He writes,
“I had a wonderful time
in Ireland, playing music
in pubs, meeting people,
and driving around with
my music buddies. We
spent several days at the
All-Ireland Fleadh, the national festival celebrating
traditional Irish music in
Ennis. It was an amazing
display of the state of
traditional music in the
country, with 400,000 attending. We also ended up
playing on the radio and
being successful buskers
on the street in Galway
(a new career path?), in
addition to doing many
late-night music sessions
in pubs.”
Glen Kanwit also traveled
but much farther. “In
February, my 28-year-old
daughter, Tess, suggested
that we hike the Inca Trail
in Peru. I told her I’d do it
before realizing just how
difficult this would be: 26
miles through the Andes
over four days, ascending
to a 14,000-foot pass the
second day, then covering
10 miles of ups and downs
on the third day. Could
a 73-year-old do this?
The answer, I found out
in August, was yes, but it
was physically the hardest
four days I’ve ever spent—
or ever will. During the six
hours of climbing on the
second day, I struggled.
I’d go 10–15 steps, and
stop to catch my breath.
And, then, another 10–15
steps. Every one of these
steps is a win, I thought.
I saw tiny dots of people
ahead of me at the summit
who never seemed to get
closer. I cursed myself for
not keeping my promise to
lose weight before leaving
Chicago. I cursed my
daughter for suggesting
the trip in the first place.
On the morning of the
fourth day, we finally
reached the Sun Gate, the
end of the Inca Trail, and
looked down the mountain
at Machu Picchu. We’d
survived what our guide
called the gringo killer.
And, hard as it was, I loved
fighting through it. Being
73 made it a little bit
sweeter.”
Suzanne Lorant is also
exploring new paths: “I’m
still doing the same things:
living in Sudbury, Mass.,
commuting to my full-time
job editing scholarly
works of the Boston Fed’s
research economists, and
pursuing my relatively
recent hobby of figurative
sculpting in water-based
clay.” Suzanne attached
some amazing photos
of her sculpture, sent to
those whose emails I have.
Another reason to get in
touch.
Leonard Barkan writes
that his latest book, noted
in the last class notes,
was dedicated to three
of his German teachers,
all wartime refugees,
two of whom were at
Swarthmore—Hilde Cohn
and Franz Mautner. The
book, Berlin for Jews:
A Twenty-First-Century
Companion, is “part-memoir, part-history, part-travelogue explaining why I
think Berlin is the most
Jewish city I know.”
Daniel Kegan writes that
daughter Amelia started
as legislative director for
domestic policy at the
Friends Committee on
National Legislation in
D.C. and married historian
Allen Pietrobon. Daniel’s
son, Benjamin, completed The First Men, a film
based on Stacey Richter’s
short story. Daniel and
Cynthia spent an August
week in Ephraim, Wis.,
“where rainless weather
cooperated for several
days of biking now-familiar roads.”
Few responded to my
last plea for news, which
was a mixed blessing—not
as many people to write
about but more room to
put in what each said.
Nevertheless, please do
write, call, or send your
notes by passenger pigeon. Insure the pigeon—I
have cats.
1966
Jill Robinson Grubb
jillgrubb44@gmail.com
Rich Truitt is a modest
giant, a man who has dedicated his life to the Indian
Health Service. Currently
grooming future leaders,
he is also pursuing the
first regional specialty
referral center where
patients from the Northwest can receive care not
available at local health
centers. This project could
be replicated throughout
the Indian Health Service.
Although he planned to
work for the World Bank,
his years at the U.S. Public
Health Service during
the Vietnam era showed
Rich he could make real
improvements in people’s
lives. He has for almost
37 years.
Rich’s dedication does
not stop there. He has
helped tenant farmers
in Louisiana set up a
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JOANNA CHATTMAN
ALUMNI PROFILE
“I’m not interested in theatrical navel-gazing,” says Lucinda Kidder ’66. “I want to see people
wrestling with problems and relationships and not necessarily finding solutions. To me, that
is how we come to terms with our own humanity: the good, the bad, and the ugly.”
THEATER QUEEN
Thanks to the stage, she found herself
by Jonathan Riggs
DURING HER TIME at Swarthmore,
Lucinda Kidder ’66 wasn’t able to major
in theater—no one could.
“Back then it wasn’t considered a discipline,” she says, “so those of us who
really liked theater had to do it as an
extracurricular.”
Or, in the case of Kidder, for the rest
of her life.
After graduation, she directed her
first play—Henrik Ibsen’s The Master
Builder—in India, where she spent two
years teaching English. Irrecoverably
hooked, she returned to the U.S., earned
two master’s degrees in the field, and
immersed herself in teaching, directing, and founding theater companies of
her own.
Her most recent is the western
Massachusetts-based Silverthorne
Theater Company, named after the
high school building in which she participated in her first production, and
dedicated to staging professional-caliber productions that make a difference.
“One of the commitments we made
upon our founding is that we would put
on the very best work that sincerely
explores the human condition,” she
says. “We want plays that spark discussion, expand horizons, and represent
underserved voices.”
Based in the upper Pioneer Valley,
Silverthorne launched in 2014 and
has notched successes ranging from
an adaptation of Henry James’s psychological chiller The Turn of the
Screw to the East Coast premiere of
Egyptian-American Yussef El Guindi’s
award-winning comedy of love and cultural assimilation Pilgrims Musa and
Sheri in the New World.
The seeds for that latter production were sown when Kidder was a
grad student exploring plays written by and about people of Middle
Eastern descent. Her research led to
an acclaimed showcase of seven plays
by Islamic women—none of which had
ever been performed in the United
States—at the Tenement Museum’s
theater in New York City four months
after 9/11.
“My time at Swarthmore contributed to my sense that your work needs
to have an impact on people by addressing the places we’re from and the issues
we face,” she says. “Live theater is an
incredibly powerful tool that can cause
you to sit back and say, ‘This is who we
are as human beings.’”
In addition to ramping up
Silverthorne’s productions, Kidder also
plans to develop educational programming using live theater to combat negative American stereotypes of Middle
Eastern identity. She is also spearheading the formation of a coalition of all
the performing-arts organizations in
the Upper Connecticut River Valley.
“Greenfield and the whole region in
which we perform is quite an economically and culturally depressed area in a
lot of ways—significant drug problems
and homelessness, for example—and
they need what we have to offer,” she
says. “That’s why we’re staying up here:
These people deserve to have the very
best of theater, too.”
To be where she is now surprises
and delights Kidder, who attempted
to retire six years ago. Moving out to
Seattle to help daughter Emily Wilkins
Clark ’01 with her two young sons,
Kidder treasured the time with her
family but couldn’t resist the siren song
of her long-ago first love.
“I had tried, too, to take 10 years off
from theater at a point when I was
going through a divorce and had to be a
single mother and keep body and soul
together—but I honestly just couldn’t
stay away from it,” she says. “It’s an
addiction: bringing something on the
page to life in ways that move people
and tell us more about ourselves. It’s
magic, and God knows I’ll probably be
doing this until I croak.
“Starting something at this point
in my life was not anything I ever
expected to do, but it gives me such joy,”
she adds with a laugh. “Onstage and off,
there’s hope after 70!”
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
57
class notes
bookkeeping system
for their cooperative,
taught English to Laotian
immigrants, coached
girls and boys basketball,
been a Big Brother and
president of the local Food
Bank, served on numerous
boards, and attempted
to bring consensus decision-making after Swarthmore ended football.
Rich continues his love
of sports, cheering for
grandson Wyatt, 9, and
the Vernonia Loggers
baseball team in Oregon
with wife Toni. His life
embodies the teachings of
Gandhi and Micah.
Paul Katz is another
classmate whose life
took a turn away from his
expectations. From early
majors in civil engineering
and classics, he went on
to study art history and
graduated with Swarthmore’s first anthropology
major, thanks to courses
at Bryn Mawr. At the University of Kansas, unable
to combine anthropology
and art history by studying
primitive and prehistoric
art, Paul instead earned
degrees in prehistoric
archaeology, as did his
late wife, Susana.
Today, Paul volunteers
at Alibates Flint Quarries
National Monument in
the Texas Panhandle as
archaeological consultant
and tour guide to more
than 700 hand-dug prehistoric quarry pits. He’d
show us around for free.
Lin Ho dropped the
electrical engineering part
of his plans when he went
to medical school at the
University of Maryland,
followed by a general
surgery residency in San
Francisco. From there he
was plucked by the Army
and sent to Vietnam as
a combat surgeon. Lin’s
experience led him to do a
second residency in orthopedic surgery. His motto?
“Strong as an ox and twice
58
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
as smart.” Since then he
has been a not-so-simple country bonesetter,
commuting 50 miles by
motorcycle to the hospital
in San Francisco. We owe
Lou Schneider thanks for
luring Lin to our reunion.
Fred Koster, another
classmate who chose
the medical profession,
received his M.D. from
Case Western in 1971. After tuberculosis research
and an internal medicine
residency, Fred did conscientious-objector work
in Dhaka, Bangladesh. His
career took him to Cayetano Heredia University in
Lima, Peru; Walter Reed;
the Los Santos Province
(Panama) Ministry of
Health; an AIDS clinic
in Albuquerque, N.M.;
and more. Although Fred
claims he accomplished
nothing but had good fun,
the breadth and depth of
his work belie his words.
Now, he manages Entropy
Farms in the Rio Grande
Valley of Texas. Retired
from club soccer at 55,
he’s a member of four
monthly Quaker meetings
and says, “It’s not over till
it’s over.”
Sarah Van Keuren earned
a photography MFA, going
on to teach nonsilver
alternative photographic
processes in printmaking
from 1980 to 2014. She
won the Lindback Award
for Distinguished Teaching
at University of the Arts,
taught workshops in the
U.S. and Finland, and
exhibited worldwide.
Sarah says she continues
to evolve as an artist.
Margot Koster Pratt
married in New Guinea the
same year she earned a
marine botany master’s.
Thirty years of chronic
fatigue syndrome and
caring for a daughter with
a chronic brain disorder
kept Margot from working
outside the home. Now,
she teaches tai chi,
WINTER 2017
gardens with natives, volunteers as a reading tutor,
and reads mysteries.
As a shy 16-year-old
from a Holocaust-survivor
family, Michael Reich was
delighted that his personal
commitment to social and
economic justice was a
dominant motif at Swarthmore, and furthermore,
that scientific academic
research could foster
justice. With an economics Ph.D. from Harvard,
Michael went on to teach
at UC Berkeley and still
works more than full
time on economic policy
research, especially on
minimum-wage issues.
Since leaving Swarthmore, Rita Baab Collie
has discovered she loves
children and has been a
teacher and a principal.
She still knits (learned in
Swarthmore’s cafeteria line), spins, and
weaves, and even took up
hang-gliding at 48 and,
more recently, zip-lining.
In 2006, Rita and her
husband began a ministry
in North Carolina helping
men addicted to drugs and
alcohol. Freedom Farm
Ministries, a one-year
program, is now run by
staffers who came through
the program. Their small
farm has sheep, horses,
Scottish Highland cattle,
chickens, and an emu.
1967
Donald Marritz
dmarritz@gmail.com
Muchnewslittlespaceslash
burnsorry.
Belle Vreeland Hoverman
is again taking on the yoke
of our upcoming class
reunion—but welcomes
help. Check out the secure
swarthmore67.com to
register and update personal information. Please
contact Belle at belle.
hoverman@gmail.com if
you have a copy of the
Cygnet, which she’d like
to borrow to upload. The
College says we should
dress in some distinct way
for the event. Hmmm.
Ken Guilmartin is marking 50 years as a musician
and composer, going back
to 1966 and Swarthmore’s
very own The Sidetrack
(Ken, the late John Lewis,
and others), a “bunch of
white boys playing blues,
somehow hit the right
note.” To celebrate, he’s
putting on concerts featuring his work as well as
that of a chorale founded
by wife Lyn Ransom. Ken
has transitioned from
CEO to “founder/artistic
director” of Music Together, whose team includes
daughter Lauren, director
of early learning.
Jack Norman’s retirement means the chance
to work 60-hour weeks in
Milwaukee’s Latino neighborhoods “to elect Hillary
Ugh Clinton and to return
Russ Hooray Feingold to
the Senate.” He and wife
Jaime welcome visitors
at their home in Medellín,
Colombia, “a beautiful,
optimistic, cosmopolitan
place where the progressive rebound from the
cocaine days makes it a
world landmark.”
Howard Brown is
returning to his calling
as an organizer and has
put together a coalition of
evangelical Christians and
pro-Israel Jews in Rhode
Island. The group “sponsored and got one of the
few state-level anti-BDS
[boycott, divestment, and
sanctions] bills in the
country passed. It’s all
about pushback against
progressive politics and
reclaiming Judeo-Christian values—oh, very
politically incorrect.”
Save the Date!
Alumni
Weekend 2017
May 26–28
Spend Memorial Day
weekend with your
fellow Swarthmoreans
alumniweekend.
swarthmore.edu
Charles Bailey’s daughter
Eliza ’14 graduated with
engineering and computer
science degrees and now
works in San Antonio.
Daughter Sabine is a junior at McGill University in
Montreal. In 2014, Charles
and wife Ingrid Foik moved
to Lummi Island, Wash.,
“from where you can
(almost) see Alaska.”
Last spring, Eric Nelson
took a “reflective walk on
the Camino de Santiago
from Le Puy-en-Velay,
France, to Santiago de
Compostela and Finisterre, Spain. I neglected to
convert so am condemned
to hell anyway, but, hey,
it’s the trip, not the destination.”
David and Mary Kramer
Schaps ’69 had to retire
from teaching after the
Israeli Supreme Court
rejected a suit against the
mandatory retirement age.
They still do some teaching, and David was elected
president of the Israel
Society for the Promotion
of Classical Studies.
Andy Cook’s two granddaughters are “intensely
curious” and act as his
“best teachers” in these
perilous times. “But, oh,
what a mess they will
inherit from us.”
Spencer Putnam is disappointed that the College
has abandoned its vanguard role concerning social issues of the day and
has “not heeded the call
of the current Swarthmore
generation to divest from
fossil fuels in an effort to
confront today’s greatest
challenge: climate change.
I hope we can continue
this conversation at our
50th Reunion.”
Michael Wertheimer’s
appropriately long-ish
note summarized what
he and wife Randy Fair
Wertheimer ’71 have done
for the past half-century.
They’ve had productive
careers as doctors in the
Worcester-Boston area.
Now, they are “healthy,
happy, and very much
enjoying grandparenthood
and wondering how we got
to be so old.” Michael retired (for the fourth time)
but is involved in work for
Massachusetts General
Hospital in Uganda.
Gene Weeks lives in
Buxton, Maine, with
partner Joan, “enjoying
life as old people. I work
full time selling equipment
for water- and wastewater-treatment plants.”
Gene has five children
and six grandchildren. His
“musical tastes have gone
backwards in time. I own a
spring-driven, crank-type
Victrola with a selection
of records. … God willing, I
will see you next year.”
Jane Alpert is going to
India with a self-arranged
itinerary. She would
appreciate travel tips
from classmates who
have lived, worked, or
visited there. Her email is
janealpert@gmail.com.
Rudy Rucker is
“bushwhacking” his way
through his 70s, still
publishing nonstandard
science-fiction novels and
painting canvases relating
to his work—plenty of
UFOs. Wife Sylvia Bogsch
Rucker ’65 quilts in a
modern vein. Daughter
Georgia ’91 is midway
through a two-year stay
in Budapest, Hungary,
with her family. Rudy
Jr. runs a successful
wireless internet service
provider called MonkeyBrains, popular with San
Francisco geeks, punks,
hipsters, et al. Daughter
Isabel (my goddaughter)
runs a handmade-jewelry
biz in Pinedale, Wyo. Five
beloved grandchildren are
also in the picture.
Jennie Boyd Bull retired
after 15 years at the
SYDA Foundation in the
Catskills. “I live in a progressive rural community
in the mountains near
Asheville, N.C., where I
teach tai chi and volunteer at Dig In (the local
community garden) and
the Carolina Mountains
Literary Festival.”
Finally, Fred Webster,
a longtime civil engineer
in California, died at
home Oct. 11, 2015. He is
survived by his wife of
47 years, Brendan, three
children, and two grandchildren. Our condolences
to Fred’s family.
1969
Glenda Rauscher
rauscherglenda@gmail.com
We seem to be more
focused on “the leisure
class” these days. My
transition from a world of
bells and homework has
been eased by spending
weekday mornings at
the Phoenix Zoo. I have
an outdoor routine, can
choose my own route,
and learn something each
day. I suppose my entry
into the leisure class has
meant the freedom to do
what I want, when I want.
Here are other ways classmates are approaching
this next stage.
Catching up: Bill Davis
lives with his mother in
Cedar Ridge, Calif. “Many
have long suspected the
Share your pics—on campus and off—on
Instagram: @swarthmorebulletin, #swatbulletin
same. I spent my whole
life not working, but my
complaint is about not
playing. Didn’t anybody
else not want to get old?
Welcome to visitors; I am
not the threat I was when I
was younger. But no guarantees. Take a chance.
Whatcha got to lose?”
In a somewhat similar
vein, David Thoenen ’68
succinctly sums up his
situation, “I ain’t doing
squat.” Sarah Barton is
“working on a submarine
fiber-optic line through
the Northwest Passage
linking the U.K. and
Tokyo” and on creating
an Alaska exhibition for
the Anchorage Museum.
Living on a mountain
across from Matanuska
Glacier, she’s “experimenting with the hyperlocal.”
Kristin Wilson works in IT,
“making health insurance
work for Kaiser Permanente. My sons live in New
York/Paris and Houston,
so lots of opportunities
for travel. [I’m] living
through the remodel of my
house in Oakland, Calif.
(why did I think it would
be fun to restore a 1912
Craftsman?), and looking
forward to joining the
leisure class.” Felix Rogers
responds, “The idea of
full-time membership in
the leisure class sounds
enticing, and I admit to
watching the horizon to
spot a finish line for a
working stiff like me. My
wife and I just passed an
arduous milestone: We
lost all four of our parents
over two years. The
frequent bedside vigils
began five years ago, so
we are worn out.” Judith
Lorick has moved to New
York: “I thought that, after
28 years, it would be
traumatic. Wrong! It was
amazingly easy and almost
shocking how quickly New
York felt like home.” Being
reunited with soul mate
Artie after 46 years has
helped, she says. Judith
is an executive coach
and excited to co-teach
a master class for the
Juilliard jazz program.
Robert Maxym’s report
from Africa is certainly not
leisurely: “My 11-year-old
son, Rapha, dislocated
his wrist in July, my lovely
15-year-old daughter,
Jireh, had her seventh
operation (final removal of
plate and screws) on her
leg in August, and I have
just come out of urology
hospital (I wish bladder
stones on no one) for the
fifth time. My wife, Phuti,
finishes her diploma in
Grade R qualification
this year and will be a
fully qualified teacher
next year. Meanwhile, my
double concerto is blossoming into a full-bodied,
four-movement work
lasting about 32 minutes.
I have my cellist; we are
now looking for our violinist and our world-premiere
orchestra.”
Kudos: Randy Holland,
who is obviously still at
it, wrote a concurring
opinion in the Delaware
Supreme Court’s decision
on the death penalty.
Nancy Bekavac was
interviewed on Frontline
about her recollections
of Bill Clinton and Hillary
Rodham during their time
together at Yale Law.
Calling it a day or not:
Tom Hafkenschiel says, “I
retired from my emergency medicine practice in
2011 and am now a fulltime member of the leisure
class. My wife and I live
near Stanford. I spend a
good deal of time doing
photography and learning
to play tunes from my
college years on guitar
(Stones, Yardbirds, Byrds,
etc.). Some of my pictures
can be viewed on Facebook.” Randy Larrimore
is retired, but “I still serve
on the boards of Campbell
Soup and Olin Corp., travel
a lot—70-plus countries in
last 10 years—and spend
summers at Bethany
Beach, Del., and winters in
Princeton, N.J., to get my
cultural fix.” He’s engaged
to Cathy Cutright but has
no marriage plans and
enjoys two granddaughters. “Life is very good.”
Tom McKay has “been
happily retired since Jan.
1, 2015, after 41 years in
philosophy at Syracuse
University.” He plays clarinet and saxophone with
groups around Syracuse,
travels, and bird-watches.
Michael Vitiello reports a
nonretirement pledge, “I
have just begun my 40th
year of law teaching, my
27th at McGeorge School
of Law in Sacramento.”
Wife Erie Pearson Vitiello
’71 has retired, “but I have
no interest in doing so—I
would love to get in 50
years of teaching before
hanging up my spikes.”
Question: What’s your
definition of joining the
leisure class? Please note
my new email address if
Facebook is too public for
you (no guarantees about
Russian access).
1971
Bob Abrahams
bobabrahams@yahoo.com
swarthmore71.org
At our 45th Reunion,
everyone agreed that our
class deserved the Best
Dressed Award thanks to
Dan Wasserman’s magical
T-shirt design: THE 45s.
(See the picture at
swarthmore71.org.)
Another weekend
highlight was the party
with President Valerie
Smith. (I definitely enjoyed
speaking with her there.)
And, of course, it was nice
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
59
class notes
to catch up with those we
knew during college and
to see how great everyone
was doing. We left the
reunion excited about the
next big one—our 50th.
We hope everyone in the
class will be there.
James Colvin said he
was sorry to miss the reunion but plans to attend
the 50th. “Sarah and I
moved from New Jersey,
where we lived for over 30
years, to beautiful Asheville, N.C., in 2013. I retired
from local church ministry
but continue my therapy
practice here. Son Ben is
still here, finishing his last
semester at UNC–Asheville. He is a jazz studies
major, and we get to hear
him play around town
several times a month.
We love the people, the
sense of community, the
mountains, the food, and
the nearby woods where
I run daily with my dog,
William. This summer we
celebrated son Greg’s
40th birthday with a
surprise family gathering
in Mexico, with four of
our five children and all
four grandchildren. Best
wishes to everyone.”
Don Mizell, though not
able to attend our reunion,
was awarded the Eugene
M. Lang Impact Award,
which honors alumni
whose achievements
in career endeavors
have made a substantial
national impact toward
progressive social change.
Don says he was “humbled
with deep gratitude” to
receive this award.
Murdock Smith (who
also couldn’t be at the
reunion) and wife Linda
were in Philadelphia
recently to visit their
youngest daughter, who
is working on a master’s
at Bryn Mawr. They were
able to visit with Sally and
Steve Smith. “We also
took a trip to the Swarthmore campus—first time
60
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
back in 45 years. It still is
beautiful.”
A number of classmates
were unavailable for the
reunion, what with family
weddings, graduations,
and other activities. Be
sure to plan ahead for late
May or early June 2021.
1973
Martha Shirk
swarthmorecollege73@gmail.
com
swarthmorecollege73.com
Jan and Steve Rood-
Ojalvo have retired as coclass secretaries, and I’ve
taken over, three decades
after I last held the job. A big
thanks to Jan and Steve
for sticking with it so long.
We’re making it easier
to submit news. Email
me; update your profile
on swarthmorecollege73.
com; or post at facebook.
com/SwarthmoreClass
Of1973.
I’m writing from Paris,
where I’m enjoying la
bonne vie for three
months while my partner,
Larry Goulder, a Stanford
professor, teaches in
the Stanford-in-Paris
program. I’ve continued
to work part time from
afar for USC’s Center for
Health Journalism. My
oldest son, Tom Woo,
married Leslie Feingerts in
October 2015.
Arthur Flannigan
Saint-Aubin was in Paris
last fall, too, on sabbatical
from Occidental College.
Last year, Lehigh University Press published
his book The Memoirs
of Toussaint and Isaac
Louverture: Representing the Black Masculine
Subject in Narratives of
Mourning and Loss, based
on the memoirs of the Hai-
WINTER 2017
GEOFFREY SELLING ’71
TOP TEACHER
Geoffrey Selling ’71 was one of 213 educators to receive
the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics
and Science Teaching, awarded by President Obama in
September. Selling, who retired in 2014 after 42 years in
the classroom, specialized in developing hands-on
programs as a K–5 science teacher at Germantown
Friends School in Philadelphia. Selling earned an M.Ed. in
elementary education from West Chester University.
tian Revolution’s leaders.
Jane Flatau Ross
received France’s highest
award, the Legion of Honor, in recognition of her
long career in French education, including teaching
30 years at the Lycée
Français de New York and
founding the French Heritage Language Program
to support French-speaking immigrants. She has
started research for her
doctoral thesis at NYU
on the history of French
schools abroad. Daughter
Caroline Ross married
Davide Giassi in August.
More marriages of classmates’ children include
Frank Green’s son Jon and
Rick Ortega’s son Aaron.
Bill Yarrow reports a
40th wedding anniversary,
a second grandchild, and
the publication of his third
full-length collection of
poetry, The Vig of Love.
Andrea Sasdi Howard
reports, “After 25 years
in Connecticut raising a
family and working as a
management consultant, I
spent the past 2 1/2 years
traveling primarily among
London, southern Africa,
and Northern California.
Finally bought a home in
Santa Barbara last spring.
My son Chris was married
in August, and Joyce McNagny Critelli and Mary
Doane Lewis and their
husbands attended. My
daughters Lexie and Claire
are working in SF and
NYC, respectively.”
Dane Panetta, making
his first appearance here,
writes, “After coming to
Australia in late 1973, I
have had a long career in
applied ecology, focusing
on the management of
weeds in agricultural
and natural systems
and working for state
departments in Western
Australia and Queensland.
Retrenchment in 2012 was
a blessing, as it allowed
me to pursue collaborations in France and South
Africa. The latter collaboration produced a book,
Detecting and Responding
to Alien Plant Incursions.
More importantly, I have
had adequate time to
pursue my passion, the
keyboard works of J.S.
Bach. Practice in ‘retirement’ has become a daily
activity.”
Rick Wilson retired after
40 years in medicine but
is busier than ever. “I have
expanded my apiary to
three beehives, am doing
volunteer work as a trail
adopter for the White
Mountain National Forest,
and have more time for
sailing, bicycling, traveling
with Wendy, and chores
around the house. Fortunately, both of our children
live in New Hampshire, so
we see them several times
a month.”
Catharine Simler, an
attorney, is beginning a
second career as a pastor
in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
and has “made it through
Hebrew, Greek, and a
two-year internship.”
She and husband Robert
Shoemake, director of the
Selim Center for Learning
in Later Years at the University of St. Thomas, live
in St. Paul, Minn.
Dave Johnson was
honored by the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of
Fame’s Delaware County
Chapter last June for his
contributions as a track
and field historian and
journalist. Dave is director
of the Penn Relays.
Jeff Schon is CEO and
co-founder of the first educational digital broadcast
network for children in
Kenya, a country with little
youth programming. “It’s
a very exciting venture
that’s been four years in
the making and will hopefully keep me busy the
next 10 years,” he writes.
More: akilinetwork.com
Stephen Lang is still
making movies. The
latest, Don’t Breathe, is a
thriller in which he plays
a wealthy blind psychopath. “Lang makes a fine,
creepy, get-off-my-lawn
villain,” Time critic Stephanie Zacharek writes.
Dave Lyon ended his
eight-year tenure as a
part-time senior mentor
and political-military
adviser for the U.S. Army’s
Future Warfare Division.
Share your pics—on campus and off—on
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He still accepts a few local
contracts and spends
three weeks with the
Marine Corps Command
and Staff College each
year, but spends a lot of
time golfing.
After careers as a criminal trial lawyer, lawyer/
manager for performing
artists, and nonprofit
executive, Michael Caplin
is president of Tysons
Partnership, an association of business, civic, and
government leaders working to transform Tysons,
Va., into “America’s next
great city.”
Sad news: Judith
Meighan died Aug. 9.
Judith was an associate
professor in Syracuse
University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts.
Condolences to husband
Sam Gruber and children
Jonah Gruber and Zoe
Meighan.
Visit swarthmore
college73.com for news
that wouldn’t fit—or
wasn’t fit to print!
1975
Sam Agger
sam.agger@gmail.com
Curtis Roberts spent the
summer in LA with daughter Jane ’19, who “secured
two excellent film-industry-related internships
(one involving creating
and editing film trailers
and the other in visual
effects). I am pursuing
the solo-attorney-in-private-practice-model, i.e.,
working from a cellphone
and laptop from wherever,
on whatever. A movie I
was involved with, Shot!,
a biographical film about
the rock photographer
Mick Rock, premiered in
a featured spot at the Tri-
beca Film Festival in NYC
in May. It will appeal to
photography fans as well
as to David Bowie, Lou
Reed, Iggy Pop, and Syd
Barrett aficionados, and
has a great soundtrack.
Caroline Butler Roberts
and our cats, dogs, and
fish are all well and send
greetings.”
Terry Fromson is still
managing attorney for
the Women’s Law Project.
She has spent a lifetime
devoted to public-service
law for women. Thanks
and well done, Terry.
Pekka Mooar does good
things as a physician in
Philadelphia.
Don Jackson was in
Colorado for a week this
summer and participated in a Western Water
Symposium.
John Fisher writes, “We
are looking for software/
robotics engineers at
InTouch Health in Santa
Barbara, Calif. So Swarthmorons with a degree or
experience (I was an English major myself) who’d
like to live at the beach
with near-perfect weather
can contact me at jfisher@
intouchhealth.com. On
the home side, I finally got
my ZENN [Zero Emission,
No Noise vehicle] on the
street with a new electric
motor and controller. It’s
1,100 pounds and tiny.
Mary Byrd ’78 has a
long-term project to slow
shipping, save whales, and
prevent pollution in the
channel; her project got
an EPA award.”
Steve Dichter writes,
“Still living in Santa Fe,
N.M., but have been
‘commuting’ to Switzerland for last five years, as
chief operating officer of a
global logistics company.
Two beautiful places, but
not enough time on the
East Coast to see friends.”
Steve is also chair of United World College–USA,
“an amazing International
Baccalaureate school here
in New Mexico that brings
240 kids from 70-plus
countries together to
‘make education a force
for world peace.’”
David Briggs writes, “Can
the news be fabricated? My life isn’t terribly
exciting. It’s good, but not
really eye-popping. Best
wishes to classmates.”
When I, Sam, reported
being in Philadelphia as
a weekend volunteer for
the Democratic National
Convention, and solicited
class notes by asking,
“Where are you?” a number of classmates wrote
cute answers:
Dave Gold: “Stay hydrated in my great hometown,
Philly.”
Bill Huneke: “What bet
did you lose that forced
you to Philly in July with a
bunch of sweaty pols?”
Larry Schall: “In Spain!”
All take care.
1977
Terri-Jean Pyer
tpyer@montereybay.com
After nearly 40 years as
a librarian, Martha Rice
Sanders is now a senior
consultant with Innovative
Interfaces Inc., whose systems she has been using,
supporting, and teaching
for 24 years. Her position
supports libraries using
their systems worldwide
and allows her to work
from home—a major plus.
Martha also provided
the happy news of son
Edward’s marriage. “On
Aug. 29, 2015, Alena Rosen, daughter of Glenn and
Anndy Dannenberg Rosen,
married my son Edward
Beshers at Camp Wing,
Duxbury, Mass. The officiant was Max Beshers, son
of Samuel Beshers, who
was also in attendance.
Others present included
grandparents Daniel
Beshers ’49 and Dena
Jacobson Dannenberg ’54,
aunt Betsy Sanders ’74, as
well as Julie Potter and
Doug Greason.”
After North Carolina
passed its infamous
“bathroom law” that
discriminated against
people based on their
sexual orientation and
gender identity, Bill
Boulding, dean of Duke’s
Fuqua School of Business,
wrote a commentary
encouraging the business
community to use its
powerful voice to right
the wrong. The thoughtful
piece appeared in Fortune
(bit.ly/BillBoulding).
Terrie Taylor’s career
researching malaria and
treating pediatric patients
in Malawi was highlighted in an extensive June
20 article in My North,
the online magazine for
northern Michigan (bit.
ly/TerrieTaylor). For 30
years, Terrie has spent
six months of each year in
Malawi. Her paper in the
New England Journal of
Medicine in March 2015
was groundbreaking in
showing how cerebral malaria kills its victims, most
of whom are children.
Knowing the mechanism is
the first step in developing effective prevention,
treatments, and, potentially, a cure.
Finally, you will be able
to see artwork by Alice
Zinnes at our grand 40th
Reunion. (Us? 40th?!)
Let’s all plan to be there!
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SwarthmoreBulletin
1979
Laurie Stearns Trescott
sundncr88@comcast.net
Katie Aiken Ritter and her
husband of “a hundred
years or so,” Mark, live in
Monkton, Md., a sprawling rural area north of
Baltimore, along with pets
thoughtfully bestowed
by sons Zach, Gabe, and
Ben. Their boys all work
in the energy field—two
for SolarCity and one in
Houston as a PricewaterhouseCoopers consultant.
Katie excitedly announces
that her first novel, Viking:
The Green Land, has been
published after nearly nine
years of work. She relates,
“with only a very superficial knowledge of Viking-
era explorers, I never
expected to write about
them, but I experienced
an intense and physically
uncomfortable epiphany
that basically demanded
that I do this book … and
so began a quest of my
own to learn about the
journey in this novel.
“The book is on one level
an entertaining read with
expected murder and
mayhem, love and courage—but on another level
it explores questions such
as what happens when
someone is faced with an
impossibly cruel situation,
and what causes a human
being to suddenly see
something completely
different than before.”
Based on the saga of Erik
the Red, Viking: The Green
Land is receiving excellent
reviews and is available on
Amazon.
Samuel Assefa, former
Ethiopian ambassador
to the U.S., former VP of
Addis Ababa University,
and senior urban designer
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
61
class notes
for Boulder, Colo., was
tapped to lead Seattle’s
new Office of Planning
and Community Development.
Christiana Figueres was
U.N. climate chief from
2010 to July 2016 and was
successful in getting nations to collectively agree
to a binding commitment
to avoid dangerous levels
of global warming. Such
an accomplishment may
account for Christiana’s
having been named No. 7
on Fortune’s third annual
“50 Greatest Leaders of
the World” list.
Ari Gabinet retired as
general counsel of Oppenheimer Funds, rented out
his NYC apartment, and
is back home with wife
Chris Paxson ’82 (Brown
president), younger son
Ben (Brown ’19), and older
son Nick ’11, who started
Brown med school this
year. Ari surfs a lot, and
just to make them a true
Brown family, he plans
to teach a law and public
policy class for Brown
undergrads this spring.
Sarah Humphrey and Tim
Cohn married May 20, 40
years after meeting at the
freshman orientation bonfire. Sarah works in advertising in NYC and has
son Daniel from a previous
marriage. Tim has worked
for the U.S. Geological
Survey for 30 years and
has son Alex and daughter
Hannah from a previous
marriage. Sarah and Tim
live on Long Island; Tim
is undergoing lymphoma
treatment at Memorial
Sloan Kettering in New
York.
Josh Landis, Syria expert
and director of the Center
for Middle East Studies
at the University of Oklahoma, spoke last spring
with NPR about Vladimir
Putin’s activity in Syria.
In summary, he said that
Putin, in pulling troops,
62
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
was showing that he’s a
statesman and a leader
looking for peace, that he
doesn’t want Russia stuck
in a quagmire, and that
he’s looking for cooperation from the U.S.
Martha Salzmann Gay
reports that her husband
and best friend of more
than 30 years, Ted,
died Aug. 4 after a long,
devastating illness. He
is survived by Martha
and their son, Jeremy
Thompson. Our collective
thoughts are with you and
Jeremy, Martha.
John Stetson headed
to Lindau, Germany, for
the 2016 Nobel Laureates
Conference in Physics.
He reports he is “blessed
to have been selected by
Lockheed Martin to be the
technical representative
for interaction with our
sponsored researchers.”
And there you have it this
time around. Wishing you
all a healthy 2017.
1981
Karen Oliver
karen.oliver.01@gmail.com
It was great seeing many
of you at our 35th (yikes!)
Reunion in June. Updates
since then:
Dean Baker is co-director
at the Center of Economic
and Policy Research, a
D.C. think tank. His new
book, Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules
of the Modern Economy
Were Structured to Make
the Rich Richer, was
released this fall and is at
“a website near you (free
e-book; printed versions
available for the cost of
printing and mailing).”
Audrey Barnes Elias
became a third-time
Swarthmore parent.
WINTER 2017
CHRISTOPHER UDRY ’81
DISTINGUISHED SCHOLAR
Christopher Udry ’81, the Henry J. Heinz II Professor
of Economics at Yale, received an honorary degree from
the University of Ghana last spring for his distinguished
scholarship. Udry’s research focuses on rural economic
activity in sub-Saharan Africa, including technological
changes in agriculture, the use of financial markets, and
gender relations and the structure of household economies. He received a Ph.D. from Yale in 1991.
Daughter Ruth ’20 started
in the fall, following
daughter Irene ’18 and son
Raymond ’15. She writes, “I
never pushed Swarthmore
on them; they just each
fell in love with it as they
visited colleges. As for me,
I’m starting my 10th year
as an elementary teacher,
teaching math and social
studies to third-graders
in one of NYC’s schools
for children identified as
intellectually gifted. I’m so
happy that I found my way
to teaching; it gives my
mind and heart a workout,
year after year.”
James Polk died July
13 at the Marian Manor
Alzheimer’s care facility
in Stafford, Va. His early
career included work as
a computer programmer
at Boston University and
MIT. In 1991, he moved
to northern Virginia
and did contract work
for Computer Sciences
Corp. Subsequently, he
became an elementary
music teacher for Prince
William County Schools,
applying his music degree
from Swarthmore and his
M.Ed. from the University
of Mary Washington, until
he retired from full-time
teaching in 2010. He loved
music and dance, and had
passions for the flute, recorders, gaming, reading,
and traveling. He was a
certified Scottish Country
Dance teacher. He is
survived by his wife of 34
years, Adele, and daughter
Fiona, a Susquehanna
University student.
Jeremiah Reilly writes in
with a “40-year update”
for himself and wife
Dorothy Silver Reilly. “We
have been married for 29
years. Our lives over those
years have been a roller
coaster. We’ve moved
seven times just this
summer. We lived almost
a year in Montreal, which
is the world’s greatest city.
A promised job transfer
to Montreal fell through,
plunging us into chaos.
Dorothy is a data angel for
Novartis research. This
summer I learned to do
handstands at Esh Circus
Arts in Somerville, Mass. I
am working on visual art,
animated film, and music
composition without
gaining traction. Along the
way, I edited publications
at the U.N. Development
Program, co-wrote an
advanced physics text,
was the operations
director for a nonprofit
housing company, and
was a medical researcher
at a prestigious Philadelphia law firm. In 1996–97,
we survived 23 months
of tears when seven
people in our family died,
including my parents.
Our son Isaac graduated
from Yale last spring and
works for Google in NYC.
Our next roller-coaster
loop-de-loop is shaping
up to be a move to Basel,
Switzerland, this spring.
We’ve enjoyed seeing and
staying in contact with
so many Swarthmoreans
over the years. Visitors
welcome—wherever we
live. Email in advance.”
Checking in from the
Middle East is Tom
Ribadeneyra, who invites
anyone passing through
Dubai to get in touch. He
and Leslie Baker ’82 are
at the Universal American
School for a second year.
Leslie is the elementary-
school librarian, and
trailing-spouse Tom
is the women’s varsity
soccer coach this year
and a long-term substitute
teacher in sixth-grade science. Their last spring was
eventful with two college
graduations—daughter
Clara ’10 from the University of St. Thomas and son
Theo from the University
of Texas. Clara is pursuing
a molecular biology Ph.D.
from the Baylor College of
Medicine in Houston, and
Theo starts as an engineer
for the U.S. Patent Office—a completely empty
nest. On leave in Boston
this summer, they enjoyed
breakfast with Jay Lebed
’82 and wife Karin Kahn
’82. They love to see
classmates when they are
back in the U.S.
Pam Winston lives in
Takoma Park, Md., with
husband Leonard and
son Gabriel, who just
started high school. She’s
Share your pics—on campus and off—on
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a researcher with the
Department of Health and
Human Services, studying
programs and policies
to support low-income
families. She and Martha
Swain ’83 enjoyed the
2015 reunion together, and
she and her family saw
Felicia Rosenfeld ’83 in LA
last summer.
If we haven’t heard from
you in a while, please send
an update. Meanwhile,
check out our groups on
Facebook and LinkedIn.
certainly not limited my
focus.” Patty has a small
farm, including a barn owl,
a way-too-big garden, and
an orchard.
Andrea Davis reports
that her kids love their
respective programs in
architecture at Washington University in St Louis
and veterinary medicine
at UC Davis (where Patty
is). Andrea has taken up
middle distance running
and still sings and plays
flute and cajón. She’s
been “too busy lately” with
directing the Greenhouse
Therapy Center, “for
growing people to write,
record, and produce
original music.” Her book,
Floortime Strategies to
Promote Development in
Children and Teens, helps
therapists and parents
implement play-based
relational strategies to
help people with autism
and other developmental
challenges.
Dan Mont’s sons are
done with school and
work in the Bay Area,
one at Google, one at the
Sustainable Economies
Law Center. Search
YouTube for Simon Mont’s
UC Berkeley law school
graduation speech. Dan
and his wife escaped the
suburbs and now live in
downtown D.C.
Fred Marshall’s son is
double majoring in theater
and psychology at Allegheny, and daughter Pendle
1983
John Bowe
john@bowe.us
Still on the empty-nest
theme. My youngest
is now a freshman up
the (Delaware) river at
Lafayette.
Patty Pesavento is also
a recent empty nester,
with daughter Bay off to
St. Olaf. “Makes me nostalgic for my Swarthmore
friends. I see Ellen Singer,
a fellow veterinarian, who
is quite good at pulling
me into all sorts of crazy
outdoor adventures. The
research-teaching-service
triad that is my faculty position at School of Vet Med
at UC Davis keeps me very
busy with viruses, wildlife,
and cancer, so my job has
GLORIA THOMAS ’85
Marshall-Hallmark ’14
lives in Philly and will be a
witness for peace with the
Fellowship of Reconciliation in South America.
Wife Liz was elected to
the Rochester, N.Y., school
board, a district of 30,000
students with the highest
poverty rate in the state.
Fred is in neurology at the
University of Rochester’s
Memory Care Program,
and does “my best to
practice mindfulness.”
By 2050, Alzheimer’s will
overtake cancer and heart
disease as the most common disease in the U.S.
Martha Swain is “in
Seattle and enjoying our
second year of an empty
nest.” Daughter Maddy is
a sophomore at Clark University. Martha still enjoys
leading a preschool class
at the Seattle Waldorf
School. She and husband
Mike see Jen Baily every
summer at their family
home in Maine.
Shoshana Kerewsky edited a book, Fitness for the
Human Services Profession: Preliminary Explorations. “While perhaps not
of general interest, it did
allow me the opportunity
to cite Paula Smith ’82’s
Engaging Risk: A Guide for
College Leaders.”
Betsey Buckheit was in
Norway this fall, where
husband Justin “is doing
music cognition research
at the University of Oslo,
and I am using my travel
WOMEN’S ADVOCATE
Gloria Thomas ’85 was named director of the Carolina
Women’s Center at the University of North Carolina,
which strives to create an inclusive education and work
environment for women through research, outreach, and
advocacy. Thomas joins the center from the University
of Michigan, where she was director of the Center for the
Education of Women. She has a master’s in teaching from
Villanova and a Ph.D. in higher education from Michigan.
card to explore where all
the trains, trams, and buses go. I keep doing landuse and transportation
blogging and much more
art.” Daughter Elizabeth
graduated from Durham
University in the U.K.
and started a master’s at
Queen Mary University in
London. Betsey did her
first skijoring (a combination of cross-country
skiing and dog sledding)
race last February.
Tom Finholt (my
freshman roommate) was
appointed dean of the
University of Michigan’s
School of Information.
He’s been at Michigan for
25 years.
Lynn Fryer Stein wonders
if dropping her daughter
off at Swarthmore caused
it to fall a few places in
U.S. News and World
Report rankings. She and
husband Jay still live in
Boulder, Colo., and work
at utility energy-efficiency
programs and technologies. They paddled
through the Grand
Canyon for two weeks last
summer. “I was pleased
to discover a different,
calmer version of me who
evidently also lives inside
my body but doesn’t come
out so often in the hubbub
of daily life.”
Steve and Kay Hallstrom
Cangemi ’84 have joined
me as empty nesters,
“unless you count the
cats and fleas continuing
to occupy our nest in
the Mid-Hudson Valley.”
Daughter Claudia is a
freshman at Oberlin,
where she plays trombone
and quidditch. Steve is
in his third year teaching
mathematics at St. Anne
Institute in Albany, N.Y.,
“a trauma-sensitive,
residential school for girls.
A week doesn’t go by that I
don’t think I have the most
amazing job.”
Jenny O (that’s
Oldstone-Moore) was or-
dained an Episcopal priest
last June. “I’m bi-vocational at the moment—fulltime teaching, part-time
priesting, and enjoying
both.” All three daughters
are in school (grad and
college). The eldest is
“getting married this year
at the same church where
Chris and I married in Chicago in 1987.” Her part of
Rust Belt Ohio has many
challenges, but a lot of
invisible, non-newsworthy
good happens.
I share Jenny’s sentiment
of “I feel a little guilty
at having an airbrushed
report to old friends, since
I know the ups and downs
of this time of life are
considerable.”
1985
Tim Kinnel
kinnel@swarthmore.
warpmail.net
Maria Tikoff Vargas
maria@chrisandmaria.com
Sad news: Molly Roth died
March 9. She was “a wife,
mother, anthropologist,
and writer, [and] had
abundant intellectual,
artistic, and philosophical
interests, including languages, literature, theater,
film, music, and community development.” Molly
obtained an anthropology
Ph.D. from Penn, studying
the jeli singers of Mali. Her
thesis had the magnificently Swarthmorean title
Ma Parole S’achète: Money, Identity, and Meaning
in Malian Jeliya. Her most
recent position was director of development of the
American Philosophical
Society.
Chuck Kalish and Maria
Cancian shared this memory: “Molly was our house-
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
63
class notes
mate senior year. After
graduation, several of us
moved to a house in West
Philly. Molly stayed with
us as she prepared to go
off on a grand adventure,
traveling in North Africa
and who knew where else.
Chuck remembers hiding
little notes in her luggage,
in her makeup case, in her
shoes. Molly’s leaving was
a real signal, a marker that
our lives had changed.
Things were different, the
gang was breaking up, and
we were in a new phase
of our lives. We love you,
Molly. We miss you.”
Our deepest condolences to husband Michael
Hesson, daughters Elinor
and Claudia, and the rest
of her family.
Now, happier news.
Laura Markowitz, a new
member of Alumni Council, lives in Tucson, Ariz.,
and spent the summer
producing a nine-part
series on food security
for the local NPR station.
She and wife Mary Kay
LeFevour are celebrating
their 29th anniversary.
Kimberly Wright Cassidy
apparently isn’t busy
enough as Bryn Mawr
College president, so she
also blogs regularly for
the Huffington Post. She
has written about why
female college applicants
should consider women’s
colleges, how to create a
great college experience
for yourself, and how the
analytical and reasoning
skills and the understanding of societal contexts
provided by a liberal
arts education prepare
students for their roles as
voters and citizens.
In other women’s college
news, Maria Tikoff Vargas
dropped daughter Anna
off this fall for her freshman year at Wellesley. To
keep her mind off that,
Maria stays busy running
the Better Buildings Initiative, as a senior program
64
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
adviser at the Department
of Energy.
David Landes also waved
goodbye to kids off to
college, with Kitty a sophomore at James Madison
University and Tommy
off to the University of
Virginia; Brian and Matt
are still at home. Dave is
at Infinitive, a digital consultancy, but “keeping a
weather eye on retirement
opportunities.”
Stanton Wortham
returned to his hometown
of Boston as the inaugural
Charles F. Donovan, S.J.,
Dean of the Lynch School
of Education at Boston
College. Search committee
members lauded Stan’s
achievements in administration and academics at
Penn as well as his vision
for education’s future.
After 28 years as a
“globetrotting journalist,”
Jonathan Miller is now the
communications director
at Cornell’s international
studies center.
Finally, Bruce Abernethy,
perhaps in homage to
Groundhog Day, is running
to be mayor of Bend, Ore.,
again.
That’s it for now. We look
forward to hearing from
you next time!
1987
Tom Newman
Thomas.Newman@hdrinc.com
Yes, it is true: Our 30th
Reunion is this May
26–28. I do hope you can
make it, and if there’s
someone you want to see,
reach out now.
In August, Margaret
Huang, Abby Feder-Kane,
and Carolyn Rouse met in
Oakland, Calif. Meanwhile,
Zahid “Za” Maker brought
son Rayyan ’20 from
WINTER 2017
Karachi, Pakistan, to tour
America before dropping
him off at Swarthmore.
Along the way, they visited
several of Za’s old Swattie
mates, including Dave
Weigert, Jerome Blackman, Vinny Murrell, and
Tomo Kodama ’89. Dave
observes, “So much has
changed, and yet so little
… [Za is] passing the torch
to a new generation.”
Margaret Somerville
writes, “Thirty years—
that’s ridiculous. It
has been an incredible
journey. Having been a
Latin teacher for the last
30 years, I suppose my
biggest news is that I am
in my fifth and final year of
seminary, preparing for ordination as a Presbyterian
minister. Although I am not
ready to give up my wonderful teaching position
at Friends’ Central School
[near Philadelphia], I’ll be
looking to add a part-time
ministry position next
year. It occurs to me that
I will be graduating from
seminary almost 30 years
to the day [after graduating from Swarthmore]. If
the dates work out, I’ll see
you at the reunion.”
Chhaya Rao reports, “I
am completing my 15th
year as a developer of
standardized tests in
English language arts.
The large-scale assessment field is a magnet for
political and educational
ridicule (often justified),
but I’m proud to have
worked for two nonprofit
testing organizations that
prioritize content that is
important, using cognitively challenging questions
and tasks. I love contributing to the design and
creation of meaningful,
worthwhile assessments.
In non-work-related news,
my husband, Eric Oetjen,
and I enjoy D.C., where
we spend much of our
free time catering to our
Labrador, Callie. We love
to travel and have enjoyed
recent trips to Thailand,
the unbelievable Galapagos Islands, and England,
where I fulfilled my
literature nerd’s dream of
visiting places associated
with Charles Dickens, the
Brontë sisters, Jane Austen, William Wordsworth,
and Beatrix Potter, among
others.” While in London,
Chhaya reconnected with
Gehan Talwatte and Keara
Connolly.
Jack Dougherty is
amazed by Katy Stokes
and her astounding
facial-recognition skills.
He writes, “While riding
my bike to my office at
Trinity College, I zipped
past a small crowd but
stopped after someone
yelled, ‘Jack, is that you?’
Katy and her teenage
children happened to be
visiting my campus. She
spotted me underneath my
bike helmet, even though
we hadn’t seen each
other since 1988, and she
didn’t know that I live in
Connecticut.” (Photo: bit.
ly/AmazingKaty)
Attending our 30th
Reunion in May will be a
surefire way to bump into
some old friends.
1931: Dare to Be Wise
1989
Kathy Stevens
stevkath@gmail.com
Martha Easton
measton@elmira.edu
I, Kathy, begin with the
sad news that Brendan
Kelly died unexpectedly in
his sleep May 25 in Longmeadow, Mass. Known as
“Beeks” to his childhood
friends, Brendan grew
up in Rye, N.Y., where
he began his lifelong
love of sailing at the
Durland Scout Center. At
Swarthmore he captained
many sailing trips with his
classmates. He earned a
medical degree from Stony
Brook University in 1994
and completed a residency
in internal medicine
and pediatrics at the
University of Rochester
in 1998. At the time of his
death, he was a pediatric
hospitalist at Baystate
Children’s Hospital and
had served for 18 years
as associate director of
the Medicine-Pediatric
Residency Program. He
was the founder and director of the only national
conference for Med-Peds
physicians. Brendan is
survived by his wife of 17
years, Lisa, and children
Duncan, Ian, Meghan, and
Rowan. “As a gifted storyteller, avid reader, master
griller, and passionate
sailor, always making
time for others, especially
his family, he will be very
much missed,” his obituary says. Our condolences
to Brendan’s family.
Congrats to Brad
Skillman, who is leading
a “smart automated content” team for Bloomberg
News.
John Gastil authored
“Jurors Refuse to Sit in
Protest Against Judge
Presiding over Stanford
Rape Case” at the Jury
and Democracy Project
(bit.ly/StanfordCase).
Catch Patrick Awuah on
YouTube (bit.ly/Awuah)
discussing innovation and
his experience in creating
Ashesi University College
and in bringing liberal arts
to Ghana. He also gave the
McCabe Lecture at Garnet
Weekend in October (bit.
ly/AwuahMcCabe).
Congratulations to
Antoine Gayles, who was
appointed superintendent
of Hillside Public Schools
in Union County, N.J.,
a pre-K–12 district with
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3,000 students.
Joe Resovsky completed graduate work and
postdoctoral research in
deep-earth seismology in
Boulder, Colo., where he
fell in love with the Rockies. He went from there
to Utrecht, Netherlands,
where he learned Dutch,
met wife Justa, and got
a dream job. Now, he’s in
Middelburg, capital of Zeeland province. “My work is
mostly teaching and a little
research at the University
College Roosevelt, an honors college of the distant
Utrecht University. Along
with our sister school UC
Utrecht, we are among the
first of mainland Europe’s
new generation of small,
residential English-
language, liberal arts and
sciences bachelor-degree
institutions.”
John Erler had a blast at
the 25th Reunion seeing
old friends, making new
ones, and reconnecting
with our terrific campus.
“Living happily in Austin,
Texas, with my partner,
Joanne Delk, and our
10-year-old Lab-mix
rescue pup. I’m in my
16th year of professional
movie-mocking. I lead
a troupe called Master
Pancake that does live
comedic commentary over
movies (think Mystery
Science Theater 3000) at
the ever-expanding Alamo
Drafthouse Cinemas.”
Also catching us up is
Bianca Kuehn Hegedus,
a financial analyst for
a mortgage company in
Philadelphia. “I have been
married to my husband,
Tom, for 14 years, and we
have three sons: Brian, 12,
and twins Kevin and Connor, 11. I recently was on
Jeopardy! where I placed
second (not quite Arthur
Chu ’06 level!) but still had
a fabulous experience.”
Melissa Wong Aagesen
has relocated to Idaho
Falls, Idaho, where her
husband is a scientist at
the Department of Energy’s national lab.
Penny Berrier had a blast
coaching her daughter’s
lacrosse team last spring.
In the summer, they enjoyed the Colorado River
and Grand Canyon National Park from the perspective of an eight-day
whitewater-rafting trip.
“It was much more than a
rafting trip—we enjoyed
hiking and camping under
the stars.” Another highlight last summer was time
spent with Cindy Thomas
Smrcka ’90 as well as Lee
Fineman’s and Kristina
Lasher’s families.
Seija Surr and Pamela
Davis celebrated their
marriage in June. Bonnie
Galvin, Betsy Hayes
Wilson, Valerie Lieber,
Katherine Stubbs, and
Kristin Denham joined
them for the festivities in
Carmel Valley, Calif.
Daisy Fried teaches an
MFA program for writers
at Warren Wilson College
in Swannanoa, N.C.
Amy Held and husband
Carl celebrated their 20th
anniversary. They coach
their daughter’s travel
soccer team. Amy is the
director of the Medicaid
Fraud Control Group in
the New York Attorney
General’s Office.
Laura Lomas is an associate professor of English
and American studies at
Rutgers. She directed a
study-abroad program last
summer to Cuba.
1991
Nick Jesdanun
me@anick.org
Remember how quickly
David and Laura Nagle
Gehrenbeck got married
after graduating? Daughter Ella got married last
summer with two years
of college left. (Having
set the precedent a
quarter-century ago, the
Gehrenbecks lost their argument for waiting.) Laura
officiated the ceremony
after a last-minute emergency with the officiant.
The groom is Scottish, and
their wedding in Edinburgh
had lots of dancing, kilts,
and, of course, Scotch.
Ella transferred from
Reed College in Portland,
Ore., to an applied theater
program at the Royal Central School of Speech and
Drama in London. Make
that theatre, as they spell
things funny across the
pond. Laura says daughter
Lily is a high school senior
and “working on figuring
out her future,” while
son Emmett is in middle
school and “has become a
devoted gearhead, trying
to convince us we need
to invest in a Nissan GT-R
Nismo.” Ain’t happening.
As for the Gehrenbecks,
they are learning Serbian
in preparation for a threeyear stint in Belgrade
starting next summer.
Bob Bronkema sends
regrets that he wasn’t able
to make our 25th Reunion
because it conflicted with
daughter Naomi ’20’s high
school graduation. That’s
legit. Better yet, Naomi
enrolled at Swarthmore,
joining sister Rachel ’18, a
junior. Bob says it’s “kind
of fun as we get to see
them both for sporting
events and other stuff.” It
helps that they live nearby.
Bob feels settled as pastor
at First Presbyterian
Church of Strasburg, Pa.
And some book-club
reading for parents:
Heather Rigney Shumaker’s It’s OK to Go Up the
Slide came out as a sequel
to It’s OK Not to Share.
Heather describes them as
unconventional books on
such topics as talking to
strangers and rough play.
Coming in April is Saving
Arcadia, a land-conservation story set in the Great
Lakes. Writing it gave her
a chance to return to her
environmental roots. It’s
amazing she’s able to get
writing done, as Xander,
12, and Luke, 8, like to
play the trumpet.
Rebecca Jackson left the
Springfield Renaissance
School in Massachusetts
and now teaches math
and coaches colleagues
at a K–12 school in NYC’s
Washington Heights. She’s
also “exploring ways to get
involved in the culture of
[her] new home.”
Brian Zikmund-Fisher
got some fame on the PBS
show Nova. The University
of Michigan professor
talked about how we think
about risks—namely, how
the fact that we don’t see
polio and measles cases
anymore makes it difficult
to persuade people they
still need to get vaccinated. The episode is a few
years old but is on Netflix.
It was great seeing
many of you at our 25th
Reunion. Mark your calendars for June 2021.
It’s a short column
this time. If you want to
hear more about your
classmates, please set an
example by writing in.
1995
Erik Thoen
erik_thoen@alum.
swarthmore.edu
Sally Chin
sallypchin@gmail.com
Leading off with star power is Katherin McInnis,
who premiered her new
short film, Children of Lir,
at the Toronto International Film Festival. “It was
great fun,” she says, “and
Canada really is pretty
close to utopia.”
Mohan Ambikaipaker and
Briana Shay Mohan are
beginning their sixth year
in New Orleans. Mohan
is an assistant professor
in Tulane’s communications department and
teaches critical race
theory, cultural studies,
and the only Malaysian
film class offered in the
U.S. Briana also works
at Tulane and enjoys her
move into career advising
for graduate students and
postdocs. Mohan, Mallika,
7, and Ashwin, 3, spent
the summer in Malaysia,
and Briana joined them for
some vacation time, including an amazing visit to
Angkor Wat in Cambodia.
Continuing with the
international theme,
Margaret Patterson and
her family moved from
South Africa to Mumbai,
India. Margaret and
husband Eric teach math
at the American School.
With all the change, she
was disappointed to miss
our reunion last year, but
“our children, ages 10 and
12, seem to be surviving
our moves, and we are
happy to be back in Asia.
Nonetheless, we feel the
[American] Southwest
calling us and plans are
afoot to build another ecohome in that region. Stay
tuned.” I’m not quite sure
how they can top their last
Earthship, but I, Erik, look
forward to seeing pictures.
Rebecca Katz made a
big career move, even if it
was just a few miles down
the road. After 10 years
at George Washington
University, Rebecca
joined the Department of
International Health at
Georgetown University.
She and husband Matt
live in Bethesda, Md., with
kids Olivia, 11, and Ben, 8.
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
65
class notes
Kevin Keenan and
Sarah Azaransky ’97 are
enjoying their third year
back in NYC, with kids
Finn, 11, and Lucy, 6. Sarah
is an assistant professor
of social ethics at Union
Theological Seminary
and is finalizing edits to
her third book, on the
international roots of the
civil-rights movement.
Kevin left the NAACP
Legal Defense Fund as its
COO and general counsel
to join the Vera Institute of
Justice, a criminal justice
research and reform
organization, as executive
vice president and special
counsel. He will supervise
demonstration projects
and develop a portfolio
on technology and justice
issues.
Finally, I, Erik, had a
great trip to Scotland
where I witnessed Thomas
Ta marry Yen Yen Khor at
a castle near Inverness
in September. It was a
fantastic two-day event
with local flair like visits
to Loch Ness, clay-pigeon
shooting, black pudding
and scallops, and Spud
the Piper (who evidently
plays bagpipes worldwide
and has a host of stories
to prove it). Thomas and
Yen Yen have settled in
London, where Thomas
works in finance and Yen
Yen practices medicine.
Of course, the best part
was seeing Thomas’s
family, friends, and other
Swatties there, including
Antonio “Tonet” Santos
and Nazima Kadir ’97.
Tonet didn’t DJ, but he did
manage a bit of Scottish
dancing. Slàinte mhath!
FOLLOW US
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SwarthmoreBulletin
66
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
1997
Joy Oliver
joy_oliver@hotmail.com
Karli Watson lives in
Boulder, Colo., with her
kids, ages 3 and 8, and
researches at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Karli sees Cyril Yee and
Brian Schwartz a few
times a year when they get
their kids together at the
park. Karli co-founded the
nonprofit Support Your
Herd, devoted to grassroots vaccine advocacy in
Boulder. She would love
for all Colorado Swatties
to “like” the organization
on Facebook (facebook.
com/supportyourherd).
Kate Walker also has
something worth “liking”
on Facebook: a feature
documentary called Rise
Root Revolution about a
James Beard Foundation
Leadership Award-winning African-American
female farmer; find the
trailer at facebook.com/
RiseRootRevolution. Kate
lives in Brooklyn and is a
videojournalist producing
science- and environment-related material.
Suli Holum and Deborah
Stein ’99 brought a new
theater piece, The Wholehearted, to San Francisco’s Z Space in September. Kevin Datoo is COO
of Dollar Shave Club, sold
last summer to Unilever
for $1 billion. Liza Dadone
is a vet at the Cheyenne
Mountain Zoo in Colorado.
Last January, she helped
Ugandan wildlife vets capture and move 18 critically
endangered Rothschild’s
giraffes across the Nile
back into their historic
home range (see Alumni
in Action, Pg. 47). An
oil-exploration project is
WINTER 2017
endangering the giraffes’
ecosystem, necessitating
their relocation.
Jennifer Shook finished
her dissertation on Native
American performance
and commemoration at
the University of Iowa and
joined Grinnell College,
a Swat prairie cousin, as
a postdoctoral fellow for
the Mellon-funded Digital
Bridges in Humanistic
Inquiry. Stay tuned as she
figures out how theater,
literature, decolonial
commemoration, and the
digital humanities fit together. Erik Huneke began
as an assistant professor
of history at the University
of Central Oklahoma in
August.
Annika Stroope, spouse
Jeremy West, and daughter Vianne are in their
third year as a licensed
foster family. Since 2014,
seven children, ages 10
months to 10 years, have
joined the Stroope-West
family from long weekends
to 11 months. Sonja Shield
happily reports two joyous
events: On July 9, she
married Chaia Milstein
(Bryn Mawr ’94). The TriCo was in full force among
wedding guests, including
dad Paul Shield ’63, Tom
Webb ’66, Gillian Rogell
’68, and Matt Howard
’99. Three days after their
wedding, Sonja and Chaia
brought home 15-day-old
Reina, whom they are
adopting. Sonja quipped,
“We’re late to the adulting
party but making up for
lost time.”
Speaking of lost time,
where have the past 20
years gone? This Memorial Day weekend we will
gather at Swarthmore to
celebrate 20 years’ survival in the real world. Bring
your dancing shoes: We
need to outdo the party
from our 15th Reunion—no
small feat!
1999
Melissa Morrell MacBeth
mmacbeth@gmail.com
Brantley Bryant has
spearheaded the creation
of an online open-access
companion to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
that is free as a study
resource for students:
opencanterburytales.com.
He was also elected chair
of the English department at Sonoma State
University.
Aaron Hirschhorn,
CEO of DogVacay, which
matches dog owners with
sitters, was featured on
Entrepreneur.com. Next
time you go on vacation,
check it out.
Andrew and Anne
Frankenfield Lund moved
to Swarthmore last
summer. Andrew teaches
at Villanova, heading up
the Center for Law and
Entrepreneurship. Anne is
director of curriculum and
content for PBS Kids. “We
have had a lot of Swattie
visits since we moved in.
The first weekend after
the move, we were happy
to have Carl Wellington
for an overnight visit, in
town for a rowing event in
Philly. The weekend after
that, Andrew hosted his
fantasy football league
for a BBQ, and we were
visited by Kelley Hauser,
Dan Green, Adrian Wilson,
Matt Kahn, Tony Sturm,
Matt Menendez, Nancy
Craig ’01, and Tim and
Lynne Steuerle Schofield. We had a great time
catching up. We’ve also
been spending more time
with Nick ’96 and Donna
Griffin Milligan, since they
live a few blocks away. We
also saw Pat Donaghy and
his family at the Swarth-
more Farmers Market.”
Janice Gallagher is
an assistant professor
of political science at
Rutgers–Newark, where
she teaches about human
rights, social movements,
and legal systems, focusing on Latin America. She
spent five of the past 10
years living in Mexico and
Colombia, and is happy to
be back in the U.S.
“My daughter continues to grow and thrive,”
reports Rachel Brooker,
“as does my business,
Turiya Yoga Berlin,
organizing yoga classes in
preschools, schools, and
businesses.” Nate Schaffran ’00 visited Rachel in
Berlin as part of his work
with Root Capital.
Ashwin Rao was elected
to the American Medical
Society for Sports Medicine board of directors.
He also moved to a new
home in Ballard, Seattle.
He is in his eighth year as
a team physician for the
Seattle Seahawks and his
10th year with Washington
Huskies athletics.
Ila Deshmukh Towery still
lives in Boston, “17 years
later. We are in Jamaica
Plain, and I don’t think
we’ll leave anytime soon.
I am now officially part
of the MoB (mother of
boys)—I had my second
son, Kavi Soren, April 17.
He surprised us six weeks
early and spent a month in
the NICU. It was definitely
anxiety-inducing and not
fun, but he’s doing great
now and thriving. Our
older son, Rohan, turned
2 in June, and he’s the
mayor of our block—more
social than either of his
parents. So we’re having a
lot of sleep-deprived, tantrum-filled but super-silly
fun in our house. I still
work in K–12 education
consulting and have the
opportunity to work with
tons of cool people across
Share your pics—on campus and off—on
Instagram: @swarthmorebulletin, #swatbulletin
NICOLE BREAZEALE ’99
DEVOTED EDUCATOR
Nicole Breazeale ’99, an assistant professor of sociology
at Western Kentucky University Glasgow, was named
a finalist for the 2016 Ernest A. Lynton Award for the
Scholarship of Engagement for Early Career Faculty.
Breazeale has developed a model of service learning
for community colleges and regional campuses, pairing
place-bound, working-class students with class projects
defined by marginalized community groups. She has a
sociology Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–
Madison.
the country on education-
reform issues. I get to
see Dana Lemelin and his
husband, Patrick, a ton.”
In April, Sarah Cross
and husband Balazs had
Margot, named for Sarah’s
late mother, Margaret Lee
Cross ’63. “[Margot] fills
me with joy and wonder,”
Sarah says. Sarah finished
medical training in 2015
with a fellowship in
maternal–fetal medicine
and is on the Yale School
of Medicine faculty while
living on the Connecticut
shoreline.
Richard Vezina saw the
San Francisco preview of
The Wholehearted, a play
written and co-directed by
Deborah Stein and starring and co-directed by
Suli Holum ’97. “It was an
amazing, moving show—
and such a wonderful
experience to see all those
familiar faces in the audience. I strongly encourage
Swatties to check it out.”
FYI: The 1996 field hockey team, which included
many members of our
class, was inducted into
the Swarthmore Athletics
Hall of Fame Oct. 28.
After eight years with the
State Department—two
of them with Erin Sawyer
’93—Benson Wilder and
his family moved to Seattle, where he now sees
brother-in-law Mac Funk
much more often.
As one of the research-
ers who started working
on self-driving cars for
Uber in early 2015, Carl
Wellington is excited that
people in Pittsburgh can
now request an Uber and
get a car that drives by
itself (with a safety driver
in front). He believes this
is an important first step
in reimagining transportation in cities. Me, too.
2001
Claudia Zambra
claudiazambra@gmail.com
Last summer our class
celebrated its 15th Reunion on campus, giving
people a chance to catch
up and swap life stories,
as evidenced by these
shorter-than-usual notes.
There was a great talk
by Evan Gregory, Crum
hiking, kids climbing in the
purple tree, and an epic—
if impromptu—Beirut
tournament. Evan’s wife,
Sarah, was giving birth to
twins at the moment these
notes were due.
Kelly Hines Yiadom has
taught in the Wallingford-
Swarthmore School
District since 2003. She
presented on a panel
for the fall 2016 student
teachers at Swarthmore.
Kelly and husband Ansa
Yiadom had their third
child, Yaa Candace, in
November 2015, joining
Kodjo Josiah, 7, and
Kwabena Solomon, 4.
Ben Keys is now an
assistant professor in
Wharton’s real estate department. He and his family moved to Philly; Ben
looks forward to rekindling
a love of Tastykakes and
spending time with East
Coast friends.
Jaime Yassif has lived
in D.C. for the past few
years, working on weapons-of-mass-destruction
threat reduction at the Defense Department. Jaime
transitioned to an exciting
job as a program officer
at the Open Philanthropy
Project, where she leads
their grant-making initiative on biosecurity and
pandemic preparedness.
Matt Schwartz moved to
D.C. with wife Eva to work
as a senior Washington
correspondent with The
Intercept. He is staying on
as a contributing writer
with The New York Times
Magazine and The New
Yorker. They live in Adams
Morgan and are interested
in hearing from Swatties.
I, Claudia Zambra, also
live in D.C., also in Adams
Morgan, working at the
World Bank as a social
protection specialist in
East Asia.
Timothy Stewart-Winter’s book Queer Clout:
Chicago and the Rise of
Gay Politics was published
in February by the University of Pennsylvania
Press. Tim lives in NYC
and teaches at Rutgers–
Newark.
Peter Holm and partner
Andy moved from Abu
Dhabi to New York, and in
September, Peter started
as assistant vice president
for global planning and
research at NYU. He looks
forward to spending time
with friends near the city.
Lily Yang, Peter Hastings,
and their family moved to
Stockholm, where Lily will
keep hanging on to the
academic career ladder as
a researcher at the KTH
Royal Institute of Technology, and Peter will once
again be a paid mercenary
programmer, this time at
Avalanche Studios.
Kate Fama moved from
Konstanz, Germany, last
summer to join the faculty at University College
Dublin, where she will
teach modern American
literature. She and partner
Alexander Tzschentke
are settling in nicely and
sampling the local gins,
hill walks, and rain gear.
Kate and Mavis Biss ’02
joined Sari Altschuler’s
March wedding to Chris
Parsons in Florida. A
beautiful day and perfect
sunset were made even
lovelier by dancing on the
beach at Honeymoon Island with the newlyweds,
as well as Sarah Jay and
Ian Huntington, and Becca
Stites Derrick ’00.
Finally, Aisha Talib, her
husband, and their three
kids moved to Frankfurt,
Germany, where they’ll be
for the next two years with
the Foreign Service.
2003
Robin Smith Petruzielo
robinleslie@alum.
swarthmore.edu
John Arbour ’05 lives
in Seattle, where he
co-founded a cannabis
startup, ReUP, with a team
passionate about building
a professional and inclusive industry supporting
further legalization.
Catherine Vanderwaart
graduated from MIT last
year with a dual master’s
in urban planning and
transportation. She moved
to D.C. last February with
wife Elisabeth Oppenheimer ’05 and their two
children. Catherine works
in bus planning at the
Washington Metropolitan
Area Transit Authority.
Liane Rice is a trial
attorney for the Equal
Employment Opportunity
Commission in NYC.
Anna Tyler switched
from postdoc to research
scientist at the Jackson
Laboratory in Bar Harbor,
Maine, where she lives
with husband Matt and
daughters Ada, 2, and
Emilia, 1.
Laura Damerville and
Sam Sadow live near D.C.
with their two children.
Sam finished an art history Ph.D. at the Graduate
Center, CUNY, and is now
the visual resources curator at American University.
Laura is an attorney in the
Office of General Counsel
at the Smithsonian.
Becca Lipstein Burnett
is in her second year as
English department chair
at Germantown Academy,
near Philadelphia. She
traveled to Beijing to
mentor on best practices
for teaching English. Eden
Wales Freedman spoke
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
67
class notes
with her feminist literature
class via videoconference.
Jeremy Schifeling works
in career services at the
University of Michigan,
helping students launch
tech, entrepreneurship,
and social impact careers.
Sarah Kate Selling began
a faculty position in mathematics education at the
University of Utah.
Emily Clough teaches in
the government department and Asian studies
program at Bowdoin College. She enjoys designing
courses and exploring
coastal Maine.
Andrew Fefferman
was awarded a grant in
low-temperature physics
to study the enigmatic
universality of glass.
Mike Loeb is busy juggling three children while
working full time as an
urgent-care doctor.
Hollis Easter has
expanded his consulting
practice; he specializes
in business process
management, instructional
design, and performance
improvement. Hollis also
performs for dance camps
and bagpipe festivals in
the Northeast.
Sydney Beveridge
produces radio documentaries and dramas for the
BBC, and she participated
in the She-Devil Comedy
Festival in 2015.
William Tran placed sixth
in Championship Silver
at the 2016 Adult Figure
Skating Nationals in
April. U.S. Figure Skating
appointed William as a
bronze ice dance judge in
July, and in September, he
judged the first quadruple
flip landed in competition
by an American.
Erica Cartmill married
Jacob Foster in October
2015 near Los Angeles.
Sydney Beveridge, Laurel
Kean, Tika Young, and
Liza Henty-Clark shared
the happy day. Erica and
Jacob submitted their
68
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
midtenure review materials as assistant professors
at UCLA. They visited
Claire Weiss in Pompeii,
Italy. Erica and Mary Blair
’05 reminisced about Paces parties at a primatology
conference in Chicago.
Cam MacDearmid
completed Cornell vet
school, moved to the New
Hampshire seacoast,
and met now-wife Mollie.
They married in October
2015; Kasia Koziol-Dube,
Goreleigh Willis, Frank
Sersale, and Aurelio Perez
’02 attended. Cam and
Mollie had son Callum in
August.
Becca Van Fleet Webb
and husband Nathan
had son Graham in April,
joining sister Zoe.
Ingrid Kaszas and husband Joe married in April
and had daughter Greta in
September.
Nori Heikkinen and husband Jack Hebert started
at Google in May, moved
to Seattle in June, and
had baby Francis in July.
Amelia Hoover Green
and husband Jarrod had
son Henry Joseph in May.
Amelia is writing a book
about how military groups
try to prevent war crimes.
Laura Zager and her husband moved to Portland,
Ore., after she finished law
school in 2013. They had
a daughter in 2014. Both
work from home: Laura is
a patent lawyer, and her
husband makes and sells
electric guitars.
Geneviève Treuille
Wachtell and husband
Dan had third son James
on leap day 2016. She enjoys her role as AltSchool’s
general counsel and head
of policy.
David Murphy is pursuing
a cognitive neuroscience
Ph.D. at Duke University.
David and wife Elissa had
son Jovan last spring.
Before graduate school,
David was a research and
design engineer in the
WINTER 2017
brain stimulation groups
at Columbia and Duke.
Ilana Luft married Tom
Barrett on Long Island,
N.Y., in April with Alyssa
Bell Kearney and Carolynn
Laurenza as bridesmaids
and Sarah Stanton as
witness. Meggie Miao,
Patty Park, Vanessa
Askot, Neil Cavanaugh,
Chris Milla, Leaya Lee ’02,
and Charles Small helped
celebrate.
Kasia Koziol-Dube has
been a pediatrician in the
Wallingford and Cheshire,
Conn., area for several
years. She married Tom
Fazio in September 2015;
Sophia Acord, Leslie Murray ’02, Kirstin Bass, Cam
MacDearmid, and Heather
Kile Lord ’02 attended.
Kasia and Tom had daughter Cosette in June.
2005
Jessica Zagory
jazagory@alum.swarthmore.
edu
Raghu Karnad’s book Farthest Field won the young
writer’s prize (in English)
from India’s academy of
letters. Basking in his laurels, Raghu road-tripped
through the Canadian
Rockies with Sonal Shah,
who is researching a Doris
Lessing biography: “We
read passages aloud in
the car.”
Kate Middleton was
photographed wearing
Joseph Altuzarra, who
told Surface magazine
(bit.ly/JAltuzarra ) that
Swarthmore “was an
incredible experience, as
it was the first time I found
my community.”
Joe Raciti has all the
feels in the sweet melody
“You Might Not Know It
Yet” (bit.ly/JRaciti). (Who
is chopping onions in the
office?!)
Matt Wallaert was featured in Money magazine
in April on closing the
gender pay gap.
Looking for a podcast for
your commute? Invisibilia with Lulu Miller is
back for Season 2 (bit.ly/
InvisibiliaPodcast) and
was featured on a podcast
about podcasts (#meta).
Maya Schenwar lives in
Chicago with Ryan Croken
and cat Zams. Maya
works at Truthout and is
excited that Alana Price
’04 is now on staff. Alana
and Maya co-edited the
Truthout anthology Who
Do You Serve, Who Do You
Protect? Police Violence
and Resistance in the
United States, released
in June.
After completing a
master’s in health administration and interprofessional leadership from
UC San Francisco, Caitlin
Hildebrand-Turcik leads
quality improvement
for nursing at the San
Francisco Veterans Health
Administration. As a nurse
practitioner, she also
cares for veterans remotely via video telehealth. She
is in Johannesburg with
husband John Turcik, who
is taking an international
business course for a
Wharton MBA.
Bojun Hu received a
clinical psychology Ph.D.
from Fordham. With
partner Yinbang Lin, she
moved to Beijing, where
she is a yoga teacher,
therapist, and mind-bodymovement researcher.
Before leaving, she dined
in Boston with Lulu Chen,
Marjan Chittaee, Erica
Siegel, Jason Perini, and
Garrett Ash. Rachel Scott
and Aaron Wasserman
say hello from Boston,
where they returned after
visiting Glacier National
Park and the West. They
say the landscape was
so wonderful and Helena
and Missoula, Mont., so
charming that it took time
readjusting to the city.
They garden, pickle, play
tennis, write songs on
their laptop, and devotedly follow The New York
Times’s Jon Caramanica
(though only Aaron does
the last thing).
Kate Duffy and husband
Erik Osheim ’03 live in
Providence, R.I. Kate, an
American studies Ph.D.
candidate at Brown,
started a dissertation on
phrenology and 19th-
century American culture.
She is also a predoctoral
research fellow at the
Institute of Contemporary
Art, Boston, where she
is working on a major
Mark Dion exhibition.
Viva Horowitz completed
a Harvard postdoc and
started as an assistant
professor at Hamilton
College in Clinton, N.Y.
Liza Anderson received a
theology Ph.D. from Yale,
focusing on medieval
Syriac Christianity. She is
a postdoctoral fellow at
Episcopal Divinity School
teaching church history.
Julie Lindenberg enjoys
life in Washington state
and plays field hockey
with a Seattle team in Canadian tournaments. She
works with formerly homeless young adults in a
transitional living program
and studies clinical social
work at the University of
Washington.
Derrick Wansom enjoys
the culinary scene in
Austin, Texas, where he
is an anesthesiologist. He
completed a pain-management fellowship at the
University of Michigan.
After 10 years at BBN
Technologies, Nicolas
Ward uploaded his job to
the cloud, joining Amazon
Web Services. He, wife
Andrle, and son Theo
moved to Seattle and
enjoy proximity to family.
Share your pics—on campus and off—on
Instagram: @swarthmorebulletin, #swatbulletin
Shiva Thiagarajan works
for Google in Tokyo and
spent a weekend in
Istanbul for the wedding of
Duran Cesur ’07. Sehnaz
Kiymaz Bahceci, Adem
Kader ’06, Dimitar Enchev
’07, Jan Grauman Neander
’07, Shyan Khaleeli ’08,
Shlesha Thapaliya ’07, and
Yaprak Sariisik ’06 also
attended.
Sam Berger married
Christine Ku in Buffalo,
N.Y., in August. Joining
them were Jake and Kristen Lee Berger; Blair and
Caitlin Smith Haxel; Adam
Gerber; Pat Quinn; Laura
Holzman ’06; Alan Smith;
and Luned Palmer ’06.
Zachary Pezzementi and
Caroline Carlson ’06 had
baby Nora June 11.
Qian Li received the
Buddhist precepts along
with Phillip Neiman ’85 at
San Francisco Zen Center
Sept. 17 and is now Shogyō
Keizen Li Qian. Qian is
taking prerequisites at City
College in San Francisco to
apply to grad school with
the intention of looking for
aliens (astrobiology).
Matt Shiroma was made
partner at Day Pitney,
where he has practiced
commercial litigation in
Connecticut, New York,
and Massachusetts since
2008.
Finally, since starting
grad school in 2013,
Arthur “Ace” Chalmers
has changed addresses
16 times. While many suggested that he live out of
his car, the Toyota Corolla
was hardly adequate living
quarters for a 6-foot-8
man. Ace, a physician’s
assistant, finally settled in
Sacramento, Calif. “It is,
by my calculations, equidistant from the state’s
best skiing and surfing. As
for life goals, I attended
my first trip to Burning
Man and purchased my
Kirkwood season pass.”
2007
Kristin Leitzel Hoy
kleitzel@gmail.com
Emily Anne Nolte married
Jeffrey Jacobstein Sept. 4
in Asheville, N.C. The pair
live in Cambridge, Mass.,
where Emily Anne is a
management consultant
and Jeff is an intellectual
property attorney.
Nathaniel Peters married
Barbara Jane Sloan June
4 at Blessed Sacrament
Church in Stowe, Vt.
(bit.ly/NPWedding). He
later moved to Milwaukee,
where his wife is studying
for a theology Ph.D. at
Marquette.
Mustafa Paksoy married
Anabel Lippincott Sept. 3
in Petaluma, Calif. They
live in Noe Valley, Calif.,
where he is the lead instructor at a software-engineering boot camp
geared toward college
students.
Dan Amato married Kelli
Jackson Aug. 27. It was a
beautiful, clear day on a
vineyard in Iowa and joy
abounded. Dan is grateful
for the love and support of
friends and family.
Melissa Phruksachart finished an English
Ph.D. at the Graduate
Center, CUNY. She’s now
a postdoctoral fellow in
NYU’s cinema studies
department, where she’ll
teach a grad seminar on
Asian-American media.
Last summer, she married
Patrick Kolodgy ’09 in
Brooklyn.
Nick Groh married
Ambika Satija in August in
Santorini, Greece.
Tim Roeper married
Emma Otheguy ’09.
Jonathan Ference-Burke
and wife Colleen had Rose
Julia April 10.
Duran Cesur was married
in Istanbul.
Elisabeth Jaquette translated Basma Abdel Aziz’s
The Queue from Arabic,
and her translation was
published in May.
Veronica Medina
completed a psychology
Ph.D. program and will
be a postdoctoral fellow
at Columbia University’s
Promise Project, where
she will provide neuropsychological evaluations to
children from underserved
families.
Peter and Stephanie Koskowich Holm live in Oakland, Calif., with son Evan.
Stephanie started an
environmental medicine
program and is working on
a master of public health
at UC Berkeley.
Anna Torres completed a
Ph.D. at UC Berkeley and
began a postdoc in comparative literature at the
University of Chicago.
Caleb Ward is in Berlin
for the next year or two,
working on a philosophy
dissertation on feminist
ethics.
Peter Kriss’s venture
Macroclimate.com—the
first online investment
service for individuals to
divest from fossil fuels
while maximizing expected
financial returns—is
approaching $100 million
in assets under management.
Juliet Braslow enjoys
life in Nairobi, Kenya, as a
scientist with the International Center for Tropical
Agriculture.
Sara Sargent is an executive editor at HarperCollins Publishers, where
she launched an imprint
specializing in books
about pop culture, social
media, and celebrities.
Dominic Hum is in a
strategy role at Goldman
Sachs, where he will build
and lead a Dallas-based
team focused on project-
oriented problem solving
across the Global Securities Division.
Katie Chamblee was
part of the team in Foster
v. Chatman, in which the
U.S. Supreme Court vacated a death sentence based
on race discrimination.
Andrew Stobo Sniderman
began work in Ottawa in
June as the human rights
policy adviser to Canada’s
minister of foreign affairs.
Catherine Fukuda moved
back to the Philadelphia
area and collaborated with
Andrew Hauze ’04 in informal lunchtime concerts in
Parrish Parlors.
Marissa Matthews is
opening a periodontics
practice in Delray Beach,
Fla.
Sonya Reynolds has
struck out on her own
as a data consultant
for civic-engagement
organizations striving
for racial, social, and
economic justice, and
started a progressive data
community group hosted
by ThoughtWorks.
Jacob Winkler lives in
Central Jersey with his
wife and children, ages
7, 5, and 3. He is a group
psychotherapist at a
mental-health clinic in
Manhattan.
Amber Zuberi is a
master’s candidate at the
Woodrow Wilson School
of Public and International
Affairs at Princeton.
Kasie Groom Regnier
lives in Monterey, Calif.,
and is settling into her
new role as water-quality
lab manager at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Erica George Baugh
works in clinical research
for inflammatory skin diseases and volunteers as a
“hand holder” at Planned
Parenthood Los Angeles.
Vernon Chaplin started
in August with the electric
propulsion group at NASA
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
in Pasadena, Calif.
Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham
finally settled into Park
Slope, Brooklyn, and is a
research economist at the
Federal Reserve Bank of
New York.
Sam Graffeo Gardner
happily lives in Boulder,
Colo., with her husband
and daughter, 1. She’s in
her second year of dental
school.
Emily Robbins divides
her time between Brownsville, Texas, and Amman,
Jordan, where she’s doing
research. Emily is married
and a writer. Her novel A
Word for Love comes out
from Penguin in January.
Joely Merriman is in her
second year of medical
school at the University of
Rochester.
2009
Loretta Gary
loretta.gary@gmail.com
Editor’s note: After seven
years of faithfully gathering 2009’s class notes,
Loretta is retiring as
class secretary. If you are
interested in becoming the
next class scribe, please
contact Class Notes
Editor Elizabeth Slocum
at eslocum1@swarthmore.
edu. We thank you,
Loretta, for your years of
service to Swarthmore
and the Class of 2009.
2013
Paige Grand Pré
jpgrandpre@gmail.com
Ana Apostoleris completed
the three longest and
shortest years of her life
and graduated from Duke
law school in May. She
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
69
class notes
ALUMNI PROFILE
writes, “After taking the
bar (ew) and then making
a quick celebratory trip
to Israel (yay), I moved
to Cambridge, Mass., and
now work at Harvard Law
School doing criminal justice reform research.” She
lives with Hannah Martin
and dog Woof Bader Ginsburg (“Ruthie”).
Jenny Koch was psyched
to host Lisa Yelsey, Lucas
Zullo, and Vienna Tran
in Denver for a ski trip
last spring. She also
hosted Claire Broad, who
shortly thereafter began
an M.S. in analytics at
the University of San
Francisco. Tommy Laux
’14 and Yin Guan were
delighted to host and
catch up with Bernie Koch
about his travels in Jordan
last February. After
three years of teaching
high school science and
math, Yin took a year off
for self-cultivation. So
far, she has volunteered
with Fo Guang Shan, a
Buddhist monastery based
in Taiwan, and studied
traditional Thai massage
in Thailand. Max Nesterak
lives in Minneapolis and is
a producer for Minnesota
Public Radio.
After a couple of years in
D.C. at the Brookings Institution, Joanna Venator
moved to Madison, Wis.,
to work on a Ph.D. She is
in her second year in the
economics department
at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Miriam
Goldstein is nearby in Ann
Arbor, Mich., where she is
halfway through a clinical
psychology Ph.D. at Eastern Michigan University.
She enjoys teaching
abnormal psychology.
Tiffany Barron started
an international relations
master’s at the University
of Chicago this fall. When
she’s not thinking about
war, she’s salsa dancing
or hanging out with one of
her 50 or so cousins near
70
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
Chicago.
Farther west, Julia Melin
moved to California in
June to begin a sociology
Ph.D. at Stanford, and she
loves the perfect weather.
Meanwhile, after several
happy years teaching
high school math in the
Bay Area, Brian Huser
began a film and media
studies Ph.D. at UC Santa
Barbara.
On the East Coast, Gabe
Ryan started a computer science master’s at
Columbia, where he also
conducts research in
user-behavior analytics
in the intrusion detection
lab. He also works part
time at Allure Security
Technology, a cybersecurity startup in Manhattan
that specializes in using
machine learning and
deception to detect and
stop intruders. Emily Richardson began a master’s
this fall in public policy
and administration with a
focus on education policy
at UMass–Amherst. She
works in an IT department
and lives in Easthampton,
Mass. Marcus Mello is
in Cambridge, Mass.,
working on a master’s in
architecture and urban
planning. Marcus is also
a freshman proctor for
the College and visited
Buenos Aires, Argentina,
in September for a studio
trip. Nancy Liu returned
to Philadelphia to start at
the Perelman School of
Medicine and is learning
to love the strange ways of
the Schuylkill Expressway
and SEPTA once more.
Nearby, Daniela Jaeger
started her second year at
the Penn State College of
Medicine and did psychiatry research last summer.
Eric Verhasselt announces that he and fiancée
Christine Schmidt bought
a house in the amazingly
scenic Green Lane, Pa.
Your secretary, Paige
Grand Pré, was promoted
WINTER 2017
last summer and loves her
new position at the helm
of communications for
the education department
at the Jacob Burns Film
Center in Pleasantville,
N.Y. She lives with Joseph
O’Hara ’12 in New York
City and is still adjusting
to her reverse commute.
Hannah Kurtz is in her
third and final year in
Phnom Penh, Cambodia, with the Mennonite
Central Committee, and
is figuring out what to do
next. In the meantime,
she’s taken up circus arts
and spends a significant
amount of time bending
into weird positions and
fighting her fear of heights
on aerial apparatuses.
Miriam Hauser received a
master’s degree from the
University of Chicago’s
School of Social Service
Administration in June
and is now a licensed
graduate social worker in
Maryland. She is in Amman, Jordan, researching
through the Fulbright
program on refugee
mental-health services.
Also in the Middle East
is Marina Tucktuck, a
research officer at the Palestinian National Institute
of Public Health–World
Health Organization in her
hometown of Ramallah.
2015
Alexis Leanza
leanzaalexis@gmail.com
Ariel Gewirtz joined
a Bayesian statistical
genomics lab at Princeton
University, where she is
pursuing a quantitative
and computational biology
Ph.D. She constructs and
analyzes gene and isoform
networks.
Rehana Omardeen start-
ed a linguistics master’s at
Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands. She
is slowly learning Dutch
but is biking everywhere
like a boss.
Jessie Bacha is in graduate school (and hiking/
biking/[soon] skiing)
in Boulder, Colo. She’s
thrilled to have received
a National Science Foundation Graduate Research
Fellowship to fund a cell
and molecular biology
Ph.D. at the University
of Colorado Boulder. She
happily lives with a high
school friend, although
she misses her Swarthmore friends dearly.
Andrew Dorrance is
doing a Fulbright teaching
English in Puebla, Mexico.
He loves living in such a
beautiful city. As a side
project, he informally
researches the LGBTQ
culture of Puebla.
Patrick Ross, Kimaya
Diggs, Michaela Shuchman
’16, and Madeline Charne
’14 are working on Scarlet
Letters, a play written and
directed by Patrick and
performed by Michaela,
with songs by Kimaya and
production by Madeline.
They have performed at
the fringe festivals in Philadelphia and Edinburgh.
Your secretary, Alexis
Leanza, has not dropped
out of medical school yet
and spends most of her
time trying to manage
the equally important
responsibilities of learning
clinical medicine and
compiling class notes.
CAPTIONED!
“It’s a unique challenge co-writing a book with your father, but also a profoundly rewarding
one,” says Grayson Roze ’15. “While it certainly tested our relationship at times, the
experience has truly deepened our bond.”
STOCK
MARKET
SAVVY
Not even a knee injury could hobble his
calling—or his creativity
by Heather Shumaker ’91
“If we can get one more Swattie, we will have sixteen
feet howling at the moon.”
—Alexander Gavis ’86
“These howl-alongs just haven’t been the same since
we went co-species.”
— Jim Pasterczyk ’81
“He’s interesting, but sometimes I can’t
understand his accent.”
—David Avila ’69
“He fell in love the first time he heard her voice …
but what will the neighbors say? On the bright side,
she’ll be a tasty morsel in a pinch …”
—Camilla Dickinson Potter ’81
“You’re flat again! G sharp!”
—Penny Penfield Brown ’51
+ See more captions: bulletin.swarthmore.edu
GRAYSON ROZE ’15 KNOWS crutches
and stocks go together. Roze’s life took a
dramatic turn when he tore his ACL at
the start of lacrosse season during his
junior year at Swarthmore. Faced with
a summer of surgery and months of
recovery, he did what any good Swattie
would do: He wrote a book.
The idea took shape in his second-
floor tower room at Worth, when Roze,
laid up after his injury, thought back
to his lifelong connection to the stock
market.
As a child, Roze wondered, “What
does Dad do for a living?” Soon his
investment-expert father, Gatis Roze,
was bringing him along to classes on
trading he taught at Bellevue College
near Seattle, where Grayson helped
deliver a memorable lesson. To demonstrate a simple yet critical aspect of
financial chart analysis, the 10-yearold drew trend lines in front of the class
with a big, pink highlighter.
Roze also loved skateboarding growing up, so his father opened a brokerage
account in his son’s name. Together,
they purchased a small number of
shares in Zumiez, a skateboarding gear
and clothing store.
“I loved Zumiez,” says Roze. “I was
about 12 and my dad said, ‘Zumiez is
publicly traded. You can buy a share
and own some of Zumiez.’ I felt like I
was buying the world.”
By the time Roze entered Swarthmore
as an economics major, he was trading independently. Then one night at
Worth, ruminating during his ACL
recovery, he made a fateful 3 a.m. phone
call to his father.
“Why don’t I write a book with you?”
he asked.
That summer, while propped with
a laptop, ice bags, and his knee up in
the air, Roze penned the first draft of
what would become Tensile Trading:
The 10 Essential Stages of Stock Market
Mastery.
“I was inspired to do this book
because I was a Swarthmore student,”
says Roze. “Friends and professors gave
me the support and inspiration through
the process.”
When he returned to school for his
senior year, Roze polished the draft,
sent the manuscript to a publisher, and
received a contract—Tensile Trading
was published by Wiley last April.
Swarthmore has also continued to
shape Roze’s view on investing. He
heard campus debates about divesting
from oil companies, even as he watched
oil and gas stocks rise. He minored in
psychology and found Professor Barry
Schwartz’s classes on human decision-
making fascinating, especially his book
The Paradox of Choice.
“The biggest challenge new investors face is emotional,” Roze says.
“Emotions get ramped up when money
is on the line. People make funky
decisions.”
His book aims to counter that by providing a 10-stage roadmap to guide new
and seasoned investors alike.
“People my age say things like: ‘I’d
never think about the stock market. It’s
always crashing.’ People are scared,”
he says. “As millennials, we’ve lived
through two very significant financial
crises: the early 2000s tech bubble and
the 2007–09 Great Recession and housing-market crash. I take the long-term
view. Long term, markets grow.”
Today, Roze works at S
tockCharts.
com, a financial software company,
and his next book is already in the
works: He’s been asked to co-author the
revised edition of Trading for Dummies.
This one he plans to write without the
ice bags or crutches.
WINTER 2017
/ Swarthmore College Bulletin
71
spoken word
INNOVATION,
LEADERSHIP,
LIBERAL ARTS
by Jonathan Riggs
SINCE FALL 2014, Katie Clark has
been “a one-woman show” building
Swarthmore’s Center for Innovation
and Leadership (CIL). A nexus for
student leadership development, innovation, entrepreneurship, and alumni
engagement, the CIL owes much of its
shape and success to the Smith and
Penn grad’s creative, collaborative
guidance.
72
Swarthmore College Bulletin /
WINTER 2017
What’s ahead for the CIL?
It has been exciting to think about how
to create a new center that adds value
to Swarthmore and its long history
of doing good in the world. My goal
for the CIL is to continue lifting up
leadership skill sets and opportunities
to enhance the innovation process
for students. Much of this work is
only possible because of the connections I’ve built with different offices,
departments, and groups on campus. I
hope the CIL will continue to grow and
provide another space for students to
gain practical skills they’ll use in and
outside the classroom.
What does leadership mean to you?
Enacting skills and capacities that fit
your personality and applying them
in a way that pushes a project or
movement forward. Leadership isn’t
something we do alone, and it doesn’t
always look the same. I want our
students to understand that all of them
can be leaders—and many already are.
What keeps you motivated?
My students’ optimism and energy,
even when they’re tired or stressed. It
may sound cliché, but we all work here
to make their lives—and, we hope, the
world—better, but I’ve found that they
make my life better by pushing me. My
dream is that the CIL helps students
become the people they’re supposed to
be, so they can enact positive changes
wherever they are. Hopefully, as a community, we’ll all do that, too.
How can alumni help the CIL?
Alumni engagement is one of our
pillars, and I am always excited to hear
about an alum’s interest and expertise. We are often looking for alumni
mentors in personal leadership development, entrepreneurship, and many
other projects.
Workwise, what makes you proud?
Playing the long game. I am happiest
when I hear from a student that something we talked about or a CIL program
has impacted them long-term. Now, in
my third year on campus, I’ve had the
benefit of seeing individual student
growth. I enjoy seeing them recognize
how much work and dedication they’ve
put into not only their academics, but
also their personal development—it’s
what makes my job feel meaningful
and impactful.
LAURENCE KESTERSON
LAURENCE KESTERSON
What don’t we know about you?
I have always had an affinity for the
ocean, and my office shows this in
the smattering of sand dollars on my
bookshelves and the Pacific Coast
abalone shell holding my business
cards. I formerly worked for a program
called Williams-Mystic (of which I
am also an alum), where I learned how
to sail a 130-foot-tall ship, read Moby
Dick on the high seas, and practiced
blacksmithing on an anvil. This kind
of experiential education has deeply
informed my career and my inclination
toward practical and tactile learning.
FAMILY TIES
More than 30 members of Cornelia “Kinnie” Clarke Schmidt ’46’s family are Swarthmoreans, including, from left, aunt Cornelia Stabler Gillam, uncle Norman Stabler, grandmother Ida
Palmer Stabler, aunt Sarah Stabler, and mother Eleanor Stabler Clarke.
by Elizabeth Slocum
How Swarthmore shaped
her family tree—
and her whole life
Deeply Rooted
38
LAURENCE KESTERSON
in this issue
MOMENT IN TIME
Isabelle Andrews ’20, Phineas,
Lelosa Aimufua ’20, and Emma
Morgan-Bennett ’20 go Garnet.
swarthmore.edu/garnetweekend
WINTER 2017
Periodical Postage
PAID
Philadelphia, PA
and Additional
Mailing Offices
FAMILY TREE
p38
p11
SUPER(B)HUMAN
p42
ISSUE
II
500 College Ave.
Swarthmore, PA 19081–1306
www.swarthmore.edu
VOLUME
CXIV
SWARTHMORE COLLEGE BULLETIN
LAURENCE KESTERSON
WINTER 2017
SWARTHMORE’S TAKING A BIG STEP FORWARD
On March 31, find out how: swarthmore.edu
Swarthmore College Alumni Bulletin 2017-01-01
The Swarthmore College Bulletin is the official alumni magazine of the college. It evolved from the Garnet Letter, a newsletter published by the Alumni Association beginning in 1935. After World War II, college staff assumed responsibility for the periodical, and in 1952 it was renamed the Swarthmore College Bulletin. (The renaming apparently had more to do with postal regulations than an editorial decision. Since 1902, the College had been calling all of its mailed periodicals the Swarthmore College Bulletin, with each volume spanning an academic year and typically including a course catalog issue and an annual report issue, with a varying number of other special issues.)
The first editor of the Swarthmore College Bulletin alumni issue was Kathryn “Kay” Bassett ’35. After a few years, Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49 was appointed editor and held the position for 36 years, during which she reshaped the mission of the magazine from focusing narrowly on Swarthmore College to reporting broadly on the college's impact on the world at large. Gillespie currently appears on the masthead as Editor Emerita.
Today, the quarterly Swarthmore College Bulletin is an award-winning alumni magazine sent to all alumni, parents, faculty, staff, friends of the College, and members of the senior class. This searchable collection spans every issue from 1935 to the present.
Swarthmore College
2017-01-01
reformatted digital
The class notes section of The Bulletin has been extracted in this collection to protect the privacy of alumni. To view the complete version of The Bulletin, contact Friends Historical Library.