Barbara Maly Fish
919-688-9125
Barb2fish@yahoo.com

Two recent phone calls brought sad news. Ann McMillan Shuman reported that her husband Joe died on March 4. Several weeks later, Judi Coombs Creighton called to report that our classmate, Sue Sterner, died on May 13 of congestive heart failure. We send the sympathy of the class to them, as well as to Jane McLees West, P’88 whose daughter-in-law Jennifer Hustead died last November of bone cancer. Jane is very proud of her son, who is doing a wonderful job of taking care of his three teenagers after his wife’s death. Family graduations fill Jane’s and husband Roger’s schedule these days, one from Bowdoin College and three from high school.  2016 was a hard year for Betsy Beachley Winger, who had several surgeries over a 12-month period. This put a damper on her favorite hobby, competitive ballroom dancing. Betsy’s husband died in December 2013, but she continues to dance with her instructor. Molly Moore Romero is still in Omaha, deeply rooted in her neighborhood where she works at a restaurant that she founded with her business partner in 2003. She also teaches yoga, but no longer works at her art and photography. She very much enjoys her two granddaughters, 12 and 20, and wonders at how different their world is compared to what we experienced at that age. Peter and Carolyn McCurdy Wilson have moved right down the street from the yacht club where they grew up. They still sail and fly-fish, albeit at a slower pace. Four young grandchildren help keep them on their toes. Beth Myers enjoys her retirement from teaching kindergarten and lives in the Westminster MD house where she grew up. She moved there after her parents died in 1978. She conducts two Bible studies a week and her black pug provides exercise. For 28 years, she has had a 29-game plan with the Baltimore Orioles and also follows the New England Patriots. Maine is her preferred vacation destination. Anne Burgess Huffer began teaching when we graduated from Hood and taught for 38 years, 23 in Maryland, 12 in Florida, and 3 in Bahrain. She still does some volunteer tutoring and part-time teaching at Hagerstown Community College and Shepherd University. She and husband Jay spend winters in Florida, where they have made many friends over the years. While they lived in Bahrain, they traveled abroad and now are focused on seeing all of the U.S., with only 9 states left. Debby Parker Hamilton’s husband Tim was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last August. He has completed seven months of chemo and several weeks of radiation; keeping those appointments fills their calendars these days. They have received good support from their Episcopal church and from their daughters. Debby and Tim hope to visit their summer place in upstate New York this summer. Peter and Ruth Fredericks Frey have recently purchased a home in Cambria, CA, where they have spent the past five winters away from the harsh weather of their Colorado home. They plan to live in Cambria 8 months a year, then spend the 4 summer months in Colorado in a home they’ll rent. Claire Fulenwider and her wife Harriet moved recently into a new old house in Santa Fe, closer to downtown. They have enough space to keep their RV on site. Their daughter Nina, grandson Nelson, son Nathan, and daughter-in-law Pam all helped Claire celebrate her 75^th in April. Claire and Harriet will spend the summer at their Wisconsin cabin, grateful for good health, travels, and each other. They are both determined to resist and persist following the lessons that Virginia Lewis taught all of us. Ellen Roberts Glaccum has been in a reflective mood lately, thinking back to events in the early 60s. She and Cathy Kuralt Harris traveled to Washington on a frigid January 20, 1961 to see John Kennedy inaugurated. They climbed a tree to see the proceedings, little knowing that three years later they would be back on Capitol Hill to see the Presidential casket lying in state in the Rotunda. Ellen has also been thinking about her favorite Hood professor and wishing that Virginia Lewis were still alive to help her make sense of the current political situation.