1965
Emily Kilby
erkilby44@gmail.com

Kathleen “Kate” L. Blatchford, 74, of Nashua, N.H., died December 17, 2018 at the Newton Wellesley Skilled Nursing Center in Wellesley, Mass. Born in Southbridge, she graduated from Hingham High School then earned a BA in Education from Hood College and a Masters in Special Education from the University of Delaware. Kate taught at Appoquinimink High School in Delaware, retiring in 2002 to return to her New England roots where she enjoyed crafts and writing. Kate is survived by a son and daughter, four grandchildren and two brothers. Marilyn “Lynn” Farnell “got real tired of ‘communal’ living” at the Boston-area condo where she’d been for some years. So back to a suburban rancher in Natick, Mass. followed by months of upgrading of the 1950s structure. “Money and time seem to fly out the window with some regularity!” Lynn wrote. She’s given up her longtime property management work at a Boston apartment building but continues researching esoteric subjects at the JFK Library for distant writers/researchers as well as being deeply involved in church work. Last year Lynne and her sister’s family retraced their father’s WW II movements through France and Germany, including his landing site at Normandy. She and Deb Bentley Hall and her husband Eric, of Quincy, Mass., took a driving tour through England’s Poldark country in 2018, laughing all the way. Deb still goes to the gym every morning and has boundless energy, Lynne reported, very useful for keeping up with nine grandchildren. Judy Lang Spooner, another of the Hood Four who moved to Cambridge after graduation, lives in Wellesley Hills, Mass. Her daughter Amy Spooner, M.D. is one of the top cardiologists at Mass General and “a wonderful young woman.” After a 23-year-career as a teacher, Sue Hertzler Geery regretfully retired from the classroom three years ago. Since then she has been a rolling stone of sorts, leaving her Darien, Conn. home for frequent adventures, including four amazing trips to Africa, with her lifelong best friend and visits to her scattered family—one son in Taos, N.M., another in New York City and a daughter and grandson in Hudsonville, Mich. This past July 7 she and classmate Diana Regen Carter attended The Rolling Stones concert in Foxborough, Mass, ticking one more item off her bucket list. A painful knee had restricted Bev Jones Gibson‘s work as a Maryland realtor and her golf game, but with successful replacement surgery earlier this year, she is getting back in business. Contact her at newhomes.bg@gmail.com if you’re searching for property in Prince Georges or Anne Arundel County. Bev missed our 50th reunion because her daughter was injured in a serious auto accident at that time. Now with her daughter recovered and her own knee no longer paining her, Bev looks forward to our next reunion. “My new life in Columbia, S.C., is surprisingly full in many ways,” wrote Carolyn Oldman Gregory, who moved there from Albuquerque several years ago to live with her sister. “I am working with a small group, People for Reconciliation, that organizes events exploring and promoting anti-racism—a feisty group of Old South Carolinians for certain.” Carolyn also delights in the local symphony, ballet, theater and underground music, poetry and writing that thrive in the city. She teaches the occasional Meditation and Energy Dynamics class and plays with a wonderfully inclusive spiritual group called Jubilee Circle. Unfortunately, Carolyn participates in these rewarding activities while enduring the consequences of an old injury that make walking extremely painful. So far she has resisted surgery. Her son relocated from Australia to the Philippines where a charming grandson was born about a year ago. In July, Marci Williams Ross reported that she and husband Chuck were “recuperating” in Chautauqua, N.Y., their summer home. The “ailment” had been a two-week family reunion and extended Father’s Day surprise for Chuck in their hometown of Jacksonville, Fla., and on Amelia Island just up the Atlantic coast. Their three sons’ families, including six grandchildren, live in California, South Carolina and Jacksonville. Thanks to our 50th communications, Marci reconnected with her two Hood roommates, Zoe Clapp Marino ’64 and Bev Jones Gibson, discovering that Zoe also lives in Jacksonville. More recently she’s provided expert commiseration to Bev during her knee surgery. Marci couldn’t attend the reunion because her first knee replacement had failed, but the second had a “great” outcome, and now her other knee will be getting a makeover in August. Surgeries aside, “Life has been good to the Rosses,” she wrote.