Class of ’52 Fall 2017 Class Notes

Nancy Schott Plaisted

7 Ledgewater Drive

Kennebunk, ME 04043

(207) 967-1380

nan53@gwi.net

 

Your class co-presidents, Bill Currie and Al Cole ’69G, are going o carry on the great class column work by Jack Merry, of Hellertown, PA, who died last year. Send them your news.

By the time you read this, you’ll have celebrated your 65th Reunion weekend in Orono. I hope everyone had a great time. There’s nothing like a reunion to get classmates together to talk of the good old times.

Al and Marnie Pease, of Camden, “walk a lot, are near the water, and are happy here. We’re also lucky with our health.” She said they keep in touch with Fran Smart Trefts, Bill Currie, Bill Lindquist, and Nancy Knowles Moore. Both of their children are UMaine grads and live nearby.

George Cooper, 92, of Belfast, a business administration major and Air Force veteran, likes reading, the Red Sox, and the Patriots. He was previously involved with an automotive dealership and poultry processing. He and his wife, Constance, are the parents of three and grandparents of three.

Marilyn Johnson Dunn Martin majored in education and home economics. She lived at the Elms and married Charles Dunn, an Alpha Gamma Rho guy, between her junior and senior years. Marilyn, who still does dressmaking and alterations, taught upholstery, tailoring, and basic sewing at Adult Ed in South Burlington, VT. She also earned a master’s in education and completed doctorate work through the University of Vermont, but never got her degree because she would have had to go to UCONN.

Charles died in 1998, and she married George Martin, an engineer from Maryland, in 2005; he died in 2011. Marilyn is the mother of four living children, grandmother of 10, and great-grandmother of six (all girls),

Fran Smart Trefts, of Hancock, mentioned the 65th Reunion in September and the names of Ruth Drysdale Frazier of Reno, Adelaide “Gumpie” Grant Ruby of Warwick, PA; and Jeanne Frye Bagley, a former legislator, of Waldoboro, came up. Those four planned to stay at the Black Bear Inn during Reunion. (Hope you didn’t cause any trouble!).

Gladyce Baker Stais of Ocean View, Falmouth, originally of Orrington, with a major in Spanish, was hoping to go to Reunion. She did a lot of teaching and traveling, having gone to seven continents. She met her husband, Jim, when they both were teaching at Marshall University in Huntington, WV. Then came New York, where Jim taught at NYU. (Jim died in 1983.) Mother of three sons and grandmother of five granddaughters, Gladyce keeps in touch with Beth Leighton Furlong of York, and Joan Vachon Victor of Saco, and had lunch with Bill Whited.

Bill and Harriet Johnson Currie of Mechanicsville, VA, won’t be at the 65th, but said Al Cole would preside. Bill, originally of Braintree, MA, an economics and labor relations major, mentioned summers in Old Orchard Beach, and how he met Harriet their senior year. He said Woody Beach ’51 would play the bagpipes at the memorial service. “We consider him a member of our class.” Happy 65th wedding anniversary on December 26!

Al Cole, of Carrabassett Valley, and his wife, Alice, have been married 64 years this past June. “We haven’t changed very much,” he said. “We’re still very much in love.” And they still ski! He mentioned that he saw Bill in May and that Alice and Harriet were classmates at Westbrook Jr. College. They also summer in Old Orchard Beach from June to September.

And this is it for now. Congratulations on celebrating your 65 years since graduation from the University of Maine!