Gail Rae Carter
12 Drowne Road, Apt. 109
Cumberland Center, ME 04021-2645
abigailraecarter@gmail.com
facebook.com/groups/UMaineClass1960/
As I begin again to write our class news it is the first day of spring; when you receive this, the winter of COVID and global discontent will be over.
Out in Portland, OR, Donna Fritz Brunstad and husband, Bill Sweeney, hope to return to a more normal lifestyle and visit Maine in the fall, hopefully to our make- up Reunion of 2020 when all went “Zoom.” She said, “New Englanders learn rules very quickly, and by March 2020, the world realized that COVID-19 was going to change everything!
Rick Lloyd sends missives from Hawaii and while we had “SNOVID-21, he was in sun-drenched Honolulu in shorts, bare feet, and a breeze flowing in with his door wide open. Rick is president of the Aloha Region of the Antique Automobile Club of America. He produces and distributes the club’s newsletter and is on his eighth issue.
Bonny Brown and Bob are still living at their home in Scarborough and visit their Steuben cottage in summers. Bonny, a third-grade teacher, has former students sending her emails to tell her what they are doing and asking how she is. There have been a lot of Bridge games, puzzles, and conversations with grandchildren. In Wilton, Mark Shibles commented on how student campus life has changed.
We carried our books without backpacks and the Bear’s Den is now more comprehensive, with a greater selection and even bagels. The Shibles’ cats Boston Blackie and Annie are great company.
Speaking of campus culture, approximately 16 percent of the student undergraduates belong to sororities and fraternities. The Maine Campus is published weekly but the last Prism was in 1997. All the Prisms are now online. There are 18 fraternities and eight sororities — Homecoming, Winter Carnival, and concerts with big names put on by student entertainment will come back after COVID.
Art Parlin ’61 has moved to new quarters in Johnston, RI, just an hour away from wife, Debbie Arnold Parlin, who is in St. Patrick’s Manor in Framingham, MA, where she is so popular, she has a single room usually reserved for a priest. Care givers call Debbie their “angel,” as she is still sparkling plenty.
My helper for the last five years deserves a pile of thanks. Kay Sawyer Hannah, our Calico Queen, also exhibits art at the Pemaquid Art Gallery, which opens
Memorial Day weekend. The town of Bristol was established in 1765 and as a board member of the historical society founded in 2003, she does their newsletter. The Society is restoring an old Pemaquid region mill for their new headquarters.
As for Fred and Diane Tatlock Pierce, they wintered in Las Vegas, as they got stuck in Maui, trying to get back last year. Fred lost his sister Elizabeth Pierce Cross ’55 last June. She was 87, and a former All Maine Woman. He renewed his President Club’s contribution to the fund this year in honor of his sister Elizabeth Pierce Cross ’55, and brother-in-law, Ray H Cross ’55, ‘57G to the electronics lab in the new Ferland Education and Design Center. Fred and his son, Frederick W. Pierce IV, will continue this annual contribution. “Lizzie” passed in an assisted living facility with no family or friends absent. For others of you who have lost family and loved ones, just remember as you bleed blue grief is love with nowhere to go. New angels are being born.
Ralph ’61 and Susan Pillsbury plan to visit Maine this summer. Their son found them a place to rent near him in Madison, as they sold their home on Damariscotta Lake.
Sandra Crowe Wooding lives in Old Chatham, NY. Over the years she has owned many horses, and showed them each year in dressage. For two years she was president of a large garden club. Sandy taught eighth grade and also managed her husband’s veterinary business. When her father, Dr. James Hartley
Crowe, Class of 1932, passed, a scholarship was created in his name for students in pre-med and nursing. Sandy also contributes regularly to it. She highly recommends one of the best books she has ever read, The Island in the Center of the World, by Russell Shorto.
Judy Holmes Tarazewich resides in Waterboro, where she and her husband moved in 1980, after being in education in Greenville for 17 years. She then worked in elementary education for SAD 57 for 20 more years, and later became a substitute teacher. She was widowed in 2006. As the cheering squad we were not considered athletes, though an M Club member she knows presented her with a special plaque for her work as a former cheerleader; she cheered for two years as a student on the Orono campus.
Norman Stevenson and wife, Sandy, live in Florida. Fresh out of college Norman moved to Philadelphia as an electrical engineer and in the early ‘90s formed his own company (confirm). He also lived in Mexico City for a year and later moved to Hong Kong, returning in the late ’60s after he sold his company to Scott Paper/Kimberly Clark. Along the way he built the house of his dreams and has done community service. In Florida he has helped his Lutheran Church and as area director in Vero Beach of United Against Poverty a 501(c )(3), multi- million dollar operation that has several campuses in Indian River County.
Mechanical engineer Donald Lewis, also a Skull, retired at 80. In the ‘90s he started Nyle Systems, and when he sold it stayed with the company for three years. He and his wife, Claudia, have a son Don III. He is very proud of being a leader in building the Ellen M. Leach Memorial Home in Brewer. Ellen left a trust fund to build an old folks home, and Don found a several million-dollar donor. It is a five-star, state-of-the-art independent living structure, the epitome of elegance nestled in a grove of pines. There are both market rate and low-income apartments, and the trustees work with the Brewer Housing Authority.
Eliot Rich lives in the college town of Potsdam, NY. He and his wife, Judy, from Brooklyn, NY, have a lovely house on the river. They will have been married 56 years in June. Having lived in Potsdam for 50 years. Eliot became a professor after earning his master’s from BU and writing a doctorate dissertation at Clarkson University, teaching Shakespeare. After he retired, he went to New York to learn how to make bagels. The new bagel baker introduced them to the community. When he sold the bagelry he taught again, and became the most popular substitute teacher, driving to the schools in an old ’88 Lincoln.
Three years ago, Dick Sturgeon ’66G and Barbara York Sturgeon sold their home in Portland and secured a cottage at Dirigo Pines. They are on the edge of Orono Land Trust property and love their new digs. In the summer they retreat to Steuben in the Acadia region. Dick and Barbara hike and bike in both places and enjoy concerts at the Collins Center for the Arts. Also, they exercise at the New Balance Center on campus. Dick recently had breakfast with Guy Whitten ’63, who owns the Black Bear Inn. Their two daughters are in Texas and Massachusetts.
Dick mentioned that Pat’s Pizza had closed for COVID but is now open. The clam chowder on Fridays is always a sellout. I miss running into them at Trader Joe’s in Portland, but they frequent it when in the area.
Classmate Al Betters is looking for a senior year Prism. If you have one you would like to donate contact Ashley Nemer Twombly ’10, ‘12G, ’60H, associate director for alumni relations. Ashley, who organizes our reunions, has a baby girl named Olivia, who was born in September 2020.
Both Kay and Nancy are working to secure a pre-Reunion gathering in Boothbay Harbor before we do our COVID makeup for the 60th Reunion.