Nancy Schott Plaisted
7 Ledgewater Drive
Kennebunk, ME 04043
(207) 967-1380
nan53@gwi.net
I hope your class co-presidents, Bill Currie and Al Cole ’69G, will carry on the great class column work by Jack Merry, of Hellertown, PA, who died last year. You two will, won’t you?
It’s August as I write, but by the time you read this, you’ll have celebrated your 65th Reunion weekend in Orono. I hope a good number of you were there and had a great time. There’s nothing like a reunion to get classmates together to talk of the good old times and take some photos. (My sister, 83, has said anyone over 80 should not have their picture taken. I agree, for the most part, when I see some of mine on Facebook, or elsewhere.) Now on to your classmates.
Al and Marnie Pease, of Camden, are both well and retired some 17, or so, years ago. Marnie said: “We 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; their son, Dan, of Camden, is still active with boating, and their daughter, Kathryn, of Camden, who just retired, was a librarian at the Middle School in Rockport. She’s also doing tours of Rockport. (I could have this all wrong; if so, forgive me.)
George Cooper, 92, of Belfast, a business administration major and Air Force veteran, said he had nothing to say, “I like to listen.” (But I got him to talk.) He’s has lived in Belfast his whole life, likes reading, the Red Sox, and the Patriots. He mentioned things in Belfast have changed over the years, “like a lot of art studios.” He’s “doing very little, drove until last year, never worked for a big company,” but did get involved with an automotive dealership and poultry processing. He and his wife, Constance, are the parents of three and grandparents of three (he thought).
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/senior years. Marilyn, who still does dressmaking and alterations, taught upholstery, tailoring, and basic sewing at Adult Ed in South Burlington. She continued her education, earning a master’s in education, and did all the 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 was remarried in 2005 to George Martin, an engineer from Maryland, who developed the first unit that went into space; he died in 2011. She taught in a one-room schoolhouse with K-8 grades in Lovewell, ME, and “It was all her 36 kids,” she said. “It was fun.” She was involved with the first Special Ed class in New England and had to turn students away.”
Marilyn, of Williston, VT, is the mother of four living children, grandmother of 10, and great-grandmother of six (all girls).
Marilyn, said she still drives, but doesn’t go to reunions. Charles, an elementary principal for 24 years in South Burlington, VT, was also in the upholstery business in their home in Charlotte, VT.(He died in 1998.
Fran Smart Trefts, an only child and mother of three 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!). Fran also mentioned her daughter Marcia Trefts Walden of Greenville, a hospice nurse who does home care, and Marcia’s 64th birthday with some 15 people, 30 lobsters, 10 pounds of hamburg… and I’m sure a cake in there somewhere. I must have asked her what she was buying for her 65th Reunion, because in my notes: “I have enough clothes for the rest of my life.”
Gladyce Baker Stais of Ocean View, Falmouth, originally of Orrington, with a major in Spanish, was hoping to go to Reunion. She said she’s done 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. “So much going on,” she said. “Exercise classes, movies, lectures …people are very friendly, very nice,” she said. She laughs, she’s happy in her apartment and new surroundings.
Bill and Harriet Johnson Currie of Mechanicsville, VA, said they won’t be at the 65th, but said Al Cole will preside. (They haven’t been to the last two, he said. A triple bypass was mentioned.) Bill, originally of Braintree, MA, TKE, 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.” Bill said they moved out of a condo to Mechanicsville five years ago, where they have “continued life care, never kick you out, and financial aid if we run out of money.” I say, that’s the place to be! As to a happy marriage: “We both give each other space.” Happy 65th wedding anniversary on December 26!
Al Cole, of Carrabassett Valley, was about to grill dinner under an umbrella when I called. Al 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! Asked about falling: “I don’t think about it. We stay away from the difficult ones, like the Black Diamond.” 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 June to September. (The ’52 Class meets every year in York.)
And this is it for now. Congratulations on celebrating your 65 years from the University of Maine!