University of Mary Washington - Index

University of Mary Washington - summer08 - Index

spend time with my granddaughter.
My daughter, Ashley, was married in
October at a beautiful wine estate in
Sebastopol, Calif. I spent 11 days in
Spain in early January with my brother
and his wife touring coastal cities and
going to Morocco to the Casbah. My
next trip is to Tahoe for a ski weekend
with my family, then on to Puerto Rico
for a wedding, California for a Blue
Angels show, and Hawaii for another
family vacation.
Penny Partridge Booth wrote that
2007 was an incredible summer with
guests streaming in and out from May
through Labor Day. Her daughter, Lisa,
who works for Procter & Gamble in
Kobe, Japan, was in North Carolina for a
few weeks with children Zach and Jonah
and husband Stew, who also works for
P&G. Daughter Trisha, who lives 10
minutes away, is expecting her third
baby in late October. Her husband, Tom,
is an immunologist. Although Penny
officially retired as an administrator
for Baltimore County Public Schools
in 2004, she is a consultant and editor
for an online mathematics course, a
part-time math teacher at a local college,
a bridge teacher, and the author of a
homeowners association newsletter.
Her community of low-country homes
offers a beautiful place to live, fabulous
active neighbors, and a huge lake with
a boardwalk that allows her to walk
a couple miles every day with her
Westie, Duchess. There is a book club,
a Bunco group, and a handicraft group
that learns sewing, painting, and other
home-decorating skills. They also take
three to four trips a year and will be
hitting the Big Apple at Christmastime.
Lee Musgrave wrote that 2007 was
quite a year. Her mother died suddenly
on New Years Day. She was 93 and
in wonderful health until the week
before she died. Lee’s eldest daughter,
Lisa Musgrave ’90, got married last
April in Orlando. Lee had another
successful surgery last July to repair a
macular hole, and recovery was once
again grueling. She was expecting two
new grandbabies, one this past March
and one this past May. Grandson Nate,
daughter Sarah’s son, turned 4 recently.
Joanne Kanick Young wrote that
she was in Berkeley, Calif., finishing
a two-month stay with daughter No.
2, who just had a second baby 13
months after her first. Joanne lives in
a brownstone in Brooklyn Heights,
and her oldest daughter lives in an
upstairs apartment with her husband
and 1-year-old twin boys. Joanne is
surrounded by babies! She worked as
a school librarian for 20 years at two
prestigious girls’ schools in Manhattan,
enjoying it up until the very end. She
has become a passionate and somewhat
crazed gardener. She and her husband,
both retired, also travel. This year, they
planned to spend six weeks in New
Zealand.
Helen “Robin” Faith wrote that
she was a biology major. She taught in
public schools in Northern Virginia and
Louisiana, and in 2004, she retired from
teaching. She moved to Virginia to be
near her daughter and her family, then
she began a new career in educational
therapy. Jean Chattin Thornton
taught high school English and moved
often after college – to New York City,
Chicago, San Francisco, San Jose, and
finally to Akron, Ohio.
Kathy Burke House wrote that
2007 was filled with sadness and joy. She
lost her mother, Elizabeth Burke ’42, an
amazing woman. They were anticipating
the birth of two more grandchildren in
the spring, making a total of six who are
less than 4 years old.
A new freelance-writing
assignment led Felicity Hallanan to
Denver last August for a reunion of
the National Association of the 10th
Mountain Division. She was asked to
be editor of their 20-page “Blizzard”
newsletter. The reunion was a great
opportunity to meet hundreds of World
War II vets.
Elizabeth Massie Cropper retired
from Fulton County Georgia Schools in
2006 – sort of. She works part-time at
the same school and has another parttime
job supervising student teachers
at Kennesaw State University, which is
about 15 miles from her home. Husband
Jim had his first triple bypass heart
surgery on Sept. 11, 2006, from which
he made a remarkable recovery. They’ve
changed their lifestyle, and both of them
exercise between 5 and 6 a.m. every day.
He was diagnosed with prostate cancer
in August 2007, but had successful
robotic surgery in January and is
recovering well. He looks and feels like
he did 20 years ago, and the doctors say
the cancer, which was in a very early
stage, is gone. Elizabeth is finishing two
years as Atlanta’s district chairman of
Alpha Delta Kappa, an International
Sorority for women educators. She and
Jim live on a small farm outside Atlanta.
Last year, Linda Patterson
Hamilton attended her first writers’
conference and is writing feature articles
for the local newspaper, editing her
church newsletter, and contributing
more meditations to a national
devotional magazine. Her husband,
Austin, will retire Aug. 1 after 38 years
in law enforcement, and they plan to
start traveling more. They have four
grandchildren, and their youngest child
graduated from high school last year.
1966
Katharine Rogers Lavery
507 Devonshire Drive, N.E.
Vienna, VA 22180
hlavery1@cox.net
Hank and I continue with family
activities, Pentagon Sailing Club, and
volunteering. I play cornet frequently
at church and tutor math ranging from
fifth-grade to calculus just to keep my
mind alive! It also helps me keep current
with curriculum developments since we
have a grandchild in every grade. Last
summer, we took our annual vacation
in Nags Head, N.C., with 16 grandkids
plus parents, then traveled to a clan
gathering in Brevard, N.C., in July to
celebrate brother and sister-in-law’s 50th
anniversary. Thanks to all of you for
correspondence.
Barbara “Bobbi” Bishop Mann
attended a Mary Washington reception
in Richmond in October with Jana
Privette Usry and found Susan Bogese
Wagner and husband Les there also.
Bobbi continues to travel to Houston
frequently to visit her mother, exercises
by walking in the
mall with friends,
participates in breast
cancer walks, and
stays active in the
Virginia Education
Association. She
frequently lobbies at
the General Assembly
in Richmond for public school funding
and benefits for retired teachers; she
often sees Linda Todd Puller ’67, who
is a state senator from Fairfax. When
she wrote well before press time, Bobbi
planned to attend the UMW Centennial
Convocation Ceremony in March,
join her retired VEA friends at the
NEA Eastern Regional Conference in
Williamsburg in April, and travel with
husband Robert to his conference in
Pittsburgh in May. Bobbi relayed news
from Ginny Sumner Ax that her friend
Judy Blair Dean ’67 had succumbed to
breast cancer in December. Ginny had
taught both of Judy’s sons years ago in
Lorton, Va.
Mary Turner Boyd ’67, a dear
friend and neighbor of Kathy Fowler
Bahnson in Charlotte, N.C., offered
her home as an inn for our UMW
participants in the Susan G. Komen
breast cancer walk in October. Anne
Meade Claggett Wilcox, Marilyn
Wood Hunter, and Bobbi Mann
drove from Virginia; Ginny Batemen
Brinkley flew in from Florida; Ryan
Stewart Davis came from Washington;
Marty Spiegel Sedoff came from
Minnesota; and Judy Blum Wasserman
came from Missouri. It was a magical
reunion for everyone, with Kathy’s
lovely home and gracious Southern
hospitality serving as a backdrop for the
Komen walk. Between laughing, eating,
and pretending they were 20-year-olds
again, all eight ladies renewed their
spirits and Mary Washington bonds of
friendship while supporting a worthy
cause. Ginny and Ryan had plans to
continue their mission by traveling to
Maui in April.
Marty Spiegel Sedoff’s son, John
Riedlinger, had a movie, Vernie, released
in 2004 at the Central Standard Film
Festival; it has been appearing on the
Lifetime Movie Network since and was
recently released to DVD.
Donna Sinclair Seward ’67 and
I often meet while volunteering at
Vienna Elementary School. Although
Donna lives in Annandale, she worked
several years as an instructional aide in
Vienna after retiring from her career as
a corporate art director. She has one son
and one granddaughter.
Joan Cuccias Patton is officially
retired but cannot leave the classroom.
She is a full-time sub in a part-time
position teaching two calculus classes
and one basic algebra class. Joan plans
to accept a contract for the position as
soon as it becomes available. She also
was planning a summer family reunion
trip to Hawaii. She and Caroline
Hogeland Stone of Palmetto Bay, Fla.,
renewed their friendship and look
forward to meeting at our next reunion.
Judy Wells Clark ’66 is executive
director of Opera Roanoke, a
regional company in its 31st year.
Yvonne March, although retired,
works as a contract linguist for the FBI,
substituting for two or three weeks at
a time. She travels to Savannah, Ga., to
visit grandson Anthony, to Maryland
to visit family, and to Vermont. Yvonne
recently moved to Tampa to live with
her significant other, Chris, and is very
happy there.
Nancy Shackelford Jones took
an intensive medieval-study trip to
Germany with fellow docents from
The Cloisters and the New York
Metropolitan Museum of Art. She
continues to give tours to school
children at The Cloisters and gives tours
of downtown highlights to adult visitors
at MMA. As regent of the New York
City chapter of the National Society
Daughters of the American Revolution,
she had a Sunday lunch with French
DAR Regent Christine Malphettes,
Vice President General Libby McKee,
and four other regents from the city.
Daughter Ashley, David, and baby Ella
have settled in Washington, D.C. Middle
daughter Catherine works in sales at the
Jefferson Hotel and lives in Richmond.
Youngest daughter Ali dives on the Yale
swim team and is a June graduate.
After 10 years at Monticello,
Carolyn Perry Grow resigned her
position as docent. She has taken
up photography, having completed
two courses on how to operate her
purse-sized digital camera. She and
Dave completed renovations to their
home near Charlottesville and, last
June, celebrated their 40th anniversary
by traveling to Alaska with Penn State
alumni friends. In August, they made
their annual trip to Chautauqua, N.Y.,
to enjoy life on the lake with family,
friends, cool weather, entertainment,
and education, plus locally grown fresh
produce. They were home in time for
the U.Va. football season.
Judy Wells Clark, executive
director of Opera Roanoke, a regional
company in its 31st year, serves also as
the rehearsal pianist and accompanied a
soprano/tenor recital in March.
Nancy Dean Wolfe lives in
Marysville, Wash., near Seattle, where
she and husband Noel moved in 1973.
Nancy has had a Shaklee products
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