Karen Larsen Nelson
2550 S. Ellsworth Road #399
Mesa, AZ 85209
karenlarsen_nelson60@alumni.umw.edu
Joanne Campbell Close
7062 Villa Estelle Drive
Orlando, FL 32819
Hi classmates. It’s time for our next round of news. More of us are surfacing – and with enthusiasm!
Elizabeth Hill Heaney is accustomed to moving and reported that she is about to move to her third and “final” location: Charlotte, N.C. Liz’s husband, Robert, was in international banking, a career that took them to South Africa, Canada, New Jersey and Delaware over the years. Liz reported that the years spent in South Africa were enchanting and that the years in Canada were too short. They have three children and eight grandchildren who range in age from 9 to 15. Their new home will put them within a day’s drive of all their relatives. They continue to be big football fans.
Mamie Sue Howlett Scott, who lives in Murfreesboro, Tenn., and Rhoda Moyer Ruffner both wrote that they are involved in caring for an elderly parent. Mamie said that she is in touch occasionally with Corinne Allison, Glenn Geddings and Joyce Panciera Pippo. We would love to receive news updates from the three of them.
Rhoda and her husband were planning an adventure in Ecuador and the Galapagos last fall. Rhoda received a surprise phone call from Nancy Cleaves Blades, who was heading to Oregon to visit her old roomie, Sherry Farrington Green.
Dana Lee Walker did not graduate with us. She was married to her husband for 34 years before his death in 1993. Her daughter graduated from Mary Washington in 1984. Sandy Holt Kellerman also left Mary Washington early to get married. She received her undergraduate degree in 1976 from the University of Texas, El Paso. After living in Colorado Springs for 35 years, she and her husband recently retired to Hot Springs Village, Ark. She, too, is a parent’s caretaker, commuting back and forth to El Paso.
Carole Faison Williams Rasmussen retired from Spring House Corp., an international publishing company, in 2000. After the 1989 death of her first husband, Wayne Self Williams, a Marine she met when both were in Jody Close’s wedding party, Carole married Royce Rasmussen in 1993. They live in Lansdale, Pa. Carole has two daughters and a son. One daughter, like her mother, is in publishing, developing books for the educational market. She is the mother of three children. Carole’s younger daughter, who has two children, earned her Ph.D. at Yale, then taught at Villanova and Penn. Carole’s son is CEO of his own systems design business.
Sallie Duehring has lived in Centerville, Va., ever since she started work at the U.Va. medical school and the hospital labs. She took early retirement in 1991 and has spent a long time “undoing” her parents’ home in Maryland.
Sherry Farrington Green’s life could take up a whole newsletter: married, four children, eight grandchildren, a master’s degree in special education, a Ph.D. from Columbia, widow, relocation to London, a second master’s degree and a project in Paris before returning to the States, where she drove the Oregon Trail and settled in Portland, Ore. But there’s more: Sherry also has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, made it to base camp on Mount Everest, and is a competitive saber fencer. Finally, in December 2004, she survived the tsunami in Indonesia by clinging to a tree. Whew!
Betty Call Snead Dorset relayed news of her recent move to Orlando from Richmond. Right after our graduation, Betty married her high school sweetheart, David. He then went to Yale and to U.Va. law school. They returned to Richmond, where David joined a law firm and Betty taught reading at Collegiate School. The Christian Children’s Fund heard of her exciting and innovative teaching methods, and she was invited to lecture around the world on how to teach reading to Christian children. Betty and David had two children; their son passed away in 1995, and their daughter became a physician and married a physician.
Betty has stayed in close touch with Grace Marie Fisher through the years.
Margie Saunders Howell studied nursing at U.Va., then she taught psychiatric nursing at U.Va., the American University of Beirut (when her husband served with the Foreign Service as a diplomat in Lebanon) and at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. In addition, Margie has practiced psychiatric nursing at a community mental health center. She and her husband had many tours of duty in the Middle East during very turbulent times. They “retired” to Charlottesville in 1992, where her husband, Nat, is a research professor. Margie is active in her church and serves as co-class agent with Elaine Smith Venn for her U.Va. school of nursing class.
Gretchen Squires Best sent a note from Cary, N.C., where she has lived for more than 20 years. She met her husband, Graham, during her junior year at Mary Washington, when he was a Colgate student and arrived on campus with buddies to visit her roommate, Nancy Seward Howard. Married soon after graduation, Gretchen and Graham have just celebrated their 45th anniversary. They have four children who are all married to great spouses and have provided them with 11 awesome grandchildren. Graham is an avid golfer, and Gretchen continues to enjoy watercolor painting. They have spent the last few years involved in building a new Presbyterian church in their growing community.
Anne Angel McMarlin and her husband, Robert, live in Murrysville, Pa. She has retired from teaching, but still tutors children in elementary school. She co-chairs the Connections program that brings “senior” volunteers into schools. She sews, plays tennis, gardens, “plays at bridge,” travels with her husband, and takes yoga and exercise classes. She has a son, a daughter, and four grandchildren.
Miriam Goebel Rappolt has lived mostly in Hawaii, but she and her husband, Kenneth, exchange houses annually with families in France. She has two daughters from her first marriage and by now should have her first grandchild. Miriam earned a master’s degree in French literature in 2002, has taught journalism and creative writing, and published a couple of books. She is currently free-lancing as an editor of art books. She is contemplating pursuing another advanced degree in creative writing at the University of Hawaii.
Grace Marie Fisher, a native Floridian, married soon after graduation, lived in Paris for awhile, then returned to Cleveland, Ohio, where she had two children. Divorced some years ago, Grace Marie married Joseph Champ and resides in Cleveland and West Palm Beach, Fla. Now retired, Grace Marie and Joe are busy with their many interests and social engagements.
Anne Morton Rawls’ degree was in conjunction with the Medical College of Virginia. She worked in clinical pathology and surgical research, as well as a lab supervisor. She became a full-time mom when her children arrived, but she volunteered in various hospitals and served on many boards. For the last 11 years, she has been “riding ambulances” as a paramedic and says she will stay until her aching bones tell her otherwise. She still plays bridge, teaches her grandchildren tennis, reads and paints. Anne and her husband, John, enjoy travel and have been to Russia, the Baltic countries, eastern Europe, Scotland and Ireland. Greece and the Pyramids are on the horizon. They also have traveled extensively in the United States.
Bayla Goldberg Manis has lived in Memphis all her married life. She and her husband, Arnold, had two daughters. Jennifer died at 19 of a muscular disease and required Bayla’s full-time care during her lifetime. Their other daughter, Terri, has provided two beautiful granddaughters, Jodie and Brittany. Bayla exercises nearly every day and does some volunteer work, although that has slacked off since her husband retired about a year ago.
Sydney Colson Chichester wrote that she has just about finished feathering her new nest just outside Fredericksburg. She is considering renting a second home in Vero Beach, Fla., to be near her daughter, who has received a second undergraduate degree and taken a new job there. Syd, who taught for 30 years, has been a volunteer for Lab Rescue, which takes in stray Labrador retrievers, evaluates them, takes care of them and finds new homes for them. At the moment, Syd has only two Labs of her own. In addition to her work with dogs, she has sponsored boys’ athletic teams, established a student scholarship and tutored at-risk students. Last spring, Syd was honored by Virginia Gov. Mark Warner for her volunteer efforts.
Pat Garvin Dyke has also been a parent caregiver. After 30 years in Midlothian, Va., she and her husband moved to the Atlanta area last May, where both of their children live. They have no grandchildren, but two grand dogs and a grand kitty that are always happy to see them.
As for me, we drove last summer from Colorado to Chicago, Ill., and Las Vegas, Nev., for consecutive high school graduations of our oldest grandchildren. We took our grandson, the Chicago graduate, with us to Las Vegas for his twin sister’s graduation. Then we settled into our summer home, our trailer, in a beautiful RV park outside Durango, Colo., for our sixth summer. In September, we learned that the park had been sold and would no longer have seasonal rates, so we decided to buy a site in an RV park in Show Low, Ariz., only three hours from our home in Mesa. Our e-mail won’t change, and our Mesa snail-mail address above will get to me. This June, we will be taking grandchild No. 6 on her “only-child” RV trip through the national parks of the West, a tradition we have extended to each of our grandchildren. We still enjoy round dancing and spending time with our round dancer friends and our foursquare church family.
Joanne “Jody” Campbell Close wrote that she did indeed graduate, but her Mary Washington diploma reads 1966. She said, “Who knew that when, during freshman year, we moaned it would take 10 years to get out of there, it really did for me?” Jody said she clings to her original class, no matter what, and claims the class of ’60 to any who ask. After working for two years at Mary Washington as an admission counselor under the late Ray Merchent, Jody earned her master’s degree from Miami University (Ohio) and worked for the Army in Korea as an education counselor and as a counselor for women on marital, education and work issues. After returning to the States, Jody transferred to the Army Corps of Engineers as an EEO Officer. There she counseled and advised staff and employees, and she processed complaints and investigations. After divorcing in 1983, Jody lived and worked in Germany for five years, during which time she traveled throughout Europe, Greece, Turkey and Egypt. Her oldest son is a colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps and her youngest son is a lieutenant colonel in the Marines. Her daughter lives in Seattle. Jody has a grand total of eight grandchildren. She feels blessed with her good fortune, and she said that things are even better now that she is back in touch with all of you.