Welcome to the Mount Holyoke College Class of 1968

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As we plan together, co-chairs of our 10 committees expressed these thoughts about our 55th Reunion:  hope, meaningful connections, even greater attendance than our 50th,  reunion is a gift, joy, excitement in working together, reconnecting, fun & welcoming, sunshine! 

• Gayle Gunderson Richardson and Chris Anderson Salmon chair the Program Committee. 
• Linda Graham McElroy and Judy O’Connor Hayes are organizing the Hospitality Team to welcome us; helping so far are Ann Belanger, Laurie Trees Rodgers, and Debbie Dunn Rottenberg. 
• Holly Vincent Bean and Mobby Brown Larson will lead the Class Memorial Service. 
• Meg Boyd Meyer and Cindy White Morrell are our liaisons with the Class of 2018, our 50-year connection class who will be on campus with us in 2023. 
• Arin Edwards and Linda Renasco Cadigan will lead our Reunion Outreach effort to encourage classmates to join us for the 55th.  
• Carol Foy Graham and Donna Machcinski Petersen will see that we are decked out with signs and costumes as co-chairs of the Parade Committee; Jamie Gardner Vernon has volunteered to help.  
• Cornelia “Nonie” Davis and Suzanne Spaeth Marinell are reaching out to class artists and artisans to create an Art Gallery, online and a possible physical exhibit Reunion weekend.  
• Betsey Huebenthal Johnson and Carolyn Dorais will be sending out the Class Survey and compiling the results to see where we’ve been and what we’ve been doing.  
• Joy Camp, Pam Daviau Joseph, and Linda Torlai Stauffer will create our Reunion Book with everyone’s help in submitting their personal pages.   
• Nancie Fimbel will host the Class Reception.  

Other classmates who have volunteered include Susan Clark Iverson, Suzanne Lenz Janney, Stephanie Whalen Cosgrove, and Jan Andrews Owens.  

If you’d like to help on a planning committee or even if you can give a little time on Reunion Weekend, please contact Reunion Co-Chairs Sue Graham Simpson or Nancy Huttemeyer Davis. 

VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES:

• If you or a classmate you know is tech savvy, we are looking for our own tech wizards to provide technology assistance. 
• We’d like to have one or two “class photographers” snap pictures throughout Reunion Weekend to post on our Class Website. 
• The Reunion Book Committee is asking for classmates to assist with mailings and telephone calls, as well as those with experience in publishing and technical expertise/savvy.  
• Maybe you can’t help with planning, but you’d like to help during Reunion. We’d love to hear from you, too, as it will take many more hands to make Reunion run smoothly. 

Stay tuned as we post Reunion News right here! 

As we look ahead to our 55th Reunion, it is especially important for the Alumnae Association to have your current email address as they will be sending reunion registration information and updates exclusively via email. 

To update your information, notify the Alumnae Association directly BY CLICKING HERE. Alternatively, you can email Alumnae Information Services (ais@mtholyoke.edu) or call the Alumnae tech line at 413-538-2735 . 

PerSisters, Hi! 

Your Class Letter is a month later than usual because I wanted to include as much information about our upcoming 55th Reunion as I could, and the meetings about it have just occurred.  The dates are now set: our reunion will be May 26-28, 2023.  Please mark your calendars and plan to attend.  There will no doubt be a new MHC President to meet as well as many friendships to renew and enhance. 

Sue Graham Simpson and Nancy Huttemeyer Davis, our VP’s and Class Reunion Co-Chairs, have been meeting regularly throughout the year, and they are way ahead of the planning guidelines established by the Alumnae Association.  Already Reunion Committee Co-chairs met in February via Zoom to ensure that we will have an enjoyable and memorable reunion on campus.  Thank you to them both! 

Thanks, too, from Sue and Nancy as well as me to all our classmates who have volunteered to help: 

• Gayle Gunderson Richardson and Chris Anderson Salmon will chair the Program Committee. 
• Linda Graham McElroy and Judy O’Connor Hayes are organizing a Hospitality Team to welcome us; helping so far are Ann Belanger, Laurie Trees Rodgers, and Debbie Dunn Rottenberg. 
• Holly Vincent Bean and Mobby Brown Larson will lead the Class Memorial Service. 
• Meg Boyd Meyer and Cindy White Morrell are our liaisons with the Class of 2018, our 50-year connection class who will be on campus with us. • Arin Edwards and Linda Renasco Cadigan will lead our Reunion Outreach effort to encourage classmates to join us for the 55th. 
• Carol Foy Graham and Donna Machcinski Petersen will see that we are decked out with signs and costumes as co-chairs of the Parade Committee; helping so far is Jamie Gardner Vernon. 
• Cornelia “Nonie” Davis and Suzanne Spaeth Marinell are reaching out to class artists and artisans to create an Art Gallery, online and a possible physical exhibit Reunion weekend.   
• Marnie Johnston Clark and Betsey Huebenthal Johnson will be sending out the Class Survey and compiling the results to see where we’ve been and what we’ve been doing. 
• Joy Camp, Pam Daviau Joseph, and Linda Torlai Stauffer will create our Reunion Book with everyone’s help in submitting their personal pages.  
• Nancie Fimbel will chair, preferably co-chair, the Class Reception Committee for our pre-dinner get together.  

Others who have volunteered include Susan Clark Iverson, Suzanne Lenz Janney, Stephanie Whalen Cosgrove, Carolyn Dorais, and Jan Andrews Owens.  There are still plenty of opportunities for others to assist. In particular, we need the following:  

• Someone who is tech savvy.  The campus data base is very powerful, but it’s also a bit tricky.  To use it to full advantage, it would be great to be able to rely on a class tech wizard.  This request is from Sue and Nancy. 
• Classmates to assist with mailings and telephone calls, as well as those with experience in publishing and technical expertise/savvy.  This request is from the Reunion Book Committee. If you have any questions about what is needed, please contact Joy Camp at joymcamp@aol.com or by text or phone at 781-771-3720. Please write “MHC Class of 1968” on the Subject line. 
• A Co-Chair for the Class Reception.  This request is from me. 

If you’d like to help on a planning committee or even if you can give a little time on Reunion Weekend, please contact Sue at agssgs@cox.net and/or Nancy at ndavis2@cox.net.   

Here’s one other request for Reunion and our Class website:  Nonie Davis and Suzanne Spaeth Marinell have created a Class of '68 Creativity Virtual Gallery on our website at www.mhc1968.com.  It’s incomplete. They ask that you send pictures and info about your creative projects--not limited to one, not limited to “fine art”--to be included in our Art Gallery, both virtual and, at Reunion, in person. All creative work that can be photographed is welcome. This includes knitting, sewing, ice sculpture, fine cake decorating, collage, house-building, etc. Send your jpg image to  cambia716davis@yahoo.com and include your name, title of piece, materials used, size and date of creation. Then plan to bring one of your creations to display at Reunion!  There will be limits to what can be displayed, but we’ll find a way to show each other how creative we are.    

Financial Updates 

Our Head Class Agents, Linda Gross and Ellen Petrino—under the guidance of Susan Clark Iverson who mentors us all--are happy to report that during the last fiscal year we continued to be generous, giving $214,362 to the Mount Holyoke Fund and an additional $239,273 to other College funds.  So far this year we are doing well, too, and we are likely to meet our $200,000 goal.  In the March4MHC Campaign this week, 96 classmates donated $56,986!  Our participation rate can always be better, however, so do not think your donation is not needed.  The Mount Holyoke Fund is an important component of the College’s budget, depended upon to help close the gap that tuition and the draw on the endowment alone can’t cover. Thank you to the 172 classmates who participated last year – let’s do it again!  Our agents also salute the eight classmates who have given $460,510 to other College funds so far this year.  

Gayle Gunderson Richardson is our class representative to the Mary Lyon Society, a group of graduates, family, and friends of Mount Holyoke College pledged to help our alma mater continue to educate future generations of inspiring, global leaders.  She asks us to join her and over 60 of our classmates to make MHC a beneficiary in our will or establish a life income gift.  Facts, FAQs, and details are at Mtholyoke.edu.  Type Mary Lyon Society in the search bar, and suggestions, resources, samples, names and phone numbers will pop up. A lovely article about Judy Parker Stone and the endowed scholarship she funds was in a very recent publication from the College.  Judy and the recipient of her scholarship have established a rewarding relationship.  

Class Treasurer Stephanie Whalen Cosgrove thanks everyone who has paid class dues ($50 for 5 years).  She reminds us the list of those who have paid is on our class website at www.mhc1968.com. Class funds will be needed for Reunion expenses, including the Reunion questionnaire and book. They also will help us construct and pay for more virtual or hybrid events during the Reunion.  Some of us will not be able to travel to South Hadley because of distance, health concerns, etc., and we plan to have some of our events available online for these class members. We also are seeking funds to replenish the Reunion Scholarship fund.  This is a fund that helps classmates who might not be able to afford to come to Reunion to travel and pay their Reunion charges, which will be much reduced from past reunions. Class dues and contributions to the scholarship fund are tax deductible. Checks should be made payable to MHC Class of 1968 and mailed to Stephanie Whalen Cosgrove at 56 Spruce Ridge Dr, Brentwood, NH 03833.  Thank you in advance!  

Would You Like a Turn at Class Leadership?  News from the Nominating Committee  

Our Class Officers serve 5-year terms.  Sometime in the next few months you will receive an email asking for recommendations for class officer board positions for 2023-2028.  Do not hesitate to recommend yourself.  This request will also be posted on our class website. To suggest nominees now, contact any one of the members of the Nominating Committee:  Paula Braga Leidich, Chair, hqnjyx@gmail.com; Susan Inui, susaninui@outlook.com; Meg Meyer, meg.boyd.meyer@gmail.com; Cindy White Morrell, cmorrell@mtholyoke.edu; and Susan Rieger, susanrieger@gmail.com.  

For the Good of the Cause 

Many thanks to Stephanie Whalen Cosgrove for sending the birthday postcards to us all in 2021.  Not everyone hit 75 during the year, but the Alumnae Association would allow us to see only birth month and day, not year, so Stephanie sent a card to everyone.  Happy 75th last year or this! 

Cindy White Morrell has volunteered to identify our class granddaughters. She identified and kept contact with our 23 class daughters when she worked on campus for many years.  We know of two granddaughters on campus now, granddaughters of Mobby Brown Larson and Anita Pennak Clarkson.  If your granddaughter is a current student or an alumna, please let Cindy know at cmorrell@mtholyoke.edu.   

If you have suggestions for classmates who deserve recognition by the College, please nominate them for an Alumnae Award at https://alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/events-programs/awards/.  Most of the awards are for service to the College or Alumnae Association but a couple are for outstanding career achievements.  The recommendation goes to the Alumnae Board Committee; its members do the vetting, so you don’t have to turn in much information. The deadline is July 31. 

Finally, we have only one remaining Class Faculty Honorary, John Piper.  The eleven honorary class members we chose before we graduated were some of our favorite professors.  If you have a favorite current MHC professor whom you know from webinars or research interests, please speak up.  We can invite that individual to become an honorary part of our class and reconnect us to the College.  We can ask her or him to update us via Zoom on the campus or the students or current research interests.  Send suggestions to me at fimbeln@gmail.com.    

No Annual Letter can be complete without reminding you to submit news of your activities to Eloise Prescott Killeffer, our Secretary and Class Scribe, for the Quarterly and our Class Website.  Our home page on the website contains a powerful personal reflection on the war in Ukraine from Tatiana Mazenko Androsov.  Contact Eloise at ehpk1@att.net. 

I leave you this year with these words:  If you change your email address, please, please, please let the Alumnae Association know by contacting the Alumnae Information Services at Mount Holyoke College at ais@mtholyoke.edu or call the Alumnae tech line 413-538-2735  Neither the College nor the Alumnae Association now support print mailings from classes, and we want to keep in touch with you.  

Sincerely

Nancie Fimbel. 

President On behalf of all the 1968 Class Officers     

P.S. If you prefer to react to something in this Annual Letter by phone, you can reach me at 650-485-0306.  I live in the Pacific Time Zone. 

My biological father was Ukrainian.  I lived with his last name until my late twenties.  He had met my mother in a refugee camp in Germany right after World War II.  Of Bulgarian origin, she was a refugee who had been taken by the Nazis in the Soviet Union during the war and, luckily, wound up in Dresden as a nanny in a Nazi military doctor’s household, where she was well treated when the doctor was home but badly treated, deprived of the food she was entitled to by the mistress of the house when the husband was in the field. My mother fled when we bombed Dresden and was picked up by an elderly farm lady in Bavaria as she was dying on the roadside.  She was nursed back to life by that lady’s family.

I start that way because I know so much more about my mother than I do about my father and to point out, as my mother would always say, never to judge people according to their origins or group but consider how they behave as individuals.

The two married.  My mother’s wedding dress was made from an American parachute, at that time fabricated from white silk.  I have pictures of that.

The two crossed over into Belgium ten days before I was born in the Reine Astride Hospital in Charleroi.  My father went to look for work and was sent to the Belgian coal mines with words that explained that when he learned French he could look for something else.

My father was an architect, from a family where three generations had been architects.  My mother, when I was an adult, told me how my paternal grandfather, also a refugee in Germany after the war, paraded with his walking stick, a very dignified man.  I know nothing else about him.

While working in the coal pits, my father was also very active in the Ukrainian liberation and anti-Soviet movement.  Its head was Benderenko, the famous ‘umbrella’ assassination case at the beginnings of the Cold War.  I have a picture of my father and friends around the portrait of Taras Shevchenko that my father had made from the bottom ends of bottles.

My father learned French in two years and went to look for a job outside of the mines.  He was told that was all he could hope for.  Though he had wanted to be an artist, he had only been allowed to study architecture by the Soviets, as that is what they needed.  He had designed communal housing which had actually been built. He brought his designs for other projects he had dreamed of but not been allowed to build.  The Belgians had nothing but the coal mine to offer him.

Frustrated, disappointed beyond measure even though he and my mother had applied to emigrate to Canada, he asked my mother to go back to the Soviet Union with him.  She, who as the daughter of a well-to do leading family in a Bulgarian town on the Sea of Azov, had been sent as an enemy of the people to one of Stalin’s first camps in the north of Russia, refused.  He disappeared.  For years I had been told that he had been spirited away by the Soviets, taken on a ship in Antwerp.  It is only after I was middle-aged that this second version came around. I have given up on the facts.

Alone with me, with no one to earn anything, my mother moved in with a refugee family, only to be driven out by the unwelcome advances of the man of that house.  It was then that one Sunday, in an older refugee’s home, I saw a face I liked from the vantage point of the cupboard I was cleaning.  Yes, I was weird, a two and a half year old who liked super clean things.  I looked up at that face and asked, “Will you be my papa?”, then climbed on his knee.

Guess what?  He became my papa.  He was yet another refugee, a mechanical engineer from the Soviet Union, who had been taken prisoner of war by the Nazis, had managed to escape, wind up in our 3rd Army, but become another coal miner in post-war Belgium.  I have a picture of him with two fellow American soldiers.

Papa was from the Caucasus region, the only son of a Ukrainian widow and a Russian widower.  His mother died giving birth to another son when papa was only two and his father died when he was eight, just as the Soviets were taking over the Caucus’ region.  An orphan, he was turned away by both his half-brothers and half-sisters, becoming one of the numerous street children in the first years of the Soviet state.

The Soviets took him, fed and clothed him, and educated him.  He became a mechanical engineer in a sovkhoz, then went to fight against the Nazis.  When after the war, he was to be repatriated he welcomed that.  On his way back to the Soviet Union he ran into a friend by accident, told by him that as someone who had been with the Allies and worked with them, he would be sent to Siberia or executed.  Besides, hadn’t he sworn as a soldier that he would kill himself before letting himself be taken by the enemy, by the Nazis?

Papa changed course.  He proclaimed himself a Pole and managed the interrogation process.  He gave himself a new birthdate – the 25th of November.  The survivor, the street child, was strong.

My mother and papa faced many challenges.  One of them was that they could not get married.  It was one of the things which made it almost impossible at that time for them to come to America.  It was only thanks to a Methodist minister working for refugees wanting to come here that they finally made it in 1956.

My life was colored by that past.  Both never told me about my father.  However, I aways saw a different face from papa’s as I looked up sometimes.  Besides, there were factors that led me to feel that nothing was what it seemed.  For instance, why was I, supposedly of Russian heritage, taken to a Ukrainian camp as a five-year old?  Why was I, an Orthodox, given over to Catholic nuns at that time?  By the way, I loved the camp and one of the nuns was my favorite.  I still remember a very patriotic Ukrainian poem from that time that ends with the equivalent, “..I am a true daughter of the Ukraine.”

Still in Belgium, I managed to open a trunk one day.  There were my father’s designs.  I remember one that remains clear in my head.  A two hundred seventy-degree circular house with a garden in what can be looked at as hole in the open doughnut.  There was also a portrait of me.  My mother and papa never brought that to the US.

In the States both my mother and papa wound up working in factories, my mother often sewing samples for clothes for places like Sachs Fifth Avenue, papa in Bogue Electric, valued because they understood that he was something, even asking him to help their professionals with some little points.

They did what they could, getting away from the mainstream of refugees, settling among Americans, letting me dream and go not only to college but one of the Seven Sisters, the best there was before the Ivy League opened its doors to women.

They only married when I was in college, having declared my father dead. Even I had to testify before the judge at that time. But was he dead? I never really searched nor will I.  Why?  I was angry that he had not considered me and my mother, that he had valued his patriotism towards the Ukraine more than he valued us, that he had not put up with what my mother and papa put up with to try to provide for me.  Remember, I did not even know that he had talked about going back to the Soviet Union in spite of having worked against it.  However, that would have been another reason for me to be angry.

And, now, as an elder, I am facing another horror, an armed conflict between Russia and the Ukraine, another spear being thrown at me.  For me no one is right, and no one is wrong.  For me it is just one more aspect of us, ‘homo sapiens’, being cruel to each other. It is part of what drove me to the United Nations, to work in places like Cambodia, South Africa and Mozambique.  It is what drove me to apply to be the president of the Thanks-Giving Foundation and give it all I had in the eight years I was in that position and still proudly be one of its representatives to what is now known as the Civil Society Unit of the UN’s Department of Global Communications.

As the founder of Thanks-Giving always said, “I give thanks for the gift of life and for the ‘other’”.