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Remembering classmates who have passed on
Our 50th reunion Record Book contains many warm, personal memories of departed classmates. Because we couldn't be together in 2020 to remember them in person, we're re-publishing these memories here. If you would like to add to these memories, please send your remembrances to the webmaster.
HICKS, Donna Martin succumbed to lung cancer on September 20, 2021 at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, CA. She and her husband, Gill, were married for 44 years.
HUNGERFORD, Constance Cain originally from Evanston IL, suffered a fatal stroke on May 12, 2021. After studying art history at Wellesley, Constance earned master's and doctoral degrees from UC Berkeley. In 1975 she joined Swarthmore College as an instructor in 19th and 20th-century art. She became acting department chair just two years later, and subsequently took on leadership roles as chair of the Art Department and the Humanities Division, College Marshal, and Acting College President. She received grants and awards from several prestigious groups, including the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Constance leaves her husband, Hans Oberdiek, Swarthmore professor emeritus in philosophy, and five stepchildren, four siblings, and 13 step-grandchildren.
Read her obituary in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
EDELMAN, Ivy Dreizen of Madison, WI, succumbed to metastatic breast cancer on March 29, 2021. After Wellesley, Ivy and her husband Fred Edelman attended med school in Philadelphia and residency in Chicago. Ivy specialized in neurology and, with Fred, joined the Madison Neurological Center and the University of Wisconsin. Ivy became the first woman Clinical Professor in Neurology, and in 2021 was awarded Recognition of Exemplary Care and Service for her leadership at UPH-Metier hospital.
Ivy's interests ranged widely, from attending theater and the Madison Symphony, supporting art museums, leading book clubs, hiking in Europe and North America, and activism in politics. Her son Joshua is a senior lecturer of drama in Manchester, England, and her daughter Deborah is a psychiatrist in Brooklyn, NY.
Go here for more information on Ivy's life.
ERICSON, Andrea M of Kennebunk, ME, passed away suddenly on October 28 2020. After receiving her degree in geology from Wellesley, Andrea spent most of her working career at Polaroid in Massachusetts. After retiring there as senior materials manager, she and her husband, John Berkeley, moved to Maine. She volunteered at the New Harbor-Chamberlain Water Association and the Bristol Area Library, as well as the New Harbor Food Pantry.
Andrea was well known for her energy and generosity. She loved bicycling, running (winning the women's 30-39 division of the Dartmouth Medial School Marathon), cross-country skiing, gardening, knitting, quilting, and other forms of handcrafting. She is survived by her husband and his children as well as her sister, Leslie Ericson.
See her obituary here.
RUDDY, Kathy Kolkhorst of Juneau, AK, succumbed to complications of leukemia on September 10, 2020. Kathy, a native of New York, lived in Kodiak for a few years before she got her law degree from the University of Connecticut, and returned to Alaska as a clerk with Alaska Supreme Court justice Robert Boochever in Juneau. She developed a deep love for Alaska history and Native culture and language; and was adopted into the Deisheetaan Clan of Angoon due to her many projects supporting the people and arts of the community. She founded and chaired the Juneau Jazz and Classics for 30 years as well as the project to bring a life-size breaching whale sculpture “Tahku” to a local park. The Board of Trustees of the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council renamed the Mayor’s Awards for the Arts to the Kathy Kolkhorst Ruddy Awards of the Arts.
Kathy and her husband, Bill, raised four children (now residing in Jakarta, Indonesia; Aberdeen, Scotland; Lusaka, Zambia; and Missoula, Montana) and hosted many foreign exchange students, mostly from Russia.
Read her full obituary in the Missoulian.
BERGMAN, Linda Chun of Eden Prairie, MN, was taken by pancreatic cancer on July 29, 2020. Linda was an educator and an administrator at the University of Minnesota. She had two children, Kelly and Stephen, and four grandchildren. See her obituary here.
BEEM, Terry Cunningham of Evanston, IL succumbed to cancer on March 23, 2020. After graduation, Terry earned a M.Ed. degree in Child Development from Erikson Institute in Chicago. Her love of family and children spilled over not only to her two sons, Christopher and Nicholas, and her three grandchildren, but also to her work as director of Family Network, a not-for-profit family program offering support for parenting choices.
Terry continued the love of politics, history, educationm literature, music, film, and birds that she demonstrated while at Wellesley; and developed additional interests in psychoanalysis, yoga (several times per week), singing (with the Sing to Live Community Chorus), hiking, and snorkeling. She survived breast cancer, divorce, and the premature deaths of her parents--and became a stronger person through it.
RIGGINS, Susan Schneider of St. Pete Beach, FL and Lake Placid NY passed away on June 22, 2019, after a long battle with cancer. Susan followed her Wellesley degree with an MBA from Harvard Business School and nearly a decade in banking in Philadelphia. From there, she joined the Olympic Regional Development Authority in Lake Placid as VP of Finance and, later, Bay Plaza Companies in St. Petersburg, FL as a part of the visionary redevelopment team.
Outside of work, Susan applied her professional skills to the community in both St. Petersburg and Lake Placid, where she spent most summers. She was treasurer of the Junior League, a VITA volunteer tax preparer for the IRS, President and Treasurer of the Lake Placid Shoreowners' Association; and she provided leadership for the Suncoast Girl Scouts, USF Town & Gown, The Lake Placid Conservancy and Lake Placid Institute, and several regional women's golf associations.
Susan and her late husband, Richard, are survived by a daughter, Antonia Ness, and two grandchildren. As reported by the Tampa Bay Times. See her obituary here.
KARANEK, Ellen Armstrong of Princeton, NJ passed away on November 22, 2018 of complications of Chacot-Marie-Toth disease and pneumonia. Ellen was a member of the Baker Group, managing the design and analysis of constituent surveys since the firm’s founding in 1999. With an undergraduate degree from Wellesley College and a MS and PhD from the University of Michigan, Ellen’s worked as the Registrar and Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies at Rider University, as a Research Analyst at the Rutgers University Office of Educational Policy Studies, and as Vice President of Applied Education Research in Princeton, NJ.
On a personal level, Ellen was an avid baker, providing more than a thousand dozen cookies each Christmas, and devotee of music, including singing professionally and working tirelessly for the American Boychoir School in Princeton. Ellen is survived by her husband, Mike, her sons Derek, Graham, and William, and her father, Rev. Dr. Richard Armstrong.
MacBETH, JoAnn Engelke of Washington, D.C. passed away at home on August 5, 2018. JoAnn graduated from Columbia Law School in 1975, and applied her legal skills on Capitol Hill on the Equal Rights Amendment and as a partner at the law firms Onek, Klein, & Farr, and Crowell & Moring in Washington, D.C., where she represented organizations of mental health professionals and the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C. and the surrounding area. She worked as Corporate Secretary at National Cathedral Association.
She is survived by her children, Hampden Theodore Macbeth and Cullen Oakes Macbeth and her sister, Susan Shepard. Her husband of 42 years, Angus Macbeth, predeceased her in 2017. As reported by Joseph Gawlerr's Sons, Funeral Directors, 8/6/2018. View her obituary here.
BOISE, Linda of Portland, Oregon died unexpectedly on July 2, 2018 while on a road and camping trip with her husband, Steven, to Colorado to visit their son. Linda grew up in New Jersey, attended Wellesley College in Massachusetts, and received a Masters in Public Health from the University of North Carolina. After moving to Oregon and having two children, she received her PhD at Portland State University in Urban Studies, with a focus on health policy research.
Before retiring in July 2016, Linda was the education core leader at the Layton Aging & Alzheimer’s Disease Center at OHSU for 21 years. In 2006, recognizing that the Layton Center’s education programs were not reaching persons of color, she connected with members of the African American community to begin designing culturally specific programs to reach this population. Linda’s commitment to social justice continued in her retirement as she served as Chairperson of the Board for Green Empowerment (greenempowerment.org).
She is survived by her spouse who adored her for 48 years, her son Sylvan Goldberg of Colorado Springs, Colo., her daughter Emily Goldberg and son-in-law Kevin Dilg, and by the 2-year-old granddaughter she adored, Ellis Dilg. Tax deductible donations in her name may be made to Green Empowerment. - As reported by Holman's Funeral Service, 7/2/2018. View her obituary here.
O'BRIEN, Anne Remington of Penzance, Cornwall, England passed away peacefully on May 17, 2018 in the company of her friend and partner for 38 years. Anne was a stained glass teacher, design and restoration artist, and a creator of glass sculpture, painted glass, and kiln works. She was trained in the US, UK, and Czechoslovakia. A student of Anne's at Penwith College remembered her "knowledge and gentle humour was an inspiration; always ready to experiment and to share new processes."
TROLAND, Mary Bower of Washington DC died January 31, 2018. Mary Bower graduated from St. Catherine's School in Richmond in 1966 (as that year's June Scholar), Wellesley College in 1970, and the University of Montana School of Law in 1975 (again, first in her class). She clerked for Judge Tamm of the D.C. Circuit and worked with the Senate Judiciary Committee before moving to the Justice Department, where she served for over 25 years. She basically wrote the book on asset forfeiture, traveled all over Latin America, and demonstrated her badassery to all whom she met. She even danced with Manuel Noriega. She served as the Deputy Director of the Office of International Affairs and capped her career as the Department of Justice Attache at the United States Embassy in her beloved London. Her active retirement culminated in a cruise to Alaska, the only one of the 50 states that she had not before visited. Her friends and relatives will miss her amazing stories, her strength and wit, her intellect, her seriously genuine smile, and, yes, even her fierce feistiness. In lieu of flowers, do yourself a favor and go live an amazing adventure. - As reported in The Washington Post, 2/14/2018. View her obituary here.
LANE, Adair P. of Centerville, Massachusetts passed away from natural causes on February 6, 2017. Adair graduated from Wellesley College with a BA in Psychology. She received her Masters in Physics and Astronomy from The University of Massachusetts at Amherst and later her PhD. She taught at Boston University and then worked as an astronomer at The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. She was the Project Manager of The Antarctic Sub-millimeter Telescope and Remote Observatory (ASTRO) and made several trips to the South Pole. She enjoyed gardening and her cats. - As reported in The Boston Globe, 2/18/17. View her obituary here and a review of her career as a radio astronomer here.
DAHL, Mary-Lib died September 27, 2015, of complications from breast cancer, in Madrid, which had been her home since graduation. I visited her in July. Her attitude was very positive despite the chemo treatments and she was able to accompany me on visits to museums and out for tapas with her husband, daughter Lisa, and Lisa's partner, Omar. She and Alfonso were incredibly gracious hosts.
Our classmate, Ruth Rowse, was Mary-Lib's roommate and became her sister-in-law. She and Chris were in Spain when Mary-Lib died and treasure the time they had with her and her family. This is a huge loss for them. As reported by Wendy Munion, 11/27/2015.
Please forward all information regarding classmates who have passed on to Gwen Peterson