For the Mount Holyoke Class of ’62 web page: a second blog, April 2013
Bea Beach Szekely, Class President
Gifts from Mount Holyoke – Looking Back while Moving Forward
Betsy Hawes Weinstock began her lovely introduction to our reunion book Forever Is Composed of Nows with the comment that “the years at Mount Holyoke have never seemed as near at hand nor so far away.” Indeed, many of the self-profiles that were contributed to the book reflect on the gifts we received during those four years we spent together. Two themes emerge: our academic preparation in the past, and friendships that have endured. What follows shares particular comments made in the book about gifts Mount Holyoke gave us with some thoughts about how friendships within the class will provide enjoyment and support in years ahead.
Judy Barrett Coughlin wrote about feeling totally unprepared in September 1958 when she arrived in South Hadley. Like Judy, in years since, perhaps you have dreamed about going back to Mount Holyoke again to “do it all over with the assurance I’d get it better the second time.” Grinding for four years, as many of us assuredly did, was not always fun, but on balance reflections fifty years later seem to agree with Betsy Allaway Davis’s wonderful comment, “Mount Holyoke did me a lot more good than I thought at the time.” Lois Ruggles Bartelme sums it up: “learning and teaching and traveling…always seem to go hand in hand…thanks to my Mount Holyoke education.”
Fast forward to the theme of friendship in the present, something we will need ever more in coming decades, as we face the final stages of our lives. Reading through your profiles, I found myself taking notes not only about wonderful books written, boards chaired and grandchildren born, but also about sorrows borne, including the losses of beloved children and spouses. Not wishing to intrude on the private spaces in the lives that we have built apart from one another over the years, I do wonder if we can provide special help in times of illness and, yes, death. Would anyone like to set up a widow’s support group within the class? When I went through breast cancer a few year ago, caring support came from classmates. Many of us, I’m sure, are part of caring committees in the neighborhoods where we live; might we organize one to reach out to classmates by phone calls and emails across the miles, or by visits closer to home? Let me know, please, if you would like to participate.
Emily Dickinson could never, in her wildest dreams, have imagined that her first line, Forever Is Composed of Nows, would be the title for a book of memories shared by Mount Holyoke alumnae aged 70-plus. Here are sage pieces of advice for this stage of life extracted from the writing of six contributors who have graciously agreed to be cited and have, in a few cases, added to their original quotes:
Jane Hanabury Corlette: ““From the Hanabury gospels: Book ’62: Do not complain! Do not whine!”
Susan Higinbotham Holcombe: don’t hesitate to insist upon “the dignity” of deciding on your “own risks.”
Nancy Poland: a recipe for “peace, health and happiness: thankfulness.”
Georgia Steiner Wiester: the “biggest challenge” is living “with perseverance and grace as I head for the finish line.”
Diane Tabor: this is a “confusing and disturbing time, both historically and personally” but one is “lucky to be here and part of it, and still able to contribute now and again.”
And Lynne Shangraw Masland: consider looking back for “a grand design” in life, for “form, substance, meaning.”
Joan Walston Chase: “believe that things can work out.”
With thanks for all of this wisdom, perhaps it will lead to renewed connections within the class as we reach out to one another.
Fond greetings for the springtime of 2013
Bea
