Individual Memorial Statements: The following comments memorializing deceased classmates are listed alphabetically by last name during college. Classmates are invited to contribute additional such statements. Please send these to Joyce Johnson Diwan.

Barbara Diamond Turner died on 0n 10/26/16 in Bethel, CT. Graduating Phi Beta Kappa with a religion major from MHC, Barbara married Arthur Turner in 1963, received an MA in theology from Fordham University in ’65 and a PhD in religious studies from Marquette University in 1982. Both Barbara and Arthur converted from Judaism to Catholicism and Barbara taught theology for 20 years at Saint Francis de Sales, the archdiocesan seminary in Milwaukee. Barbara is survived by her husband and, her sister Sheila and her three sons, Jonathan, Andrew and Daniel, their spouses/partners and 6 grandchildren. Memorial donations may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association, Ct Chapter, 200 Executive Boulevard, Suite 4B, Southington, CT 06489. A memorial service was held in Redding, CT on November 19, 2016 and attended by friend and MHC classmate, Catherine Zastrow Onyemelukwe.

Susannah Fischbach Seidensticker – Comments by Barbara Diamond Turner:

Susie was one of my best friends from Freshman year when we were both assigned to North Mandelle to our senior year. She had a great sense of humor and I’ll always remember our last semester senior year when her father presented her with a green Triumph convertible and we all piled in for a ride. She was in her glory and the rest of us screaming along on the main street of South Hadley. She was god-mother to our son Andrew and I still miss her.

Cynthia Gushee Scott passed away at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, on January 1, 2020, following a cerebral hemorrhage. Born August 30, 1940, she was the daughter of Charles H. Gushee and Priscilla Simpson Gushee. Cynthia grew up in Belmont, MA and attended Mt. Holyoke College, graduating in 1962. She met the love of her life, Ken Scott, on a blind date at Tanglewood while still in college. They were married for 57 years. A longtime resident of Beacon Hill, where she and Ken raised their family, Cynthia was active in many local civic, cultural and volunteer organizations, including Beacon Hill Village and the Greater Boston Knitting Guild. She loved handicrafts and do-it-yourself projects, and spent many happy hours tending her vegetable garden in summers spent at her second home in Maine. Besides her husband, Cynthia leaves her two sisters, Anne Arsenault and Susan O’Malley. She was predeceased by her brother, Philip Gushee. She also leaves her daughters, Maria DiMaggio (Len), Laura Layman (Eric) and Christina (Victor), seven grandchildren, John, Rachel, Mary, Robert, Asia, Anna and Alex, and several nieces and nephews. Interment will be at Mt. Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge. A Memorial Service will be held in the Spring. Donations in her memory may be made to Beacon Hill Village, www.beaconhillvillage.org or to the charity of one’s choice.

Faith Harris Waltman – Comments by Anne Wadsworth Pardo:

It is with sadness that I report that Faith Harris Waltman passed away on October 29, 2011 after a five year struggle with leukemia and complications from the treatments. She is survived by her son Andrew, his wife Lurene and children Alex and Lily, her son Peter, her niece Hilary Harris, and her partner Jim O’Neill.

Frances Hovey Ekstrom – Comments by Elizabeth Adlum Mapes:

Frances was cherished by many of us because of her life-long embrace of challenges and her kind and generous heart. She was both humble and proud to be following in her mother’s footsteps as a science major at Mount Holyoke. I still remember her enthusiastic accounts of Ms Haywood’s and Ms Muus’s lab classes. Senior year, she was a beloved house president at North Rocky. The Hoveys were all musical, their most legendary combos featuring Dad on the tuba and Frances on her flute! After college, when not teaching high school science, Frances was an adventurous traveler, going around the world solo in her single years. At our 20th reunion, she arrived recently married and with her first baby, Susan, in her arms. In recent years, as brain disease so sadly diminished her abilities, Frances was cared for by husband Jim Ekstrom, who can be reached at 12 River St., Exeter, NH 03833.

Diane Infante Mantho died on 2/25/21 of pancreatic cancer in Morehead City, NC. She is survived by husband, Bob, and two children and five stepchildren. A son, Sean, predeceased her.

Diane attended MHC, University of Pennsylvania and American College. She became a vice president of insurance sales for a third party administrator, working at various locations in CT.

Living in NC since 2004, Diane and Bob traveled in a recreational vehicle all over the continental US, including Alaska and the Maritime Provinces of Canada. In 2018 they visited Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Poland and Russia and in 2020 visited New Zealand and Australia.

After her son’s death in 2010 she rediscovered her passion for painting. She played golf and was particularly proud of a hole-in-one at a Lake Tahoe course. She loved pickleball, mahjong and dogs; she and Bob shared their home with several furry family members. She was also very active in her church and volunteered for many different causes.

Lucy Lloyd Goodridge – Comments by Dorcy Erlandson (with input from several classmates) presented at our 50th Reunion:

Lucy and I were both in Buckland freshman year but we were not friends then. Near the end of that year we both found ourselves without a roommate for sophomore year so a now-long-forgotten matchmaker suggested we room together: we were sort of “fixed up”! We talked it over and decided to give it a try.

Though we had many different interests, we bonded and became close friends; I think we learned a lot from each other. I often felt she helped me keep on an even keel because she had such enthusiasm for everything.

Though I moved far away a few years after graduation, we kept in touch. We got together sometimes in the summer in the ‘70s and ‘80s and after that, more recently, we met here at reunions. I’m sure that many would agree that one of her most outstanding qualities was her loyalty to friends.

Lucy met her husband Jim in senior year. They shared a love of sports, hiking, and the outdoors in general and had three wonderful children.

Always a lover of team sports, Lucy had an amazing career as a referee of women’s field hockey and lacrosse all over New England. She had national certification for both sports and worked on many levels organizing interscholastic sports.

She loved to convey her excitement and passion for the outdoors and nature by explaining things to children and adults, never in a preachy way; this was her way of sharing her sense of wonder.

Lucy was diagnosed with uterine cancer. Between treatments, she continued to play tennis and to travel. She hiked in the Grand Canyon not long before she died two years ago.

I was told that at her funeral there were three rows of her referee colleagues, who sat together with their yellow flags and saluted Lucy.

I found it reassuring to be around Lucy, and I think we all did. She was open, warm-hearted and authentic. I have missed her this weekend.

Deborah (Debby) Martin Pearse died on April 6, 2021 at her FL winter home. Her death was unexpected, following complications from an operation. Debby was born in Worcester, MA on June 8, 1940 to Reverend John Martin and Marie Farley Martin ‘38. She lived a life of love, unending friendships and serial entrepreneurships.

Her mix of genuine interest in all she met naturally led many to nickname her ’Mom’ for her guidance, gentle support, and love. Never ‘cool’ or ‘fancy’, she and her husband of 38 years, Bruce Donath, managed to entertain and surprise friends and family with a variety of interesting adventures outside the typical confines of their suburban lives – leaving several tales and myths in their wake. She is survived by her loving family including her husband, Bruce Donath, her children, Johnathan, Mystic, CT, Julie, Marshfield, MA, Chung Sook Valdes, Worcester, MA, stepchildren Kate Ferreira of Plymouth, MA and Jeffrey Donath of Hudson, WI and nine grandchildren.

Starting at the age of 6 selling stationery and Girl Scout cookies in her hometown of West Boylston, MA, Debby over the years was involved in: tailored clothing from Hong Kong; Tupperware; women’s college wear; and ‘hot’ televisions. For 6 years she founded and managed the Southborough (MA) Secretarial Services while also being a member of the founding team of the Southborough Villager newspaper. She considered herself fortunate to have graduated from the Northfield Mt. Hermon School, Mt. Holyoke College (Economics) and the University of New Hampshire (Masters in Economics). A very unique adventure for Debby and her husband was the purchase and on-site management of the Sandcastle Hotel in the British Virgin Islands from 1995 to 2005. The small hotel of 4 cottages located on a gorgeous beach was the perfect venue for Debby’s in-born hostess talent. The first year of ownership Debby’s husband kept his employment in Providence, RI while Debby and her niece ran the hotel. Three hurricanes in that first year tested the whole idea of the venture, but with Bruce joining her full-time for the next nine years and its famous bar, the Soggy Dollar. The venue proved to become an oasis for overnight guests and day-trippers arriving by boat. Surprised by good fortune, fearless in the face of challenges and undeterred by petty criticisms, Debby crafted an ambiance of fun, patience and love while truly thankful and surprised that the guests were so patient with the vagaries of a beachside, small-island hotel. She became the part-time choir director in the local church and while maintaining a patient, caring management of the hotel staff. This all led to warm relationship with the local residents of the island of Jost Van Dyke. And what stories she had to tell about that time!

After retiring to Kennebunkport and Gulfport, she enjoyed the growth of her grandchildren, playing bridge, the occasional RV jaunt, perfecting shrimp toast, producing and donating a tsunami of holiday cookies, and joining gatherings of friends. She perfected the ‘Debby-style’ BYOB at the drop of a hat whose zenith were the annual Christmas sing-alongs crowded into her home. She will be missed.

In lieu of flowers, the family would appreciate donations in her honor to Atlantic Hall (atlantichall.org, Church on the Cape (churchonthecape.org) or her favorite theatre, Good Theatre of Portland (goodtheatre.org).

Comments regarding Debby Martin Pearse by Virginia Foster:
A strong seismic shock rippled through all of us MHC ’62 classmates when we heard the news about Debby. She was such a central figure in our lives for so many decades and leaves a deep, wide, unfillable hole.

But at least we have “reels” of vibrant memories, complete with a soundtrack of bright lilting laughter – the hijinks on Jost Van Dyke (the hammocks on the beach, the Soggy Dollar Bar, Foxy’s, the Bubbly Pool); the gatherings at The Dock in Cape Porpoise (that pink kayak!, conversations on the deck in the afternoon sun); the reunions in South Hadley (with all the preplanning get-togethers even livelier than the reunion itself); and on and on and on.

You’ve heard all the descriptions – Debby was totally real, unflappable, utterly gracious, unbelievably generous, and on occasion wickedly funny. Plus, of course, a killer bridge player.

I’m going to choose to believe that Debby will organize a big welcome party for us once we’ve all reassembled on the other side. Maybe in an Atlantic Hall three galaxies over – and maybe she’ll even reprise that piano solo.

Comments regarding Debby Martin Pearse by Bea Beach Szekely:
To me, coming from a New York suburb, Debby represented the New England prototype of the MHCer: her father, the minister of the West Boylston church; the family cottage in Manomet creeping toward the edge of a bluff overlooking the water (where a group of us spent a fabulous few days after working at reunion junior year); her great aunt Mattie’s (hope that was her name) wonderful accent; and her tie to Mount Holyoke through her mom (Class of ’38).

I remember how smart Debby was completing her college work a semester early, marrying Jeep and coming back for comps and graduation. She had a single in what truly was a converted closet on the third floor of Pearson’s our junior year, studied in her bed that took up most of the tiny room surrounded by books and notes. She knitted beautiful sweaters, a blue green one that winter, being one of us who could take in economic theory while turning a cable. I remember how naturally pretty she was with a very expressive face.

Comments regarding Debby Martin Pearse by Elaine Kasparian Elliot:
When I heard that Debby accompanied her mother to her 75th MHC reunion, I asked my MHC daughter, Martha Elliot, Class of 95, to accompany me to my 75th. I’m very sad that Debby will not be attending any more reunions.

Comments regarding Debby Martin Pearse by Julia Denny Clark:
Debby was gracious and unflappable. A fire in the kitchen? We’ll have a cold supper. Ten for dinner instead of three? We’ll add two loaves of bread. Rain? We’ll go out and dance in it. And hospitable. My partner John and I dropped in on them in Maine a few years ago and ended up staying two nights.

Some of us went to Jost Van Dyke for a holiday at their funky hotel on the beach and drank many glasses of whatever at the Soggy Dollar Bar. I had the worst cold of my life, slept on a porch alone and spent most of my alternating between a hammock and the ocean.

A group of us went to Kennebunkport for our joint 70th birthdays. Debby took us all to church and introduced us all during the service, then announced she and Bruce would host a party that evening in the local municipal hall and EVERYONE was invited. They ALL came, brought dishes and drinks and were unbelievably supportive when we staged a “talent show”. Debby played a piece she had learned on the piano in her youth and we all laughed until we cried.

She was a fabulous woman. We will miss her.

Comments regarding Debby Martin Pearse by Nancy Hartman Ruddle:
Just a few memories of Debby: Tap dancing and playing speed bridge in the smoker at Pearsons; a time at Manomet telling filthy jokes, drinking, and watching Gone With the Wind; this is a kind of blurry memory! – Bea thinks it was after helping with reunions junior year – I thought it was after comps; Sandcastle where we worked in the kitchen on the cook’s day off and then Debby played the piano non- stop in the church while we waited for the minister who never showed up; later fun times in a rented house on Jost Van Dyke.

Comments regarding Debby Martin Pearse by Sara Smith Hill:
I didn’t get to know Debby until a few of us spent time in 2000 at the resort she and Bruce owned on Jost Van Dyke. There were six of us turning 60, so she dubbed us “Six Fabulous 10s.” What a fun and talented person she was! We continued with a get together for our 70th at her place in Cape Porpoise. Her friends brought a host of delicious dishes to the community center and Debby organized a talent show in which we were the main attraction, Debby again used her wonderful sense of humor to name the show “70s Got Talent” after the newly popular TV show “Who’s Got Talent.” That show was billed as “undiscovered talent of all ages.” Although our talent was meager, we did provide a lot of laughs. God bless Debby for these treasured memories.

Virginia McKenna Iandiorio attended MHC as a National Merit Scholar and spent Freshman year in Abbey and Sophomore year in Safford, receiving a BS degree in Mathematics from The George Washington University in ’65 and a master in Library Science from Simmons College in ‘99. To quote from the Boston Globe obituary, “She was a brilliant computer programmer from the infancy of the computer revolution and was a consultant to a wide variety of businesses and government agencies including: the NSA, Harvard Cyclotron Laboratory and programing of the Apollo on-board computer at MIT. Virginia was a kind and gracious woman, a cherished friend. She is survived by her four children: Terrell of Acton, MA, Quenby, of Livingston, MT, Caley, of Bedford, MA and Brady of Denver, CO. 

Theodora “Theo” Mitchell Bennett did grad work at Cornell in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations where she met her first husband, James Metcalf Dyer. Their interracial marriage was unusual at the time and attracted much press attention. In 1989, after an amicable divorce, she married IBM physicist Charles H. Bennett, and became the founding director the Enhanced Section 8 Outreach Program in Yonkers, NY, helping Section 8 housing subsidy holders gain fair access to the housing market, overcoming previous patterns of discrimination. After retirement she became active in the public library of Wendell, MA. She is survived by her husband, her former husband, two sons, a daughter and seven grandchildren.

Jane O’Day Doerfer was an editor, writer, cookbook author and inn manager. Her books include two Legal Seafood Cookbooks 15 years apart (with George Berkowitz and his father), The Victory Garden Cookbook (with Marian Morash) and The Pantry Gourmet, and Going Solo in the Kitchen. She was a food columnist for Horticulture magazine and had many recipes published in the Boston Globe. Jane lived for many years in an old house in Apalachicola, FL which she had remodeled according to her design and became the house of her dreams. She leaves two children, son Andrew and daughter, Joanna.

The following additional information appeared in the Boston Globe on 6/26/19: As Jane Doerfer revisited a cookbook she had co-written for a famous Boston restaurant – titling the sequel ”The New Legal Sea Foods Cookbook” – she reeled off a guiding principle that could very well have been a mantra for her life. We wanted it to be simple, simple, simple,” she told the globe than as she described the book she had written with Roger Berkowitz, the restaurant’s CEO (she had coauthored the earlier version with his father). If a recipe “was delicious but had 85 ingredients, we cut it,” she added.

Granted, at times it seemed as if her life had at least that many ingredients, and may more. She wrote cookbooks and was a magazine food columnist. She taught cooking classes and for a time ran a Vermont inn. She had been a WGBH producer and an official with the MA Council on the Arts and Humanities.

When Ms. Doerfer died May 4 from complications of an infection, at age 78, she had lived for many years in an old house in Apalachicola, FL, whose interior design was the fruit of her own musings and which she had largely remodeled herself.

“I cook for myself because I like to eat well,” she once wrote. “I also want to prepare economical meals that are good for me and are centered around seasonal food,” she added. “It’s as simple as that.” For Ms. Doerfer, food was more than just sustenance. The dishes she prepared were an education, a way of expanding her family’s horizons. “When I was a child, she would often plan out varied menus for our family meals, always making sure we tried at least one new food or recipe a week,” her daughter Joanna, who lives in Jersey City , NJ, said in an eulogy at Ms. Doerfer’s memorial service this month. “In her kitchen on Rutland Square, on a large blackboard near our family table, she would write the area of the world the cuisine came from, and then give my brother and I a mini lesson on that region,” Joana added. “When I became a mother myself, I realized the time, attention, love, care, and effort that this showed.”

Along with writing about food, she for a time published “Going Solo”, a popular newsletter aimed at those who travel and vacation alone. Thirty years ago, she told the Globe that hotels, restaurants, and tourism businesses paid little respect to those who vacation by themselves. “The sols traveler is the stepchild of the travel industry,” she said in 1989. “Most of the literature put out for people traveling alone assumes wither that they are timid first-time travelers or are looking exclusively for romance.” As often as not, she added, neither was true – at least in her experience and from what others related about their own journeys. Those who go it alone, she said, tend to be travelers seeking new experiences and communication with other human begins.” “I’ve traveled as a couple and I’ve traveled alone, and it’s very different,” she said, “So many things are geared to couples.”

The older of two sisters Jane was born in 1941 in Portland, OR. The family moved to Belmont when her scientist father left Reed College for MIT. She graduated from Belmont High School and Mount Holyoke College, was married to Gordon Doerfer who retired about a dozen years ago as a MA Appeals Court associate justice. The marriage ended in divorce.

“When Andrew and I were growing up, she wanted us to be intellectually curious. She wanted to teach us history and culture – but always in an accessible way, “Joanna said in her eulogy. “On any given day, on any given car ride, she would point out the various types of architecture we saw and identify them, or tell us a bit of history about a town we were visiting,” Joann added. “She was always reading and researching and forever interest in learning something new.”

That curiosity carried Ms. Doerfer through her wide-ranging career, which included at one point running the Green Trials In in Brookfield, VT. A fan of many kinds of music, Ms. Doerfer went to Broadway musicals in NYC and “brought me to see amazing once-in-a-lifetime concerts: Tina Turner in London, Earth Wind & Fire in Las Vegas and Ray Charles in Mississippi, “ Joann said in her eulogy. “She brought Andrew and I to the Boston Pops on July fourth and to Tanglewood in the summer.” And yet, Joanna added in an interview, her mother was very modest. You might not necessarily know, if you met her, the breadth of her career. She’s had so many different parts of her career, but they all tied together in the beauty of everyday living.”

During her many years in Greater Boston, Ms. Doerfer had lived in Cambridge, the South End, and Brookline before moving to FL about 25 years ago. “Some people say you can’t buy serenity, but I know better,” she wrote about her home in Apalachicola for House Beautiful magazine in 1995. She moved a 19th century house onto the site of an abandoned cypress mill. Passed along her interior design ideas to an architect whose work she admired, then cut the projected remodeling costs in half by actin as her own contractor. “I ended up with the house of my dreams,” she wrote. “The words my first-time visitors use – magical, beautiful, peaceful serene – confirm my not unbiased opinion.”

Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson completed both her MA and PhD at Columbia University and taught at Columbia and the University of Illinois. Susan Hiner of Vassar College sent the following note: “As many of you know, Priscilla was the author of Paris as Revolution: Writing the Nineteenth-Century City and Accounting for Taste: The Triumph of French Cuisine, along with many other works too numerous to mention. A regular participant at the colloquium in Nineteenth-Century French Studies, Priscilla was a pioneer of Food Studies and held doctoral degrees in both Sociology and French Literature. She was also a generous mentor to many, an incisive editor, an excellent dinner companion, and a very dear friend. We will miss her.” Her niece Amanda Parkhurst-Strout (MHC ’95) is listed as a contact.

Nancy Poland – remembrances from Joan Winters as told to Elaine Kasparian Elliot to share at the In Memoriam Service at 55th Reunion:

I (Elaine) didn’t know Joan Winters during college. Our MHC connection began 10 years later when we were both living in Ithaca, NY.

Whenever Joan and I talked – usually near a reunion – she always asked if Nancy Poland was coming to reunion, if I had heard anything from her.  When I learned of Nancy’s death, I immediately emailed Joan to give her the sad news.  Joan was very sorry especially since she had been planning a trip to Europe, hoping to visit Nancy.

Joan had visited Nancy in Germany in 1989 and had many vivid memories of that trip.  Nancy’s apartment in Dusseldorf was on the second floor of a church with a main room spacious enough for two Steinway grand pianos, one for herself and one for her partner.  Nancy treated Joan to a glorious organ concert in the same church.  Nancy had another home in a small town near Aachen where she also played a church organ.  The church members were so eager to keep Nancy that they offered to get her the best organ possible for their church.  Joan went along when Nancy drove from one town to another in search of that perfect organ.  Joan was delighted and proud to learn what high regard Nancy enjoyed in her adopted country – both as a teacher of organ and organist herself.  Joan deeply regrets not planning that second trip sooner.

Joan, Nancy and Sue Wyckoff were the three astronomy majors in our class.  Joan’s main memory of senior year was of the happy hours they spent together at the observatory, working and studying and just hanging out. 

Susan Reinhart Patterson – Comments written by Janna Peterson Hadley, read at our 50th Reunion by Barbara Stengel Mueller:

There are many words to describe Susan Reinhart Patterson – serious, but with a great sense of humor, very intelligent, but with great humility, steadfast, but definitely not stuffy and always, always cheerful.

But the one word that comes to mind most often is – courageous. As a junior in high school, she went to Denmark to live with a family there. At Mount Holyoke she selected one of the most difficult majors – mathematics – I believe there were only two math majors in our class. She and Walt were married a week after we graduated in June of 1962 and they began their nomadic life in the Air Force during which time they lived in nineteen different places. During this time they had three children, Libby, and twins Walter and Linda. After Walt retired they settled in Greenwood, South Carolina where Walt taught math at Lander College and Susan taught math at a private school which her children attended.

The most courageous part of Susan’s life began with her diagnosis of breast cancer. She scheduled her treatments at the end of each week so she could recover in time to go back to school on Mondays. Nothing would get her down.

She enrolled at Clemson University where she earned a Master’s degree in math which enabled her to teach at the college level. She was Assistant Professor of Mathematics at Erskine College for many years, during which time she was a mentor for many students as well as several young professors.

Each year, Walt and Susan travelled to a different part of the world, including a cruise to Antarctica where they were fascinated by the penguins.

But the cancer kept returning and each time she would try the newest treatment while enduring the often nasty side effects. Still her courage kept her going for twenty two years after her first diagnosis until finally there were no more effective treatments. Her legacy of teaching lives on with the Reinhart Mathematics Scholarship which was established at her high school for the benefit of students who choose to study to teach mathematics. A loving wife, mother, grandmother of five, teacher and friend – a life very well lived, but not long enough.

Linda Schneider received her PhD from New York University and, from 1984 – 2010 was an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Cornell University. Linda had one daughter, Claudia, and is survived by husband, Dr. Randall B Murphy.