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August 2020
Dear Classmates:
I am thinking of each of you as our country confronts three tough crises: Covid 19, the economy, and race relations. With the exception of the pandemic, some of this seems way too familiar …and, yes, frustrating, to those of us now in our early 70s. We will continue to change the world in our own inimitable ways and reach out a hand to you who are suffering.
Still Uncommon After All These Years: Reunion Updates from Jane Hiller Farran, Barbara Cooke Monks and Yvonne Watford-McKinney Although we have no 50th reunion dates to share, we will be sending a link to a digital copy of our 50th Reunion Class Book in mid-October to everyone who has an email address on file with the Association. Ellen Cochran Hirzy and others have spent countless hours compiling this book from your personal page submissions and the Mount Holyoke College Archives. A copy of the book will be given to each classmate who attends our eventual on-campus reunion or will be available for ordering from the publisher for those who cannot be on campus for the festivities.
In planning the upcoming Zoom sessions, we are trying not to cannibalize too much of the planned programming for our on-campus reunion. We are still waiting for more information on those upcoming, on campus events. If you have suggestions for topics or volunteers, please notify Helen Disenhaus (helen.disenhaus@gmail.com) or Arleen Heiss (arleenheiss@yahoo.com). For virtual programming this fall, Nancy Thorndike Greenspan will lead a discussion of her recently published book, Atomic Spy: The Dark Lives of Klaus Fuchs on Thursday, Sept 24, at 7 pm EDT via Zoom. On October 22 at 7PM EDT (in time for Hallowe’en), Libby Tucker Gould will present a discussion of her book, Haunted Halls, on the folklore of American college campuses. Notifications to prompt you to register for each event will be sent by e-mail. If you haven’t supplied your e-mail address to the online Alumnae Association directory, please read the instructions at the end of this letter.
Class Meeting on Zoom! Our virtual class meeting on June 6 attracted 48 of you and it was wonderful to see so many familiar faces and to hear your voices. I know we all wanted to really catch up, and I remain hopeful that that time will come next year, but ours was a business meeting to update bylaws, approve the Treasurer’s report and elect new class officers. Here is the slate of classmates who will represent all of you until our 55th reunion in 2025, along with their email address. Please reach out to us with your comments, concerns, reflections and ideas!
President: Ann Richardson Berkey – ann.berkey@gmail.com Vice President: Katy Hart – Katherine.hart@trincoll.edu Secretary: Pat Sobers Mitchell – prsmitchell@gmail.com Treasurer: Marjorie Gross – marjgross@verizon.net 2025 Reunion Chair: Libby Tucker Gould – ltucker@binghamton.edu Scribes: Diane Mayer Murphy – dmurphy@cminc.com Ellen Cochran Hirzy – ellenhirzy@gmail.com Communications/Web Coordinator: Jill Vollmer Blackwood – jblackwood48@gmail.com Nominating Committee: Barbara Cooke Monks (Chair) – bcmonks@gmail.com Jill Brethauer – jillbrethauer@gmail.com Charlotte Church – cnchurch@att.net Head Class Agent: Susan Ellis – sellismhc70@earthlink.net
Special thanks go to Susan Ellis, Jean Olson, Martha Doolittle McIver and our stalwart, hardworking class agents and leadership gift committee who had such remarkable success in raising funds for Mount Holyoke these past five years. Our class participation of 74.9% exceeded our goal of 70%; the comprehensive total of dollars raised was $5.5 million! Thank you so much to all of you who reached out to fellow classmates, made gifts and fulfilled pledges to support the College and the students it continues to educate.
Dues: We also voted at our class meeting to keep our dues at the same level as we head to our 55th reunion: $20/year or $100 for 5 years. As you know from past communication, we need your help to provide seed money for our next reunion, for virtual programming (a Zoom business account), for snail mail domestic and international postage. While you are reading this, please grab a pen, your checkbook, an envelope and a stamp and send a check made out to the Class of 1970 MHC to our Treasurer, Marjorie Gross, 400 West End Ave., #9-B, New York, NY 10024. It will help us stay connected!
Staying Connected Minutes from our class meeting are posted on our class website, along with the In Memoriam list of those who have left this earth too soon. We will remember those classmates at a service when we are next together in South Hadley. Also, on our class website, is our class history which I videotaped for the Alumnae Association annual meeting, accessible through alumnae.mtholyoke.edu.
n Our class website can be accessed through alumnae.mtholyoke.edu or by clicking directly on https://new.alumnae.mtholyoke.edu/1970.
n Please consider joining our class Facebook page: Mount Holyoke Class of 70 or by contacting Jill Vollmer Blackwood at jblackwood48@gmail.com
Your class officers are developing our communication/activity plans for the next 5 years and hope to see you, either at our eventually rescheduled 50th reunion on campus or perhaps close to your own neighborhood once travel is resumed. Either way, we look forward to staying in touch with you. At this point in our lives, we, who have a common educational foundation, can benefit from sharing experiences, ideas, and histories, along with periods of great pain and sadness as well as incomparable joy. We will be all the wiser for these connections.
In this year when we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19thAmendment and the 55th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act allowing women to vote, we can best honor the courageous women leaders of those eras by taking the time to vote this fall, whether in person or by mail. This is our cherished right and our incontrovertible privilege.
I wish you times of peace as well as moments of action and reflection. Whether you are alone, in family groups or slightly larger social bubbles, I hope you will stay safe.
Best to each of you for brighter and safer times ahead,
Ann
Ann Richardson Berkey Class President
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Class of 1970
of Mount Holyoke College
