CLASS NOTES
spring 2013 | st. Lawrence Universit y Magazine 31
i looked through the pictures in the 2013 st.
Lawrence calendar (yours for free for 2014 if you
donate to the alumni Fund). February shows a
snapshot of appleton arena, for which many of
us took on odd jobs to donate money for its con-
struction. i cut hair and r uth Beiermeister Furman
‘51
would come up from her job in new york city
just for her haircut.
March shows the inside of a lab room in the
Johnson Hall of science. One just wants to pick up
a petri dish and commence a study of some un-
known bacteria and discover a new cure.
april is a snap of Dean-eaton, where all us ladies
lived and got acquainted. May shows the golf
course on which i never played, but alongside
was the fiel hockey fiel where i played in our
home games for four years.
June sports a parade for reunion. t hat reminded
me of our 50th, with “Our canton creeper,” com-
plete with
John Hitchcock
puffi smoke out
of the “engine” and other classmates with their
engineer hats on helping the passenger cars roll
along.t hanks to Frank shields‘54, who helpedme
get a place on campus to build and paint the cars
and engine from huge cartons that he located.
in sadness, i report the passing of
Audrey
Stoeffle Cameron
on august 4, 2012. she was
a member of pi Beta phi, University choir and
The Hill News.
t he r ev.
Robert W. Castle
passed
away Oct. 27, 2012; there’s a memorial notice in
the winter issue. i extend our deepest sympathy
to their families.
i hope you all have had a wonderful winter and i
wish you the best spring and summer.
1953
Lois ShaverWells ’53
PO Box 22
Ogdensburg, NY 13669
518-312-5913
bigdeerpond@gmail.com
next r eunion: 60
th
,
May 30-June 2, 2013
Al Ray
and ginny enjoyed a vacation in coral
Bay, st. John, U.s. virgin islands, in april 2012.
t hey have visited there many times, but this time
was special because they had their daughter Kelly
and her husband and two sons there with them.
t hey had a great time hiking, snorkeling and eat-
ing out. al and ginny have another daughter,
two sons, seven grandchildren and three great-
grandchildren.
t he firs response i received as your new (again)
class reporter was a sad phone call from art small
‘51
to say that his wife,
Sylvia Leary Small
,
had
passed away on July 15. sylvia had turned 81 just
two days previously. art and sylvia’s two sons live
in r ochester, n.y. sylvia passed away prior to her
firs great-grandchild being born on november 1.
sylvia lived inMelbourne, Fla., for many years, and
art toldme about their place, rampant with beau-
tiful wildfl wers, in canada, north of Ottawa, that
they went to for many years. Our condolences to
art in Melbourne and to all of sylvia’s family.
condolences also to
David Eveleth’s
family. He
lived in Unionville, conn., and died on December
16.
Joan Sjoberg McGinnis
has been typing
and editing an autobiography of a friend from
south africa. t he six-month project turned into
a lengthy three and a half years. completion of
Swing, Sing, and All That Jazz
was due by the end
of 2012. t he author is the “granddaddy of south
african broadcasting,” so his friends were music
greats. Joan takes in older rescue dachshunds;
she says that leads to lots of time at the veterinar-
ian’s office! t he two dogs that keep her company
now are around 15.
Rosalie Epstein Moriah
emailed from Jerusa-
lem that her third great-grandchild was born in
late 2012, and a grandson became engaged to
an israeli-american girl about the same time, with
the wedding in February. in January, r osalie’s
grandson eytanmarried Laurie, an australian, and
granddaughter Moriah married shalom, whose
family emigrated from France. r osalie writes, “as
you see, we have become a very international
family!” r osalie’s sister sandra epstein conradi ‘58
traveled to Jerusalem with two of her daughters
and the husband of one of them for eytan’s wed-
ding. r osalie continues to work at a Jerusalem
yeshiva (an institution for higher Jewish studies).
Hearty congratulations to ed ‘52 and
Joan Han-
sen Pflughe er
on their 60th wedding anniver-
sary. t he big day was December 23. nat and i
attended their wedding way back in 1952.
Julia Whitcomb Glass
wrote that she and her
family had a good, quiet year. t he christmas
greeting pictured sons r obert and r ichard and
r ichard’s children, as well as Julia and her hus-
band, John.
aDpi sisters from the class of 1953 gathered to
reminisce and catch up with each other in canan-
daigua, n.y., last august. t hey included hostess
Jean Sweetland Wiley, Natalie Norton Lewis,
Ann Danehy McKenna, Ruth Rundquist Meyer,
Nancy V. Brush, Barbara Hutt Phillips, Heidi
Genhart Kuehn
and
Joan HortonMackey.
t hey
all plan to come to campus for their 60th reunion
at the end of May.
r uth Meyer’s holiday greetings always arrive in
the form of clever poetry. r uth and Dick travel
about the country to visit friends and relatives.
Dick wondered, now that i am class reporter for a
second time, if that means r uth will be next. But
r uth adds, “Lois, if you do this job for another 10
years the job may disappear since there may not
be enough of us left!” Hey, we’re a healthy bunch
with lots of longevity. we’ll parade around the
quadrangle on June 1 and for years to come. see
you at our 60th reunion!
1954
f rank shields ’54
16
Seward Street
Glens Falls, NY 12804
518-745-1775
˜fmshields@roadrunner.com
Next Reunion: 60
th
, 2014
what did you get for christmas? can you think
back to the days when that was an important
question? well, we got a dandy present a short
week after christmas: Our grandson, Francis J.
shields of east Lyme, conn., was admitted to the
st. Lawrence class of 2017 as an early decision
candidate. so we now have three generations of
Laurentians. Like his father, Fran ‘79, he’s a pretty
fair athlete. For the moment, golf holds his atten-
tion. He’s hopeful that he can get to play at st.
Lawrence.
christmas season brought a goodly number
of cards from Laurentians--some with great full-
page descriptions of family doings, others with
more-to-the-point greetings. t he card from sistie
sime ‘55 and tom Lewis had to set the standard
for getting all their children and their children’s
children in a dazzling photo array.
as you might expect, communication from fra-
ternity brothers was prevalent, with reports from
the medical world being quite frequent. among
sae s reporting in were
Ray Fryer
and Janice,
George Mill
er and Dolores,
Waddie
Kalil
and
Judy,
Jack Palme
r and sue,
Chuck Bradbury
and
Mary
,
Harry Leigh
and Lindsay
,
Dave
and Joyce
sullivan ‘55 t hompson,
a
nd
Gordon Evans.
Chuck Woodell
and Karol reported from the
shores of Lake Ontario as they awaited the next
“
lake effect” storm. also sending greetings were
Dave
and Janice shonka ‘56
Karlen, Hal
and
Nancy Lansing Hoffmann- ennon, Rod La
Croix
and priscilla, and
Judy Openshaw Find-
eisen.
All Hail Our Oldest Laurentian
Helena Laidlaw Claxton ’27
turned 106 years old on February 10, 2013, and was the guest
of honor at a gathering and dinner where she lives in seminole, Fla. t he pi Beta phi sister
founded st. Lawrence’s French c lub and was elected to phi Beta Kappa. a c anton native, she
taught French in c anton and volunteered at the public library. Following the death of her first
husband, earle Livermore, in 1985, she moved to Florida and married Dr. garfield c laxton, who
passed away in 2002 at age 99.
R.B. Lawrence