Messages and Announcements

Passing of Glenn Rogers

We are deeply saddened to announce that our dear friend and classmate Glenn Rogers departed this life on November 5, 2008.

His brother Alan sent in the following obituary, as it appeared in the Lawrence Eagle.

Burlington - Glenn Rhodes Rogers, 69, of Newburyport, died Wednesday, November 5, 2008, at the Lahey Clinic after a courageous battle with cancer.

Born in Newton, Massachusetts on January 16, 1939, he was the son of Kenneth W. and Eleanor B. (Rhodes) Rogers.

During his life, Glenn enjoyed mountain climbing, hiking, and camping in the White Mountains with his family and close friends. He also loved traveling throughout the country by train. He was a wonderful horticulturist, and took pride in his gardens. One of his favorite activities was being with his grandchildren whether it was watching their sports or swimming with them in the backyard pool.

He attended Newton schools and graduated from Newton High School in 1957. He was a member of the United States Army Reserve. While stationed at Fort Chaffee, Arkansas he was deployed to support the implementation of the integration of Little Rock Central High School. Upon release from active duty he attended Newton Junior College, and transferred to Boston University where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Education in 1961 and a Master’s Degree in Elementary Administration in 1965. He began teaching fifth grade in the Winthrop Elementary School in Hamilton in 1961, and in 1963 was appointed Principal of the Cutler Elementary School, and later served as Principal of both the Cutler and Winthrop Elementary Schools in Hamilton-Wenham. He retired from education in 1994.

He is survived by his three beloved daughters, Renee Rogers of Mesa, Arizona; Jennifer Howard and her husband Charles of Newburyport, and Christine Ellis and her husband Brian of South Portland, Maine; a brother, Alan Rogers and his wife Valerie of Northfield, Massachusetts; his former wife, Christel Rogers of Newburyport; and his life partner of more than twenty years, Cheryl Sweeney and her children Ann and Matthew of Newburyport; four grandchildren, and two Nephews.

Friends and family are invited to a memorial service to be held at the Belleville Congregational Church on High Street in Newburyport, MA. on Saturday, November 15th at 12:00 p.m. Burial will be at the convenience of the family. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Merrimack Valley Hospice, the Hospice House.

Hope Heenan Berg sent in an email message which instantly recalls the deep affection we all felt for Glenn:

I am so deeply sorry to learn of Glenn's passing. How wonderful it was to have seen him at the Angier reunion, Jim...I remember telling him what beautiful blue eyes he had...how glad I am to have had that tiny bit of time with him... Thank you for letting me know. I am so very sorry...what a gentleman he was.

In sympathy.

Hope Heenan Berg NHS '57

Passing of Frank Forrest

We thank Frank's daughter Heather for writing the following appreciation of her father's life, and Glenn Rogers for sending it in to us.

My father Frank A. Forrest Jr., formerly of 165 Neshobe Road, Waban, died unexpectedly of a heart attack on June 20, 2007 in Taos, New Mexico. Married to Mary Jane(LeVangie) Forrest for 41 years, he has three children, Francis III, Brett and Heather, whom he raised in South Weymouth, Massachusetts. My brothers and I remember how fondly Dad spoke of Angier School; it must have been a nourishing, supportive environment for him.
 
After graduating from Angier School Frank went on to Newton High School. Upon graduation he attended Norwich University in Vermont where he graduated with a degree in business and a commission as an officer. After two years in Southern Germany during the Berlin crisis as a tank commander in the US Army, he returned to the US to join the family's confectionery business. After holding various sales and leadership roles, he eventually rose to the head of sales for Fannie Farmer.

Frank's stint as an officer in Germany inspired wanderlust, and for the rest of his life he traveled the globe extensively. Even during the Cold War, when traveling was largely prohibited, Frank found a way to bring his family to visit Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. He often used American chocolate bars at border crossings to help facilitate the red tape.

An adventurer in many senses, Frank built a vacation house himself for his family at Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire and enjoyed hiking and camping in the White Mountains. Many of his greatest adventures were with his best friends from Angier School. Throughout Frank's entire life his Angier friends David Raab, Glenn Rogers and Michael Moloney were like our family and we call them uncles.

Always fascinated with culture and history and proud to be an American, Frank fittingly spent his last days on a transcontinental road trip exploring the landscapes, museums and pueblos of the US. Frank was above all a compassionate man who would do anything for you. He was a devoted father and husband for 41 years.

He was thrilled with his young grandchildren Eva, 3, and Theodore Francis, 5 months,
and spent many hours rocking and feeding them even at four in the morning. Frank was a great friend and family man. I credit influential environments such as Angier School for having such a positive impact in the early development of my Dad's outstanding character.

— Heather Forrest Weiland

 

November reunion page

There is now a separate page for our planned Waban reunion in November, which you can access right here. It contains the schedule for the weekend and we will update the page as the time approaches.

"Wabanites reunite" Yahoo website

I recently received the following message from the moderator of a new and wildly successful Yahoo groups website which exchanges messages and photos among a generation of Waban schoolkids who were leaving Angier about the same time we were leaving NHS:

Photos of Fritz Richmond

Here are a couple photos I received to remember Fritz, who died November 2005. The first is a poster from a memorial concert held in Tokyo in April 2006, and the second from an issue of the Broadside, a Boston folkie magazine from the 60's.

Angier school class 1940? 1941?


I regret that I totally forgot to post this picture of an early Angier kindergarten or first grade class. It was sent in by Pamela Webber White (dickpam @comcast.net), who says:

"I'm guessing at some of the names. I did not put them in order. Does anyone recognize themselves or their classmates? Barbara Heath, Kathy Cantor, Suzanne Van Mater, Barney Stames, Billy Newton, Margo Hunt. Norman Strickland."

— Jim M.

For Karen, with love...

Before her family moved to Waban Avenue, Karen Snow lived on Dwhinda Road, two houses behind me. She was my first “best friend.” She taught me to ride my bike, though I was never able to master her own bike, a tiny, ridiculously wobbly contraption whose wheels were no more than eight inches in diameter. Today it would probably be considered too dangerous to sell. But Karen flitted about at ease on it. I first admired Karen’s athletic prowess. She was good at whatever sport she attempted. When we played checkers together, she always beat me – she was so smart. We drew and painted too, but her work was far better than mine. We climbed trees (our parents were unaware) and chatted about our dreams. We roller-skated on Dwhinda Road and collected scrapes, bumps and bruises. Karen had some pretty impressive ones I recall, because she had an adventurous spirit and was no wimp. As a child I mostly appreciated Karen’s intelligence and skill at games. Only years later did I realize how pretty she was. Just have a look at her senior picture, so lovely, so serene.

Oddly, Karen did not shine particularly at school. In second or third grade, she repeated a year, which put her into our class of ’57. She had some mysterious difficulty with reading that would probably be instantly labeled dyslexia today. She never mentioned it to me. She was not the type to share her worries with her friends. Actually she was quite reserved and retiring, the type that hides her light under a bushel.

Karen is connected with several of my earliest discoveries about life. My first memory of real shame and guilt is the day I broke a decorative china jug perched on a shelf in her living room. I knew I should never have touched it, and my anguish was extreme. Karen’s mother didn’t scold me though, because, I now imagine, she understood my dismay. I knew my own mother would have made a real fuss about me breaking an “antique.” That day I discovered parents were different in their reactions. Nevertheless it was embarrassing and difficult for me to show my face in that house for quite some time. And the sad, guilty memory abides with me to this day.

One day when we were six or seven, we were standing chatting in my backyard when Karen’s big brother Johnny erupted on the scene and knocked me over from behind. Then, chortling and triumphant, he rode over me on his bicycle and was gone. I was stunned, then hurt, not physically, but emotionally. I had not provoked him in any way. I had never experienced such gratuitous meanness before. Today, whenever I hear talk of children’s cruelty, this incident pops into mind. This was early proof that children are not necessarily sweet and should never be taken for “noble savages.” I learned to be wary of big brothers, although I worshipped my own. But you couldn’t trust everyone. It was one of life’s little lessons. Years later I mentioned my misadventure to my mother, who chuckled and replied, “Oh, yes, Johnny Snow was the neighborhood scamp.” Well, John, if you read this some day, you needn’t worry, I have long since forgiven you. Little boys do grow up and, I have discovered, like good wine, they usually improve with age.

When we were in junior high school, Karen’s parents invited me to spend a weekend at the old farmhouse they used to rent for the summer. It lay isolated at the end of a long dirt road in the backwoods of southern New Hampshire – the sort of place Robert Frost used to write about. The little sash windows had white lace curtains. There were no neighbors, and I felt as if we might be living a hundred years earlier. There was a whiff of Brigadoon about the place. It remains an enchanting memory. Karen and I swam and canoed on the little lake at the bottom of the hill. The rest of the time we explored the various ramshackle outbuildings full of abandoned agricultural equipment. This was my idea of Adventure. No one had set foot inside those buildings in years. We hoped to discover a treasure or a skeleton behind every closed door, but all we found was junk, mostly bizarre farming implements whose use we tried to guess. Everything was encased in rust and dust. When the weekend was over, I asked Karen why she had never explored those buildings before. She replied frankly, “It wouldn’t have been any fun alone.” At first I was puzzled. Then suddenly I realized she was right. Unwittingly Karen had just pointed out the value of friendship. I think of Karen’s remark every time I look at the beach towel my daughter was given when she was little. It says: “everything is twice as nice when you share it with a friend.”

As Karen and I were perfectly compatible, we never once quarreled. We just enjoyed each other’s company. Amusingly we even shared the same boyfriend. Not at the same time, I hasten to add! When Bruce Harper moved to Waban in fifth grade, he and I became fast friends and we had play dates at each other’s houses, much to our mothers’ amusement. And then there were Mrs. Fergusson’s weekly ballroom dancing classes to encourage the little romance. Later, in junior high and high school, Bruce dated Karen – for several years, I think.

Late in high school, I invited Karen and four other classmates to our summer place for a long weekend. It was our last get-together before heading off to college. I have a photograph of the other four girls sunbathing and chatting on the end of the dock – and Karen floating dreamily alone in an inner tube, some distance out in the lake. Karen was drifting away from everyone else….. After that weekend her mother told mine she was worried about Karen withdrawing from her friends.

After Newton High, Karen attended the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School. I was told she met her husband in the psychiatrist’s office, where they were both being treated. They were married, had a son, and moved to Cape Cod. I was told Karen was a tender, attentive mother. When the child was eight years old, Karen’s husband murdered her and was locked up in an insane asylum. Big brother John took the child under his wing.

Karen had almost everything: brains, beauty, artistic talent, athletic ability, and modesty. She seemed to have been dealt all the right cards but one, her mental problem. Unfortunately an additional wild card then fell into her lap, and fate would not allow her to fulfill the promise within her. And here is the last lesson I have learned from Karen’s example (among many, many others): life is never ever fair.

But sometimes it is glaringly unfair. Karen deserved far better than she got. I was very fond of her, and I shall never forget her.

— Nancy Derr Polin, 1/20/2006

Obituary for Patricia Rak Harrison — Boston Globe: November 21, 2005

While Laos's civil war raged in the streets of its capital city Vientiane in the 1960s, Patricia (Rak) Crane Harrison huddled under the furniture in the concrete residence of the US ambassador with other workers from the US Agency for International Development to protect themselves from the gun battles outside.

In 1970, in Amman, Jordan, she and her two small daughters cowered under the bed for a week, caught in the crossfire of bullets during the Black September fighting between Palestinian guerrillas and the Jordanian army.

''Throughout her career with USAID, you knew they were just about to go into war because Pat moved there," Karen Rak of Belfast, Maine, said of her adventurous sister who spent years with the USAID, both as employee and as the wife of an agency official.

Mrs. Harrison — who lived in Senegal, Afghanistan, Jordan, Nepal, and Zaire as a Foreign Service wife — later became a presence on Martha's Vineyard with her gourmet catering service wearing her signature red chef's hat.

She died Nov. 9 at her Vineyard Haven home after a four-month battle with cancer. She was 70.

''Pat was the best kind of representative of the United States abroad," said Carol Corillon of Chevy Chase, Md., a friend of 35 years who met Mrs. Harrison in Zaire. ''Pat loved adventure, travel, and other cultures. She reached out to people everywhere.

What struck me when I first met her was how elegant she was. Tall, slender, hair pinned up, and Old Worldly. She dressed for dinner. She had this great style, yet she could get down on her knees to muck up stuff that had fallen out of the garbage disposal."

Laos was Mrs. Harrison's first assignment with USAID. Though she had been offered executive positions — she was fluent in French and knowledgeable in cultural anthropology — she chose to do secretarial work, her sister said. After Laos, she was assigned to Senegal, where she met Jacob L. Crane III, a USAID director, former naval officer, and a world-class sailor. They were married on Cape Cod in 1962 and returned to Senegal.

Their daughter, Lisa, would have been born in Senegal, but, due to pregnancy complications, Mrs. Harrison traveled to Boston and delivered the baby at Massachusetts General Hospital. ''We returned to Senegal soon after, nd almost immediately my mother was invited to a party by the royal family," said Lisa Crane of Nokesville, Va. ''She attended carrying me." Their second daughter, Nicole, was born in Afghanistan and from there, the family moved to a posting in Jordan.

Nicole Crane of LaSelva Beach, Calif., recalled the fighting in Jordan in 1970. ''Dad was away from home working to get people evacuated, and my sister and I were at home with Mom," she said. ''We had to hide under the bed or a table for about a week to protect ourselves from the bullets whizzing through our house. My mother used to crawl out to get us meals."Continued...

When there was a respite in the shooting, as is the custom in the Arab world, so people can pray or bury their dead, the three would come out from under the bed. ''During one of those times," Nicole said, ''we went up to the roof, and on the stairway, a bullet grazed my head." Mrs. Harrison and her daughters were evacuated and flown to Cyprus, where they lived on the family's 36-foot ketch, and Mrs. Harrison home-schooled her two daughters until her husband was able to join them.When he did, he sailed his family to Lebanon, where they remained for about nine months.

His next posting was Nepal, where Mrs. Harrison was able to satisfy her adventurous spirit and her love for nature by trekking in the Himalayas. She and her children once hiked the 18,000 feet to the Mount Everest base camp, with yaks, sherpas, and porters, Nicole Crane said.

After Mr. Crane's death in 1980, Mrs. Harrison returned to work for the USAID in Haiti, where she became a scuba diver and instructor, while her children attended school in the United States. She retired from government service in 1988 and moved to Vineyard Haven. In 1990, she married Lawrence Harrison, author, Tufts University professor, and a former USAID official.

Mrs. Harrison was born in Iowa, to Ian Paley, a psychiatrist, and Elsie (Tooze) Rak, an author of books on dyslexia. She grew up in the Waban section of Newton. She was adventurous from a young age, said her younger brother Charles of Jamaica, Vt.

''Pat always had this high energy," he said. ''When she was 16 and I was only 2, she took me for a wild ride on the Cape in her Model A Ford. "Mrs. Harrison graduated from Mills College in Oakland, Calif., and did graduate work in French studies at the University of Paris and in cultural anthropology at American University in Washington, D.C.

In 1993 and 1994, she attended Cordon Bleu schools in Ottawa and in London, and she apprenticed at Lydia Shire's Pignoli Restaurant in Boston in summer 1994. The following spring she started the Vineyard Haute Cuisine, catering weddings and special events. For some of the weddings, the bride would ride in a yellow 1931 Model A Phaeton, once owned by the royal family of Nepal and never removed from its cartons there. Mrs. Harrison had it shipped home and assembled.

In 2000, Mrs. Harrison catered a fund-raiser for Hillary Rodham Clinton at the Vineyard home of movie mogul Harvey Feinstein. Mrs. Harrison catered some 75 weddings in 11 years, some on beaches and in meadows. Kathy Joyce Costanza of Oak Bluffs, one of Mrs. Harrison's staff, spoke of her ''amazing work ethic." ''She taught us how to be sensitive to the needs of people who sought our services," Costanza said.When Mrs. Harrison became ill, her staff carried on for her.

When she was in her 50s, Mrs. Harrison took up golf and, her husband said, had a hole-in-one at Farm Neck Golf Club in Oak Bluffs in 2001. Last December, Mrs. Harrison and Carol Corillon went to Tahiti, where they attended a church service on a distant atoll.

''Mother was such a remarkable person, but she was completely nonpresumptuous," Nicole Crane said. ''She took up so much space without asking for it and ended up being the center of people's worlds."

Besides her husband, her two daughters, her sister, and her brother, Mrs. Harrison leaves three stepdaughters, Julia Harrison of Wilton, Conn., Beth Harrison of Lincoln, and Amy Harrison of Ridgewood, N.J., and 11 grandchildren.

A memorial service is being planned for the spring.

Obituary for John (Fritz) Richmond — From KATU, a Portland TV station, November 22, 2005

Fritz Richmond, a folk musician considered one of the world's finest players of the jug and washtub bass, died of lung cancer Sunday. He was 66.

Born in Newton, Mass., Richmond became a key figure in the Boston folk music scene, where he worked as the house bassist at Club 47. Drawing on his expertise as a U.S. Army helicopter mechanic, he strung the washtub bass with a steel cable, turning it into a usable instrument. To play it, he developed his own steel-and-rawhide gloves.

He won national attention in 1963 with the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, where he learned that he'd be playing the jug as well as washtub bass. None of them knew the instrument firsthand and learned how to play it from scratchy old records. Bandmate Geoff Muldaur said Richmond figured it out: "You go into it thinking it's this comical jug routine. Then you realize that he's putting real emotion across."

He was a trendsetter, too, said Muldaur. It was Richmond who came up with the Lovin' Spoonful's name and first wore the granny glasses with tiny colored lenses later favored by folks such as John B. Sebastian and Roger McGuinn. While most wore the glasses to be trendy, Richmond did it was to hide the fact that the exertion of blowing the jug made him go cross-eyed.

In the early 1970s, he moved to Los Angeles and engineered albums for Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt and others. He moved to Portland in 1977, but still taught recording classes and played in the Metropolitan Jug Band and Fritz Richmond's Barbecue Orchestra. He made appearances on "A Prairie Home Companion" and continued to tour with John Sebastian's J-Band and with Muldaur.

The Smithsonian has one of his washtub basses in its collection.

He played his last notes in public with Muldaur at the Boston Folk Festival last September, shortly after he'd been diagnosed with lung cancer. "I gave him a solo," Muldaur said, "and he just nailed it. He didn't tell me that he was sick until after the gig because he didn't want to ruin it for me."

Message from Esther Jacobson

I feel like I'm looking at all of you from a great distance...of time and of space. Nancy's photographs really hit me: I could just taste those days, with all their pleasures and bitter-sweet memories.

I'm so sorry to hear the news about John Griswold, moved to see the pics of Ardith.

I don't usually like to put myself forward in a photo, but maybe it wouldn't hurt to do so now. The enclosed photo was taken a couple of years ago while I was working in the Altai Mountains of Mongolia...actually, I've been working there, summers, for the last 11 years and will go back this year to survey for a new project.

My husband, Gary Tepfer, is on the far left, I'm the wild looking one third from left (big wind, not really such big hair!), and the others are all colleagues or dear friends (Tuvinians). The mountains in the background are Tavan Bogd; they mark the border between Mongolia, China, and Russia.

Take care, perhaps one of these days I'll be able to see some of you in person.

Affectionately,
Esther

Peter Brandt uncovered

"A mad dash from Angier to today:

Kimball Union Academy, Swarthmore College ‘62 BA – History, New England Telephone (living in Fitchburg, Salem, Northampton, Shrewsbury, and Needham). To AT&T in New York then New Jersey (’73-’77 – lived in Convent Station, NJ), moved back to Andover with NET - Boston. In ‘83 to Chappaqua, NY, to work for NYNEX in White Plains and NYC. (Never became a Yankees’ fan!) In 1996, retired as Marketing Director from NYNEX and moved to Charleston, SC; haven’t looked back.

Along the way: Married. One daughter (also married) is in LA - Associate PR Director for the LA Philharmonic Orchestra, and delivering our first grandchild in August! ? One son, in NYC, left movie production after 9/11, now a paralegal.

Since retiring: I started my own consulting business, associated with a national research firm, doing new product and other specialty market research. Both my wife and I are involved in Charleston volunteer activities ranging from its Symphony to helping maintain the historic character of this unique city. (See www.savethecity.org, that’s our gate on the home page.)

But the most fun: We were in the right place at the right time, met the person running the shipboard guest computer instruction program for Crystal Cruises and have been fortunate to have seen lots of new places around the world and meet fascinating people. Since Crystal took that program in-house, we’ve been sailing and teaching on two other cruise lines, Celebrity and Oceania. What a blast!

Small world story: Sailing in the Caribbean, we were seated randomly at a dinner table with two other couples; one was a mother/daughter couple from Boston. It turned out that the interior decorator daughter had finished redecorating my old house at 41 Ridge Road just the week before! (Good thing, I know it needed it!)"

— from Peter Brandt, 5/6/05

Passing of John Griswold

It is with great sadness that I advise you that John Griswold passed away yesterday (January 26th) after a long battle with cancer. For those who visited John at Karen's two summer's ago, we had hopes that things were going well and John was in remission, but this fall the cancer returned. As soon as I have further information, I will forward it.

— from Eric O'Brien, 1/27/2005

John (Jack) O'Connell Uncovered

I don't remember how I came across your web page, but it brought back a lot of memories. Our family moved to Newton Highlands in 1943. We lived at 37 Endicott St. which was off Woodward St. about a block from the Waban line. Although I attended the Hyde School, Weeks Junior High and then Newton High School, many of my friends lived in Waban. I can still remember hanging out in Waban Square, Rhodes Pharmacy and the soda fountain, Cummins cleaners, Waban News, the deli around the corner, Waban Market and the baseball games at Angier School. I can still remember Mass every Sunday at St. Philip Neri Church.

After an Honorable Discharge from the Air Force, I spent four years at and graduated from Boston University with a major in statistics and a minor in economics. Started to work on a graduate degree but never finished. Time to make a living I guess. Went to work for International Harvester Co. for a while. Decided corporate life was not for me. Eventually ended up owning four truck dealerships, a truck leasing company, several commercial properties, and a finance company catering to prime accounts.

On the personal side I got married, we had three children and so far they have given us two grandchildren with two more on the way. I retired early leaving the children to run the companies. Spend the summers in Connecticut and the winters in Southern California when not traveling.

I would like to hear from old friends and anyone else who would like to romp the old stomping grounds again.

Jack O'Connell — January, 2005

SEO7838@aol.com

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