Ain’t it grand to be 50!

Happy Birthday to all! I’m not sure how 50 came to be such an important milestone for our generation—was it always this way?? Anyway, enjoy the experience!

This year I became a “tweener” with an aging parent and a teenage son. My mother has taken up most of my time and my son, contrary to his usual lovely self, gave me some worry last spring. But things are better today as my mother is somewhat settled in an assisted living facility and my son has taken up electric guitar!

I know that I am not alone in dealing with these generational issues. When talking to classmates, the topic of “aging” is always present. Let’s keep the discussion going – check out the mini-reunions that we have been planning and start thinking about Reunion 2006!

Thanks to the husband of a classmate, I was able to celebrate our 50th year birthdays with my friends Dody Osborne Cox and Piper Wentz Rothschild. What a great time — I hope that you have been able to do the same with your close Smith friends. Something about the shared college experience is what makes reunions (and birthdays) great. Onward for the next 50 — Anne

Mini-reunions? What a great idea! We have chosen winter 2005 as the time for small gatherings of our classmates in various places around the country. It’s our idea of “Rally Day1976”.

Rally Day has become a huge event at Smith — click on the College’s web site homepage for views of last year’s campus event! What better way to beat the winter blues than to get together with Smith friends and enjoy the fun that being with old friends can generate.

You can see from this list that we have a great list of coordinators who are each planning a gathering in their area. Planning is incomplete for many areas but we are well underway! We invite you to join us at any of the events — a complete schedule will be posted on our class web site. Click on the link to 76 Mini-reunions from our class website homepage for details.

Do you live in an area that is not on the list and would like to participate? Please contact me (anneoc@rcn.com) and I will put you in touch with classmates in your area. Of course, some areas have very few classmates — you can always invite other Smith classes to join you!

This is a great idea — what do I do now? Please contact the nearest coordinator to let her know that you are interested (and try to offer some help!). The coordinator will provide you with details. Some events require an RSVP — please check the website for updated information.

Many thanks to all the coordinators — and thanks to Debbie Donnelly for so enthusiastically pushing this idea.

Update your information

We sent out our first broadcast email while on campus and were delighted to hear back from a dozen or more of you! If you didn’t hear from us in October, that’s because Smith doesn’t have your current email address!! Only about 350 of the 688 classmates in the database have email records on file. And we bet that some of your mailing addresses/phone numbers are incorrect as well!

So, how do I update my information? Go the Alumnae Association website — www.alumnae.smith.edu and click on “Alumnae Directory & Email”. Follow the directions for “User Account’ and once in “Directory”, click on “Personal Information”. You can change your address and contact info in ‘Update Home”.

You can also access the alumnae association site thru www.smith.edu —click on “For Alumnae”. If all else fails, email your new contact information to alumnae@smith.edu. This is important!

A report from the Reunion Chairs, Debbie Donnelly and Jane Carroll — We were back on campus in early October for a fun weekend of “reunion training” that included inspiring addresses by Carol Christ and Barbara Reinhold, impressive presentations by a panel of current students in science and engineering majors, strolls through the new Campus Center and Fine Arts Center, useful nuts and bolts for planning a 30th reunion, and plenty of good food and interesting conversation.

After meeting with fellow officers Anne, Carol, and Andrea to talk over reunion ideas, we’ve chosen Life Lessons as the theme for our reunion. Smith helped prepare us for a lifetime of learning. What are some of the lessons we’ve learned in our first five decades of life? What wisdom can we share with classmates who may be dealing with changing careers, an empty nest, dealing with young children in our old age, reentering the workforce, ailing parents, life as a single, health changes, or other life transitions? We’re planning a reunion that will inspire, inform, and instill a renewed confidence to go forward and make a difference. Of course we’ll have plenty of fun in the process, because we’ve certainly learned that fun is important in life!

We need your help to make all this happen! As soon as possible, we need classmates with experience in either website design or graphic design to help with an updated, interactive class website and a logo to tie in with our theme.

We’d also welcome volunteers for Reunion for the following positions: Headquarters Chair (should be someone local), Alumnae Parade Chair, Friday Class Dinner Chair, Saturday Class Dinner Chair, Sunday Brunch Chair, and House Representatives. We have more detailed job descriptions and information about any of these, so email or call us with any questions.

Any ideas about topics/activities that you would like at our 30th Reunion? Please contact us: Jane (603-298-5782; jane.l.carroll@dartmouth.edu) or Debbie (603-672-3188; rhdonnelly@aol.com) to volunteer for an assignment or to suggest a fellow classmate who might have the correct experience for one of the jobs!

With a sad heart, I report the death of fellow classmate. Kerry died in July at her home in Boston. Her close friend, Anne Terhune sent me this memorial; please contact Anne (a.terhune@verizon.net) if you are interested in a joint memorial gift.

This past summer I lost one of my oldest and closest friends, Kerry Santry. Kerry and I met sophomore year in Prof. Burr Overstreet’s International Politics class. We were both a little intimidated when he made it clear that we were studying international “politics”, not international “relations”, and that if we weren’t willing or able to read “Le Monde” in French, we should just pack up and leave right then!

We both made it through and over the years, Kerry and I were friends, roommates, confidantes and Julia Child groupies. She was smart, funny, irreverent, compassionate and giving. She was the best listener I have ever known and was beloved by all the students who were privileged to have her as a career counselor in her various academic positions. Kerry could make you think critically about yourself while making you believe that you could do anything you set your mind to. She made you want to strive to be the best you could be because you knew you had it in you to do that.

I will miss our late night conversations— those who knew her will recall that she was always a night owl! So many times since her death I have heard a story or some interesting news that I just couldn’t wait to share with her… until I remembered that I couldn’t. It was particularly hard when Julia Child passed away.

Kerry was especially close to my 14-year old daughter. It always gave me such comfort to know that Amy felt she was able to share things with Kerry that maybe she didn’t want to share with Mom. Who will be that caring, understanding, nonjudgmental adult for her now that Kerry is gone? It will be even harder this December when my children and I make and decorate Christmas cookies, an annual ritual that Kerry shared with us. It won’t ever be the same.

At her memorial service at Wellesley College, her employer, her mother, and sister all referred to a conference questionnaire they had found among her belongings after her death. One of the questions was, ”What would you like your epitaph to be?”. Kerry’s written response was, “She cared.” Well, those who knew her best, knew that she truly did.

From Charity Imbrie, Fund Team Coordinator — We very much appreciate the support that Smith has received from many of our classmates. We have class members who have donated their money (and time) year after year, and these donors represent the foundation of the support for the Alumnae Association. The College really could not continue to fund current students with grants and other financial aid, if not for the support we provide.

We hope you will consider the College each year in your charitable giving. We hope you will be as generous as you can be, and love to receive large individual gifts. Even so, a gift of $50 or $100 makes a tremendous difference, because it is added to the $50 / $100 gifts of thousands more, and before you know it, you have a tuition payment for a current student.

For 2004-2005, the class of 1976 has set a fundraising goal of $200,000, and a goal of 50% class participation. The Alumnae Association as a whole reached the 50% participation level in the past, but our class has not yet reached that milestone. That means that the College must rely on other classes to surpass the 50% participation rate, to make up for our class. The 50% rate is not just a number — it is a standard which foundations and other donors often look to decide if an institution is supported by its members.

If Smith was important in your life, then I would encourage you to make a gift or increase your gift, and remind your friends to do the same. As most of us turned 50 within the past year (hard as that is to believe), we are asking our classmates to consider making a first-time gift of $50, or by adding $50, $500, $550 or $5000 to last year's gift. Celebrate this milestone in your life by giving back to Smith College. Our class volunteers will be continuing their calls to classmates this month and next, so please take their calls, and be as generous as you can be. Thank you very much.

Celebrate being a Smith alum!

Rally Day (on campus) is February 23rd — call a housemate and reminisce. If you need other ways to celebrate being an alum, check the website: http://www.smith.edu/

§ Read about a fantastic grant to Education & Child Study students to create innovative approaches to elementary school literacy.

§ Check the Art Museum exhibits for the upcoming year. Are you interested in: “New York, New York” from the prints, drawings, & photographs collection (Jan. 5 —Apr. 10, 2005) or “Augustus Saint-Gaudens: American Sculptor of the Gilded Age” (Jan. 27—Mar. 20, 2005)?

§ Need some action in your life? Just check the Smith athletic schedule (www.smith.edu/athletics). I have no idea how anyone can keep up!

If you are traveling to Northampton during the winter, there will be a lecture, “The Art of Resurrection: Picasso and Old Master Portraiture, Feb. 2, 2005, 8 pm in Wright Hall. (Or you could check the Museum collections on the web, www.smith.edu/artmuseum/collections for views of those paintings from Art 100).

For fun, you could always travel to the Five College Student Poetry Fest on Mar. 2, 2005 at Mt. Holyoke. (Or, you could check the Poetry Center on the web, www.smith.edu/poetrycenter for inspiring poems and poets).

Are you interested in “the complex business of managing your money”? Will you be in San Francisco January 14-15th? There will be a two-day symposium, “Money Talks: Women and Financial Independence” at the Metropolitan Club. Contact the Alumnae Association for details.

The College will be celebrating the life of Julia Child ‘34 this month with “dining and discourse” — using Julia’s recipes, of course! Why not invite your Smith friends and do the same? My Smith book club is reading “Julia Child: An Appetite for Life” by Fitch in January. Join us!

I told you that it was easy to find ways to celebrate being a Smith alum!

Ain’t it grand to be 50!

It’s time to get together and Rally!

Update your information

You can also access the alumnae association site thru www.smith.edu —click on “For Alumnae”. If all else fails, email your new contact information to alumnae@smith.edu. This is important!

Reunion 2006

In Memoriam: Kerry Santry

Fundraising ‘76