Marcia Tondel Davis and Adrienne Milton Ferrell sent this reflection in from their mini-reunion in Nantucket, MA.
We are each just home after a 20th informal class reunion, held by and for the Dwight School Class of ’62, one of us in San Diego, and the other in Brill, near Oxford, England. We’re still partly there emotionally, hence the present tense. Our dog whispering, quietly accommodating host, whose generosity and patience surpass all understanding, is Bambi Constantine. A great number of others (you know who you are!) support her in pulling it off, year after year, for 3-6 days at her beautiful and spacious home on Nantucket Island, MA. We want to share it with those who couldn’t make it and with others in the DE community.
This reunion is our biggest yet, 20 of us in all, just about half the surviving class. We were galvanized this year by the sudden illness and death of one of our most beloved members, Barbara Scholl Baker-Bury. Many of us were still in touch with her, making the loss all the more acute, and several attended her Memorial in Vermont. She was our Madonna in the Christmas Pageant, 1962. This recent loss, and that of Flip Robinson Faulconer, Bonne Yaeger Flynn, Marti Cookman Kimberly, Pamela Hobart Obolsky, Betty Polch, Susie Maisel Worthington and Nancy Bierce Alden over the last years, raise our awareness of our own mortality, and that of our friends, and the importance of affirming our friendships now, before it is too late. We are age 73, 74, and 75. We have come in from Georgia, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts, California and England. We are here to re-establish our ties to one another and to ourselves.
The old groupings dissolve upon arrival as we welcome and recognize one another, each a special individual, in some cases for the first time in 56 years!! But we are not “old ladies”: the years have been kind, and we feel vibrant, excited as school girls, and very grateful to be here. At various times we seem to hover slightly above ground, like we’re taking off to a better planet somewhere. (Nantucket is halfway there.) Some of us connect with certain others more than we ever did in school. At other times close old friends gather for the fun of remembering childhood and adolescent events both in and out of school. Memories are spotty, variable, occasionally hilarious. It is quite touching when a dear classmate recalls personal memories you have forgotten, bringing them to life again.
We enjoy festive meals at Bambi’s and in the town, established rituals like grab bag surprises, lobster treats, French toast for all, beach trips, shopping, Perry’s slides from Papua New Guinea!, and walking about — chatting, ambling, being ourselves and being together.
The day that many of us are leaving, a few are standing around near the door, saying ‘goodbye and good travels.’ We look at each other helplessly and try to find words to pin down why this gathering has gathered so much significance. It starts to crystallize. (Of course, we’re high on the oxytocin and endorphins released by all the hugs and laughter that have been going around for four days.) Paraphrased here are some of the things we spoke about:
We find our truer selves amid these women who were all around us when we were becoming ourselves. In each other’s faces we see both the young, fledgling adults we were and our matured, developed lives. We are grounded by the foundation we were given by Dwight, our teachers and by our parents who sent us there. We feel both more firmly ourselves and more open and accepting of otherness. Our parents are gone, and so are many siblings. We are both like and unlike family to each other, like and unlike siblings. It’s a relief to be among these peers when we’ve become matriarchs, or nearly so, in our own families.
We’d like to say to present D-E students, go ahead and relate to others you don’t usually connect with, as you enjoy your established friends. Otherwise, you may miss out on some very special and interesting friendships!! Some of the classmates we especially enjoyed seeing at our reunion are those we never really got to know at Dwight. And to everyone who already graduated, consider getting together with DE classmates and developing the nucleus of an informal reunion group; then grow it into your own version of this. You’ll be richly rewarded!
Featured Photo:
Back row: Barbara Brittan Taylor, Suzy Grubb Jennings, Pat Haggerty Fowler, Perry Palmer, Judy Imperato Eyal, Diane Alexander Sugden, Courtney Bowles Papatestas, Chris Schreyer Martin, Nina de Saussure Frederick, Adrienne Milton Ferrell
Second row:
Kathe Foote Lingamfelter, Susie McBride Murphy, Edie Kelly Bales, Roberta LaBan Culver, Bambi Constantine, Molla Sloane Donaldson, Cathie Smith Leonard, Barbara Kaufman Suomi, Marcia Tondel Davis
Lowerstep:
Laurel Chenet Zimmermann, Katharine Kirkland Walker
