Class Note 1985
Issue
January-February 2024
Happy New Year 2024! In preparing for this column during New England foliage season last fall, I heard from some classmates who still call New Hampshire, Vermont, and specifically the Upper Valley home.
Twenty-seven-year Upper Valley resident Emily Allen Eckels, now retired from her years of dedication to student affairs at Dartmouth, has fully immersed herself into a wide range of activities and interests. She and husband Woody (the College’s longtime director of residential operations, also retired) are empty-nesters with four grown kids living on both coasts. Emily and Woody spend time enjoying their family, volunteering, and traveling, including a trip to Ireland. Notably, Emily’s family coffeecake recipe garnered her a first-place blue ribbon at the Tunbridge, Vermont, World’s Fair, 31 years after her grandmother won the award with the same recipe. Breakfast at Emily’s place!
On the globetrotting front, Doug Williamson and his wife, Leslie, pulled up their roots in Hanover, sold their house, and have been traveling for more than a year. Doug retired in 2019 after 21 years as a pediatrician at the Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital (APD) in Lebanon, New Hampshire. A bit of online digging by yours truly revealed that Doug received the APD President’s Award for outstanding commitment and distinguished service. Doug writes, “We are off to Patagonia, Antarctica, the Caribbean, Thailand, Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, and French Polynesia during the next six months. Then we might settle in our new New Hampshire home closer to the coast for a few months.” Someone should start a “Where in the world are Doug and Leslie?” website to follow their global adventures.
Laura Abrahamsen and her husband, Stergios Lazos ’84, welcomed New Jersey resident and physician Mark Preston to their home in Peterborough, New Hampshire, when Mark came up to watch his son compete in a school cross-country race. Laura manages operations at the George H. Bixby Memorial Library in the Monadnock region. Mark is a nationally recognized expert in urogynecology. Over dinner they reminisced about their “life-changing” foreign study program in Rome as 20-year-olds and celebrated the anniversary of the experience that formed the bedrock bonds of a 40-year friendship.
Moving over to the West Coast, Anne Schonfield, Cathy Wasserman, Fiona Harrison, and Stephanie O’Neal gathered last June at Anne’s house in Berkeley, California, for their first mini-reunion since graduation. Anne runs her own business consulting with foundations and nonprofits. Cathy is the state epidemiologist for non-infectious conditions at Washington State Department of Health. Fiona is dean of physics, math, and astronomy at California Institute of Technology. Stephanie is a retired lawyer and adjunct instructor at Los Angeles Valley College. Fun dinners, a beautiful hike in Point Reyes National Seashore, and quality time reconnecting made for a memorable weekend for this group of accomplished female friends.
As we venture into this next year, we would love to hear from you with news of your lives and adventures as we all embrace our seventh decade.
—Rebecca Blake Osborne, 42 Olive St., Newburyport, MA 01950; (603) 381-4164; rosborne29@comcast.net; John MacManus, 188 Ringwood Road, Rosemont, PA 19010; (610) 525-4541; slampong@aol.com
Twenty-seven-year Upper Valley resident Emily Allen Eckels, now retired from her years of dedication to student affairs at Dartmouth, has fully immersed herself into a wide range of activities and interests. She and husband Woody (the College’s longtime director of residential operations, also retired) are empty-nesters with four grown kids living on both coasts. Emily and Woody spend time enjoying their family, volunteering, and traveling, including a trip to Ireland. Notably, Emily’s family coffeecake recipe garnered her a first-place blue ribbon at the Tunbridge, Vermont, World’s Fair, 31 years after her grandmother won the award with the same recipe. Breakfast at Emily’s place!
On the globetrotting front, Doug Williamson and his wife, Leslie, pulled up their roots in Hanover, sold their house, and have been traveling for more than a year. Doug retired in 2019 after 21 years as a pediatrician at the Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital (APD) in Lebanon, New Hampshire. A bit of online digging by yours truly revealed that Doug received the APD President’s Award for outstanding commitment and distinguished service. Doug writes, “We are off to Patagonia, Antarctica, the Caribbean, Thailand, Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, and French Polynesia during the next six months. Then we might settle in our new New Hampshire home closer to the coast for a few months.” Someone should start a “Where in the world are Doug and Leslie?” website to follow their global adventures.
Laura Abrahamsen and her husband, Stergios Lazos ’84, welcomed New Jersey resident and physician Mark Preston to their home in Peterborough, New Hampshire, when Mark came up to watch his son compete in a school cross-country race. Laura manages operations at the George H. Bixby Memorial Library in the Monadnock region. Mark is a nationally recognized expert in urogynecology. Over dinner they reminisced about their “life-changing” foreign study program in Rome as 20-year-olds and celebrated the anniversary of the experience that formed the bedrock bonds of a 40-year friendship.
Moving over to the West Coast, Anne Schonfield, Cathy Wasserman, Fiona Harrison, and Stephanie O’Neal gathered last June at Anne’s house in Berkeley, California, for their first mini-reunion since graduation. Anne runs her own business consulting with foundations and nonprofits. Cathy is the state epidemiologist for non-infectious conditions at Washington State Department of Health. Fiona is dean of physics, math, and astronomy at California Institute of Technology. Stephanie is a retired lawyer and adjunct instructor at Los Angeles Valley College. Fun dinners, a beautiful hike in Point Reyes National Seashore, and quality time reconnecting made for a memorable weekend for this group of accomplished female friends.
As we venture into this next year, we would love to hear from you with news of your lives and adventures as we all embrace our seventh decade.
—Rebecca Blake Osborne, 42 Olive St., Newburyport, MA 01950; (603) 381-4164; rosborne29@comcast.net; John MacManus, 188 Ringwood Road, Rosemont, PA 19010; (610) 525-4541; slampong@aol.com