Class Note 1987

I write this column in San Francisco during week seven of California’s Covid-19 stay-at-home order. Along with home-cooked family meals, stress baking, and evening power walks through Golden Gate Park (six feet away from others, of course), my go-to relief during these difficult times is connecting with the people I care about.

During the past month of the crisis I enjoyed leisurely telephone chats with Laura Korfmann, Allison (Bleyler) McDonald, and Michele Rivard; topics we covered included keeping one’s sanity through good food and exercise, political leadership (and the lack thereof), teenagers stuck in the house, and parents who insist on leaving the house. I also received an actual handwritten letter from Sally McColl, who is fulfilling a challenge to write a letter per day for a year. A kindergarten teacher in northern Virginia, she and her husband have two grown kids: a son whom I remember feeding pizza in his highchair like it was yesterday and a daughter finishing college. During a trip to N.Y.C. in December, Sally had breakfast with Jon “Zebo” Zonis, and my name came up in their nostalgic musings, most likely because Zebo spent so much time lounging in our rooms in Kappa Alpha Theta senior year!

I miss my wonderful ’87 Theta sisters, so what better time to connect than now? In April I joined 16 of them in a lively and comforting Zoom call. What a blast to catch up a second time with Laura, Allison, Michele, and Sally, and with Bethamy Aronow, Allison Bailey, K.K. (McMahon) Bochman, Karen (Wicke) Boyle, Martha Ehrmann, Jane Ho, Colleen (Sullivan) Mikkelson, Colette (Bourquin) Nygren, Christen (Fitzpatrick) O’Connor (who organized the call), Diana (Headley) Saunders, Betsy (Booth) Scalco, and Maury (Lawrence) Stephan. Here are some of the reactions we shared after the call ended: “inspirational,” “a great way to end my day,” “a spirit lifter,” “the highlight of my week and probably my month,” and “it gave me tremendous energy to hear how you all are coping.”

Christine Wichers similarly organized a Covid-19 Zoom mini-reunion of freshman year Lodge residents that included George Balchunas, Karen Birch, Jenny Boesch, Paul Churchill (in Germany), Sarah (Pratt) Dawley, Aaron Deykin, Martha, Karen Epps, Tom and Laura (Woolman) Gamer, Mich (Poulin) Gardner, Jennifer (Reaser) Glass, Lisa Horowitz and Dave Huth, David Huang, Nancy (Davis) Lewis, Ted Little, Sue Murray, Tom Palisi, Melissa (Duarte) Phillips, Jennine (Shohan) Pommier, Scott Rafshoon, Roland Reynolds, Sam Semon, Regina Speed-Bost, and Christine herself. “The freshman ’87s in the Lodge were a close group,” Christine said. “In fact, we have three married couples. We talked about who is the first grandparent (Regina), who is the first to undergo a hip or knee replacement (Laura), and who currently has a child at Dartmouth (Aaron, Ted, Jennine, and Mich, at the Medical School). But mostly we laughed!” Karen posted a screenshot on our ’87 Facebook page and summed up the group’s feelings: “What a nice way to feel not so socially distant!”

—Laura Gasser, 746 17th Ave., San Francisco, CA 94121; marcklaurag@aol.com