Greetings classmates! I am very sorry to write that we have not been together for our 60th reunion in Ithaca. I hope you were able to join in on the campus tour for our class held electronically in April. Meanwhile I have news from classmates to share.
From Connie Fekete Drapeau (cfdmail1@comcast.net) and husband Raoule‘60 in Ashburn,VA is news of their living in a protected retirement community where wearing a mask she “participates in a number of groups including a book club which I started, the drama club, the UnitarianUniversalist group and currently serve on the General Services Committee II, am also interested in politics…she writes Cornell’s motto ’Freedom with Responsibility’ really rings true. Be careful with yourself and others.”

Frederick (Ted) Pease (ftpease@netscape.net) is “composing and arranging music for The New World Jazz Composers Octet. Our latest CD is called “The Next Stage” and features eight of the finest jazz musicians from Berklee College of Music and New England Conservatory. Three middle age children and eight grandchildren are beginning to emerge from self isolation…inoculations being obtained as available. The pandemic has shown how woefully unprepared we were (and still are) for a crisis of this magnitude.

From Massachusetts Fred Siegel (fpsiegal@lmac.com) says he is “fully retired from medicine -- AIDS care mostly. My kids David and Nina both CU alums, granddaughter Sonia writes for the N.Y.Times, David is an attorney in NY with lovely wife and 2 sons. His (Fred’s) life-partner Carol Crigler and dog Sam have a home in Stockbridge, MA and in NYC.” Barbara Hasenzahl Eckelmeyer (beckelmeyer@hotmail.com) has a new life in Skillman, NJ. Her husband “contracted CoVid 19 and
passed away while in memory care. With help from family, friends, and neighbors the house was sold (in one day), emptied and packed for the move. Now she is in a senior facility called Stonebridge making new friends. She says be thankful for every day. Follow the rules.”

Jane Sessler (horsehere@aol.com) has a new life in a new over-65 community outside Saratoga Springs, NY and has “become a racehorse owner. These small partnerships have provided lots of fun, comradery, and excitement. We’ve had good horses and bad ones but we enjoy feeding them in the barn, rooting for them when they run and have visited the winners’ circle more than 30 times.” A trip with family to Iceland before the pandemic for 80th birthday. “I found being single and 80 very liberating. I did what I had to do and what I wanted to do.”

Mary Ann Tower Rolland (dickyeag@bellsouth.net) “is retired and living in a retirement community of 500 seniors (yes, I have had my shots and hope to travel this summer). I love to quilt so am enjoying the “free time” this lock-down provides…I am having vision problems and am selling my car (boo hoo!)…enjoy companionship of 2d husband and plan to meet Chi
Gamma classmates at Chautauqua in Aug.” No travel due to pandemic for Robert H. Treadway, Jr. (treadway@aol.com)
who retired after 20 years teaching. “Taught English at Beijing Second Foreign Language University, 1999-2002. Before pandemic singing in local church choir and Ann Arbor Chinese Choir. He’s learning about history through reading and how to survive without travel.”

Jay Sherman writes “I was in the Cornell Arts and Sciences class of 1961 for two and a half years, then left to pursue a degree in film production at NYU. After a long career as a working film editor (and other gigs) I’m delighted to say I used my pandemic isolation time to publish a book that I think would interest my fellow Cornellians: ‘Esteban’s Dance: a Novella and Five Tales’ which…. follows the misadventures of four Collegetown roommates and their friends… over the course of the next 30 years.”

We thank all of you for submitting Class Notes and communicating with your classmates. Doug Fuss dougout@attglobal.net and Susan Stevens at stevens61@gmail.com