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Class NewsLETTER FROM OUR CLASS PRESIDENT Dear Classmate: Just a short letter to wish you all a Happy New Year and to remind you of several Class functions on our calendar for 2010. Our annual winter dinner in Naples, FL, will be held on February 10 for all you snowbirds in Florida. Please contact Frank Klapperich for further information at 239-594-0278. Those of us suffering in the cold northeast can attend our dinner in Princeton on Alumni Day, February 20. Our classmate, Carey Parker, will be our speaker. Carey was Ted Kennedy's Legislative Director for 40 years and will share some of his experiences as a Washington insider. Please RSVP to Ross Webber at raw1956@verizon.net. The cost will be $50 per person. Our 54th reunion will feature a class dinner on May 28 as well as the P-rade on the 29th. We usually get 30 or so classmates back for an off-year reunion and hope you can be one of them. The dates of our Chicago mini-reunion have been changed to September 12 - 15, because our previous dates conflicted with Yom Kippur. These new dates should not conflict with any holidays or football games. We will include specific information about the Chicago agenda in our Spring letter, but mark your calendar now and make plans to attend. I wish you all a good Winter and good health.
Fraser Lewis
PERSONAL UPDATES WHITNEY E. KERR writes……”I’m still working in the commercial real estate brokerage and land development business in Kansas City. Day and I celebrated our 52nd anniversary in January, 2010, and we are weekend farmers in Arrow Rock, Missouri, looking after three antebellum houses and over 800 acres. Antique cars continue to be a strong hobby interest, with current projects restoring a 1921 Sunbeam and 1925 Hudson Super Six. We are blessed to have 4 of our 5 children and 9 of our 11 grandchildren living in Kansas City. Come visit us!!”
A lenthy excerpt from JIM FREUND's"Turning 75" article appears on January 13 in PAW online. The full text can be found by visiting his website www.jimfreund.com. Also on his website are: a new article, "Sheer Happenstance," which (among a survey of life's other chance occurrences) describes the convoluted route Jim took to arrive at Princeton in the fall of '52; a short story, "...But the Melody Lingers On"; some added photos, including a gallery devoted to Vancouver, site of the upcoming Winter Olympics; and his most recent piano recording, "It's Three-Quarter Time," containing 192 popular waltzes. Enjoy them all by visiting www.jimfreund.com.
GORDIE SCHWARTZ (Gordon F. Schwartz, MD) has recently been appointed Director of the Jefferson Medical College Breast Care Center in Philadelphia, PA. To read his full curriculum vitae, go to www.jeffersonhospital.org and type "gordon schwartz, md" in the Search Box.
Classmates of '56 may be interested to know that at its meeting on September 12, 2009, the Princetoniana Committee of the Alumni Council created the ROBERT B. RODGERS Gavel. Bob is the immediate past-Chair of the Princetoniana Committee, which promotes the enjoyment of Princeton history, lore and traditions. The gavel was created in appreciation of Bob's deep dedication and loyalty to Princeton and the Princetoniana Committee and its activities, and to honor other past Chairs of the Committee. The gavel will be passed from Chair to Chair of the Committee at the beginning of their term of office.
Headline in the Los Altos, CA town crier of November 4: "Los Altos granddad's TapTapCars for iPhone and iPod bridges generation gap". Our own RY SMITH (Kobert Reynierson Smith II) developed this game to identify a car's manufacturer and model name from three clues. We suggest visiting www.TapTapCars.com to get in on the fun.
HUDSON VALLEY MINI REUNION Our October 11-15 mini-reunion gave us a “taste” of the Hudson Valley and was a great success. At various times, Classmates in attendance, with spouses and significant others, were Alfred ,Barclay, Brazell, Brink, Crowther, Culin, Doub, Easter, B. Evans, Flippin, Freund, Frost, Gavrin, Gerard, Grotto, Jordan, Kluger, Lewis, Mather, Pardee, Rodgers, Sater, Shein, Snedeker, Stuard. Our headquarters were in Tarrytown NY.
On Monday we boarded a bus for a tour of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Dave Jordan gave us a very pithy and humorous talk on West Point on the way up, mentioning in passing his interest and writings on Generals Hancock and Warren, both West Point graduates. (More detailed write ups on our mini reunion and Dave’s talk will be posted on our Class website.) Following the tour we stopped for lunch at the Academy’s Thayer Hotel after which we boarded a 1917 Riverboat for a cruise down the Hudson through the beautiful scenery of the Hudson Highlands. That evening after a lovely dinner at our hotel, we were briefed by the Director of Hudson River Programs of Riverkeeper Inc., the environmental watchdog of the River. He was very informative about how problems confronting the River were being addressed. He mentioned the resurgence of recreational activities and benefits to marine life, as well as problems with the quality of NYC drinking water, famed for its excellence. Some of what he had to say prompted some pointed questions, especially on the subject of nuclear energy. On Tuesday we headed north to Hyde Park. We easily we filled the 1.5 hour bus trip with some anecdotes on the Hudson River and other s from our undergraduate days. On a more serious note, Bos Crowther told of his brother Jeff and wife Alison’s charitable activities in memory of their son Wells, lost during his heroic rescue efforts at World Trade Center on 9/11. After a tour and delicious lunch at CIA (Culinary Institute of America) we visited the Vanderbilt mansion and grounds. Our speaker that evening was Colonel Jim Johnson (U.S. Army, Ret.), a 1969 West Point graduate and currently Director of the Hudson River Institute and a professor of History at Marist College. He arrived in the uniform of an officer of the 5th New York regiment of the Continental Army, cocked hat and all. After dinner, we enjoyed his informative and highly entertaining talk on the history of the Revolutionary War as fought in the Hudson Valley, though there were several references and some discussion of other Battles, e.g., Princeton. Col. Johnson mentioned that he was well acquainted with the Yankee Doodle Taproom. At the end of his talk Bob Rodgers led us in a locomotive cheer for the Colonel. In true Revolutionary War style he replied with several “Huzzah” cheers to our class. Our last day, Wednesday, included tours of Kykuit, the magnificent Rockefeller estate, Jay Gould’s estate, Lyndhurst, and lastly, Sunnyside, Washington Irving’s home. A terrific dinner was held that evening at The Castle in Tarrytown, a former estate in the style of a medieval castle. After we arrived we heard the familiar piano of Jim Freund echoing from the Great Room of the castle. We thanked Corky and Randy Frost, Sue Hendricks and Bob and Sue Rodgers who were all a great help in making the Mini-Reunion a great success. After dinner Jim Brazell gave us a lively talk on Washington Irving, America’s first man of letters, and the first American writer to achieve an international reputation. Jim also noted that Ted Rissell’s forbears sold Sunnyside to Irving in 1835, and that John McElroy made a major contribution to the literature on Irving with his volume on Irving’s “Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. Afterward, Jim Freund was again at the keyboard in true reunion fashion leading a sing-along while others danced on. Finally, it came time for a rendition of “Old Nassau” and a locomotive led by Bob Rodgers before returning to our Hotel. Several of us met at breakfast the next morning to bid farewell until the next occasion.
DANUBE MINI REUNION....June 6 - 13, 2009 The mini-reunion on the Danube was a great sucess, and "Johann Strauss the Youngest" has documented the wonderful events of the entire trip. Hopefully there will be some pictures to post in the future.
ON THE BEAUTIFUL ORANGE-AND-BLACK DANUBE By Johann Strauss the Youngest
Our Class of ’56 European adventure in June 2009 started for many of us in different parts of Europe and at different times. Some came from Prague, some from Berlin, some from Vienna, and even some from Italy. All of us wound up in Budapest, Hungary, for the start of the journey on the luxurious River Cloud II on June 6, although there were encounters of ‘56ers in various parts of Budapest for a couple of days before that. After a get-together dinner on the ship on Saturday, and a welcome from our cruise director, Rita, and our captain, Reinier Dekkers (a native of Rotterdam), Sunday saw us on a bus tour around Budapest, topped off with a walking tour on Castle Hill, around the Fisherman’s Bastion and St. Mathias Church, and a visit to the great statue of St. Stephanus Rex, Stephen the first king of Hungary. Included also was a tour inside Budapest’s magnificent opera house, featuring the royal box which was used only once by the Emperor Franz Josef (of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). The emperor was angered by the audacity of the Hungarians in creating such a grand opera house that he stormed out of his first performance there, never to return. A second box was created, however, for his wife, the Empress Sisi, and she enjoyed numerous operas there. We were treated as well, back on ship, to a talk from Noah Steinberg ’90, who came to Budapest almost by accident after graduating from Princeton, only to become a successful businessman there, complete with a Hungarian wife and family (who helped him learn the difficult Hungarian language). As we sailed away from Budapest late Sunday, up the Danube, leaving behind the mysteries of the forint, the Hungarian currency, for the universality of the euro, we were greeted with a glorious full moon and the spectacular and well-lighted ruined castle and Basilica of Esztergom, the most monumental building of Hungarian Classicism. Quite a sight, as we approached it and then chugged on by.
At noon we docked in Bratislava (“Pressburg,” up to 1918 and the conclusion of German domination), now the capital of Slovakia, with its 430,000 residents. Our tour guides, “George” and Branca, conducted us through main pedestrian thoroughfares and many side streets of Bratislava. We saw the town hall, the opera house, the famous Carlton hotel, the building where a six-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart gave his first performance, as well as traces of the musical careers of Lizst and Lehar. As a perfect follow-up, we were then treated to a concert in an old converted church, where the soloists of Ambassador Orchester Pressburg, violinist Alan Vizvari and pianist-soprano Anna Patkoloo, performed Danubian music to everyone’s great pleasure, from Strauss’s “On the Beautiful Blue Danube” to a Hungarian czardas and a selection from Lehar’s “Merry Widow.” Returning to the town square after the concert, a number of us were met by a group of high school students who attend a bilingual school in Bratislava and who were making a film of Americans talking about various matters. To the question posed to us, “What do you think of modernism in art?” we turned to Sue Stuard, who came up with a most appropriate answer, all duly taped and filmed.
In Bratislava, we were honored with the presence of two Princeton graduates of the Class of 2009. Peter Capkovic and Emily Sands joined us for lunch, dinner, and the evening talk, and filled many of us in on undergraduate doings at the Best Old Place of All. We returned to the River Cloud II, docked far beneath the most impressive Bratislava castle, which we didn’t have a chance to visit (though a few intrepid souls made the daunting climb), for a barbecue dinner on deck, followed in the lounge by a well-received talk on the music of the Danube by Dave Jordan, and followed then by the playing of Geza, the ship’s pianist. Leaving Bratislava at midnight, we were delighted the next morning to pull into beautiful Vienna at about seven AM, close under the lovely red-roofed Jubilee Cathedral, built to honor the celebration of Franz Josef’s fiftieth year of reign. After breakfast we had an illuminating talk about Vienna from Tom Lachs ‘h59, president of the Princeton Club of Austria, and were soon off on our first view of the Austrian capital, on a gloriously sunny day. Our bus tour took us around the Ringstrasse, the highway built on the ruins of the old city walls, with our guides pointing out one Viennese landmark after another. We stopped at the Belvedere Palace, the former residence of Prince Eugen of Savoy, the greatest Hapsburg military figure, and we walked around the site, admiring the beautiful structure and the lovely and well-tended gardens. Our bus then took us to Stephansplatz, where we visited St. Stephan’s Cathedral, being given not only a tour of the interior of Austria’s most revered church but also a not-generally-open-to-the-public climb of 132 steps for a visit to the cathedral’s roof and a walk around the same. After a satisfying lunch back aboard ship, a smaller group was taken by Tom Lachs on a tour of Jewish Vienna, including a visit to the main Jewish synagogue (subjected to recent attacks by Arab terrorists) and the Jewish Museum. In the evening, part of our group was conducted by Bob Rodgers to a concert at the Muzikverein, while Michele and Ed Gray took the bold step of attending a five-hour performance of Wagner’s “Siegfried” at the Staatsoper - complete with ten curtain calls at the end. Wednesday was cooler and a bit rainy, but this hardly dampened the spirits of the Class of ’56. The main tour in the morning was to the Hofburg, the historic home of the emperor and empress of the Hapsburg Empire and the center of the Holy Roman Empire for over six hundred years, now the site of several museums, including one of the private apartments of the Empress Elizabeth, known to one and all as “Sisi,” as well as the world-famous Spanish Riding School, home of the Lipizzaner horses. Some of us, mastering the intricacies of the Vienna Underground, were off on trips of our own, to places like the Karlsplatz and the renowned Schonbrunn Palace, summer home of the Hapsburgs. Tom Lachs conducted another afternoon tour, this one into the “secret sites” of Vienna, fascinating nooks and crannies of this wonderful town not usually visited by tourists. After dinner we were treated to a talk on Vienna from historian William Weyr, an Austrian-American friend of Corky and Randy Frost from Bronxville, NY. At one in the morning of Thursday the 11th, the River Cloud II pulled out of Vienna, and we headed upriver to Durnstein, a small village on the Danube in which autos are not allowed; here we had a morning walking tour of the town. Perched on a mountain high above the town is the ruined castle in which Leopold of Austria kept England’s King Richard the Lion-Hearted, captured on his way home from the Third Crusade, until a ransom was paid for his release. We didn’t get up to the castle, but we did have an extensive walk through the town’s famous church. We then saw the procession from the church through Durnstein celebrating the festival day of Corpus Christi. We returned to the ship for lunch - featuring delicious raw oysters from the Netherlands - and then sailed up to Melk, home of an historic Benedictine abbey. Our extensive tour of the gigantic abbey was climaxed by an organ recital in the church, performed by one of the monks. We saw the statue of St. Koloman, patron saint of the region, an Irish missionary who was killed by the locals because he didn’t speak the language and they thought he was a spy.
The next day Friday, after we had passed the city of Linz during the night, we docked in the morning in Passau, Germany, and shortly thereafter began a tour which took us into St. Stephen’s Cathedral (it may be noted that various St. Stephens are celebrated along the Danube), this one richly decorated with baroque stucco ornaments and frescoes and featuring a 1928-vintage organ with more than 17,000 pipes - the largest cathedral organ in the world. For half an hour we were treated to a marvelous concert on this great instrument. After lunch back on the ship, many of us resumed our walking tour of Passau, a city celebrated for its confluence of three rivers, the Danube, the Inn, and the Ilz (a joinder pooh-poohed by a good Pittsburgher like Bob McCartney).
At 5:15 the ship left Passau and about three hours later pulled into Vilshofen. In the morning, after a last hearty breakfast, we settled accounts and bid a fond farewell to the River Cloud II. We broke up into three groups, one on a bus going to the Munich airport, one on a bus going into Munich, and a third, much smaller group of those making their way otherwise from Vilshofen. The riders on the bus into Munich, who thought they were simply getting transportation into the Bavarian capital, were surprised to have our bus driver stop and pick up a guide, who gave us a comprehensive tour of the city, with a stop and walk-around at the Nymphenberg Palace and a quick drive around Olympic Park, site of the 1972 Olympics. The touchiest moment of the morning came when we dropped off Cheryl and Pierre Bennerup at the main railroad station at 11:27, trying to catch their 11:30 train. After the tour of Munich, at about 2 PM, our bus pulled up in front of the hotel where many of us were staying. Everyone got off and the Danube Cruise Mini-reunion of 2009 for the Great Class of 1956 came to a close. As a postscript, and a sign that the Great Class never quits, on Sunday the 14th Jean and Dave Jordan came across Fred and Claudine Bacher and Bob and Kit Watson (in from Regensburg), at the Munich train station, then later ran into Pat and Marty Raymond at the Dachau concentration camp shortly after the latter encountered Mary and Ken Snedeker there. And - lastly - at dinner in Paris on Monday the 15th, the Jordans heard the piano player doing “East of the Sun” and gave him an appropriate Princetonian hand.
53rd REUNION Another terrific Reunion with wonderful friends. While the P-Rade had beautiful weather, the rain came down again on Friday night, but certainly did NOT dampen the spirit. Many thanks to Mary and Ken Snedeker for graciously hosting the fabulous Class dinner on Friday Night.
Pictured are stalwarts at the the 53rd Reunion cocktail/dinner party. Undeterred by an evening shower, the number of classmates, wives and friends numbered, magically, 56! Enjoying the food, drink and comraderie were Bancroft, Barclay, Brazell, Coward, Culin, Doub, Eschenlauer, Flippin, Freund, Fulmer, Gardiner, Grotto, Holmes, Horner, Jordan, Lewis, Linde, McCulloh, Meeker, Quay, Rodgers, Schneiderman, G. Schwartz, M. Schwartz, Shein, Snedeker, Stuard, Tilgner, Thompson and Updike.
To view a slide show of some of the Reunion festivities, click on the following link. However, BE PATIENT, as it could take a couple of minutes due to the large number of pictures: Reunions 2009
Letter of Thanks from 1956 Scholarship Winner March 30, 2009
Dear Mr. Meeker: It was a pleasure meeting you and various members of your class recently at the Decade of the 1950s scholarship luncheon. It was amazing to see how many members of the class have stayed so well connected, and made me excited to join the Princeton Alumni network after graduating. I know I did not get the chance to talk to everyone who was there, and I wanted to take this opportunity to thank the class of 1956 for the financial support that makes it possible for me to attend this university. I am a 2007 graduate from Woodstock Union High School in Woodstock, Vermont. I am entering my sophomore spring here at Princeton and have recently decided to concentrate in Politics. I am hoping to receive a certificate in both Contemporary European Political and Cultural studies as well as in Urban Studies. I hope to study abroad in Europe next spring to deepen my knowledge of the region. On campus, I am a Career Peer Advisor and work with Career Services to help provide students with feedback and insight in the areas of both resume building and finding summer internships. I am actively involved in Princeton Unicef and am the Unicef liaison between the New York office and our student group. I work for the Institutions for Fragile States Program, which is part of both the Woodrow Wilson School and the Bobst center. I recently joined the Tiger Inn and look forward to taking my meals there next year. I welcome the chance to speak more with you and any members of the class of 1956. I have enclosed my email address in case anyone plans on visiting campus, as I would love to have the opportunity to thank any alumni in person. Thank you so much for your support, which has provided me with the opportunity of a lifetime. Best,
1956 Tailgate Haven - April 2009 Tailgating behind Cap & Gown before every home football game is a 1956 tradition that dates back into the mid 1980s. It has become increasingly popular to both Cap and non-Cap classmates. We have embraced graduates from other classes as well, all of whom enjoy the camaraderie, in addition to the regular visits by our Princeton University Band.
Cap & Gown is now planning a Club expansion and modernization that will also include a reconfiguration of the back yard. We, members of the 1956 Class and Cap section, have bid on the naming rights to the yard for memorialization of our famous and precious tailgates. This will include a monument appropriately inscribed. Anyone desiring to make a contribution should please contact Royce Flippin, royce@flippinassociates.com, 732-613-0330; or Tom Meeker tandjmeeker@verizon.net, 973-748-9581. (NOTE: Click on the e-mail addresses to send a quick response.)
ReachOut ’56 (RO56) A unique trans-generational effort, dedicated to identifying crucial societal challenges and formulating solutions, was launched by members of the Princeton Classes of 1956 and 1981 on February 23, 2008. In the spirit of furthering “Princeton in the nation’s service and in the service of all nations,” a partnership was created to perpetuate and expand existing community service programs of both classes and develop new initiatives in the years ahead. ReachOut ’56 (RO56) has been involved in community service efforts for some time. For the past seven years, it has awarded and funded each year two RO56 Fellowships to graduating Princeton seniors who devise a one-year special project for a non-profit organization of their choice, The organization has also undertaken a number of programs involvingactive participation by classmates and friends, focused predominantly on secondary school students and faculty in inner city and at risk communities and on the subject of college, vocational and cultural awareness and guidance. As ’56 alumni saw a need to perpetuate what they had created, they began a dialogue with members of ’81. The younger class had graduated the year ’56 celebrated its 25th reunion, and had their 25th in conjunction with the 50th reunion of ’56 two years ago. Alumni of ’81 had been searching for an appropriate vehicle for their classmates to participate in public service efforts. A joint venture between the two classes met the objectives of both. A series of exploratory discussions culminated in a joint meeting at which ’81 members were added to the existing board of trustees and officer ranks of RO56, and the name of the organization officially changed to Princeton ReachOut ’56/’81. There is much enthusiasm among classmates of both ’56 and ’81 for this union. One of the first initiatives planned will be to invite members of the Class of 2006 to participate in order to provide a full 50-year trans-generational span. The President of Princeton University, Shirley M. Tilghman, upon being informed of this alliance, offered her congratulations. She observed, “From its inception ReachOut ’56 has embodied the Class of 1956’s commitment to public service, in this nation, and in all nations, by inspiring Princeton graduates to pursue opportunities to serve after graduation. With the intergenerational expansion of the program to include the Class of 1981, the future vitality of this Princeton Alumni organization will be assured for years to come.” Dan Gardiner ’56 will be Chairman of ReachOut ’56/’81 and Jon Wonnell ’81 will serve as President. They, together with Jim Freund ’56, Jack Fritts ’56, Marty Johnson ’81 and Frank Ordiway ’81 will form the group’s initial executive committee. All those involved consider this to be an auspicious initiative – one that not only will prove successful in fulfilling important community service needs, but also will redound to Princeton’s good name, and hopefully will serve as a model for cooperative ventures among other alumni classes. |
Photo L to R, George Easter, Fred Sater, Jim Brazell (half hidden), Corky Frost, Dave Barclay, Paul Shein, Bos Crowther (half hidden), Jack Doub, Fraser Lewis, Don Stuard, Steve Alfred, Bob Rodgers, Russ Culin, Dave Gavrin, Bruce Evans, Jim Freund
Monday morning we heard a fine talk from Ann Scott about the history of the Hapsburgs, from the Holy Roman Empire, the “defenestration of Prague,” Maria Theresa and the Pragmatic Sanction, right up through Franz Josef, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, and the end of the First World War (and of the Hapsburgs).
Following this, we took a choo-choo to Gerhard Fischer’s winery, where we were invited into his wine cellar for tastings of two white wines he produced and one red wine.
Dinner consisted of a specially prepared menu, accompanied by wines selected for each course. After dinner we celebrated Bill Lemmon’s 75th birthday, with a Tiger birthday cake carefully arranged by his wife, Jean. Following that, in conformance with the wine-synchronized flavor of the day’s activities, we had a lecture in the lounge from our class president Fraser Lewis, a celebrated oenophile, complete with tastings of two Austrian whites and two reds. Most then staggered off to bed.
That evening, we were honored with the Captain’s Farewell Drink of champagne in the lounge followed by the Captain’s Farewell Dinner - a climax to the week of gastronomical treasures which the River Cloud II’s staff presented to us. The staff in turn was honored by the wearing of the Class of 1956 Reunion jacket by many of our participants. We were also able to celebrate the fiftieth wedding anniversary of Laura and Fred Pardee and the 45th wedding anniversary the next day of Joan and Tom Spence. Finally, there was a presentation of gratitude for all their efforts in making the trip a great success - paintings of six of our stops along the way - given to Maxine and Fraser Lewis.
Unable to join the festivities due to a Vassar bound granddaughter’s graduation, Bob Varrin made his commanding presence known as a Marshall at the P-Rade on Saturday.
