Class Correspondent

45th Reunion
May 31-June 2, 2019

Over the past year, my husband and I looped the country: checking in with my parents in Florida, visiting with our older daughter and son-in-law in California, then coming back home to our younger daughter and our normal routine in New York. I look forward to seeing many of you at the reunion on May 31-June 2. Please try to attend — it will be great catching up in person!

Kathie Abrams, P’16, continues to wrangle elementary-school art students. She and her husband, Jeremy Garber, live in South Orange, New Jersey. In her spare time, she breaks up long bouts of escapist reading on the couch with a little yoga and a little community service with the Friends of the South Orange Public Library. She occasionally hears from her three daughters, who are 29, 27 and 24. Joanne Arbia Gore will retire in June after 45 years in social services, during which she was an active-duty Army social worker; a child-development services coordinator; and, for the past 28 years, a Child Find specialist at the Florida Department of Education. She looks forward to spending more time with family, especially her three grandsons. In early November, Marian Bass, P’18, and her husband, Jeffrey Albert, visited Dale Morse, P’00, and John Salvati in Evergreen, Colorado. At the end of that month, Marian and Jeffrey met Jane Kaufman and Ken Sacks in New Haven, Connecticut, where they toured the many Yale museums. After 41 years at Bloomingdale’s, Sammy Brett retired last year. His seventh grandchild arrived in January. He calls his life, which includes golf, babysitting and seeing the world, “perfect.” Dan Brin, P’08, is in his eighth year as president of the West Hills Neighborhood Council, which represents his 42,000-resident community in Los Angeles city government. He ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the California Assembly last year. Dan lives with his 27-year-old son, Nathan, and enjoys hiking, bicycling and the occasional game of “Dungeons & Dragons.” Susan Feigenbaum, P’08, P’17, is featured on Episode 4 of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis’ “Women in Economics” podcast series. In May 2018, she delivered the graduation address for the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Missouri-St. Louis; her remarks focused on the struggles and successes of first-generation college students. In October, Don Friedman, P’13, and Ilene Miller traveled with Henry Stancato and his wife, Shirley, to London and Paris, taking the Chunnel train between the two cities. The foursome had vacationed together the previous October, visiting Venice and Florence. Pam Frugoli works at the U.S. Department of Labor in Washington, D.C., overseeing career and labor market information websites. She lives above a Whole Foods in Alexandria, Virginia (“Oh, the convenience!” she says). Daughter Theresa, who graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law, is working as an immigration attorney in Virginia. Son Matt is an IT support specialist at an online education startup in Maryland. Michael Goldenkranz writes, “Watching our son, David, marry his bride, Chinmayi, in India on Jan. 1, with her family hosting and our family present, was the experience of a lifetime — what a way to ring in the new year. In other news, I am proud of my son-in-law and daughter for a hard-fought campaign that resulted in my son-in-law beating the incumbent for a state senate seat in Washington.” Steve “Buddy” Greene writes, “In December, I traveled with my wife, Ruth, and our daughter Miryam, to Oxford, Ohio, where our daughter Adinah received her Master of Arts in Teaching in the biological sciences from Miami University. Adinah, who was part of the university’s Project Dragonfly, completed her degree while working full time at the Museum of Science, Boston. Her coursework included visits to Belize, Borneo and Guyana.” Alan Klein writes, “After practicing pediatric critical care, teaching at the University of Florida, and working in private-practice pediatric anesthesiology in Denver, I retired. I enjoy underwater photography, traveling to remote dive sites, climbing, hiking, skiing and bicycling. I’ve been on medical missions around the globe, and, to keep busy, I volunteer at an inner-city pediatric clinic, mentor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and teach biology at Colorado Mountain College. I live on Lake Dillon in Colorado. You’re all invited to come play outdoors.” Dan Klein reports, “On Sept. 25, our first grandbaby was born to our daughter Lauren and her wife, Gabby. Raea Jordan has made me an elated Zadie and Shelley an over-the-moon Gramma.” New York Times best-selling author Caroline Leavitt’s 12th novel, currently titled “Wake Up Now,” will be released by Algonquin in 2020, which, she says, “seems like forever.” Her son, Max Tamarkin, has a part in a TV pilot and another small part in a “CSI” show. Her husband, Jeff, writes for Carnegie Hall, the Best Classic Bands website and Playbill. “We love what we do so much,” she reports. “We are never retiring.” Cathy Morris Chernoff visited Los Angeles at the end of March to celebrate the second birthday of her grandson Ezra. In April, she attended the wedding of her favorite nephew and his beautiful bride, who are often her traveling companions. “I was not welcomed on the honeymoon, but we have a big trip planned for 2020, all three of us,” she writes. Tom Phillips is composing music for two upcoming “American Experience” films. One is about Norman Borlaug, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning agronomist who is considered the father of the “Green Revolution.” The other is about the Hatfields and the McCoys. Janette Rozene, who lives in Tarrytown, New York, is a librarian at the Fashion Institute of Technology and an artist active with the New York City Urban Sketchers. Her son graduated from FIT with a degree in jewelry design. You can see Janette’s artwork at janetterozenefineart.com. Pam Sacks Weil shares happy tidings about three weddings. Her niece Samantha Sacks (daughter of Shelden Sacks ’73) married Lukasz Ziemianski at Hildene in Manchester, Vermont, on June 30. On Aug. 12, Pam’s daughter, Melissa, married Todd Seresky at Rosecliff in Newport, Rhode Island. And this year, on Sept. 15, Pam’s son, Daniel, will marry Katie Pestova at Oceanview in Nahant, Massachusetts. Betsy Sarason Pfau writes, “Our kids, David and Vicki, came in from London and California for Thanksgiving. It is the only time our whole family gets together, so it’s quite a treat. Our 45th Reunion will be the seventh reunion I’ve worked on and the fourth I’ve co-chaired. I hope to see many of you there. As we grow older, we cannot afford to put off seeing one another, and I cherish all of you, so please join me.” Stephen Simons, MA’76, MA’02, who studies three afternoons a week at the Boca Raton Synagogue’s Kollel, recently translated Victoria Goldman’s Holocaust memoir, “The Strength to Live,” from Hebrew to English. Now he is translating 33 pre- World War II family letters written in Yiddish, which were sent from Poland to the U.S. Stephen also writes for the Yiddish Moment. In 2018, Michael H. Singer celebrated the engagement of his son, Abe, to Lu Rollins. The year also included trips with his wife, June Keenan, to Bermuda and Panama, and ended with an expedition cruise down the Brazilian Amazon. Michael is executive vice president and general counsel at OrthoNet, a health management company in White Plains, New York. Laurie Slater Albert writes, “After California’s Woolsey Fire, our home is still standing, but the hills of Malibu are charred black and our neighborhood, on the ocean side of Pacific Coast Highway, is decimated. We’re healthy and grateful not to have lost our home, as so many of our close friends did.” She was hoping to be able to move back to Malibu in March.
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