Sweet Briar College Magazine - Spring 2018

CLASS NOTES
sbc.edu
choir and sharing my fundraising
skills with various sales and projects.
“Seems that the Bum Chums and
Sweet Tones are with me for life!”
She reports being in the slow process
of cleaning out her home of 40 years
to move into a condo within the year.
Susan Riegel Harding is active
in social justice issues and is celebrating
her daughter, Tatiana Riegel, who
received an Oscan nomination for
film editing for her work in I Tonya.
From Rosamond Sample Brown
Banks, we hear that she is grateful to
be in good health and has adjusted
to her second widowhood. She lives
between Dallas and San Diego and
travels overseas a couple of times
each year, even more frequently since
turning 75. Rosamond says, “I think
I am trying to outrun Father Time.”
She looks forward to seeing many
classmates at our 55th SBC reunion
in June 2019.
Nina Sledge Burke and her
husband live on a rice plantation in
one of three remaining an-tebellum
plantations in the area. When she
is not fox hunting or riding, most of
her time is spent taking care of the
property. The Burkes have been active
in public/private partnerships to
preserve over 250,000 acres of land.
Lynne Smith Crow is still working
as a financial advisor but is taking
a few trips every year. Last winter she
went on a cruise in the South China
sea — starting in Hong Kong
and ending in Shanghai. Late in the
spring, Lindblad/NatGeo offered
her some pretty big discounts for a
trip from Copenhagen up the coast
of Norway to Svalbard and back.
Last fall she visited Bangkok and
Myanmar, which she found very interesting
but admits that she’s seen
enough pagodas to last her a lifetime.
Last August, she rented a house
in Chatham, MA, where she had a
chance to visit with two of her three
children and her granddaughters:
Evelyn and Campbell (both 2) are
cousins born a week apart. Madeleine,
now 5, proudly showed Lynne
her wiggly front tooth when they
Skyped recently. As she is renting the
same house for the first two weeks in
August this summer, she’d love to see
anyone who might be in the vicinity.
Jo Ann Soderquist Kramer has
now been in Vermont 24 years, retired
for six and a half of those years.
She is still mowing her own grass,
raising her flowers and vegetables in
summer, shoveling and snow blowing
in winter, and walking five miles
every day she is in town.
Jo Ann recently returned from
Board of Trustees meetings at
Tusculum College in Greeneville,
TN–Tennessee’s oldest and her
mother’s alma mater. Jo Ann had
a great phone conversa-tion with
Sally Gump Berryman while there.
Sally, who lives on a ten-acre farm in
Manchester, TN, tends two geriatric
horses and bunches of other animals,
and is busy with several local charitable
causes, proudly reports she has
never owned a computer!
Jean Walker Campbell is living
in New York. She wrote a solo
show “Between us: The Secret Life
of Edith Wharton” and played Edith
last spring in performances at Studio
54. She is in the midst of writing a
full-length play and doing staged
readings of it. She writes: “I have had
a wonderful career in the theater and
a happy marriage to John Campbell.
We have two daughters and five
grandchildren. For fun, I do competitive
ballroom dancing. I send love to
everybody for fond SBC memories.”
Your scribe, Peggy Aurand, is
thankful for good enough health to
be able to function. She spent the
summer of 2016 in the bottom of
her (then empty!) Honolulu swimming
pool, cut-ting mosaic tile for
her design of a humpback whale
and calf. After spending a year and a
half re-modeling the family home in
Hawaii, she has turned it into a vacation
rental. That way, she and the
family can enjoy it, fully furnished,
whenever they’re in town. She began
2017 with a trip to France and
Spain with some friends from Hawaii.
The grandchildren thoroughly
enjoyed their 2017 spring break
there last year. Peggy’s daughter-in
law saw whales from the kitchen
while cooking breakfast and ran out
to the seaward wall to take pictures.
Peggy took over the spatula. They
can hardly wait to return in early
October this year. Peggy is busy
on her laptop, handling bookings
on VRBO and Air BnB from her
home near her grandchildren in
Santa Clarita, CA, and welcomes
visitors in either place. And to
those with “pesky knees,” she highly
recommends knee replacements
— provided you religiously do the
exercises afterward!
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Sally Hubbard
47 Parsons Green Circle
Sewanee, TN 37375
931-598-5338
Cell: 931-636-7320
sally@hubbard.net
Brenda Muhlinghaus Barger
visited with Sarah Porter Boehmler,
Libba Hanger Luther, and
Nancy Collier Hitchins last year
at an SBC function in Charlotte.
She also reports having seen Emily
Pleasants Smith in Charlotte,
who hasn’t changed at all. Libba and
Steve are building a new house about
40 minutes east of their current
home. Nancy is still her delightful
self. Hugh and Brenda passed their
farmhouse down to their youngest
son, Sam, and his family, and moved
into a nearby townhouse — no yard
maintenance, Master down, modern
kitchen, great fun.
Blair Both and Inza Walston,
partners for over 13 years, waited
until it was possible to marry in
the Episcopal Church and the state
of North Carolina. Their families,
friends, and parishioners attended
their wedding May 21, 2016. Life
begins at 70! Blair is grateful that
Sweet Briar is reinventing itself and
is eager to meet the new president.
Eugenia Caldwell and husband
Peter had the best trip to New York
and Lake Sunapee in October, where
they saw 5 ballets, 1 play, and 4 musicals,
and visited 5 museums and
9 dear friends. Now looking ahead
to return to either Africa or South
America on another birding trip.
Melinda Musgrove Chapman
has three granddaughters in college.
Katie is a senior at Northeastern in
Boston, Ashley is a junior at Auburn,
and Eden is a sophomore at Appalachian
State. Oldest grandson Davis
is working for a solar energy company
in San Diego, youngest grandson
Harrison is with his parents in
Dallas. Melinda still has her youngest
granddaughter Anna Brittain in
Birmingham with her. Melinda sells
real estate to stay young and active
and avoid boredom. President Woo
spoke to the Birmingham SBC Club.
Aline Rex McEvoy, Elvira McMillan
Mannelly, and Libba Hanger
Luther at lunch in Atlanta in
December
Sarah Porter Boehmler, Libba Hanger Luther, Nancy Collier Hitchins and
Brenda Muhlinghaus Barger
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