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CLASS
NOTES
Columbia
College Today
475 Riverside Drive, Suite 917
New York, N.Y. 10115
cct@columbia.edu
Louis
R. Slattery '29 has retired as the surgical coordinator
at NYU Medical Center. "I am well and in good health," he
writes. "I live alone, take care of myself, and walk a mile
a day in New York City. I follow the stock market and enjoy
my children and grandchildren."
During
reunion weekend, held from June 2-4 on campus, the Class of
1930 was represented by Bernard Friedlander, a resident
of N.Y.C. (left in photo), and Dr. Felix Vann of Durham,
N.C. (right). That's professor Samuel Devons in the middle.
The Class of 1935 (no photo taken) was represented by Norman
MacLeod of Walnut Creek, Calif. and Hunter Meighan
of Mamaroneck, N.Y. Their classmate, Carl Relyea of
Cincinnati, had planned to attend, but had to cancel at the
last minute.
Paul
V. Nyden
1202 Kanawha Blvd. East, Apt. 1-C
Charleston, W. Va. 25301
Murray
T. Bloom
40 Hemlock Drive
Kings Point, N.Y. 11024
John
Kluge, the only multi-billionaire in our class, has been
demoted. In Forbes magazine's annual 400 richest "People
in America," he was No. 12 in 1998 (with some $9.8 billion.)
In the magazine's 1999 listing, Kluge fell to 14th. But no
condolence notes, please. His net worth increased to $11 billion.
Barry
Commoner, our only classmate who ever ran for the U.S.
Presidency, resigned in March as head of the center for the
biology of natural systems at Queens College in New York.
He will continue working as a member of the center's staff.
In 1980, he ran for President on the Citizens Party ticket
and got 23,186 votes in New York State. Barry has another
distinction. He probably has more doctor of science degrees
than anyone in the class.
There
were four of us from '37 who went on to the Graduate School
of Journalism: Bob McMillen, John Oudine, Ken Steffan and
myself. Over the years I have seen or talked to Bob and Ken,
so I was curious to know what happened to John Oudine. I wrote
him.
"I
served in the Navy in World War II mostly in the Pacific.
Then to work with UNRRA in China in '46-47. Back in the States,
I started as an editor at the Navy's version of Time magazine,
All Hands. Moved up gradually until I was made editor.
I was there 29 years... Met my first wife in Shanghai. She
was also with UNRRA. We had two children - daughter and son
- and now I have four grandchildren. My second wife was the
daughter of a Russian sea captain who escaped from the USSR
and came to China to serve as a harbor pilot out of Shanghai.
I met her at a bridge table here in the U.S. In retirement
I bask in the sun on the shores of Lake of the Woods, Va.
and go to Old China Hands gatherings, most recently in Alexandria,
Va., in May."
I
hadn't seen Danny Friedman since our last ping-pong
game in Livingston in 1937 (he had a mighty forehand). I was
delighted to hear from him recently: "I am reasonably healthy.
I have been a Federal judge for 21 years and 10 years ago
I took senior status which means I can work as little or as
much as I want... I work about four hours a day... Last year
I wrote 15 opinions, which is a respectable number for a senior.
My personal life hasn't been too good recently. Two years
ago my wife had a major stroke, which left her unable to walk
and with very serious speech problems. It has been very hard
for both of us... I keep in touch with Tom Jones, who
is living in retirement in North Carolina."
Psychoanalysis,
the darling of the "Thinking Classes" in the '40s and '50s,
has fallen on hard times. Critics abound, particularly the
New York Review of Books. One of its articles, "Freud
Under Analysis" in November, 1999, drew a long rebuttal from
Morty Ostow, who has been a psychoanalyst for decades
- as well as a psychiatrist and psychopharmacologist - with
offices in New York and Riverdale.
What
particularly interested me in Morty's letter was the closing,
which he signed as president of the Psychoanalytic Research
and Development Fund. I asked Morty for details. "The Fund
has been around nearly 50 years. We conduct study groups.each
focused on a specific subject and most of them lead to a published
paper or book. The group's work was summarized in a book I
published in 1995, Myth and Madness (Transaction Press)."
Dr.
A. Leonard Luhby
3333 Henry Hudson Parkway
West Bronx, N.Y. 10463
Ralph
Staiger
701 Dallam Road
Newark, Del. 19711
rstaiger@brahms.udel.edu
Trygve
H. Tonnessen was elected class vice president at our 60th
reunion. He and President John Alexander will make
a good team.
Edward
LeComte has published his 20th book, In and Out of
the University and Adversity, an autobiography. The Columbia
College chapter includes recollections of Mark and Charles
Van Doren, Irwin Edman, Harrison Steeves, Raymond Weaver,
Lionel Trilling and Andrew Chiappe. A later chapter is entitled,
"Dinner with Butler and Eisenhower."
J.
Pierre Kolisch reports from Portland, Ore. that he still
goes to his office every day "but is no longer involved in
heavy legal patent law lifting."
Lloyd
Taylor reports that Jim Welles' wife shared with
him several of Jim's postmortem honors. The board of directors
of the Burke Rehabilitation Hospital of White Plains, N.Y.,
is naming the hospital's ambulatory outpatient building after
Jim. He served on their board for 45 years. This is the first
time in its 90-odd year history that the board has named a
building after a director. In addition, the Emma Willard School
of Troy, N.Y., is posthumously awarding its highest honor,
The John Willard Award, to Jim. He was a trustee and a trustee
emeritus for 25 years.
Barry
Ulanov had many interests and abilities. The newspaper
obituaries cited his writings, editorial and religious contributions.
His marriage to the lovely Barbara Bel Geddes during the war
might not have been known by many of us. Miles Davis wrote
that Barry was the only white critic who ever understood him
or Charlie Parker.
Seth
Neugroschl
1349 Lexington Avenue
New York, N.Y. 10028
sn23@columbia.edu
Our
60th year reunion proved, by all reports, as memorable as
we had hoped, and can be precursor for a worthy Class of '40
legacy, if we choose to make it so by our future actions.
If
you missed the reunion, you can catch up by contacting your
friends among the classmates (and their guests) who did attend:
Robert Ames, Isabel and Hector Dowd, Ruth and
Daniel Edelman, Margaret and Matthew Elbow,
Shirley and Wilfred Feinberg, Justin Feldman and
Linda Fairstein, Laurence Ferris, Irene and Franklin
Gould, Joan and Chester Hall (with a son and a
grandson!), Lila and Melvin Intner, Eva and Victor
Jacobson, Herbert Kayden and Gabrielle Reeni, Pamela
and William Knight, Gertrude and Harry Kosovsky,
Eleanor and Donald Kursch, Albon Man, Barbara
and Langdon Mansfield, Geraldine and Seth Neugroschl,
Joyce and Harry Papertsian, Ruth and Harry Schwartz,
Muriel and Boaz Shattan, Shirley and Nikolai Stevenson,
Stanley Temko and Charles Webster.
I'm
delighted to report that Charlie Webster, distinguished
cardiologist and formerly class v.p. for Northern California,
is our new class president. Speaking for the class as well
as personally, Hector, thanks very, very much, for your five
years of dedicated service as our president. Mel Intner continues
as treasurer, and I've been designated executive v.p. in addition
to continuing as class correspondent.
The
June issue of the new alumni newspaper ccalumni@columbia.edu
highlighted the Class of '40's reunion program and its
theme, in reporting on the class programs of the 800 alums
attending the reunion weekend.
Further,
with the able publicity of Donn Coffee '55 to his and other
classes, we had a standing-room-only audience at our afternoon
panel, including, as our guests, a cross section of alums
from all reunion classes.
The
three panel members were Prof. Robert Pollack '61 (biology),
Prof. Andrew Delbanco (English) and historian Dr. Peter Maguire.
The panel was moderated by Professor Emeritus Jim Shenton
'49 (history).
They
were responding to our theme's question: "Can We Build a Sustainable
Global Society In The 21st Century, or Are We Doomed to Repeat
the 20th Century, or Worse?" Rather than proving so general
a question to be unanswerable, it resulted in four very different
but dynamic and complementary viewpoints. Further, it stimulated
a very active and involved dialogue with the audience, not
the least with our own classmates.
All
this and the day's other sessions, including Professor Shenton
and my morning introduction, Dean Austin Quigley at lunch,
and Dr. David Hamburger, President Emeritus of the Carnegie
Corporation, at dinner, were captured on videotape. I've just
received the tapes, and we're currently reviewing whether
- and how - they might be made available to you and others.
Another,
top-down view of global 21st century realities you might care
to explore: United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan's
just released Millennium Report (www.un.org/millennium)
addressed to "We the Peoples" and requesting a response from
the heads of the 188 member states of the UN, assembling for
a Millennium Summit this month in New York. The report is
described as "a comprehensive account of the challenges facing
humanity as we enter the 21st Century... and a plan of action
for dealing with them." Kofi Annan's interesting justification
for the report's scope: "That may seem absurdly ambitious,
but if the UN does not attempt to chart a course for the world's
people in the first decades of the New Millennium, who will?"
Given
all the above, early reactions from classmates suggest a strong
interest in having our future class reunions annually, rather
than on a five-year schedule. I very much welcome your thoughts
on this, and on our continuing theme.
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