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Paul V.
Nyden
Walter E.
Schaap [Editor's note: Columbia College Today accepts the resignation of Walter E. Schaap as Class of 1937 correspondent and thanks him for his time, effort and devotion. We welcome his distinguished successor, Murray T. Bloom. Please forward your news to him at 40 Hemlock Drive, Kings Point, N.Y. 10024.] Age has finally caught up with your correspondent. I suffered a stroke on Memorial Day. I'm doing fine, but I have to cut down my activities. I've resigned as editor of the Temple Israel of Jamaica Bulletin and the Sidney Bechet Quarterly, and I hereby bid farewell as '37 columnist for CCT. I'm deeply grateful to Murray Bloom, who has agreed to take over here. Do your part by sending him news of your accomplishments. My recent plea for some news has borne fruit. Dave Markham, one of Richmond's top physicians, reminds me how we bumped into each other at my army hospital in Rabat, Morocco in '43. Dave went on from there to campaigns in Italy, France, and Germany. His children still pursue Dave's interest in social issues: His elder daughter lives in Oxford, U.K., and works hard to secure compensation for Holocaust laborers; his son is director of molecular biology and immunology research on the AIDS virus at Johns Hopkins; and his younger daughter is a lawyer and senior researcher at the Center for Health Care Policy at George Washington University. Dave, an associate clinical professor of medicine at the University of Virginia, has established awards for the Compassionate Clinician and for Excellence in Teaching Primary Care Medicine. He married Pearl in 1997, just after our 60th reunion (which they attended). In honor of his late wife, a founder of the Richmond Children's Museum, he helped endow its new Sara Markham Art Gallery. Dave's e-mail address is jdmarkhaml@cs.com. Just a little bit further south, Irwin Perlmutter, another of our M.D.s, won this year's Distinguished Practitioner award from the Southern Neurosurgical Society. Far off, in Provence, France, Bill Davenport returned to his school from a world cruise to find a letter from Doug Damrosch's widow, Eleanor, informing Bill of the death of Bob Barnes in a car accident. Doug, you'll recall, headed Columbia-Presbyterian's medical staff. Bob headed the Columbia University Press. (An obituary of Bob appears in this issue.) Bill invites any classmate to visit him in Provence. His address is Northwood University, Domaine de St. Martin. Winston Hart, another member of what Tom Brokaw has termed "The Greatest Generation," entered the army as a buck private in 1941 and was discharged in December '45 as an Air Force major. Brokaw had it right-the men of '37 were and are truly great.
Dr. A.
Leonard Luhby We received responses to our request for suggestions as to when and where to hold our 62nd reunion in 2000. Florida in March has been recommended instead of either on campus or Arden House in May, when many would like to attend commencement exercises. There are more than 210 class members "alive and kicking" according to Alumni Office records. Hayes G. Shimp writes from Jenson Beach, Fla., (East coast) "a reunion in year 2000 is most appropriate." Hayes has volunteered to contact classmates in different sections of Florida to see if a large enough local group can be assembled. Those interested please contact Hayes at 1600 N.W. Dixie Highway, Jenson Beach, Fla. 34957 or call (561) 225-2992. Additional efforts to contact class members will be sent from the Alumni Office. Hayes also writes that he is now happily settled with his wife, Meg, on the banks of the St. Lucie River. "We have been blessed with three children and one great-grandchild, all of sound mind and body." Robert (Bob) Buchele, from Hawaii, remembers his Columbia years fondly and cherishes the lifelong friends he made at that time. He looks back with nostalgia at experiences he shared in the Navy with Peter Guthorn, Joseph Lubart (both now deceased) and Robert July. In particular, Bob remembers being thrown into the fountain at the beginning of his undergraduate career, a moment immortalized by a picture on the back cover of the Daily News. Bob and his wife, Lu Verne, live in Honolulu. He is a retired professor of management at the College of Business Administration, University of Hawaii. After earning a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago's School of Business, Bob worked in the field of management theory for many years. He highly recommends retirement in Hawaii.
Ralph
Staiger [Editor's note: Illness prevented Ralph Staiger from completing this issue's column, though he hopes to be back for the February issue. Please continue to send information to the address above. In the meantime, CCT has received the following information:] For 43 years, Robert Banks, who attended the President's Cup presentation to classmate Vic Futter on campus last spring, has headed R.L. Banks & Associates, a consulting firm addressing problems in transportation economics and engineering. His work has led him to become the only American citizen elected to an honorary lifetime membership in the Canadian Transportation Research Forum and a recipient of the Distinguished Service Award from the Province of Saskatchewan. He also served as a technical advisor to new commuter railroads in Los Angeles, San Diego and Northern Virginia. "Absent strong support from Eslyn Parnes Banks, including active participation in our firm, none of this would have been possible," he adds. Edward Biele writes: "Since graduation I attended the Law School, served in the U.S. Naval Reserves, been married since 1946, practiced law, taught at the University of Washington Law School, sent two sons to Columbia College [John '69 and Alexander '71] and a daughter to Vassar, retired in 1982, and traveled extensively since then. My ancient arteries are in excellent condition considering all the prayers I didn't say and all the elderberry wine I consumed. I still buy green bananas." He was not going to be able to attend the class's reunion in October because he had previously promised to attend a reunion in California of his World War II submarine crew.
Seth
Neugroschl Hermon "Hy" Farwell sent me a chatty note on his current doings-trips to Malta, "a fascinating museum of archaeological ruins and World War II history," and to the Panama Canal "before the U.S. turned it over to Panama." He's had a hip replacement and is involved in "a minimum of parliamentary writing and teaching" (his letterhead describes him as "Certified Professional Parliamentarian"). I'm intrigued, but haven't been able to get him on the phone yet for clarification. Hy also included a touching four-page manuscript titled Reunion. It's a summing of his personal history, including his loss of contact with our class and his states of mind and experiences as he rediscovered us at our 40th reunion in 1980 and attended our 50th in 1990. He concludes, "And the 60th reunion? God willing, I'll be there." Jim Knight described a wonderful motor trip around England this summer with his British-born wife, Pamela, their daughter Kat, and sons James and Gregory, that included visiting with family in New Castle. Pamela continues her decade-long multilingual editing of UNICEF books and reports on conditions of children worldwide. Jim is expanding an earlier article of his into a book on his and Ed Rice's Columbia friend, Tom Merton '38. The overall purpose is to present Merton with a human face. Jim recalled Merton's use of "underground press channels" to bypass attempts to censor him and his linking of religion and peace issues, including his powerful objection to talk of a nuclear first strike against Russia. Phil Thurston was a professor in business policy, manufacturing and marketing at Harvard Business School until his retirement. He recently served on the Finance Committee of his Weston, Mass., hometown's government, "a great spot for being involved in what's going on locally," and enjoys "puttering around" his Maine cottage. He and wife Jean are very much looking forward to joining us at our 60th next June. Robert Alexander and wife Joan B'43 have two children, Meg and Anthony. Bob is a professor emeritus of economics at Rutgers and continues a busy life teaching and writing. His interest in the comparative development of economic systems has led him to a historical focus for his two current courses, "The Evolution of Marxist-Leninist Systems" and "The History of the English-speaking West Indies." His recently published book on the role of anarchists in Republican Spain during that country's Civil War traces its initial inspiration to Bob's brief vacation visit to Spain just as that war started the summer he finished high school. John Ripandelli has a first to his credit: the first e-mail submission to '40 class notes. I did follow up, I must admit, with what's called POTS (plain old telephone service) in some computer circles. Despite spending half my career in computers, I'm still partial to the complementary feel of these two very different media. John wrote, "Very moving about Lawson (in the last CCT column). I spent four years at war in Germany as a First Louie in the Combat Engineers... Battle of the Bulge, the bridge at Remagen, the fall of Nuremberg and the final hours in Himmler's hometown of Landshut. Then four years in a Veterans hospital. After that, 40 years of being an actuary-a one-man shop for most of the time. Now I have put my feet up and joined the ranks of the (largely) retired. The pay isn't good, but the hours are great." John, a widower, has three daughters, all working for the State of Florida in Tallahassee. He enjoys reading physics, and "wishes he understood it better." Laurence Ferris wrote "I'm 80 years old (!)...(so are we all, give or take a couple, Larry!)...retired after 43 years as a Dupont chemist, a widower with two daughters and a son. I'm in very good health, play tennis three times a week, and am looking forward to seeing college associates at reunion next year." John Mundy joined Columbia's history department in 1947 and taught there until 1987, chairing the department in 1968. His specialty is medieval European history, with a particular focus on Toulouse. John and his wife, Charlotte, have two children: Martha, an anthropologist, teaches at the London School of Economics, and James, a molecular biologist, is at Copenhagen's Institute of Molecular Biology. They spend their summers at their Paris apartment.
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