Letter from
Debbie Gastler, Class President

(continued)

. . . .A couple of the officers I knew somewhat from choirs and glee club, a couple of them I knew from past involvement in our class and several I did not know at all. The biggest benefit of being involved in reunion and class activities is getting to know, and getting to know better, classmates whom I did not know very well before. The beauty of the house system is that we got to bond with housemates from four different classes. The downside was that we didn’t bond much as a class. We tend to retain those close friendships we made in our houses. The best part of reunions is that we get to bond with classmates and develop over the years new friendships with some remarkable women. I had the good fortune to do so with the outgoing group of officers and I look forward to doing so again with the new group.

We usually describe ourselves in terms of places and life events. I’m no exception. At Smith I was a Government major and lived in three different houses, Franklin King for two years, Sessions for a year and then Cushing as a senior Head Resident. I sang in choirs and glee club and played flute in the marching band at UMass where I met my then boyfriend and current husband. We got married right after I graduated so we are coming up on our 30^th wedding anniversary! Andy (Malloy- I never changed my name) is a freelance musician who plays classical trombone in various orchestras and small groups, records movie soundtracks and an occasional advertising jingle and teaches trombone at a couple local universities. We have two daughters, ages 25 and almost 22. Our youngest has one year left at University of New Hampshire and our oldest graduated from Smith three years ago and is getting married this summer to a wonderful man she met at Amherst their first year. Her decision to go to Smith was a complete surprise brought on, not by my urging, but by her desire to play volleyball in college, which she did all four years. She is currently a 5^th grade teacher in NYC but is planning to move this summer to New Jersey where her fiancé works for a landscaping company.

I attended New York University School of Law and have been practicing corporate tax law, first at a firm and then within three different LA-based corporations, for the past 25 years. In 1993 and again in 2000 I had the good fortune of losing my job! It didn’t seem so at the time but I got two severance packages as a result. The first we were able to save for the girls’ college educations and the second is allowing me to retire next month. I thought once the nest was empty I could stop juggling and would enjoy throwing myself into my career. Turns out I have lost a lot of my ambition and crave instead the time and flexibility to do what I want to do. So my plan is not to plan and continue to take life as it comes. It’s been good to us so far so there is no reason to think it won’t be equally exciting going forward. We’ll see.

That’s just one story. I have been fortunate. Although there have been downs as well as ups, on the whole I wouldn’t trade my life with anyone else. Some of our classmates have had to deal with a lot more challenges than I have. The amount of courage and grace with which they have done so is inspiring. But the wonderful thing about reunion was how little we focused on personal stories and how much we enjoyed just being in the company of supportive and intelligent women. Over the years we have followed many different paths and are at a variety of stages in our lives. Some of us have grown children or step-children, some of us have no children or youngsters. Some of us have old careers and some have different or new careers both outside and in the home. Some of us have had partners for a long time, some are widows and some are experiencing new relationships. Some of us are in various forms of good health, some have overcome health challenges and almost all of us have had to face or are facing the mortality of our parents. My sense is that at early reunions we were a bit competitive and self-conscious about our lives and whether we “measured up.” As we get older and have more life experiences, the usual measuring rods lose their meaning, we become less concerned with fitting in, more intrigued by the variety of peoples’ lives and more interested in what people think than what they do. For many of us, there are so few times that we can get away and spend a weekend in the company of wonderful women that reunion feels like a precious treat.

For this our 30^th reunion, there were a number of us who had been at past reunions, a few who had never been at all and some who had attended past reunions but were not able to be at this one. I missed some of my friends, Ellen McLean, Nancy Reeves Mansfield, Phoebe Pedersen Wood and Robin Low, who couldn’t make it, Cynthia Sommer, who was attending her daughter’s college graduation, Sandy Williams, who together with another friend of mine was receiving an award in LA that weekend. I loved spending time with Andrea Wolfman and good friend Paula Schlinger and getting reacquainted with old friends, Ida Siegfried and Margot Frank Faivush. It was fun seeing Denise Boykins Hooper, Mary Boice Read and Pam Kerr from Cushing and Sessions as well as my glee club colleagues. (I would love to reconnect with Andi Gosselin Haraldsson, Val Eley, Pam Mendels, Gina Nolan Broderick, Jo Goddard, Nancy Ebe, Mittie Jordan, Liz Strauss, Marna Badavas and Janice Prescott Fishman whom I haven’t seen in years.) Most of all, I liked meeting and getting to know better classmates whom I did not know while I was at Smith. It is a wonderful sorority.

For those of you who attended reunion we would love to hear what you enjoyed, what you didn’t like and your suggestions for future reunions. For those who were not able to attend, we would like to know what we can do (other than eliminating those things laying claim to your time and financial resources that prevent a trip to Northampton in May) so that you will be able to and want to come next time. There is a place on the website for all of you to share your thoughts. And for any one who would like to be involved with the class, either generally or as we approach our next reunion, please let us know what you would like to do to help. We’d love to have you join us.

Sincerely,

Debbie
Debbie Gastler
Class President
(president@smith75.org)