friendships. We are truly lucky, and with- out Skidmore we would not have each other.” Susie and Cheryl have recently retired, Susie from a career as a reading specialist and Cheryl from flower design. Lucia’s son lives in NYC, so she can work in visits with Susie and Cheryl. Lucia is happily retired in Harbor Springs, MI, where she lives in the house her parents built as their family summer residence. She says, “It feels like I have come home.” In April the National League of Ameri -


can Pen Women gave awards in its 58th annual poetry contest. Janet Sangenito Fagal, contest chair for the group’s Cen - tral New York branch, said about 300 peo- ple entered poems. This year’s theme was “CNY in Verse.” Hope Fellows is retired and enjoying


life. She winters in Jackson, WY, and spends the rest of year in Montauk, NY. She welcomes hearing from Skidmore friends.


Longtime dancer and choreographer


Lila Geer York is choreographing a full- evening ballet based on Margaret At - wood’s The Handmaid’s Tale for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet Company. The ballet pre- mieres in October in Winnipeg, after which it will tour throughout Canada. Lanie Lippincott Peterson lives on


Tybee Island off the coast of Georgia and would love to hear from or host class- mates. Palm trees, sand dunes, dolphins, and pelicans are visible from her house. A business and feature journalist for the Savannah Morning News and freelance writer, she’s pursuing a master’s in special education. She hopes to finish her studies with an internship next spring and find a job (“despite the lousy job market”) in Savannah public schools. Lanie attended Skidmore for two years before transferring to the University of Michigan. She says, “Skidmore holds a special place in my heart.” BARBARA CROSSMAN BELL 218 CANDEE AVENUE SYRACUSE, NY 13224-1608 BICI@TWCNY.RR.COM


’71


Martha Good retired from teach- ing political science at Miami


University in Ohio and is a volunteer attorney for the Legal Aid Society of Southwest Ohio. She was recently elected vice chair, focused on communications, for the Ohio Democratic Woman’s Cau - cus, and she is running for the Cincinnati School Board this fall. Martha’s sons are Oberlin graduates, and her daughter is a Harvard alumna. She enjoys visiting them in Santa Barbara, CA, Philadelphia, PA,


and Cambridge, MA, where each is gain- fully employed. Martha has downsized to a cozy apartment in downtown Cincin - nati, where she can watch barges and riverboats go by. Last December she visit- ed roommate Nancy Dimiero Tart at her home in Palm Beach Gardens, FL, where Nancy teaches art. The last time Marge Dickson Smith was


in Europe was summer 1971, in a Skid - more program to England, Scotland, and Wales. At the time, she felt more at home in her father’s hometown of Galashiels (meaning “beautiful hills,” 30 miles south of Edinburgh) than in Summit, NJ. Now retired, Marge and her husband are plan- ning a trip to Italy with the Bucks County Women’s Chorus next June. She looks for- ward to our 50th reunion. Last year Linda Gaetz Blakely entered


the 45th Pillsbury Bake-Off with her In - donesian chicken turnovers with spicy peanut sauce and came away with the $5,000 Crisco Cooking Award. This year Linda was voted one of 34 finalists in the Simple Sweets and Starters category and will head to Las Vegas, NV, to compete with 99 other home cooks for the $1 mil- lion grand prize! After spending the winter in Palm Beach Gardens, FL, Barbara Zerwitz Corcoran and husband combined a wedding in Seattle, WA, with a bucket-list cruise to the Inner Passage of Alaska. Their daugh- ter, a kindergarten teacher in Springfield, MA, was set to be married this fall. Their son lives in Cary, NC, with his wife and their twins, who are the apples of their grandparents’ eyes. Alexis O’Neill will be haunting the his-


toric Oakwood Cemetery in Niagara Falls, NY, when she launches her newest picture book, about one of the cemetery’s most famous residents, Homan J. Walsh. Alexis shares her writing and research strategies in libraries and schools in New York, Ontario, and Connecticut. And when her husband finishes building his airplane, they can take flying vacations to historic sites around the country! “So many of us are reinventing ourselves


just as our energy fluctuates and high heels have become a pain,” laments Bar - bara Burge. She recounts that five of her friends published first books this year; hers, however, still languishes. She prom- ises she will complete it when her son enters his senior year in high school. Barbara sends her best to classmates and asks those in the Northeast: “Solar pan- els—thumbs up, thumbs down?” Jil Lord Eaton redesigned her Web site minnowknits.com and, after designing 10


FALL 2013


AT WORK Midwife and advocate G


rowing up in Jamaica, Patricia Loftman ’71 found it the norm for expectant mothers to


use midwives. “The medical establishment has a historic foothold in the US,” she says, “but the standard for pregnancy care in most of the world is midwifery.” It was this familiar tradition that inspired Loft -


man to parlay her Skidmore nursing degree into work as a certified nurse-midwife, a re warding career that has spanned more than 30 years. “The faculty of the nursing program at Skidmore were fabulous, and they prepared me extremely well to continue my education,” she recalls. After working


as a registered nurse in the Bronx and coor- dinating chil- dren’s health care at a foster agency, Loftman earned her mas- ter’s degree, certificate, and license in midwifery from Columbia University. She joined the burgeoning midwifery service at Harlem Hospital Center in New York City in 1982, serving as the hospital’s director of mid- wifery from 1984 to 1999. Passionate about car- ing for economically disadvantaged women, Loftman chose to practice exclusively within the public health system. “Just because you are financially challenged and have to receive public health care doesn’t mean you should receive substandard care,” she says. “My greatest and proudest achievement has been providing state- of-the-art health care to financially challenged women in a manner that was satisfying to them medically, culturally, and linguistically.” Throughout her career, Loftman has also been an advocate and ambassador, teaching about the role and value of midwives for women through their reproductive years and beyond. In her clinical practice, she attended more than 2,000 births, in some cases caring for multiple generations of women in a single family. Although she officially retired in 2010, Loft -


man still feels the allure of clinical work and hopes to begin a part-time practice at another New York City public hospital later this year. —Sara Daniels ’05


CREATIVE THOUGHT


MICHAEL PARAS


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