Possible Strategies for Susan’s Ideas

The latest copy of the Wells directory lists those who are “lost.” I know Rhea and I tried to “find” people using various strategies for the 25th; we would certainly have new options now, fifteen years later. There are some people listed in the directory for whom we have an address, but contact has been difficult in the past. There are others with whom we have never made a successful connection.

Does anyone want to compile a list; divide up the names; start working on this project? Fifteen years ago,  remember I tried to find Sally Miller, Susan Andres, Marilyn DeSevo, Helen Hardy, Pam Bond, and Marla Mudar, among others. Sometimes you do find the person, but she does not want to be found. Or she feels so out of touch that it is awkward and counterproductive. Sometimes you inadvertently bump up against emotional issues about the past. Sometimes there are just dead ends and no trace at all. There are many reasons our classmates choose to stay distant or have moved on and away; do we want to use the blog to discuss the pro’s and con’s of handling this ?

Back for the 25th I felt it would be so neat to find a few women from our class who wanted to be found. I still feel that. It was so wonderful to find Derry for example.

Your views?

Finding our “lost” classmates

On Thursday, on my way to the airport, I was chatting with my taxidriver, as I usually do, and he turned out to be Ethiopian. Somehow or other, he mentioned Haille Selaisse and I remembered our classmate, Ethiopia H. I thought I remembered her being a granddaughter or some relation to the Emperor. I mentioned this to the cab driver, who said, she lived either in London or Virginia. It’s funny, but usually these expats follow the comings and goings of their deposed rulers and their relatives closely. The Iranians know where the former Shah’s wife and children live, for example.

But it got me thinking about all our lost classmates…I know there had been a horrible story in the New Yorker about the women relatives of the Emperor being imprisioned and then killed, but my journalistic juices started flowing and I thought how can we, as a class, identify and locate our “lost” classmates. There has to be a way in this Internet age…and aren’t we all just six degrees of separation apart?

Should we try and compile a list and work at finding them? I would love to try. When was the last time anyone hear from Ethiopia or knew where she lived? Who else is out there, that we don’t know about?

Mills