Niners' Notes - YOURS, please!

*Susan Ball 6/9/15:  My wonderful husband John Brigham and I continue to triangulate among Connecticut where I work and we mostly live; Massachusetts where he teaches at UMass, Amherst; and Hudson, NY, where we have a country house and lots of special friends.  I work in Greenwich, but we live in Black Rock, CT. I participate as often as possible, but not as often as I would like in a delightful Scripps Book Club.  I supervise a very smart young Scripps graduate, Tara Contractor, who is soon to head off for PhD in art history at my grad school alma mater, Yale.  I am very involved in Yale, serving on the executive committee of the Graduate School Alumni Association and an active member of Yale Women of CT.  At the Bruce Museum, where I am deputy director, we are opening on July 1st an exhibition I co-curated, The Sins: Pride--a seven museum collaboration, each of us featuring one of the Seven Deadly Sins.  Life is good. *Christina (Feldmann) O'Reilly 12/4/14: divorce 2 1/2 years ago.  hip replacement surgery.  healing slowly but walking without a cane. my poetry book EVERYDAY MERMAID POEMS with my visual artist collaborator is almost complete which is very exciting. two grandchildren.  a daughter who is a sound artist.   life really is a surprise and a mystery.  you can see my poems at lighttouchtheater.com under "poetry and plays."  strange to be alone but slowly finding the simple pleasures.  love to hear from old friends. 

Robert Hamerton-Kelly 12/26/38 - 7/7/13, taught religion at Scripps 1966-1970: obituaryMemorial service Thursday, July 18, 4 pm at First United Methodist Church, Portland, ORClassmates remember him:"He was a great prof in my eyes, even though I only had him for Humanities. He was very influential in a vulnerable time of my religious life and I thank him." - Barbara Temple Ayres '69"Hamerton-Kelly was one of the professors at Scripps who made a big impression on me as a freshman and who, I always thought, embodied what a college professor should be. I remember chatting with him at tea in the courtyard about issues like apartheid, and I was so thrilled that one could have these conversations outside of the lecture hall with such urbane (and good looking!) teachers such as he was. Too bad I didn't know he was living in Portland the last few years....." - Ginger Denecke Hackett '69"He was quite active in many of the rallies and other efforts in re the social issues of our times - war, civil rights, South Africa." - Carol Ouchi Brunner '69

"I note the passing of Robert Hammerton-Kelly with a depth of feeling. I read his obit, with bio. I don't think we knew he was raising babies when he taught us so intently round our small-class oval tables during his brief few years that intersected with ours at Scripps. We did know he was South African, anti-apartheid, had participated in the bus blockades.

I wonder how the Stanford students responded to his many subsequent years of sermons in that grand old chapel they have.

I know that he led me astray -- in a good way. Humanities I, freshman year, with obligation to read about music and art and philosophy, it was his obligation to fucking buy Peakes Commentary on the Bible and actually read Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, checking the Hebrew and Greek translations, that hooked me on Biblical Studies, which I ended up majoring in. There were many long hours among elect group of majors around the oval table in the seminar rooms. We asked astute questions after he'd go off on a rumination, 'How did you get that much info into your marginal notes?'  I recall observing, vehemently, that if you inherited the kingdom of heaven, didn't that mean God had to die first? Wasn't that a forecursor to the Death of God Movement, in sway when we studied? He carried a marvellous cross between deep belief - what you'd like a Pope to have - and very sarcastic dubiousness about any sort of divine authority over the substance of ethical life.  He surely made us think.  Forgiveness, Righteousness, Love, Justice. These we thought about.

One story. Senior year.  Thesis due.  Robert Hammerton-Kelly is thesis advisor. He fails my first draft. I revise. He writes, 'A. This is intelligent, demanding, and honest. It does not fit standards for scholarly thought, but argues its right not to do so.'

So, that's an influence on the direction of growth of a young sapling, graduating June 1969." - Ellen Trescher Haas '69

"I have very fond memories of classes and conversations with Hamerton-Kelly--and I still have my copy of Peake's Commentary on the Bible, required reading as I am sure you remember.  The obituary describes a full and interesting--but still too short life." - Barbara Ryan '69

"I was crushed to hear this sad news.  He was one of the most important teachers I had at Scripps.  It wasn't so much what he taught but how he taught. His aim was always to help us bring out our own analytical map of whatever subject we had in class.  He taught us how to handle an exegesis of one simple paragraph from St. Paul, for instance.  We treated words with critical thinking, zooming into the landscape of the historical past. I never looked at history and philosophy the same after being graced with his wisdom." - Sudy Dostal '69

"Some of us who babysat for Prof Hamerton-Kelly's young children did, in fact, know that in addition to his brilliance as a teacher and thinker, Prof. Hamerton-Kelly was indeed raising children and with a similar deliberative and thought-provoking engagement. Babysitters were instructed in the virtues of "found" as opposed to commercial playthings -- banging on pots and pans being one of the more obvious. These instructions led to discussions about commercialism, simple virtues, etc. and just as his classroom instruction and assignments affected my thinking about life issues, so too did his child rearing philosophy. - Susan Ball '69

"He made a big impression on me as the person who really began my thinking about politics from a strongly religious/moral base. the first one to begin my process of politicization which started from a very different beginning from many I grew up with, given my family background: Dutch father, Hungarian mother, born in Beirut..." - Edina Mommaerts Weinstein '69

"I've never forgotten my interactions with him, his responses to my papers, his lectures. He seemed interested in my mind, which made a lasting impression on me." - Leslie Lasher Monsour '69

"Dr. Robert Hamerton-Kelly was my faculty advisor when I was a first-year student (his first year there as well) at Scripps College. He was generous to his students; a brilliant scholar who set the academic bar high. He was one of the most memorable and impressive lecturers at the Claremont Colleges." - Lynn Randels Raskin '69

Scripps Olive Oil honoredwith thanks to Sue Talbot '69 (AKA Urban Farmer, author of "Sue's Green To Do's")An NBC report 4/5/13 of the Best of Show recognition of Scripps Olive Oil in the Los Angeles International Extra Virgin Olive Oil competition incorporates the recollections of Sue Talbot (Scripps Volunteer of the Year 2010) of the protest some 40 years back that saved the olive trees from destruction at the time of construction of the Humanities Building.  Sue took an active role in the protest and has sustained her Scripps involvement in many ways, including recent service on on the Scripps President's Advisory Council on Sustainability. La Semeuse '69 olive tree images attached below.

Marga (Rosencranz) Rose Hancock 12/10/10: Since our 40th Reunion last year I've enjoyed interaction in various media w/ several classmates, including nearby Seattle-area ones Ellie David, Shelley Smith Calabrese, Ellen Trescher Haas & others.  In October the local Scripps Alumnae WeWA observance of Ellen Browning Scripps's Birthday drew 30+ of all generations from among some 400 locals, with much pleasure in hearing stories from our original gang as well as from more recent grads. At Thanksgiving, HistoryLink published my biography of world-renowned engineer John Skilling, father of our classmate & distinguished painter Susan Skilling.Ellen Rumsey Bellenot 11/15/2010: I'm pottering along, accruing no honors, just savoring the days. Good marriage, good kids, good life. I'm doing polymer clay and art sewing, which, in my case means lousy craftsmanship. Still can't spell worth a hoot.

Elizabeth Wuthrich Westling 10/3/2010:  "A New Career Late in Life," in Huffington Post

Charla Connelley Shadduck 9/14/2010: AAUW played a big part of my summer activities. In May I was awarded the Woman of Achievement award for our branch, the Fall River-Intermountain Branch of AAUW in Burney, CA (Shasta County).

In July I was a dorm mom for the third year at AAUW's TechTrek camp at Stanford University. TechTrek is a camp for seventh grade girls interested in science, math, and technology. As soon as the girls checked out at Stanford, I headed south to help open the new TechTrek camp at the University of California, Irvine. In 2011 I will again work at the Irvine camp. I will also help open the new camp at UC Davis. Our girls from the Intermountain Area will be attending camp at Davis in 2011 rather than Stanford.