Virginia M. Esselborn of the Class of 1930 did not immediately pursue a medical career after her graduation from Wells College. Instead, due to her mother’s death, she assumed responsibility for shepherding her three younger sisters through school. During this time she did such outstanding work at the blood bank that it was suggested to her that she go into medicine which she did, graduating from Cincinnati College of Medicine in 1944. Following an internship at Metropolitan City Hospital in Cleveland, and a residency in internal medicine at Cincinnati General Hospital, she spent two additional years of graduate study in endocrinology at Duke University Medical School.
Upon her return to Cincinnati, she set about establishing a section of medical endocrinology at The College of Medicine. She assumed the responsibility for planning the schedules of endocrinology teaching and for clinical investigation in the field as well as carrying on a consulting practice in the city. She opened and supervised the first laboratory to conduct hormone determinations in the city and, in addition, established an endocrine clinic at the hospital. At the Children’s Hospital, she developed an endocrine section and clinic which has achieved national stature for its teaching and investigational program. She has become a nationally recognized authority on adrenal gland disorders in children and has published numerous papers in the field of thyroid and adrenal gland disorders.
She has served as instructor, then assistant and associate clinical professor of medicine at the University College of Medicine and as attending physician in the wards and clinics of both the General and Children’s Hospitals.
Her great contributions to her community and her field both intellectually and humanely, coupled with a quiet modesty and genuine sense of humor have earned her the respect and affection of her students, colleagues and friends. Wells College is proud to count her among its graduates.
Millicent L. Hathaway of the Class of 1920, a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi, Honorary Scientific Society, has contributed significantly in the field of physiological chemistry and nutrition. She received her master’s degree at the University of Buffalo and her doctorate at the University of Chicago.
Her research in the field of nutrition and metabolism has contributed significantly to the health of infants and children. In spite of a heavy research load, she has shared herself as a teacher at every academic level, in many institutions of learning, as varied as New York Public School, Wellesley College, Cornell University, and Howard University.
As a member of numerous professional societies, she is also the author or co-author of more than twenty-five technical publications and papers. For sixteen years she worked for the United States Department of Agriculture as a specialist in human nutrition and was the recipient of the Borden Award, given to her by the American Association of Home Economics in 1947. Her name has been listed in Who’s Who of American Women and in American Men of Science.
From fulltime teacher and researcher to active retiree, her enjoyment and participation in life have not been diminished. Not impressed with status, her quiet sense of wit and generous perspective on life have enriched all those whose lives she has touched. Wells College salutes her unique contributions and claims her with great pride.
Florence Partridge of the Class of 1921 has devoted her life to higher education, her community, and the issues of poverty and race. She has expressed her interest through continuous involvement with colleges, and through Christian service in her community.
She received her master’s degree in 1934 from the University of Chicago, and holds an honorary doctor of laws degree. Her continuing concern for education is exemplified by eleven years spent as dean at Wells College, Syracuse University and Heidelburg College, followed by many years on the Boards of Trustees of two liberal arts colleges and a theological seminary.
A mainstay of the Hough Avenue United Church of Christ for many years, she served as its first woman president. Her loyalty to this church has led her into deepening community involvement. As the poverty area grew around the church building, she remained an active member, devising creative programs to meet the challenges of a changing congregation. Beyond her deep local commitments, she has served in wider church activities as a general synod delegate for a quarter of a century. The Board of Directors of the Protestant Ministry to Poverty, and the United Church Women, as well as divisions and departments of the National Council of Churches have benefited from her superb talents.
Among her many other activities, she counts extensive participation on YWCA Board of Directors, and membership in such diverse organizations as the American Civil Liberties Union, The Cleveland World Affairs Council, The Urban League and the Cleveland Institute of Music.
Florence Partridge’s personal stature coupled with her warmth and wit have kept her in constant demand as a public speaker. Her contributions as a responsible and concerned citizen, the Christianity which is exhibited in all she undertakes are indeed an example to many. Wells College is very proud to honor her today.
Through her untiring efforts to protect over five thousand valuable acres of wilderness from commercial exploitation, Grace Campbell Hand of the Class of 1930, exhibited her interest in conservation long before it was a popular cause. Her endeavors culminated in a ten year campaign to protect the Great Swamp in Morris County, New Jersey, from development, establishing it instead as a National Wildlife Refuge. Those who worked with her agree that it was her dedication and leadership that publicized the cause nationally, helped raise one and one half million dollars from all over the world to buy the land, and resulted in a wilderness area that attracted sixty thousand visitors last year.
Grace Hand’s interest in conservation developed gradually. Following her graduation from Wells, she worked for twelve years in the fields of personnel and labor relations. After her marriage, she and her husband were weekly visitors to the Great Swamp, watching birds and observing the flora and fauna. She became involved in garden club and the Audubon Society, taking junior Audubon groups on field trips and writing a series of conservation articles for the Madison, New Jersey Eagle.
When in 1959, it was revealed that the New York Port Authority was planning a ten thousand acre international jetport in the Great Swamp area, a group of concerned citizens founded the Great Swamp Committee to raise funds to buy up acreage. Mrs. Hand was co-chairman of that committee. She organized a speaker’s bureau which over the next five or six years presented over six hundred illustrated lecture programs in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The records that she and her husband had kept for ten years on the birds, trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants in the swamp served as priceless documentation of the value of the area for conservation. A fund drive was organized that extended throughout the United States and several foreign counties. College and school support was enlisted; visual displays developed; every possible economic, educational, aesthetic and ecological idea was explored to keep the Great Swamp in the news. Two television shows were developed, one of which featured Mrs. Hand and which won the Ohio State Award for the Best Conservation Show of the Year. Grace Hand has also received conservation awards from the New Jersey Audubon Society and the New Jersey Federation of Garden Clubs. To these Wells College is proud to add its Alumnae Award.
Mary Perley Wakeman of the Class of 1923 has distinguished herself as a dedicated volunteer with prime emphasis on conservation and environmental activities.
In her lifetime she has served in a wide variety of jobs including Board of Directors of the League for the Handicapped of Detroit, Michigan, Vice-Chairman of the Red Cross Motor Corps of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan during World War II and the head of numerous fund drives.
She has been reelected repeatedly to the Vestry of St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Edgartown, Massachusetts for the past eighteen years, is a trustee of the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, and was a hard working member and now honorary director of the Martha’s Vineyard Community Services Agency, an organization which has served as a model for numerous other community service agencies. In addition, she is politically aware and a believer in commitment, so it was only logical that she be elected an alternate delegate to the 1960 Republican National Convention.
Her interest in conservation has extended over many years. As a member of the Martha’s Vineyard Garden Club she was successful in confronting without alienating those who would have practiced the profaning ways of commercialism by erecting signs on the island. Continued interest led her to become a founder of the Vineyard Conservation Society, whose stature and accomplishments are widely respected and acclaimed.
She later became particularly interested in Chappaquiddick and was named an early member and later secretary of the Cape Poge Wildlife Reservation by the Massachusetts Trustees of Reservations. As such she produced valuable information and indispensable ingredients for its enlargement and continued protection. In order to forestall the sale for development of the Wasque Region which is adjacent to Cape Poge it was necessary to raise $170,000 by public appeal to buy the land. Wasque is the seaward extremity of Chappaquiddick and the Vineyard. It has come down to the modern era largely unchanged since the time of the Indians and early settlers. Mary agreed to act as director of the fund raising drive for Wasque. Her continuous effort, energy and enthusiasm were largely responsible for the success of the drive which added Wasque to the Cape Poge Wildlife Reservation. For this work and her continuing concern for conservation matters, she received the Massachusetts Trustees of Reservations 1970 Conservation Award.
Not resting on her laurels, she has gone on to become a founding trustee and chairman of the Vineyard Open Land Foundation. The group was organized to assist in and promote the natural beauty and rural character of Martha’s Vineyard and influence future development by wise planning and balanced use of open lands through purchase where feasible and resale in an ecologically sound pattern.
She is one of those rare persons who combine organizational efficiency and sustained commitment with human wisdom. She pulls young and old together, inspiring confidence, as she completes jobs surely and with style. She has consistently done volunteer work of a truly professional quality making her corner of the world a lovelier place to live in, not just in a physical but in a human sense as well.
Wells College is very proud to present its Alumnae Award to her.
Jane Worthington Smyser of the Class of 1936 is a teacher, scholar, critic, writer, wife, friend and a warm and concerned human being. Her students laud her teaching ability, toughness in expecting top performance, and fairness. A colleague at Connecticut College, where she has taught for thirty-two years, speaks of her as a perfectionist with deep commitment to excellence; a warm and generous person who listens carefully to opposition and cheerfully accepts decisions to which she is opposed; one of the few people who adjust gracefully to the rapidly changing views and interests of students today. Fellow scholars call her writings important, illuminating, informative, and praise her creativity, charm, dignity, sensitivity and wonderful sense of levity.
Following her graduations from Wells with distinction in English, Jane Worthington earner her M.A. at Yale University in 1941. The following year she joined the faculty of Connecticut College and in 1944 received her doctorate from Yale. In 1949 she married Dr. Hamilton M. Smyser, professor of English at Connecticut and distinguished medievalist. The Wells Xi Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa elected her to alumnae membership in 1951 in recognition of her distinguished scholarly achievements; and in 1952-1953 she was the recipient of a fellowship from the Fund for the Advancement of Education, one of the 25 women in the United States to be so honored. The American Council of Learned Societies awarded her a grant in 1959; three years later she became a full professor of English at Connecticut College and in 1969-1971 she served as department chairman. She has also served on the Academic Policy Committee, the Library Committee and the Admissions Committee at Connecticut and has been an officer of the New London chapters of AAUP and PBK.
Mrs. Smyser’s writings include articles on Wordsworth, Coleridge, and T. S. Eliot. Her doctoral dissertation was selected for publication by Yale University Press: Wordsworth’s Readings of Roman Prose appeared in 1946 and received many favorable notices, including that of Joseph Warren Beach, who termed it “A substantial service to Wordsworth scholarship…”. On January 31 of this year, the Clarendon Press of Oxford University published the prose works of William Wordsworth, three volumes edited by W.J.B Owen and Jane Worthington Smyser, the culmination of many years of painstaking, creative research. Reviewing this edition in the London Sunday Times, Christopher Ricks has said, “These prose works…are magnificent and they have been magnificently edited.”
For forty years Jane Smyser’s Wells classmates have called her by the nickname “Worthy.” Today, the Alumnae Association joins them, her students, colleagues, fellow scholars and literary critics in saying, “She is worthy, indeed.”
Barbara Masten Buchanan of the Class of 1940 is no stranger to the Wells Community. She is a devoted alumna, providing creative leadership in the New York City Wells Club and as vice-president and president of the Wells College Alumnae Association. She has distinguished herself as an innovator in the field of higher education and worked effectively in church and community service.
Following graduate study at Union Theological Seminary and Columbia Teacher’s College, she held social work positions at the Church of All Nations Settlement House on New York’s Lower East Side, in the youth program of the Washington YWCA, and with the American Red Cross. Later she helped organize and direct the St. Bartholomew’s Volunteer Center and served as chairman of the Executive Committee of St. Barnabas Children’s Shelter, working to improve services to children.
In 1966, through expertise, hard work, and dedication, a small group of women, of whom Barbara was one, brought into being the Women’s Talent Corps, a federally funded, anti-poverty, educational experiment designed to recruit and train women from the disadvantaged neighborhoods of New York City for careers in the human services. Drawing upon the students’ experience and wisdom, the program offers an interdisciplinary core curriculum integrated with field work in public and private urban agencies. As Director of Field Placement and Career Development, Barbara was particularly successful in identifying and negotiating for these field experiences, persuading agency administrators to define new jobs and roles for students’ practice and eventual employment. From this beginning, the Talent Corps has developed into the fully accredited Co-Educational College for Human Services, recognized nationally as a pioneer in competency-based education and faithfully serving New York’s disadvantaged citizens. The positive impact exerted by these new worker/graduates as well as the enrichment of the students’ personal lives continues to motivate the college toward educational experimentation and social change.
In 1972 Barbara was invited to join the professional staff who were planning The College of Public and Community Services of The University of Massachusetts in Boston. This innovative college was designed to serve the educational and career goals of the low income, adult population of Boston by developing a competency based curriculum combining the liberal arts with career focus. Before its opening in September 1973, Barbara was appointed to direct the experimental field education program. She is described by a colleague as an invaluable resource and very influential in assisting the college in defining the interrelationships between the worlds of academe and work.
Her intense involvement intellectually and spiritually in all she does, her rapport with young and old, her charm and genuine warmth have significantly affected the lives of many and endeared her to them. It is with great joy and fondness that Wells College bestows this honor upon her.
Virginia Grace Small of the Class of 1950 was a History of Art major at Wells, and her life has been devoted to both the visual and performing arts ever since. In 1958, a group of women in Syracuse began work to provide a series of children’s concerts using area musicians. Ginny Small was monitor chairman of this group, a task that involved organizing 125 volunteers to supervise 4500 children and their teachers from bus to concert and return. The concerts proved so successful that they demonstrated the need for a symphony orchestra in Syracuse. A Symphony Guild was formed. Ginny was the Chairman of the first Symphony Ball to raise funds for the orchestra, and served as an officer for the first five years of the Guild’s existence. A fine orchestra was the eventual outcome.
She next turned her organizational abilities to the Junior League of Syracuse, serving as Chairman of several committees, president, and Chairman of the Regional Nominating Committee of the Association of Junior Leagues of America.
In 1966, Ginny was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Everson Museum of Arts. A capital funds campaign for the new building designed by I.M. Pei was just ending. Ginny had participated in this as well as having volunteered as a guide in the museum. As chairman of the Board’s membership committee, she led a campaign to enroll 1500 more families. A few years later, when the museum was without a director for a brief period, Ginny served as one of a small group of trustees who directed the museum and its staff. She succeeded to the presidency in 1972 and was reelected for three terms. As president, she was chief spokesman for the museum: to present its budget needs to city and county, to appeal to national foundations for funds and to defend its sometimes controversial exhibits from attacks by extremist groups. The museum is nationally recognized as one with innovative programming to improve the quality of life for all groups of people.
After completing her term as president in May 1975, Ginny raised $120,000 for the museum’s bicentennial project to purchase a Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington for its American collection. The wide segment of the community involved made “Buy George” household words.
During this entire period, Ginny has found time for Wells: as president of the Syracuse Wells Club, vice president of the Alumnae Association, Chairman of Alumnae Council, and as a member of the initial planning committee for the Wells Creative and Performing Arts Center.
In 1974, Ginny was named Woman of the Year for Cultural Development in Syracuse. To this outstanding volunteer leader, who in addition helped design and decorate two houses, raised a family, and created personal art work, we are pleased to give the Wells College Alumnae Award of 1976.
Ruth Pfeiffer Smith of the Class of 1938 exemplifies commitment to quality in education on many levels, chiefly in a leadership role. At Wells, her election to Phi Beta Kappa and reception of the Eugenia Allison Lee Cup foreshadowed her continuing participation in church, community, college and national affairs, always with emphasis on the educational areas of each activity.
Following her undergraduate days at Wells, Pfeife attended the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. After earning her M.A. in International Relations in 1939, she taught history and international affairs at Packer Collegiate Institute in Brooklyn.
Some years later, in Dayton, Ohio Pfeife was a leading member of a committee which assumed responsibility for the Marti School, a small independent school, and reorganized it into the Miami Valley School, a coeducational, integrated day school for grades kindergarten through 12, with 300 students. In this effort, which involved building a new school as well as building enrollment, Pfeife was untiring and unsparing of herself in fundraising and providing counsel, imagination and vision to the other board members. She has served as trustee as well as member of the administrative, education policy and enrollment committees of the school.
In 1960 Mrs. Smith was honored as Woman of the Year for Community Service in Dayton in recognition of her work with Miami Valley School and many other organizations, some of which include: Member of the school committee of Centerville, Ohio, for ten years; president of Planned Parenthood of Miami Valley, President of the Washington Township Board of Education, President of the Dayton Council on World Affairs and member of the National Committee for World Affairs Councils, Chairman of the Services Evaluation Commission for Dayton and Montgomery County, Junior and Senior Warden of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church.
In 1966, Pfeife was elected Alumnae Trustee from the Middle West at Wells. After serving two terms, she was elected a regular member of the Board of Trustees and has served as Vice Chairman of the Board. In 1974 came Mrs. Smith’s appointment as general chairman of the Wells Commitment to Quality $4 million fund campaign. The goal was topped, and Barler Hall of Music and the Campbell Arts Building stand as living tributes to the energy, enthusiasm, dedication and devotion that went into the campaign.
Scholar, teacher, wife and mother, supporter, fundraiser, guide and leader – Ruth Pfeiffer Smith is all these and more: she is a lively conversationalist with genuine interest in those she meets and the life of the world around her. Wells College Alumnae Association is proud to present its Alumnae Award for 1976 to Pfiefe, a true representative of the meaning of quality in education.
Joan Shepherd Jones of the Class of 1948 exemplifies the term civil servant, both as a volunteer and as an elected representative in the Virginia General Assembly. As a legislator, she describes herself as a “combination of leader and responder.” Colleagues cite her sensitivity to people and human problems, the thoroughness of her preparation on issues, her independence and her firm commitment to the advancement of education. She truly represents today’s new woman in the flair with which she fills the role of wife, mother and homemaker simultaneously with her professional life.
Joan’s election as freshman class president at Wells indicated her propensity for leadership. Following graduation, she was our first on-campus admissions assistant before moving to Lynchburg, Virginia, where she continued to serve Wells as a class agent and admissions aide. She also became a member of the Board of the League of Women Voters and the Fine Arts Center, and served as president of the American Field Service and of the Women’s Auxiliary of the Lynchburg Academy of Medicine. From 1965 to 1971 she served on the Lynchburg school board and then was employed as coordinator of their talent trust program. During that period, her leadership was instrumental in developing programs of individualized instruction and learning alternatives, some of which received national attention.
In 1973 she was elected to the House of Delegates of the Virginia General Assembly from the 11th Legislative District, unseating a male incumbent. Her reputation for getting things done, coupled with her warmth and interest in people, contributed to her reelection in 1975 by a sizable majority. She serves on three standing committees of the Assembly – education; health, welfare and institutions; and claims – and is a member of the standards of quality in public education commission, the solid waste commission, and the task force of the Virginia Crime Commission studying sexual assault.
Joan is also a member of the Board of Fidelity National Bank, of the state advisory board for children with learning disabilities, the central Virginia mental health board and two societies for educators: Kappa Delta Pi and Delta Kappa Gamma International. Recently she was appointed to the human resources committee of the National Conference of State Legislators. At the same time she pursued her master’s degree in education which she received last month form Lynchburg College.
The Wells College Alumnae Association is proud to recognize Joan Shepherd Jones, student and educator, volunteer and professional civil servant with the Alumnae Award for 1977.
Alice Burgess Hinchcliff of the Class of 1925 is a devoted and hard working alumna for Wells and an exemplary civic leader. Jimmie, as her friends call her, has devoted a great deal of her time, energy and enthusiasm to serving her alma mater in many capacities: as vice president of the Alumnae Association in 1950 to 1956 and later president from 1960 to 1968, as associate director of admissions for the College from 1961 to 1965 and director from 1965 to 1966. Jimmie was highly admired by the whole Wells family for the splendid job that she did. She was elected to the Board of Trustees in 1967 and served in the demanding position as secretary form 1975 to 1977. She also has served on numerous special committees at Wells including the task force committee; another trustee wrote that “her tact, patience and knowledgeable input on this assignment is further evidence of her invaluable and dedicated service to Wells.”
Jimmie’s hometown of Cortland, New York has benefited from her service to many civic organizations. She was president of the YWCA and president of the Board of Directors of the Cortland Memorial Hospital – recently heading a successful building campaign. Other organizations that have gained from her tireless efforts are: The College Development Foundation at Cortland, an organization involved with the State University College, the United Fund, the Cortland Council of the Arts, the Women’s Association of the First Presbyterian Church, the Blind Association and the Binghamton State Hospital.
The Wells College Alumnae Association salutes this highly motivated, gifted and responsible Wells graduate.
Ann Roberts Moody of the Class of 1939 is a dynamic and distinguished woman in business, education, civic affairs and a current trustee of Wells College.
Since 1959, Ann has been Vice President and a member of the Board of Directors of Edgcomb Steel of New England, Inc. with headquarters in Nashua, New Hampshire. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Public Service Company of New Hampshire; and she is a director of the Souhegan National Bank of Milford, New Hampshire. As a member of the New Hampshire Commission on the Status of Women she obtained better financial credit terms for women, for which she was cited as “Woman of the Year” in 1974 by the Business and Professional Woman’s Association of New Hampshire.
As a Wells Trustee, she is a valuable member of the Finance Committee, praised for her ideas and efficiency. In the field of education Ann also has been on the boards of directors of two New Hampshire schools: White Pines College and the New Hampton School where she is Vice-Chairman of the Board and Chairman of the Planning and Development Committee.
In civic affairs, she has been president of the Girl Scouts of New Hampshire and Southeastern Vermont and is currently a board member; she is assistant chairman for the Republican Party of New Hampshire; and is a special trustee of the Congregational Church of Amherst, New Hampshire. Other organizations that gained from her wisdom and guidance are: the Hillsboro South Unit of the American Cancer Society, the New Hampshire Division of the American Cancer Society, the Nashua Memorial Auxiliary and the New Hampshire State Hospital Auxiliary. This outstanding citizen is also a lay member of the New Hampshire Bar Association’s Committee of Unethical Professional Practices.
When the headmaster of the New Hampton School praised “her energy, wisdom and sensitivity” he expressed the feelings of the Wells College Alumnae Association. We proudly confer on this truly remarkable woman the Alumnae Award for 1978.
Laura Nader of the Class of 1952 is described by Harvard professor Beatrice B. Whiting as “one of the leading anthropologists of her generation and a model of what a modern woman can be.” Laura combines unusually successful careers as an intellectual of international renown, teacher, crusader, wife, and mother of three children.
She graduated from Wells with a major in Latin American Studies and was the recipient of the Morgan Spanish prize. In 1961 she received her Ph.D. at Radcliffe College and accepted a faculty position at the University of California at Berkeley where she is now professor of Anthropology. Her many academic achievements include: a visiting professorship in the Law School at Yale University where she specialized in the relationship of the law to the rapid changes of the 20th century; extensive research in anthropology in Mexico and the Near East; grants and fellowships from leading American universities and research centers; and numerous publications on a variety of topics – anthropology, law, education, sociology, and nuclear energy. She is a concerned, active member of the Carnegie Council on Children and of the National Academy of Science Committee on Nuclear and Alternative Energy Forms. In 1975, she was designated by President Frances T. Farenthold as “One of the 44 women how could save America.”
A loyal alumna, who credits her parents for her basic life orientation, Laura served as the College’s commencement speaker in 1971. As an advocate of better lives for women, she urged at that time that women develop their potential as educated citizens.
The Wells College Alumnae Association is proud to present the Alumnae Award for 1979 to Laura Nader, “Model of what a modern woman can be.”
Rachel MacKenzie of the Class of 1930 contributed greatly to excellence in writing and literary style in America in her career as devoted editor, creative author and patient teacher.
At Wells, Rachel was an English major. She was active in Kastalia and served two years as Vice President of her class. Following graduation, she earned a Master’s degree from Radcliffe College. Her teaching career included positions at Radcliffe, Chin-ling College in Nanking, China, Wellesley College and Wooster College in Ohio, where she also became Dean of Women. In addition, she served on the staff of the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference at Bennington, Vermont, and on the staff of the Tufts College Writers Workshop.
In 1956 she began her long association with The New Yorker, a magazine famous for its impeccable style and for often discovering and publishing many of the most distinguished writers in the United States. At The New Yorker she held the position of Associate Editor of Fiction, enjoying the opportunity to work with some of these talented authors. A colleague describes her as an “invaluable editor, working effectively and creatively with her many writers, encouraging and guiding them.” Two of these are Saul Bellow and Isaac Bashevis Singer, both Nobel prize winners in literature.
Her short stories have appeared in various magazines including The New Yorker, Harpers, Women’s Day and Good Housekeeping. After she had an operation for open-heart surgery in 1970, The New Yorker and subsequently the Viking Press published Risk, a vivid re-creation of her experience told with “precision and an admirable lack of self-pity,” according to the New York Times review. The American Heart Association honored her with the Howard Blakeslee Award for this book written “with extraordinary sensitivity and dramatic power…Her story provides a penetrating insight to the trauma, people and events related to her illness and the achievements of research which aided her recovery.”
Wine of Astonishment appeared in 1974 and was a selection of the Literary Guild. Intended as a morality tale, this novel, set in the 1920s and 1930s in an upstate New York town, draws on Rachel’s own background. Isaac Singer acknowledges that “with this book she has entered American literature. It is a book deeply rooted in the soil of the country; rich in detail, a work with an address. It lets the events speak for themselves. No sociologizing and no psychologizing, just good writing. Her voice is both tender and vigorous.”
Classmates and colleagues have commented frequently on Rachel’s lively humor, tact and personal warmth, her quick and responsive intelligence, her love of people and life. Since she was a literary person, it is only appropriate to let her own words, in a letter to a friend, describe her remarkable character: “to me life is full – not in activity but in creative people I care for and in congenial work. My job is one of the most interesting in the publishing world, and that I consider a great gift… I have been thinking of the varying scale of values, on which we act out our lives and measure our happiness. My physical life has been limited for a long time, but I don’t at all feel limited as a person. I manage what, essentially, I want, I suppose; the rest is acceptance.”
On March 28, 1980, Rachel MacKenzie died. She knew that she was to be the recipient of the Alumnae Award and told a friend that she was already mentally composing her acceptance speech. Isaac Singer paid her this final tribute: “I think that American literature and literature generally has lost a giant, one of the last people who understood literature thoroughly from the beginning to the end…I intend to write about her and think about her as long as I live.”
The Alumnae Association is indeed proud to present the Alumnae Award for 1980 to Rachel MacKenzie whose creative and influential literary career reflects such great distinction on her college.