Keeping the flame burning
Woodstock's classes are very good at maintaining contact with one another down the years. In many cases, that also involves a commitment to helping the school in various ways. The Class of 1949 has been particularly loyal to the school and to each other. We thought that this reflection from class secretary, Harvella Bauman Stutzman, would be an encouragement to some of the younger classes.
I started school in Kindergarten at Woodstock and attended until 1942 when we went to the States on furlough during WWII . Our family returned in 1945 and I soon fit back into the school activities. In those days we had class officers and our senior year I was elected class secretary and have held that position for 60 years. Throughout the years I have kept in contact with the classmates. If the classes don't have officers I would recommend it. It takes just one secretary to hold the group together over the years of separation for college, careers and family.
In 1950 we had our first reunion at Wooster College. It started my dreams of class reunions and in 1952 we met in Bluffton, Ohio. When Paul von Tucher took a pastorate in Rogers Park (Chicago) we started a WOSA group in the Mid West States in 1964. That lasted a few years. After 25 years of dreams our class met at my home in Normal, Illinois in 1979. With my family and other Woodstockites, forty-nine attended our khanna. Dreams stopped for awhile. Then, in 1986, '49ers met in Niagara Falls. Since then we have had reunions every two or three years in Lake Tahoe, CA, Erlangen Germany, and our 45th at Woodstock School in 1994. In 1996 we met in Cuddington, England, and in 1999 our 50th anniversary was in Lakewood, WA. Class teacher John Dorsey was able to attend as well as Ned Reed. Since then we have met in Sweden, Cape Cod, Prescott, AZ and in 2007 both in San Francisco and again at Lake Tahoe at Bill Parsons' resort Granlibakken. Our 60th reunion will be on September 21-25 , 2009 in Cincinnati, OH. It is being planned by Bob and Eva Forsgren and Bob and Norma Jean Erny, and we are inviting the class of '48 to join us.
All our reunions have been memorable and we gain new attendees along the way, with anywhere from thirteen class members with spouses and more. Our graduating class had thirty members. We love all the spouses and appreciate their tolerance of us different sorts. Woodstock made us "different" in so many good ways.
At each reunion we hold a class meeting and decide on a project. We raised $17,000 for our first project of enhancing Hanson Field. We raised $25,000 for the staff lounge at Parker Hall. Other projects have been in that price range for Staff Endowments, Scholarships and the Winifred Parker Health Center, with a matching $25,000 gift. The employees' lounge and locker rooms behind the kitchens was our latest gift. Our current class project is to raise funds to enclose the new swimming pool. Individual gifts have been made for other causes including music practice cells.
Email has made keeping in touch so much easier. Members donate to our postage fund used for printing and mailing out class letters I send out after each reunion, with updates on all the members and as many color pictures as will fit on a page. During the year I am the go between for new addresses, emails and news of happenings, including, unfortunately, some deaths in the last few years. Memorial gifts are sent to Woodstock from the postage fund.