Providence High School Class of 1959

THE PIONEERS

THE PIONEERS

We are the Pioneers because we were the first. We started school in tents due to the steel strike in 1955. We were the only class - all freshmen, then in the following years, always the upperclassmen. Because we were such a small class, we all knew one another. We chose the school colors, uniform, and wrote our alma matter. We published the first yearbook and named it "Esprit" for our sense of spirit. And we were the first class to celebrate a 50th reunion - still the Pioneers. How wonderful to reminisce and reconnect with one another!

PHS 50 YEAR SCHOLARSHIP FUND

PHS 50-YEAR CLUB SCHOLARSHIP FUND

Following our 50-year class reunion in March 2009, the class of '59 gifted Providence High School with a special scholarship fund to be used for financially-needy students. This fund is called: PHS 50-Year Club Scholarship Fund. This fund will last in perpetuity as long as we, and other classes as they reach the 50-year anniversary of their graduations, continue to contribute to it. If you are able and willing to contribute to our alma mater, will you please designate "PHS 50-Year Scholarship Fund" as the payee on your check or credit card gift. With our assistance the scholarship will go on forever -- and the Class of 1959 will always be remembered.

Sunday, November 19, 2017

From Barbara Palumbo Poer

Life continues to treat us kindly…a few health problems which we are managing. Our middle daughter remarried two years ago so we now have two step grandchildren, twins Eamon and Uma Hornish, 16 years old. Our grandchild, Talulla, loves her new siblings and we are very happy for this successful transition. She is a freshman at Polytechnic School in Pasadena and, just last week, made the varsity soccer team.

Our second granddaughter lives in Napa and we are so thankful they escaped the recent horrible fires. They did evacuate for one week because of the unhealthful air and her other grandparents had mandatory evacuation from their home in the hills above Calistoga. Lucie will turn 13 in July and we will celebrate with a cruise to Tahiti as we did with Talulla for her thirteenth to Alaska. This time we’ll take both girls which should be loads of fun as they are good friends and full of life.

This recent photo was taken at the LA County Arboretum in Arcadia. We attended a dinner given for two very dear friends honoring their many years commitment to the Arboretum. Our daughter, Alexandra, delivered the evening’s address about the honorees since she has known them since her childhood. In addition, her catering business beautifully planned and executed the entire event for 200. We were two very proud parents that night.

The second photo shows all the women in the family last January when we participated, with thousands of others, in the Womens’ March in downtown Los Angeles. What an amazing experience of solidarity and one I was especially proud to share with the third generation.

Wishing everyone in the Class of ’59 a very wonderful Thanksgiving and a blessed Christmas and New Year.

Barbara Palumbo Poer

Thursday, November 16, 2017

Update from from Bonny Harvey LaMonica

Since our 50th reunion My husband ,Sal and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary (now 53 yrs). I had a knee replacement (2015), Shoulder replacement (2017). Traveled to Europe, Africa, Baltic Sea, Italy and South America. Busy with Grandchildren(8). Most are grown and some are in college. I attend yoga classes 3-4 times a week, which I love and keeps me standing straight. I hope we have a 60th reunion in 2019. Hugs and smiles to all, Bonny

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Update from Fran Ackart Dudley

I had a hip replacement on the 9th of October and I am in a skilled nursing facility. It is no picnic, but I feel it is a blessing to have Pt and Ot every day. It also reminds me how blessed we are to have health,...and I know I'm going home ! I have very limited access to computer here. I hope to get to check e-mails now and then. Please pray for my recovery.

Fun photos from Kathy Thesing Ramdin

Our long lasting friendships take on special meaning for us as we are immersed in our "Golden Years" (SILVER seems more appropriate.) Last summer Mary Jo, Devi and I enjoyed a day at the Del Mar Race Track. None of us qualified as winners, but had a great day.

Ken (my husband) and I connected with Ann Lewis Wright and her daughter, Chris, at the Bayside Cafe at Morro Bay on a recent trip.

I am very grateful for my many blessing, and wish everyone my Best Regards.
Am thinking of what I would like to see on this blog......some of you have already celebrated 50 years of marriage. Could you send the wedding and 50 years pictures like people do in the newspapers??? Could be fun!

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Devi makes The Wall Street Journal

This article appeared October 10, 2013, in the Wall Street Journal. Perfect timing.

From Devi... It was just fun and surprising to see myself and my buddies in the Wall Street Journal. They really were the good 'ole days!! AND ALL MY STORIES ARE TRUE!!

About 450 American Airlines retirees gathered for a reunion last week near Los Angeles International Airport, where most of them worked at some point in their careers. Like many gatherings of old-time airline workers these days, the reunion was bittersweet—a celebration of great careers, great friends and long-gone great times.

Airlines used to carry extra flight attendants and management representatives like Devi Bellows to serve as onboard fixers.

Pioneers who helped build American into what was once the world's largest airline grimaced with talk of lousy service, frequent delays, reorganization and a pending acquisition by US Airways Group Inc.

Retired chairman and chief executive Robert Crandall attended, recounting how American in the 1970s was a small, failing carrier with old planes and bad labor disputes. The company moved from New York to Dallas, launched an industry-leading computerized reservation system and the first major frequent-flier program. The airline would triple in size.

"We did something exceptional," he told the cheering audience. Here are some of the stories from that crowd:

Ms. Bellows was one of the L.A. reunion attendees to show up wearing a vintage uniform from the 1970s.

She recalled one time a full 747 flying from Los Angeles to New York was loaded with 125 kosher meals, but only 50 people said they had ordered the special meal. Flight attendants got hysterical, she said, when they realized they would get to the back of the plane and have only kosher meals to serve. So Ms. Bellows decided to create a contest. She announced a "special promotion" for that flight. The first 50 people who raised their hands would receive a special meal American was testing. Hands shot up quickly. Flight attendants stripped the kosher label off and "there was not one letter of complaint," she said.
Another time on an L.A.-to-Philadelphia flight in 1977, she had to decide whether to separate a couple in first class engaged passionately under a blanket. They were in the last row of first class, out of sight from everyone but the crew and an elderly woman seated across the aisle.

"I said they paid for first class and nobody can see them, so let them go," she recalled.

Panic set in when the elderly woman asked to speak to someone in charge after landing. Fearing a major complaint, Ms. Bellows was relieved when the woman only wanted her to document what had happened.

"My daughter thinks I'm senile and she'll never believe me," the woman told her. Ms. Bellows wrote on the back of her business card, "Everything your mother says about this flight is true."

To ease a very long delay one Christmas, Ms. Bellows decided to entertain passengers by starting a Christmas carol singalong. "The whole plane started singing," she said.

Would that kind of fun happen today? "It would if I was flying," she said.

Friday, October 11, 2013

Please pray for Judy

Our friend Judy McKee Libenow will be having heart surgery soon to replace a heart valve. Please hold her in your hearts and prayers.

Margarita Acosta

I remember that Margarita was a National Merit Scholarship Winner and I was very impressed when I found out later that she was in the top 1% of tested Seniors.

I also have a funny memory. Margarita convinced me to join a group called THE FIGHTING 69ers. It was for young women who would pledge to uphold the principles of the 6th and 9th commandments. Joiner that I am, I signed on and became a card carrying member until Tom Wright found the card in my wallet and MADE me REMOVE it IMMEDIATELY. I had to wait for the reason why. I don't want to offend anyone, but that is a true story. Does anyone else remember or admit to being a member of that little organization?--- Devi Savitt Bellows

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Margarita was one of six who entered the order of the Sisters of Charity of Providence a few months after high school graduation, and she was the only one who did not eventually leave the order. In 1963, before she finished college, she was called to teach biology, chemistry and Latin at Providence Academy in Vancouver. The following year she returned to Providence Heights College of Sister Formation to finish her BA and obtain grade and high school teacher certification. During the next 10 years she taught at schools in Washington and Burbank, California. In 1975 she chose to explore her writing abilities by joining the Public Relations Office of the Sisters of Providence health care corporations. She eventually became a writer and photographer for the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Seattle, all the while developing a growing interest in health planning and administration. In the early 80s Sr. Margarita received a Master’s degree in public health from Yale University, with a specialty in hospital administration, planning, marketing and finance. She was always interested in current events and the plight of the poor. In the mid '90s Sr. Margarita was diagnosed with leukemia and eventually underwent a stem cell transplant. She passed away about 2 months after the procedure. Her funeral service was at the same facility where she entered the novitiate a few decades before, and her pall bearers were 6 other Sisters of Providence.--- Carol Lex Tanner

Marcia Adams Henry

Marcia was the third of five children in her family. Her brother, Michael, who became a priest, was the only boy. She came to PHS from St. Robert Bellarmine Parish in Burbank. After graduation she became a stewardess with United Airlines, based in San Francisco.
Marcia married Hal Urban, who was a basketball star at USF. They had three boys: Daniel, Mark and Michael. After a divorce, she continued to live in the Bay Area and married Larry Henry. She was the Executive Secretary for the Director of the SF Bay Area March of Dimes Foundation. She died on New Year's Eve of a massive coronary while driving a car.

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Marcia's mother's nickname, "Sunny" could easily apply to her, also....the outgoing, friendly manner, often with her cohort, Mary Baedeker.... with twinkly eyes and ready for fun! --- Kathy Thesing Ramdin

Patt Collette Scannell

I am blessed to have had Patt for my close friend for almost 50 years. We met the first day of school at PHS and our friendship continued until she died.
Patt was one of the most positive people I have ever known. She was very smart though she did poorly in school, but she worked hard and never gave up. She used to tell me that she had trouble reading, that things did not make sense to her; she found out many years later that she was dyslexic.
She raised three wonderful children pretty much single-handedly, and suffered poor health for many years. In spite of her hardships, Patt always found the silver lining. When she was going through chemo for her cancer, she told me she looked forward to chemo days, because she met many nice people and it gave her a chance to socialize; she thought maybe she even helped cheer people up sometimes. I am sure she did - MANY times. She was a person of great faith and it never waivered. She smiled far more than she frowned and she loved to laugh. She also loved Providence. Often she told me that her 4 years at PHS were among her happiest memories. How she loved to reminisce!
About 5 months before she died, she called us. We had moved to Alaska by that time. She called to say goodbye. She was very close to my husband, Peter, as well, and she wanted to talk with both of us. She told us that she thought she would not make it through the night and she wanted us to know that she was ready and that it was ok, and that she loved us and we were not supposed to be sad; she was going to a better place and she'd always "be around" watching us. It was very hard to hang up the phone, and of course, we cried.... the next day, we received another phone call. It was Patt. Her opening words "I'm back!" and she was laughing. It seems that there was an insulin problem and she was in fact, dying. Fortunately they discovered what went wrong and brought her back. That gave us an opportunity to see her one more time and talk with her on the phone often; we "heard" the smiles in her voice. I know she will be with us for our reunion; she wouldn't miss it!
These photos reflect her wonderful smile. The last one was taken at our final visit with her, less than four months before she died. We had a wonderful visit, filled with laughter and those reminiscences---Carol Rando Irsfeld

Dianne Dvorak

Dianne Marie Dvorak was born October 21 1941 in Cleveland Ohio. Beginning in grade school, Roller-skating developed into a lifelong passion. Dianne won many competitions and awards figure skating and dancing with a partner. The Dvorak family relocated to Southern California during Dianne's High School years.
After graduation from Providence H.S. Dianne started a family. Always a working mother, she sought out paid work that could be done from home until her children, Cheyenne and Brian reached school age. After twelve years of employment at United Recording Electronics Industries, Dianne moved with her family to Pollock Pines in the Sierra Nevada Foothills of Northern California.
After a divorce and a second marriage, Dianne embraced a rural lifestyle. At one point, using the telephone required driving down an unpaved road and climbing a telephone to get onto a party line ala the television sitcom Green Acres. While helping her husband to run his construction business, she and the family raised pigs on their land.
After a second divorce, Dianne continued to enjoy an outdoor lifestyle when she acquired her own ten acre property. After seeing a flyer advertising a fund raising bike ride for breast cancer, Dianne participated in a ride that sparked a love for cycling. She enjoyed dating, taking weekend road trips and took great pleasure in making many beautiful quilts that she intended to be her loving legacy to her family.
After a mastectomy in 1988, Dianne continued to live with cancer, going into and out of remission until her death in May 1994.

Frances Nairn Hansen

Soon after graduation, Frances married, had a son and moved to Philadelphia. After a short, unhappy time, she divorced and returned to North Hollywood CA, her former home, and worked as a supermarket checker. Her husband, Raymond, tells the following story: After a stint in the Navy, Raymond was hired as a box boy at the same market as Frances. When he was being shown around the store, he saw Frances coming down the stairs. He said to himself: that's the girl for me!.....He found his soul mate. They married, raised three boys and had 37 years together. She developed a brain tumor, battled for a year before the end on November 17, 2003. She will be rememered fondly for her quiet manner and sweet smile.

Janet Opperman Correa

Obituary from Lancaster Eagle Gazette (Ohio)

Janet Esther Opperman Correa, age 74, went home to be with the Lord on December 12, 2016. She is preceded in death by her loving husband, Arthur Correa and grandson, John Joseph. She is survived by her children, Dean, Melanie, Darren, and Terah; grandchildren, Avree, Skylar, Riley, Lucas; and siblings, Jack and Jean. Janet was a lover of genealogy, photography and most importantly her family. She was the greatest wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother and friend who will be deeply missed.