Category Archives: Alumni News

Cummings ’62 Publishes Breast Cancer Memoir

Last week Susan Cummings ’62 talked with the Daily Hampshire Gazette about her memoir, “Adventures of a One-Breasted Woman: Reclaiming My Moxie After Cancer.”

In the interview Cummings commented that she could not find any literature on life post-treatment and that was when she began to write.

“I hope people see that they can get their confidence and joie de vivre back,” said Cummings in response to what she hoped people would gain from reading her memoir.

“When something bad happens in life, you have to trust in life that good things happen as well as bad,” she said.  “Grace happens.”

Cummings, who has recently relocated from New York City to Bernardston, Mass., says she wrote her book, “in the spirit of helping other women find their own way through cancer – not to offer pat solutions or didactic advice.”

 

Photo courtesy of Jerrey Roberts, gazettenet.com.

Epstein ’70 to Speak at Colby

“Photographer Mitch Epstein takes on the visual world with formal precision, open-minded curiosity, and compassion,” says Colby College.

On October 24 Epstein ’70 will take part in Colby’s Miles and Katharine Culbertson Prentice Distinguished Lecture Series.  Epstein will speak about his latest work American Power, which describes the world post 9/11.

Thayer ’77 Preserves Farmland

(Photo by Kevin Gutting, Daily Hampshire Gazette)

Another Williston Northampton family appeared on the cover of the Daily Hampshire Gazette today!

Richard Thayer, Jr. ’77 P’05 ’08 has conserved 38 acres of farmland off Hocakanum Road in Hadley, parts of which have been in his family since 1747.  Amherst-based Kestrel Land Trust will maintain the land under an Agricultural Preservation Restriction.

“We feel the land was given to us and we are the caretakers,” said Thayer. “It’s nice to feel that this prime farmland will stay in agriculture forever.”

“This move protects the Thayer farm for future generations,” said Kristin DeBoer, executive director of the Kestrel Land Trust. “And it could help to inspire other landowners in Hadley and South Hadley to look at the historic landscape value of their properties, because the grant provides cash incentives to conserve woodlands and farmland.”