I left Illinois after graduation and headed for Southern California where I began my nursing career in a local hospital working nights, of course.  I married, spent a few years in Ohio, had a daughter, and then returned to Long Beach, CA.   My nursing career covered 40 years of full time work which included supervisory roles in hospitals, managing clinic operations, and 14 years working for the military health care contractors, managing offices in local military bases. I received my Masters in Health Care Administration from the University of Laverne.  In 1981 I joined the Army National Guard and served over 20 years in the National Guard and Army Reserve retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel.   Milt and I have been married for 24 years and collectively we have 3 children and 2 grandchildren.  I am currently active in my community, church and a number of veteran organizations. I enjoy traveling, reading, spending time with grandchildren and going to hockey games routing for the Anaheim Ducks.

After graduation, I taught in northern Illinois for three years. Then I ran off to Alaska for seven years where I became a bush pilot in the summer and taught in a one room Inuit school in the winter. I finished graduate school in Oregon in the mid-seventies and finally got a normal job becoming an elementary school principal and school counselor in Portland for the better part of 30 years.  I wrote a couple of self-help books for parents in the early 90’s and that kept me busy consulting for a few years.  I also edited a professional journal for some years.

My wife Cathy was chair of a college counseling/advising dept. for many years.  We have three kids and five grand kids who are scattered in location.

We spend winter south of Tucson, Arizona (almost at the border) and then summer in central Oregon.  Now I golf and play music.  I have a blues band called The Slow Lane Cruisers and we keep busy.  It’s marvelous to see 90 year olds dance to us!  Cathy and I travel as often as we can.

I do plan to go to Homecoming.  Jim Keefe and I have been visiting one another every summer since college and would have enjoyed being there together.  It will be a sadder reunion because Jim died the first week in December

I started as Home Health Supervisor, Visiting Nurse Association, Decatur, IL and wrote a grant through the Older Americans Act which started their Mobil Meals program. From there I became the Training & Education Coordinator, Decatur Macon Co Hospital; Nursing Consultant, and then Coordinator of Professional Services for Americana Nursing Centers, Monticello, IL with 40 nursing homes in 9 states.

1970 I married Charles E “Chuck” Lilly and soon after we moved to Denver, Co. where he became the Associate Administrator, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital and I became Nursing Consultant for the Colorado Health Care Association working with nursing homes throughout Colorado. Then we were on to Ann Arbor, Ml as Director of Education for (CPHA) The Commission on Professional and Hospital Activities working with Hospitals throughout the United States, Canada, and Porta Rico.

In 1978 I received the Robert M. Montgomery Young Alumna Award from Illinois Wesleyan University.

When the five facilities my husband built, opened and managed in Ml were sold we moved on to Lima, Ohio, Chuck as VP of HCF and I as Allied Health Coordinator for the Medical College of Ohio Lima Area Health Education Center (LAHEC), Lima, OH. During this time I also became active in the Lima Hospital Auxiliary becoming Auxiliary President and later Ohio Hospital Association State Auxiliary Leader, as well as, Regional Physician Service Representative, Toledo Hospital.

Family health required that we return to Decatur, IL and Decatur Macon County Hospital, now as Decatur Memorial Hospital hired  Chuck as VP of Community Services and I  as Physician Service Representative, so we were back home. 1995 Chuck retired, and I continued working, managing an Internal Medicine practice and working as a Realtor. We moved to what we thought was our retirement home at Lake Ozark, MO. I worked part time at a skilled nursing home and as a Missouri Certified Instructor for the Certified Medication Technician course.

2008 Chuck was diagnosed with Amnesic Cognitive Impairment and we decided to get closer to family. A move to a gated community, Villas of Stonecrest, half way between Saline, Ml and Evansville, IN was selected and Columbus, IN became our new home. After being a licensed RN in 5 states I decided to retire as well. I am still volunteering and active in Columbus Regional Health Auxiliary now as 1st VP.

2014 I was diagnosed with Advanced Degenerative Joint Disease of the jaw, Chronic Fibrosing Osteomyelitis, and lschemic Bone Disease secondary to medications taken for Osteoporosis. After working with Dr. Chris Brown DDS., MPS, Southeastern Indiana Center for Orofacial Pain Diagnosis and Rehabilitation, I am taking each day at a time…trying to enjoy each day with my husband of 45 years. I have one step-daughter, one granddaughter and 2 great grandchildren.  Chuck’s younger sister is in a memory center in Evansville, and we visit with her husband and family.

So the moral of the story is not to store the memories because they may not be there but to enjoy every minute and every day because they may be your last memories! Although we will not be with you at the 50th reunion my thoughts will be there.

Sharon R. Lilly

Bonnie has some news she would like to share:

There are 6 of us Alpha Gamma Delta’s that have hung together since we all turned age 60 about 11 years ago now.  It has been a lot of fun.  They are Nancy Rhodes, Nancy Clark Daley, Bev Stockton Wickham, Bev Winkler Houghton, Gretchen Payne, Kay Gerhardt Durkin, and myself.  We have been getting together every 2 years, except this year which we decided not to do in order to do 50 years next year.  It has been great fun.

As for me, I married Ron Ruecker, FIJI, class of 66.  We got married in ’64, followed by the birth of our son Rhett in ’65, and our daughter was born in ’70.  She attended IWU as well, and graduated in ’93.  She married and has our 4 grandchildren, ranging in ages from 17-10.

Ron graduated in ’66, and then we moved to St. Louis where he attended medical school at St. Louis U.  I went to work for Medicare, and helped put him through school. He did his training in Gastroenterlogy and practiced until ’07.  We left STL in ’74 when we moved to Decatur, IL., and have lived there ever since.  We keep talking about moving and downsizing.   The grandchildren live in IN., near Purdue, and are 2 hours from us.  I would love to move closer, but like Ron says, we would move closer and then our children would move somewhere else.  So, we stay put where we have been for 40 years.  Lots of friends there, our doctors, and everything else that is important in our lives.

We just celebrated 50 years of marriage this summer with close friends and family and renewal of our vows.  It was a wonderful time.

We spend our winters in Florida so that we don’t have to endure the winters up north, for which I am very grateful.  Playing golf and soaking up the sunshine is a whole lot nicer that dealing with the winter weather.

It is good to hear from you.  We have been in close contact with IWU over the last many years as Ron is on the BOT.

Lillian has some news she would like to share:

After graduating with a teachers’ certificate I moved to Palatine.  Then it was a way-out suburb of Chicago where I taught speech for a year.  During that year I reconnected with a boyfriend from my summers in Maine working as a camp counselor.  The rest is history as they say; we were married December of ’66 and still are.

He taught middle school (then junior high) in a private school outside Boston.  They graciously gave me a job as librarian assistant and teaching one or two classes.  I fell in love with the uniqueness of the middle schoolers, especially boys.  This was a good thing since that became my career!

From Fessenden School, in Boston area we moved to Eaglebrook School in Deerfield MA where we spent 27 great years, working in a dorm, keeping the library functioning, getting a Masters in Education.  Bill taught math, and coached all three seasons.  In the summers we spent many years working at the camp Bill attended as a boy.  It was a good life and there we raised our two children.  Louise was born in Boston and moved to Deerfield at age two, and Alan was born in Deerfield.

When Bill, a Chattanoogan, golfer and 6 years my senior, wanted to retire we moved to Wilmington, North Carolina.  We have no family here, but have great weather, golf pretty much year round, and lots to do.  I was lucky and got a position in the library at Cape Fear Academy here.  It was a wonderful job, terrific folks as colleagues and I got to have library classes for the lower school.  The last step of my career in education gave me an opportunity to work with three age groups, elementary, middle and high school.  I had the most connection with the little ones but saw and got to know all three divisions.  I was there for 16 years and retired in June 2012.

Bill still enjoys golf, and I am enjoying all the things around town that I said I would do when I retired.  Church activities keep me connected with the kids, and Cape Fear River Watch connects me to the environment.  I also became involved with AAUW ( American Association of University Women) that had a branch here.  I worked with many terrific women across the state at the state level of AAUW and have attended several of the National Conventions.  Since we continued our summer work at the boys’ camp and have a cabin in Maine we get our “New England” fix in the summers. And the children come to Maine as well.

Our children now have children.  We have 4 granddaughters, two are Louise’s and we visit them in Putney VT and two we see in DC with Alan.  They range in age from 10 to under a year, if you read this before May 2015.

I see Susan Hodge Hoover at AAUW National Conventions and a few other Kappa Delta’s on Facebook.  I would love to connect with some more folks.

Gretchen has some memories she would like to share:

I already have Oct. 9-11 on my calendar.  Several of my Alpha Gam sisters are also planning on it.

I taught English, drama, and directed plays in Hoopeston, IL and West Chicago high schools for five years before marrying and moving to Colorado.  I had two sons, Dana, born in 1972, and Nick, born in 1979.  My marriage ended in divorce, and I went back to teaching English and speech, and coached the competitive speech team at Westminster High School for 21 years before I retired in 2010.  I now read, hike, play bridge, volunteer at our local food bank, and perform with a nonprofit educational group called The Legendary Ladies. <www.legendaryladies.org>; We portray women who helped settle the West; my two characters are Helen Hunt Jackson, author and Indian rights advocate, and Silver Heels, a dance hall girl who nursed miners through a smallpox epidemic.  I have one granddaughter who is a horsewoman, so I enjoy going to her shows and watching her sail over the jumps. The best thing about retirement is the absence of the morning alarm!

I would love to read about other classmates – I always go to the 1965 page in the IWU newsletters.

Jim has some memories he would like to share:

Here’s a brief synopsis of my life thus far:

1)       Taught Jr. High choir for 6 years in the Chicago area, then High School choir for 8. Along the way got Master of Music, and became a pro musician and entertainer. Married and divorced quickly. Married Diane, 11 years younger (now almost 41 years, 4 children (Cory- a music minister & composer at 6500 person church), then 3 daughters (absolutely wonderful), 6 grandchildren.

2)       Became Director Sales and Marketing for several companies in South Bend, Ea. Ohio and finally St. Louis.

3)       Most importantly, Jesus straightened out my life, so am a fire-breathing Christian, authoring 100+ articles; taking 15+ mission trips to rebuild cities/lives thru Service International (includes Kosovo, OK City F-5 tornado, floods, hurricanes, etc.); and 10+year volunteer for “Give Kids A Smile (a dental mission organization).

4)       Now, a professional Magician, Musician, private lesson teacher, selling shoes as a Master Shoe Fitter (last one left in St. Louis area); performing full shows at retirement homes (75-100 a year) working on changing kids lives by substitute teaching from a Godly perspective almost daily.

Marilyn Diehl has some memories she would like to share with you:

“After receiving my Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Illinois Wesleyan in 1965, I enrolled in graduate school at University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA. I received my Master’s degree in Zoology, specializing in genetics and embryology, in 1967. Following graduation I took a job as a medical research technician in the infectious diseases department at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago. Encouraged by my father, Lester Schniepp (IWU class of 1931 and PhD in Chemistry from University of Illinois), I enrolled in graduate school at University of Illinois in 1969 to study toward a PhD. After one semester I decided I did not want to pursue a PhD and took a job as a genetic toxicologist with Abbott Laboratories pharmaceutical company in North Chicago, IL. My responsibilities involved testing new candidate pharmaceuticals very early in development for potential to cause gene mutations and chromosome damage using bacterial culture and mammalian cell culture test systems and animal models. My career with Abbott spanned 41 years from 1969 until my retirement in December 2010.

In my single years I purchased my own house in Waukegan, IL, and became involved in vegetable and flower gardening. I took up hiking, bicycling, downhill skiing, cross country skiing and training and showing my Sheltie dogs in obedience. In 1984 I married Ron Diehl, a chemical project engineer at Abbott Laboratories. Our son Michael was born in 1988. We moved to Libertyville, IL, and I became engrossed in the many activities of working full-time and raising a child through pre-school, grade school, junior high, high school and college. Our son Mike is a cardiology nurse at University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City and is the proud father of our granddaughter Mackenzie, born in 2008.

Ron and I both retired from Abbott in December 2010. We moved to a house on a small lake in Lindenhurst, IL. We love retirement. We are active in the Abbott Retiree Club and have gone on 3 cruises since we retired. I spend time gardening, reading and exercising at a gym. After double knee replacement surgery in 2012, I am again active in hiking, bicycling and cross country skiing and I enjoy taking my paddle boat out on the lake behind our house. I am involved in dog training and showing with my Shelties in obedience and agility. “

Linda Cummens has shared her memories with you after graduating from IWU:

“I am interested in knowing what is going on with alumni, but we would not travel to the reunion since neither of us has truly retired. I married John Cummens ’65 and he still does consulting and works as a business manager for the Eugene Opera as a volunteer trying to keep it afloat.

I write mysteries, Haiku and kids and young adult novels and still volunteer teach on occasion. I still haven’t found an agent . . . and that is nearly a full time job along with constant writing.

I also take photos at opera events and play bass recorder in three musical groups. We do free gigs.

Recently we had robbers break into the house and take a couple hundred artworks in a systematic way. They packed cabinets and book shelves like movers apparently to empty the house (thought we were on vacation) so it is a challenge to put things back together. We are missing important book collections, cameras, photos and antique books etc. And how I miss my MAC laptop and backup. The robbers are professionals who have spotters and people who watch to warn them if the owners return. They are also armed and were still in our house when we returned. Someone told us they are gang members. We were only out for the day, but obviously they thought we were on vacation. Our house is armed on a wired system now. We tried the non-wired system, but it failed three times. I wish we could warn people about what happened with “Trust in God, but tie up your camel,” as an old Arab saying goes. Boards in the sliding doors nearly stopped them until they were able to rip the metal hinge loose and warp the frame to lift the sliding door over the one inch high section of wood to get inside.”