Gazette
Who
Says Reunions Are
Just for Homecoming
by Rosa Jimenez and Joy Chuang
Eleven years ago two brothers had an inspired idea. It is about time, they thought, to bring veterans together.
“We just wanted to see our old buddies,” says Ed Anderson, a former Walla Walla College student and army corporal during World War II.
In 1990 Ed and his brother Ray, a 1951 graduate and former Navy man, rounded up 150 addresses and mailed invitations to fellow alumni and World War II veterans inviting them to a reunion at Buellton, Calif. “We had never done anything like this before. It was a challenge but we stepped out in faith. People told us they enjoyed it so much they said they wanted to do it again in five years.”
Three reunions later, alumni say the gatherings are more meaningful than ever. “Our common military experiences have formed us into a brotherhood, even if we all served in different times and different places,” says Doyle Saxby, a 1949 graduate who helped organize the October 2000 reunion in Gladstone, Ore.
The World War II veterans and other alumni from the the post-war years of 1945 to 1956 remembered military experiences as well as the exuberant postwar years on campus. More than 250 alumni attended the weekend activities which included church services, a brunch, and a talent show.
One highlight for the former military men was an address by high ranking military officer Rear Admiral Darold Bigger, senior chaplain of the Navy Reserves. “He brought flashbacks to our days in the service,” says Wade Wolfe, a 1954 and 1955 graduate.
Wolfe was a Boeing mechanic when he enlisted in the Aircorps in 1942. He was among the first mechanics trained for the B-29 “Superfortress” which at the time, was the largest aircraft in the skies. Wolfe’s first air crew assignment took him to Georgia where his first plane flight was piloted by Lt. Col. Paul W.Tibbets, the man who would drop the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
Tibbets wasn’t the only famous aviator Wolfe flew with. For part of a test flight, Wolfe sat next to Charles A. Lindbergh, who was getting his first look at the B-29. Wolfe says he also had the privilege of flying with two members of the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots (WASPS). Wolfe was a crew member of the B-29 on which the two women were trained, with Tibbets serving as the flight instructor. Flying a B-29 named “Lady Bird,” the two female pilots made demonstration flights at air bases where B-29 crews were in training.
For Saxby, the war was the beginning of a lifelong affinity to the country of England, in which he first set foot as a technical corporal based at the Supreme Headquarters of Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) in Europe. While life away from home presented hardships, he remembers many nights rollerskating with the locals at a rink in London Continued on page 20 Continued from page 18 and the big celebration at Buckingham Palace when victory was declared in Europe. “While many of us have fond memories of those times, there were many lonely and frightening times too,” Saxby says, “such as the German buzz-bomb blitz over England.”
Those memories may have been most poignant at the reunion’s Sabbath memorial service honoring those who died in the war.
As 1950 graduate Donald Winger sang “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” more than 50 veterans stood at attention in military rows solemnly marking time, remembering loved ones and the ties that hold them together.
World War II veterans and fellow postwar years alumni aren’t the only group of alumni who have bonded closely over the years. The nursing class of 1955 may well have the most loyal classmates of all.
Eileen Whatley isn’t positive, but she is almost sure that when the new collegiate nurses training program opened at the Portland Sanitarium, entering freshman classes were assigned a letter of the alphabet. And that is how her class—the Class of 1955—became forever known as “Basic G.” Forty-five years later, the class still proudly hails as “Basic G,” and classmates are as close today as the day they graduated.
From the first, “Basic G” was known as a fun-loving class. Away from the main campus and immersed in studies and real-life nursing experiences, they still found time for popcorn feeds, ball games, and outings throughout the city.
Whatley attributes their lifelong bond to dedicated people “energetic enough to send class newsletters and organize reunions. People like Dorothy [Spady] Naiman, Margaret [Peterson] Engelhart, Taffy [Fjarli] Johnson, and Marlene Ferguson. And we get together, even as small groups, whenever we can,” she says.
Since 1955, three reunions have brought almost all the classmates together. In July, 24 class members (just two short of the entire group), met for their 45th-year reunion. They traveled from more than 12 states and provinces including North Carolina, West Virginia, North Dakota, Ontario, and Alberta. Class members were also delighted by the attendance of former surgical nursing faculty member Belle O’Neill. Beverly Henrikson-Connors described the group as “24 genuinely glad and graying gals and a guy, growing old gratefully.”
One reunion highlight was sharing stories that demonstrated God’s leading and protection in the friends’ lives. Ramona (Brown) Sturgill told of losing her husband and about how she met her new husband. Taffy (Fjarli) Johnson told of a harrowing experience on a trip to the West Indies, where she was stricken with a life-threatening illness. Laine (Liiv) Lugas shared her excitement of traveling to Estoina, her native country, after the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
Reunions are the high points, but one constant through the years has been a newsletter which brings class updates almost every year.
Although conversations and newsletter stories have evolved from work experiences to grandkids, their loyalty to one another remains unchanged. “We’re just one big family. We’ve been close the whole time since nurses training,” says Whatley.