1930s

37 Class Secretary — Kathleen Coverick ’08;

kathleen.coverick@gmail.com

 

38 Class Secretary — Meg Julian ’03, ’06JD;

804 Jersey Ave., Spring Lake NJ 07762; 646-246-5480; megjulian@gmail.com 

 

39 Class Notes Past

Eight years ago the torch was passed to me. Prior to this, six class members and one spouse proudly served as secretary, first writing class notes for the Alumnus and more recently Notre Dame Magazine: Vincent DeCoursey (1939-1954), William O’Toole (1954-1956), James Motschall (1957-1964), Joseph Hannan (1964-1974), Dave Meskill (1974-2004), Adelaide Meskill (spring 2004) and Bill Donnelly (2004-2015). In one of the first columns after graduation, Vincent wrote, “The campus hasn’t changed much, except that they’ve run a tractor over most of Freshman Hall, and the seeds that were planted about six years ago, finally sprouted into sidewalks on the northeast section of the campus. Here and there were a few strange structures, but we didn’t ask many questions: generally speaking the place looks about the same.” Having recently been back to campus and seeing so much expansion and many beautiful new buildings, I wonder what he would say now. William honored the memory of 35 classmates who “wrote their record in gold” during WWII. In his first 1954 column he notes this was the most of any class to make the ultimate sacrifice during WWII. When James took charge, there was no shortage of news—an early report had updates from over 100 class members, and there was still space to mention he and his wife, Pat, had a private audience with the pope during a trip to Europe. Apparently, the trick was to send out a periodic questionnaire! Joseph took up the quill as plans were being made for the Silver Jubilee, and from all accounts it was a wonderful celebration. In addition to organizing and printing his parish’s weekly bulletin for many years, Dave dutifully wrote the Class Notes (published in Notre Dame Magazine, established 1972) for three decades. Bill was the last Class member to write for the Class and did an admirable job, despite the secretary’s constant plight to gather news to share. One day I hope the early Notre Dame Magazine Class Notes will also be digitized and available from the Notre Dame Archives. As what would be the 85th reunion approaches, the day nears when Class Notes and memory will be what’s left to tell the story of past weddings, birthdays, promotions, reunions and retirements. Though these big events are well archived, the daily small occurrences (which rarely get reported) are what complete the history of these men and their families. It has been an honor to share a small part of their stories and reflect on their collective accomplishments, joys and sorrows. Given that ND last beat OSU during their first two years on campus (1935 and 1936), I really thought we had the Buckeyes’ number last fall. Go Irish! — Seth O’Donnell ’04; 17 Marion St., East Greenwich RI 02818, 603-828-7335; seth.odonnell@gmail.com