Our first event was held on the evening of November 9th. Between 40 and 50 of our classmates attended! Our Classmate Dr. Ruth Nemzoff interviewed her son-in-law Evan Osnos about the creation of his new bestseller “Wildland: The Making of America’s Fury". Evan is a staff writer at “The New Yorker” and the author of a book on China “Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth and Faith in New China" and a biography of President Joe Biden “Joe Biden: The Life, the Run and What Matters Now".

In “Wildland”, he decided to unpack the terrible divide in this country by interviewing people who lived in three disparate cities he himself had inhabited: Greenwich CT. , where he grew up; Chicago, Ill., where he once worked; and Clarksburg, W. Va. where he lived and worked at a local paper. By examining the mentalities and values of those in these three places, he identifies the sources of the anger and rupture that began at 9/11 and that led up to January 6th.

He was amazingly fluent and clear as Ruth asked a series of thought-provoking questions. Especially interesting was his personal revelation of what writing itself meant to him. At the end, classmates were able to ask questions. The event lasted an hour, but we could have gone on and on for many more.

We are so grateful to Ruth, whose beloved husband, Dr. Harris Berman, recently passed away. It is testimony to her personal strengths, her resilience, and her commitment to Barnard that she was able to do this. By the way, her daughter, Evan’s wife, Sarabeth Berman, is Class of 2006!

We are hoping for a big turnout on December 13th when our next mini will be hosted by Roberta Turner Meldrum. Please join us.

Janice Wiegan Lieberman

To view the Interview between Ruth and Evan,

please click on  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI5s9lVIGnE&t=3s

On December 13, 2021, Zoom, that technological offspring of the pandemic, made it possible for 43 of our classmates from widely separated states and even continents to connect with each other – to speak, share, laugh and cry together.  The event, where we were shifted from group to group through the medium of ‘breakout rooms’, was a resounding success.  Classmates delighted in seeing old friends and familiar faces, in sharing memories in small groups and hearing how others were facing their 9^th decade and in meeting others with whom they might never have spoken before.  Class co-presidents Rosalind Marshack Gordon and Joan Rezak Katz, along with Ruth Klein Stein, Carole Kaplowitz Kantor, Roxanne Cohen Fischer, Pat Brick Schwartz and Roberta Turner Meldrum served as moderators for each small ‘room’.  The event was a wonderful beginning: a rare opportunity at this point in our lives to expand friendships, to connect on a deep level with members of our very special, long-enduring community of Barnard classmates.

Roberta Turner Meldrum (Photo, Wikimedia Commons)