Updates
Anne Luter Bromby has been quite busy these last few months. She welcomed a new grandson born in December 2023 and cherishes sweet times with the baby. Luckily, this latest grandson lives in Raleigh! Bromby has spent most of her time since September working with talented collaborators Carolyn Howard Carter, ’73, Sue Hubbard Ramsay ’71, and Lauren Sink Byles, ’17, graphic designer, on a book celebrating the 100th anniversary of Meredith’s Alice in Wonderland. She hopes that many Meredith alumnae will enjoy learning about Alice through this book for years to come.
After finishing 19 years with the AARP TaxAide Program, Gloria Little English and her husband are still very involved in their church and the Garner Lions Club. In July, they flew to Vienna, sailed the Danube for 16 days, and wound up in Bucharest. English then had three days to explore Transylvania … they did look for vampires! She still travels a good deal domestically, and her husband is the president of the Lions International Trading Pin Club. Life is good!
Settling into a condo in Raleigh in 2023, Libbo Leathers Hall and her husband made the move to be closer to their daughters and their family. They now split their time between Raleigh and Yorktown, Va., as her husband contracts with NASA on the Artemis Space Launch System Safety Review Team. Hall enjoys being near her 10 grandchildren and both daughters.
Continuing to enjoy lots of time with her four current grandchildren, Gail Bartholomew Kiker is expecting the arrival of a new grandson in September. She still has a few consulting clients which keeps Kiker just the right amount of busy, keeping her brain engaged and active. Kiker’s family received some devastating news – a cancer diagnosis for her sister, Elaine Bartholomew Scarborough, ’74, in December 2023. They have all struggled to process this diagnosis. Scarborough has gone through a series of radiation treatments and immunotherapy through Duke Medical. While they remain thankful that her scans are showing improvement, the family continues to ask for prayers for the journey.
Life is good for Sandra Stone Shealy! She and her husband recently returned from celebrating their daughter’s 40th birthday with a delightful trip to Italy, Greece, and Turkey. Shealy and her husband will celebrate their 75th birthdays this year and hope to seek an adventure of their own!
Sue Hubbard Ramsay has been working with Anne Luter Bromby, ’71, on the new book, Alice in Wonderland at Meredith College – The First 100 Years. The project has been an impressive collaboration of over 11 Meredith alumnae and staff. Ramsay has enjoyed this amazing adventure – weeding through archives online, archives in hard files, and ferreting out stories. For Ramsay, the most fun find was to confirm the 1924 photo of the original Alice: Carolyn Morton Mercer. She found the young French instructor’s academic photo online, but none of the images of the 1924 professors had their names lined up with the respective photo. After four months of research, Ramsay was finally able to identify the young instructor. This quest was as much fun as the surprises found – despite the longer timeline than she originally anticipated. Ramsay would like to share that Meredith’s Oak Leaves and Twigs/Heralds can be found online at digitalnc.org/.
Still working full-time, Jessie Markert Rivers has been at JALI, a food quality and safety testing lab in Edenton, N.C., for over 27 years. She is the proud mother of two wonderful young adults, her son who works for Northrup Grumman, Dulles D.C., and her daughter who works for SAS Cary. Rivers loves being a grandmother of two grandsons, ages 9 and 1. Her daughter will soon move from Raleigh to Arnold, Md., to be closer to her nephews. Rivers will excitedly make one trip to enjoy all of her family!
Sympathies
Penny Flynt King in the death of her sister.
Suzanne Reynolds in the death of her mother.