[Alumni-chat] I miss the old ANTIOCHIAN newspaper tabloid format with hundreds of alumni "what's happening" reports!

[Freda B Birnbaum]

Dave,

Thanks so much for your post.  I'd been thinking of writing another one 
about missing the Antiochian.  I'm pretty sure they were putting it out at 
least occasionally, if not regularly, at the time that Jean died, and I 
always read it, but I didn't see anything at all about her passing.

>  Thanks to Freda Bluestone (Birnbaum) '65 for the sad update regarding 
> the passing of Jean Janis.  A great lady.
>
>  Jean and Fran Lemcke had adjacent offices on the second floor of the 
> Antioch Union, directly opposite the Community Government offices. It 
> was interesting to learn the two later remained in contact after their 
> professional years at Antioch.

The last reunion I was able to get to was in 1990; J. D. Dawson was there! 
He was long "retired" but still consulting!  When he did die a few years 
later, I recall Jean telling me that she had helped them write the 
obituary for the Antiochian.  She would have most likely done the one on 
Fran that I remember seeing in the Antiochian in either 1993 or 1994. 
Sadly, by the time Jean was gone, there was no one left to do hers, though 
I find it hard to see how someone at the college could have missed the 
obituary in the Yellow Springs News.

I had a sense that administrations toward the end of Jean's tenure at 
Antioch found her not "politically correct" enough.

I've always thought that Fran and Jean were the sort of faculty that one 
named buildings after, but sometimes it takes more than deserving it to 
get it.

>  Jean Janis was only 75 when she died in 2002.  That's too young to die 
> in today's world, I think.  So many in the present age live past 80 and 
> 90.

IIRC, she had had diabetes for quite some time. (I think I remember her 
telling me about that at a 1975 reunion.)  And treatment even 20 years ago 
isn't what it is today.

Fran was close to 80, having been born in 1914.  Would you believe, her 
parents had been missionaries to Japan!  She was also an Antioch graduate.

>  Freda Bluestone's mention of THE ANTIOCHIAN providing wonderful banner 
> articles in detail about the passing of Antioch faculty and staffers as 
> well as alumni reminded me of how terrific the old tabloid sized, 
> newsprint ANTIOCHIAN Alumni Newspaper style publication was in the days 
> before cyberspace arrived to change people's ideas about "what media 
> is."

Yes, hardcopy is quite a different animal.  I also remember looking over 
the 60s and then the before and after sections.

Still getting used to this news...!

Freda Bluestone Birnbaum '65
"Call on God, but row away from the rocks"