A lot of you haven't lived in Michigan for years. At the reunion, classmates came from 14 states, and we can be found in a lot more than that—43, according to Duane Brown, keeper of the class database. We asked some who left Michigan behind if they still think of themselves as "Midwesterners".
Gone a long time but still have that loving feeling
Barb DeHart Eadie: “I’ve been in British Columbia for 47 years but I’m still a Midwesterner at heart.”
Ginger Hannah: “I left Michigan in 1971 and moved to Cleveland. My heart will always be in A2. I am a proud Midwesterner.”
Sara Brownlee Briggs: “I left Michigan in 1971 for Colorado, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Montana, Texas, with stints back in MI, and never lost that Midwestern feeling.”
Away for up to 53 years now but still checking in: Gene Tanabe (left in 1965 for California and then Oklahoma, but did visit his Dad almost every year in A2); Shaya Gardner-Hayum (in Illinois since 1970); Bill Brooks (in Charleston, SC, since New Year’s Day of 1988).
Others may ask, What’s a “Midwesterner”?
Kathy Kress Sudweeks: “Utah residents said I was from the East”.
Bill Brooks: “In South Carolina I was considered a Northerner”.
And then there’s that accent
Julia Steiner: “I visit family in Michigan every year or so and notice the Michigan accent!”
Duane, in California: “I notice it, too.”
In reverse, Verda Sisson has been in North Carolina since 1997 and all those years haven’t turned her into a Southerner but, she says, “Some of my Ann Arbor friends think I do sound like it”.
Uh oh….a couple of other states have seduced some classmates
Duane: “I left in 1967, spent the next 48 years in San Francisco, then the Michigan in me showed up and I experimented with moving back. There were many things I liked about being back, especially reconnecting with old friends, but after eight months I returned to California. Ann Arbor will always be in my heart but having spent the great majority of my life in California, I’m a California boy.”
Robert Berning: “I am a California wacko. Been here since 1967.”
Julia Steiner: “Colorado since 1969....feels like home!”
Maggie House Conger: “Colorado…rado….rado…rado! My home from 2010-2016. Nothing better!”
The “Mitten State” — where else will you hear that?
Martha Walters Sayre: “Never left the AA area. Traveled to all the continents except Antarctica and Australia. But it’s always good to return home to the Mitten state.”
Susan Magid Bergin: “Wherever we have travelled—Alaska, Canada, California, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Wisconsin, Illinois, all points east to Halifax, all points south all the way to Texas…. If you see a Michigan plate outside a restaurant or shop, or a sweatshirt or a baseball cap with any Michigan school on it—you always stop and chat!!”
Jane Allen Angwin: “Once a Michigander, always a Michigander!”
And, in case that didn’t sink in, Susan Magid Bergin again: “Once a Michigander, always a Michigander!”
Well, Ann Arbor is home, plain and simple
Jane Allen Angwin: “I moved to California in 1961, and yet I still feel like an Ann Arbor girl! “
Kathy Kress Sudweeks: In Utah since 1973, but “Ann Arbor is still home”.
Monique Doherty Scanio: “Have been away for 24 years; but Ann Arbor will always be home to me.”
Nancy McArtor: “I’ve been away for 50 years, and while I liked being a New Yorker, loved being a Californian, and am currently enjoying being a Washingtonian, if I have a trip to Ann Arbor planned, I always find myself saying, ‘I’m going home’.”
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