Welcome back! The summer has been a season of change at PAW, which begins the publishing year with two new editors. Carrie Compton (top left), former managing editor at Swarthmore College’s alumni magazine, is PAW’s associate editor, in charge of two sections: Princetonians, covering alumni; and Life of the Mind, covering research. Nicholas DeVito has joined PAW as the editor of our Class Notes and Memorials sections, intent on keeping the link among classmates strong. Nicholas brings experience in both journalism and education — though in this case, the education experience was as a substitute teacher in a middle school. Both Carrie and Nicholas have plunged into the brave, new world of Princeton alumni, an experience that will be capped off by their first Reunions next spring.
We open the year with a sad tradition. This issue includes the final class column for the Class of 1935, whose last known surviving member, Hugh B. Sweeny Jr., known as Jim, died May 21. As is PAW’s custom, the Class Notes section includes a picture of the class from its senior year (page 36), and class secretary Lisa Drakeman *88 provides a brief class history.
Members of ’35 could not help but be caught up in national events. They entered and graduated college during the Great Depression, followed the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby in nearby Hopewell during their spring semester, and experienced Prohibition and the end of it during their time on campus. In the decade after leaving Princeton, they would lose 10 classmates to World War II.
In one sense, the class’s longevity illustrates the bonds among generations of alumni: After their graduation, ’35 classmates might have ventured into the Old Guard luncheon at Reunions, then held at Murray-Dodge, and met alumni who had graduated during the Civil War. We welcome Carrie and Nicholas to our team and look forward to their contributions to this continuing story.
As you might guess from her image on our cover, Lesley McAllister ’91 has been facing an extraordinarily difficult challenge in her life. In telling her story, she raises crucial issues that so often go untouched. I thank Lesley for her honesty, eloquence, and grace, and thank our writer Mark Bernstein ’83 for his sensitivity in reporting this article.