Performing Arts

My high school graduation was bittersweet. I was excited about what was ahead, but didn't really want to leave Cass. I then spent 4 very good years at the University of Michigan. After a few fruitless months in San Francisco, I moved to Boston, where I had a job I didn't like. So I moved to New York, and entered a career in book publishing. In 1978, I established my own literary agency, which I am still doing because I love it. My work has kept me sane, satisfied, and as busy as I want to be. In 1979 I married my true love, but our life has not been easy. My husband suffers from bipolar disorder, and that has been a roller coaster ride on steroids. Our daughter married a great guy and has a child, but we hardly ever see them. Our son has Usher Syndrome, a genetic condition that causes progressive hearing loss and vision loss. We built a lovely house up in the Berkshires, and easily spend as much time there as we do in the city. Overall, it has been a wonderful life, with some unusual and difficult challenges, but the good has outweighed the bad. I am forever grateful that I was lucky enough to go to Cass Tech, which may well have been the best high school in the world.

The quality of instruction at Cass can be illustrated by this story. I took 4 years of French, taught mostly by one of the best teachers I ever had--Mary E. Yelda. After the first semester, no one in her classroom spoke a word of English, and no one wanted to. It was a badge of honor to use only French. One day a girl passed a note to her friend. It was written, of course, in French. Mme. Yelda intercepted the note, corrected the French, and handed it to the girl for whom it was intended. She was not so petty as to care about note-passing, but she cared deeply that the French should be correct.