An afternoon of nostalgia

I spent part of the afternoon talking on the phone with one of my favorite teachers from AHS, Barbara Putnam. She was Barbara Sapinski at the beginning of our junior year in English and, I confess, when she returned from Christmas vacation as Barbara Sandbote, I felt betrayed. How could she have loved some guy more than she loved her students?

A few of us visiting together last year began speaking of her and it was fascinating that we had all been influenced rather strongly by her.

Through the ignorance of youth or the cognitive loss of aging, I didn't know or didn't remember anything about her life outside school. Living next door to the museum has special perks, though. My favorite is reading old Times Records on microfilm. And thus I discovered that Mr. Sandbote had been briefly employed at the TR as editor. But it was the late '60's and he left rather soon for the Navy.

That was all the information I had to guide me but fairly quickly found the website of Mr. Sandbote's law office in Texas where he had very kindly placed "editor, Times Record, Aledo, Illinois" in his on-line bio. I dashed off an email and a few months later he sent a gracious reply. Though he and Barbara are no longer married, he was able to give me a name which finally led me to her this afternoon.

She is a speech language pathologist, lives in Texas, married, has a son, step-children and step grandchildren. And she would love to hear from her former classmates...so send her an email and keep in touch.