Wednesday, January 15, 2025
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Rhonda was always so proud of her family, her two daughters Christy and Karyn. Nothing long ago I received a letter about Christy’s golf accomplishments, Complete with her famous “quotes”.
I treasured being a friend to Rhonda, and a nursing school classmate. Rhonda always had a smile and a hearty laugh. She was in charge of our dorm residence our first year, where we stayed in the dorms that were built by George Eastman! We would hop on the beds and knock on the exposed pipes to the tunes of “Knock 3 Times” by Tony Orlando and Dawn. Rhonda was the head of the residence committee and was expected to enforce the rules, which included not having any hot plates, coffee makers, or refrigerators. Many of us had cube refrigerators in our room as we would make our breakfast and lunch before class and clinical. Rhonda would find these gadgets and admonish us. Many of us then covered them up with blankets which probably made things more of a fire hazard. She finally gave up.
Rhonda was a great student. I remember one day in Nursing 101 with sister Mary Thomas, Rhonda blurted out- “How do you spell PKU?” Everybody laughed.
Rhonda went home most weekends to help on the farm and see her boyfriend Del. I was privileged to go to their wedding, remembering many pictures taken with them with their golf clubs at the reception. It’s no wonder Christy became such a good golfer.
Both of us worked at Strong, however, Rhonda was in the OR and I was up on the floors working as a nurse practitioner. Rhonda was very well thought of by her OR colleagues in physicians.
In recent years, classmates would go to dinner in the fall and in 2023 we had our 50th reunion at Letchworth State Park. It was always great to get together and to see Rhonda.
I have many other memories and pictures that I will share with Karyn and Christy. It was certainly a pleasure to be her friend and share adventures together
