Alumnae News & Highlights

"There was a special joy in the learning experience that wasn't necessarily tied to the subject matter," Rev.

Sally Curtiss Fahrenthold 1955 remarked when asked about her memories of Hathaway Brown School. Her mother, Mary Louise Brown Prescott 1926 was an alumna, as are her sisters, Mary Curtiss McCrea 1958 and Joan Curtiss 1965. Rev. Fahrenthold is a retired but still active Lutheran pastor in Wichita, Kan., and is involved in community service and interfaith activities.

Sally vividly remembers the passion of her teachers and the appreciation for learning she acquired—particularly from her Latin teacher, Miss Blake, and her biology teacher, Miss Reeve. "Miss Blake deepened my appreciation of other religions and cultures. Miss Reeve took us on early morning bird walks around Shaker Lakes. Her love of the earth and its creatures went way beyond dissecting frogs."

Sally believes her years at Hathaway Brown gave her the tools not only to succeed in several careers but to meet family challenges.

Speaking about her mentally-challenged daughter, a son who passed away in 1983 and her late husband who had Alzheimer's, as well as her son and his family, she notes, "Hathaway Brown taught me how to approach tasks undaunted and with deeper resources than I might otherwise believed I had. I did indeed ‘learn not for school but for life!'"

Sally has decided to give back to her alma mater via a charitable gift annuity. She wants to encourage excellence in education so "girls and young women can be prepared for whatever is to come in their lives." Sally's mother was a Hathaway Brown nursery school teacher in the 1930s. "Other people provided me the opportunity to have that education, including scholarships. I would like others to be able to benefit from that as well."

While Sally doesn't consider herself wealthy in material terms, she believes charitable gift annuities are a wonderful way to simultaneously receive income and tax benefits while supporting a place she cares deeply about. "It expands my world to be able to give."