By Ed Karvoski Jr., Contributing Writer
Hudson – Members of the Hudson High School (HHS) class of 1949 gathered May 3 at Longfellow's Wayside Inn in Sudbury to celebrate their 65th reunion. They reunite at least every five years thanks to a committee chaired by Barbara (Lenox) Masciarelli, who was the senior class secretary.
“I'se had a list of all the classmates ever since we started doing this,” she said. “People contact myself or somebody else who's in Hudson with updates if they move.”
While the class typically reunites in five-year intervals, they voted at their 60th reunion to meet sooner.
“They didn's want to wait for five years, so we had a 62nd reunion,” Masciarelli explained. “They figured we don's know who will still be here.”
At that 62-year reunion, held at the Courtyard by Marriott in Marlborough, 22 of the 30 guests were classmates.
When the class of “49 attended HHS, it was located on Felton Street in a 19th-century building that has been restored and is now a residential complex known as the Hudson Schoolhouse Apartments. There were 93 students in their graduating class. Thirty-five have passed away. Twenty-two still live in Hudson. Of the 36 guests who attended this year's 65th reunion, 25 were classmates.
Masciarelli and the other committee members have been meeting regularly for many years.
“We get together even when we'se not planning a reunion,” she noted. “We started going out to dinner and we enjoyed each other's company, so we kept doing it every other month.”
Velma (Moura) Rocheleau is a committee member who remembers them first meeting after a classmate's husband passed away.
“We all felt sad about it,” she recalled. “So a couple of the girls took her out to lunch. Then before you knew it, those girls asked some other girls to join them. That's really how we started as a group.”
This was the first time that the class reunited at the Wayside Inn, but the group of 10 women has been going there annually for their Christmas party.
Another committee member is Silvia (Rixford) Almada, who cherishes enjoyable memories from high school.
“One of my favorite memories is the dances and looking for the boys,” she said. “We all did the big band ballroom dancing in our day. And we loved going to the football games – and looking for the football players. We looked for fun the same as kids in high school today.”
Trudy (Meschini) Durand was the senior class vice president. She has attended every reunion and looks forward to reminiscing.
“Everybody in our class was friendly and we all liked each other,” she said. “I remember us ice skating on the Assabet River, which we never should have done. And I remember we went to see our hockey team play games in Boston. No other schools around here played hockey at that time.”
A classmate who played hockey and was captain of the football team was Vic Rimkus, a retired history teacher and football coach at HHS. At the 62nd reunion, Rimkus drew on his involvement with the Hudson Historical Society to compile a town trivia quiz. He credits the committee for many well-planned reunions.
“The crux of our class reunions is Barbara Masciarelli and the other ladies,” he said. “I deal with a lot of high school classes and reunions, and most don's have that glue to hold them together.”
Masciarelli assessed the 65th reunion as successful and forecasts a more impromptu gathering in the future.
“Maybe we'sl get together again in two or three years,” she said. “We'sl decide at the spur of the moment.”
