Three Doctors From a Class of Thirteen

In 1969, the graduating class of Lago High School in Aruba numbered thirteen students. Mere freshmen in high school, we were considered "the seniors" because we would all be leaving Aruba to complete the remainder of our education stateside. The American school for children of employes of the Lago Oil and Transport Company in Aruba operated a  K-12 program for decades. In the late 1960's, the company responded to economic pressures by truncating the school program after grade 9. The company paid for employees to send their youngsters to prep school in the U.S. mainland; a purely financial move with little regard for how the decision might affect young students or their parents.

I won't comment here about the effect leaving home at the age of fifteen to move thousands of miles away from home when cell phones were nonexistent and overseas telephone calls and cablegrams were byzantine methods of communications. Snail mail in the strictest sense kept us in touch. Those were rugged days. More on that later.

Back to the graduating class of thirteen students; 6 young men and 7 young women. We studied Algebra I, World History, Spanish 2, Biology, and English together in grade 9.  We hung out after school and on weekends at the beach and the Esso Club. After "graduation", we split up to attend stateside schools. I landed out at St. Stephen's Episcopal School in Austin because of the proximity to my sister, 12 years my senior who lived in Houston, 150 miles down the road. Close but not too close.

The interesting statistic about that class of thirteen students is that three became physicians and all three were women.  Here we are in our yearbook photos from 1969.

The daughter of the physician director of the Lago Hospital in Aruba, she attended medical school and trained as a Psychiatrist. She lives in Santa Fe.

Originally from Canada, she and her family left Aruba shortly after graduation.  She went to medical school in Canada and became a Family Practice physician. After many years in general practice, she pursued an interest in skin care and esthetic medicine. She operates medical spas in Canada  and markets a line of skin care products.











 


And here I am. At the time, I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life. An acute illness and hospital stay several years later would light the fire on my dream.











The three of  us remain in practice.

** photos taken from the Lago School yearbook, 1969