Dear Fenno,
A few thoughts run through my mind as I contemplate your passage into a more peaceful world:
You will always live on as a part of me. The Glee Club was the best experience of my undergraduate days, and you personified the Glee Club. I made my closest Yale friends in Hendrie Hall and on tour buses. You taught me to love singing, and to love music.
Today I continuously hum "The Ash Grove," a tune that you helped me arrange for 4-part chorus during my junior year. You have been an extraordinarily gifted composer and arranger.
You have had such courage! You recognized that when Yale admitted women, the Glee Club should do the same. You endured a few rough years, but you persevered. All women who have ever sung in the Glee Club owe a debt to your foresight.
Last April, when Helmuth Rilling came to Yale to conduct Mendelssohn's Elijah, I was thrilled to see you in the balcony of Woolsey Hall before the performance. I sang my heart out for you that night, just as I sang for you all those years ago in the Glee Club. I will continue to sing for you, as long as I live.
With love and affection,
Laurie (Hasselmann) Ongley
YCG '81
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