CURRENT ADDRESS:
Sophie (Harris) Wachter
Francis W Wachter
2114 Princeton Ave
Charlotte NC 28207-2432
704.334.8923
Greetings to my classmates from beautiful Charlotte, North Carolina, the city of trees,
Fifty years, Wow!! To catch everyone up on my family I decided to use Jim's guidelines so here
goes
My family: Fran (Francis) and I will celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary this year. We met
in the cafeteria of The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania where I was teaching nursing
and he was doing the chemistry rotation of his pathology residency in the navy at the
Philadelphia Naval Hospital.
Fran is from Wilmore, a little town in western Pennsylvania. He graduated from Penn State
University and Jefferson Medical College. He spent 12 1/2 years in the Medical Corps of the
US Navy: 2 as a general medical officer mostly on sea duty, 4 as a pathology resident, and 6 1/2
as a pathologist.
We lived in Philadelphia, PA; North Valley Stream, NY; and San Diego, CA before leaving the
Navy and moving to Charlotte, NC where he practiced pathology with the Presbyterian Pathology
Group at Presbyterian Hospital for 23 years. He retired in 1997.
In 1966 our son Karl was born in Pennsylvania and our daughter Pam was born in 1969 in New
York. After attending UNC, Chapel Hill for 2 years, Karl graduated from New York University,
the Elliott School of George Washington University, and University of Chicago School of Law.
He is now chief counsel for a hedge fund in Greenwich, CT and reverse commutes from his
home in Manhattan. In 1995, he married Mary Pat who has a PhD in clinical psychology. She
has taken a leave to stay home with their 2 sons -August, who turned 4 on February 5, 2005, and
Alexander, who was 1 on Halloween, 2004.
After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pam decided she wanted to
come back home and live in North Carolina, so she attended the UNC, Chapel Hill School of
Law. After graduation she did a clerkship with the US Bankruptcy Court then practiced with a
large law firm in Durham for several years. She is now a staff attorney with the US Bankruptcy
Court in Raleigh, NC. On April 1, 2000, she married Andrew McAfee who plays principal
French horn with the NC Symphony.
I left home after graduation at the age of 17 for Dallas, TX and Methodist Hospital School of
Nursing from which I graduated top of my class 3 years later. I worked for a short while as a
surgical nurse in Snyder, TX, a small West Texas town. While there I decided I really wanted to
teach so I moved back to Dallas where I worked as a staff nurse in a very small hospital and took
some liberal arts classes at SMU. The next semester I enrolled in TCU and graduated from there
in 1962. I taught at St Paul School of Nursing in Dallas until 1964 when I moved to Philadelphia
and taught at HUP.
I stopped teaching when I was pregnant with Karl and have never gone back to nursing. Early on
I was involved with two gifted children advocacy groups, Cub Scouts and PTA. Later, I became
very active in our local and state medical alliance organizations, the local symphony and
symphony guild. I served as president of the local medical alliance and the symphony guild and
served on the boards of the Charlotte Symphony and the NC Medical Alliance. In 1984, I began
working part time as bookkeeper and office manager for an interior designer. Although I haven't
been as involved since Fran's retirement I still keep her business information on my computer
and pay the bills.
Fran and I are avid sports fans football, basketball and baseball. One of our first dates was to a
Phillies- Cardinal baseball game. Fran watches every sport and I mainly Carolina football and
UNC basketball. I like going to games and watch and yell but I loose interest when it's not my
team on TV. We attend all the Carolina Panther home games rain or shine -- and watched them
play in the Super Bowl in 2003 while having dinner at a beach side restaurant with wide screen tv
in St Martin. Fran is a graduate of Penn State so we pull for his Nittany Lions. A few years ago
we spent New Year's at the Capital One Bowl. We will be attending the first round of the
NCAA basketball playoffs in Charlotte this year. . Doesn't matter who's playing. Although we
have lived in NASCAR country for over 30 years, we are not into the sport. We also had the
opportunity to attend the Olympics in Atlanta which was a real thrill.
We enjoy attending the symphony and opera, reading and traveling. As far as traveling, Fran and
I have visited the 48 contiguous states, London, and Edinburgh, Scotland. Our favorite retreat is
St. Martin, French West Indies, where we go for a week with friends to escape some of our
winter weather. We've just returned from a week there and the sunshine and French foods is
heavenly. Our goal is to get to Rome and Greece and some of the wine country of France.
My parents owned Nick's Caf, from about 1946 until about 1972 and we all worked there when
we were home. On June 1, 1974 my dad became ill at the registration desk for the Shriner's
annual meeting held in Helena in his honor. He died that morning. My mom is still living and
will be 96 on March 24. She has severe Alzheimer's and doesn't know us anymore. She has
other illnesses that keep in a wheelchair or bed. She moved to Little Rock in 1993 and to
Charlotte in 1997. She has been in a nursing home for about 3 years now and is on the
Alzheimer's roller coaster ride. She was placed on Hospice care for 9 months and Christmas
Eve a year ago she had bounced so far back up that Hospice dismissed her. For the last 8 months
she has been doing very well for her.
In May, 2004, our children and nephew and his wife, George and Karen Harris who live in DC,
celebrated my 65th birthday with a surprise family dinner here at our home and what fun we
had...
July 24-31, 2004, my dad's family had a family reunion in Pensacola, Fl. July 24, 1904, my
grandfather stepped foot on American soil at Ellis Island on his way to Pensacola (then to
Helena) so it was quite a milestone for us. (Did you know that in 1910 his grocery store was the
first general store in West Helena which was then known as New Helena? It's sad that the
building burned and I can't find pictures of it except for one little snapshot.) We planned way in
advance and had over 175 people attend at some point during the week. Fran and I put together a
family cookbook and picture cd of all the recipes and pictures we could gather to give to the
attendees. A cousin in Tennessee has been researching our family for years and put together a
family tree book and a family directory for us. She, Fran and another cousin have all been
working on the family tree. She and I have been searching the Ellis Island records.
We feel blessed to be in good health and able to enjoy our retirement and senior years together.
It is so great to have this web-site to play catch up with everyone. It's been so long. I can't wait
to see all of you in 2006 if not before . Sophie
Here are a couple of snapshots. The one of me is a snapshot we took last night before we
went to a symphony concert. The other is Fran with August and Alexander taken in October in
NY. I'll try to get a more current picture when we go back next month. If you can't open these let
me know and I'll attach them. They are JPG in microsoft digital image in our computer. Maybe
I'll send you the family one from my birthday but I had been crying because I had been reading a
memory scrapbook Pam made up for me.
Here is a recent family photo. Submitted April 17, 2006.
to my right (left side of pic) are Pam and Andrew McAfee, in my lap
is August Wachter (5), Karl and Mary Pat Wachter to my left and the little one
is Alexander Wachter (2 1/2)