Gini Waters died in the early morning hours of Saturday, March 8, 2025.

Gini Waters and her twin sister Joan were a fairly constant presence in my college years (see picture of Gini, Jay and Joan above circa 1988). They went to St. Mary’s College, an all-women’s institution, directly across the street from then all-male Notre Dame.

They were not shrinking violets. Indeed, they barged into our all-male world, taking classes at Notre Dame, participating in numerous activities and also dating several of my classmates. Joan tended to stick with one boy while Gini viewed boys in those days like chocolates in a Whitman Sampler:  Some bad, some good and some really good.  Even when she dumped them, they seemed to remain fond of her.

They always called us by our last names. How to tell them apart? Both were very attractive with Joan being the brunette and very studious and Gini also a brunette but with blonde highlights and not so studious. They were as bold as brass; in the patois of some they were “Chicago broads” and we loved them. Because they were frequently at Notre Dame, I thought it was appropriate to call them “the Waters boys.” They either ignored me or told me to shut up.

They both married my Notre Dame classmates. Joan and Will Dunfey are going on 50 years plus. Gini‘s marriage was not so good but her second marriage to Joe Enright was a winner. By that time, Gini had gone to law school and ultimately became the “go to” lawyer in the law offices of the City of New York.

While I have seen Joan over the years, the last time and only time I laid eyes on Gini was probably 35 years ago at a reunion weekend. I don’t remember her from that time as she had ditched the blond. In my mind’s eye, I still see her as she was in those college days, with blonde highlights and looking great.

Fred & Gini circa 1966

My fondest memories of the Waters boys were when Fred Schwartz (no relation) and I spent a weekend at their home in Wheaton, Illinois. Fred was Gini‘s date for that weekend and I was a “plus one” for Joan, but definitely not the one. In any event, Fred decided to start a fire in the basement fireplace but forgot one thing: opening the flue. The basement then filled with smoke, which proceeded to fill the whole house. Mrs. Waters appeared at the top of the basement stairs and yelled: “why do you girls always bring home such lemons.” We then understood where Gini and Joan had gotten the temerity to upbraid us when necessary.

Another classmate, Tom Figel, had dinner at the Waters house and Mrs. Waters said, “Figel do you want more potatoes?” The Waters boys corrected their mother by saying that his name was Tom. Mrs. Waters said, “I’m just calling him what you call him.”

Fred Schwartz would be dead within three years as a result of an automobile accident while serving in the Peace Corps in Africa. To say that he was a character is a gross understatement. He was to be the best man at my wedding, but didn’t make it. He had driven all night from Kansas and fell asleep in the chapel at Notre Dame, which was directly underneath the Sacred Heart Church where the wedding was held. His dad was in the hardware business and my wedding gift was a toolbox (which I still have) with a variety of hammers, screwdrivers, and the like. After closing up a South Bend bar one snowy night, he was the driver of a bicycle, and I was the passenger on the handlebars when the bicycle hit a patch of snow and I fell off and lost my two front teeth. I miss him still and think of him often when I am brushing my teeth.

Tom Condon circa 1988  

Tom Condon was part of a large Irish clan from Connecticut. Unlike Gini, I had seen Tom often  at college reunions and once at the Chicago Marathon where he flew by me. He was a terrific athlete and extremely competitive. I last saw him a few months before he died in the latter part of 2024 at our house in Cambridge when he and his wife Anne (a fine writer herself) spent time along with other Notre Dame classmates and their wives. Tom had beaten cancer once and told me last summer that he would beat it again. This one time he was wrong.

Tom was a newspaper man and worked most of his life for the Hartford Courant. He was a gifted writer , a much-admired columnist but, more importantly, he was the person that most people in Hartford trusted to tell the truth which, these days, is too often a rare commodity. A fellow named Dan Rodricks was similarly trusted by people in the Baltimore area until his recent retirement after 50 years on the beat. Tom Condon was Dan Rodricks, but a whole lot smarter. 

He once called me to ask about laws that were on the books in Baltimore or in Maryland, which made no sense and as he was working on a book outlining such laws. I can’t remember what particular law I found for him but, at one time, it was illegal for a man to buy a female bartender a drink, and it was once illegal in Baltimore to wash or scrub a sink or to swear within the city limits. In Maryland, it was once illegal for a wife to go through her husband‘s pockets and take money, a law that still seems appropriate to me .He was also an inveterate punster, and he delighted in hearing the groans of his friends.

Tom’s Irish humor was always present.  He had pretty much lost significant hearing because of his time as an infantryman in Vietnam. When he applied for compensation from the Veterans Administration, he was informed that he needed to have an audiologist report confirming the hearing loss at that time. His response: “Not a lot of audiologists in the Mekong Delta when I was there.”

When your people die, they take a part of you because, for a time, they brought light to your life and that light is now gone. It doesn’t really matter that you only see a person every five years because, if you were close at one time, the conversation picks up as if it never ended.

“Let us agree that we will never forget one another. And whatever happens, remember how good it felt when we were all here together, united by a good and decent feeling which made us better people, better probably than we otherwise would have been.” (Fr. Ted Hesburgh, President of Notre Dame, at his final commencement speech to graduates in 1987).

Gini, Fred, Tom, and any number of others made me better than I otherwise would’ve been.

My night sky now has fewer stars.

When they left, part of me left with them.