“I graduated in 1984 and there were four of us that lived together and we wanted to stay in touch. But this was pre-email, pre-cell phone so pretty much the only way we were gonna stay in touch was long-distance telephone calls after 7 p.m. on Sunday nights or handwritten letters.

“Then, one of the members came up with an idea. Her brothers had been pooling together their money once a month into a joint account and then they went on vacation with it. We thought that we would try that! We started at $5 a month. I worked at a bank so I set up a little non-profit with a checking account and named it 119 Reid St. Fund because that was our senior year address. All four of us were signers on the account and they would mail me checks.

“Our first trip was to a hotel in Madison for two nights. Our fund paid for it so those who were working and not making a lot of money and trying to pay off student loans didn't need to worry about it.

“Then, we decided that we wanted to build our fund a little bit, we were gonna be 40 and wanted to go to New York City for our birthdays. The fund paid for mostly everything! We’ve also visited Arizona, San Diego, did a weekend cruise in Miami in addition to little things like a night in a hotel in Chicago. We would deplete the fund then we’d increase it, then deplete and increase. There are so many places to see!

“We were approaching our 50th birthday and we wanted to go to Paris. Unfortunately, one of the four of us, Catherine, passed away in our 50th year. The three of us decided that our spirit wasn't there and we couldn't bring ourselves to go that year, but we did go the next spring. Unintentionally, we were there over her birthday so we went out for a special dinner and it was nice.

“There’s something special about your college roommates. I don't think I realized what a gift it was until everything happened. You don't realize that you missed that connectivity.”