• Fran Dreher Hirschel
  
  email: fhirschel35@gmail.com
  

The most important event in my life in the past 50 years was and still is my marriage to my husband David, a Professor of Criminal Justice who was born and raised in London, England.  We lived in London for two years, one right after we married and another in 1992, and we have been visiting England at least once a year for the past 46 years.  We have lived in Albany and Buffalo, spent about 20 years in Charlotte, North Carolina, and currently live in Carlisle, MA, a rural community near Concord.
Having children changed our lives dramatically. At times we thought they would never grow up, and now it seems that it happened so quickly.  We are extremely proud of our grown sons, and wish we had emphasized the importance of staying close to one’s parents.  Rob lives in Kumamoto, Japan with his wife and their children, and Mike lives in Oxford, Mississippi with his wife (from Poland) and their sons.  As you may imagine, we spend a lot of time traveling.  Also, since we speak little Japanese or Polish, we need a translator to communicate with our sons’ in-laws.

I majored in Spanish and minored in French at SUNY at Albany, and graduated Magna cum Laude with Honors in Spanish.  After our first year in England we returned to Albany and I got my Masters.  When my sons were young I went back to school and became a Certified Public Accountant, earning an Elijah Watt Sells award on the CPA exam.  My field has always been taxation, which was described as “learning the rules, learning the exceptions to the rules, and learning the exceptions to the exceptions.”  Doesn’t that sound like French grammar?  After working for a couple of firms, I opened a practice in my home.  I have essentially retired now so I am no longer a slave to April 15th.

Social action has been an important part of my life, and I have worked in many different volunteer jobs, from educating girls and women about how to avoid rape to visiting nursing homes and talking to residents about the quality of their care.   My true calling is in helping and those in need, whether it be through charitable organizations or just recent immigrants I happen to meet.

Reading, whale watching, and snorkeling are my favorite hobbies.  In nature I find a spiritual connection to the universe.

I am very grateful for the education I received, and the friends I met, at Hunter.  If you are in the Boston area and would like to be in touch, please contact me at 978-318-0019 or by email at fran.hirschel.cpa@comcast.net.

Update 2022

My life has changed in the last 5 years since I summed up my life for our 50th HCHS reunion.  My resistance to cold weather prompted our move to Highland Beach, Florida, which is on the east coast of Florida between Delray Beach and Boca Raton.  We sold our large home in Carlisle, Massachusetts and downsized into a condo that is smaller by at least half.  It has the advantage of being on the ocean, and sometimes we can see amazing sunrises as well as occasional glorious rainbows.  Then we bought a flat in London, where my husband’s family resides, and where we’ve been spending a lot of time since we retired.  Said husband is a fanatic football (soccer) fan, his team being Brighton Hove Albion (which just defeated Manchester United 4-0).  That was a miracle, and we were at the match!  Football season is from August through May, so he is most interested in being in London during that time.  We have come in August and managed to avoid part of hurricane season, but we are usually in Florida during the hottest months!  And we’re in London for part of the winter, where it tends to get quite cold, both outside and indoors! So much for escaping the cold weather.
COVID has put a cramp in seeing our Japanese grandchildren, since Japan will still not let us in; we haven’t seen our Japanese family in about two and a half years.  We do see the ones in Oxford, Mississippi more often, but before the vaccine and more widespread knowledge about the virus we tried not to fly too often. Thank goodness for video communications.
Just before COVID struck, my husband took me on a phenomenal trip to the Dominican Republic where we spent a week on a small boat in the middle of a whale sanctuary, Silver Bank.  We were able to snorkel above whales and watch them feeding below and then see the baby rise to the surface to get air.  That’s where the photo on top was taken.
I would like to resume my volunteer work, but until recently I was not eager to be in an indoor environment with lots of people.  Hopefully, the new normal will soon allow me to discover some fulfilling activities.