MELY DE NEUFVILLE RAHN '56S

Attending this year’s Reunion festivities will hold special meaning for Mely de Neufville Rahn. Not just because it’s her 60th class reunion or because she will be presented with the Distinguished Alumna Award, but because receiving this award will give her an opportunity to shed light on the history of an institution that she says has experienced great change since her days as a student.

 

“More than any honor given to me, I think it’s more important to remember the history of where Moravian Academy came from—Moravian Preparatory School and Moravian Seminary for Girls. At least for this year, I hope to bring that back to memory,” she says.

 

For Rahn, there will always be special memories of the years she spent as a Moravian Seminary student and the community that so warmly welcomed her and her father as they sought a new life in the states after World War II.

 

Born in France to German parents just a few months before the start of World War II, Rahn and her father (her mother passed away when Rahn was an infant) sought refuge in a tiny village in the southwest of France. Assimilating among the locals and other refugees from Poland, Italy, and Spain, Rahn and her father bided their time until they were able to obtain visas to come to the US in 1946.

 

She lived with an uncle in New Jersey for two years before Rahn’s father, Albert, secured a teaching position in the mechanical engineering department at Lehigh University.

 

Albert took comfort in the German influence of the area and Rahn appreciated that she was among several other international boarding students and faculty at the Seminary. She credits many teachers for her position as valedictorian of her class, but Rahn says she received the most guidance on shaping her future career path from Seminary principal and French teacher Miss Naomi Louise Haupert, who became her stepmother when she married Rahn’s father in 1950.

 

“I just adored her; she was a really neat lady,” Rahn recalls. “The first year was a bit tough because she was used to dealing with dormitories full of girls and she never had the experience of being a mother [before the birth of Rahn’s half-sister, Dr. Louise Karger ’69P]. My stepmother felt very strongly that women should have a way of earning a living. So I was allowed to major in French, as long as I also took education classes so I could teach.”

 

Rahn taught French at Central Bucks High School then earned her master’s degree in French at Penn State University before moving to Rapid City, SD for her husband’s job in 1968. They had four sons and, after taking some time as a stay-at-home mom, Rahn returned to the classroom to teach at the high school and college level.

 

Teaching had long been a satisfying profession, but Rahn was ready for a change. So she embarked on the pursuit of an encore career, “drawing from my father’s side of the knowledge spectrum,” and in 1982 earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City.

 

For two decades she worked as a project engineer for the City of Rapid City, overseeing the design and construction of drainage, flood control, streets, and utilities. “I learned a lot about municipal government, city utilities, and infrastructure—all kinds of things people don’t think twice about. It was a very good career choice for me,” she says.

 

Retirement has afforded Rahn yet another chance to broaden her skills and provide service to her community. For the last 14 years she has devoted thousands of hours to delivering free income tax preparation services to low-income and elderly residents through the AARP Foundation Tax-Aide program. And after a busy tax season, Rahn joyously reserves summers for family time at her cabin, where she enjoys the extended stays of her sons and their families.