Teresa E. Regina is a graduate of Springfield College, Class of 1963. After graduating from Springfield College, Teresa went on to receive her MA from Mt. Holyoke College and her CAGS from Wesleyan University. She had a long career in the Springfield Public Schools, including being a former interim-assistant superintendent. She has been a Trustee of the Horace Smith Fund and the Center for Human Development. She is a past President of Historical Classical of Springfield. She wrote and prepared the booklet "A Photo History of Classical (High School) and Springfield during the Victorian Era."

Terry's first job was on campus at age 16 in Dr. Karpovich's lab. Terry's mother, Josephine worked on campus for Dean Cheney and would give Spanish lessons at lunch to Dr. Karpovich. Her father, Alberto, was a member of the Springfield College class of '31. While attending Springfield College as a student, she was involved in Kappa Delta Pi, the Springfield Student and LTC. Teresa is a member of the 2018 Reunion Planning Committee.

- Written by Bonnie Cox in June 2018 with additions and changes by Jeffrey Monseau in 2021.

Jorge Luis Borges was born in Argentina, on 24 August 1899, into an educated middle-class family. His parents were Leonor Acevedo Suárez and Jorge Guillermo Borges Haslam, the latter of which had failed dreams of becoming a writer. By the age of nine, Borges was able to translate Oscar Wilde’s works into Spanish, and he eventually became a polyglot in English, French, and German, among other languages. His family moved to Geneva, Switzerland in 1914 and remained there throughout World War I. At the end of the war, he received his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève, and his family continued moving throughout Europe until 1921.

After his family returned to Buenos Aires, Borges brought with him the Ultraist literary movement, which sought to oppose the Modernism that had long dominated Spanish poetry. This doctrine of Ultraism led to his first poetry collection being published in 1923, Fervor de Buenos Aires. Around this time he also co-founded the journals Prisma and Proa, opening his works to explore existentialism and fiction, which many critics called “irreality”; eventually his contributions to the literary magazine Sur helped him find his first taste of fame.

As his career progressed into 1938, Borges suffered a severe head injury, where he narrowly avoided death, was rendered mute, and feared insanity. Despite this, the experience had him producing fantastical stories over the next eight years, which were collected in Ficciones. He had started exploring a new style of writing that would make him famous as time went on. This early success could not, however, save his fading vision as he reached his thirties. Unable to support himself as a writer, he became a public lecturer where he gained prominence once more. Around this time is when he began writing screenplays, and his short story Emma Zunz was made into a film.

By the time 1955 rolled around, Borges became director of the Argentine National Library. In the late-50s, he had become completely blind. The irony of his blindness became reflected in some of his works (Elogio de la Sombra), and although he received honorary doctorates and multiple professorial positions, his loss of eyesight made him entirely reliant on his mother. Borges was unable to read or write, never having learned Braille, so his mother became his personal secretary, until her death in 1975, aged 99.

After his mother’s death, Borges lived in her flat, being cared for by the family’s longtime housekeeper. Even though he was blind, Borges continued to travel internationally, accompanied by his personal assistant, María Kodama, whom he married a few months before his death on 14 June 1986, of liver cancer.

- Written by Emily Gentile in May 2021.

Works used:

Jorge Luis Borges, 04/21/21

Jorge Luis Borges, 04/21/21

Jorge Luis Borges, 04/21/21