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Photo by Broadmead resident Erroll Hay

Broadmead Welcomes New Residents, Alice Cherbonnier & Sumner Clarren

By Jackie Mintz

About Alice:

Though perhaps best known for her 18-year column in the Baltimore Chronicle featuring the fictional character Louella Pryzbylewski, Alice Cherbonnier has had a multifaceted career. After a brief stint practicing law at the Legal Aid Bureau of Maryland, she became managing editor of the Baltimore Chronicle for over 30 years, which she published with her late husband, Larry Krause, and her brother, Marc, as webmaster. She concurrently ran a typesetting and graphic design company, Allegro Communications.

Early in her career, she taught French at Dulaney High School and is fluent in French. Alice continues to write. She is currently conducting research for a novel, Shards, a family saga stretching from 1774 in Saint-Domingue to 1896 in Kentucky, the year of the Supreme Court's infamous Plessy v. Ferguson decision upholding the "separate but equal" basis for segregation.

A native of the Eastern Shore, Alice graduated from Western Maryland College (now McDaniel College), obtained a master of liberal arts degree from Johns Hopkins University, and earned a law degree from the University of Maryland School of Law.

Alice has served on numerous boards, most notably, for readers of the Voice, on Broadmead's Board of Trustees. A longtime Quaker, she is a member of Stony Run Friends Meeting.

Alice has moved to Broadmead with her life partner, Sumner Clarren. Her son, Mitch Strohminger, lives in Montreal.

About Sumner:

Sumner Clarren is a psychologist and information technology (IT) specialist. He is also an expert in strategy games and bridge, an accomplished singer, and a veteran traveler. A native of Long Island, NY, Sumner graduated from Oberlin College and obtained a doctorate in clinical psychology from Ohio State University. Later, he obtained a master's degree in computer science from Johns Hopkins University.

Sumner developed expertise in IT in the early part of his career as a psychologist at the Urban Institute and then at other D.C. organizations. He then became an IT manager for McDonald Bradley, an IT solutions provider, and for other companies.

Sumner is a tenor and has sung with the Maryland Chorale and the Choir of the National Cathedral in Washington. Travel has been an important part of his life since his service in the Air Force during the Vietnam War, when he was posted to the Philippines and visited nearby countries. He visited the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and later Western Europe, Serbia, and Croatia while traveling with the Maryland Chorale.

Sumner introduced his life partner, Alice Cherbonnier, to cruises. Their numerous trips included a 67-day cruise around South America (including a 1,000-mile trip up the Amazon to Manaus). Sumner plays contract bridge but hopes also to introduce duplicate bridge to Broadmead.

Sumner's wife, Jean, to whom he was married for 53 years, died in 2014. They had a daughter who died in 2017. There are two grandchildren.

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