Friendships can become more difficult to maintain as people grow older, move to different cities and build separate lives. But for a group of longtime friends who graduated from Beachwood High School nearly 60 years ago, distance has not stopped them from finding their way back to one another.

The women, some of whom have known each other since kindergarten, have maintained their friendship since graduation in 1967. Now scattered from California to Florida and New York, they continue to reunite in Cleveland and celebrate a friendship that has lasted through different stages of their lives.

“It takes effort to plan something, but it’s totally worth it,” Frosty Jones Gross, a Palo Alto, Calif., resident, told the Cleveland Jewish News. “I do like coming home. It is my home. I grew up here.”

A photograph from a mother-daughter luncheon held after their high school graduation in 1967 shows 11 women who were part of the original group. Over the decades, the friends moved to different parts of the country, started families and built their own lives, but continued to stay connected.

Their more formal reunions began when they were around 50 years old, Gross said. They gathered again at 60, but after one of their friends died when the women were about 62, they decided they did not want to wait another decade. They reunited at 65, then 70, and eventually began meeting more frequently.

“We kept on saying, ‘Well, we can’t wait 10 years anymore,’” Gross said. “Now, it’s to the point where we’re 77. Every year is a big one.”

This year, all nine members of the group reunited in Cleveland, something Gross said has not happened at every gathering. The women stayed at The Glidden House in University Circle from July 8 to July 10, visited the Cleveland Museum of Art, took a Funny Bus comedy tour and spent time exploring Cleveland together.

The group includes Gross, Donna Fox of the Chicago area, Lita Koret of Beachwood, Judi Vilensky of Beachwood, Patti Zavoda of the Cleveland area, Iris Werthaiser of Cincinnati, Lily Friedman of New York City, Marcia Gulper Klein of Twinsburg and Marsha Ladder Kozak of Florida.

Four of the Cleveland-area women have taken on much of the work of organizing the gatherings over the years, Gross said. She said she believes the local friends were also instrumental in organizing the group’s first reunion around age 50 because they knew the area and could coordinate activities.

Two members of the original group have died. Susan Gilmore Kozminski died about 30 years ago, while Marcia Berwitt Hough died when the women were around 62. Gross said the friends have supported one another through losses and other major changes in their lives.

“We’ve kept up with the good and the bad,” Gross said. “Some people’s husbands have passed away. We’ve always been there for each other.”

Despite years sometimes passing between seeing one another in person, Gross said their gatherings remain filled with laughter, memories and emotion.

Next year will mark the group’s 60th high school reunion. While Gross said she does not yet know whether everyone will attend the official reunion, the milestone offers another opportunity for the friends to come together.

For Gross, maintaining friendships that began so early in life is unusual and something she continues to value.

“I don’t know too many people who have friends from high school,” she said. “It takes effort to stay in touch with people, but it was well worth it.”

Shawna Polster, the Linda and Clifford Wolf Editorial Intern at the Cleveland Jewish News this summer, contribuited to this story.