“Our college educated dog” (stories told to me by 101-year-old Mrs. Fader)

03 Feb “Our college educated dog” (stories told to me by 101-year-old Mrs. Fader)

 “Mrs. Fader was my brother’s teacher when we went to Walker School. Such a sweetheart!”

                  Patty Delsman Kelley, on Facebook, November 2018

Meeting Mrs. Fader

I met Clara Fader in late 2018, when she was 101 years old. We spoke in the living room of her house in Ashland. Everyone knew her as Mrs. Fader, from her decades of teaching, so that’s what I will call her.

An amazing woman, she lived — and continued to be mentally sharp — for almost six more years after my visit with her. Clara Fader died in June 2024, three days after her 107^th birthday.

Still full of life and humor at age 101, Mrs. Fader was an excellent storyteller. She told me that she and her husband Joseph bought their historic house in 1943 or 1944. Though her husband passed away in 1980, she continued to live in the house. 

Mrs. Fader stressed that she and Joseph had both been educators — for a total of 84 years between the two of them! She taught school for 40 years and he was a teacher and principal for 44 years. She enriched many young lives during her career, leaving a multi-generational legacy.

She attended Southern Oregon Normal School (now SOU), graduating in 1936. One of her teachers was Angus Bowmer, who founded the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 1935. I couldn’t coax any Angus Bowmer stories out of her, just the statement: “He was really a character.”

Her teaching career

“Mrs. Fader was my first grade teacher in 1962! I still remember her.”

                  Kathleen Gray Versteeg, on Facebook, November 2018

After graduation, Mrs. Fader began her career at a small country school outside of Grants Pass. Her class of 25 children included first graders through fourth graders. In a 1980 newspaper article about her retirement from teaching, Mrs. Fader described her first classroom: “Our building had no electricity or rest rooms and the water pump had to be primed.” She went on to teach in Medford and Talent, then settled in Ashland schools for decades.

In the 1940s, her first Ashland elementary school teaching job was at Lincoln School. She had probably taught there previously in the 1930s as a student teacher. Lincoln had been built in 1926 on Beach Street, one block from Southern Oregon Normal School, so student teachers could easily walk back and forth. 

Her longest time in one place, she explained, was many years as a first grade teacher at Walker Elementary School.  This led to a good story.

The boy with the “big worm”

She described one of her Walker School students as a “bashful young boy” who came to her toward the end of lunch recess one day. He told her: “I hope it’s okay that I went in the classroom and found an empty jar, because I caught a big worm and need something to put it in.” Mrs. Fader had her teacher-intuition working, so she asked the boy to bring her the jar with the “big worm.” When he did, she looked in the jar and saw a baby rattlesnake! 

Mrs. Fader told the boy: “Recess is almost over so go out and play for a few minutes, and I will keep the big worm.” She found another teacher in the hallway, who offered to take the rattlesnake to the College science department a few blocks away. After the science department did some investigation of the rattler, they reported back to Mrs. Fader that it had enough venom in its glands to potentially kill a child. 

Another under-the-radar super-hero teacher at work!

Mrs. Fader remembers that day as one of three times that children found rattlesnakes on the Walker School playground during her years teaching there.

The Fader house and family pets

The house was built in the 1880’s, according to Mrs. Fader. She and her family have made very few changes to the house, so it retains its historic character. There was also a large barn on the property, which probably dates from the 1880s as well.

When her children were young, the Fader family had many pets, including rabbits, goats and dogs. Some of the pets (such as the goats) probably lived in the old barn. Mrs. Fader told me two pet stories. The first is about their baby goats.

She recalled that their baby goats grew up with her children. The historic house was surrounded by gardens and acres of peach and cherry orchards. As the children played in and explored this expanse of land, the baby goats followed them everywhere.

During the school year, the goats knew what time the kids were due to walk home from Lincoln School. From the school on Beach Street, the children had to walk five or six blocks to get home. The goats would wait in the street in front of the family house, keeping an eye out for the Fader children. As soon as they spotted the children several blocks away, the goats galloped down the street to meet them. Then they would accompany the children for the rest of their uphill walk home. Wrapping up the story, Mrs. Fader smiled as she told me her neighbor down the street loved to wait in her front yard each afternoon just to see this sight.

The “college educated dog”

The second pet story is about a black Labrador. Among the dogs the family had as pets, the college educated black Lab she adopted was the most memorable. Yes, I do mean college-educated. 

The black Lab, named Christopher, made a home for himself at Southern Oregon College (now SOU). Students took care of the dog, and so he thrived from year to year. Christopher had a habit of visiting classrooms during the day. Most of the teachers closed their classroom doors or kicked him out, but one professor had an “open door policy” when it came to Christopher. 

This was Professor Arthur Taylor, one of the most distinguished professors on campus. He taught Social Science at the college from 1926 until 1963, and was Chair of the Department for many years. He was so respected that the social science building Taylor Hall is named after him. 

Now…back to the dog named Christopher. According to Mrs. Fader, Professor Taylor left his classroom door open so that Christopher could sit with the students – and Christopher often did. When Christopher was forced to leave his “home” at the college, Mrs. Fader adopted him. Professor Taylor had words of high praise for the dog. He told Mrs. Fader (with tongue firmly in cheek): “You won’t find a better educated dog than this. Christopher has attended college for seven years, sitting in class with my students.”

Mrs. Fader confirmed to me that her college educated black Lab was the smartest dog she ever had!

I will close with a sweet memory sent to me by one of her elementary school students.

“I also had Mrs. Fader for a teacher. That year I came down with scarlet fever and lost about a month of school. She would send work to my mother so I could try and keep up a little bit with the class. When I went back to school, I had a 100 word spelling test I had to take. Mrs. Fader stayed after hours to give me the test. My Dad had promised to buy me a Boy Scout knife if I got 100 on the test. As I took the test, I wrote the words down and spelled them out loud. At the end of the test, she checked the spelling I wrote down and I had missed one, the word ‘put.’ Then she said, ‘but when you said it out loud, you got it right.’ So that night my Dad took me to Ashland Drug and bought me a knife.”      

James Smith, comment on my WalkAshland website, November 2018

Note: The first photo in this photo essay shows Mrs. Fader at her 100^th birthday party. (from Patti Cooper Kinney collection, on Facebook)

References:

Anon. “2 teachers to be honored: Clara Fader and John Cady retiring,” Ashland Daily Tidings, December 5, 1980.

Fader, Clara. Interview in October or November 2018.