Susan Isabel “Sadie” Frazee was born on Friday, April 13, 1860,
her lucky day she would explain. Her family, led by parents William and Rebecca
Frazee moved from Indianapolis to a large ranch near San Bernardino, California
in 1872. With her little sister, Minnie,
dying before the move and her mother dying four years later, by 16 she was the
only woman and level head in a family of four adventurous, creative men*. Her first California schooling was at Downey
Academy and by 1878 she was teaching school at the Coahuila Indian Reservation
near San Jacinto. Later she moved to the
back country of San Diego as she called her home near Oceanside. In the 1880’s she began her course of study
at Los Angeles Normal School, later taking work at Stanford and the University
of California.
She began teaching at Pasadena High School in 1902, retiring
in 1934. She said, “I was supposed to be
teaching English, but I was not, I was teaching life, preaching sermons,
teaching what is life.” And then she added that her brothers taught her more
than what she learned in college. With
gleaming eyes, she said, “Teaching is a joy when you make it a fundamental of
truth.”
She wrote three books, one for fifth and sixth grades, one
for grammar, a sort of dictionary for grammar, and one for grammar and practice
written in collaboration with Professor Wells of the University of
California. Since her retirement, she
has written pamphlets on education. She
was very proud to live to ninety-seven.
She died at the Rose Garden Convalescent Home in Pasadena on October 28,
1957.
To read her book Grammar and Practice from 1921, click on the title.
* her baby brother Frances is known to have outlived his
mother, but died sometime before 1880.
No comments:
Post a Comment