Mary Beth Van Cleave
2841 N.E. 34th Ave
Portland, OR 97212
Phone: (503) 287-6959
Email: mbvc@teleport.com

Even though I didn't graduate with everyone else in the Class of '55, I've always thought of the kids I grew up with in Silverton as my true cohorts and regretted the decision to go to the Midwest to finish high school. I graduated from Wheaton Academy in 1954 and then went on to college, graduating from Willamette University with majors in English and theater. When my parents moved away from Silverton in 1959, I lost contact with everyone, but, thanks to the good efforts of Susie Yeatman, I'm enjoying renewing old acquaintances. It's lovely, at this time in my life, to rediscover connections with my past.

After college, I spent several years at home with my three children--Tom, now an electrical engineer; Amy, a physics teacher; and Ted, a middle-school principal. When Tom started kindergarten, I began teaching high school English. I thought I'd work a year to get some bills paid off, but I was overly optimistic. Over 30 years later, I finally retired. I seem to have been on a 10-year degree plan during those years: I earned my B.A. in 1958, my M.A. from Reed College in 1968, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Oregon in 1978. Needless to say, those were incredibly intense years.

As I was finishing my graduate work, I found myself becoming more and more interested in young children and how they learned to use language, so, instead of pursing a career in higher education, I became an elementary school principal. When I was assigned my first school, I knew that I had found my life's work. I enjoyed many rich, wonderful years among the children and especially loved the time I spent working with children who lived in poverty and faced more challenges on a daily basis than most of us can imagine. In 1994, I published The Least of These: Stories of Schoolchildren, a book-length narrative that tells the story of the year in the life of a school and the teachers and children in that school.

I retired three years ago, and, although I still keep my love of language and literacy alive by teaching part-time in the graduate teacher education program at Lewis and Clark College, I am also enjoying every minute of exploring retirement. I spend as much time as I possibly can with my five grandchildren (pictured here), ages 3-14, and I also love gardening and cooking, studying yoga and walking, reading and knitting, traveling, many friends including my grown-up children, and--my newest passion--ice skating with two of my granddaughters. This truly is a fine time of life.