About

Here’s my life story.

Here’s my life story in a nutshell. I was raised on a farm near Los Gatos, California where I picked prunes, drove a tractor, and irrigated the orchards. I have been a farm girl most of my life. Until recently, my husband, brother and his wife, and I owned a walnut orchard in the San Joaquin Valley in California.  

I graduated from Stanford University with both a bachelor’s and master’s degree. I met my husband there and married him in the Stanford Memorial church. Immediately after graduating, I started teaching high school. I taught mainly Spanish for almost ten years in California and Indiana. After my husband completed his MBA at Stanford, we moved to Indiana for his work and later on to Minneapolis. In 1991, we moved back to California, where he worked as a consultant for three Silicon Valley start-ups.

In Indiana, I stopped teaching to become a typical 50s housewife with two children. We lived in a wonderful suburb of Indianapolis where we developed life-long friendships, and the children had an army of friends to play with. After 12 years in the burbs, we moved to Carmel, Indiana. The children became avid ranked tennis players, and I started my second career as a writer of educational materials. For 44 years, I have been partnered with Peggy Gisler, first as an author of books, then as the syndicated Dear Teacher education columnist. Today, Peggy and I are creating apps, writing educational materials, and continuing as Dear Teacher columnists (dearteacher.com).

Beyond work, I have been a world traveler with my husband and children. I will resume traveling when it is safe to do so with Israel and Croatia on the docket for my next trips.

Today, I unfortunately find myself a widow, but happy to be living in Los Angeles with my daughter and two granddaughters. I work, drive carpools, cook lunch and dinner and exercise like crazy (6 ½ hours of Zoom classes a week).

Beyond all this, I am so grateful for being able to share my life with you in my aginggratefully.blog.