Science Teacher -
Defying Convention

Helen Fitzhugh lived through almost the entire 20th century. She was born in December 1910 and, at age 94, is still going strong, looking forward with her customary enthusiasm and optimism to what the 21st century will bring. Helen is a short, energetic woman, full of zest and intellectual curiosity. She loves living in the Kendal retirement community in Oberlin, Ohio, where she is close to Oberlin College and its world-renowned Conservatory of Music. She can often be seen in the audience at lectures and concerts, sitting close to the front so she won't miss anything.

Her life has been not only long but also full of adventure and accomplishment. "I come from strong immigrant stock," Helen says. "My parents were Joseph Vassau, whose French-Canadian family settled in Wisconsin in the mid-1800s, and Theresa Hirsch, whose Jewish family from Germany also came to the United States in the mid-1800s and established a mercantile business in Montana. At some point—I'm not sure when or where this happened—the two families met, and three of the Vassau sons married three of the Hirsch daughters. At the time of his marriage, my father was working as a cattle buyer for a meat-packing company in St. Paul, Minnesota."

Some years earlier, in 1862, the U.S. Congress had passed the Homestead Act, which gave a grant of 64 hectares of public land to settlers who agreed to stay on the land for five years and make improvements to it. Joseph Vassau applied for a homestead and was given one in North Dakota, about 24 kilometers from the Canadian border near Willow City, a town of about 500 people. He and his wife moved there, built a house, planted a large garden, and kept two or three cows, doing enough farming to feed themselves. Joseph continued to work for the packinghouse. "Life was difficult for my parents," Helen says, "and the winters were bitterly cold, but they persevered." Their five children were born on the homestead—four boys and then Helen, the baby of the family.

After Helen finished her eighth grade of school in Willow City, the family moved to a small town in southeastern Montana. At her new school, Helen says, "the science teacher suggested that I might be interested in his courses." She loved them, but the other students were startled because, in those days, science was thought of as not being "suitable" for young girls. Helen became the top student in her class, however, and was sent to the state science contest, which she won, beating out a number of uncomprehending boys.

Deciding that the schools in Montana were not good enough for his bright and inquisitive daughter, her father sent Helen to live with one of her older brothers in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She took all the science courses the secondary school there had to offer and then went to the University of Minnesota, where she majored in science and mathematics. The chemistry professor, however, made things so difficult for Helen and the other women students that she finally quit and transferred to Colorado University.

By then, the 1930s, the Great Depression had begun, and "money was tight." Helen got a teaching certificate, since that was a career that welcomed women, and found a job teaching in a one-room rural schoolhouse in Eastern Colorado. She lived with a farm family and taught 8 to 10 students in all the elementary grades. She taught there for a couple of years, going to school herself during the summers to finish her college degree.

Helen was then offered a job in Green River, Wyoming. "I accepted," she says, "and found to my delight that I would be teaching science to all of the lower grades in the school. Then, at the hotel where I was living, I met Edward Fitzhugh, Jr., who was working for the Union Pacific Railroad, checking the company's land holdings for mineral deposits. The two of us spent many an evening in the drug store attached to the hotel, getting acquainted."

They were married in August of 1942. "Soon afterward," she says, "Ed was called to Washington, D.C., to work for the Bureau of Mines. World War II was well under way, and the U.S. government was looking for people to help them find the minerals they needed for the war effort." Helen got a job there herself almost immediately, teaching science and then chemistry. "With so many men in the military," she says, "women with a knowledge of science were suddenly in demand."

After the war, Helen and Ed lived for a few years in New York State, where their children, Ann and Ned, were born, and then moved to Cleveland, Ohio. There, Ed became chief geologist for Republic Steel Corporation. Through the years, he traveled more than 500,000 miles for the company, looking for minerals in South America, Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East.

"Once our children were old enough that I could be gone part of the time," Helen says, "I started traveling with my husband. She eventually visited every country in South America, as well as China, Japan, Russia, and parts of Europe."

After Ed died in 1989, Helen continued to live in Cleveland until 2001, when she moved to Kendal at Oberlin. The community's health care system will take care of her for the rest of her life, although she seems much too vigorous to be needing it anytime soon.

As she looks back over almost a century of life, Helen is glad she lived when she did. "We had to work hard for what we got," she says, "and we were happy to do so. We didn't expect someone to just give it to us." Helen also has a strong belief in "treating others the way I'd like to be treated myself. I always try to ask myself if what I'm about to do or say will hurt someone else. You know, 'do unto others' is a mighty good way of looking at life—for countries as well as for people. If we could just live that way, we'd all be a lot better for it." — Robert Taylor

Next Profile >>>>