Remembering... Jean Spader 1923 - 2007
Jean Fraser Spader, who died peacefully on October 28, 2007, surrounded by family and friends, had been a teacher at The Pike School, where she spent sixteen years as Head of the Pre-primary Program. She attended Friends Academy, Tabor Academy, and was graduated from Wells College in 1946 as a music major. As a young woman she worked for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, where she met her husband, Stoddard Greenwood Spader (Todd). They moved to the Brooks School in North Andover, where Todd taught in the English department and established the summer program. After having three children, Libby ’68, Annie ’69, and James ’74, all of whom attended Pike, Jean and Todd retired to Marion, Massachusetts, in 1981, where she was an active volunteer at the New Bedford Whaling Museum and Tobey Hospital in Wareham. Jean is remembered at Pike for her laughter, for her “gift of hilarity,” as her former colleague Diane (Kent) Paterson put it, for “laughing out loud and outrageously, uncontrollably and sometimes unto weeping.” Her legacy is a cohort of former Pike students for whom James Marshall’s George and Martha stories still bear special meaning, who warmly recall cherished moments on her lap, privileged “spankings” on their birthdays, and magical occasions on a daily basis. She is remembered for her annual, operatic productions of “Little Red Riding Hood,” for which she wrote music and lyrics and created “major” roles, for every child. Former students and colleagues still remember the chipped, white-painted, upright piano on which she accompanied the singing and from which she directed the players. All recall that the gusto with which she addressed that instrument mirrored the verve with which she engaged all of life. Jean is remembered with deep fondness by everyone at Pike whose life she touched–colleagues, students, and the parents of those students–and all agree that they have been changed for the better by knowing her. Alumni can read and leave recollections about Jean Spader by visiting the Pike Alumni Website at www.alumni.pikeschool.org.
Spring 2008
The Quill
19