Fern Morrow Wood

is honored with a Brick from Sherry Ruddell, Toni Treaster, and Mike Wood.

Our mother, Fern Morrow Wood, has given us many gifts over the years. But the most important has been her enthusiasm for life. As children, we knew there was always an adventure, party, project, or challenge around the corner, because Mom was quick to embrace a new idea. Often, she was the source of the new idea!

Fern Morrow Wood was born in southeast Kansas in 1922. Her father operated a general store that was something of a community gathering spot. As a little girl, Mom was often in the store, listening to tall tales and watching her father and friends pull pranks on each other. That's probably where she developed her ear for a good story.

When only 17 years old, she began her career in the classroom. Her first jobs were in one-room rural schools where her duties ranged from teaching arithmetic to stroking the potbelly stove to arranging for box suppers. While finding an auctioneer for one of those box suppers, she met Leonard Wood, a local farmer who would become her husband in 1942.

Mom was born to teach. She left the one-room school in the 1960s to teach at Cherryvale Elementary School. She believed learning should be fun, so her classroom was an interesting place. Her students could count on a Japanese tea party, a Hawaiian luau, and chance to paint holiday scenes on the windows. She was named Kansas Master teacher in 1973.

Summers were spent on 4-H projects and our family's annual vacation, for which Mom saved all year. We traveled in August in un-airconditioned cars, and we didn't stay in the best places. But our adventures were grand, and we traveled to all corners of the country.

Mom retired from teaching in 1987 and found a new path as a writer, historian, and public speaker. She captured her father's general store in her book Pop and Bud. She later wrote The Benders: Keepers of the Devil's Inn, a book about Cherryvale's famous mass murdering family from the 19th century. Digging into the area's past has been a passion for Mom, and she is often consulted when it comes to local history.

She has been a local leader in Cherryvale's main Street effort, with the Cheryvale Museum, and the United Methodist Church. She has been a state and national leader in other organizations, including American Association of University Women, Delta Kappa Gamma, and Kansas Authors Club. Recently she was named Cherryvale Middle School's Volunteer of the Year, 1997.

But, her most important work has been as wife, mother, and grandmother. She supported the family while Dad went back to school in his 40's to earn an art degree. And she has been on hand to help care for our families when each of the six grandchildren were born. Her grandkids enjoy her homemade quilts, her Sunday dinners, her Christmas goody boxes, and her passion for a good story.

We are excited to include our mother in the Plaza of Heroines.

Submitted by Mike Wood, Sherry Ruddell and Toni Treaster