Partners

In a bustling copper-mining town high up on Michigan's northern "thumb," the year 1891 was a bad one for school-teaching. Three principals in a row were harried out of town by the unruly students. The clerk of Adams township asked for somebody who could use his two hands as well as the three Rs. He got a stocky, lyo-lb. college boxer named Frederick Albert Jeffers.

At the first sign of rebellion when school opened the following September, Fred Jeffers seized the ringleader by the neck, bounced him up & down, and left him sprawling on the floor. After that school was quiet.

Last week Fred Jeffers, now grey, bespectacled and 76, was still keeping order in Adams township--as superintendent of schools. The principal of the high school in copper-mining Painesdale (pop. 1,270) is his wife, Cora Doolittle, 74. They have been married and fellow teachers for 51 years.

No Time for Theory. Cora and Fred Jeffers live in a tidy frame house across the street from the Painesdale high school. Cora is at her desk every morning at 7. (She has never missed a day.) She spends an hour cleaning up the mail. From 8 to 8:30 she advises students who have special problems. At 8:30 she conducts a singing class. At 9 she puts 60 to 90 boys & girls through a gym routine that often includes intricate steps from her rich repertory of folk dances. Then she teaches geometry, algebra, English, physics, chemistry and a variety of foreign languages until 3:30, when it is time to go home to clean house and start Fred's supper. Fred spends his days on administrative chores, touring the schools, filling in as a teacher whenever necessary, and working on his sideline job as president of the township bank.

How to Keep Up. The Jeffers like their students to march to classes, be neat, honest, polite, and able to take orders. "I don't want it understood that I've rejected the progressive philosophy," says Fred. "Much of it is sound, but I think there has been weakness in its application." When the school got a new swimming pool in 1934 Cora was 63 but she promptly learned how to swim, and took over the girls' swimming classes. Last week she was teaching some beginners the side stroke. Two years ago, Cora added a course in aeronautics, taught it herself.

The teachers under them are expected to keep up, too; Fred often gives them tests on current events. Last week, in evenings at home Cora read H. V. Kalten-born's / Broadcast the Crisis between snatches of Plato's Republic. Fred shoveled a foot of snow off the sidewalk and read a book about Russia.

At the annual teachers' ball, Cora dances mostly with her husband, who is one of the sweetest waltzers in the copper country, and also tries jitterbiigging. They are patently in love with each other--and with their profession. Said Fred Jeffers last week: "It's a fine life."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.