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Subject: [CAYolo] Donald WALLACE (1924-2003) (obit.)
Date: 22 Oct 2003 10:00:10 -0600

This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list.

Surnames: WALLACE, SOUTHALL, OXEE, JOHNSON, ECHARD, EMERY
Classification: Obituary

Message Board URL:

http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/JY.2ADE/2875

Message Board Post:

Donald Wallace

Donald Wallace, a Davis Joint Unified School District administrator for 23 years, died Oct. 11, 2003, at his Davis home. He was 78.

He served as principal of West Davis and Fairfield elementary schools. He was also the first principal of West Davis Intermediate School, played a part in hiring Robert Willett, for whom that school is now named, and coordinated the landscaping of both that school and WDE.

Wallace's family said he, like three generations of educators before him, believed in and advocated public education for all.

Born Dec. 11, 1924, in Cranford, N.J., he was the youngest of the six children Charles Wallace and Harriet Southall Wallace and, his family said, part of a lineage tracing back to the Mayflower and the Revolutionary War. His father was his -- and his future wife Jean Oxee's -- junior high school principal; his mother was both an established violinist and the school's truant officer.

In high school he was an honor student who participated in the drama and music programs. After graduation, he studied civil engineering at the Newark School of Engineering before enlisting in the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1943. He served in the 19th Weather Squadron in Africa during World War II.

After the war, he enrolled in Lehigh University's civil engineering program before changing majors. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in education with minors in mathematics and physical science. In 1951 he received a master's degree in secondary school administration from the Teacher's College at Columbia University in New York.

His professional career started as a high school math teacher in Tenafly, N.J., in 1949. He later became director of adult education and vice principal of the high school and received his first principalship there, in 1957, at Malcolm S. Mackay Elementary School.

In 1960 he chose to move his wife and three children to sunny California -- picking, to his wife's dismay, the Mojave desert town of Yermo. During his tenure as a principal there, he worked to develop and maintain standards for mathematics in the primary grades.

A year later, his family said, he redeemed himself by moving them to Terra Linda in Marin County, where they lived from 1961 to 1966. He was principal of Sleepy Hollow and Hidden Valley Schools in San Anselmo.

In 1966 his friend and former colleague Richard Mackey, a one-time principal at North Davis Elementary School, advised him of an opportunity for a principalship in Davis.

Wallace's professional and community service included serving as president of the Marin County Elementary School Administrators, the Yolo County chapter of California Elementary School Administrators Association, the Northvale Board of Education, the Bergen County Teachers Federal Credit Union and the Yolo County division of the California Retired Teachers Association.

He was also a charter member Kiwanis of Tenafly and of the Davis Earlybird Lions Club, for which he served as president, chairman of the Davis Central Curriculum Council and a member of numerous district and state mathematics committees.

He was as a consummate storyteller, willing to share a story or conversation with anyone. He could often be found tinkering on a project in his garage or hanging out at Hibbert Lumber, enjoying his greatest passion: carpentry. He worked as a craftsman and handyman throughout the community, and his bird houses and miniature homes were, his family said, masterpieces to be appreciated.

Though he could not read music, he loved to sing. He sang bass with the Davis Highwheelers Chorus, joining the barbershop singers at Steve's Pizza, the old Voyager Inn and other establishments, drinking beer and serenading the customers.

He is survived by his wife Jean Oxee Wallace of Davis, his children Robert Bruce Wallace and his wife Anna Johnson of Davis, Kim Echard of Prescott Valley, Ariz., Gail Wallace of West Sacramento, Brian Charles Wallace and his wife Anne of Albuquerque, N.M., and Katherine Emery and her husband Tim of Phoenix, Ariz. He is also survived by grandchildren Ian, Colin, Julian and Sarah Wallace, Carly Echard and Ethan Emery.

At the request of the deceased, a public memorial service will not be held.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks donations be made to: Yolo Hospice, 132 E St., Davis CA 95616, or to the scholarship fund of the California Retired Teachers Association's Yolo County chapter.

(Obituary from the "The Davis Enterprise," Sunday, October 19, 2003, (Yolo County, California). Submitted with the permission of the "The Davis Enterprise," 315 G Street, Davis, CA 95616, <http://www.davisenterprise.com/>;. Please note: I am not related to the family listed above, and I do not have any further information on this family.)

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