Teacher tempered strictness with smile

4/1/2005

Frances E. Endsley, 92, a teacher for 19 years at Glendale Elementary School who invited parents to learn along with their children, died of cancer Monday in the Reedsburg, Wis., home of her daughter Margaret.

She lived the last two years in Reedsburg. Before that, she lived in Sarasota, Fla. Home for most of her life was on Wildwood Road in South Toledo.

Mrs. Endsley was a teacher for more than a quarter century, much of that at Glendale. She retired in 1973, seven years after the last three dozen acres of Adams Township were annexed to Toledo and the Adams Local Schools - of which Glendale was part - ceased to exist.

She substitute-taught at Glendale and was even principal for a time, her daughter said. Mrs. Endsley taught second grade and then sixth, seventh, and eighth grades.

"She loved the kids and the challenge of teaching," her daughter said. "She enjoyed parents, which is unusual in this day and age sometimes."

Students remembered her years later. Some had her twice -once in second grade and then near the end of their time at Glendale, her daughter said.

"She was pretty strict, but she was strict with a smile," her daughter said. "And kids respected the strictness and respected her."

Mrs. Endsley grew up in South Toledo and was a graduate of Libbey High School. She received her two-year teaching certificate from Bowling Green State University. After marriage and children, she did not pursue teaching until after World War II. She returned to BGSU and received a bachelor of science degree in education.

Sewing, cooking, and reading were favorite pastimes. Even in her 90s, she started her days with a cup of coffee and a crossword puzzle to get her brain in gear, her daughter said.

She liked to travel and took a 42-day Pacific cruise, with stops in Hawaii, Australia, and New Zealand.

She and her husband, Doyle, married in September, 1933. He died in September, 1985.

She and her husband moved to Florida in 1980 and lived in a condominium at first. "It was all adults, and she didn't like that," her daughter said. "She had to be in a real neighborhood, where there were children."

Surviving are her daughters, Jacquelyn Pelliccia and Margaret "Migs" Percy; sister, Margaret "Peg" Sawyer; six grandchildren, and 13 great-grandchildren.

Services will be at 10:30 a.m. today in the Bersticker-Scott Mortuary. The family suggests tributes to the American Cancer Society or Home Health United Hospice, Reedsburg, Wis.