Winifred Bishop Fairhall

Fairhall, Winifred Bishop

Winifred Bishop Fairhall, a writer and advocate for public schools and children, died on September 28, 2013, at her home in Ellicott City, Maryland, in the company of her family. She was 90 years old. Her husband Larry and her son Andy predeceased her. She is survived by her sons, Chris, John and Jim, her stepbrother Nate Stroup, and her beloved grandchildren Riva and Alex.

Born in Chicago on December 28, 1922, Win was raised in a book-loving household in Culver, Indiana by her mother, Winifred Lee Bishop, her father, James Bishop, and later her stepmother Mabel Robins Bishop. James Bishop, a Rhodes Scholar, was chairman of the History Department at Culver Military Academy. Win was valedictorian of her class at Culver High School in 1940.

At Oberlin College, she majored in history, studied French and engaged in campus activism on behalf of FDR. On graduating in 1944, she moved to a coldwater walkup flat at 1323 York Avenue in Manhattan, where she was a researcher at Time Magazine until 1947. Time was far away from the cornfields of Indiana, and Win remembered this period as an exciting period of her life in spite of the magazine's patriarchal culture. On a flight to cover a story in Yellowknife, Canada, she met her future husband, a former war correspondent for British newspapers. She recalled appreciating the fact that he didn't try to borrow her notes, as less diligent reporters did.

Win and Larry were married in her family home in Culver on June 15, 1946. They raised their children in Westchester County, New York, except for a memorable sojourn from 1959 to 1961 in Old East Haxted, a half-timbered Tudor house deep in the Kent County countryside of England. Once owned by the Boleyn family, the house was long rumored to have been haunted by the ghost of Anne Boleyn, one of Henry VIII's unlucky wives. But Win's real challenge was raising a transplanted family and managing a 500-year-old house with extensive gardens (which she loved), an orchard and a pond.

Win returned with her family to Westchester where, from 1962 to 2003, she made her home in New Rochelle. She was the director of communications for New Rochelle public schools from 1963 until her retirement in 1988, strongly advocating for the district as it faced serious funding and other challenges during a tumultuous era of civil rights controversy and socioeconomic change. She was quoted in the New York Times (June 1, 1986) as pointing out that the high school was honored in 1984 by the United States Department of Education as one of 114 'distinguished high schools' in the nation, with 72 percent of graduates going on to further education.

Earlier in her career, she helped prepare teacher Jay Sommer's successful candidacy as the National Teacher of the Year for 1981. On her retirement, she was honored by her first boss, former school superintendent David G. Salten.

For over two decades, Win also was a dedicated supporter and leader of the New Rochelle Campership Fund (founded in 1957), a group that provides scholarships for sending needy and disabled children to summer camp. She was for a time the group's chairman. As its frequent public voice, she wrote dozens of press releases over the years. Among her other good works, she tutored a young Italian-American woman who had never learned how to read.

Besides these activities, Win remained in lively touch with current affairs, publishing letters in the Standard Star and other papers. Following the death of her husband Larry in 2000, she said a reluctant farewell to New Rochelle and moved to Heartlands Senior Living Village in historic Ellicott City. During her early years at Heartlands, she continued to write press releases for the Campership Fund. She also took on the role of reporter, interviewing new residents of Heartlands and writing them up in the newsletter, and led a weekly current events program for residents.

In Maryland, Win had the pleasure of being in close contact with her nearby family: her son John and his wife Elaine, and her youngest son Chris and his wife Lisa together with their children Riva and Alex. One of her great pleasures was watching her grandchildren grow into accomplished young adults. She also was happy to get to know her Vietnamese daughter-in-law, her son Jim's wife Kieu Tien.

For her 90th birthday party last December, all of her family visited her, including her son Andy, her New Zealand grandniece Fiona and Fiona's daughter Charlotte. Though Win was the star of the party, she was characteristically self-effacing and read aloud, in a clear voice, a memoir of Vietnam by Kieu Tien.

Up to her last several days of life, in spite of great physical weakness and pain, Win acknowledged members of her family who had gathered around her.

Her life will be honored at a remembrance October 26 at Heartlands. Two days later, her ashes will be interred in a family plot at Beechwoods Cemetery in New Rochelle. Contributions in her name may be made to the Campership Fund at P.O. Box 255, New Rochelle, NY 10804.