Dr. Janet F. Anderson

Anderson, Dr. Janet F.

Dr. Janet F. Anderson, longtime Tappan resident, Nyack educator, literacy volunteer and Rockland County Senior Citizen Coordinator, passed away on May 25 in Charlottesville, Virginia; she was 96 years old. Dr. Anderson was born in Tappan, NY, on February 23, 1919 to Robert and Elizabeth Fisher. She attended Tappan Grammar School and Haverstraw High School, graduating with honors in 1936. Unable to attend college during the Depression, she went to work for Texaco at the Chrysler Building in New York City. In 1940, she met her future husband, Charles R. Anderson at Camp-of-the Woods, a Christian camp in the Adirondacks. They were married in the Tappan Reformed Church on September 7, 1942.

The following year, she traveled by train cross-country with newborn twins to join Lieutenant Anderson in San Francisco where he served as Assistant Port Director. After the war, she lived with her husband and three sons in Brooklyn, eventually returning to Tappan with her family in 1952. Eager to resume her education, she attended college at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn where her husband was Associate Dean of Engineering. She often awoke at 4 a.m. to catch the bus into New York for her early classes, returning to Tappan late in the day to resume her waiting domestic responsibilities. After obtaining a degree in Food Sciences with high honors from Pratt in 1960, Dr. Anderson planned to work as a dietitian, but switching career paths, she went on to earn her Masters in Teaching from Teachers College at Columbia University. She was hired by the Nyack Public School System in 1962, joining the staff at Hilltop Junior High School where she taught for 25 years. She was a creative and inspiring individual who enjoyed the challenge of teaching science to energetic 7th and 8th graders. Near the close of her formal teaching career, Dr. Anderson became district Bilingual Director, working closely with Haitian students and their families in Nyack.

Throughout her life, Dr. Anderson enjoyed growing intellectually. She helped to develop and teach the innovative ISCS curriculum (an individualized approach to science, initiating hands-on inquiry and discovery) in the 1960's, and earned her Ed.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from SUNY Albany in 1987. Retiring from teaching in Nyack in 1988, but not one to really "retire," Dr. Anderson continued working in new career directions, first as Rockland County Coordinator for Literacy Volunteers for many years, and later as Volunteer Coordinator for CHORE at the Office of the Aging in Rockland County, where she worked for several more years until she truly retired to Charlottesville, VA, where she lived for the last six years of her life.

No matter where she was or whose company she was in, Dr. Anderson was always ready to share her wisdom, curiosity, love of reading, love of learning, positive outlook, and keen intellect with family, friends, former students--in short with everyone she met.

Dr. Anderson was predeceased by her parents, husband, brother Robert Fisher and sister Elizabeth Monsees. She leaves behind three sons, Charles (Lucy) Anderson, Robert (Teresa) Anderson, and Thomas (Nancy) Anderson, seven grandchildren, four great-grandchildren, loving nieces and a nephew.

Services will take place August 15 in the Tappan Reformed Church, where she was a member and supporter for over 90 years. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Literacy Solutions NY, Inc., 220 N. Main St., New City, NY 10956.