Ehrick Wheeler

The following essay was written by Ehrick's wife Sylvia for the 50th Anniversary publication in 2018.

EHRICK SPENCER WHEELER was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1929. His father was from an old Portland family—his grandfather had come west to start a business on First Street, at one time called Woodbury and Wheeler. Ehrick lived on NW Thurman St. with his family. He had a brother and a sister, now also deceased. From Thurman he could walk to the Catlin Gabel Lower School on Culpepper Terrace. He went eight years to Catlin, then on to Lincoln High School, then to Oregon State University for two years. He had planned to be an engineer but found it required drawing, so he transferred to Reed College for his junior and senior years.

I met Ehrick at Reed in my freshman year. He was the head of Freshman orientation. We were engaged by Thanksgiving. When Ehrick graduated we were married, on June 10, 1954. Our four children were born over the next ten years. Ehrick started teaching at Couch School in the Fall of 1954. I worked at Reed to get us through the summer because he had to take a series of education classes.

Ehrick taught 4th grade at Couch for several years, and later taught 8th grade at Bridlemile School. After that he was stationed at Franklin High School, where he taught literature, especially Shakespeare. He often read Shakespeare aloud and found students were able to understand so much when he read to them.

MLC was begun with Emil Abramovic. Abe Bialostosky and Ehrick joined him, already knowing Emil. Ehrick loved the freedom and joy of being part of MLC’s groundbreaking teaching approach. John Angell, who also came to MLC [in its second year], knew someone who owned land in the San Juans. The Island program grew out of that. We took Title One children to Shaw Island for about two weeks and then took them back to Portland and brought new students.

MLC was really one of the first truly innovative schools in the U.S. Ehrick enjoyed the many adventures he was able to enjoy with children of all ages. He loved teaching, bringing out his old magic tricks to entertain shy children or for any other reason. After Ehrick retired from MLC, he enjoyed guiding at the Portland Arboretum. We both spent many hours working there.

He was a brilliant man, with a grand sense of humor, and a joy to know and argue with, and I still miss him.

Written by Sylvia Jan Wheeler

The first page of Sylvia's handwritten manuscript