By Craig Simpson
P.E.A.C.E. and C.E.A.S.E. member Alice C. Wadden died in Watertown, Massachusetts, at the age of 87 years in April of this year. Both Karen, our children’s book reviewer, and Fran, one of our coordinators for P.E.A.C.E., called and wrote to me of Alice’s death. We hadn’t really seen Alice since before COVID but Alice had been a mainstay years ago of both the CEASE and PEACE Massachusetts network. My only thought was “Oh Alice! We hadn’t seen you for a while!”
I believe that Alice was part of CEASE from the time I arrived in Boston in 1989. She always made her presence known. She went to some national NAEYC conferences, especially in the South, where she followed up on her heroines and heroes from the civil rights movement. She regularly showed up at co-founder Peggy Schirmer’s house for meetings and mailings. Lucy remembers her as inspired by the internet and determined to get a website going for CEASE. She already knew more than most of us at the time. And she came to most retreats when they were in the East. As Peggy retired from her years of creating the Newsletter, Alice joined the effort to keep it going during the years before we went to an online newsletter.
She was all Boston Irish Catholic with no apologies. She was loud, proud and enthusiastic and engaging. She had been an elementary school teacher with Haitian immigrants and always loved her students. She continuously talked about her students and their families. She went to both Haiti and the Caribbean on many occasions . I believe she was involved in our Wampanoag curriculum project in the early 90s which worked collectively during the Columbus Quincentennial to develop an alternative to the praising of Columbus and the erasure of Indigenous history. She enthusiastically embraced CEASE, which later became PEACE, and was an advocate for our work. She always talked about her relatives and nephews and nieces in glowing terms. Alice was always praising people she worked with.
I attended the memorial Mass for Alice in May and wasn’t surprised to see her longtime priest facilitating the ceremony: Rev. Sharon Dickinson, a woman and a Roman Catholic priest, not yet recognized. Of course Alice would have a woman priest! Why did I not think of that? Alice had always been a part of activism in changing the institution of the Church. She wanted the Church she loved to live up to its ideals. She loved it as much as she loved her students.
I hope we will always remember Alice Wadden, our Irish Catholic early educator who was out to set the world right.
In lieu of flowers, contributions in Alice’s memory may be made to P.E.A.C.E Inc., 30414 Oak St., Princess Anne, MD 21853 or on our donation page.
