Teacher, pupil reunite after 59 years

Published 9:00 pm Thursday, March 2, 2006

Adele Swanson said J. Michael McAdams looked just as he did in the first grade. She was his teacher in 1947.

Swanson remembered the little boy at Lynnwood’s Alderwood Elementary School. And McAdams remembered his first teacher in a special way.

When Swanson retired in 1974, her former student gave her a beautiful framed picture of a bird. It adorned a wall in Swanson’s home until she moved to an assisted living facility several years ago.

Jo Caldwell / Sno-King Retirees Association J. Michael McAdams greets his first-grade teacher, Adele Swanson, at a retirement home in Edmonds.

The retired teacher carefully culled her possessions. Her neighbor of 42 years, Lorna Turcott, one of those caring, ultrafriendly types, said she would help the widow find McAdams and return the picture, in case he wanted it back.

Turcott, retired from food services in the Edmonds School District, tried to locate McAdams off and on for years. This year, it became a priority. She asked Gloria Steberl, a former Edmonds teacher, if she would help track down the former student.

Steberl asked around and found a teacher who knew the McAdams family.

Bingo! It was time to reunite the teacher and her former pupil.

It happened at an Edmonds retirement home, Sunrise Senior Living. Swanson, 94, waited at the head of a large table in the dining room wearing a corsage of pink and red roses. She talked about her memories of the first-grader, recalling how he would lie on the floor of the classroom and thumb through a Sears catalog.

McAdams arrived, carrying a bouquet of red and pink roses. He went to his former teacher and gave her a hug.

“I can’t believe it,” Swanson said.

“You look exactly the same,” McAdams replied.

From a spectator’s viewpoint, it was touching.

Turcott seemed relieved. Mission accomplished. McAdams turned the picture over and read the sweet note he had attached to the back.

“Thank you for being part of me still,” the more than 30-year-old note read.

McAdams teaches in Bothell. He graduated from Edmonds High School in 1961, served in the U.S. Coast Guard, then got a degree in fine arts with a minor in education at the University of Washington.

While he was teaching at the private Little School in Bellevue, his mother, Edna McAdams, a secretary with the Edmonds School District, mentioned that Swanson was about to retire.

“With fond memories of first grade and especially Mrs. Swanson, I sent her a piece of art I had done for ‘The Driftwood,’ Edmonds High School’s annual literary publication,” McAdams said. “I included a thank-you to her for years of dedication and my great memories.”

He taught for 22 years in Monroe, did graduate work in environmental science and earned a master’s degree in educational technology. He now manages a computer lab at Crystal Springs Elementary School in Bothell’s Northshore School District.

“At that wonderful school, I am honored to work with principal Richard Ito and an amazing staff of teachers who, like Mrs. Swanson, are creating not just learning opportunities, but wonderful memories for children,” McAdams said.

McAdams lives in Seattle with his wife, artist Lucy Rigg McAdams, also a 1961 graduate of Edmonds High School. She owned Lucy &Me in Edmonds.

Swanson came to Lynnwood from the Midwest after she heard the area needed teachers. She often read “Little House on the Prairie” to her classes.

“I didn’t have a family of my own,” she said, “so I enjoyed the children so much.”

When she reunited with her former student, she said she couldn’t believe he remembered her after so long.

He accepted his picture back with grace, closing a sweet chapter for Swanson.

“You’ve had a great run,” McAdams said. “How many thousands of lives did you touch?”

Columnist Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451 or oharran@heraldnet.com.