Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Clarita Liddle
She arrived in Washington from Doris, Calif., in a covered wagon inside of which her mother was dying. In her first job as a teacher, she commuted by horse to a one-room schoolhouse in Garden Valley, Idaho.
She came to Colfax in 1930, and last Wednesday, Nov. 12, Clarita Liddle marked her 106th birthday.
Residing at Whitman County Health and Rehabilitation for the past four weeks, Clarita had lived in a duplex next to her son Ron and daughter-in-law Judy since 2002.
Born in Artesia, New Mexico, in 1908, Liddle originally moved to Colfax to live with a brother and sister-in-law. She soon resumed teaching, first at a one-room building in Elberton and Beauridille (near Pullman).
“No, Elberton was two rooms,” said Liddle.
Later she taught at the new elementary school in Colfax in the mid-1950s through the ‘60s.
“We had 30 kids in class every year at that time,” Liddle said.
Leonard Jennings, the principal and eventual namesake of the building, assigned her.
“I taught everything,” she said. “Down here Mr. Jennings had me teach first grade, then fourth grade.”
After arriving in Winthrop, Wash., as a six-year-old in the covered wagon, Liddle, her father and two older brothers settled there until Clarita, due to family need, was sent to Prosser. She lived with family friends, worked for room and board and completed high school.
On the Prosser farm, Liddle’s jobs included laundry and some cooking – making drop biscuits particularly. Laundry required soaking clothes in boiled water with soap, washing them on a washboard, rinsing them and hanging them on a clothesline.
“They freeze-dry in the wintertime,” Liddle said.
She earned her teaching certification at Cheney Normal School – which became Eastern Washington University.
She met her late husband William Harold Liddle in Colfax.
“I don’t know where else I would’ve met him other than at church,” she said.
Looking back, her favorite subject to teach was reading.
“I felt it was the most necessary,” she said.
At home, Liddle’s garden favorite was tomatoes.
“I’m figuring out things about myself I didn’t know,” she said.
Who’s been her favorite president?
“I can’t remember them.”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt?
“Yeah, I remember him.”
John F. Kennedy?
“Yeah. Eisenhower was a war general before.”
Ronald Reagan?
“Oh yeah. He was a Republican,” she said with approval.
Now she marks 106 years old.
“God is with us from the day we’re born until the day we die,” Liddle said. “Every good thing we have comes from God. It was Jesus Christ who saved us. How wonderful of God to let him do it.”
Garth Meyer is a former Whitman County Gazette reporter.
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