Herman Warsh
1924-2006
June 1, 2006
by Maryanne Mott
The first time I saw Herman, he was making a presentation
to the trustees of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation about
home school counselors. He absolutely sparkled. Smart, energetic,
and passionate, he truly stood out. Little did we know what
lay ahead for the two of us.
Let me first tell you about the remarkable years that preceded
that day in 1973. The third child of immigrant parents, Herman
E. Warsh was born in Calgary, Canada in March 1924. By late
1925, the entire family moved to Los Angeles where, as intellectuals
with few skills and no trade, they eked out a living. His
father Sam Warshowsky worked as a greengrocer while his mother
Rebecca Wiestinietski worked as a Fuller Brush saleswoman
and sold subscriptions to the Los Angeles Examiner - a paper
she and Sam would not have in the house.
As a child, Herman planted corn beneath the clothesline.
As an adult, he grew more than 150 varieties of fuchsia! At
age 10 - already curious, restless, and resourceful - he hopped
on a train and traveled with hobos from L.A. to San Francisco
to visit his sister Rose, entirely oblivious to any alarm
he caused his family. Ultimately, his wanderlust took us to
such distant places as New Zealand, Chile, Kenya, Thailand,
South Africa, and Japan. Persia, Egypt, and Turkey remained
serious goals.
Herman’s education began conventionally. However, a
combination of boredom and poverty led Herman to leave Roosevelt
High School at 14. He attended the alternative Ford High for
the last two required years and landed his very first job
at Sentous Street Book Center repairing school textbooks.
As a truant, he spent most of his time at the library or practicing
his flute.
On July 29, 1941, he married his longtime sweetheart, Lorraine
Rack. For the next year, he stocked for Thrifty Drugs until,
compelled by what he believed to be a “just war,”
he enlisted in the U.S. Navy in mid 1942. According to family
lore, this normally honest man lied about his age, cheated
on the eye tests, and fudged his weight to get into the military.
He served in the South Pacific and returned home in 1945 a
Yeoman, First Class. The rest of his life he was an ardent
anti-war activist.
Upon his return, he held a wide variety of jobs to help support
an expanded household consisting of his working wife, their
two young children Cathy and Michael, and his parents, even
as he was recovering from shrapnel injury to his eyes. Herman
drove taxis, delivered live chickens, bartended, packaged
See’s Candies, wrapped gifts, delivered parcels for
the USPO, bagged at Daylight Supermarket, and did manual labor
for a trailer manufacturer.
Thanks to the GI Bill, some crucial mentoring, sustained
support from his family, and his own prodigious work ethic,
in 1949 Herman embarked on what was to become an educational
journey he had never imagined. In three short years, he went
from high school dropout to a master’s degree, earning
almost perfect grades while holding a fulltime job. Two decades
later, he completed the journey, earning his doctorate in
education at Wayne State University.
It was during this journey that a colleague suggested he
might enjoy teaching and steered him into the El Segundo school
system. From 1952 to 1965, he served as the reading specialist
for the district and taught social studies and english at
the junior high school and history and civics at the high
school. Herman was the one to whom school administrators sent
all the “difficult” kids. He loved them. What
others saw as problems, he saw as needs and opportunities.
In his youth, Herman had been active in the American Students’
Union. As a teacher, he was soon involved in unionizing activities,
including the formation of the California Teachers Union.
He also headed the California Reading Association and later
worked for a year developing a reading series for SRA, a private
textbook publisher.
In the mid 1960s, Herman spent a year in charge of literacy
education programs for Hawai‘i on the big island. He
also taught at the University of Hawaii and the University
of Michigan. As a consultant to the International Reading
Association, he taught literacy to the U.S. troops in Germany,
to First Nations’ peoples in Alaska, and to incarcerated
men in the California penal system. Following the awarding
of his doctorate in 1969, he was recruited to be director
of educational programs for the Mott Program lodged in the
Flint Public School system. He remained in Michigan until
fall 1974 when he became head of the department of elementary
education at the University of New Mexico.
In 1977, he moved to Santa Barbara and we were married in
1980. Together we have been deeply involved in our two family
foundations - C.S. Fund and Warsh Mott Legacy, part of the
Flint, Michigan-based Ruth Mott Foundation - and in related
nonprofit work. Herman gave generously of his time and provided
vital leadership as boardmember of High Country News, Friends
of the Earth, the Fund for Santa Barbara, and Pacifica Graduate
Institute; he also played an instrumental role in the Silkwood
Campaign. Most recently, we began to collect art by African-Americans
to ensure its public exhibition, recognition, and enjoyment.
A voracious reader from an early age, Herman was an integrative
thinker. His interests ranged from history and politics, to
food and travel, to the sports pages (go Dodgers!) and comicstrips.
He was a compulsive newspaper clipper. He loved music of many
genres, especially the opera. As a child, he participated
in the Katz on Keys music program and played flute in the
L.A. Junior Symphony. In his seventies, he took piano lessons
in Montana from a brilliant nonagenarian. An avid hiker, Herman
trekked in Nepal, Peru, Norway, England, and Montana. During
the L.A. years, he could be found catching the waves on his
long, heavy surfboard. At age 50, on his own in Albuquerque,
he learned to cook and soon made fine cuisine one of his most
appreciated talents. Irrepressibly upbeat, he had a song for
every occasion and was especially devoted to his canine companions,
Bucky and Sassy. Herman always took great interest in young
people and derived special joy from our ever-expanding family.
Raised by ethical anarchists, Herman acquired strong values
and lived an examined life. A secular man for whom religion
failed to satisfy a probing mind and heart, Herman nevertheless
discerned for himself an exceptionally clear and consistent
set of values by which he directed his life. A staunch civil
libertarian, Herman worked ceaselessly for the freedoms, rights,
and responsibilities for which he fought in World War II.
More than anything, he yearned to be useful to others and
in some modest measure pass on the help he’d been given
along his way. For Herman - a man of great intellect, gentle
heart, and unstinting kindness - the sun was shining every
day and he lived as though he were its emissary. He cared
deeply and gave fully. When I asked him what he would choose
were he to have an epitaph, with characteristic modesty he
replied, “He tried.”
To learn more about the work Herman Warsh was involved
in please visit the website for the Warsh/Mott
Legacy and CS Fund.
