Norma Fifer

February 13, 1923 - December 25, 2011

Norma Crow Fifer, a beloved English teacher at Crystal Springs-Upland School, died on Christmas Day, 2011,in Palo Alto. She was 88 years old and had suffered for many years from Alzheimer’s disease.

Mrs. Fifer was born in Appleton, Wisconsin, and attended Lawrence College, where her parents were faculty members. After graduate school at the University of Illinois, she too taught at Lawrence, where she met and married her husband, Charles N. Fifer. In 1954, the couple moved to Stanford, where Charles taught in the English Department and Norma joined the faculty of what was then Crystal Springs School for Girls, where she taught for more than forty years.

Throughout her life Norma loved the written word. She was not only an inspiring teacher of literature, but was herself a poet and writer. Her textbooks, Vocabulary from Classical Roots (with Nancy Flowers) and Poetry in Six Dimension (with Carol Clark) continue to be used in schools across the United States. She was also a superb needlewoman, who made her own suits and coats, and a gifted visual artist. Her rare combination of warmth and civility won her a host of friends and admirers both young and old.

She is survived by her husband, Professor Emeritus Charles N. Fifer, her niece Meg Rottman and nephew Jim Rottman.  Memorial gifts in her honor may be made to Crystal Springs-Uplands School.