WORDS AND
COLORS
Retired Spencer teacher finds joy in writing children’s books
By Dean Lesar
As Frieda Oelrich goes about her retired days, common occurrences catch her mind’s eye and get her to thinking.
Maybe that would make a good story, she muses. Perhaps that could be the subject of her next book.
With four children’s books already published, three more saved in her word processor and yet another pre-written in her mind, the former Spencer Elementary School teacher is combining two things she most cherishes into an enjoyable pastime. She’s always loved to write, she says, and she knows how much the little ones treasure a colorful book, so why not combine those passions for the benefit of all?
Frieda recently published her fourth book, called “The Bouquet of Many Colors,” and a fifth is already set and awaiting the touch of her illustrator. And there are more to come, she said, as the ideas flow faster than the process of getting a thought into a printed form.
“The Bouquet of Many Colors” is the story of flowers in a garden, each of whom think they are the prettiest and brightest. The red one is the color of a fire truck, it argues, but the blue one says it is the hue of water.
As a mother and her children pass through the garden, they decide to pick a bouquet. When the children see it in the house, they remark how gorgeous the bouquet is with so many vibrant colors. The flowers realize then that none of them needs be the prettiest.
“And never again did the flowers argue about who was the most beautiful,” Frieda writes. “They now know that it takes all colors to make a colorful bouquet.”
Written at an approximate thirdgrade reading level, the book not only helps children discern colors, but adds a social lesson on teamwork and recognizing the importance of each individual in a group. Frieda says each of her books has value in teaching about words or colors, but carries a more meaningful lesson for readers to discover.
Frieda is a nearly life-long resident of Spencer. Born in Michigan, she moved to the area with her brother when she was 3, after her mother passed and they were taken in by their aunt and uncle. She was raised near Spencer and attended school there.
After her own education, Frieda went to work for the Spencer School District in 1957. She was the lone secretary for the school for several years, and in that role was often called upon to supervise a class when a teacher was absent. One year, the kindergarten teacher had to miss considerable time, and she became the long-term substitute.
“I subbed in her room a lot and I just loved it,” Frieda said. “That’s kind of what made me decide that’s what I wanted to do.”
Frieda then began a 12-1/2-year effort to earn her own teaching degree, taking night classes as she continued to work for the school district. In December 1977, a Spencer first-grade teacher passed away, and she was hired for the job. She taught the next 10 years in first grade, then moved to kindergarten for 17 years. She retired in 2004 after 57 years with the school district, but still continued to substitute teach, volunteer as a tutor, and work with children in the English as a Second Language (ESL) program.
When she taught, Frieda said reading
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A NICE RETIREMENT GIG - Retired Spencer Elementary School teacher Frieda Oelrich has written and self-published four books so far, with a fifth in production and more in her mind. Author
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time was an important and favorite part of her students’ days. She read them all the classics, she said.
“Every time I’d read one, I’d say to the kids, ‘This is one of my favorite books,’” she said. “They seemed to like every one I liked.”
Frieda took reading time a step further, and involved children in telling their own stories.
“When I was teaching, I used to love to write,” she said. “I wrote books for the kids and let them illustrate. I always had them writing stories and illustrating and I just enjoyed writing with them.” She would also take classic children’s books and work with the students to adopt them into their own. She once changed “Little Red Riding Hood” to “Little Red Triceratops” and let the kids create their own dinosaur characters to create a new tale. “They actually were telling me what to say,” she recalls. “I would write it down as they dictated it to me.”
Frieda would then make copies of the book created in class.
“They all got to take a copy home,” she said. “Those were always their favorite books.”
After her retirement, Frieda found the ideas were still in her mind, even though she did not have a class with which to share them.
That led to the eventual creation of her first book, “Renee Raindrop”, in 2015. It’s the story of a raindrop that is frightened as she falls to earth for the first time, leaving her mother. Her mother assures her, though, that she will return, as part of the water cycle. It’s a story of science, as well as a lesson of why every individual raindrop among millions is important.
Frieda had the idea for “Renee Raindrop” for some time, but did not get it published because she did not want to take on the illustration work. She is artistic, she said (one of her old yearbooks describes her as “This little lass is the artist of her class”), but thought the work of an entire book would be too much. Frieda’s solution came through her involvement in a Delta Kappa Gamma group to which she belongs that ran an annual literary contest in area schools. The illustrations in one of the entries grabbed her attention. The young writer was Brooke Webb, then a seventhgrader from Thorp. Frieda was so impressed with her drawings, she contacted Brooke’s family and asked if she would be interested in illustrating “Renee Raindrop.” She was, and thus began a collaboration that is continuing with Frieda’s upcoming fifth book. Brooke recently completed her first year of technical school, and used watercolor for the illustrations in “The Bouquet of Many Colors.”
“Renee Raindrop” and her second book, “The Cow Who Couldn’t Say Moo” in 2017, were self-published through Author House. She switched publishers for her third book — “Mr. Mac-Groo’s Zoo” — as she sought to gain more control over selling prices, etc. That part of the process was not as enjoyable as the creation, Frieda says, as self-publishing is expensive, and without an organized marketing effort, sales are mostly local.
“I get very little royalty from them,” she said. “I’m losing a lot of money on every book, but it’s a lot of fun.”
Frieda’s next book will be a sequel to Mr. MacGroo’s Zoo and will be titled “Mr. MacGroo Has the Flu.”
“That would have been a good one if it had come out during this pandemic,” she said.
She has two other books already written, one about a rhyming cat that focuses on adjectives, and another about an emu that talks too much. Still another idea popped into Frieda’s head recently as she was watching TV and saw a commercial for a furniture store.
Frieda has a black cat of her own that likes to hop from the sofa to the chair and elsewhere, and the commercial made her think how much the cat would enjoy living in a store with so many options on where to sit.
“I said to her, ‘Boy, you would like to be in there,’” Frieda said. “Hey, that would make a good story.” Frieda knows how well books and children go together, both from her teaching days and from her childhood. She remembers one called “The Day it Rained Cats and Dogs,” as a childhood favorite, although books were not plentiful then. “When I was real little, we didn’t have many books in our house,” she said. She also writes poetry now, in part inspired by her father’s words. As he remained in Michigan while she was living with her aunt and uncle in Spencer, she remembers his rhyming words in correspondence. “Every letter we’d get there was a poem in it,” she said.
Part of Frieda’s reward for writing her books is the joy she knows children get from them. Current teachers in the Spencer School District make her books part of their curriculum.
“They said the kids just love them,” she said.
She’s also had orders for her books from former students, and just the other day, a grandmother stopped by Frieda’s house to have her sign copies for her grandson. It’s that feedback, and the chance to match children with wholesome books, that keeps her writing with no plans to stop anytime soon.
“I just enjoy doing it,” Frieda said.
Frieda’s first two books are available on Amazon.com. Otherwise, she can be reached at foelrich80@gmail.com or 715659-4683.
