LANSDOWNE – ALDAN HIGH SCHOOL
GOLDEN FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY REUNION 2006

Class of 1956
"Lords & Ladies"

www.lansdownealdan.com
Lansdowne, PA

 Sonia Condax Schaeffer

When I was a senior I won a scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania where I studied fine arts. Wanting a more practical education, I transferred to Drexel where I studied interior and fashion design. I met my husband, who was studying engineering, there. 

Erik and I got married a week after my graduation. Soon I was pregnant with our first son Chris. Despite some very nice job offers, nobody was hiring a pregnant woman in those days. My husband Erik went into the job/study program, but living and raising a child in the city was not very good. We moved to our first house in a lovely development near Blackwood, N.J. Soon I was teaching art in a large regional high school. Chris was in school, but without day care centers, I was having trouble finding sitters for our new son Peter. So, I taught adult education evening classes in art, dressmaking and assorted crafts instead. It was much more fun teaching adults than the sometimes unruly high school students, so I stayed in adult ed, despite many tempting offers to teach high school.

While I lived in NJ, we turned our garage into a classroom, where I taught Saturday classes in creative thinking for kids ages 7-10. Using things like cans or egg cartons, they had to come up with new objects or "works of art." A reporter heard of it, and soon my class and I were pictured in color on the front page of the “Family” section of The Bulletin, along with an article explaining how important it is to think creatively. Soon, so many parents wanted their kids in my school that I had to hire an extra teacher and look for a larger place.

All this time, my husband had been working in Philadelphia, just 25 minutes away. But a new job in West Chester meant moving. We now had a daughter Suzy, and I taught evening school again. In 1975, quilting was hot, so I got into that...teaching, making, selling, etc. I still am involved. We built a country home on four acres down the road from a large lake west of Downingtown where I live today with my former Marine son Peter. My eldest son Chris lives in Nevada and my daughter Suzy lives in Detroit with her husband Mark. I am still waiting to be a grandmother.