Susan Childs Matheson

Upon graduation from Davis High School, Susan went on to Chatham College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she majored in Psychology and minored in Art, graduating with a B.A. degree in 1961.  During college, she met and married her husband James (Jim) Matheson from Rochester, Minnesota. 

Jim's attending graduate school at Stanford University took them to Palo Alto, California, where they have lived almost continuously ever since.  Susan worked for a while at the Institute for Mathematics in the Social Studies at Stanford, and over the years has worked part-time as a first and second grade teacher and as a manager of a music concert series.  But mostly she has spent her time raising four children, two of whom live near Seattle and two in the San Francisco Bay Area.  They have seven grandchildren. 

At age 55, Susan began a 5-year Master's Degree program at Stanford, earning a Master of Liberal Arts degree in 1999.  She wrote a thesis on Iola Brubeck’s contribution to jazz. 
Iola is the wife of the jazz pianist Dave Brubeck.

Susan does pro bono tutoring of dyslexic children, works with ceramics and weaving, sings with the Berkshire Choral Festival every summer and has been singing in a church choir for more than 30 years.  Jim is still working full-time, now involved with software for decision making with their oldest son.  Together they have traveled to many countries, and have done a few bare-boat charter sailing trips.  They have recently built a vacation house in eastern Idaho, designed by Susan’s brother, a Boston architect who also graduated from Davis.

Susan's three older sisters also graduated from Davis.  All the Childs' children attended Davis while their father, Maurice Childs, was the Vice-Principal.  He retired in 1960 and passed away in 1974.