Willis Cornell Finck

Below is a short autobiography written by Will for my website in 2001. In 2006 Will moved back to Minnisota to be with his family, while there he continued to work helping young people. I was born in Richmond, California on May 1, 1930. Born the oldest of two children, my seven-year younger sister now lives in Los Gatos. I graduated from Richmond High School - the same high school as fellow Camden High(San Jose, CA) faculty member Mr. Matulich. Not knowing what to do with my life (I was the typical uninvolved teenager) I was coaxed to enlist in the U.S. Army. I served for two years at Fort Ord, California (one of the reasons I joined was to see the world). I didn't like military service so sixty days after I was released from active duty, I was recalled back and served another 15 months. This time I got further from home - Camp Roberts near Paso Robles, California. This was during the Korean War, but for me the struggle was without bloodshed and horror. I was released from the service in December 1951 and married the next summer to my first wife Addie Crooks. We had four children, but only two survived infancy. Today my oldest, Suzanne, resides in a group home in Minnesota a victim of a closed head injury that occurred in Hawaii nearly twenty years ago. My son, Greg, also resides in Minnesota. He is principal of a K-2 school of 600 students in the town of Princeton in Minnesota. He has two daughters and a son ranging in age from eight to twelve. His wife Tracey is a part-time professor at Bethany College in Minneapolis. I moved to San Jose, California in 1958 when I was given my first full-year contract for teaching. I spend the first year at Campbell High School and moved to Del Mar High, which opened in the fall of 1959. I lasted there for one week when I was transferred to Camden High School where I remained until I took a one-year sabbatical beginning in the fall of 1971. Until this time I had taught a smattering of subjects, primarily English classes for the average student population as well as Creative Writing and Drama each for one year. The balance of my career at Camden up to 1971 was spent teaching the senior government class. A few of those years I team-taught, mostly with John McBain who later left the Campbell District to teach at Skyline College in San Mateo County. I loved drama, but was fearful I would never again find such a talented, hardworking and energetic group of students to work with in producing plays. I requested I be let out of Drama and was replaced after the one year. In 1971 I took my sabbatical, although it was more of a retreat than it was an educational experience. The magic of the sixties had gone out of education for me. I couldn't do the things that had worked for me in the past. I was in the midst of a mid-life crisis. I returned in the fall of 1972, and was assigned to Leigh High School for the years 1972 and 1973. They were the worst two years I spent as a teacher. I decided that I could no longer work with students as I had in the past, so I made a change and returned to school in the field of Special Education. I returned to Camden in 1974 as a resource room teacher in Special Education, and remained in that capacity at Camden until the school closed in 1980. During this time I entered into my second marriage with my current wife Margaret, we had no children. In the fall of 1980 I transferred to Westmont High, continuing in Special Education until 1986 when I was assigned as a school counselor. I retained that job at three different locations and finished my career in 1990 back at Westmont High School. I continue to work, now as a volunteer working in adolescent substance abuse programs, something I first began in the mid-seventies shortly after meeting Margaret. On October 30 of last year I lost my dad at the age of ninety-eight, I miss him terribly. Although he only had an eighth grade education, he influenced my academic life and my teaching. I have found new energy to do unfinished business because of his inspiration. I probably became a high school teacher to find what I never found in my own high school experience. High School was probably one of the most painful times in my life. I have no regrets, and given another opportunity, I would probably do the same thing all over again, but hopefully, I would do it better. My newest thing that haunts me is to get a group together and do the play Our Town, for which I have developed a very new kinship. Meaningfully, Will Finck Below is Will's official obituary published 6/14/07 Willis C. Finck, 77, Princeton, died June 7, 2007, at Fairview Northland Medical Center, Princeton. He was born May 1, 1930, to Willis and Helen (Cornell) Finck in Richmond, Calif., and grew up and graduated from high school there. He served in the U.S. Army. On June 8, 1952, he married Adelaid Crooks in Crosby. They lived in San Jose, Calif. He was an educator at Campbell Unified School District, San Jose, from 1958 to his retirement in 1990. He received his master's degree in special education and counseling from St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud. He worked with drug and alcohol prevention programs. In the early 1970s he owned and operated the Bodega Pizza Parlor, Crosby. He married Margaret Marx in December 1975, and they moved to Princeton in August 2004. He was president of the International Institute of Logotherapy. Survivors include his wife Margaret, Princeton; daughter Suzanne Finck, Brainerd; son Greg Finck, Princeton; sister Villette Gottwals, Saratoga, Calif.; and three grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his parents and two daughters, Carolyn Kay and Julie Dawn. The funeral was June 11, at New Life Christian Center, Princeton. Burial was at Oak Knoll Cemetery, Princeton.