Photograph courtesy of Bill DuSel

Among Bill DuSel's many creative endeavors is the playing of the saxophone.

Full Circle

Bill DuSel's first teaching job was at LGHS in 1946. Now he's a resident of The Terraces, and he's back in the classroom at Blossom Hill School

By Sandy Sims

Above all else, Bill DuSel is a teacher. His first job was at Los Gatos High School in 1946, and throughout the years both his vocation and his avocation have been education. These days he lives at The Terraces in Los Gatos, and the third graders just across the street at Blossom Hill School know him as a teacher's aide--a great teacher's aide.

Last year, when Karen Kath's class put together a book thanking him for his contributions to each and every one of them, the youngsters made a cover spelling out his name--Dr. DuSel--and described how each letter described one of his traits: "Dynamite, rhythmical, dedicated, unique, songster, extraordinary, loyal." That pretty well sums up the man.

It's hard to fool kids. When they meet someone really special--someone who treats them special--they don't forget easily.

Just ask Pam Bondelie. She was in the senior English class DuSel taught back at LGHS. And she has stayed in touch with him all these years. And so have many of his students, including those in his first class more than 50 years ago. What's striking about DuSel, Bondelie says, is his kindness. "His gentle spirit is real. No façade of goodness.

Although Blossom Hill teacher Karen Kath is the teacher, and DuSel is a teachers aide, Kath calls him "my encyclopedia."

His wife says of DuSel, "It's an adventure to live with him."

Dr. William "Bill" DuSel is so multifaceted and so generous with his time and talents that he's left his mark all over Los Gatos, Saratoga and San Jose and beyond.

DuSel graduated from Stanford with "great distinction" honors and a membership in the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. He was an outstanding English instructor at San Jose State, and for 13 of his 34 years at SJSU, he was the cool-headed vice president--years that included the tumultuous and painful 1960s. He's an accomplished musician who's played in numerous bands. He's a sculptor, a stained-glass artist, a poet, a horticulturist, a terrific dancer and more. He's written books on teaching composition. He's won commendation after commendation for community service, including The Terraces' 1996 Senior of Distinction award.

Still, it's the teacher in him that always surfaces, that part of teaching that has to do with helping others grow in knowledge and in self-confidence.

DuSel's kindness stretches long. When he volunteered to play piano for Live Oak Adult Day Services, he met Jerry Kelley, who'd suffered a severe stroke and was depressed. Finding out that Kelley had been a musician, DuSel figured they could play together, Kelley with his right hand (that one worked) while DuSel played with his left. Sometimes they played three-handed. DuSel showed up on Fridays to play with Kelley for an amazing 10 years. "Wild, three-handed piano," Leta Friedlander, Live Oak's director, called it in a memorial statement about Kelley.

"It helped Jerry's depression," DuSel recalls, "and he regained enough of his skill with that right hand that he could play 'Flight of the Bumble Bee.' "

DuSel spent the last few years of his mother's life trekking to the Plum Tree convalescent hospital on Samaritan Drive to feed her breakfast. "She had become so insecure and shy that she couldn't go to the dining room," he recalls.

Some people say DuSel is generous to a fault. DuSel gives away the hybrid Alstroemeria (Peruvian lilies)--doubles that he has taken years to develop--to brides for their bouquets. "He shares them like they're daisies," former student Bondelie says.

Vic Lee, KRON-TV news reporter, remembers DuSel from his college days. He calls DuSel "cool under fire." Fate set the gentle DuSel right in the middle of a maelstrom. He was vice president at SJSU in the 1960s--the most difficult, violent time for college administrators ever.

Lee, who was SJSU student body president during the 1968-69 academic year, says, "Administrators had never dealt with this kind of thing before. They were pioneers." He recalls the particularly rough demonstrations against Dow Chemical, which had come to campus to recruit employees. (Dow produced napalm, an incendiary substance widely used by American forces during the Vietnam war.) The demonstration ended with a police squad and tear gas. Lee remembers the Black Panthers doing weapons drills up and down Seventh Street. There was the continual barrage of demands made by the students about the war, about personnel policies, about racial discrimination and many more subjects.

Harry Edwards, sociology instructor and black activist leader at SJSU--and now team psychologist for the San Francisco 49ers--spearheaded a movement that would lead to a protest by black athletes at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. Many still remember SJSU track and field medalists Tommie Smith and John Carlos standing during the medal presentations with their heads bowed and their black-gloved fists held high in the air in a show of black power.

"DuSel was always in control of himself, never rattled," Lee recalls. As a young student, Lee noticed how impeccably dressed, "almost straight laced," DuSel was. "He bent over backward to be fair," Lee says. "I think even the most militant had at least a modicum of respect for DuSel."

Lee remembers that DuSel and SJSU president Robert Clark were always working toward consensus. They were not authoritarian like their counterpart S.I. Hayakawa up the road at San Francisco State. DuSel gives the credit for this steadying policy to then-president Clark, but in fact the president was often off campus on trips and DuSel was left in charge. Not to mention that, as executive vice president, DuSel was in charge of security. His job was to protect the president. "The students met in my office. I took the petitions and demands to the president," DuSel recalls.


File photograph by George Sakkestad

When Bill DuSel moved from Saratoga to The Terraces, he brought along hybrid daylilies and Peruvian lilies to cultivate in the beds there.




When the subject of the 1960s comes up, DuSel sits back in his chair, unable to talk. Tears well up in his eyes. "I wouldn't have missed those days for anything" he says. "I got to know beautiful black and Chicano leaders in a way I never would have."

DuSel raises a fist and shakes it. Ever the teacher--even under fire--DuSel says, "I wanted them to shake their fists at me."

Well-known author Amy Tan was one of the students shaking her fist at him during demonstrations. "She was always right in front, and she was in my English class," he recalls.

"He felt the students were so right," Pauline, DuSel's wife, recalls.

When DuSel's nephew recently asked Tan for an autograph, Tan addressed it "For William DuSel, my English professor."

It was the students' idealism and their dedication to make things right that DuSel respected. He recalls that Valerie Dickerson (Coleman), who went on to become a TV journalist, was then an SJSU student who had been denied membership in a sorority because she was black. During those days the sororities and fraternities actually had written discrimination policies. Coleman attended one of the protests against this kind of discrimination and shared her experience. "She gave a very moving speech, DuSel recalls, "and she was obviously a fine person."

He adds, "Students should never have to endure those kinds of indignities."

History has borne out the views of these student activists. "Vietnam, we've come to realize, was an ill-advised sacrifice of American lives by Congress and others who fed this conflict," DuSel says.

DuSel did some speaking out himself in those days.

One of those times was during the '60s when he joined the Saratoga Men's Club. When the club asked him to speak, he decided to talk about Harry Edwards, the activist sociology professor. "Edwards had gotten a lot of bad press when really he was taking the heat for the students. That is," DuSel explains, "he was letting the community focus their anger on him instead of the students." DuSel defended Edwards, and several club members walked out angry. However, several other members thanked him for presenting a different view of this man who'd been treated as a lawless militant by the press.

"While the '60s were the most challenging time for Bill professionally, personally they were wonderful," Pauline recalls. That's when they moved from their Glen Una home in Saratoga to the new home they had built near Villa Montalvo. Their three children were in college by this time, and DuSel had plenty of land to garden. During the 34 years they lived in Saratoga, DuSel came up with hybrid daylilies (Hermerocallis) that have eight petals instead of the usual six, and Peruvian lilies (Alstroemeria), which are doubles.

After the '60s DuSel wanted to return to the classroom. "Teaching someplace is where I've always gotten my deepest satisfaction," DuSel explains.

He actually started teaching at age 11 when he taught Indian crafts at the YMCA. He taught English at Menlo College while he worked on his master's degree at Stanford, and then English and math for two years at Sonora High School until he enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1942. In the Air Corps he taught math, physics and meteorology. After the service he was hired by LGHS, where he taught English, physics, business law and merchandising, and advised the debate team and the yearbook staff.

After that year at LGHS, he went to the English Department at SJSU. There, in addition to teaching English and being vice president, he started the second-largest Educational Opportunity Program in the United States. He eventually received his Ph.D. from Stanford. His dissertation concerning teaching loads for English teachers was nationally recognized. He's had articles and books published, mainly about the teaching of writing. He was the president of the California Council of Teachers of English Association for two years running. And DuSel seems to have done it all with ease and decorum.

For 59 years the DuSels have lived a traditional marriage. He met his future wife at Stanford in a Romantic literature class. Pauline taught high school drama before they were married, and even finished off a semester of classes for DuSel at Sonora High School when he enlisted in the Air Corps. Then she became a homemaker.

"That's what my generation did," Pauline says.

"She took care of the home, which freed me to go out and earn the money," DuSel explains. "She's been a tremendous support." They've traveled worldwide, and their three children, two daughters and a son have done well--a successful geologist, a writer and a wildlife inspector. "We are so lucky," DuSel says. "I'm most proud of the loving people my children have become."


File photograph by George Sakkestad

Bill DuSel was one of the first to sign up when Blossom Hill School invited residents at The Terraces to get involved with students.




The most traumatic time for these parents hit hard when their youngest daughter, Cynthia, was 31 years old and on a geological expedition to Alaska. In the wilds, she was attacked by a bear and lost both of her arms. "You have no idea how terrible it is to have your baby daughter return home on a stretcher with red-stained stumps where her arms used to be. It's a terrible feeling. She never complained and never blamed anyone," DuSel recalls.

Cynthia has gone on to become an accomplished geologist, giving speeches and "writing things I don't even understand," DuSel says. She has a wonderful son, almost 14 years old. The San Jose Mercury News recently featured her in an article about overcoming disabilities. She's even the subject of a video for the disabled, teaching things such as dressing, eating and brushing hair.

"If there was any family who could see her through, it's the DuSels," Pam Bondelie says.

"Cynthia's wonderful husband and in-laws helped her a lot," Pauline recalls.

In 1980, DuSel retired with a so-called "golden handshake" from SJSU.

"I was let out," he recalls, as if he had finally been freed. And after a year of teaching writing in Saipan for a government project, he was able to take the time to feed the flip side of teaching, being a student and expressing his many talents. Over the last 19 years he's taken classes in jewelry, sculpture, stained glass and bronze casting, all of which yielded some beautiful pieces of art--sculptures of his children and grandchildren, a lovely sculpture of a nude, jewelry for Pauline and Tiffany-style lamps, to name a few.

He has been in several bands over the years: the Mississippi Mud Cats (a Dixieland band), the Troubadours, the Nomads, the Nostalgics, the Old Smoothies (ukulele band) and more. Currently he's making tunes with Les Landin's Skillet Family Western Band, based in Saratoga. And all along he's been hanging out in places like convalescent hospitals and Live Oak Adult Day Services, anywhere he can share his music.

The DuSels gave up their home in Saratoga six years ago and returned to Los Gatos to live at The Terraces. Pauline had worked hard as a homemaker over the years, without help. DuSel wanted her to be able to retire, too.

Pauline recalls that, when they moved, someone said in a disparaging way, "Oh, you've moved into a retirement home." To that she says, "This beautiful place is like living in Maui. We love it."

DuSel brought his lilies and his collection of cymbidium orchids with him and planted them in garden plots that The Terraces provide for their residents.

Then the inevitable happened.

"About three years ago," Karen Kath recalls, "DuSel came and played piano for my third-grade class. That's when I discovered him," she says as if she'd discovered gold. That visit turned DuSel into a volunteer teacher's aide. "He's my encyclopedia. I don't think there is a thing that man doesn't know," Kath says. "He's brought so much joy into the classroom."

DuSel has taught the children to play unusual musical instruments and has taught them about Indians. He brought each child a bulb to plant in the sand box. He brought in his butterfly and his insect collections.

He also brings Bill DuSel Jr., who is an inspector for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department. Inspector DuSel brings in unusual animals, such as skinks, which Kath says look like they're part snake and part alligator.

News clipping courtesy of Bill DuSel. Among the clippings in Bill DuSel's collection of memorabilia is this photograph of him on the San Jose State University campus during the Dow Chemical protests in the '60s.

File photograph by George Sakkestad





Last year DuSel taught the children to sing 13 "oldie" songs such as "McNamara's Band" and "I'm Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover." When they were performance-ready, the little tykes marched up the esplanade at The Terraces to the Health Center, where they sang their hearts out.

One rainy, blustery day two years ago, DuSel was carrying some Indian crafts to the class. He slipped and broke his hip and then endured a complete hip replacement and recuperation time. "The children wrote him something every week," Kath recalls. "He was theirs, and they took care of him." She remembers Pauline saying that those letters really perked DuSel up when he was down.

Leaning on a walker, DuSel struggled back to the class as soon as he could. "The kids were always waiting for him," Kath recalls. "I would do anything for that man."

It's no wonder she feels that way. DuSel shares everything he can as often as he can, and at the center of all that sharing is a kind and loving teacher. Pam Bondelie says, "Everyone has one wonderful teacher in their life. For us, DuSel is that teacher."

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