Gladys Waddingham (1900—1997), a Spanish teacher at Inglewood High School in Inglewood, California, for 45 years, was the author of nine books about her adopted city.
The Centinela Business and Professional Women's Club named her Woman of the Year in 1967, and the Inglewood Sertoma Club gave her a Service to Mankind Award in 1973.[1][2]
She was born August 23, 1900.[3] A graduate of Occidental College in Los Angeles (and winner of the 1990 alumni Seal Award there), Waddingham held her first teaching position in Las Vegas, Nevada. When she was offered a job in Inglewood, she "didn't even know where the community was." She said she got the position because she "was willing to live in El Segundo and chaperone the school bus into Inglewood for a dollar a day." She was married to Frances Waddingham. They had no children.[1]
Waddingham taught about ten thousand youngsters, including Robert Finch and Glenn M. Anderson, both of whom became lieutenant-governors of California.[2]
Her books included a history of the First Presbyterian Church of Inglewood, of which she was a member; a History of Inglewood, two volumes of an autobiography titled A Kaleidoscope of Memories, and another book called My Memories of Inglewood High. She wrote The Women Who Made Inglewood because "I got so tired of all these biographies written about men that end with one sentence: On such a such a day, he married so and so."[2]
She died April 15, 1997,[3] in Alhambra, California. A Los Angeles Times reporter wrote in her obituary:
As Inglewood changed racially and faced growing crime problems, Waddingham was sometimes criticized for ignoring the efforts of black politicians in recent years. But historians countered that she was merely recording early Inglewood history as she had observed it and that Waddingham personally campaigned to urge white residents to remain as blacks moved in. . . . When her hip was broken during a 1991 robbery, she said from her hospital bed: "This sort of thing happens everywhere. It isn't a matter of Inglewood."[2]