Helen Selfridge Clucas

Clucas, Helen Selfridge. September 15, 1923 – December 26, 2019. Helen Clucas was a rarity, following a career path that was unusual for women of her generation. She earned an advanced degree in mathematics when few women were graduating from college, let alone studying math. She worked as a Rosie the Riveter during the Second World War. She taught advanced calculus and other math courses at Fullerton College for 30 years. Yet there was another side to her, beyond her career, for which she was even more passionate.

Helen was born on an orange ranch in Fullerton, California. Her parents owned an electrical contracting business and an electric appliance store. The store—Selfridge Electric—was on Spadra Road (Harbor Blvd.) in downtown Fullerton from the 1930s into the 1950s. She graduated from Fullerton High School in 1941 and then received her Associates degree from Fullerton College.

Helen had begun making arrangements to attend UC Berkeley to study engineering, but her plans changed after she met a “tall, good-looking young man” at a DeMolay dance in Santa Ana in March, 1942. The young man, Edward “Ted” Clucas, was born in Nampa, Idaho, but grew up from age eleven in Santa Ana. Like Helen, Ted was interested in learning.

With the national war effort beginning to build, Helen took a job as a Rosie the Riveter at Douglas Aircraft in Long Beach, where C-54 airplanes were being built. Her job was to operate a stationary machine riveting two small pre-cut pieces of aluminum together. Around the same time, Ted was drafted in the Army and began basic training at Camp Roberts, near Paso Robles, in central California. After finishing basic, Ted was sent to Indiana University for a special training program in engineering.

In Bloomington, Ted wrote to Helen asking her to join him and get married. Helen wanted to say yes, but was worried about how her mother would respond. Always strong willed, she told her mother that she was going to Indiana to marry Ted no matter what her mother had to say. Her mother, though, had no objections. Helen and Ted were married in a simple ceremony in Bloomington on September 25, 1943, ten days after Helen’s twentieth birthday.

It was in Bloomington that Helen’s career path was set. She had wanted to study engineering, but the university did not allow women in the engineering program. She decided to study mathematics instead, a decision she later felt was ideal for her. One of her fondest memories at the university was taking a class from Emil Artin, one of the leading mathematicians of the twentieth century. Later she took a course from Max Zorn, one of Artin’s star students.

When Ted was about to head to Europe as part of the 20th Armored Division, Helen came back to the west coast and finished her undergraduate math degree from UCLA. After the war, Helen and Ted moved to Eugene, Oregon, where Helen received her Master’s degree in mathematics, with a minor in physics. It was as a graduate student at the University of Oregon that Helen taught her first class, lecturing students in Deady Hall, the oldest building on campus.

Helen and Ted moved back to California, living first in Bakersfield where Helen was hired as a social worker for Kern County. They then moved to Fullerton so Ted could get his Master’s Degree in Education from Cal State University Long Beach. After Ted graduated, they moved to Manteca, California, where Ted worked as a teacher at Manteca High School and Helen worked as a mathematician for the Department of the Army at Sharpe Depot. When Ted was offered a job the following year in the Santa Ana schools, they jumped at the opportunity. Returning to Orange County, they bought a house on Shelton Street in Santa Ana, where they had their three children. A few months after their youngest child was born in 1958, they moved to a house in Orange, where Helen lived until her passing sixty-one years later.

In the early 1960s, Helen returned to the classroom, working as a substitute, teaching at night school, and then teaching at the Eldorado School, a private school for gifted and talented children. In 1963, she was hired in the Mathematics and Engineering Department at Fullerton College, where she remained until 1993. She earned her PhD in Education at USC in 1972.

Beyond her own drive to succeed, one of Helen’s great passions was in encouraging young women to pursue careers in math and science. After retiring, she volunteered for many years with the Orange County chapter of Graduate Women in Science, including serving as its president. She created the Wilber & Ellen Selfridge Memorial Mathematics Scholarship at Fullerton College, which is awarded to an outstanding female student studying mathematics. The award is named for her parents. She also loved to read biographies of famous women scientists.

Yet her greatest passion was not in the classroom, but her family. She and Ted were married for almost 72 years when he passed away in 2015. Throughout all those years, they remained deeply in love. She was also a caring and inspirational mother, and a loving grandmother. With her family, she spent many summers camping in the Rocky Mountains, many winter breaks visiting Mexico and the California desert, and many weekends fishing on a Skipjack out of Dana Point Harbor. She will be dearly missed. She was 96.

Survivors include her three children (Jean, Robert, and Richard), her two daughters-in-law (Geri and Beth), her son-in-law (Dennis), and three grandchildren (Nathaniel, Alexander, and Jack). There will be a viewing at Fairhaven Memorial Cemetery on Saturday, January 25, from 11 am to 1 pm. The memorial service will follow at 1 pm in the Waverly Chapel at the cemetery.

In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to the Fullerton College scholarship. Donations can be made through the Fullerton College Foundation at http://www.fullcollfoundation.org/cgi-bin/cNc/showPage.plx?db=fullcollfoundation&pid=72. When you click on the donation page, there is an "Add special instructions to the seller" box just below the donation amount field. Please write that your donation is for the Wilber & Ellen Selfridge Memorial Mathematics Scholarship.