CPS teacher, welder Anderson Olaker dies

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Anderson E. Olaker

Updated: January 23, 2012 12:24AM

Anderson E. Olaker had a busy double life.

By day, he taught science and math in the Chicago Public Schools. By night, he was a welder at a diesel-engine plant on 103rd Street in the city’s Pullman community.

He worked both jobs full time to help pay for college for his three children and his wife. Somehow he also found time to earn a U.S. patent and learn both Spanish and German.

Mr. Olaker died at 86 on Jan. 20 at the University of Chicago Hospitals.

He grew up on a half-acre farm in Savannah, Tenn., where the Olakers grew most of their food. His great-grandmother was a slave. The Olakers still can repeat the stories she passed down, such as slaves having no choice when “their hair ... was sometimes ... used for other things, like for stuffing” pillows, said Mr. Olaker’s daughter, Dr. Suezette Olaker-Copeland.

Mr. Olaker headed north to find a job, first working as a migrant worker and later going to Chicago, where he went to welding school. In 1945, he landed a job on 103rd Street at the old Electro-Motive Diesel plant, which made train engines.

Mr. Olaker met Artemese White, who worked as a secretary, and they married in 1947 and lived in a South Side boarding house, where several renters shared a bathroom.

The couple raised their three children on the South Side, and Mr. Olaker ran a science club for neighborhood kids. They grew crystals and studied ant farms.

“We always had microscopes and chemistry sets,” said his son, Malcolm, a 25-year-employee of the state of New York.

Mr. Olaker wanted to go to Roosevelt University, but when he took the entrance exam, his test-taking was rusty and he didn’t finish on time.

He started studying books on speed reading. When he rode the streetcar, he memorized the license plates of cars he passed.

The next time he tackled the entrance test, he finished with time to spare.

He majored in chemistry and graduated in 1960, hoping to work at Abbott Labs, but in those days, it was rare for a black man to even get an interview at a major drug company, his daughter said. So he taught chemistry, math and science at Crane, CVS and Robeson high schools in the city.

He taught and worked as a welder for about 15 years, retiring from the Electro-Motive plant in 1980 and from the school system in 1987. He then taught at Washburne Trade School and Kennedy-King College.

He also invented an anti-tampering device for fire hydrants, earning a U.S. patent, and sang for more than 60 years with the choir at Greater Bethesda Baptist Church.

A viewing is scheduled 4 to 7 p.m. Friday at Carter Chapels, 2100 E. 75th St., Chicago. Visitation is at 10 a.m. Saturday, with an 11 a.m. funeral service following at Greater Bethesda Baptist Church, 5301 S. Michigan Ave. Burial is at Burr Oak Cemetery.

Chicago Sun-Times