Whether an estudiante de Español had a pregunta about homework or a hospital patient complained of un dolor de estomago, the man to speak with was Charley Farrell.
A native Tucsonan and a lover of the Spanish language, Farrell spent almost 40 years teaching students in the Tucson Unified School District.
And he dedicated many years of his retirement volunteering at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center — now University Medical Center — translating for Spanish-speaking patients.
"He was always interested in meeting and conversing with new people," said one of his five children, Chuck Farrell.
"And he always remembered names and faces," said Chuck's wife, Maryruth. "He could remember students he'd taught decades before."
They remembered him, too, even during his final hospitalization last month before succumbing to complications from pneumonia on March 23, at age 97.
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On a visit to St. Joseph's Hospital to see his longtime friend, Dr. Jim Klein asked a volunteer at the reception desk for Farrell's room number.
During their interaction, he learned the woman was a former Farrell student who was inspired to become a Spanish teacher because of the good example he set as an educator.
"Those examples abound," Klein said. "He had a tremendously positive influence upon thousands and thousands of students in Tucson."
Farrell was born in Tucson in 1910, but when his father died of tuberculosis a year later, the family moved to Southern California, where his mother could find work to support Charley and his older sister. Her son's severe allergies prompted Farrell's mother to send him back to Tucson in 1924 for the start of high school, Klein said.
During the next four years, Farrell learned to speak Spanish.
"He was a very accomplished speaker of Spanish," Klein said. "He actually preferred to speak in Spanish."
It wasn't Farrell's first love, though.
"What his love was in high school, besides girls, was music," Chuck Farrell said. "Spanish education was something to fall back on."
After college, Farrell traveled the state trying to make a living as a singer. It was while driving to one of his performances near Cottonwood that he got into a car accident and broke his leg.
Though the injury was serious, requiring him to stay for months in the Jerome hospital, it was a fortuitous mishap. He ended up marrying his nurse, Mary.
After recuperating, Farrell taught at a Jerome-area school for a year before the couple moved to Tucson and he took a job at Mansfeld Junior High, teaching math.
When the Spanish teacher left the school, Farrell took over the language classes. During his career, Farrell also taught at his alma mater, Tucson High, and retired from Rincon High.
Farrell returned to Tucson High in 2006 as the guest of honor at the school's 100th anniversary, when he was inducted into the THS Hall of Fame.
He was the oldest surviving graduate of the school. His bilingual reminiscences about his graduating class of 1928, and his rendition of the class song, had the 2,000 or so people in attendance fired up, Klein said.
Historian Jim Turner of the Arizona Historical Society was a student of Farrell's at Rincon High School in 1964.
"He was the nicest guy. He was tall, and he had a very deep voice, but kindly. Just very well-mannered and jovial. He was clever; he was a jokester," Turner said.
After Turner graduated, he lost touch with the teacher, but a couple of years ago, one of Farrell's daughters contacted him at the Historical Society about recording her father's stories of life in early Tucson.
"She didn't even know I had him as a teacher," Turner said. "It was about 40 years that I hadn't seen him."
Turner took his tape recorder to the assisted-living facility, and the men spent two hours reminiscing.
As a historian, Turner was excited to learn that Farrell had attended Tucson's first rodeo parade in 1924 and could remember the event in vivid detail. As a former student, Turner was impressed that his teacher was so unchanged.
"I was really pleased that he still had that marvelous attitude, even though he was having some physical difficulties, and that his memory was still sharp," Turner said.
"I think anybody who had Charley Farrell (as a teacher) remembered him. He's not a forgettable guy."
Life Stories
This feature chronicles the lives of recently deceased Tucsonans. Some were well-known across the community. Others had an impact on a smaller sphere of friends, family and acquaintances. Many of these people led interesting — and sometimes extraordinary — lives with little or no fanfare. Now you'll hear their stories. Past "Life Stories" are online at go.azstarnet.com/lifestories.
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