Chloe Wood

Ada Chloe Giles was born June 8th, 1933 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Her parents, Ruth Hortense Giles and Albert Odell Giles, were farmers. The family moved frequently during her childhood, purchasing farms, working hard to improve them and then selling them. Chloe had two brothers. Her younger brother, Roger, died at one year old, when Chloe was seven. Her older brother, Bill, remained close to her until his death in 2015. At age eighteen, “Chloe,” as she was known to her family, left the farm in Tennessee and moved to Long Beach, CA to live with her aunt Ruby. She married Clarence Wood in 1954, just before graduating from University of Redlands in Redlands, California.

Chloe had a lifelong love of education, and her first job after college was teaching sixth grade. She then taught at Casa Blanca Head Start during the early years of the program. After hoping for her own children for several years, she was blessed with a daughter and a son, Susanna and Gene (now Swarup). When Clarence was offered a job in San Diego in 1970, the family moved and Chloe was hired as Preschool Director for the Jewish Community Center. Although she had not been raised in the Jewish faith, Chloe thoroughly educated herself about Jewish life, and the Wood family celebrated every Jewish holiday in the home of close friends. During this time, Chloe and Clarence greatly enjoyed growing bromeliads and ferns outside their home, and the whole family loved fishing and camping, frequenting the Walker River on the East Slope of the Sierras.

In 1976, the family moved again, this time to an old apricot farm in Sacramento. It was a difficult time for the family financially, and it was here that Chloe became passionate about growing vegetables. Chloe's children particularly remember enjoying the beautiful tomatoes and peppers she grew. She taught in a preschool in Oak Park, a very dangerous neighborhood at that time, for ten years. Though it was a long process, Chloe diligently worked to learn Spanish so that she could easily communicate with childrens' parents. She was actively involved in a Unitarian Universalist Church during this time.

Chloe next moved to Watsonville in 1986, where she lived alone until Clarence joined her two years later. During these two years, Chloe blossomed, discovering the Mount Madonna Center, which would remain an important spiritual home to her until her death. Noticing a need for early education in this underserved area, Chloe wrote a grant to open a kindergarten in an abandoned school. Like the preschool in Oak Park, the Linscott School emphasized parent involvement. The school gradually grew and it is now a thriving public charter school serving children from preschool to eighth grade.

After retiring in 1997, Chloe and Clarence spent two years traveling extensively by RV, then settled down in Capitola, California. It was at this time that Chloe discovered both Sacred Dance and Quaker Meeting. She attended Santa Cruz Friends Meeting until moving to the Rogue Valley and transferring her membership to South Mountain Friends Meeting in 2003. As nobody in her family had ever called her Ada, Chloe legally changed her name to Chloe Giles Wood.

South Mountain Friends Meeting was never without beautiful flowers from Chloe's garden, and she frequently sold homegrown vegetables and hazelnuts to benefit Christian Peacemakers Team. She shared her love of music with South Mountain Friends. Chloe was an active member of the hospitality committee, and she organized many a delicious potluck and brunch.

During her retirement, Chloe enjoyed teaching English as a Second Language to Spanish speaking adults, practicing yoga, spending time with her children and grandchildren, sewing, embroidery, spending time in nature, and gardening. Chloe loved children's literature, and carefully selected beautiful books for her grandchildren, Mira, Erin, Maddie and Ian. Maddie described Chloe as “the perfect grandmother,” always very loving and eager to help. In a particularly joyful chapter of her life, Chloe shared a beautiful farm in Talent, Oregon with Susanna's family, playing a very active role in Ian's childhood. In her last several years, Chloe became passionate about the GMO free movement and worked tirelessly to make Jackson County GMO free. She also was a woman in black, participating in the anti-war movement in the Rogue Valley. In 2013, years after Chloe was widowed, she and James Crow of Pacifica, California exchanged vows in a private marriage ceremony, however the relationship did not endure.

Although her memory and physical health diminished after an operation in 2013, Chloe remained her sweet, radiant self. She greatly delighted in spending time with Alice, her great-granddaughter. She also was a regular participant in South Mountain Friends Meeting's intergenerational service project, helping to make gift bags for Jackson County's homeless youth nearly to the end of her life.