She’s a four-mile-a-day walker. She has a 40-minute commute to work—on foot. And she walks so much that she hasn’t owned a car in 18 years.
Not impressed? You should be. At 85 years old, Fredda Clisham is leaving commuters half her age in the dust.
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Clisham, a receptionist at the Women’s Health Resource Center, is the oldest active employee at the U-M Health System, say human resource officials. She began her job there as a volunteer in the late 1970s commuting by bus, a habit she soon got rid of, she says.
“I was already walking one mile to Crisler [Arena],” she says of the Stadium Boulevard bus stop. “So I thought, ‘Why don’t I try walking to the Medical Center? It’s only about a mile farther, and the walk is much more pleasant than the bus route.'”
The change in her routine stuck. Today she’s still walking two miles each way, three days a week. But for Clisham, being a walker is old hat. Growing up during the Great Depression, her family owned only a truck full of her father’s sanding equipment, and even when she married she still walked to get from here to there.
“My husband and kids, we were always a one-car family, like most families back then,” she says. “So walking was something I did when I wanted to get someplace.”
A lifelong Ann Arbor resident, Clisham has walked to nearly every job she’s had during the years. On her days off, she walks three miles around Burns Park, her neighborhood. But Clisham hasn’t always been as athletic as she is today. In fact, she remembers exercise being last on her list of interests as a child.
“I was never athletic,” she says. “When I was in grade school I was that traditional story: the last one picked for the team.”
When her husband died in 1987, Clisham sold their station wagon and has yet to replace it. Instead, she walks, bikes and takes the bus. She keeps her driver’s license, though it only stays tucked in her wallet for two reasons.
“First, it’s a good form of ID to have. Second, who knows—I might win a car one day,” she says laughingly.
When she’s not working, Clisham gardens and keeps up on her literature. She’s also taken courses at Washtenaw Community College, audited U-M classes, and even has attended the Semester at Sea program through the University of Pittsburgh, where students spend three months in class on a cruise ship.
“I love being around people,” she says. “I love being of use. I don’t think I’d like living in an all-senior-citizen community. It wouldn’t be as invigorating.”
Clisham has no plans of retiring or giving up her walks anytime soon. Instead, she works toward a goal set out by Juliet Rogers, associate hospital administrator.
“I remember Juliet told me once, ‘I want to have someone on my staff who is a hundred years old.’ I said, ‘Well, Juliet, I’ll do my best,'” she says.
