== Clyde Bieber Rue (1934-1993) ==
Clyde Bieber Rue, known as "Bud" by family and friends from infancy to the end of his life, was born August 2, 1934 in Detroit, Michigan, the third child of Arthur Harold Rue (1902-1973) and Opal Avarilla Brooks Rue (1909-1978). Arthur Rue was a mahinist in Ford assembly plants, as well as Hupp Motor Co. earlier in his career. Older siblings were Jacqueline Rue, who died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in 1929 during her first year of life, and William Arthur Rue (1930-2004) born in Cleveland, Ohio. Younger siblings (living, as of 4/2005) include Robert Nelson Rue and James Alphus Rue both born in Detroit.

Raised Protestant, he was baptized on April 18, 1943 a Presbyterian, in Detroit, Michigan. Through his teen and young adult years, Bud worked with younger campers as a counselor and administrator at Clear Lake Camp, operated by Fort Street Presbyterian Church. With his father's encouragement, Bud was active in the Boy_Scouts_of_Americaand earned the rank of Eagle_scout. The Rue family spent most of Bud's formative years living on a one-acre parcel at 11011 Hubbell Road, Livonia, Michigan which, at the time they moved there was still semi-rural. The house and barn were constructed by Arthur and Opal Rue with some assistance from their sons. The family was of limited financial means. Bud played football in high school and graduated in 1953 from George N. Bentley High School in Livonia. He dislocated an elbow during a school football game, the imperfect healing of which led to the rejection a few years later of his application to attend United_States_Naval_Academy.

After the disappointment of being turned away from Annapolis, Bud enrolled at Michigan State University where he studied mathematics and education. When funds ran short, he decided to enlist in the United_States_Navy and signed up for the Submarine Corps. Bud recalled in later years that when he told his father of this decision, it was the first time in his life that he had seen his father cry. His father, Bud said, had wanted him to graduate from college and he feared that his decision to enlist would stand in the way. After training in New_London,_Connecticut, where he earned his Dolphins (Submarine_Warfare_insignia) before being assigned to work as an Electrician's Mate on one of the last diesel-powered subs, the USS_Trout_, attached to Submarine Squadron (SubRon) 10 based in New London. Bud would eventually grow to regret his decision to enter the Navy, he said in later years, with the resulting feelings of isolation and loneliness that accompany sea life, but completed his contracted term of service.

On September 8, 1956, Bud married Bernette Ann Woldin, whom he met at Michigan State and daughter of Samuel Irving Woldin and Mary Veronica Cruise Woldin. Their first date was a Stan_Kenton concert at M.S.U. The wedding took place in Ann's home town of Bound_Brook, New_Jersey, with the reception held in the Woldin family's back yard. Bud, who was still in the Navy, wore a borrowed suit to the wedding. Bud chose, John C. Plotz, a ship-mate from the Trout who remained a lifelong friend, as his best man. The couple formally made their home in an apartment on Grove Street in New London, where Ann majored in zoology at Connecticut_College, hoping to one day be a veterinarian (though she later changed this goal to education), and Bud spent months at a time at sea. Shortly after his discharge, a son named Thomas Scott Rue was born on October 27, 1958 in Plainfield_New_Jersey, near Ann's home town. Although Bud was no longer in the service and was a college student once again, "U.S. Navy" appeared on the child's birth certificate as the father's occupation.

In the winter of 1959, honorable discharge in hand, with assistance from the G.I. Bill of Rights, Bud received the financial assistance that allowed him to return to Lansing_Michigan to complete his higher education. While living in a trailer park in East Lansing, a second son, David Lawrence Rue, was born on January 24, 1960 in Sparrow Hospital. Later that year, on December 12, 1960 Bud received his B.A. degree in education from Michigan State and the family moved east where Bud accepted a job teaching at Adamsville Elementary School in Bernards_Township,_New_Jersey. Nearly immediately, Bud matriculated in the School of Education at Rutgers, The State University of New_Jersey where he received his Masters degree in education on June 5, 1963.

The couple purchased a small house in near colonial era town of New Market called Piscataway in Middlesex_County,_New_Jersey and two more children were born, John Douglas Rue on December 20, 1963 and Ella Marie Rue on April 19, 1965 in Plainfield. In 1968, Bud applied for, but did not receive, a teaching job in East Africa. In connection with this application, he wrote an autobiographical statement oulining what he viewed as the formative events of his life to that point. (This text was supplemented a second statement, written the next year more for self-reflection than for a job application.)

During the next few years, Bud was a prolific writer of poetry and prose, though little of it was ever published. In the course of attending encounter group workshops and t-groups, he began a process of self-examination which led him to reassess core values, including some which affected both educational parenting philosophies. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Bud turned from cultural conservatism to a more open willingness to explore new approaches to child-rearing and teaching that respected children as capable of making decisions and choices that had traditionally been made for them by parents, institutions, and society.

In February 1970, while the Rue family was living in Montclair,_New_Jersey, Bud and a few other high school teachers acted on what was a shared educational philosophy in which personal freedom and self-government were given high priority for students, and founded Innisfree Corporation with the intent of operating a free school. Incorporated under the nonprofit laws of the State of New Jersey, the Innisfree group purchased a 13-acre parcel of land with several buildings in Milanville, Pennsylvania, overlooking the Skinners Falls rapids of the Upper Delaware river. Although it never became the school that was envisioned by its founders, Innisfree operated for the summers of 1970 and 1971 as a summer camp on principles modeled after those charted by educator A._S._Neill at Summerhill_School in Leister, England. Bud recalled the details of this experimental educational project in a paper that he wrote as part of post-graduate studies a few years later entitled "Innisfree: An experience in deviance".

Continuing his career as a math teacher in Princeton_New_Jersey, South_Brunswick_New_Jersey, and Lawrence_Township_Mercer_County_New_Jersey, Bud was certified to teach math and social studies in New Jersey and New York public schools at all grade levels, K-12, as well as in guidance counseling and school administration. He was also an associate examiner for Educational Testing Service and wrote items for the Scholastic Aptitude Test and others standardized academic testing instruments full time for a few years in the late 1970s and continued this work as a consultant to ETS part-time after returning to the classroom.

Bud retired in 1988 when he and Ann made their home at the Milanville property. For the next five years, Bud devoted his full time to charitable activities in Wayne_County,_Pennsylvania which he believed would benefit the local community and larger society. He led an initiative to start the formation of a local affiliate chapter of Habitat for Humanity International which to this day (April 2005) remains active in the creation of decent, affordable housing for people in need. He helped form a chapter of Amnesty_international in the Upper Delaware_River Valley, which held its initial meetings at Innisfree. A charter member of the Upper Delaware Unitarian Fellowship (founded in 1986), as a member of that congregation's social justice committee, during the summer of 1993 Bud proposed the idea of holding a fund-raising activity to benefit local organizations.

On October 23, 1993, the fund-raising walk-a-thon which Bud took the lead in organizing commenced in Narrowsburg, Sullivan_County,_New_York, with about 25 walkers proceeding down River Road in Damascus_Township,_Pennsylvania with Innisfree as their destination. Pledges collected were designated to benefit ( Wayne County, Interfaith Outreach United of Callicoon, New York, the Delaware Highlands Land Trust, Victim's Intervention Program (a domestic_violence counseling service in Honesdale, Pennsylvania), and the Unitarian_Universalist_Service_Committee of Boston.

Less than a mile into the walk, Bud mentioned to another walker that his leg felt sore. He sat down on a boulder to await a ride from a sweep car driving back and forth to pass out water and pick up any participants who felt unable to finish the walk. In the car, the driver, Rev. Ray Pontier, minister of the Unitarian fellowship, said Bud used his inhaler several times and then appeared to fall asleep. When the car arrived at Innisfree Bud was not breathing. An ambulance was called, but emergency medical technicians were unable to revivie him. He evidently died of a cardiac arrest and hypertension, and asthma. A memorial service attended by several hundred people filled the Milanville Methodist-Episcopal Church to overflowing as friends and family recalled the actions and beliefs around which Bud had built his life. Speaking to a reporter, a friend commented that "Bud died as he lived, walking his last steps for social justice."

In December, Bud's cremated remains were spread in a wide circle around the base of a tree on the Innisfree hill in a private family ceremony. A memorial slate marks the spot the inscription: "Clyde B. 'Bud' Rue | husband, father, friend | August 2, 1934 - October 24, 1993 | 'We're here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.'"