A consummate educator, author and illustrator, Peggy P. Edwards taught at all levels, university through preschool, focusing on language — thus her fascination for storytelling and writing. She authored “Alfabeto Crossover Alphabet” and “Lalalandia” in addition to organizing the publication of six volumes of “Village Stories.”
Her teaching career was launched at 7 in Mexico, teaching English to eager Spanish speakers. They, in turn, told her their stories. After graduating from a bilingual high school in Mexico City, her father, an American businessman, enrolled her at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Latin American affairs. Upon graduating, she flew for Braniff Airlines as a stewardess and met her first husband. They travelled north and were admitted to the University of Wisconsin, where she earned her Master of Arts while working as a teacher’s assistant — the university welcomed her fluency in Spanish as well as English and so she was employed as an instructor at the University of Wisconsin System.
The couple returned to Dallas, her husband ailing. There she earned her teacher’s certificate and taught second grade. She re-married and they moved to California. She taught English as a second language and third grade. She realized the urgent need for bilingualism in immigration. She worked for Catholic Charities during “amnesty” and founded the American Immigrant Foundation, which helped thousands legalize their status as well as become American citizens.
She became known as “la Maestra” as well as “the Storyteller” in San Juan Capistrano, her home for 18 years. Having accepted the role of storyteller with the San Juan Capistrano Library, searching for stories in Spanish, she decided to write her own. She wrote and illustrated eight bilingual stories, which became “Lalalandia.”
Next, she taught all the Spanish courses at King Drew Medical Magnet, a charter school for the academically gifted in south central Los Angeles. She later taught sixth grade dual immersion and finally preschool, for which she illustrated and published “Alfabeto Crossover Alphabet.”
She retired in 2004 and founded the Publishing Club of Laguna Woods in 2013, an active publishing club comprised of over 40 authors who, in addition to publishing and writing their stories for “Village Stories,” also tell their stories during Storytelling in September.
