Fredda Clisham is an inspiration. A tiny, white-haired powerhouse with a sharp wit and an inquiring mind, she's a deeply principled peace activist, a vegetarian, an actress who over the past eight years has played in numerous roles with the Burns Park Players, and until her retirement in Oct 2014 at age 95, the University of Michigan Health System's oldest employee.

A peace activist who protested the war in Vietnam and worked for civil rights, Fredda says that in the build up to the last presidential election, she used to ride around her neighborhood on her three-wheeled bicycle she calls the Obamamobile, sporting a prominently displayed Obama poster on the back basket and shouting "four more years."

Today, the Obama poster has been replaced with an message that says: "War is not healthy for children and other living things."

25 Years at UMHS

Fredda worked in the Health System for 25 years, beginning in the 1970s as a volunteer. Following the death of her husband, Patrick, in 1986, she began working as a paid part-time staff member with Child Life. Beginning in 2002, she worked three days a week at the Women's Health Resource Center.

She walked to and from work in all kinds of weather-a total of five miles-and it wasn't until the snow and ice in the brutal winter of 2014 that she broke down and occasionally started riding the bus.

Fredda was born in Ann Arbor in 1919 and, apart from travelling around the world from Brazil to Vietnam in 1997 as a participant in the Semester at Sea program where she was accompanied by 350 college students, she never left.

She was nineteen years old when she married Patrick Clisham on New Years Eve of 1938. The couple were married for 48 years and had five children.

Two of her daughters, Jo Ellen Ivacko and Sally Clisham, have worked as staff members of the U-M Institute for Social Research and two of her grandsons, Paul and Tom Ivacko, are currently employed at the university.

Deep roots in the Ann Arbor community

Her roots in the Ann Arbor community run deep.

Her grandfather, Jacob Lutz emigrated to the U.S. from Germany, settling in Ann Arbor in 1816, one year before the founding of the University of Michigan.

His farm, located on the Ann Arbor's northeast side, was later purchased from surviving members of the family by the University of Michigan, becoming one of the the first land purchases to form North Campus.

No plans to slow down

Fredda has no plans to slow down in retirement. She hopes to continue volunteering for research studies at U-M. She also plans to volunteer reading with school age students and hopes to continue to volunteer at the Women's Health Resource Center.

"I love to read, says Fredda, and I want to help inspire young children to love reading. In my opinion, there's no greater gift you can give a child than to nurture a love for books. You can't play soccer or football forever, but you can read for the rest of your life."

What she's reading now...

Given her lifelong peace activism, it comes as some surprise when asked what she's currently reading that she answers that she's rereading In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote-in combination with a recent Capote biography.

"It's a great book," she says, adding that she'd like to read Capote's Other Voices, Other Rooms next, because she's fascinated by the title.

And now, for her next act...

Fredda may have retired from her job at UMHS, but she has no plans to stop acting in local theater productions.

Since 2006, she's appeared in numerous Burns Park Players productions, beginning with her first role in Fiddler on the Roof.

Her favorite role, she says, was playing a con artist in Guys and Dolls.

Now, eight years into the acting career she began at 83, she is looking forward to her upcoming role in Singin' in the Rain, opening Jan. 30, 2015.