60 Year Reunion

60 Year Reunion

I pulled the letter out of the mailbox and opened it and then I thought to myself how could this be? It was an invitation addressed to me. An invitation to a reunion for graduates from Holston High School class of 1961. A 60-year Reunion. Surely it had not been 60 years since I graduated from High School. But after doing the math I realized it was true. 

As I began to think about this my mind went back to 60 years ago when I was 18. I did not know what I wanted to do in life. I started at Holston High School the first year it was built. I enjoyed my high school days and was an average student. I took typing, shorthand, bookkeeping all the classes I needed for a future in business. If I could go back and live those years over knowing how my life would be I would have taken music, art, and home economics. I am glad that I learned to type because I have used it a lot. I should have paid more attention in English because I like to write and blog, and my English is not always correct. It’s kind of like my singing. I love to sing but I don't know how to read music. So, in writing and in singing I just open up and "let it fly". 

But back to reminiscing. I had been dating my longtime sweetheart all through high school and we had plans to get married but not immediately upon graduation. When someone graduated from high school, they were expected to either get married or get a job if they weren't going to college. When you come from a family of 8 children, and you are the 5th in line and a girl there was no expectation of going to college. So, I began to look for a job. 

My first part-time job was with Begard Impression Products typing metal plates for credit cards. After that job was finished, I went to work part- time at Kay Jewelers also typing credit card plates. I enjoyed my time at Kays because my dad worked downtown, and we would go to lunch at Kresses and S&W Cafeteria. I have some good memories of lunch with my dad. 

Almost a year had passed, and it was now 1962 and I began to make wedding plans. So, in June of 1962 I was married to the sweetheart I had dated for 6 years. We were married at North Acres Baptist Church my home church and the church my dad Pastored, and James and I were both saved at. We had a beautiful wedding. My dress came from JC Penny's and our greenery came from the woods behind my house. With forty dollars in our pocket, we had a short Honeymoon and then we moved in with James's parents for the next year.  

A few months passed and I was expecting our first child. So, 1963 began with a move to a rental house on Greenway Drive and the birth of our first child Pamela. Things were hard. Money was tight. James was working production at Standard Knitting Mills and was making about $80 a week. Not long after Pam was born James was taken off production work and put on an hourly wage, so our income went from about eighty dollars a week to forty dollars a week. Even though our rent was only fifty dollars a month it was hard for us to pay it. 

In the Fall of 1963, we moved in a little 4 room block house on James's Uncle Jesses property. The house had been abandoned and we were able to rent it for five dollars a month. His uncle didn't want to charge us any rent but James said we wanted to pay what we could so he said we could pay five dollars a month and subtract anything we spent fixing it up off the rent. We had no water or bathroom. Putting the water in cost $120 so that paid for two years rent. We actually never paid any rent because Uncle Jesse's wife was killed in a car accident, and he sold the property to James’s dad who later gave us the acre we lived on. In 1972 we built another house on the property where I still live today. In October of this year, I will have lived on the same one acre for 58 years. 

After Pam was born and we moved to Maloneyville Road life just happened. I was a housewife and James was still working at the Standard Knitting Mills. In 1966 our son Byron was born. James and I began to think more about the future and how our life was going to be. He hated his job. So, he decided the only way we could do any better was for him to get a better job making more money. This is actually another story about how James went from being a high school dropout to graduating from the University of Tennessee with honors. 

So, after deciding to do something about his job James took the GED test and passed it and took the College Admittance Test and passed it and that was the beginning of his years at UT. At first, he just began to take some classes but as time went on, we realized if he was going to make a change in life, he was going to have to go full time to school. But that also meant that for him to do that I would need to go to work. I got a job at Levi's putting the zipper slides on men's casual pants. The minimum wage was $1.10 but because I had to stand on my feet on my job, I made $1.25 an hour. When I went to work in 1967 Byron was 10 months old and Pam was 4 years old. I worked second shift for the next 3 years while James went to school during the day and watched Byron and Pam at night. 

In 1970 James graduated, as I said, with honors. He wouldn't walk across the stage to get his diploma, so we sat in the audience and watched his class. When James graduated, I quit my job at Levi's. He didn't even have a job yet, but I hated mine so bad that I quit anyway. He worked a part time job that summer for our brother-in-law while he was looking for a teaching position. 

In the Fall of 1970, he went to work at Mascot Elementary as the Social Studies teacher. Things begin to get better. In 1971 our daughter Jennifer was born. We were still living in the block house and attending North Acres Church. In 1972 my dad was diagnosed with lymphoma and died later that year. After a few months we begin to attend church at Fairview Baptist which was closer to our home. The next few years passed by quickly. We built a house, the kids started to school at Gibbs and again life happened. I was a full-time housewife and mother. 

We always had a large garden, and I would do a lot of canning and preserving food. We were members of Fairview, and I sang in the choir. James was doing a lot of hunting and fishing especially in the Summer when he was off from school.  We had three children now and life was the normal day by day living. 

In 1977 I worked for a few months at Olan Mills Studio.  Soon after that we became foster parents. Over the next 5 years we kept a total of 15 children and eventually adopted a little boy who now became our second son Josh. During this time, I was very involved in the Foster Parent Association. I did the Foster Parent Newsletter, and I also taught some Foster Parent Classes for the University of Tennessee.  

In 1979 I went to work at Hillcrest North Nursing Home as a CNA. After working for a while, I decided I liked nursing enough to go to school to become an LPN. So, I quit my job as a nursing assistant and started to school. The school only took a year and when I graduated, I started working at what was then Saint Mary's Hospital. I worked there for two years second shift on 1st Central which was the Med/Surg Floor. 

My children were all in school by this time except for Josh, and l felt I needed to be at home more in the evenings to attend school events and help with schoolwork etc. So, I applied for a day shift job at Hillcrest North where I had worked before. It was only 1 mile from my home.  I was hired in 1984 and worked there until I retired in 2003. 

In December of 1992 I lost my mom to gallbladder cancer.  During those years James taught at three different schools, Mascot, East Knox, and Carter Middle. We joined House Mountain Church and we were there for the next 25 years. I worked in the Fellowship Ministry, and I sang in a Trio. James taught Sunday School and he was a Deacon. I took a lot of classes over the years in sewing, tailoring, flower arranging, computer, cake decorating etc.  We saw our children grow up and graduate from High School and get married. In 1988 we became grandparents for the first time and eventually had a total of 13 grandchildren. Now we also have 3 great grandchildren. 

Life has had many ups and downs, but the worst news came in 2001 when our oldest daughter Pamela was diagnosed with Leukemia. She passed away in 2002 at the age of 39 leaving a husband and 2 young children. She was in the hospital both at St. Mary’s and Vanderbilt for most of that year. During the time she was in the hospital I was diagnosed with Kidney Cancer. In September of that year, I had my right kidney removed and in December Pam passed away. I went back to work at Hillcrest in a few weeks, but I was grieving so bad that I no longer had any pleasure in nursing or even in life at all. So, I retired in March of 2003. 

James retired in 2009 after teaching for 30 years. At that time, we were members of Union Baptist Church. Again, I sang in the choir and James was a Deacon and Sunday School Teacher. After a few months I became restless not having a lot to do. All the children were married and gone from home, so I decided that maybe I needed to find some sort of job. I loved the hours that James had all those years of teaching, so I applied for a job in Knox County Schools as a Cafeteria worker. I was hired and placed at Corryton Elementary. I liked this job probably better than any that I had ever had. It was hard but I loved the interaction with the kids and the teachers. I spent the next 5 and a half years at Corryton and retired again. 

The past 15 years I have enjoyed living. In 2012 I wrote and published a cookbook for my family. I meant it only for my family, but I ended up selling around 300 copies and finally just put it online for anyone to download. I love my family and go out a lot with two of my sisters. I also have two brothers and another sister that I keep in touch with. I attend church each week and am now a member of Highland Baptist Church where I am the Director of Missions. I still sing occasionally in church. James and I moved our membership to Highland after our son Byron was called as their Pastor. 

The next worst thing that has happened in the past 60 years is the loss of my husband James. He was diagnosed with Lymphoma in 2008 and passed away in February of 2016. We had been married almost 54 years. Life has brought many changes in the past 5 years. Where there was a time, I cooked for 10 people I now only cook for 1. Five loads of laundry has become one. Making up three or four beds is now making up half of a bed. Running the dishwasher daily is now running it weekly. I read a lot and I also blog and keep up with a lot of my friends on Facebook. My family calls me daily to see if I am ok or need anything. I still drive and do my own shopping.  

It is still hard to believe it has been 60 years since I graduated from Holston High School. I know a lot of my classmates did not make it to this milestone. I thank God for the wonderful life I have lived and the blessings that He has given me over the years.