Question: What has been one of your primary interests? Answer: “Theatre was the most important thing to me. I ran the theatre program while I was teaching at the high school and when I got to Kentucky they were restarting a community theatre program so I went to a meeting, then they asked me if I’d be on a playwriting committee, and the next thing I know they asked me if I could direct the first show so I directed the first one and then a number of shows after […]

Question: Where did your sense of family come from? Answer: “I grew up during the depression and growing up at that time made a big impact on both my husband and I. My parents and grandparents had always been together, and we didn’t have any divorces or anything in our family. Since then, maybe we’ve had distant relatives get divorces, but family was an important part. The people in our community were very stable too. There weren’t many people that were divorced in our community. Everyone had families and we […]

Question: What is your favorite activity here and why? Answer: “Wood shop is my favorite activity and I spend a lot of time in the shop here. We were very busy just before the last Bazaar because I wanted to make a lot of stuff. We sold it and the proceeds went toward shop supplies and tools. I make toy cars, back scratchers, toaster tongs, bird houses, etc. It isn’t work to me. If it was work, I wouldn’t do it. Making small toy cars and trucks are the most […]

Question: Do you remember what you did on your first date with your husband? Answer: Yes. We didn’t know each other very well. I was a sophomore in high school and he was a junior. He had invited me to the junior/senior prom, but he had thoughtfully said maybe it would be nice if we went out a few times before prom so we would know each other a little better. On our first date, I wasn’t swept off my feet immediately, but he was easy to talk to and […]

Question: What made you choose the career path that you did? Answer: “I worked for 30 years as a nurse and I worked in psychiatry. I was initially going to retire at 65 but I stayed on part time until I was 77. I always wanted to be a nurse and I’m not sure why. My mother tried to talk me out of it for a long time. She thought it was dirty and hard work with a lot of walking. I just liked coming into work and got along […]

Question: What is something you always liked to do when you were younger? Answer: “If anybody would ever say ‘Let’s go out and do some shooting,’ I would say ‘Yeah! Okay! I’ll get my gun and we’re gone!’ I was an outdoorsman. I hunted pigeons, rabbits, squirrels, snakes…anything! Pow pow! I loved to shoot from the day I was born. I started with my dad. And I’ve been hunting all over the world. I’ve been to South America, Bolivia, all over the United States and Canada. I’ve been all over. […]

Question: Why did you get involved with education? Answer: “Like my wife, I read a lot, and I read a lot of history and nonfiction. When I realized the magnitude of the second world war at a young age, I knew I’d eventually be drafted so I wanted to be a little bit more informed as to where we could be going and what was going on. I went to a little one-room country school which was very tiny. I remember one of the first things I learned was when […]

Question: What was your favorite thing to do when you were a girl? Answer: My favorite thing was to ride a bicycle. I felt like a bird flying up and down the streets. I lived in the city and I used to go down to Bailey Farm Dairy on Meramec and get milk for my family and put it in my basket and maybe have a homemade ice cream cone while I was there. Ice cream was probably a nickel. Usually I liked to ride my bike by myself. I […]

Question: What values have been important to you? Answer: “I’m more family-oriented than anything else. As each of my children had an addition to the family, we were there. My one daughter married a Navy man, so we were all over. She had five children too, so that kept us busy. My husband travelled with his job all over the world. In fact, I think what my kids remember most, and I’m sorry, is going to the airport to pick him up and drop him off! I think being so […]