Born in the midst of the Great Depression of parents who had little education, I have spent a lifetime in appreciation for the prosperity our country has since come to know. My father, a young soldier in the Army Corps of Engineers in World War II, and my mother who, like Rosie the Riveter, served the war effort by wiring cockpits of planes that would engage the enemy, worked long hours with patriotic pride. With both parents away working to feed the family of four, I was a “latch key kid,” a child alone, for most of my childhood.
From the poverty of the early years and the solitude of later years, I quickly learned that self-reliance was important and that education offered the promise of a new horizon. I had wanted to become a physician, but in those days women were not welcome in medical schools, and all students needed a financial base and a mentor in the medical field. I had neither. With four jobs, two scholarships, and determination, I worked my way through college and became a teacher.
Marriage and a family of three sons added maturity and precious life experiences. In the Canal Zone, and later in Hawaii, I taught English and Journalism. Those days in the tropics, with a slow pace and simple life style, bringing up three sons was a joy. Picnics on the sunny beach and travel to foreign places were the norm. I learned to cook exotic foods of Japan, China, and the Philippines.
Early in our marriage, my husband and I taught overseas in schools run by the Government of Guam and later the Panama Canal Company and the State of Hawaii. We traveled the Orient, the Pacific, and Latin America during those productive and adventuresome years, and while we were out of the country teaching on Guam, the world had changed. Vietnam, hippies, flag burning, LSD, the Beatles, and assassinations rocked our traditional values. Intermittently we returned to the mainland to teach in Colorado and to earn Masters degrees, mine in English. Each time we returned, major changes had occurred. Clover Leaf highways relieved traffic, which had increased geometrically. Streetcars were gone. People no longer dressed for church. The days of hats and gloves gave way to tie dye tee shirts, with ugly messages, and camouflage pants for most occasions. Girls wore long, stringy hair; boys sported matted “dread locks” for a “Fro.” Nurses no longer wore the crisp, white uniform complete with cap and white hose, the badge of professionalism. Bankers “dressed down” on Fridays.
In the mid 1970s, I was divorced after twenty-one years of marriage. I earned a doctorate in Education Administration and graduated first in my class in leadership. I earned the Graduate Dean’s Citation for Excellence for the research on my dissertation. Subsequently, I served a decade at Cherry Creek High School as Dean of Students in a school of 3800, over a decade at Lakewood High School as Assistant Principal in a school of 1600, and a stint as Principal at McLain Community High School, which was a composite of five schools with five faculties, five budgets, five different clientele, and five different missions. I had always dealt with troubled youth, and McLain was an alternative school, a safety net for teens who had become persona non grata at their home high schools. From these years as Dean and as Principal I had seen it all. That’s why when people asked what field my doctorate was in, I jokingly replied, “Drugs, Sex, and Violence.” As a school administrator from the 1970s to the turn of the century that was no exaggeration. It was no joke.
In the 1980s, I was honored for leadership in forming an Education/Business Partnership with the city of Lakewood. The Business and Economic Council conferred the award: Outstanding Administrator. At the same time Phi Delta Kappa, Honorary Education Fraternity, conferred on me the Research Award for my work helping to develop a new chapter in Lakewood, Colorado. On my retirement in 1993, I looked back on my career of over thirty years with the satisfaction of knowing that I had helped young people—scoundrels included—to change their lives. As a school administrator with disciplinary responsibilities, my self-assigned task was the satisfying role of mentor. Discipline is not punishment. With a lack of home support, as many parents were still smoking pot and taking other drugs that filled their household with neglect and abuse, students needed a role model, an adult who believed in them—someone who listened to them and had expectations of them.
After the public school experience, I served as an adjunct professor at Regis University, Denver University and the University of Colorado at Boulder. My task was teacher instruction and supervision; my self-appointed role was to teach teachers how to teach, not just subject matter, but also the fine art of effectively teaching young human beings–helping them to feel the excitement of learning and to understand the benefit of striving for a quality education.
After six years of university teaching, I remarried and realized that doing an effective job traveling across the state to supervise student teachers would seriously impair the quality time needed in my new role as wife to an very active man, a retired Marine jet pilot, a public official, a political activist, a participant in several service organizations, and a gregarious humanitarian.
Our lives together have led us to volunteer in Civil Air Patrol, where he was a Mountain Mission Pilot and an Orientation Ride coordinator, and I was a Public Affairs Officer, MIO/PIO. Recently I was honored with the Commander’s Citation in Public Affairs, especially for the monthly newsletter, Airwaves. We also volunteered as mentors for students who want to attend Federal academies. In the past twelve years, we have mentored over a hundred-forty students and facilitated scholarships of over $40 million dollars for Colorado students. Besides other intermittent volunteer activities, we also served as ushers and lay readers at St. John’s Episcopal Cathedral.
I began writing a book about my little dog that I lost to a mysterious illness in 1996. The book, Maltese Crossing: Love, Loss, and Lessons of Compassion, is a happy/sad/happy healing book for those whose grief seems overwhelming at the loss of their animal companion. I opened my publishing company, Golden Reflections Publications, and self-published the book. The book won the Colorado Independent Publishers Award in the category of Loss and Grieving. Since 1993, I have been writing a four-volume history of women in the ancient world, Power Women: Lessons From the Ancient World. The series is nearly finished except for editing and the fine edge of new information that constantly comes in as I continue my research.
With research, writing, mentoring, and gardening, every day is filled to the brim, and so at age eighty, I will publish my historic series, hopefully to make a difference.