Missed Graduations

My mother and I were a lot alike.  Some say that I look  like her but I appreciate the ones who say that I act like her more.  I'm pretty sure that hubby fell in love with her first, then married me because she was taken.  One big thing we had in common is that neither of us finished high school. 

Mama was vivacious, pretty, outgoing, popular and smart.  If she had finished school she was a shoo-in for valedictorian.  Her teachers were proud of her and encouraged her to continue her education.  She yearned for a degree in fashion designing where she could put her obvious art talent to use.  Unfortunately it was 1938 and money was scarce in the Smith household.  The principal of the high school came to her parents with a possibility of a college scholarship.  That's when they made one of those mistakes that parents make and regret.

It seems mama had fallen for a much older man.  He was out of school and home from college, working on his father's farm while he looked for a job.  He was six years older than she was and her parents were worried about their deepening relationship.  In a misguided effort to keep her in school they did not tell her of the possibility of a scholarship.  Why?  It isn't clear how they thought this would help, but that is the only reason I have ever heard. 

I can only imagine the tears and arguments that went on in my grandparents house.  They tried hard to keep their only child on the straight and narrow path they had chosen.  Like many parents before and after they soon discovered that controlling your offspring isn't a sure thing.  In October of her senior year, just a few weeks shy of her seventeenth birthday,  she and my daddy eloped.  They felt that if she couldn't go on to college then they might as well get started on their future together.  She was promptly kicked out of school.

Remember, it was 1938.  Girls who were married were considered to be a bad influence on the purity of the rest of the school.  (In case you are wondering, my sister was born five years later.  It wasn't a shotgun wedding.)

I never heard my mother blame her parents or regret her decision to marry my daddy.  They had their ups and downs but they were happy in their marriage until her death.  The one thing she regretted was the missed opportunity for a college education.  She felt that she would have had many more chances at advancement and employment if she had possessed a degree.  Although highly intelligent and with a GED, she saw men and women with less ability and a college degree do things that she would have loved to have a chance at.

Flash forward several years to 1965.  I was sixteen and hopelessly, helplessly, and totally in love with the middle Campbell boy, as only a teenager can be.  I was also bored with school.  I felt that I really didn't have anything to look forward to in my senior year.  I had already been the president of the club I was passionate about, missed out on being a cheerleader and editor of the yearbook, two things I had wanted to do badly.  I had somehow managed to take most of the classes I needed to graduate, lacking only American History and Senior English.  I wanted to go to college with my, oh so handsome, boyfriend who was in his freshman year at college.

My parents struggled with what to do with their hard headed daughter.  They thought my middle of the road grades would stop me.  I promptly brought all my grades up to A's.  They thought I would become involved in my junior year and forget about it.  Instead I researched colleges. My parents, always supportive of their children's dreams, began to weaken.  The image of my mother's lost chances haunted them.

 I had two surprising supporters.  The man who had been principal when my mother was a senior was now the superintendent.  He remembered the disservice that he had done in not helping another young woman achieve her dream and decided to help.  He went to my parents and urged them to consider my case if a way could be found for me to graduate and go to college.  My parents agreed with a lot of fear and a little pride.

The other person was the young guidance counselor at the high school.  She went way out on a limb and decided to help a determined girl.  Against the opinion of most of my teachers (who loudly proclaimed that I would be home in six weeks having flunked out of college), and most of her superiors she researched how I could get into college without a high school degree.  At that time, (I have no idea of the rules now), the state schools would accept a student if they had an acceptable ACT score and lacked only two credits of graduation.  She then figured out how I could take a summer class at a nearby high school and a correspondence course to actually complete those two classes, thus actually fulfilling my requirements for graduation.  At this point my dad weighed in saying that he would agree to this craziness as long as I didn't go to University of Ky, which he felt was too big for a sixteen year old.  Suited me--the boyfriend was going to Western.

The guidance counselor and the superintendent then tackled the school board.  They were adamantly opposed to letting me get my diploma.  After lots of back and forth, a compromise was reached.  I would go to college, but I wouldn't get my high school diploma until my class graduated.  So I actually got my high school diploma at the end of my freshman year of college.  I guess it made sense to them.

Oh, and thanks to those teachers who were so vocal about my chances in college.  I was so determined to prove them wrong that I studied night and day to get the highest grades I could.  Nothing like a little incentive.

A special thanks to my parents who always believed in me and gave me the confidence to tackle anything.