I graduated in 1951. I remember all too well what I wanted to do upon graduation I wanted to get married because I was dating my high school sweetheart and he had gone off to college the year before on a football scholarship. We did marry that fall and it lasted 27 months. I came back to Dora with a 13 month old baby boy and didn’t see him again for 22 years. His name, Red Graves, now deceased. I did go to college, first at the University Extension Center, which is now UAB, Then I attended Howard College, which is now Samford at a new location. I then finished my undergraduate work at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, evening and night classes, and all this time I worked at Norwood Hospital (Carraway Methodist) and I forgot that Red Graves ever existed.
I stayed single for nine years, studied hard, worked hard and played hard and stacked up a lot
of memories. I remarried to Charles McGinnis, and we had two boys, that marriage lasted 14 years, sometime during those years I was recruited by Alabama Farm Bureau Ins. (now Alfa) well now ya’ll know that because I was your Insurance Agent.
I have 3 sons, Bibb Graves, age 50, Phd Chemical Engineer,divorced, lives in Houston. Chuck McGinnis will be 40, Sept. 11th, died Feb. 1997, still with me in spirit. Mike McGinnis, age 35, still with me in person, a salesperson, never married, been dating the same girl for 4 years. He doesn’t actually live with me, but he is spoiled.
I have no grandchildren and at this late date, I don’t want any. I have a 7 year old black long haired cat that weighs 18 lbs. His name is “Buddy Cat” He was first known as “Dammitt” and the Vet said if you just have to call him something blasphemes, think up a new name. Well my last husbands nickname is
Buddy and that’s about as close to a “cuss word” that I know, so Dammitt became Buddy Cat.
I live in Jasper now, have lived in Carbon Hill, Cordova, Dora and Sumiton, Green Bay Wisconsin, Chicago, Hammond, Ind. I haven’t decided what I want to do when I grow up. I think my greatest accomplishment was being an Insurance Agent and meeting all the folks that were my policyholders and I considered them my friends. I was a varsity cheerleader at Dora for 4 years and that also was an accomplishment. Getting my MS after age 45, is something of which, I am very proud. My advice to young people just starting out is to have goals and to be happy in their life’s work, if you aren’t happy in what you are doing, you will not do it very well. And remember the grass might be greener on the other side of the fence, but it is just as hard to mow.