A principal makes a difference

 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 37

Back to School

#52ancestors

 I decided that one story this week wasn't enough because my Dad had an amazing story of going back to school, too.

My Dad's family didn't seem to think as much about education as my Mom's family did. At least I never heard anyone talk about it much.  They weren't against education, just had more important things to do.  My Grandpa Golightley only had a 6th grade education and my Grandma graduated from the 7th grade.  It didn't mean as much then as most people started working very young on the farm and it wasn't as important in making a living. 

My Grandpa wasn't much of a farmer so by the time he was grown he was driving a truck mostly hauling gravel for road construction at first.  That was a time when many of the interstate  and local roads were being built. A time that bridged between a man having a horse and buggy and owning a car.  At one time, he owned his own gravel pit and hauled gravel for local road construction near Wellington, Kansas.

Dad and his Father with the gravel dump truck

 By the time my Dad was 14, he had a commercial drivers license and was working with his Dad hauling gravel.  Then they moved from Kansas to the San Antonio area where they started hauling produce from the Valley up through Oklahoma, Kansas, and North Dakota.  It was while they were hauling produce that the family moved to Marlow, Oklahoma.  Dad started high school in Marlow, but when the harvest started early in the Spring, he was back on the road with his Dad.  Once the Fall harvest was done, he would start school again.  That meant that he usually only went to school from sometime in October until around April each year.

School work didn't come easy for him. He read slowly, but he was good with math. After all, math was something you needed when you worked.  When he retired and had more time to read, he became an avid reader as he started reading much faster.

Dad was very fond of his principal, L.L. Teakell, at Marlow High. He told of several times his Principal came to their house to talk to him and his parents about him coming back to school and how important it was for him to graduate even if it took a little longer. Dad told us if it had not been for his Principal that he probably would have given up. Dad was the first one in his family to graduate from High School.

 

Leeland Johnston Golightley

Note: Updated to include Principals name & scan of diploma.