Patsy’s Bio

I have lived in southern Wayne county for the majority of my life.  I attended and graduated from Crum High School in 1971.  I married my first husband in 1972.  He visited his grandmother in Crum on the weekends and we got together from these visits.  We married in Newport News, Va., where I was finally able to experience the ocean for the first time.  We lived in VA and NC for about three years, while my husband trained and worked as a welder.  After this we moved back to Crum, where he worked in the coal fields for several years.  I flirted around with some college credits at Southern Community College before the birth of my daughter.  I was 28 when she was born. I stayed at home for her first five years and then decided I’d go back to school when she entered kindergarden.  The summer before she was to enter school I found out that I was pregnant with my son.  This was after I had, had a tubal ligation, so I thought I had some horrible medical condition.

Needless to say, I was not able to go back to school right away.  My mother helped me with my children ore I would have never got my degree.  When my son was about a year old I enrolled at Marshall University.  I was very proud and scared to begin my training at the big college. I relied on my friends to give me a ride to classes because we did not have a second car in my little family.  I worked very hard in order to convince myself and my family that I was going to be able to pull this off.

So, I finished my B.A. at Marshall in 1991.  Although I wanted to begin teaching right away, there were no positions available.  I did do some substitute teaching in Wayne county and in Martin county right after I graduated, I was not able to secure a permanent position until 1997.  Between graduation and a teaching contract I worked as a social worker in Wayne county.  I had gotten into grad. school at Marshall and was taking classes here and there as I could.  I lost my husband in December of 1999 and became the single parent of my children.  One who was ready to graduate high school, the other still in middle school. 

I moved through the days and months ahead with my heart closed.  I worked, took care of the kids and prayed for night to come so that I could escape through sleep.  I kept plugging away at the grad classes and finally did finish in 2001.  This was the same month that I married my second husband.  He was from Western KY and moved to my house in WV. 

My daughter married and had a baby boy, who is three years old at this time.  My son also married, a girl from MD that he met at Concord.  They are both living in Huntington, WV at this time.  And me, well I am still teaching at Crum Elementary School and living up on the hill, in the house that Mom and Dad lived in.  Oh yeah, and I am still going to school at Marshall..