In our days, only the rich could go to kindergarten. With me being the third of six kids, I didn’t really know what kids today know when they enter first grade. To learn to count, the teacher had us go around and count each desk! I believe there were 32 desks in our first grade room!
We took packed lunches because back then my elementary school had no cafeteria. We had three recesses a day – half an hour mid morning and mid afternoon and an hour after lunch. We enjoyed jump rope, hop scotch, hoola-hoop, while the boys enjoyed playing marbles, etc.
Each morning we said the pledge to the flag and sang My Country Tis of Thee. And we prayed. Before eating lunch, we all said a prayer together. “God is Great, God is Good, and we thank Him for our food, Amen”
In the third grade, I was chosen to be the queen of my class. My mom borrowed a fancy pink dress for me to wear. The boy who was my escort… lol the king… kicked me real hard.. lol. So I was kicked by a king. Also while I was in the third grade God kept impressing on my heart that He wanted me to commit my life to becoming a missionary and to go to a country where the Gospel had never been taught. I struggled with that decision because I was so young. After three days of not being able to concentrate on my math, I finally said yes to God. This decision helped me so much during my life because it gave me focus, and I knew that I had to only marry someone who was also committed to be a missionary, or I would stay single.
In the fourth grade our class ended up with four different teachers because they kept quitting. Therefore, when our class entered the fifth grade, our teacher (Mrs. Coleman) told us that none of us were going to pass UNLESS we learned our times tables and could write well!!! Of that to this day I am thankful for.
Our family moved, so the new school put me in the middle group class for the 8th. This was very positive in my life because I was able to study hard and excel more. Because of ADHD (unknown what it was back then) I struggled in my studies. I would do homework until 10pm and end up in tears. My brother would hardly bring any books home and school just came easy for him.
Tests and exams were a challenge to me. I worked so hard and when I just couldn’t make the grade I’d ask the teacher for help and if there was anything I could do to pull up my grade. Many of them would let me do a report which, interestingly enough, this was preparing me for the many reports I would be needing to do in my adult life.
Mid senior year I found out I was 21st in line of over 300 students. I also noticed that many seniors were excited, and I decided that the second semester was going to be lots of fun. I decided it was my chance to move up. In 1974, I thankfully graduated 13th from Richlands High School Tornados, in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia. With my graduation gifts, I went to stay in the jungles of Ecuador with my aunt and uncle who also taught me a lot towards the life God was calling me to.
Once in high school, I had tried so hard to do a project and was going to fail that class for that 6 weeks! My mom suggested that I go into my room and get down on my knees and stay there till God gave me an answer. I did and guess what!!!??? God did show me what to do. I did it and was so excited and worked hard to catch up on that project and passed. School, and actually almost nothing has come easy for me in life; however, in the long run it has been better because I’ve had to depend on God every step of the way. God has given me a wonderful, fulfilling life that I would not trade for anything.
PS: Sandy shares that her parents were missionaries, church planters in the Appalachian Mountains. Then regarding her graduation trip, she explained that her Uncle Roy Gleason was a pilot who flew a small plane throughout the jungles of Ecuador. Sandy’s mother taught them that every time they heard a plane, to pray for Uncle Roy. His wife, Sandy’s Aunt Edie, was the bookkeeper. They lived among the Quitua Indians. There were medical missionaries who let Sandy go with them in a canoe to go vaccinate children at their school.
Sandy adds that the evenings were so much fun for her and her cousin who would get into canoes with the other missionary kids and go alligator hunting with a bright light that they would shine around the lake. When the light landed on an alligator eye, if it was very small they would paddle close beside it, keeping the light fixed on the eye, reach in and grab it around the neck! “I, of course, had to catch one,” Sandy quips. It was an 18” one and as the skin was drying out, someone stole it.
Sandy says her uncle flew her and Miss Rachel Saint out to the Acura Indian tribe. The natives wanted to touch her, and Miss Saint told her that they had never seen a young white woman before. She bought some treasures from them to take home along with amazing memories.