I was born near Madisonville on June 12, 1940. I lived in the small community of Ashbyburg in Hopkins County where I started first grade in a one room school house. After Chris tmas of my second grade, my family moved to Henderson County and I went to Weaverton School through the seventh grade. Because of overcrowding there, I was one of several that were bused to Cairo School . In 1954 Henderson County High opened and our class was the first to complete all four years in the new school.
I got an associate of arts degree from Bethel College in Hopkinsville and graduated with a B. S. in elementary education from Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City , Tennessee .
In the summer of 1962 I married Norman Wallace from Paducah . We had been friends and dated in junior college. In July we will be married 46 years. We lived in Louisville five years where he went to seminary and I taught second grade in Louisville Public Schools.
After seminary we moved to East St. Louis where Norman served three years as minister of education at Winstanley Baptist Church . There our first son, Keith, was born. In 1970 we moved to O'Fallon, Illinois where Norman pastored the Shiloh Baptist Church near Scott Air Force Base. Our second son, Charles, was born there.
In 1974 we were called to western Maryland where we worked with Western Baptist Association for ten years. Norman was associational missionary and I was on church and home assignment. I was a volunteer in our sons' school and in Cub Scouts. I hosted home Bible studies that led to the beginning of a new church start south of Cumberland and worked with Norman to start the Oldtown Baptist Church .
In 1984 we moved to Rochester , Minnesota where Norman worked with churches in the Minnesota-Wisconsin Baptist Convention. Our sons graduated from high school there and came south for college. Both graduated from Belmont University in Nashville , married women from the south, and never returned to the north to live. We lived in Rochester 21 ½ years. Most of those years I worked as a preschool teacher in Sunday School and in a day care center. I also worked with international children while their mothers learned English as a second language at our church.
Norman and I worked in several disaster relief responses in food preparation and in emergency child care. We worked at Ground Zero in the food tent in early 2002 and in a major flood event in Grand Forks , North Dakota in 1997 as well as several smaller disasters following tornadoes and local flooding in Minnesota and in child care for Katrina victims who came to Minnesota .
Keith lives in Nashville and has a nine-year-old daughter. He does computer system support for a drug company and runs half marathons. Charles lives in Fort Worth , Texas , and has two sons, ages 10 and 5. He has just returned home from his second tour in Iraq as a Texas National Guard chaplain. His primary work is hospital chaplaincy.
We retired to Paducah in 2006 to be near Norman 's parents who live in an assisted living home where he helps with their care. We enjoy being back in Kentucky after being away for 40 years. We are gardening and are active in Lone Oak First Baptist Church , singing in the senior adult choir, working in Sunday School and in mission activities. I volunteer in a needle work group for “Hearts for Babies”.