When I finished high school (Winecoff High School, Class of 1932), I was president of the Senior Class and Valedictorian. I had worked hard for these honors but looking back I don’t know how I got them except for the fact that I studied hard. There were sixteen in our class. After graduating I started looking for a job.

Since hosiery mills were big industries in Concord, Mama went with me to look for a job. We finally persuaded Hugh Gray Hosiery Mill that I could learn if they would let me try. Pop had to drive me to work until I learned how to drive our Model A Ford. The only work I had done away from home was a few days around Christmas in Charles Store (a ten cent store). I worked at night in the hosiery mill from six to six, starting off as a learner at $5.00 per week. I was learning to loop which is a tedious job of sewing the toes in hosiery. There is a special machine on which the tiny treads are looped and are sewed as they go around. After I learned, we were paid according to the number of dozen of hose we did. I think after I was there I made as much as $36 per week. When President Roosevelt made the NRA (National Recovery Act), our hours were cut to 40 per week and eight hours per night. There were a lot of hard working women there and I learned a lot about life from them over the three years. I didn’t spend much money. We wore blue and white uniforms to work and that was a saving. I started saving pennies for college. By the end of three years I felt I had enough saved to get into Brevard College which had just opened as a Church Junior College and our Minister’s daughter was going there. It cost about $200 per year. I was a proud person as I gathered my wardrobe and started off to school. I loved Brevard College in the mountains on North Carolina. It was a good place to make a transition from home. I was 21.

Brevard College gave me a chance to be with other young people and to know dedicated Christian teachers. We had wonderful experiences climbing mountains with chaperones. We also worked in country churches with other pre-ministerial students. At the end of two years I was ready to select a college for my last two years towards a degree. I worked during the summers at the hosiery mill and somehow my money stretched to pay all my expenses, so I wrote to Scarritt College in Nashville, Tennessee. This was a Methodist college that trained laymen for missionary work. This proved a good choice for I came in contact with people who had been missionaries as well as nationals from other countries studying there. It was a small school and we had a spirit of fellowship.

I came to realize that my best talents probably were as a rural worker in the United States, so I majored in Social Work and Religious Education. At the end of two years I graduated and asked for an appointment in the Methodist Church. At first I was to go to a Negro settlement in Chattanooga, but then there was a need for a Rural Worker in North Mississippi, so I was scheduled to start work there in September 1, 1939.