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Martha Patton's Family
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Brown vs. Board of Education
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Emmett Till Murdered in Mississippi
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James Meredith Enrolls at Ole Miss
In the months before I was born, Mississippi was the scene of some of the worst racial violence in the Southeast. My maternal grandfather, current Bishop of MS, along with my uncle, rector of the Episcopal Church in Oxford, used their pulpits to ask for peaceful mediation. In MS at that time, their actions were dangerous. I learned from a very young age that my Christian obligation was to resist social injustice and stand up for the rights of those who had less power. -
I was born . . .
I was born six weeks early in Jackson, MS. Because there were no neonatal units in hospitals then, I spent the first three months of my life at home in an "isolette," which was very much like an incubator used to hatch baby chicks! My mother was so concerned that I would get sick that she washed all the linens and toys every day in Lysol. I'm convinced that all my childhood illnesses were a result of her not letting me build up resistance to germs until I was in junior high. -
Baptism
My grandfather, whom we all called "BIshop," rather than "Granddaddy," baptized me in a private ceremony when I was two months old, because they didn't want me exposed to the germs of a Sunday congregation. When I read To Kill a Mockingbird, I hear his voice in the dialogue of Atticus Finch. He was very well-read and had earned a Ph.D before going to seminary, but he taught me to love baseball and read box scores. -
Medgar Evers Assassinated
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Martin Luther King, Jr. Delivers "I Have a Dream" Speech on the Washington Mall
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Firstborn
I love this photo because my parents look so genuinely happy in it. They are 25 years old, and my father had just finished a Master's degree in Psychology and was about to enter seminary to earn another Master's degree. Both my parents were well educated, and although they put little stock in the grades on our report cards, their home and parenting styles fostered curiosity and a love of learning. -
Civil Rights Workers Lynched in MS
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Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassinated
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Grandmama Gray dies
My maternal grandmother loved gardening, and even when she was on her knees pinching spent blooms off pansies, she never wore a pair of pants or athletic shoes. She also loved to read, and in addition to the children's books she read to me, I remember her reading to Bishop after dinner as they drank coffee; whether it was the newspaper or a book, they always discussed what they read, and I grew up believing that was how married couples behaved together. -
First Day of School
I started first grade as Mississippi struggled through the civil rights reforms of the 1960's. My parents were strong advocates for public education, and they enrolled me in the local elementary school. I was the only white girl in the first grade at Lexington Elementary School. None of my African-American classmates could read, and many did not know the letters of the alphabet. -
Camp Bratton-Green
It feels odd to put a date on Camp Bratton-Green. My mother was a camper there when she was a child, and I spent every summer of my life before the age of 25 there, starting as an annoying staff brat and moving through the ranks of camper, counselor, Permanent Staff, and cabin parent. At CBG, I developed my longest friendships, learned compassion and leadership, and dug my roots in deep. It will always be "home" for me. -
Kelly Family moves to Ocean Springs, MS
The Gulf Coast is where the stereotype of MS disappears. While there is still an appreciation of history and tradition, the Gulf Coast is more diverse than the rest of MS. Keesler Air Force Base, Ingalls Shipyards, and its proximity to New Orleans give the Coast a different population and culture. We bought a sailboat, learned how to fish and catch crabs off the local pier, and hunker down during hurricanes. -
Fall of Saigon and Evacuation of US Personnel
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America's Bicentennial
Ocean Springs celebrated America's Bicentennial with regattas on Biloxi Bay and historical reenactments of French settlers landing on the beach in 1699, 77 years before the Declaration of Independence. My father played the Biloxi Indian Chief, a role he continued to play for a decade when the reenactment proved to be a popular event. Being in junior high, I was embarrassed by his appearance in a skimpy loincloth and body paint. I was allowed to sail my small catboat in the regatta that year. -
Vietnamese Refugees Seek Shelter in Fishing Along the Mississippi Gulf Coast
After the Fall of Saigon, Vietnamese refugees found homes along the MS Gulf Coast with the help of many church groups and federal relocation grants. The Coast was very similar to parts of Vietnam, both in its climate and its fishing economy. Between 1976 and 1980, the influx of Vietnames fishermen and shrimpers nearly wiped out the shrimp and flounder populations in the fishing areas. The work ethic we admired in our new Vietnames classmates created a crisis in the fishing industry. -
Summer with Grandmother
This photo of "Granny Myrtle," my paternal grandmother, was taken during her senior year at Mississippi University for Women, where she was the first in her family to earn a four-year degree. She was born in a farmhouse in Pelahatchie, MS, and although she went into banking, she had seven acres of fruit trees, vegetable gardens, and flowers behind her home. She taught me how to cook and how to "put up" the produce we harvested on summer mornings. She also taught me the value of hard work. -
Iranian Hostage Crisis
Sixty-six Americans were held hostage in the U.S. embassy in Tehran, Iran, from Nov. 4, 1979 until January 20, 1981. -
High School Graduation
If you looked through my high school yearbooks, you would think I lived an American cliche. My face pops up in almost every section -- cheerleader, National Honor Society, track, National Merit Scholar, Editor of the Hound's Tale, State President of La Societe Francaise, or "French Club." But I remember walking into OSHS every morning feeling insecure and inadequate. I doubt any of my teachers knew that, so I try to remember now to look beyond the labels and activities on the resume. -
AIDS -- Another Source for Culture War
On the way home from decorating boats for the July 4th regatta, my friends and I were driving across the Biloxi Bay Bridge (later taken out by Hurrican Katrina). A brief radio news clip described a virus that was rapidly spreading among gay men in San Francisco and its potential to be untreatable and incurable. My friend Tom turned to me and said, "This is going to change our world." And it did. -
Alpha Delta Theta Sorority
What I didn't learn about leadership and being part of a community at Camp Bratton-Green, I learned by being an active member of a sorority. Sororities reflected the recent transformation of Sewanee from an all-men's university to a coed campus. There were 14 fraternities, all with elegant stone houses built before the Civil War. There were four sororities, none of which had so much as a rented room in the Student Union. Now, women outnumber men on campus and sororities have their own houses. -
Camp Bratton-Green -- Ropes Course and Outdoor Director
As a Permanent Staff Program Director at Camp Bratton-Green during the summers of 1982, 1983, and 1984, eight of us worked 15-hour days for ten weeks to create memorable experiences for the 100 campers who came to each session. I learned that if I didn't take risks -- whether leaping into space off the 35-foot Pirate's pole or making a fool of myself in an evening skit -- I could not expect an impressionable 12-year-old to do it. The same rule goes for a classroom, I've found. -
B.A. in Comparative Religion and French from University of the South
I went to Sewanee thinking I'd go to medical school after graduation, but instead, my love of stories took me to the Comparative Religions and French Departments. Sewanee is one of 11 colleges that still require written and oral comprehensive exams for its undergraduates, and I've never felt more humble and more proud than the week in March 1985 when I was a "comped senior." After one week of extreme anxiety and panic, I was able to fully understand just how much I had learned in four years. -
Travel to Southeast Asia
My first job out of college was as an assistant editor and writer/photographer for a non-profit organization in Atlanta. In 1987, they sent me to SE Asia for two months to gather stories and take pictures for their monthly magazine. I traveled through Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thaliand, and it was one of those transformative events that marks a change in the way one sees the world. -
Wedding to John Perry Patton, IV
I have never had a fairy-tale vision of marriage, but at the moment this photo was taken, I had no idea just how much commitment staying married takes. We celebrate our 25th anniversary this year, and I feel incredibly fortunate and grateful. -
Becoming a Teacher
When I walked into Walker Middle School for my first clinical teaching experience, I knew I had made the right choice. As a ropes course director, I experienced victory vicariously every hour that I hung a belay line. As a writer and editor, I missed seeing that growth happening in front of me every day. As a teacher, I celebrate small victories as often as I can, knowing they may build up to a much greater achievement long after the student has left my classroom. -
Tom Costen shot Down in Persian Gulf War
Tom was my husband's best friend and fellow physics major at Sewanee. His Naval fighter jet was shot down over Iraq in the initial air raid of the Persian Gulf War on Jan. 18, 1991. On Jan. 21, as we set the table for my husband's birthday dinner, a photo of Tom in his graduation gown at Sewanee flashed on the screen during the evening news. We heard his plane had been shot down and he was MIA. His body wasn't recovered until March of that year. I think we both became avid pacifists that night. -
Becoming a Mother
As a mother, I learned forgiveness. Not forgiveness of my daughter, Anna Catherine, for the multitude of mistakes one makes when growing up, but forgiveness of myself. I was and am still not the mother I would have imagined myself to be. I organized brithday parties that neighborhood moms envied, and crafted imaginative Halloween costumes every year. I would have been glad to trade those memories for a little more tolerance and a little less criticism on my part. -
LA Riots
After the police officers who beat Rodney King were acquitted of charges against them, African-American neighbohoods in Los Angeles became like war zones. I was far away, teaching in a suburban Atlanta high school; however, that night I was scheduled to take 40 freshmen to see a stage production of Romeo and Juliet downtown. More than half the parents called to cancel, saying they feared Atlanta would erupt in similar violence, and they would prefer their children to stay home. -
Parents Divorce after 40 Years of Marriage
I was 36 years old with a family of my own when my parents divorced. I had suspected when I was young that my mother and father -- both of whom are wonderful people -- were not particularly wonderful together. That did not make it easier to adjust to, even when I was an adult. -
Traveling through France
We love traveling, and we took Anna Catherine overseas as soon as we could trust her on a plane for eight hours straight. In France, we rented a 14th Century stone house that was built into the limestone caves behind it. The village of Crissay sur manse had fewer residents than our Atlanta neighborhood, and only the cafe owner spoke English. It was the first time we made travel arrangements on the internet, and we did not speculate then how much easier traveling would become. -
Columbine High School
As news reports leaked out about the horrors occurring at Columbine High School, I sat in the English Department office at another JeffCo high school only 20 minutes away, worrying about the AP Literature teacher I had recently met at an AP conference. The effects of Columbine are still with us in our schools. We suspend students for wooden rifles in the back of a car, equipment issued by the school for a school-related activity. We alter dress codes to eliminate look-alikes who may spark fear. -
September 11, 2001
Communities are brought together by crises, and Sept. 11 was a significant crisis for all Americans, no matter how far away they were from the World Trade Center. Sarah Frey, a senior in my AP LIterature class, huddled at my office desk all morning until her mother called to say that her father, who worked on the 33rd floor of the first building to be hit, had made it out alive. The SLHS community spent almost eight hours trying to comprehend the incomprehensible events we saw together. -
Inaugural Year for D. Littmus
In the spirit of lifelong learning, six of us who graduated from the Bread Loaf program at Oxford meet annually to talk about a work of literature, cook fabulous meals for each other, and ponder how we will save the American Education system. Again, one of those things I do just for me. -
M.A. in English Literature from Middlebury
It was a completely selfish choice, this five-summer program of study at Oxford University through Middlebury College. I left my husband and daughter on their own for three of those summers, and I spent three times as much in tuition. I would do it again, if I had the chance! -
Anna Catherine Graduates from High School
As our only child, Anna Catherine shaped many aspects of our life together. She never had to share us with a sibling or compete for the objects teens usually equate with parental affection: a cell phone, a car, her own bedroom and bathroom. We cooked, chaperoned, coached, nagged, carpooled, and clothed her. And then, within the span of one week, her room was stripped of her favorite belongings and her Subaru no longer blocked the driveway. And we missed her. -
Becoming a Caregiver for a Parent
In August of 2009, my mother became suddenly ill and within days was in intensive care with no satisfactory diagnosis. It was the beginning of a year of hospitals and rehabilitation centers and incompetent nurses and physicians. She did not eat or walk for nine months, and at Thanksgiving, when she no longer knew what was happening, I said good-bye to her. My sister and brother and I had to learn to communicate and support each other without letting the stress and emotion take over. -
John and Joyce Patton's 50th Wedding Anniversary
My mother and father-in-law have treated me as one of their own since the day I became engaged to Perry. They are different from my parents, but I have come to appreciate their strengths. I admire them for being able to stay married for fifty years, since that accomplishment can be taken away so easily by illness or whim. When we proposed a grand celebration for their 50th anniversary, they decided that what they really wanted was a nice dinner with all their children and grandchildren around. -
Sabbatical with Goodwill Youth Services
When my husband's engineering firm announced they were downsizing the Denver office and moving us to Philadelphia, I resigned my position at SLHS and began packing . . . and then unpacked it all when they changed their minds. For the first August in 20 years, I was not setting up my classroom. I responded to an ad for adults to work with at-risk youth through Goodwill Youth Services. It has been one of the most transformative events of my career, and I will return to SLHS with more heart. -
Mom Gets Married . . . Again!
Less than one year after she used a walker to take a few tentative steps from her nursing home bed to the sink in her room, my mother walked down the aisle on the arm of a man she has known since third grade. Ever the Southern belle, Mom refused to cooperate with her physical therapists until Tommy began coming to visit her in the nursing home. Within a month, she was eagerly wheeling herself down to the therapy room as soon as she had adjusted her wig and dabbed on lipstick. Miracles do happen! -
Sewanee Trounces Puget Sound in the UPS Homecoming Game
We are a family of Division III athletes, but we have heated rivalries. Sewanee, Perry's and my alma mater, has a century-old rivalry with Millsaps, the college where both my parents and Perry's siblings earned their undergraduate degrees. Imagine our delight when Anna Catherine's college, UPS, announced it would play Sewanee in its 2011 homecoming game. We assumed UPS had searched for the Div. III team they were most likely to beat, but the Tigers trounced the Loggers 57 - 14!
