Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Stafford recalls time as teacher

Beatrice Bragg Stafford raised six children of her own, but she also spent 25 years teaching the children of others. But teaching, she said, is more than offering knowledge to a classroom filled with children. For Stafford, it was a chance to give children a love of learning and a desire to reach for the stars.

Stafford was born on Oct. 22, 1922, in Clark County, one of seven children. She spent most of her early years in the Sandy Community, off Highway 53 north of Gurdon, and later near the community of Greenville.

She went to college in Pine Bluff then returned to Henderson State University  then Henderson Teachers College  to finish her teaching degree.

"It was just something I wanted to do," Stafford recalls.

And looking back at the children who passed through her classroom, she said she has no regrets about her choice of an occupation.

Her love of education started early. She said school was different when she was a child.

"If you were big enough to go to school, you just did," she recalled. "And if you could do the work with the older kids, you just did that too. That's just the way it was then."

As a result, Stafford often did lessons with the older children, including her own sister.

"It wasn't a bad thing," she said. "And everybody thought I was super."

As a result, she went on to high school and graduated at a younger age than most  and among the top students of the class. She said school work continued to be easy for her, even through college. While she realized others had to work harder at the book work, she said she also learned a person can achieve goals that might seem out of reach.

"I appreciate the fact of knowing that you can do what you thought you couldn't do," Stafford said. Then, referring to being in classes with those older students, "I was just as smart as they were, so they couldn't throw me out."

Stafford married her husband of 63 years, Ellis, in the same community where they now live. He worked for the railroad and one of their sons, Michael, has followed his father's footsteps. Stafford said they never really thought about leaving the community where their family and friends were.

"We knew where we were standing here," she said. "It's was where everything familiar was."

Stafford's brothers and sisters picked up a variety of different vocations, but she said there was never a doubt in her mind that she wanted to teach.

"I was so proud when I got to be a teacher that I just wanted to encourage my students too."

Stafford said her years in the classroom were good. "But I didn't allow mine to get out of hand," she said with a laugh. "You should remember that."

Even though Stafford said there was no better occupation for her than teaching, she said it's not for everybody.

"Everything's not made for everybody," she said. "What fixes you up might not fix me up."

She said she hopes she passed that ideal of tolerance  and some other important ideals  to her students, and to her own children.

"I think we did a pretty good job of raising them," she said of her own children. "I didn't have to go every weekend to pull them off the streets or out of jail. They made me feel like we'd done a good job."

Children  her own and those who passed through her classrooms  are what she counts her biggest achievement in her life. She said she has learned life can be what you make of it.

"You have to think about what your life is going to be like. Not just what it's like right now. Then you set your goals and work toward where you want to be."

If she has a regret, she said it's that she didn't keep a journal of her childhood and her early days of teaching.

And that she didn't spend a little more time in school, because there were so many more things to learn.