Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - A Turning Point in My LIfe

 

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:

It's Saturday Night again — time for some more Genealogy Fun!!

This week's challenge asks us to identify an event, milestone or turning point in our own life—or that of an ancestor—and consider how that event could become the basis for a family story.

When I started thinking about the milestones in my own life, one year quickly rose to the top: 1974.

In May 1974, I was finishing college at Kansas State Teachers College in Emporia. On May 17, I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Education degree with a major in physical science education.

The very next day, May 18, I married Michael Dean Philbrick at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in Emporia.

Thus, in the space of about 24 hours, I went from being Marcia Crawford, college student, to Marcia Philbrick, college graduate and married woman.

But the changes didn't stop there.

That August, Michael and I moved to Seneca, Kansas, where we rented the upper floor of Chet and Madge Milne's house. Michael had accepted a position teaching chemistry and physics at Nemaha Valley High School.

I also began my teaching career that fall, although my job was with the Centralia-Frankfort school district. I taught chemistry and physics in Vermillion, where students were bused from Centralia and Frankfort for those classes. I finished each school day in Centralia teaching earth science to freshmen.

Looking back, those few months in 1974 were truly a turning point in my life.

Graduation. Marriage. Moving to Seneca. Beginning a teaching career.

At the time, I probably thought of them as separate events—things that simply had to be accomplished as one stage of life ended and another began. More than fifty years later, however, I can see how closely they were connected.

That move to Seneca was particularly significant. What began as the place where two young teachers started their married life became our home. My teaching position eventually led me to Nemaha Valley High School, where my career evolved from biology teacher to librarian and then technology coordinator.

It's interesting to think about this week's challenge from a genealogist's perspective. In our databases, we often record graduation, marriage, residence and occupation as separate facts. On a timeline, they appear as individual entries.

But when we put those facts together, they tell a story.

And sometimes several facts clustered closely together reveal something even more important—a turning point.

For me, the summer of 1974 was definitely one of those turning points.