A Life Interrupted: Jo Ann Howard Pritchett Memoir

By Ted Pritchett

A Life Interrupted is a memoir written largely by Jo Ann Pritchett, recounting her childhood, professional life and an eighteen year struggle against lymphoma. Her teaching/administrative life was a totally successful venture filled with the not-so-mundane experiences. Also, Jo Ann was a world traveler. She, her two daughters, friends and husband Ted enjoyed trips abroad and to many of the United States. Jo Ann’s life was curtailed such that Ted finished the memoir with travel memories and pictures of Jo Ann.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Mar 31, 2016
• ISBN: 9781483441535

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A Life Interrupted

Jo Ann Howard Pritchett Memoir

TED PRITCHETT

Copyright © 2016 Ted Pritchett.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of both publisher and author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-4154-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-4155-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-4153-5 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 03/29/2016

Contents

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Epilogue

Pictures and Poems

Appendix

Acknowledgments

Jo Ann had many people to thank for her success in teaching and administration. Her father and mother were very supportive of her and me, her future husband as were her extended family. She loved her brother, Doug, fervently. And I admired the feelings of her family with enthusiasm. Jo Ann was of no pretense. In her administrative work, I believe the better faculty realized her strengths and weaknesses and resolved to aid her in successfully managing a somewhat explosive school.

Regarding this manuscript, Jo Ann was—and I am—deeply indebted to Norman McMillan for his kind, straightforward critique of all that both Jo Ann and I wrote. He was our diligent guide. Thanks, Norman.

Much thanks to Paul K. Looney for his cover graphic. Paul is the most multitalented person in the arts I have ever encountered. It was a joy to have him collaborate in this effort.

Prologue

For God so loved the world, that he gave his

only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth

in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

—John 3:16

Standing before my Sunday school classmates wearing the nice dress with the piped collar my mother had starched and ironed for me, I delivered these words slowly and carefully, just as I had practiced them over and over with my mother that morning. It pleased me that my Sunday school teacher and my classmates in the six-year-old class at Harmony Baptist Church seemed impressed by my recital. But, even more, I delighted in the wonderful feeling that washed over me when I said those words. Certainly, as a six-year-old, I did not understand the theological implications of the scripture, but I sensed deeply that I was being watched over and that I would always be protected. Throughout a life that is approaching eight decades, these words have come back to me many, many times and have given me not only a sense of well-being but the strength to face whatever life has sent my way.

I grew up in Pleasant Grove, Alabama, which was also known as Frog Pond. In many ways, I had a rather charmed childhood, I guess, though my younger brother and I did get our share of switchings from our mother—so many, in fact, that we told her she finally killed that peach try by cutting switches from it. But even those switchings did not diminish by very much the utter joy of my childhood. I still remember with great joy the Saturday trips my family took into Fairfield, the closest town of any size. Sometimes we didn’t have a car and had to catch the bus into town. But however we got there, an exciting routine awaited us. We always went into a small café on a side street, where we ordered hot dogs dressed with mustard and ketchup, minced onions, and sweet pickle relish. Invariably, I also chose a chocolate milkshake, the icy coolness of which went very well with the steaming hot dogs. After we finished eating, we routinely went to the afternoon double feature at the small movie theatre. My brother and I would watch the heroics of Hopalong Cassidy and Gene Autry and pretend to fly through the jungles with Tarzan and Jane. We would return to Pleasant Grove exhausted, but we still had to polish our shoes in preparation for Sunday church.

I noticed that lots of kids got awfully tired during the Sunday worship service. Somehow, I managed to stand it pretty well. But my brother found it all very hard. I still remember very well how, on one Sunday, he began to build himself a train out of hymnbooks. Once he was satisfied with the train, he began making appropriate sounds for a locomotive. My mother, sitting in the choir loft, was not about to brook such behavior. She came down, grabbed him by the hand, and escorted him from the church. Lacking a peach tree switch, she felt in her purse for her hairbrush and wielded it to good effect. There were no more trains or train sounds in the sanctuary from then on.

My brother seemed to find life a bit more difficult than I did. In our house, no profanity was allowed, no matter how frustrated one might be. One day, as a small boy, he was playing in the front yard with his baseball when it got caught in the tight, prickly hedge. His efforts to get it out proved futile, and he came running in the house, yelling, Mama, can I cuss? Mama, can I cuss?

She said, Well, what is it you want to say?

Heck, he said.

My mother was what is sometimes called a pillar of the church. She not only sang in the choir but also was, for many years, the youth leader for the church. There was little opportunity for our young people to go into town for recreation, so on most Friday nights, fifteen or so kids would gather at our house for what we called socials. If watermelons were in season, Dad would buy a couple for us to share. Mother would add to our delight by assigning the hand crank freezing of a couple of gallons of vanilla ice cream. Plus there were games like hide-and-seek, chase, and slinging statue, along with a game we called Blind Man’s Bluff, where one player is blindfolded and tries to touch one of the other players.

I loved our socials, and I even liked school. I