Carolyn Pazderny Mathews

I didn't want to write this until I'd lost 20 pounds, but the diet isn't going so well. Therefore, I'll just use a smaller, lighter font in an effort to appear thinner.

Because I was a January graduate, I lost touch with many of my Jones classmates and also missed out many normal senior year activities, all to my regret, I might add. That regret about "hurrying to get out of high school" is something that I've carried with me, and it’s why I always tell my students they should enjoy a full senior year. There’s plenty of time ahead for work and/or marriage.

I married in 1964, and then graduated from Sam Houston State in 1965 with majors in Home Economics (how quaint!) and English. It took only one year of teaching sewing and cooking to junior high students in Bay City, Texas, to show me that I wasn’t cut out to be a watchdog of the sewing machines and cooking utensils--my students regularly stole everything from machine parts to measuring spoons, rendering all lesson plans totally useless. When my husband joined the Air Force in 1966, I resigned my teaching job. We were stationed in Tucson, Arizona, and I began work on my MA in English at the University of Arizona. I also taught 6^th grade (self-contained classroom) for 2 years in a private school there. That was the year of the “new math,” when 6 plus 6 only equaled 12 if you were working in base 10. If you were working in base 8, it equaled 14; in base 7 . . . you get the idea.

In August of 1968, my husband was transferred to Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage, Alaska. I was pregnant with our first child, who was due in January of 1969. Three months after moving to Anchorage, I was diagnosed with cancer (advanced Hodgkin’s Disease, stage 4B), and we were given a hardship transfer to Lackland AFB in San Antonio so that I could begin chemotherapy at Wilford Hall Medical Center. Susan was born on January 13, 1969; I had my first round of chemo the same day. The chemo was gruesome; among other side effects, I lost all my hair, including my eyelashes and eyebrows. I was the only female in the group of 20 patients selected to try a new drug protocol treatment for Hodgkin’s. We were given a chemo cocktail of nitrogen mustard, prednisone, procarbizine, and oncovin via IV on the first and eighth day of each month. After that, we took 20 or so chemo pills a day until time for the next IV treatments. Many of the young military men in that group died within a first few months of beginning the treatments; I am the only survivor of that group today. I’ll spare you most of the details except to say that the treatment was bad, really bad. I remember little of my daughter’s first two years; I do, however, clearly remember the unrelenting barfing and other side effects of the chemo. But I survived.

In 1970, after my husband received a hardship discharge because of my need for more intense chemo, we moved to Wharton, Texas; I commuted to M.D. Anderson for my chemo for another year. Finally, in 1971, I was pronounced cancer-free, although still not out of the woods. Against everyone’s advice, we had another child, Scott, who was born in 1973.

Along with urging my students to enjoy their high school years, I also preach to them to wait until they’re at least 30 years old to marry. How on earth can you know at 18 whom you will be ten years later? (I know, I know—some of you guys did know and are still happy today—you’re among the lucky ones.) I couldn’t wait to graduate from college, couldn’t wait to get married, couldn’t wait for anything, it seems. But one day in 1974 or so, I looked at that man walking in the door and wondered, “Who are you and what did we ever have in common?” He wasn’t the same person I married, and I surely wasn’t the same person he’d married. We divorced.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire . . . I remarried, opened an antiques shop, and had child #3, Hillary. I loved having the shop, but when the oil fields in Wharton County dried up in the early 80’s, I had to get a real job, so I went back to teaching. I taught English at El Campo High School for several years, and then for ten years at Wharton High School. I’d probably still be in Wharton except that I didn’t like what was happening in the schools there. Fights, drugs, lack of respect for authority, etc., made teaching a battle, not a career. I also had a REALLY bad experience as cheerleader coach (think “attack of the cheerleader mom, followed by major rotator cuff surgery 3 times to repair the damage”). Yes, I sued, and after I won the personal injury suit against the mother, I decided there had to be better places to teach.

I’ve been at Leander High School since 1996. Leander has to be the best district in Texas in which to work, a belief substantiated by the extremely low teacher turnover rate here. We have a diverse student population, ranging from the children of dot.com millionaires to the children of hippies who still live in tents and huts in the nearby hills. No matter what their economic or social background, however, our Leander students are generally respectful, well-behaved, and eager to learn. I’m retiring on May 28^th, and will leave teaching full of gratitude for being able to spend my last working years in a district that values its teachers and education.

I could happily teach in Leander for another 5 years, but I’m eligible for retirement this year, and because my husband is totally disabled with severe rheumatoid arthritis, I decided to retire now. Oddly enough, cold weather is much easier on Wayne than the miserably hot weather we’ve had in central Texas the last few summers. So, in early June we’re moving to Montana. We’re in the middle of some serious, long-distance renovating of an 85-year-old Arts and Crafts style home about 25 miles south of Dillon, right in the middle of Lewis & Clark territory and on the Clark Canyon Reservoir. Thanks to digital cameras, the internet, and my fax machine, the remodeling is going remarkably well even though I’m not there to interfere . . . er, I mean SUPERVISE.

Why Montana? Well, our son Scott went to TCU’s Ranch Management School, where he met someone who became his best friend, Jon Hansen, from Montana. After graduation, the Hansens hired our son to come back with Jon and help manage the family ranch in the Beaverhead Valley, south of Dillon. Five years later, Scott married the Hansens’ only daughter. Our youngest child, Hillary, had been spending part of her summers with her brother at the ranch, and by the time she was a junior at the University of Texas, Jon Hansen decided she was the girl he wanted to marry, never mind that she lived 1900 miles south of him. The summer visits became a 2-year long-distance courtship that culminated in marriage after Hillary graduated from UT in 1999. Now we have two children married into the same family, living on the family ranch. (It’s not polite to talk about the size of a “spread,” according to the ways of the west, but here’s a clue: Hillary lives 8 miles from the main ranch headquarters; her brother Scott lives 12 miles beyond her on the same spread; another Hansen brother lives 13 miles beyond Scott.) When the grandkids began arriving, we knew we couldn’t stay in Texas.

I’ve never gotten completely away from selling antiques, and with the advent of EBAY, I’ve found another market that’s far easier to work in than doing antique shows with all the packing, unpacking, setup, etc., that they require. For several years, Wayne and I had booths at the Austin Antique Mall and at the Antique Mall of Texas, but after his rheumatoid arthritis became so debilitating, we had to give them up; I couldn’t teach and keep our spaces stocked by myself. So, we left the malls and have concentrated on doing occasional shows instead. For over a year we also had 12 spaces at Canton’s First Monday Trade Days. We gave that location, too, after Wayne became ill. Even though we’re moving to a remote area, EBAY will allow us to keep at least part of our business alive.

Our oldest child, Susan, is 33 and lives in Bay City. She’s very close to her father, who also lives there, so she’s not too upset by our leaving Texas. Susan graduated from the University of Texas and is the site manager of WorkSource, Gulf Coast Careers (a state agency). She’s married to Tommy Phillips, and they have two little boys: Zachary, age 5, and Joshua age 4.

Scott, who’s 29, is married to Jody Hansen, and they live on the Hansen Livestock Company ranch. They have a little boy, Clay, who will be 3 next month, and are expecting #2 in early November. In addition to working cattle and sheep, they also breed, train, and sell stockdogs for working cows. In fact, on my way to the ranch last month, I had a 10-hour detour through east Kansas to pick up 3 “Hangin’ Tree” cowdogs for my son; he’s working them into his breeding stock. Scott and Jody also breed, raise, break, and sell quarterhorses.

Hillary, age 25, is married to Jon Hansen, and they also live on the Hansen Livestock Company ranch. Last summer they had their first child, a girl, Savannah Kate. Like Jody and Scott, Hillary and Jon also work cattle and sheep. Additionally, Jon raises longhorns for “roping stock,” leasing them to people in Montana and Idaho. Hillary’s love living in the mountains, but is frustrated about having no place to use her advertising and communications degree from UT. Before having Savannah, she worked for the Dillon newspaper, and then for Western Montana College. Now she’s enjoying being a stay-at-home mom, but plans to return to work later. The ranch is nearly an hour from town, however, so work opportunities are limited not only by the poor economy in Dillon, but also by distance.

Those of you who were in the JHJ band probably remember how long-winded I always was at those band banquets, so this lengthy bio isn’t a surprise to you. But it may have been a shock to people who don’t remember my love affair with the written and spoken word. With that in mind, I’ll bring this to a close. The fat lady hasn’t sung, however; I’m working on a book that may or may not ever see the light of day. If it does, and you read it, to plagiarize Paul Harvey, you’ll get “the rest of the story.”