Frances Craddock Stone

Fifty years! Oh my, how time has flown. When the e-mails started about the 50th reunion, I was flabbergasted! It could not be fifty years since I had graduated from high school. I started seriously pondering my life – what had I done, where had I been, what had I contributed to the world, was I really that old????It was quite easy to find the answer to that last question. I was that old. The other questions were a bit harder to answer. Needless to say, I had hopes and dreams when I graduated. I wanted to go to college, get a degree and teach. That sounded like the perfect life to me. But that just didn’t happen.First, college was postponed when my mother had an accident. I had to take care of her. Then my father was quite ill, and I had to help support the family. But even all that was a blessing, because when I went to work, I met my future husband. After a whirlwind romance and Marine bootcamp, I married the love of my life. God had a plan for our lives together.We lived the military life. We had two children, both born in military hospitals. Those were major adventures in themselves! Our first child was born with a tumor in his brain that caused epilepsy. The first eighteen years of his life were spent with doctors and hospitals. Our second was a perfect little girl who from the age of two wanted nothing but to be a teacher, too. She just left the classroom after twenty years and has taken a position as a high school assistant principal.When our daughter was in her last year of college, I thought it was finally time for me to begin college. So, at the age of 49, I became a college freshman. I worked full-time and went to college full-time at night. After I had been in college for two years, my husband decided to finish his degree. In May 2003, we graduated

together from High Point University. At 53, I graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Business Administration.Now for the last 15 years I have been an administrator, though not in business. Four months short of graduating from college, I had taken a part-time position with a Baptist church. After graduation, I became their administrator, ministry assistant, and financial secretary. God had finally put me where He wanted me to be. I serve Him, and I serve His people.Now, back to the question about what I had contributed to the world. That one is easy. My husband and I, through our daughter and son-in-law, have given the world three of the finest young men ever born. My grandsons have been the absolute joy of my life. I have been to hundreds of school functions and baseball games over the last 21 years and have loved every one of them. Two of the boys are in college and one is in high school. They have made my life complete.Well, that’s my life. Nothing spectacular but it’s mine and I love it!