Jean’s Story – Part 4 – Entering the Adult World

Off to College

After graduating from high school, there was really no question about where I would go to college. I would attend GBS (God’s Bible School) in Cincinnati, Ohio, for many years the conservative choice for many young people who were raised as I was in the fundamentalist evangelical church environment.  It was the school where my father had studied for the ministry and where my parents had met and married. They knew it would be a place that would continue to reinforce the beliefs and rules that they had taught me since I was born and would keep me from “worldly” dangers.  I had been raised in a very sheltered religious environment so had no personal knowledge about any other kind of college or alternative choices.  One could understand this better if you realize this was before the Internet age, and we never had a TV in the house to “corrupt” us.  (My parents never owned a TV, nor believed in watching one.)

However, my parents did approve one deviation from the protective college setting of GBS.  This bible school was not state accredited and therefore could not give me a degree that would enable me to get a teacher’s license.  However, it had enjoyed a good reputation over the years with the nearby University of Cincinnati, which would accept many of the GBS credits (non-religious subjects) for transfer students.  So, after two years of taking classes and living and working part-time on the GBS campus, I moved to a small apartment near the school, worked full-time as a floor desk clerk at the nearby Christ Hospital, and started classes at UC.  At age nineteen I was finally out in the “real world.”

Wedding Bells

It was at this time that I met a student who was just starting to attend GBS and who was also working at this same hospital where I was.  I had casually dated off and on in high school and then during the two years I had been attending GBS, but with no serious relationships.  However,  when Earl and I met, we both fell hard and were engaged within two months.

At the end of the school year, we married and set up housekeeping in a tiny damp one-room basement studio apartment, poor but insanely happy as only young newly-weds can be, in spite of a constant battle with cockroaches. However, the rent was an extremely frugal bargain and helped us stretch our poor-college-students budget to cover our living  expenses and pay for both of our schooling.

One thing Earl and I shared from the beginning was our strong craving for the adventure of travel.  Earl had grown up in rural Kentucky in a family of modest means that didn’t allow for travel vacations.  Although my family had moved around a lot, we hadn’t ventured outside the Midwest.   So after our first year of marriage, we decide to start pursuing our dreams.  Earl would join the Air Force and hopefully that could provide us with the opportunity for some frugal travel adventures.

The timing was good, we thought as we planned.  He would be going to basic training during my last semester of work at UC for a BS in Education, doing my student teaching.  So off he went to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX.   There was just one unexpected addition to this plan.  Earl got the news in mail call that he was going to be a father – and I did my student teaching in maternity clothes.

But we were happy and didn’t have to change plans.  After basic training, Earl was assigned to Geiger Field near Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane, Washington.  I got my degree at UC a couple of months later and joined him there where we happily awaited the arrival of baby David.

Military pay was extremely low back in the 60’s so I taught school all during Earl’s enlistment to make ends meet. But we always took advantage of the times when we were both free to explore the area wherever he was stationed.   While we were in Spokane we did tent camping all around the Northwest, a frugal option that let us stretch our budget for more of the travel adventures we loved. Then the Air Force moved us to Newburgh, New York and we enjoyed the new big-city adventures that awaited us just 50 miles south in New York City. Sometimes a charitable organization would hand out expensive Broadway tickets to military families, and  I would make a big effort to snag these valuable freebies. Guess that was my introduction to comps!

Earl developed some serious medical issues so after 4 years he was out of the Air Force on a medical discharge, dashing our dreams for overseas assignments that would provide the opportunity for “world travel.”  Those goals were put on hold and we moved to Canton, Ohio, where I took a full-time high-school teaching position to support the family while Earl finished college and got his teaching degree.

Frugality continued to be center stage during these first years of adulthood, learning extreme money-management techniques necessary to cover high educational and family expenses on a low income.  My financial goal then – as it has remained to this very day – was to live within our income and avoid debt with all my might.

“Gaming” had not yet changed into “gambling” since we were still in a relatively conservative church environment. Actually, even game-playing was not a frequent activity during these years due to a busy schedule of juggling school and work and family duties.   It was limited mainly to joining other young marrieds with little kids getting together for occasional game nights.  By this time, I had walked away from some of the more extreme “rules” I had grown up with, those that didn’t seem to me to really be connected to “spirituality.” Friends introduced me to family games that used cards, like Old Maid, Rook, and Pit.  Of course, these weren’t “real” cards, and, of course, no money was changing hands, so could not even be considered as a beginning path from gaming to gambling.  That was still many years in the future.   But as it had been since I was little and played kiddie games with my sisters, I was still playing “for blood” even in just “fun games.”