Turning Points
Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:
It’s Saturday Night again –
time for some more Genealogy Fun!!
Here is your assignment if you choose to play along (cue the Mission Impossible music, please!):
- Family stories are often about “Turning Points” and “Major Decisions.”
- This week, please describe a turning point in the life of one of your parents (or grandparents). Describe the decision and discuss the outcome.
Every time a head of household changes jobs, it becomes a turning point for the entire family. While my dad taught science in three different high schools before moving us to his hometown of Dodge City, it was his decision to go back to school that became the most significant turning point in our lives.
My dad loved teaching science, but his position at Dodge City Community College was gradually shifting from teaching into administration. That transition likely prompted him to consider other opportunities—including pursuing a doctorate. That possibility became reality when he was accepted into a doctoral program at the University of Nebraska.
That single acceptance set a series of major changes into motion.
Our house was sold in June, and we moved in with my grandparents until it was time to relocate to Nebraska in August. My mother, Roberta, went to work full-time to help support the family while my dad focused on his studies.
For my brothers and me, it meant leaving behind schools where we had known our classmates since kindergarten and starting over in a place where we knew no one.
While at the University of Nebraska, my dad, Eugene Crawford, was awarded the Herbert Brownell Fellowship in Science Education—an honor that affirmed he had made the right decision.
After two years in Lincoln, he completed his coursework and accepted a position at Kansas State Teachers College in Emporia, Kansas. In a full-circle moment, he returned to teach at his alma mater, and our family moved to my mother’s hometown.
In August 1971, Eugene Crawford received his doctorate in science education from the University of Nebraska—a milestone that began with a single, life-changing decision.