by Marilynn Chadwick

Education was very important in our home. Mom and Dad were both college graduates back in the day when that was not common. Mom had been the valedictorian of her small country high school and Dad was a campus leader and played basketball at his high school, finishing early to go into the navy. He qualified for submarine school and left for his tour of duty, then returned after the war to go to college on the GI Bill.

Mom’s mother, my Grandmother Eunice, taught first grade for about 50 years. Sometimes when I would run errands with her in their small town in southern Virginia, grown-ups would stop and say proudly to me that my grandmother had been their favorite teacher and the one who taught them how to read.

I found my grandmother fascinating. One of eight children, her parents had died when she was very young, back in the late 1800s. She left home at an early age and somehow managed to go to college and became a teacher. Then she hopped on a cross-country train trip going west and taught school in various places along the way.

She made her way to Montana and eventually to Pasadena, California, where she taught for a few years, even attending one of the very first Rose Parades. She hopped on another train and made her way back across the country, stopping here and there to teach. I remember looking at photos from the time she rode by mule to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

Finally, back in Virginia, my grandmother at age 38 married my granddaddy, a farmer. He had met the pretty young schoolteacher before her travels west, and I suppose he was holding out until her return. By this time, he was 48. They married and had my mom a year later—their only child.

My dad’s mother, Grandmother Lois (the irony of a Eunice and a Lois will not be lost on some of you), was another special role model for me, and I adored her. Like my Grandmother Eunice, she also attended college back in the day when few women did and played on the very first women’s basketball team at William & Mary College in Williamsburg, Virginia. So you see why getting an education was its own “code of honor” in our family. My parents thought of education as noble. Even a responsibility, along with duty, sacrifice, and honor.

A heart that seeks to learn, grow, and receive from others is another mark of honor and, I think, helps to establish a legacy of honor in marriages and in families that is so lasting and so important.

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This series is adapted from the book, 8 Great Ways to Honor Your Husband by Marilynn Chadwick. To download your free PDF copy of this book, please visit our website by clicking here!

A Legacy of Honor: Get an Education