{"id":9646,"date":"2016-09-28T02:30:25","date_gmt":"2016-09-28T07:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postcardslive.com\/?p=9646"},"modified":"2016-09-27T20:03:26","modified_gmt":"2016-09-28T01:03:26","slug":"do-you-know-dr-bonnie-baker-thorne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postcardslive.com\/do-you-know-dr-bonnie-baker-thorne\/","title":{"rendered":"Do You Know? Dr. Bonnie Baker Thorne"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>Photos by K2<\/sup> Images<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Dr. Bonnie Thorne moved to Huntsville in 1948, at the age of 20. With a husband in college, a newborn at home, a job, and taking classes part-time at SHSU, she arrived in Huntsville with a busy schedule. She\u2019s maintained such a schedule in the community for almost seven decades, earning her Bachelor\u2019s, Master\u2019s, and Ph.D.; working at SHSU well into her 70s; and serving as an active volunteer at the First Baptist Church. Having retired as volunteer librarian at the First Baptist Church, Dr. Thorne has been pondering how to expend her still prodigious energies.<\/i><\/p>\n When I was 7. I started going with him when I was 12, but that meant going to church picnics and that sort of thing. He was two years older than I was.<\/p>\n Yes. His daddy was our Sunday School Superintendent and Choir Director, and he was a great person. I loved Oscar\u2019s mother and father, and people would say to me, \u201cYou just married Oscar so you could have them as a mother-in-law and father-in-law.\u201d<\/p>\n I was born in 1928 in Houston, and I grew up there. In 1945, I went to Lon Morris College, and Oscar and I got married the next year. We both got our associate degrees from Lon Morris and then moved to Huntsville in 1948.<\/p>\n Before I graduated from high school, my dad was working on a scaffold, and it shifted; he fell and was hurt so badly that he couldn\u2019t work. When I brought up going to college, my dad said, \u201cBut Bonnie, you are a girl.\u201d I cried and cried. My mother told me, \u201cYou know your daddy wouldn\u2019t tell you that if he had money to send you to school. He\u2019s just too proud to say he\u2019s broke.\u201d Actually, my mother knew the President of Lon Morris was distributing $50 tuition certificates to various churches in Texas, with the idea that the congregation could select a prospective student to receive it. My mother called around to different churches and said, \u201cif you don\u2019t have anyone to give it to, Bonnie could use it.\u201d So, we got ten of those $50 certificates!<\/p>\n Oscar\u2019s mother had gone to Sam Houston, and we had heard good things about the school. I got a job at Mallery & Smither Chevrolet, and I worked there for nine years while I was raising our son Corky. Oscar got his bachelor\u2019s degree, and he started teaching school. It took me a while, because we were raising Corky and working. It was so hard to take a lot of classes while doing both, but I finished my bachelor\u2019s degree in 1960 in library science.<\/p>\n Oscar taught 7th grade in the building David Adickes now owns. Oscar worked for HISD for about 32 years, first teaching, then as a principal, and then as director of personnel and curriculum. He did that until 1982, and then he served for 12 years as tax assessor collector for Walker County. He felt very honored to have served in both positions.<\/p>\n I began working in the Registrar\u2019s Office in 1956 for Mr. Reed Lindsey. He allowed me to go to school while I worked there, so I was able to make some progress and eventually earned my Bachelor\u2019s, Master\u2019s, and Ph.D. I began working in the Library in 1961, and I was offered a teaching job in 1972. It was that same month when Corky was killed.<\/p>\n He was unloading a bull at an auction barn, and the bull killed him. He was teaching school at Madisonville, after getting his degree at Sam. All three of us\u2014Corky, Oscar, and I\u2014had earned degrees at SHSU. When Oscar died, I took all three of our rings, and I gave them to the Alumni Association to put in the ring display.<\/p>\n I had lots of help. A lot of faculty members helped me, and God gave me the strength. I don\u2019t know; you just do it a day at a time, sometimes an hour at a time. I try to thank God for the time I did have with Corky, and to focus on that. Not everyone had a son. And Corky really was a very special young man. We were so proud of him, and we enjoyed having him in our lives. And I try just to thank God for letting us have that joy in our lives for 25 years, and I will not allow myself to dwell on not having him. That was the way I coped.<\/p>\n I got it at Texas Women\u2019s University in 1975.<\/p>\n When the new building was approved, we also made the change from the Dewey Decimal system of classification to the Library of Congress. And we did that over a three-year period. When we moved into the new building, all of the materials that were on the open shelves had been classified in the LC system.<\/p>\n I took students on Study Abroad programs. The first three years, we went to London, and we went in a chartered plane. Sam Houston sponsored it as a university-wide program. After that, we continued it through the Library Science Department.<\/p>\n We went to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Scotland, and Ireland. It was great to spend time with the college students and see the light come on in their eyes. They were thrilled to have these opportunities. Even years later, the people who went on those trips will talk about them with great excitement.<\/p>\n I retired in 1993, when I was 65. But I stayed on as an adjunct until 2002.<\/p>\n No, no, no. Oscar died in 1999. We had truly worked as a team. I tried to support him in everything he did, and he certainly supported me. I felt like I was just half there, and I still feel like that, but I also feel like I have two special guardian angels.<\/p>\n As soon as we got to Huntsville in 1948, so about 68 years ago.<\/p>\nYou and Oscar were married a long time, and both of you made strong contributions to the community. When did you meet him?<\/h3>\n
<\/a>So you met at church?<\/h3>\n
Where did you grow up?<\/h3>\n
Was it unusual for you to want to go to college?<\/h3>\n
What made you decide on Sam Houston?<\/h3>\n
Where did Oscar teach?<\/h3>\n
When did you begin to work at SHSU?<\/h3>\n
Corky was only 25. How did he die?<\/h3>\n
<\/a>You were still working on your Ph.D. when you lost Corky. You had just begun your teaching career. How did you cope?<\/h3>\n
When did you get your Ph.D.?<\/h3>\n
<\/a>You\u2019ve seen a lot of changes at SHSU and in the community. You were working as a librarian when the library was moved into the Newton-Gresham Building in 1969.<\/h3>\n
You were also involved in the Study Abroad program.<\/h3>\n
<\/a>Where else did you go?<\/h3>\n
When did you retire?<\/h3>\n
When you first retired in 1993, did you think you\u2019d be giving interviews in 2016?<\/h3>\n
You were married for 52 years. When did you get involved in the First Baptist Church in Huntsville?<\/h3>\n