Serendipity, or not many degrees of separation:

Two Fridays ago I went to a very nice party. Don’t get invited to many, so when they come along I go along. This was a good group of interesting people, the type that I have had trouble finding here in the South. Under one roof was a group that I enjoyed and I don’t think I alienated badly.

There was one woman who turned out to be particularly interesting. When I get with a group of locals, and as soon as they don’t hear a Southern accent, the question of how long have I been in town always comes up. Then comes the “where were you before moving here” and of course the ubiquitous, “how do you like Atlanta?” We had just got to the part of the conversation where people ask where I was born. I said Kentucky and she said, “Oh Kentucky, my mother went to college in Kentucky.”

Not only did she go to college in Kentucky, but also she went to Berea College. This is a small college at foot of the Appalachian Mountains that exists for the education of mostly Appalachian children. 90% of their students come from the mountains of West Virginia, East Kentucky or the western part of Virginia. That is where my mother went to college.

Joslyn’s Mom graduated in 1938 and my Mom graduated in 1936 or 1937. This is such a small college that we knew that they must have known each other. I heard from Jocelyn the following week and sure enough her mom remembered my mom and was going through her yearbook to see what stories she could remember about her. We are talking 60 years later two people meeting at a party and finding out that their Moms knew each other. How about that for coincidence?

My Mother had come out of a small farm to go to Berea for high school and then through four years of college. That is eight years away from her family. You don’t pay tuition at Berea; you work. That is how you pay for your schooling. At the time when the nation was deep in the depression and mountain families defined the words “dirt poor”, no one had money to send they children to college. From the start the college had industries from farms to arts and craft shops that brought money into the school. The hooked rugs of Berea are just about as famous as a crafts product can get.

The students worked at one of the school businesses and that paid for their room, board and college expenses. Had this not been the way the school did business my mother, and many other kids would have never had the chance for an education. One of the great parts to this story is that Berea College is considered one of the best small colleges in America. Year after year it is rated right up there with Reed, Oberlin or Loyola.

I have had two uncles and several cousins graduate from Berea and now more than a century later at a party I meet a woman whose Mom went to this special school with my Mom. Terrific story, right? Hold on it gets better.

The following Monday I was at my Doctors getting some blood work done when I told him this story. It may seem strange in today’s medical climate that a person can stop and gossip with his Doctor, but this is the case. He takes the time to talk to me, and I would guess his other patients. It is a personal touch that is missing, not only in medical, but most other places as well.

Anyway, I tell him this story expecting him to be amazed and he was. Turns out that his father and two uncles also went to Berea College. They were there, from West Virginia. 20 years after my Mother, that blew me away. In less than 24 hours I had come across children of a small college tucked away back in the Kentucky mountains, and one of these people went to school with my Mother.

This is so strange and wonderful I don’t even begin to know what to add. Except, perhaps, to echo the old cliché that Truth is stranger than Fiction.