Fearless Females: March 12 - Working Mama

Please visit Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month at The Accidental Genealogist. 

March 12 — Working girl: Did your mother or grandmother work outside the home? What did she do? Describe her occupation. 

My mama, Madeline Spence Gunter, got her driver's license in 1974. In 1979, she began driving a school bus for Anderson School District #5. Over the years, she's taken many of Anderson County's children to school and to the swim centers for swimming lessons. She spent a time driving the special needs school bus and seemed to have a special fondness for these children.

It was an adjustment for me and my siblings as we got used to having a mother that was not there when we came home from school. She always had been before. It wasn't always for the best that we came home to an empty house, but you do what you have to do in order to put a roof over the heads and food in the bellies of your family members.

Here it is thirty-four years later and she is still driving a school bus in the same school district. She doesn't see retiring any time soon. The loss of my daddy has made things financially difficult for her, but that aside, I don't know that she's even entertained the idea of retiring. As hard as it had been on her being in a loud school bus all day long, I think that she loves the job and can't see doing her life any differently.