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The hill above the path Ophelia Kennedy traveled
as she walked home from school was a strategic
vantage point for Lonnie Colbert, whose squirrel
hunting escapades provided a convenient excuse
for him to see the pretty girl whose family farm
was separated from his only by the small church
and little school |
Mrs. Ophelia Colbert |
where country children were educated through the eighth
grade.Though they had known each other since childhood, they
had never gotten past hello before becoming better
acquainted while sitting up with a sick neighbor. After
that, he came to her house on Saturdays, the day her
father reserved for cutting hair, and began walking home
with her after school.
"I always just laugh and say I married the boy next
door," smiles Ophelia, her deep brown eyes a clue to the
dark-haired beauty she was in younger years.
"Irish to the core", Ophelia's ancestor, Caleb Kennedy,
entered the United States in 1840 from the same county
in Ireland as the ancestors of her Kennedy kinsman who
in 1963 would become President of the United States.
Born in Lawrence County in 1920, she was three years
younger than that Kennedy whose future would so greatly
impact the country.
Ophelia and Lonnie, whose given name was Leon, were
married some time after she finished her early
education, when she was 14 and he was 22.
"Let me tell you something about that 14 business," she
says quickly, "It was not all that unusual back then."
The oldest of seven children, her childhood chores had
included care for her younger brothers and sisters plus
cooking and washing dishes while her mother sewed for
the public.
"When I learned to cook I had to stand on a stool to
make biscuits," she says, "On a farm there is always
something you have to do."
She recalls the observation of her father's sister,
"Aunt Mary", who once remarked to Ophelia's mother,
"Jessie, that's the only kid I have ever seen born
grown."
The newlyweds made one crop before moving to Pulaski,
where Lonnie began driving a truck for his uncle and
Ophelia worked in a pants factory for four years. He
later went into business for himself, still driving
trucks, a profession that eventually brought him to
McKenzie as transport for the Domestic Egg company.
"He grew up on a farm but he never cared for that and he
loved driving the truck and traveling," Ophelia explains
softly.
The couple had one child, Leon Jr. (now an optometrist
in Nashville) before Lonnie left for foreign shores
during World War II, where he remained a truck driver,
hauling supplies to the front lines.
He was cut off at the front and lived in a foxhole for
17 days at one point, just three days shy of the time
frame after which his wife would have been notified he
was missing in action.
Ophelia's brother, who was in Europe at the same time as
Lonnie, was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge and
returned home. She didn't see her husband for three
years and 29 days, during which time she lived in
Florida near relatives.
Back in McKenzie, the Colberts added two more sons,
Kesley and David, to their family. Second child Heber
Kesley (now a tax appraiser and high school football
coach in Florida) was named after Ophelia's father while
David (now a plant manager at M&W Co. in Tupelo, MS who
served in Vietnam as a Green Beret) was named for King
David of Biblical fame.
"I always liked King David. He had his faults but the
Bible says he was a man after God's own heart," she
muses, "He was a great warrior but he sang songs all the
time."
During her childhood years, Ophelia's grandfather taught
Bible classes, her father was superintendent of Sunday
School and her mother was secretary of the little
country church they attended.
Continuing in the tradition of her family, Ophelia began
teaching Sunday School when Leon Jr. was small. Once the
younger boys had entered grade school - and with her
husband gone frequently on long-haul trucking ventures -
she decided she would enjoy studying the Bible classes
offered at Bethel College.
She began taking correspondence courses to obtain her
high school diploma, with local school officials
certifying her progress. Advised by School
Superintendent W.O. Warren it would be easier just to
attend classes, she enrolled in the freshman class of
McKenzie High School when she was 34 years old. Leon was
in junior high and the other children were in the first
and second grades. Shortly thereafter, her aptitude
apparent, he advised, "What you need to do is go to
Martin and take a test and go on to Bethel."
"I never really thought about graduating, but one day I
got the nerve up and decided to take some other
classes," says Ophelia, who already had several Bible
classes under her belt.
English was pretty hard, she relates, then she took
science and finally math.
"I can't believe I graduated with honors but I did," she
says modestly, referring to herself as a "nine-day
wonder". Ophelia and middle son Kesley graduated from
Bethel together in 1965 when she was 45 years old.
"I had kind of a strange education," says Ophelia
regarding the sequence of events that led to her degree.
She had never rushed her studies, instead taking classes
as they suited her, while selling Avon to help pay her
expenses.
McKenzie school officials offered Ophelia a teaching
position soon after her graduation, however, Ophelia
advised she was not qualified to teach. She remedied
that problem by accepting the job while attending Murray
State University night and summer classes to obtain her
certification in special education.
"I had a wonderful teacher up there who taught me a lot
about exceptional children," says Ophelia, who was so
close to a degree after obtaining her certification that
she continued her studies and earned her masters degree.
After teaching special education for several years, she
became a resource instructor, helping bring children
with various problems up to grade level.
She laughs about her classroom, which, though she had
only a few students at a time was still small and had no
window and is now used for equipment storage.
"Today they call it "Colbert's Closet," she chuckles.
She retired in 1980 after 15 years of teaching, having
taken the previous year off in order to care for her
husband, who had become ill and died in 1979.
"Life is strange, the turns it does take," declares
Ophelia, who in time had taken every Bible class Bethel
had to offer, taking seminary classes with Brother
Wesley Pitts during the 1970's. "That was my main goal,
and the Lord used it to help me," she says, appreciative
of the pension made possible by her years as an
educator.
"You have to know a subject before you can teach it,"
says Mrs. Ophelia, but it was one day when she was
reading in the 15th chapter of the Book of John when,
she says, "It really hit me hard when I read the fifth
verse where Jesus said without me you can do nothing. I
realized no matter how much I studied I had to have the
Holy Spirit speaking through me in order to touch
anybody's heart."
Ophelia's students in her Sunday School teacher have
progressed over more than 50 years from preschool
children to young married couples to the older adults
she teaches now at First Baptist Church in McKenzie. In
her current class, she says with deep affection, her
main concern is for the health of those she teaches.
Ophelia also taught Training Union Bible Study at the
church, a position that came about when the chairman of
deacons asked if she would assume the responsibility.
"Without thinking I said. 'I'll take it for three months
if I can throw away that literature. That literature is
duller than dishwater!'" she declares, the sparks of
indignation glinting from her dark eyes changing to
merriment as she continues, "I taught the class for over
20 years. Brother Pitts teased me that was the longest
interim he'd ever heard of."
Her current mission began some 12 years ago with
Associate Pastor Clayton Owen asked her to lead in a
women's prayer ministry that now meets at 10:00 a.m. on
Tuesdays, Thursday mornings before work hours, and
Saturdays at 1:00 p.m.
In her spare time, Ophelia's favorite pastime is
reading, and while she enjoys English history and
biographies, her passion is Biblical prophecy.
"My daddy used to tease me about it; I think I've always
been interested in it. Brother Pitts used to say if
somebody went in the back room and blew a trumpet
Ophelia would go," she smiles. "People tease me now
about looking out the window for the rapture.
"I think seriously that we are looking out the door to
the rapture of the church," she continues, "I think
we're so close to it; it won't be much longer. Things
are happening just like Jesus said they would in the
last days."
Some of the titles Ophelia is currently enjoying are Tim
LaHaye (co-author of the "Left Behind" Series)'s
Merciful God of Prophecy (His Loving Plan for You in
the End); Henry and Richard Blackaby'sHearing God's
Voice"; Anne Graham Lotz's My Heart's Cry; and Hank Hanegraff's
Counterfeit Revival.
She also enjoys knitting and quilting and has made a
quilt for each of her six grandchildren with the
exception of the youngest, Matthew, who Ophelia says has
indicated he is no hurry for the gift which typically
coincides with a wedding.
Mrs. Ophelia's greatest treasure is her family's
relationship with God.
"My boys are very committed to the Lord and are a
blessing to their children. The boys are real close to
each other and all real active in church, doing
committee work, teaching and serving as deacons. The
Lord has blessed us greatly."
Ophelia's progeny includes (1) Leon and wife Paula's
children Christie (head nurse in a Nashville hospital)
and Laura (a young mom with a degree in interior
decorating); Christie and Jeff's children Jeffrey and
Jacob; and Laura and Herb's children Kelly, Sean and
Tripp, (2) Kesley and wife Cathy's children Joshua (a
Nashville physician) and Jessie (a ministerial student
and chaplain in the Air Force Reserves), and (3) David
and late wife Charlotte's children Tammy (who works in
her husband's medical clinic) and Matthew (a student at
Ole Miss).
Mrs. Ophelia excitedly awaits the arrival of new
great-grandson Caleb, who will carry the name of the
family's first Kennedy ancestor to reach America's
shore.
One of Mrs. Ophelia's favorite memories is the weekend
when some family members were in town to celebrate her
80th birthday. That Sunday, she recalls brightly, "When
I came out of Sunday School class and walked in
sanctuary two pews of people stood up. It was my family.
I didn't know they were all coming; some of them had
stayed in the hotel the night before."
She also enjoyed a trip to the Holy Land in February
1973, a journey she calls "one of the highlights of my
life."
"It was a marvelous trip - six days in Israel and four
days in Rome," she says, glowing as she recalls the
honor of reading scripture while crossing the Sea of
Galilee.
Mrs. Ophelia confesses she has "done quite a bit of
traveling."
"I've visited almost every state in the Union," she
says. Many of her journeys took place in the company of
the First Baptist Church's "Young at Heart" group.
Patches that serve as mementos of her travels run the
length of both sleeves and cover most of the back of the
red windbreaker jacket that sets her out as a member of
the group.
She also enjoyed a tour of nine states plus Mexico and
Canada with her brother Franklin Delano (F.D.) and
sisters Beatrice and Ruby. Among the sites enjoyed on
the western trip were the Grand Canyon in Arizona and
California's Redwood Forests.
When Kesley took his family on a ski trip to Colorado's
Steamboat Springs, Ophelia was invited as well.
"It was an interesting trip even though I didn't ski,"
says Ophelia, who secretly ventured by bus to the store
for supplies one day, surprising everyone the following
morning with a breakfast of sausage, biscuits, and
gravy.
She was also honored to be chosen by the Garden Club as
Mrs. Tennessee during the 1976 Tennessee bicentennial.
Despite her years of service of the church, Ophelia
says, "I haven't done as much witnessing as I wish I
had. Maybe just the fact that I have been committed to
my Lord all these years might be an encouragement to
someone else - nothing else is that important. That's a
legacy I want to leave, that I was faithful to my Lord." |
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