Hi! I’m Cathy – Countess of Crowd Control! Guess it is my teaching background that persuaded me to choose this title. My favorite flower is “corn,” and my favorite color is blue.

Born and raised on a farm in Randolph (Northern Ohio), everyone knew everyone as most of us were all related. What an adventure I had when I left home to attend college. I received my teaching degree from Rio Grande College in Southern Ohio. Returned home to teach second grade at the same school I attended while growing up. Many of my students were brothers or sisters of the classmates I graduated with. How exciting and interesting! That same year I was married. Thus I began a truly “nomadic” lifestyle. My husband’s job took us to many interesting places. Fortunately I was able to gain experience in the teaching field during these travels. In Anchorage, Alaska, I received a degree from the University of Alaska to teach preschool and Montessori. While in Anchorage I had the opportunity to teach many of the Eskimo children.

Moved back to Ohio – Youngstown then Columbus. From there transferred to Eureka, Illinois. (Eureka College is where President Reagan attended school. It is close to Peoria, Illinois.) Guess I just liked going to school. I attended a branch of Illinois University and received a certificate to teach Special Education. While in this beautiful town I taught in a Special Ed school and had the opportunity to set up their reading program. What a challenge and an honor!

Should have figured life was getting to “secure”. Transferred to Charlottesville, Virginia. Since there’s no sense in sitting around doing nothing, I applied for a position in the Charlottesville school district. I was hired to work with the tri-county vision impaired program. Part of my job was to do the vision screening for the outlying schools in the counties. Many were rural area (Appalachia).

Just when we were settling in and content, those famous words rang out – “I’M BEING TRANSFERRED. WE’RE MOVING”. Back to Ohio, back to Columbus!

While these are a few of the major moves, there were many “side trips” as well. Even as far south as Tennessee.

By this time I was preoccupied being “taxi driver” for my sons Jason and Nick. Teaching was put on hold. But something was missing. As a sat to read my new Country Woman magazine an article caught my attention. Pictured was a group of ladies wearing red hats. After reading about their group I just had to get involved. Researching I found a list of groups in my area. And, luck would have it, the local paper announced that the Victorian Bouquets were meeting at the local tea room in Westerville – RSVP. The rest is history.

Must share a lovely story. When my son was in school the teacher was doing a unit on seeds. Each student was asked to bring in seeds to share to see how many different kinds there were. Figuring that most of the students were “city folks”, my son decided to take in corn seeds. Much to my surprise the seeds were being planted and grown for a special surprise for Mother’s Day. On Mother’s Day - while all the students took home planted flowers - my son brought home the start of a lovely corn plant. To this day that corn plant meant more to me than any flower in the world. Now you know why I say “corn” is my favorite flower!

My “sisters” in the Victorian Bouquets have welcomed me to their group. I am so very glad that I took the time to read the paper a few years ago and become involved with the wonderful gathering of very special ladies.