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Three years ago, Pat Ormond was retired and bored. Her granddaughter, Melody, suggested she take up knitting. Or join a book club. But Pat wasn't interested.
"I searched out the senior citizen clubs, and they weren't stimulating in the least,” says Pat, 75, who lives in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
"Nana [had become] a little bit of a homebody, so I was like, ‘All right, smarty pants. Come to college with me,’ “ recalls Melody, 22.
Pat had never thought about going back to school to earn a college degree, but not long after Melody's challenge, she figured, why not? She had the time. She also had enough credits to start as a sophomore, given the courses she'd picked up here and there when she was younger, mostly at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga — where Melody was starting as a sophomore.
The price was the clincher. Only $70 a semester, since she was over age 65 and a state resident.
So grandmother and granddaughter became classmates.
"It would keep me young, keep me active and definitely keep my mind going,” says Pat.
Adds Melody, also of Chattanooga: “She's always been an inspiration."
Seeing ‘Nana’ on campus
Pat grew up near the Etowah Indian Mounds, a 54-acre archaeological site in Bartow County, Georgia. She went there often, and her exposure to the ancient ritual mounds — the Southeast's best window into the culture of the Mississippians — spurred an interest in archaeology.
Once she was old enough to work, she took a position at an accounting business. One thing led to another, and before she knew it, she had spent most of her working years as head of bookkeeping for two CPA firms.
Those college courses she took were to help her become a certified public accountant, “But life just kind of got in the way,” she says.
Pat raised two children. Then one day her son moved back home with his two children. Melody was one of them.
"There wasn't that much money at the end of the month to think about me going back to school,” Pat explains.
Once Melody suggested she return to college, Pat, pursuing a lifelong interest, became an anthropology major with a concentration in archaeology.
"Being retired, I could study what I wanted to study,” she says.
If you stop moving, that's when you're going to have problems. You have to keep moving.
Melody was a psychology major, so they didn't share any classes, but they did see each other on campus now and then.
