Lola Jan Thomas was not what her mother was expecting.

While there was obviously a baby on the way, her mother, Bobbie Jean Page Thomas, was convinced it was a boy. "When my mom found out she was pregnant she wanted a boy," Thomas told the Review. "There were no girl names picked out. I was supposed to be named John Mark. John after my paternal grandfather, John Marshal Thomas. My dad’s mom, Lola Knox Thomas, had come to await my birth. When I arrived I was a girl, so I was named after her instead. Jan came from the name tag of the anesthesiologist who put my mom under."

She was born in Picayune, Mississippi, in Pearl River County. Her father was the late Clyde Thomas, an oil company employee whose job kept him on the move.

"At that time my family was moving about every eight months," Thomas shared. "My dad worked for Exxon for more than 31 years, and we moved about 20 times. He worked out in the field exploding dynamite. They had trucks that had giant earphones that pushed down into the dirt, and they would register the movement after the explosion to determine whether there was a salt dome or a possible oil field in the area. This was long before offshore drilling, so they were looking for oil in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and other places in the lower 48 states."

The family soon found itself in California, where Thomas began school.

"We lived in Picayune and Hattiesburg in Mississippi, and when I was two we moved to Houston, Texas. Then we were transferred to California. We lived east of Los Angeles in Baldwin Park. I started school there, and Mom taught first grade."

She said an early experience with her babysitter’s menu caused a lifelong aversion to certain foods.

"At that time all of us Baby Boomers were starting to school, and the public schools there were really overcrowded," she said. "I went to a morning Kindergarten, which was a half day. We were far away from family, so I went to a babysitter after school. The babysitter served so much Ravioli and Lima beans that they are not on my menu to this day. No Ravioli and Lima beans."

She said that while she was too young to completely understand at the time, she remembers the day John F. Kennedy was killed because of her teacher’s reaction.

"I went through second grade at Baldwin Park. That’s where I was the day John F. Kennedy was shot. My second grade teacher’s name was Liddy Coleman. She was a beautiful African-American lady, always dressed perfectly, fingernails, hair always perfect, just a strikingly beautiful lady. She was crying, and we didn’t understand. She just kept saying "They didn’t have to kill him." over and over," she said.

The family soon loaded up and headed back to Texas.

"In 1964 we moved again, this time back to Houston, and I started third grade," Thomas shared. "We were all ‘oil-field kids’ who had transferred in from out of state, and we were all behind. Texas schools were so far ahead of what we all had been accustomed to, and our teacher, Miss Mason, had a really hard time with us that year, because we were not prepared for the curriculum."

The Thomases were in Texas long enough for Jan to graduate high school, and she was inspired to become a teacher.

"We were in Houston for several years, and I graduated high school from Westbury High School there. I knew I wanted to be a teacher, my mom is one of nine kids, and out of the nine, five are teachers. My dad and his brother both held teaching certificates as well, so it just seemed right."

After graduating high school in 1974, she went to college at Abilene Christian University in West Texas.

"I went to college under the biggest, bluest sky in the world," she said. "I knew I wanted to be a teacher, but when I started college they did not have a kindergarten certification. Between my junior and senior year the state of Texas developed a program that if you went an extra semester you could get an endorsement to teach kindergarten. So I ended up taking the extra classes, and got the endorsement."

She soon began teaching.

"After graduation I went back to Houston and taught at a private school, at the Westbury Church of Christ Christian Academy," Thomas informed. "I taught there from 1978 until 1984.

"At that time Tennessee had just started the career ladder," she continued. "If you completed a program you could earn extra money over your base pay. My uncle, Glenn Page, was the principal at Smithville Elementary, and he told me that Tennessee needed teachers, and that if I would come here he would try to help me get on somewhere in DeKalb County. So, in April 1984, during spring break, I came and interviewed in Cannon County with Mr. Joe Davenport, and I came here and interviewed with Mr. Aubrey Turner, and I interviewed in Sparta. By the time school was out I had heard from Cannon County and DeKalb, and there were possible jobs both places."

So she left Texas.

"I felt like Abraham. I packed up everything in a U-Haul and came to Tennessee on faith. I moved into the apartments behind Smithville Elementary. I met Mr. Andrew Roth, my downstairs neighbor who managed TG&Y, and his wife, and ended up going to work there," she said.

"When Mr. Tucker Hendrix moved from the high school to the middle school he interviewed me for a job teaching seventh grade overflow," said Thomas. "I was excited to get a job, but coming from kindergarten to middle school involved some culture shock.

"I prepared all summer," she said. "As an overflow teacher I would be teaching a different subject each hour. A few weeks before school started there was a local young lady who had graduated and needed a job, so they moved me tom eighth-grade history and spelling and she took the overflow position. I was in the history department with Mr. Ben Herman, Mrs. Jane McGinnis and Mr. Tommy Alexander."

She said Mr. Herman came up with some creative teaching techniques.

"The classrooms were open, and every Friday we all gave spelling tests," Thomas shared. "One day, for some odd reason, Mr. Herman kept mispronouncing the same word. Every hour I would hear him start his spelling test at exactly the same minute, and he would mispronounce the same word. He had recorded the test, and was playing it back on a tape player while he sat there with his feet propped up on the desk and read the Review.

"That was about the time Mrs. Jackie Smith opened her insurance office, and vacated a position teaching seventh-grade English. My degree was primarily in English, so I took over her spot. I was excited. I stayed there until I left the middle school in 1993. They rearranged the school according to grades rather than subject area, and I was in a section with Mrs. Linda Fuson, Tommy Alexander, Jan Alexander, Judy Redmon and me. That was a lot of fun. It was great. We all worked so well together, and the kids loved it."

She said both students and teachers had a lot of fun.

"We played some pranks," she said. "When Mr. Tommy turned 40 we dressed a skeleton as Dolly Parton, put a black wreath on it, and rolled it into his classroom. Mrs. Linda Franklin’s home room was the room I always inherited when they moved to eighth grade. She once taped a walkie-talkie in a box and mailed it to my desk. She intended to start talking when my spelling test, but we were called to the auditorium and her plan was foiled. It was a really good time. Those kids are in their 40s now, and in some cases I have taught their kids and grandkids. There are three generations running around DeKalb County that I have taught."

She was soon called back to kindergarten.

"I went back to graduate school at Tennessee Tech in 1989, and I went back when they expanded kindergarten at Smithville Elementary," Thomas said. "It was great. We had brand new classrooms. We sat on the floor for a couple of weeks before the furniture came. There were no phones, and no intercom yet. It was wonderful. If anybody wanted us they had to send a real person down there, so we had a lot of time to spend with the kids. It was absolutely perfect."

She said that when her time first came for retirement, it was postponed by another assignment that turned out to be one of the most rewarding of her career.

"In 2008 I had done my 30 years, and I thought I was ready to retire, but my six years in Texas did not count toward my retirement in Tennessee. The Response To Intervention (RTI) program was introduced, and I decided to try that for a while. I did that the last five years of my 35 years as a teacher. I loved it. It was a reading and phonics program. It was in the very early stages, so I got to choose how I put the program together. In all my years in education, that’s where I felt like I made the most difference."

She said a cold morning working school traffic finally set her on a path to retirement.

"I retired in 2013. I made my decision to retire one very cold morning. Part of my job was to work the car line, and it was about 36 degrees that morning. It just occurred to me that it might be time to think about retirement. That afternoon I went to the central office and told Mr. Mark Willoughby I was done. I haven’t regretted it," she admitted.

"When you retire people think you should suddenly have all this spare time," Thomas said. "I do more now than I did when I was teaching. I attend the senior center, and I’m taking art classes. I tutor third graders once a week at First Baptist Church.

"I work with veterans as well," she continued. "We help get service dogs for veterans, and we began a program in which the SES students mail a letter to a veteran on Veteran’s Day. We mailed ten letters when the program began in 2010, but since then, with the help of Judy Redmon and the local Amvets, the program has expanded so that last year we mailed 197 letters last year. It’s such a wonderful thing. At first my mom and I would buy envelopes and stamps and mail the letters. It has gotten so big that I had to have some help, so Beth Cantrell prints all the labels, along with stickers and decorations for the envelopes. We have the program at SES the week before Veteran’s Day, so that when the veterans go to the celebration at the county complex, they can have their letter in their pocket. It is amazing how appreciative they are of that letter. So many of them gave so much and got very little in return. My dad was in the Navy, and served during the Korean War. It was something I felt led to do in honor of him."

She also began to dabble in genealogy.

"My mother was originally from DeKalb County, and was born in Cove Hollow before the dam was built. My dad was from Cannon County. I’m related to the Knox, Todd and Thomas families in DeKalb and Cannon County. We get together every three months to trace the Todd family genealogy. We have traced the Todd family back to the 1620s, to a gentleman named Joseph Todd. Through the Thomas-Todd line I am related to Mary Todd Lincoln. We are also related to James K. Polk through my grandmother, Lola Knox Thomas," she claimed.

"A few years ago we had an invitation to Columbia, where they were having a reunion of Polk’s descendants. My dad and I attended, and took a copy of the Knox family tree, which was put together by twin sisters from Cannon County. It is hand drawn in ink, and traces back to Joseph Knox, who came from Scotland. James K. Polk is on one of the branches. We took our tree and compared it to the one hanging in the Polk home in Columbia, and it matched our independently drawn copy. We could line our tree up and match it exactly. It has been an interesting hobby. I have a cousin in Murfreesboro, Russell Thomas, who is working on the Thomas family tree. That part of my family had never really been done. He has traced it back to Wales. So our family is Scotch, English, Irish and Welsh. Now that I’ve retired and had time to do some searching, I love all that stuff."

Thomas also has found time for Girl Scouts, church, and then library.

"I’m a lifetime Girl Scout," she said. "I helped Mrs. Ann Puckett with five troops. When we finally graduated Amanda Webb Blair and Melissa McCormick Roysden we quit," Thomas said with a laugh.

"I’m really busy at church (She attends the Smithville Church of Christ). Three years ago we started a work camp. We used to send a group to Mexico to help build church buildings for a week. But the political climate became unsafe, so we had two young men, Rob Willingham and Casey Midgett, who put together a program to help out locally. We are now known as the church that builds the ramps. They do everything from painting to cleaning up and building ramps for the disabled. We’ve helped people move.

"I also have the honor of serving as chairman of the board for Justin Potter Library. We are approaching our 50th anniversary, and we’re planning a big party. I attend the county commission and Smithville alderman’s meetings. Our local government is good to us. They’ve increased our funding for the library. The library is far more than a building full of books these days. They have the Tennessee Electronic Library, where you can download information, and they also have a program called READS that you can set up on your tablet. The summer reading program is wonderful. It’s for kids from age two to ten, and it grows every year. We have a lot of programs during summer reading. We have one day blocked off just for crafts. Our theme this year will be building and construction," Thomas shared.

Somehow Thomas also found time to take up painting.

"I started painting in June of 2013. I love it. We paint once a month through the senior center, and the library has received a grant that will allow us, with the help of St. Thomas Hospital, to have a program every Wednesday at the county complex. We are doing watercolor, pen and ink, quilting and sewing and mixed media, which includes decoupage and other things. The Wednesday classes are all free for all ages, you just sign up through the library."

She said that some of the relationships she has formed with her students are set to continue after she is gone.

"Not having any children, I get to adopt, and I can be very particular about it," she said. "After my dad died I decided I needed to get my business in order, so I had a will drawn up. Rob Willingham and Casey Midgett are going to be taking care of my affairs. It is their responsibility to put me in my box and take me to Cannon County, where my rock is already up. There are four boys from my days at DMS who are very dear to me as well. Chad Kirby, Kevin Agee, Johnathon Culwell and Tony Cantrell all played basketball, and one day they were sitting in the library. As I passed by I made a comment about the previous night’s game. They laughed, and the librarian, Mrs. Pam Vanatta made them write off. They came to me after class saying it was my fault. They have never let me forget this. Those four boys are going to bear my casket. I tell them we’ve stayed together since they were twelve, and they’re not getting out of it."

Her parents eventually joined her in Smithville.

"My parents moved to Smithville in 2003, and my dad passed away in 2010," she said. "I am blessed far more than I deserve. My mom and I are cared for. We have our church family, and they are wonderful. We have not wanted for anything. Mr. Johnny Cripps has called to check on us every Thursday since my daddy died."

She is also a fan of music and literature.

"I love music," she shared. "I listen to everything but opera. In my house I’ve got everything from B.B. King to the Beach Boys to Phil Collins. I even like a little bit of country music, as long as it’s not too twangy. Patsy Cline is great. I’m a big reader. There’s nothing better than a book. I love the old masters, classic literature and poetry. I am a lifetime learner. That I was always in search of something new to study. In order to be a good teacher you have to be a good learner. I want to think that I will continue to learn until then very end."

She said she feels that her maker has been her greatest influence.

"I think my whole life has been guided by God. I think that moving to Tennessee changed my life. I was able to buy my own home. DeKalb County has been good to me. It has provided me a way to make a living, it has provided me a way to take care of my parents when they became elderly. God’s hand has been in my life from the beginning. The plan was perfect. I look back and see his hand in every step."

When asked what advice she would like to leave for future generations, Thomas said that said that they little things must not be overlooked.

"I’ll tell you how I pray," she shared. "I pray for wisdom. I pray to be a good steward of what the lord has given me. I think he expects me to have a little sense about financial things. Everything I have came from Him, and I’ll leave this earth with nothing. I think you have to have your priorities in order. God comes first, then family, and your job comes way down the line somewhere.

"You have to stop and laugh every day," she continued. "I enjoy finding the humor in the little things. In your common, ordinary, everyday life funny things happen, and you have to be able to find the daisy growing in the crack in the sidewalk. It’s there, you just have to look. You cannot let your world become so fast and complicated that you can’t see the special things. You’ve got to make memories every day, and you’ve got to make time for the fun stuff," she concluded.