Former teacher relied on faith throughout career

Reflecting on 36 years of work, one retired Putnam County teacher recalls finding strength in her faith as she carried on with her career.

San Mateo resident Lynn Roberts said teaching has always been her calling and felt that elementary education was right where she needed to be. But her path to teaching had its inception in manual labor.

Like her friend, Sandra Gilyard, Roberts grew up as a migrant worker. That’s how her parents met, she said.

She was the first in her immediate family to go to college. Three of her brothers joined the military after high school while she and her younger sister earned college degrees.

As a child, Roberts spent her days of school helping out in the fields, and if she wasn’t in school, she and her siblings had to help their mom, she said. Roberts’ father passed away when she was just 3, but her mom kept her job as a migrant worker.

“We made sure we were in school because my mom was a hard worker. She’d work you to death,” Roberts said. “And she loved what she did because that’s all she knew because that’s the way she was raised.”

However, Roberts said she knew that is not what she wanted to do.

After graduating from Palatka South High School in 1973, Roberts said, she attended Florida A&M University and received a bachelor’s degree in elementary education.

Afterward, Roberts returned to Putnam County, where she started as a teacher’s assistant at Crescent City Elementary School in 1979 before becoming a full-time teacher in the 1980-1981 school year, she said.

“I love the kids, and when you give kids respect, they respect you, too,” Roberts said. “That’s what I liked about it and then just touching lives.”

When she became a teacher, Roberts liked learning all the different stories from her students and their families. In Crescent City, Roberts said, she connected with some of the students’ parents because they, too, were migrant workers.

While not every day as a teacher was easy, Roberts said, she would ask her pastor to bless her classes before every school year. She also prayed in her classroom and over her desk.

“I would pray over the front door and the back door because I needed the Lord to be there with me every day,” Roberts said. “That’s what it was going to take, you know. I couldn’t do it alone.”

Roberts also said Gilyard helped encourage her in her job, and Gilyard reminded her to take the Lord wherever she went.

Roberts retired from James A. Long Elementary School in 2015. She said she missed teaching as she settled into her first two years of retirement, but still runs into her former students and their parents from time to time.

Roberts is currently enjoying retirement by spending time with her grandchildren or watching old Western movies with a cup of coffee in her recliner. She thought about returning to teaching after retiring but wanted to let the younger generation take over.

“I said, ‘Nah, let some of these young people get their feet wet,” Roberts said. “It’s time for them to get their feet wet.”