Kirt DeMar WOOD Master of Education

[pictures to be added]

From My Shoes and In My Time
Written by Kirt D. Wood

For a class at BYU
15 Sep 1981
I began a long time ago as it is viewed by most young people in college this month at BYU. I have even worn the hair out on tip of my head -- was it from combing it for so many years?

I remember times: time before the Wall Street Crash of ‘29, time of the subsequent years of the depression, time in World War II, time following and marrying, time of beginning a family of six children and now [1981] sixteen grand children, time of going to college (University of Utah) and being a freshman and a senior, and getting a BS in elementary education, and a decade later getting an MS in educational administration, time enjoying teaching far more than I’d ever expected to for thirty-years.

Yes, I recall moonlighting in 1955 and loading trucks and rupturing a disk which eventually ruptured out and required emergency surgery in 1957. The anesthetic used was one which I was allergic to! The result was an ailment called Meniere’s syndrome, which affected my inner ear and resulted in a very major loss of hearing in my left ear. This loss resulted in a really serious “direction” problem and sometimes a more serious “noise” difficulty which made a private conversation (“listening”) almost impossible in a room with many conversations going on.
It is easy to recollect the time of decision to call it “The End” of teaching in Granite School District after thirty-one years - June 1981.

There were the times my wife worked as a nurse to make it possible for me to enjoy teaching, times she taught and was a director of a vocational nursing school, times she “schooled” for two years for an MS in psychiatric nursing (University of Utah), and was on the U’s nursing faculty, after which she went to a six years period for a Ph.D. in microbiology (physiology), times when the six kids and I were the back-up team pushing her, times she was back at the U and eight years ago, times she switched a U for a Y (she’s in the Brigham Young University College of Nursing).

There is now the time I’m a “freshman” again and all of our first four children (girls) are married and mothers, and our first boy is to marry within three weeks, and our last boy will be the lone member of our progeny - fourteen years old- left home and with time, that too will pass on into the future.

See Life Sketch of Kirt DeMar WOOD