Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 20, 1990                   TAG: 9005200193
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ETTRICK                                LENGTH: Medium

DEGREE WAS WORTH WAIT, 79-YEAR-OLD GRADUATE SAYS

In that time, Bell, 79, has seen eight U.S. presidents take office and 12 astronauts walk on the moon.

"If you want something, you work hard and do it. It took me around-and-about time to get there, but thank God, I got there," she said.

Bell first started attending Virginia State University in 1948 when it was Virginia State College under a continuing education program.

Going to college and raising a family became so overwhelming that she stopped after two years.

"I don't think I could do it again. It was a job," Bell said.

"There were plenty of times when I thought about giving up, but I just kept going. Sometimes I thought my prayers were in vain, but they weren't. It's paid off."

During a 31-year break from her studies, Bell lived in Japan for three years while her husband served there in the military.

Bell's husband died in 1958, leaving her to do both the "mothering and the fathering." However, she was determined to get her degree.

"I always wanted to go to school. I was kind of education-inclined," Bell said. "I also went to school because I wanted to stay ahead of my children so I could help them.

Bell worked for three years as a dormitory hostess at VSU, retiring in 1975 at age 65. She decided in 1981 to continue toward a degree in elementary education.

However, events soon persuaded her to change her major.

During an art class, Bell and other students were assigned to do paintings, which the teacher later displayed. Bell came to class but couldn't find her painting of Little Boy Blue. She was crushed, thinking the teacher had considered it too poorly done to display. She soon discovered her picture was with the best in the class - hung in the front of the room.

"I thought, `I will have to change my major,' " she said. "It must have been something about it that was pretty good. Ever since then, I've clung to art." Until recently, Bell worked part time in the Amanda Meredith Art Gallery on VSU's campus.

She almost dropped out last year when she and a son who lives with her became seriously ill. But she persevered.

"I didn't have any obstacles I couldn't go over and around. I was always interested in trying to get somewhere," Bell said.

And she did, making her family very proud.

"She's had a single-minded purpose. Ever since I can remember, she wanted to finish college," said Bell's son, Lloyd.

"One of the reasons she went back is that being from the `old school' she believed getting an education was the primary goal for blacks. In order to succeed you had to have an education," said Bell, also a VSU graduate.

VSU has been a second home to Mary Bell. In 1946, she attended D. Webster Davis High School, a black school located on VSU's campus. She later went to the new black school, George Washington Carver High School, where she graduated in 1947.

When Bell attended VSU, girls living in the dormitories had to be chaperoned and had to be in their rooms by curfew because the doors were locked at a certain time.

Although Bell - affectionately known on campus as "Grandma Moses" - will no longer be studying at VSU, she'll be able to watch the students from her house on the hill across the street.

"Lord, after Sunday, I can sit here and look at others trying to do the same thing," she said.

Unlike most new graduates who clutch their hard-earned degrees in their hands, Bell will not be job searching. Bell plans to retreat to her her basement, where she will keep dabbling in painting.

"I'm just going to work for Mary Margaret," Bell said. "I'm not even going to hit a snake unless it's coming toward me."