Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 5, 1994 TAG: 9405110011
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By BETSY BIESENBACH STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Every year since the mid-'50s, the Credit Marketing and Management Association has invited residents to nominate the women in their lives for its Mothers of the Year contest. Six winners are chosen in the categories of Family Life, Community Affairs, Business and Professions, Education, Arts and Sciences, and Religious Activities.
This year, said Laura Ellis of the CMMA, there was a ``tremendous response.'' The winners were chosen from several hundred entries, some of which were held over from the previous two years.
``Sometimes it's so close and there are so many that are so deserving. We like to give them a second chance,'' she said.
This year's winners have one important quality in common: an extraordinary dedication to their work - whether at home or in school, whether paid or volunteer.
The children of Ngoc Cuc Thi Cao of Southeast Roanoke, Mother of the Year for Family Life, almost seem too good to be true.
All three - Lan, 11; Ngoc, 10; and Long, 9 - are honor students. They want to be a scientist, a doctor and an engineer, respectively. They are good at sports, all three play the piano and they help out around the house. Lan recently earned a full scholarship to North Cross School.
Cao's children's achievements are the result not of a privileged lifestyle, but of her hard work and determination.
Cao, 44, is a native of Vietnam. During the war, she worked for the American forces there. Because of her connections with the American government, Cao and her family were oppressed by the communist regime. An older brother, who also worked for the Americans, offered to get her out in 1975, but she refused, not wanting to leave her parents alone. Although she thought of escape many times, wrote Andrews Oakey, who nominated her for the award, she was afraid she would be captured and killed. A younger brother was shot trying to escape.
But when her parents arranged a marriage for her and she became pregnant shortly afterward, she and her husband knew they had to go. They sold their wedding bands to pay a guide to lead them to safety, but only made it to Cambodia before they were captured. They later escaped, but they spent two years living in concentration and refugee camps.
Lan was born in a refugee camp in Thailand, and although the baby was sickly, Cao kept her alive.
By 1983, they found a sponsor and came to Roanoke. Within the year, Cao's husband, Than, died of cancer, leaving her with two babies and pregnant with a third.
Cao consoled herself by giving all of her time and attention to her babies, but by 1989, she was ready to start thinking of herself. She had been an accountant in Saigon, and with the encouragement of her friends here, she began classes at Virginia Western Community College, hoping to start her career again.
Because she spends so much time with her children, it took five years for her to earn her associate's degree. Cao studies with her children to set a good example, and does not allow them to watch television during the week.
``The love is so important,'' she said. ``If the mother is very close by paying attention to them and encouraging them, it's easy for them to be good kids. I love the children and they give love back to me.''
She hopes to buy a house someday and to move out of the housing project.
Life now is good for Cao and her family, but there is one great sorrow that brings tears to her eyes.
Cao's parents are still in Vietnam. They have been diagnosed with tuberculosis, and there is no medicine to cure them. Cao cannot afford to visit them one last time.
But she deals with the pain of her past by thinking only of the future, Oakey said. Her 3.6 grade-point average so impressed her academic adviser that she suggested Cao try for a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering. She will enroll full time at Roanoke College soon if the financial aid can be worked out.
Betty Jo Lockard of Southwest Roanoke, Mother of the Year for Business and Professions, has successfully managed to balance a demanding career with the challenges of rearing three children alone.
Today, at 57, she enjoys her work, and her family is close and supportive.
``But we're independent,'' she said. Athough they can rely on each other when needed, they don't cling to each other.
Lockard was born in Galax, and started working at the local hospital at age 15.
``I always wanted to be a nurse,'' she said. ``I always looked up to nurses.''
She came to Roanoke in 1955 and attended nursing school at Roanoke Memorial Hospital. She graduated in 1958, and was married that year. She had three children: Phillip, Teresa and Betsy. When they were small, Lockard worked part time. When her husband died in 1973, Lockard went to work full time, often taking on more than one job.
``She gave when there was nothing left to give and never asked for anything in return,'' wrote her eldest daughter, Teresa Hartman, in her nominating letter.
In 1974, Lockard was hired by the Roanoke County Health Department as a public health nurse. In 1975 she was asked to take over as the school nurse at the Roanoke County Occupational School. She liked it so much that she stayed until it closed in 1993 and its students were sent to other schools.
Her job now is to keep up with the former RCOS students, some of whom are severely disabled. She tracks their progress, attends to minor medical problems and educates their teachers about their needs.
Despite the difficulties of rearing her children alone, the Lockards' home life was happy.
``I have fantastic kids,'' she said. ``They made being a mother easy.''
The death of their father brought them close, and they took care of each other, she said. ``I never had to worry about where they were and what they were doing.''
The children are grown now, but Lockard still works two jobs, simply because she likes to.
In the evenings, she works on an as-needed basis at the Roanoke United Methodist home. In her spare time, she likes to read, work in the yard, shop for antiques and play with her two grandchildren.
``Motherhood is great,'' Lockard said, ``but grandmotherhood is ever better.''
Working with a class of special education students is one of the biggest challenges a teacher can face. Many people quit after two or three years, said Peggy Sue Mason, Mother of the Year for Education. But Mason, 59, of Southwest Roanoke, has been at it for 31 years, and says she doesn't find it difficult at all.
``I think it's a gift from God,'' she said. ``I think this is what God has chosen me to do. I couldn't do it without him.''
Mason teaches a special education class at Lincoln Terrace Elementary School. A native Roanoker, she majored in sociology and social studies at North Carolina College in Durham after graduating from Lucy Addison High School. She would later earn her master's degree in education of the mentally handicapped from the University of Virginia. She was one of the first black women accepted at the graduate school.
But Mason's career working with children with special needs began as a fluke, rather than as a long-term goal.
At the time she graduated from college, the only opportunities open to women were teaching and nursing. And because the schools were still segregated and there were no openings at Addison, Mason had to work in a hospital dining room and at other temporary work. She wanted to stay in town to be near her mother, she said.
She did move to Martinsville, however, when she was offered her first special education teaching job, based on a summer she spent working in a camp for disabled children.
But when she married an old high school friend who was in the Air Force, she ended up traveling to Texas, Japan and Germany. During this time, she continued her education while teaching at schools for American dependents.
In 1968, while the family was stationed in Germany, Mason's husband died suddenly, leaving her with two small daughters, Bettina and Kelly.
She returned to Roanoke, and has been working here ever since. Although she is eligible to retire, Mason hasn't thought about it yet. Besides the fact that she enjoys teaching, she is still putting her daughters through school. Bettina is working on her master's degree, and Kelly is preparing for a doctorate.
Mason said her daughters have been ``very understanding'' about the demands of her work. They know that when she talks about ``my children,'' she is referring to her students, too.
Most of them are in her classes for two or three years, and she acts as substitute mother, teacher and head cheerleader for them all.
In fact, she spends her spare time participating in Special Olympics activities with her students. She also is a member of Delta Sigma Theta, a service organization.
Today, many of her students come back to visit, and she has the pleasure of knowing the results of her work.
``A lot of these kids can be trained for jobs. I always expect the best for them,'' she said.
Mason's affinity for children comes from her own mother, she said. ``She called us her `jewels.' Anything that we did, she thought it was the greatest thing in the world. She was a good role model.''
Estelle Jeannette McCadden of Northwest Roanoke, Mother of the Year for Community Affairs, has much in common with her son, Delvis ``Mac'' McCadden, who is on Roanoke's City Council.
Both are avid baseball fans, both have been honored by the CMMA (Delvis was a Father of the Year in 1991) and both have a desire to make a contribution to the community.
McCadden, 68, belongs to a variety of social and service organizations. She is president of the Melrose/Rugby Neighborhood Forum, and a member of the Roanoke Neighborhood Partnership, the Planning Committee of the Ms. Virginia Senior Citizen Pageant, the Central Council Parent-Teacher Association and the Roanoke Special Events committee. She also directs a choir at Jerusalem Baptist Church.
As a retired teacher, McCadden's main interest always has been working with young people. In the early 1970s, there weren't many activities for children in the church's Southwest neighborhood, she said, so she took it upon herself to organize recreation league basketball and softball teams. She purchased or borrowed uniforms, recruited coaches and even drove the players back and forth to games. Sometimes that meant delivering the starting five to the gym first, then going back for the rest of the team.
McCadden has a way of persuading young people from school and church to help carry out her plans. ``Anything you'd ask them to do, they'd do,'' she said.
Her husband, Eugene, who died in 1970, once told McCadden that he wanted to build a house out in the country large enough for her to take in all the children she wanted, she said.
McCadden's methods for dealing with children involve respecting them, earning their respect and, when necessary, bluffing.
One year, McCadden said, she had a tough group of boys in her class. At the beginning of the school year, she told them she knew karate, ``and they believed me!''
She thought no one would challenge her, she said, but when one boy did, she decided he was small enough to take on. Executing a fancy move, she threw him and convinced him and the rest of the class that she really was a martial arts expert.
McCadden is ``always out doing something for someone other than her family,'' wrote her daughter, Wanda, in her nominating letter.
``I've done everything in reverse,'' said Ann McLaughlin, Mother of the Year for Arts and Sciences.
McLaughlin, who lives in Bluefield and works in Princeton, W.Va., and Roanoke, is a rehabilitation liaison for Southern Hills Regional Rehabilitation hospital and does other part-time nursing work. One of her jobs is to assess patients for their potential for rehabilitation, but she also has worked in marketing the hospital, in community education and in recruitment. She also has been in supervisory positions and has experience in surgery and coronary care.
McLaughlin was born in Newport News. After graduating from high school, she went to work at a savings and loan association before meeting and marrying her husband, Richard. The couple subsequently moved to Bluefield.
At age 21, she gave birth to her daughter, Linda, who lives in Roanoke and does the weekend weather at WSLS (Channel 10).
When Linda was small, McLaughlin worked in a doctor's office, but never thought about entering the nursing profession until 1975, when her husband encouraged her to quit work and go back to school.
In 1978, she applied to a nursing school and by 1980, she was a registered nurse. She would later go on to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree in general studies in 1984, and last year, she was awarded a Master of Science degree in Community Health Administration and Wellness Promotion, an expanding field which she hopes will make use of her education.
Although her work and her schooling were demanding, McLaughlin managed to form a strong bond with Linda.
``I was so excited about having her,'' she said. As Linda grew older, ``we did everything together.''
While she was working, she made a point of playing with Linda every evening until bedtime, saving the household chores for later.
McLaughlin gives Linda most of the credit for their good relationship. ``I have a wonderful daughter,'' she said. ``She should be daughter of the year.''
Her mother ``is the best friend that I could ever have,'' Linda wrote.
When it comes to religion, some people are talkers and some are doers. Marzetta Sinkler of Salem, Mother of the Year for Religious Activities, belongs in the second category. She has been a member of her church, Shiloh Baptist, for 31 years, and attended her first service there the day after she arrived in Roanoke, fresh from college.
Sinkler is the clerk of her church, and handles the records and funds for all meetings. She has been superintendent of the Sunday school and initiated ``Family Sunday,'' during which a church family is honored for its commitment to the church and the community.
She also has served as treasurer of the Sunday school and secretary of the Gospel Chorus. She was elected Shiloh's Mother of the Year in 1991, the same year her husband, William, was selected as one of the CMMA's Fathers of the Year.
``I grew up in church,'' she said. ``Church is something I've been involved in since before I knew who I was.''
In her professional life, Sinkler is chief of the administrative section of the Veteran's Administration Medical Center's Dietetic Service, where she also sings with the medical center's employee choir. The group performs at ceremonies and nondenominational worship services for the veterans.
Sinkler has always been a ``doer.'' She grew up on a farm in rural Alabama, where she fed hogs, picked cotton and cooked for her family.
While she was in high school, she won the local, state and national levels of a 4-H club bread-baking contest.
Part of the competition was held at Tuskegee Institute, and Sinkler decided to enter the commercial dietetics program there. After graduating in 1961, she was offered a job at the Salem Veteran's hospital.
In 1965, she married William, who is now principal of Lincoln Terrace Elementary School. The couple has two children: William, who lives in Virginia Beach and works in the computer sciences field; and Wayne, who lives with his parents and is an accountant with the city of Salem.
Sinkler took nine years off from work while the children were small, then returned to the hospital in 1976.
She has been active in more than a half-dozen professional, civic and social organizations, including the Jaycettes and the NAACP. She also enjoys visiting elderly friends in nursing homes.
``It gives me the feeling of doing something for somebody that's needed.''
by CNB