http://ozarkspub.vo.llnwd.net/o37/KSMU/audio/mp3/mother-tiny-ozarks-town-racks-thousands-miles-over-ten-years-see-her-daughter-through_80663.mp3
It was a hot, humid July day in 1997 when sixteen-year-old Jennifer Williams and her then-boyfriend were driving on a rural highway near Couch, in south-central Missouri.
“He was driving down V Highway, and the right, front tire of his truck dropped off the edge of the highway. He overcorrected trying to get back on, and lost control. And he got thrown out, and I did, too,” Jennifer said.
Her skull was cracked in three places, and her upper spine was severed. A Registered Nurse happened upon the accident and performed CPR while the nurse’s husband held Jennifer’s head together.
Edith Williams is Jennifer’s mother.
“I was shopping with my other daughter, Edith, and when we got home, we got the phone call. I didn’t think she’ d live,” Edith said.
Jennifer was in a coma for five months.
“I would wake up, and I was thinking, ‘What am I doing in here?’ And I’d look down at my arms, and I’m thinking, ‘What happened to my arms? I don’t remember anything about that,’” Jennifer recalls.
She had to learn once again to talk and eat and sip from a straw. But her legs no longer moved. For the next six years, she labored through grueling physical therapy. And then one day, she dropped a bit of a bombshell on her mother.
“I think I want to go to college, to see what I can do. That way, I can get a better job,” Jennifer recalls telling her mother, Edith.
“Ever since she was little, she always said she wanted to be a lawyer, at first,” Edith said.
No one in Edith’s family had ever graduated from college before. What’s more, they lived over an hour from the nearest two-year or four-year campus: Missouri State University-West Plains. Despite that, Jennifer enrolled and began work toward an eventual Bachelor’s degree in business.
“Mom would take me to class…and she’d be working on her puzzle books, or reading a book, or talking to any secretaries there, or my professors,” Jennifer said.
Her mother, Edith, also made copies of notes, ran to and from the college library to check out books, and waited while Jennifer attended lectures.
Edith Williams: “Ten years it took us, but she made it.”
Davidson: “So, for ten years, you drove her about an hour each way to class, wheeled her into class, got her books and everything—and you did that for ten years so that she could get a degree?”
Edith Williams: “Right. I did that for ten years, because she couldn’t take a full load, so it took her awhile. It was a lot of semesters. I went through a lot of puzzle books, and visiting, and made a lot of friends…they all knew me. They were a big help at the college. They were really awesome, especially the ladies over there in the [MSU Garnett] Library.”
Jennifer says her mom was also a study aide to her at home.
“To help me study for the tests, instead of just me trying to remember it all, I would teach it to mom,” Jennifer said. This helped her retain the information, she said.
And like those college degrees tend to do, Jennifer’s degree opened doors for her.
“Governor Jay Nixon appointed me to the board of the Missouri Independent Living Council. And we meet every three months,” Williams said.
Jennifer Williams is looking for a job where she can use her business and online skills working from home. Her mother, Edith, is still her primary caretaker.
“My mom is one of my heroes. My other heroes are, of course, Jesus Christ, and…that pretty much sums it up right there,” Jennifer said.
Jennifer graduated last May. And at that ceremony, MSU-West Plains surprised her mother, Edith, with her very own, honorary college degree.
(You can hear the audio to this complete story by clicking on the MP3 story above.)