County Pioneer Celebrates 96th
Education still a symbol of independence

by Gilbert Cherryhomes
Hobbs News-Sun
July 2, 2000

 During the celebration of American independence, certain aspects of society remain strong evidence of freedom fought for by generations of citizens.

 One of those aspects is the education system and one of its most notable symbols is Mettie Jordan.

 “I’m pressed for time,” were the first words uttered by one of Lea County’s most prominent pioneers and educators on Wednesday morning after a photographer snapped her birthday picture.

 “It’s kinda nice to get there (age 96), Jordan grinned as she moved toward her room at Merrill Gardens, where she has been a resident since September 1998.  “I thought my grandmother was pretty old when she was 80.”

 Jordan, who had celebrated her birthday the day before, lamented the fact that advancing age forced her to sell her car and give up her driver’s license.

 “It gets kinda boring here sometimes with no place to go and no way to get there,” said Jordan.  “But I think we’re pretty lucky to be in a place where we can eat and be taken care of.  Where would we be without it?

 “This used to be a Holiday Inn,” Jordan added of the retirement center at 200 Linam.  “We had a national elementary principals’ meeting here.  My nephew from Los Angeles made it a point to come.”

 Regular visits from friends and relatives are always appreciated.  “My brother-in-law, J.B. (Tidwell), eats with me as often as he can,” Jordan confided.

 And then Jordan reminisced about the early days of her educational career in Lea County.

 When Jordan taught in Monument in the 1920s-both before and after the Great Depression.  Prior to the economic downturn, she had 33 students then dropped down to seven.  When an eighth grade student was required to keep the class open, Lillian Bilbrey brought her sister to school.

 “When I first moved to Hobbs in 1929 there was a lake here,” Jordan recalled.  “Ethel Taylor told me that it was deep enough to cover a horse.  They had to move in a lot of dirt to level it before they built on it.”

 Supervising three teachers in Hobbs at the beginning of 1929, Jordan hd five by the end of the year.  As the oil industry developed, she added 28 by the end of  the second year.

 The school building in those days ws on Dal Paso northeast of Marland.

 “The biggest changes I’ve seen in education were the materials we had to work with,” said Jordan.  “The audio-visual aids supplemented the textbook and the teacher.  But you still have to study to get anything out of education.”

 Local historian Gil Hinshaw saw Jordan as central to the county’s biggest education changes, which he chronicled in a book published in 1976.  Hinshaw used Jordan as a source for his book, Lea, New Mexico’s Last Frontier.

 “She exemplifies the  spirit of pioneer education-a tough row to hoe,” Hinshaw said.  “Pioneers lived with people who would take them in-they made about $30 a month.  Mettie came at the end of that era when education was changing from the one-room school to the municipal district.”

 Hinshaw explained that Jordan understood rural education and had the intellect and the sense to guide it into the municipal school districts.  Consolidating 40 rural school districts into five municipal schools, Jordan saved the taxpayers’ money.

 “One of the first things that people built on the frontier was a school, which showed that civilization was coming,” continued Hinsaw.  “Mettie was the epitome of that progresss.  I think she is a great monument to education.  Growing up here, Mettie imparted her values to her students and left a mark.”

 Further evidence of that mark can be found in a special Mettie Jordan Display at the Eunice Public Library.  In that display is a 1928 Eunice report card; a book and letter from Holland; a letter from Helen Keller; a plaque dedicating Mettie Jordan Elementary School in Eunice, the book “Lea County Schools” by Mettie Jordan, Connie Brooks, and Lynn Mauldin; and a painting by Mettie Jordan from the late ‘30s found at an estate sale.

 The book about the Netherlands and the letters written on onion-skin paper-as well as a handdrawn naote showing plans for a new schoolhouse-were from a teacher in Holland appreciative of a sixth-grade class that sent tires aborad due to a lack of rubber after World War II.

 The Keller letter, dated March 25, 1955, was written in response to Eunice students who had written the legendary woman first.  Keller describes the plight of 50,000 South Korean children left sightless by the Korean War and makes an appeal for funds to provide specially designed classroom equipment, Braille books, and tools for instruction, and toys and games for recreation.

 “Those projects gave the kids something interesting to do,” Jordan said.

 “She’s a keeper of the history,” said one former student and historian, on condition of anonymity.  “Due to Miss Jordan, we have information on the schools, the churches and the county.”

 For a woman whose family moved to a dugout in Monument in 1908, next lived in a two-story mud house built by her father and finally moved to a frame house in 1917, the only advice Mettie Jordan has is, “Keep living.”