After 40-plus years at Head Start, Willoughby calls retirement bittersweet

Watching three generations enter and complete Head Start has kept Catherine Willoughby of Poplar Bluff busy for more than 40 years. The mother and grandmother has dedicated her life helping the children attending the preschool and prekindergarten programs.

After two surprise parties, she retired Friday, but Willoughy admits she’ll be back to hug the kids and to read to them.

Willoughby started as a teacher’s aide with Head Start in Kennett in 1976. She moved to Poplar Bluff in 1977 and went to work in September with Head Start. She worked her way up the career ladder retiring as the Head Start Family Advocate.

At first, she worked with kids providing activities and games. She recalls there were about 20 students in each class. The program was held in the First Church of God in east Poplar Bluff.

“We had a lot of fun back then,” Willoughby said.

Admitting, “I wasn’t planning to stay at Head Start, but I had two little girls and all the factories offered night shifts,” Willoughby said.

She went to the public school to apply looking for a daytime job and they had an opening in the Head Start program. She worked other jobs in the summer and “I always ended up back in Head Start” in the fall, she said. She made more money at her summer jobs, but “I loved families and children.”

The children are a lot smarter than in the beginning and parents are a lot younger than when she started, Willoughby said. Head start is a good programs for low-income families.

As a family advocate, she’s proud to see how children improve, as well as help parents achieve their goals in going to school, getting their GED and going to college.

“It has been a good ride. I have enjoyed it,” she said.

The early Head Start program children range from birth to 3 and she’s glad to have been a part of the program helping teenage families. Being a part of the early Head Start program means they work with a pregnant mom, following her until her baby is born and becomes a part of the Early Head Start program, and the children continue in the program until they are 3 years old. The child then goes into the regular Head Start group.

“I get out and tell people about the program, passing out cards and recruiting all the time,” she said.

Willoughby said it is nice to read the honor rolls and other school articles and “it is nice to look for the kid, who went through Head Start.”

Explaining it is not unusual to have a set or two of twins in the program, she said, “at one time in 1991-92 we had six sets of twins in Head Start.”

A favorite part of her job is hugging the babies and trying to visit all the classrooms, she said.

“I’ll come back and visit and read stories to them. I love Head Start.”

“Retirement is bittersweet,” said Willoughby adding, “I never thought the time would come and it would end. It is a time my heart says to stay longer, but my mind says I am 67 years old and I’m tired.”

Willoughby has two daughters, Geraine Willoughby and Francine Willoughby, and a granddaughter, Breonna Grant, who graduated from Southeast Missouri State University in May. She is working as an intern for Drury Inn.

She always told Breonna, “I’ll work until you graduate from college.” Willoughby thought about not retiring, but Breonna said, “grandma, you said you would be working until I graduated college.”

While she’ll miss the little guys, Willoughby does have retirement plans beginning with “making a T-shirt quilt for my granddaughter.”

She is planning “a little bit of traveling.” Next summer she is going to see her brother in Roanoke, Va. Last summer, she visited her brother in Houston, Texas.

“Different ones in the family want me to visit them,” she said.

She joined Brown Chapel AME Church in 1976. Her family has a long history with the AME church. Her grandfather gave land in Kennett for the AME church.

She sings in the church choir and serves on different boards of the church which “will keep me busy,” she said.

Her church has a pavilion at the corner of Valley and Benton streets of which she is a trustee.

“We are going to try to make people aware we are in the neighborhood and it can be rented,” she said. “It is something I will work on being used many times for activities for young people. I’ll be doing something. I’ll be busy.”

She also plans to work with the Northside Community Center. She will probably become involved in a NAACP chapter and different organizations.

“I like to cook and I’m planning to have some of my friends to dinner,” she said.

Through the years, she has taken photographs of her Head Start families which fill boxes and she’ll finally have time to put them in albums.

“I love looking at my pictures, Willoughby said. “They bring back a lot of good memories.”