How Do You Spell Inspiration?
Hilda Mosely Smith: from GED to PhD
Hilda Mosely Smith practicing telephone skills at the Adult Education Center, 1970.
The alumnae of the Adult Education Center inspire us in many ways. For instance, they show us by example that it is never too late to begin, or continue, one’s educational journey. They help us understand that learning is a lifelong process filled with invaluable rewards.
Hilda Mosely Smith (Class of 1970) was sixteen on her wedding day and the oldest daughter of twelve children. On the same weekend that Hilda was married, her mother died unexpectedly leaving Hilda and her father with the responsibility of taking care of all her younger siblings, including a two-month-old baby brother.
Hilda dropped out of high school to take on the challenge. Seven years later – after she had given birth to six of her own children – Hilda went to the Manpower Development and Training Administration office to look for a job. The person there offered her training as a cook, but Hilda said “no way.” She did enough cooking already and wanted training that would be more of a challenge. That’s when the MDTA officer referred Hilda to the Center. While attending the Center’s secretarial school, Hilda also completed her GED.
Adult Education Center Graduation, 1970. Left to right: Jerry Henry, Wanda Myers, Janie Castain, and Hilda Mosley.
After graduation, Hilda landed a job at the Veteran’s Administration where she was frequently asked to help doctors attend to patients. The chief nurse found Hilda helping the doctors so often that she told Hilda to consider a career in nursing. Inspired by a former elementary school teacher to go to California, Hilda moved to Oakland with her former teacher’s support. When she left for California, Hilda was taking care of ten kids, seven of her own and three of her siblings.
Hilda Mosely Smith at her Master’s Degree Graduation in 2019.
In California, she was accepted into nursing school and became President of the State of California Student Vocational Nurses’ Association and is now a licensed vocational nurse (an LVN). She also became a leader in her church and, inspired by the women she saw being embraced as preachers in her adopted state, she earned a Master’s of Divinity and became an ordained minister, like her father.
Hilda is now the proud matriarch of a family of 17, including her own kids and her siblings -- and 38 grandchildren. Despite being diagnosed with Lupus, Hilda finished her Masters Degree in nursing in 2019. But, her educational journey was still not done!
The 431 Exchange is proud to announce that, at the age of 75, Hilda has been accepted into a PhD program in nursing…a goal she has had her sights on for a long time! In honor of her anticipated achievement, we are awarding Hilda with a $1,431 scholarship to defray some of her expenses in the first quarter of her program.
When Hilda finishes the next part of her educational journey we will be able to say we have been witness to her academic career from GED to PhD.
How do you spell inspiration?
H I L D A!
Hildo Mosely Smith in 2021.