Nora Carter and her husband, J.A., have led adventurous lives. After they retired from their careers, they spent 25 years traveling the country working at Baptist camps. Now the Carters are retired for good and enjoying their relaxing life on a family farm between Dublin and Stephenville.
Carter graduated from Dublin High School in 1963, and went to Fort Worth to attend Commercial College.
“Before I graduated, I got a job at an international service life insurance company, and then a mutual friend introduced me to my husband,” she said. “We got married and I quit school. I was working and trying to be a wife and it was too much to go to school at night.”
Carter enjoyed her job at the life insurance company, where she primarily worked in the accounting department.
After a few years in the Metroplex, Carter’s husband, who worked for the U.S. Postal Service at the time, wanted a slower pace than his big-city job. He requested a small-town postmaster position, and the USPS obliged, sending the family to Olden, Texas, population less than 200.
By this time, the Carters had three children. Carter stayed home raising them until her youngest was in kindergarten, then went back to work. She found a job at the Olden Water Supply Corporation, which turned out to be one of her favorite jobs.
“That’s [the type of] job everybody should have,” she said. “It was open the 1st through the 10th of each month, and we had weekends and holidays off. It was a nice job for a mother of three kids with lots of activities.”
At work, she read the meters and helped with any billing issues, plus kept the office open and did the books for the company.
After six years in Olden, Carter’s husband got a new postmaster job in Gorman, and they moved again. Carter started working as the executive director of the housing authority there.
“That was a fun job,” she said. “It was part time, from nine to three, so I basically was home when my kids left for school and was home when they got home from school.”
Her office was in an old hotel that had been converted to apartments for the elderly. “All those elderly people spoiled me rotten,” she said. “I had two little ladies that tried to see which one could outdo the other with making me something to eat, rolls or pies or whatever.”
After nearly a decade in Gorman, the Carters retired and started volunteering at Baptist camps through the Baptists General Convention of Texas. For 25 years, they traveled around the state, working at various camps including the Aspendale Mountain Retreat (formerly Aspendale Baptist Encampment) in Cloudcroft, NM, Camp Chaparral in Iowa Park, TX, and camps in Minnesota and Arkansas.
One camp in Detroit, TX had a menagerie of animals. “We woke up every morning to the peacocks and the lions roaring,” Carter said. “They had all kinds of animals: monkeys, lions, tigers, rhinos, zebras, camels, kangaroos.”
They stayed at that camp for six years, giving tours to children from nearby schools, working camps in the summer and retreats in the winter, and doing repairs when they had the time. “That was a really fun job,” Carter said.
In 2014, the Carters retired for good. “ My husband’s knee gave out and we decided to come back home,” she said. “Our son was living in Stephenville and had two kids and we came home to help him with those kids.”
Carter’s brother owns property between Dublin and Stephenville, and invited Carter and her husband to live in an apartment on his property.
Carter stays busy with volunteer work, serving as the secretary for the Upper Greens Creek Cemetery and the church clerk at Greens Creek Baptist Church.
She and her husband J.A. Carter have three grown children, six grandchildren and one great grandson. Their oldest daughter Traci lives in Long Island, New York, their son John works as an optometrist in Bonham, and their youngest son Neely lives in Stephenville and works as a teacher for iUniversity Prep.
When she has free time, Carter enjoys reading and spending time with her family.
Throughout her life, Carter has found inspiration in her faith and following what God had planned for her. “Sometimes our plans were not His plans,” she said. “But His plans are always the best. We make our plans but he says what we’re gonna do.”
Carter’s advice to Dublin graduates echoes this. “Follow God’s plan for your life, whatever it is,” she said. “That’s just the best advice I can give — seek God’s leadership.”
Editor’s Note: This column chronicles what Dublin graduates have done since high school. If you have any suggestions for other grads, email publisher@dublincitizen.com.