Cheryl High came of age in an era where women were taught to be homemakers. And although a domestic future was modeled to her for as long as she can remember, she’d always dreamed of higher education.
“Women were expected to stay home, tend to the children and be whatever your husband needs or wants,” she recalls, noting that even her mother typified this role. Nonetheless, she had different aspirations.
“Honestly, I always wanted to go to college,” Cheryl says, thinking back on her long-held desire. However, that dream was short-lived, and reality set in. Being one of five children, with a father who worked construction, Cheryl knew her parents could only afford for a few of her siblings to continue school.
Recognizing her situation, Cheryl knew, like many women during that time that “you can’t live with your father forever. My option was to get married.” Despite her reservations, she married her then-boyfriend. Making that choice, she recalls, was not being true to herself.
“I was working at a bank, and I was leaving work to get married the next day,” she says. “And I caught my reflection in the JCPenney window, and I turned and looked and I said, “That’s got to be the saddest person [I’ve] ever seen.”
Setting her greatest hope aside, Cheryl instead helped her husband finish college.
“There were many times that he wanted to quit, and I would say, ‘You can’t quit! You can’t quit!” she says. She soon had her first child, and although she had settled into home life quite nicely, she never let go of her yearning to attend college.
So one day, Cheryl presented her husband a solution. Rather than paying $20 per month for a life insurance policy that would eventually run out, they applied those funds to her college expenses – deeming it better long-term investment for the family.
Cheryl became pregnant with her second child as soon as she enrolled, but this development didn’t slow her down. She made every necessary arrangement to attend classes. She commuted an hour each day, and although balancing home and school was difficult, Cheryl made sure to keep quiet.
“If I complained, then I might have to quit school,” she says. Leaving wasn’t an option, so she did what she had to do.
At that time, being pregnant and in college was not normal. Cheryl saw her condition as a slight glitch, but not an insurmountable challenge.
“I remember quitting when I couldn’t get my stomach around the desk,” she says. She took a semester off to have her baby, but she returned and managed an incredibly tough schedule.
“There was no social life,” Cheryl recalls.
College was everything for Cheryl, so she didn’t need parties or nights out. Talking with adults who had a future during the carpool commute to school fulfilled her.
“It was fantastic!” she says. “I would have done anything to stay, to manage to be there.”
Cheryl credits her drive and determination to her upbringing. She witnessed her dad, a “fine man” with a seventh-grade education, work hard night after night to put food on the table.
“I never heard him complain; he took care of us,” Cheryl says. “We might have just had peas and cornbread that night, but we were loved. We were never deprived. We always had enough. What are you going to do when you have a father like that but just do it?”
When Cheryl finally graduated, she found herself at peace in her accomplishment. Although no one came to her graduation ceremony, Cheryl was content.
“It was awesome!” she exclaims. Afterward, she remembers driving around and reflecting on what she’d achieved.
Cheryl went on to be a seventh- and eighth-grade school teacher and enjoyed making a difference. Her passion for education drove her to continue her own studies, and she earned her master’s degree in education from the University of Delaware. Cheryl then became one of the first women in supervision at DuPont and went on to get her real estate license. Shortly after, she started her successful realty business — Cheryl High Realty.
Looking back on some of the opportunities she experienced, she realized, “Me, I got to do that — someone that was told they couldn’t go to college. If you just don’t say no, and you go ahead and do it, anything is possible.”
Now retired, Cheryl High is continuing to do what she loves. She purchased a 24-acre property where she is fostering well over 500 animals (mostly dogs and puppies) and tends to her gardens. Her next endeavor is to make the land a reserve where children can come to learn.