PAHOKEE (FBW)—Uceba Babson considered it a job left unfinished and a promise unfulfilled, so in 2002, after 73 years, she returned to school. Last May the 92-year-old walked across the stage of the Palm Beach Convention Center to at last receive her GED diploma, and be honored for never missing a day of class.

When Babson, known as “Cebe” to her friends, began school as a young child, she and her siblings walked and waded through the edge of Lake Okeechobee to get to school in Pahokee. Her parents, S.J. and Lucy Jones, were pioneer farmers of land at the edge of the Everglades and charter members of First Baptist Church in Pahokee. They loaded their large family into a horse-drawn wagon to get to church on Sundays.

The Jones family and the First Baptist family endured staggering losses during a 1928 hurricane that killed thousands of residents and destroyed homes and farms when Lake Okeechobee overflowed its banks.

“People were buried in mass graves after the storm,” she recalled. “The only thing we found of our house was the family Bible—and it was several miles away.”

In 1929, she met a young farmer at church, and she left school in the 11th grade to marry him. She promised herself that she would someday complete high school. During the next seven decades, Babson encountered a lifetime of joys and sorrows. She raised three children and five stepchildren and boasts of 85 grandchildren and great grandchildren.

“I know all their names, but I don’t remember all of their birthdays without looking them up,” she said. “I correspond with each one on their birthdays and special occasions.”

She outlived three husbands and quickly told Florida Baptist Witness, “I’m not looking for another one.”

Babson worked as a bookkeeper and was active in the Business and Professional Women’s Club. She moved 28 years ago to a West Palm Beach condo to be near her children. She is a member of Northwood Baptist Church.

She was reminded of her promise to finish school when, at 88, she read of a 99-year-old Minnesota man who completed high school in his nineties.

“I asked myself, ‘If he can do it, why can’t I?’” she reasoned.

She enrolled in West Palm Beach’s Adult Education Center in August 2002. Although younger students could sleep late, throw on jeans and t-shirts and hurry into class, Babson rose at 4 a.m., applied hot water bottles to arthritic knees, read the newspaper, ate breakfast and drove herself several miles to class. In two years of classes, she never missed a day.

“The Lord enabled me to keep my promise by giving me good health,” she said.

The one-room school she left in Pahokee 73 years earlier hardly resembled the multi-ethnic blend of students using computers and calculators she became a part of in 2002. Although she had worked as a bookkeeper, Babson said her hardest classes were algebra and geometry, but she found helpful allies in her much-younger teachers and classmates.

She also received loving support from her children and grandchildren. Her children gave her a computer a few years ago, and she surfs the Internet and keeps in touch with family and friends through e-mail.

When time came for final exams, she passed every test the first time. At graduation last May, she received a standing ovation. Michael Brown, the mayor of Riviera Beach, issued a proclamation in her honor and Governor Jeb Bush sent a letter of congratulations.

“I can say that I have fulfilled a promise and seen a dream come true,” Babson said.