Bessie Graham: bookkeeper

by AMY DAVIS
TENNESSEE BIBLE COLLEGE

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. — When Bessie Graham retired from her bookkeeping job in 1993 after 40 years of service, she thought she had left the working world behind for good. Never dreamed she'd ever set foot back in a business office. She had put her time in.

But those feelings changed in January 2001, not long after she moved to Cookeville, Tenn. That's when the Bridgeport, Ala., native decided to volunteer her bookkeeping skills at Tennessee Bible College.

"For one thing, I knew I'd be helping to do the Lord's work," she said. "Also, it would get me out of the house and around good people. So, I thought, why not?"

Bessie Graham
Bookkeeper

Since then, Bessie has busied herself one to two days a week keeping order in the TBC business office.

Before moving to Cookeville, Bessie was enjoying her retirement years in Jasper, Tenn., with husband Audley. After his passing, she decided in February 2000 to make her home in Cookeville to be close to her daughter's family.

It wasn't long thereafter that she placed her membership at Northeast church of Christ. And then, with a little persuasion from her new preacher, Malcolm Hill, who also serves as president of Tennessee Bible College, Bessie decided to lend a bookkeeping hand to the TBC evangelism effort. 

"I came over to the college one day to talk to brother Malcolm when I had made up my mind to become a member at Northeast," she said. "Then he got to talking to me about what kind of work I did because he knew I was retired. When I told him I had been a bookkeeper, he started on me about coming to work at TBC, and I said, 'Preacher, I've done put in my time!'"

But Hill persisted. 

"He kept on and on, so I could see that he did have a need for somebody and that he wanted somebody in the church," she said. "So finally I told him, 'Well, if it will help you any, I will give you two days a week of my time.'"

And so she has.

What's the best part of being on the TBC team?

"The association with everybody," she said.

Bessie is a 1949 graduate of Bridgeport High School in Alabama and retired in December 1993 from Jacob's Manufacturing Company in Bridgeport. Her Cookeville family includes a daughter and son-in-law, Audrey and Alfie Barrera, and granddaughter Cristina. When she's not busy keeping the books straight at TBC, she enjoys passing the time on her computer.