In the Spotlight: Bea Draudt

Bea Draudt

Bea Draudt is the oldest member of the UMC of Hempstead, joining the church family in the late 1950s. A vibrant and sharp-minded lady of 97, she is well-known to the parishioners for her long-time tenure in the church choir and involvement in the church.

Bea was born and raised in New Jersey, and after graduating in 1938 from Gilford College where she majored in mathematics, she began teaching. She taught science and math at the Farm Life School in NC, and later became a Professor of Engineering at Colombia University where she taught drafting (descriptive geometry) for a few years. She then landed a job in the Grumman Engineering Dept. where she worked from 1943-1946. “I worked with a nice group,” says Bea, recalling her work on a design for a fighter plane with a 108” wing span. “It was designed to fly on and off the carriers during the war but was never built because the war ended.”

Bea married Charles, the love of her life, (affectionately known as Bud) in 1949 and they moved to Hempstead in 1951. Together, they raised four children, Robert, an attorney in PA, Frederick, who works at Nassau Community College, Beverly, a nurse practitioner in CA, and Barbara, who died in 1965 at the age of eight.

Prior to raising her children, Bea taught for five years at Hofstra University. In 1972, Bea began teaching math at Hempstead HS where she remained until she retired in 1982.
Bea has held many leadership positions at the church and put her math skills to good use when she became the treasurer for the Trustees and UMW. She also taught Sunday school during the early service and sang in the Choir during the second service.

She remembers, with a chuckle, how she first became a member of the Choir. At the time, Clarenece Nielsen was the Choir director. “Clarence heard that I sang and he pestered me to join the Choir. I was a choir member for many years,” she says.

After the death of her husband in 1994, Bea began taking bi-annual trips around the world, going on
educational tours to see the real country and the people. She had several unusual trips, including one to Szalbard Archipelago, north of Norway and 700 miles from the North Pole, on a National Geographic photo ship (an ice breaker). They saw myriad wildlife, including polar bears, walrus, seals, puffins, and whales. Bea’s most memorable trip, however, was when she had to opportunity to travel to Tunisia, seeing the transformation there after they gained their independence.

The UMC is truly blessed to count Bea as part of the church family.