This research analyzes the period of political violence in mid-20th century Colombia through the life history and everyday professional experience of a rural schoolteacher who, being of liberal political affiliation, found herself displaced and persecuted. The method focuses on social history from a socio-political perspective and understanding, which includes everyday life and the collective imagination. The life-history itself provided the ordering, classification and organization of information. The biography of the teacher and the history of her family allowed an analysis of change in family structure and of the role of this change among displaced persons, along with the impact on them exercised by political violence and socio-educational developments. The strategies used focused on primary sources. It can be concluded that the teacher developed a specific socio-cultural form of adaptation. The sense of history achieved in the research invites a re-thinking of procedures and policies for displaced people in the ongoing violence in Colombia, where education has the last word in changing mental structures towards a knowledge society.