My twin sister and I were born in Horton, Kansas, the only two African American children left in the town. She excelled in music, and I excelled in art. After three years of college, we went our separate ways. But in Highland Junior College, Highland, Kansas, where George Washington Carver was denied admission because of his skin color. Nearly seventy-five years later, my sister and I were the first to integrate the girls college dorm and live on campus. In the sixties that was significant. Also, I entered a college contest to design a permanent seal for the school and won, adding another distinction to our credit as a black student there. I graduated there and went on to Pittsburg State Teachers College of Kansas, now known as Pittsburg University of Kansas. I graduated from there and began teaching in Kansas City, Kansas, at Dunbar North Elementary, then later Northeast Junior High of the same city. I was honored to be the first collegiate in my family to graduate from college. Also, I was given a United States Savings Bond from the town Council in Horton, for being the first African American in my home town to graduate from college. After five and a half years of teaching, I got married and followed my husband, and we were blessed with five children. After getting them all in school which took almost twenty years I temporarily worked at Cabela's fish and hunting establishment, using a computer for the first time in my life. The work field had changed on me and it was a scary time for I feared machines, but I learned quickly and when we moved to North Carolina I became a Substitute teacher for eleven years. Then became an assistant librarian until I retired in 2010. Then I began to write in earnest. I became interested in poetry when in college when my professor in design class gave us an assignment to design and illustrate a booklet with our own original poems. I knew how to draw, but I had never written a serious poem in my life, so I threw myself entirely into the challenge. I surprised myself at my renderings. When my Professor gave me a low grade, I asked him why, and he said, "Because the poems were to be your own original poems. I was so stunned I could not defend myself adequately, except to reassure him that they were mine and "I" had written them. He simply didn't believe me capable of writing those poems. My shock threw me into "proof mode" although I never showed him any more of my poems. Years later in the mid seventies I became a born again Christian and decided to write for the Lord's people seeking to glorify Him, and proving myself to my Professor didn't matter anymore. Many people I shared with urged me to publish my works, as a witness of God's gift to me, and this I am attempting to do. Currently, I am living in Nashville, N.C. with my husband Bill, Sr. and one daughter, Veronica. I teach Sunday school, belong to a Mission Circle, and go to three Bible studies, and sing in three choirs, and visit three senior citizen facilities. I occasionally do props for church plays and backgrounds, have done three murals in Truth Tabernacle, Rocky Mount, North Carolina. I also love to make giant cards I design and illustrate for friends birthdays or if they become sick. I am serious about spoiling my six grandchildren, but I do not spare the rod. "There is nothing cute about acting ugly," so I do not allow them to get out of hand. Too much. Last of all I love to read, and especially the Word of God.
