How many people can actually experienced the early lives of their mothers? How many people can understand the hopes, ambitions and fears of their mothers who were born a quarter of a century before they were born? How many people actually appreciate their mothers' relationships with their parents and siblings? How many people really know how their parents met and decided to marry? Of course, I was not present during my mother's childhood and young adulthood in East Texas between 1915 and 1935. However, I was privileged to vicariously live through those days of her life and be a part of her sorrows, pains, disappointments and happiness because of the stories that she told to my siblings and me. The writing of this book, Chapters from Mama's Life, has truly been a labor of love. As I wrote each sentence, each paragraph and each chapter, I laughed, cried and rejoiced with my mother and her family. Writing her story has been a heartwarming experience for me which I am sharing with my siblings, cousins and readers. It is a story worth telling because it is not just the story of the Spencer Household, it is a story of a Black Southern rural family whose lives touch the very fabric of what it meant to grow up and come of age in the United States of America during that era of our country's history.
About the Author: Rose Nell Warren Simpson was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and was educated in Fort Worth Public Schools, graduating from Kirkpatrick High School in 1959. She was the third of four children born to Eddie and Eula Mae Spencer Warren. She received her bachelor's degree in secondary education in 1963, and her master's degree in English from 1970 from North Texas State University (UNT). Rose taught high school and community college English in Fort Worth, Texas, and Los Angeles, California. She also served as the school librarian for the last 13 years of her career. In 2002, Rose retired from Los Angeles Unified School District after 35 years in public education. In 2006, Rose and her husband moved back to Texas, where they currently reside in Granbury. She is the mother of three adult children and the grandmother of six. Rose has taught many literature and creative writing classes and conducted workshops in poetry and journal writing. She has chaired a number of essay contest committees that encouraged student writing and presented scholarships to students for essay writing. Rose has published poetry in The American Anthology of College Poetry, River Crossings--an Anthology of African American Literature, and Recollections of Yesterday. In 2009, Rose published her first volume of poetry entitled My Poetic Legacy. Chapters From Mama's Life will be her first prose publication. It is a collection of anecdotes highlighting her mother's family life in rural East Texas, from 1915 to 1935.