Millie's Literary Corner

  

  

I was born a beautiful black baby to the proud parents of Mr. Isaac Foster and Mrs. Georgia Mae Foster.  My birth place was Cleburne Texas, a true southern state where segregation was definitely in force and the cotton fields were a plenty.  I grew up with an abundance of love from my family and God; and I am so grateful for it today.  It was that love which gave me the strength to continue to hold my head up high, when I became old enough to come face to face with true and pure hatred.  I experienced rotten eggs being thrown at my family and me, as we were about to enter the church one Easter Sunday.  Texas is a state of horrible storms that could turn a noon day into midnight; and while the wind blew ferociously, and the rain came down with a vengeance, I and the other black children had to run home from school, while being laughed at by the white children who were riding safely on the dry school buses.  Still, there was no hatred in the hearts of my sisters and me, because God was in our hearts.  My parents had taught us, straight from the Holy Bible St. Luke 6:27 "But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you".  So we loved them, and we prayed for them, as we raced the tornados home; and we always won.  I'm a living witness that the word of God is right and true; I was born March 14, 1945, it is now 2008, and I'm now sixty-two years old with no permanent scars from thrown rotten eggs, and my heart, ego, and self esteem is still intact. 

    

My darling sweet parents taught my sisters and me early on that an honest living is an honorable living.  I put that teaching in force at the young age of five years old, when for the first time in my life, I experienced the hard labor of picking cotton and pulling the full heavy sacs, with no mercy whatsoever from the hot scorching sun.  Is there any wonder that every female in my family, now suffers from something which is just as unmerciful as the sun was way back so many, many years ago, that old crippling "Arthritis"?

My mother and father came from poor families and their parents found it necessary to take them to the fields to work with them, instead of allowing them to attend school; therefore, my father only completed the eighth grade and my mother only completed the sixth grade.  They may not have had a lot of book knowledge, but they had an abundance of knowledge from God.  While my mother insisted that her children would attend school, they both encouraged us to study hard and get a good education so that we would be able to get good jobs when we became adults.  We loved our parents dearly, and we demonstrated that love and our gratitude for their interest in our futures, by doing just that.  We withstood the ridiculing of the white children riding on the school buses while we walked or ran home; we withstood the ridiculing of the other black children who attended school with us, when our parents couldn't afford to provide decent shoes for five children; and we had to wear shoes with holes in them, sometimes with the entire front end torn apart exposing our toes.  We withstood whatever confronted us, and we got the education that our parents so wanted for themselves, and worked so hard for us to achieve.  The results of their endeavors were: a doctor; a nurse practitioner with her own business; a professor of nursing; a state nursery school supervisor; and a professional secretary, artist, pianist, and an author of fictional books; as well as a family of singers who has performed all over the state of Texas and California!  I think I can safely say that my parent's hard work has not been in vain.  They have assured us many, many times, how so very proud of us they are, and how thankful to God they are for blessing us to fulfill their dreams, as well as ours.At the age of thirteen, with my darling parents wanting to give us every opportunity of getting the best education possible,

we moved to the state of California.  It was the second time we had moved to California.  I was only about three years old when we first made the move, but had to return to Texas when my mother's oldest sister became extremely ill.  After eight years of the back breaking and knee scaring long hot summer days of picking the low grown Texas cotton, my aunt got better and so did we, when finally we were able to leave tornado alley and return to the beautiful California and its ground shaking earthquakes...and cotton that only grew taller.  

I graduated from high school and attended a year and a half in college, before I became ill and had to drop out.  I received a certificate in nurse's aid training; a certificate at a private business college; a certificate from Century 21 Real Estate school, which after taking the state test for the very first time, I was rewarded with my California Real Estate License.  My education ended when I was in the middle of taking additional real estate classes at another college, but once again became too ill to complete them.

I worked my way through college as a babysitter and the private secretary for the professor in charge of the planetarium at the first college I attended; I've also worked as the secretary and receptionist at the private business college I attended; I worked as the secretary supervisor for a nurse's association, I also worked as a nurse's aid for twelve years, at practically every major hospital in the Los Angeles and Bakersfield area; I worked for a while as a real estate agent; and finally worked for a major utility company before becoming permanently disabled.  After ten years of illness, while writing short stories with my grandsons who were spending the summer with me, God decided to hire me as His secretary to write the "Jennifer Answorth" series, and get a most important message out to the people of the world; that there is hope for the hopeless and uplifting for the downtrodden.  Since that day, I've written a series of ten books of the "Jennifer Answorth" series, a book for young teenage girls, "I am a Girl and I am Blessed", two children books, "Jason and the Baloon", and The Little Bumblebee", a thriller, "The Executioner", a mystical horror, "Scratchet", two volumes of poetry books and working on the third, and I've recently finished the novels, "The Interstate of Life"; a teenage novel, "Home is Where the Trash is", a horror thriller, "Bad Fate", and a drama, "A Woman's Purse".  I have recently completed a new gothic 5 book series, entitled, "Belle White",  "Belle White, The Raven Dove", book 2, "Adisa", Belle White, book 3, "Irmalinda", Belle White, book 4 and "The Letter", Belle White, book 5.  I have just finished writing my new book, "Ashes", and I am now working on a new thriller, entitled, "The Decision is Mine"! 

I have performed in many concerts, either singing with my family or singing solo; I had the leading female role in the play, "Give Us This Day", which ran three consecutive nights for a packed theater; I won the senior most outstanding art award in high school; was the founder of the art club at the junior college I attended in Bakersfield, and have sold many of my oil paintings; I've played the piano for choirs and churches throughout the state of Texas and California; I've held the positions of the district youth leader of the San Joaquin Valley Churches of God In Christ, and the choir president of my church in Bakersfield as well as in Long Beach California; I was one of the founders of the Vacation Bible School for the Churches of God in Christ in the San Joaquin Valley, and a last note of interest, I've won many Halloween Costume Contest for my horrific, morbid, and imaginative original ideas. 

Once again, in the month of March of this year, 2006, I turned another page in my book of life, and began a new chapter, when I relocated from Las Vegas Nevada back to California in order to be closer to my daughter.  I now reside in the lovely and quaint town of Victorville, California, where I'm presently working on yet another thrilling book for your enjoyment! 

I have had a long and wonderful life, which I've enjoyed immensely with my four beautiful and fun loving sisters, and the best and most precious God fearing parents that any child could ever ask, dream, or pray for.  Each and every day of my life is filled with pain; nevertheless, I thank God that I am enjoying every one of them that I am able to get out of bed, and sit at my computer and write.  As long as God continues to give me strength and ideas, I will continue to write and give you stories, which will affect every emotion in your heart, mind, and soul!

 

NEW UPDATE!

The release of my new book,

Book three of the

"Jennifer Answorth" series,

February of 2008

 

Winner of the Victorville Valley Library

"Women of History" Writing Contest

June 2007

 

THIS IS THE WINNING PAPER

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY WORDS ON WHY I THINK MY MOTHER SHOUD BE INCLUDED IN THE HISTORY BOOKS.

“THE POWERFUL DETERMINATION,

 

OF AN UNEDUCATED MOTHER”

By

Mildred Hernandez

 

            For four hundred years, the cruel and injustice days of slavery were tormenting and hard for any Negro man, woman, or child, who happen to have unfortunately lived in the dungeons of hell, referred to as the “Deep South”!  The inhumane treatment of black slaves by the white land owners, consisted of daily beatings, torturing, and even murder gone unpunished!  My darling mother was the granddaughter of such slaves.  Due to the fact that Negro slaves were not permitted to be educated, even after the abolishment of slavery in 1865, in the year 1917, my mother was birthed into the black evil world of Jim Crow, to parents whose lack of education had sentenced them to being nothing more than extremely poor and tormented share croppers! 

My mother had only been allowed to complete the sixth grade, and cried bitter tears when her father took her out of school and insisted she work in the cotton fields with them and her siblings.  Snatched up into a vicious generational cycle of uneducated people, my mother became determined to break that cycle with her own children, if she was ever blessed to have any.  She was!

Day after day, she was awakened at ungodly hours every morning, to crawl out of bed while still suffering from the pains of the previous day’s work.  Instead of dressing in clean clothes of bright colors to wear to school, she covered her tired and sore body with old clothes to work in!  My mother married my precious father at the age of twenty-three; and would remain married to him for the next fifty five years, before he was called home to Glory.  A year after her marriage, her first child was born—a girl child.  It was the beginning of her long, miserable, and agonizingly painful child bearing years! 

She bore six children with the help of midwives only, and lost her third child of twenty-three days old to pneumonia.  Pregnancy was never an out for my mother.  It didn’t stop her from going to the grudging fields and picking the low, back breaking, Texas grown cotton, in the burning up summers and the bristling cold winters!  Money was needed for the survival of her family, even with its poor and simple life style.

Despite the fact that she was now a mother of five, with the help of the good Lord, my mother was determined to help her husband with the financial needs of their family.  She prayed for strength to continue to be able to do the extremely hard labor for very little pay, and helped to care for their five daughters!  God gave her the strength.  Each morning after getting her children settled for the day, Her long field working days began at day break, with her being bent over almost to the ground, picking cotton with the hard sharp pronged cotton bowls sticking, poking, cutting, and scratching up her precious hands and fingers, even to the point of bleeding.  When her back could not take the strain and agonizing pain any more, she switched her position and began to crawl on the hard clogged ground on her knees! 

Even after switching up the position of her body, she still had to suffer the pains of dragging the heavy weighted cotton sack, which was stretched out behind her.  The wide strap that was attached to the sack and draped over my mother’s priceless shoulder, cut into her skin each time she pulled the heavy sack of cotton, to advance down the long row of the field she worked. 

Over and over; day after day, month after month, year after year, this was all the life my mother had to look forward to having; working in the cotton fields, breaking her precious body down during the day, and then going home to work even more, by cooking, washing, ironing, and taking care of her family’s needs at night.  Her evenings were spent the same as her mornings and her days; laboring in the unmerciful cotton fields!  Indeed my mother literally worked from sun up till sun down!  The one good day out of the entire week my mother did enjoy was on Sundays!  Sundays were the days she looked forward to seeing her entire family, attend the church services at the small neighborhood church.  It was the day when my parents thanked God for helping them to get through the past week; and prayed for Him to strengthen them to get through the following week!      

My father, who had only completed the eighth grade, and cared a great deal about his family, grew concerned about his ability to financially care for his family.  I cringed with horrifying fear when I heard my daddy discussing with my mother, the idea of taking us out of school and having us go work the cotton fields with them; and then I jumped for joy when I heard my mother say, “Not as long as there’s breath in my body!  My daughters will not be taken out of school, and end up the same way that I did!  They will get an education!”  Thank God, my father readily agreed!  My mother is now ninety-one years old and alert; however, her body is riddled and crippled with painful arthritis.  Our awards to her and my deceased father for their love for us are listed below:

Daughter 1:  Retired supervisor of a state preschool, singer, and pastor’s wife.

Daughter 2:  Missionary, FNP/PNP, singer, pastor’s wife, and entrepreneur.

Daughter 3:  Pianist, Artist, Singer, Secretary, Author of two published books of the “Jennifer Answorth” series, and additional literary works for future publications.

Daughter 4:  PhD I/O psychology, MS, BA, BS, AA, PHN, singer, and entrepreneur.

Daughter 5:  Professor, MAOM emphasis in psych

            If there was ever a woman who deserves and has earned the right to be added to the pages of the history books, indeed it is my strong willed and determined mother, Mrs. Georgia M. Foster.  

 

Well, thank you for your time, patience, and interest in getting to know a little bit about your author, and if you will please click on the link below, I would love to pay my gratitude to you and so many more people who have helped me to make this all possible.     

http://www.milliesliterarycorner.com/gratitudecontactmeworld.htm