Mother Was a Rebel: In Praise of Gentle People - Paperback

by Helen F. Blackshear (Author)

Many people have interesting childhoods, eccentric relatives, go off to college, and set out as adults to make their way in the world. Few people are as keenly observant or can write as compellingly about these experiences as does Helen Blackshear in this inviting memoir. Here we are invited into extended Southern families and are given glimpses of a world that no longer exists -- of genteel women's schools, of college towns when they were small communities, of first car trips and first suitors and a young girl's coming of age. The author recalls us back to her world in the early to mid-twentieth century, and reveals in the process her own generous spirit and wise heart.

Author Biography

HELEN F. BLACKSHEAR served from 1995 to 1999 as Alabama's eighth poet laureate. A native and present resident of Tuscaloosa, she lived in Montgomery from 1934 to 2003. She has three daughters, eight grandchildren, and fourteen great-grandchildren. A graduate of Agnes Scott College, she also has an M.A. from the University of Alabama. She is the author of Mother Was a Rebel, Southern Smorgasbord, Creek Captives, Alabama Album, Silver Songs and From Peddler to Philanthropist: The Friedman Story. She also edited These I Would Keep, an anthology of poems by Alabama's first through ninth poet laureates. She has served as treasurer and vice-president of the Alabama Poetry Society and as president of the Alabama Writers' Conclave. She was Poet of the Year in 1986 and received the Distinguished Service Award from the Conclave in 1987.