Paperback
Retail Price: $11.95
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: (Ecl. 3:1)
Frequently, the decisions that have the greatest impact on how we live our lives are made by others. While the event of Edna Paralee Thompson’s birth was being recorded at Chattanooga City Hospital, American socialism was experiencing the convulsive jerks and tremors that usually precede death. As a results of some of those events, historians have recorded that time as a period of one of the greatest crises in American history. The election of Franklin Delano Roosevelt resulted in a new deal for the people—a program of economic and social welfare legislation. Under that umbrella, regionalism would dam the rivers, secure the top soil, and uproot families. The people of Oakridge, Tennessee were promised a new era. They accepted and believed the promise, but this decision to retire poor farmland and develop the natural resources of the Tennessee River drainage basin would eventually change Edna’s family’s way of life forever.
Paperback
Format: 5.5 x 8.5 Black & White Paperback, 99 pages
Publisher: Outskirts Press (Jul 25, 2012)
ISBN10: 1432793780
ISBN13: 9781432793784
Genre: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Ethnic Studies / American / African American & Black Studies
Edna Paralee Thompson was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She spent her early childhood on her great grandfather’s farm in Oakridge, Tennessee. Edna’s family migrated to Worcester, Massachusetts during the late 1930s and early ’40s. She married Cornelius Boyed Spencer and they had one daughter, Olivia Rochelle Spencer, who died on August 4, 2006. Edna earned degrees from Quinsigamond Community College and Clark University, both in Worcester, and she holds a master’s degree in Liberal Arts from Clark University. Edna is the first black woman to serve as chairman of the trustee board of Quinsigamond Community College, and the first black woman to serve as president of the YWCA of Central Massachusetts. She has served on the Trustee Board of the United Way and several other city and agency committees. She is the recipient of The National Conference of Christians and Jews Brotherhood Award, The Martin Luther King, Jr. Good Citizen Award, The YWCA of Central Massachusetts Katherine F. Erskine Award, and The Clark University Outstanding Alumni Award. Edna was also given a key to the City of Worcester, where she and Cornelius currently reside. 
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