My first recollections of my life was when I had just turned three. I was in an orphanage and my mama was crying. I didnat know why. She was just crying and I wanted her to feel better. As I grew a little older in the orphanage, I realized what it was all about. I had become three and the rules were that a child could no longer stay in the room with their mother after that. They had to be transferred to a dormitory with other children of about the same age and sex. I believe that was when my mama firmly made up her mind to leave the orphanage to seek a new husband and a new home where we could all live together again. It didnat exactly work out that way and it was a crushing blow to Mama. But that had become the norm for my mama and grandparents. They all had lived their lives from birth in dirty, dark and dangerous mining camps, going through one mine explosion that killed 30 of their friends and acquaintances. And shortly thereafter, losing several loved ones to a national and worldwide devastating disease. And traumatic deaths followed my mama and grandma throughout their lives, even my daddy, who died at the age of 40 of bee stings that left my mama with six small children, including me at the age of three weeks. But we had a Savior that led us to the greatest fraternal organizations in the world, and still the greatest ones in existence todayaThe Masonic Fraternity and The Order of the Eastern Star. A large part of my story deals with our lives and experiences in the Home they built for us, as well as the lives and experiences of hundreds more who came there to live with us. My mama and my grandma spent almost a lifetime in abject poverty and grief when, except for fate, they would have been among the wealthy and aristocratic families in Birmingham and Jefferson County. I have often wondered: what, exactly, went wrong?
