Reading Changed My Life - Townsend Press

Reading Changed My Life! Three True StoriesNorth to look for better jobs when Julia was three.Her parents were hardly more than children themselves;when Julia was born, her mother was 13 andher father 17. Neither had finished junior highschool. Neither could read or write well.Their daughter’s memories of them are bittersweet.“They were hard-working people, well-respectedin Racine,” she says. “They were generous—theytaught us to share whatever we had, and to lookdown on no one. They had plenty of commonsense, what my father called ‘motherwit.’ As wewere growing up, he’d say, ‘You might have moreschooling than I do, but I have motherwit.’ And hedid.“But they were so young when they had us, andthere were so many of us,” she goes on. “Imagineall those mouths to feed and bills to pay! I amamazed that they accomplished what they did. Theyraised us and kept us together. With all they had to62