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Over 70 years ago, among the blackjack and long-needle pin of Florida's Suwanne River area, approximately 27 miles from the nearest town, Live Oak, Lois was born. There she lived until she was about 8 or 9 years old. Her father, a farmer, raised everything from pigs to peanuts and cows to corn to feed his family of 5 boys and 4 girls. Cotton (and later, on other farms, tobacco) was the cash crop used to purchase what could not be grown or raised.

Lois's father, "who was a very good man," she says, "felt only the boys needed education; gals didn't." Even for them, he "felt work in the field was more important." She adds, however, that ..." my Dad would read to us all the time." The Bible was his text, and he read very well, she notes. In fact, in her family, the men learned to read and write well… "most of my uncles could read."

Although she says she always liked arithmetic and history, and wanted to learn, reading was difficult for her. And it got no easier for a long time. Married early, moved to Mansfield, Ohio and raised 4 sons. When her boys were 2 and 3 years old she would look at the pictures included in the various books and make up stores about them in order to "read" to her children. Later, she says, "I tried to start back to school in the 1960's, but my husband got sick." "I feel like I've been cheated for not knowing how to read."

But that is changing. With one son an accountant, one a mechanical maintenance person at The Ohio State University, one a grocery store manager, and three ministers, Lois is changing her life. She is learning to read. "To me, after I've learned to read some, it makes me feel I can travel to other countries."

"A brand new world has opened up." She says that she always "knew arithmetic, so (she) was not cheated"; yet, now she is sharing her world and her experiences with others; "I hunt books that have a lot going on that is like my life and how they brought themselves out."

Not only does travel to new countries and locales, she feels she is more in charge of her life. "I've seen women suffer for not knowing how to read. I feel that people look down on someone who can't read." As result of her new-found literacy, is not in that position: "I feel like I've proved myself in some areas." In her senior citizens Bible study group, she was asked for the first time recently to read a passage for discussion. "All the members were thrilled," she says. Now, in the group and in church, "I can follow along," she points out.

While she is now busy reading her way through many new countries, reading and discussing the Bible, Lois worries that many others still cannot read or are not learning to read well enough. "Some people have told me they can't read-a lot." "And," she adds, "People bluff their way through; they don't talk about it too much." To prevent this illiteracy, Lois believes that it is important for "children to pick out something they want to do" and prepare for it. Teachers play a vital role: "If a teacher would make it interesting, that would help." She asserts that "if the teacher was interesting enough, she could make it interesting for children" to want to learn to read.

When I last saw her, Lois was leaving Mansfield-Richland County Library with a new novel by Marjorie Kinnen Rawling clutched to her breast. She was off to revisit in words the rural Florida she once roamed as a child who could not read.

Interview by Jim Buckley