Paternal grandmama strong but distant
I didn’t know my father’s mother very well. And she didn’t leave behind a box of stories she wrote about her life like my maternal grandmother did. But apparently, Lucy Maxwell Childers, born and raised in Tuscaloosa, was a strong woman in her own rights. Until she died on Thanksgiving in 1963 (the week after JFK was assassinated), she attended most of our annual family reunions. And occasionally, my family would pack up the car and go visit her in Houston, where she lived with her only daughter and her family. But according to my checkered memory, she didn’t seem to interact much with...
Read MoreAnother powerful woman showing the way
My sister, Carol, who is 16 months older than me, has certainly been a powerful woman in my life. For the first few years, I just followed her around, soaking up whatever she had to offer. Everything she learned in school, she came home and taught me so I started out ahead of the game. Later in life, she taught me how to go after what you want with not much more than determination on your side. In the late 1980s, she was a single mother with less than $30 to her name, no groceries in the house, debtors knocking at her door, two rambunctious young boys and an unreliable car. The only...
Read MoreAnxious to make a difference
In the spring of 1942, Helen Huckabee, my mother, was anxious and restless. The country was at war and most of the men she knew were off serving their country. Life on the dairy farm in Brookfield, Vermont, felt stifling. After graduating from high school in 1938, Helen had gone as far in college as her hard-earned scholarships allowed, earning a two-year teaching certificate from the University of Vermont. The first year of teaching was rewarding, but by then the country had entered World War II. At 22, Helen Huckabee wanted to make a difference in war effort. Three of her...
Read MoreAge not a deterrent
Born in 1863, Idella Harlow lived in an old farmhouse in the Maine hills in Buckfield village. When she was 5 years old, her mother died soon after giving birth to twin girls. Less than a year later, Idella’s father, Samuel Harlow, married a kind woman who become mother to his six children. A few miles down a hilly road from the Harlow farm about halfway to the village of South Paris, Maine, was the Oxford County Poor Farm. Hosea Bonney raised five children on that farm. The middle child, Emery Bonney, became enamored with Idella and courted her until she finally agreed to marry him the fall...
Read MoreThe best gift EVER!
Thirty-nine years ago, I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in a hospital in Mobile, Alabama. And it was the best Christmas I’ve ever had, including the best gift ever! My husband and I had plans to go to his parents’ house about thirty miles away for a big holiday party in 1979. I was really looking forward to the gala, figuring it might be my last fling for a while. We didn’t make it to the party. Baby on the way I had stayed awake most of the previous night with serious stomach cramps. Around dawn, it finally occurred to me that I must be in labor—but the baby wasn’t due until the day...
Read MoreDescendant of Pilgrims
Being a descendant of Pilgrims slipped up on me this week. It’s one of those tidbits that I once knew then forgot. I was thinking about Thanksgiving, the Mayflower and hardships the early Pilgrims endured just to survive. Then my maternal grandmother came to mind and all that she experienced in her 85 years on the planet. She did not have an easy life but she sure was tenacious, resilient and determined. No matter what obstacle was placed in front of her, she did whatever it took to get around, over, under or through it to the other side. Her husband’s wild ideas took the family all over the...
Read More
Jane Self, PhD, was assistant features editor for the Macon Telegraph and features editor for The Tuscaloosa News. She received her master's degree in secondary education from Louisiana State University in New Orleans and her PhD in education administration from the University of Alabama. 
Jane Self was features editor at The Tuscaloosa News when the Fallen Warriors series began. Although she left the paper, she continued to write these profiles on a freelance basis for The News until the series was stopped in May 2009. Jane has since updated and published them as an E-book. 
In 1991 "60 Minutes" aired a story that attempted to destroy the life and work of EST founder Werner Erhard. Award-winning journalist Jane Self suspected there was more to these allegations than being reported. She discovered an amazing plot of espionage, conspiracy, and sabotage.