A Rose for Mama

Born June 14, 1932 in rural Homerville, Georgia, the sixth child of Corine and Jesse B. Grover, Sr., a Baptist Preacher. . My mother died in 1936 and in 1938 my father moved the family to Jacksonville, Florida where I grew up. In my young childhood, 11 years old, I began singing gospel songs on church programs and soon progressed to concerts within the city as well as out of state, becoming the city's youngest and one of its leading gospel singers.

Before and during the civil rights movement I worked in the law office of Ernest D. Jackson, Sr., now deceased. I was one of only two Black legal secretaries in Jacksonville at that time. There I got the chance to meet congressmen, Senators and other politicians; but one famous person that I remember most is the late Justice Thurgood Marshall. He worked with our office many times when he was Chief Legal Defense Counsel for the NAACP giving us access to his vast civil rights knowledge and wisdom. I admire him greatly.

I moved to Lowell, Massachusetts in 1972 with two young children, ending a 13- year old marriage. A single mother for eight years, I married for the second time in 1980. One son was born to that marriage.