By Joan S. Hust
I give credit to my mother. At a very young age my mother had me take my
pencil and go over her shopping list every week letter by letter. She would sharpen my pencil with a sharp
kitchen knife and I would carefully trace over every letter. She made it like we were playing a game. Then as time went on I would begin to write
the entire word, sound it out and all of a sudden I would say the new word out
loud, and together we would make up one sentence after another and eventually
it would turn in to a story. Sometimes I would even make up a tune using the
word, and both of us would sing, and end up laughing.
My mother was a voracious reader. She read every page of the local
newspaper. She would remind me that
daddy bought the newspaper for us to read. At that time my daddy did not read
or write. He signed his paychecks with
an x. As I learned to read and write he
would sit down beside me at the kitchen table after a fourteen hour seven day a
week workday, and I would teach him everything that I learned that day in
school.
We did not own a book till I was in Junior High
School. One of my aunts, the niece of my
dad sent me three books for Christmas. It was so thrilling for me to have books
of my own. I still have those
books. I have written and published my
first book COAL MINER’S GRANDDAUGHTER. I
have found that there is healing power in writing. I learned a lot from writing
my first book so my second book should be better. I have just finished writing
my second book AFRICA TALES, and it will be published as soon as my graphic artist
finishes the sketches for it.
I am not
quite sure yet but even though I am eight decades and a few months old I still
have another story in mind as my younger son reminded me the other day that I
have been in 37 countries teaching, mission work and believe it or not as a
tourist.
