In 1941, Greer Garson earned an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of Fort Worth's Edna Gladney in "Blossoms in the Dust." All eyes turned toward the small yet mighty Gladney and her fight for children's rights and adoption reform. Born in 1886, Edna Gladney was labeled as "illegitimate" from birth and, as an adult, lobbied for that label's removal from all birth certificates. During World War I, when many women left the home to work, Edna opened an innovative daytime nursery to care for the children of these workingwomen. What became the Gladney Center for Adoption has changed the lives of families and children the world over. Author and Gladney parent Sherrie McLeRoy tells Edna's amazing story alongside the making of the movie that launched Edna and adoption reform beyond Fort Worth's borders to national recognition.

Her name was Rebecca Aston Brown, but the world knew her as Miss Bettie. Artist, world traveler, and for the times most shocking of all, a spinster to the end of her days, Bettie's life has been the subject of conjecture and rumor.

This book presents a historical overview of the free Negro in Virginia, from the mid-eighteenth century through the Civil War, along with the physical and historical background of Amherst County. The original edition preserved a wealth of information on n