Wearing Purple - Softcover

Lydia Lewis Alexander; Marilyn Hill Harper; Otis Holloway Owens; Mildred Lucas Patterson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0609801740 ISBN 13: 9780609801741

Publisher: Three Rivers Press, 1998

Synopsis

In 1989 we four friends, all living in different parts of the country, decided to form a working circle and write letters to each other to explore our thoughts and feelings about our current life experiences. We were friends holding hands through the experience of growing older, while seeking and finding the emerging possibilities of our lives. This book is a selection of those letters "about our joy, sadness, loss, fulfillment, laughter, and tears."

These four women met in 1954 at Talledega College (one of the country's forty historically black colleges) and began an enduring friendship that continues to sustain them more than forty years later. All with accomplished careers, two in long, joyful marriages, one divorced, one widowed, and each a mother (with six sons-no daughters-among them), their intimate letters discuss everything. E-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g!
By sharing their letters in a book, Lydia, Marilyn, Otis, and Mildred reassure us that we are all extraordinary, that we are all spiritual con-querors in our "ordinary" lives--with help from our friends!

Their ever-growing closeness, cultivated since their teens and early twenties, reminds us to value our friendships, whatever our age.
And, as they enjoy their late fifties, these four women not only give voice to a generation no longer young in years, but they also exuberantly redefine what it means to grow older.

About this title

From the Back Cover

Thank you Lydia, Marilyn, Otis, and Mildred for sharing the nurturing power of your sister-circle. Reading this book is like bathing in the healing waters of a hot spring! Wearing Purple offers courage and solace for all women at midlife.
Patricia Bell-Scott, Ph.D.
Editor of Life Notes: Personal Writings by Contemporary Black Women and Double Stitch: Black Women Write About Mothers & Daughters

About the Author

Lydia Lewis Alexander, Ed.D, is an associate professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She lives in Bessemer, Alabama.

Marilyn Hill Harper, M.D., is a clinical professor at The University of California San Francisco Medical School; she lives in San Francisco.

Otis Holloway Owens, M.A., is an assistant vice president at the University of North Florida; she lives in Jacksonville.

Mildred Lucas Patterson, M.A.,is a motivational reading specialist; she lives in University City, Missouri.
From the Hardcover edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Three Rivers Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0609801740
• ISBN 13: 9780609801741
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 223