This is a picture of my mother and I taken in Fayette, AL. I'm always amazed by her beauty so apparent in her pictures. I remember her grace; how she held on to hope all her life. She was a contradictThis is a picture of my mother and I taken in Fayette, AL. I'm always amazed by her beauty so apparent in her pictures. I remember her grace; how she held on to hope all her life. She was a contradiction, a rarity in life. She fought to overcame great obstacles: growing up very poor on a cotton farm, mental illness, alcoholism -- my father's, and later her own, his abuse, his violence because of his fear someone would come along and take her away from him because of her beauty -- it became her prison. And then his suicide. She heard the shot from her bedroom on that volatile morning so many years ago. I was so touched by her life that I shared a lot of it in my 3rd book, "Alabama Snow." She was a remarkable woman, mother, and an inspiration and I felt her story had to be told. Her name: Mary Ellen Rushing Chumbley....more