To my enormous benefit I was not taught to hate based on skin color. Instead Lottie my family’s black maid taught me love and acceptance with warm, loving humor and unending patience- Apron Strings...ver maisTo my enormous benefit I was not taught to hate based on skin color. Instead Lottie my family’s black maid taught me love and acceptance with warm, loving humor and unending patience- Apron Strings is based on our relationship.Segregated schools, water fountains, along with "whites only" restaurants and movie theaters were the norm when I was growing up. I remember the hurled epithets and smashed windows of a society boiling in hatred.As one of six, with four of my own I have sufficient material about family chaos. Adding to that at the age of forty-something, with a daughter in high school and a four-year-old girl still at home, I decided to get a college degree. I earned, and I do mean earned, a B.A. in English with honors at the University of Virginia. My concentration was creative writing.More recently I have pursued additional studies under the tutelage of my seven-year-old granddaughter. Her refresher course in childhood perspective was invaluable in writing this book. I was born and raised in Charlottesville, Virginia by my family's black maid. I was fortunate not to be taught to hate based on skin color.The mother of four children, I earned a bachelor of arts in English at the University of Virginia, with a concentration in creative writing, when I was in my forties. I live on a farm in Orange County, Virginia, with my husband, four dogs, and my daughter’s cat.ver menos