Simone Smith Essay #1 My Hero November 3, 2012 Humanities 1301 Ms. Alexander

I had never really thought about who was my hero until now and I had to reflect on my past. Looking back over the years I guess I must have taken a lot for granted. I have been lucky because I have a lot of people around me that have helped to enrich my life. The one person, who stands out to me, is my grandmother she really was and still is my hero. As I reflect on good times and bad times, she always seem to be there with words of encouragement and with words I may have not wanted to hear, but she always steered me in the right direction. My grandmother was a woman who wise and good natured and so full of energy, willing to help anyone who needed help. My grandmother believed in family. My grandmother was the seventh of fourteen children, born in Brookhaven Mississippi, in 1926. This was a time when people gave birth at home, so she was born on a farm, where she helped raise and care for her brothers and sisters. The children went to school and helped work the land for the family. In later years, she attended high school where she played basketball, when they only played half court, she was very good and well-liked by her class her classmates. After graduating from high school and having three children of her own, she needed to more income. The cotton fields that she worked, wasn’t providing enough money to sustain a good life. My grandmother knew she would have to go elsewhere to make good money. The dilemma here is that, she would have to leave her family behind and her children in order to make a brighter future for herself and her children. Reluctant to, but out of need she traveled north. My grandmother moved to Flint Michigan and landed a job at a factory manufacturing cans, she made enough money in that first year to buy a home and