Marlee Matlin Marlee Beth Matlin was born on August 24, 1965 to Don and Libby Matlin in Morton Grove, Illinois. Her father was a used-car salesman, and her mother sold jewelry. Marlee was the youngest of three children. At the age of 18 months, she lost all hearing in her right ear, and 80% of her hearing in her left ear. In her autobiography, she says that she originally thought that Roseola Infantum caused her deafness, until she learned that the illness doesn’t lead to deafness.
Dorothy Dandrige By: Erykah Hunter Early life Dorothy Dandrige was born on November 9, 1922 in Cleveland Ohio to aspiring entertainer Ruby Dandrige and Cyril Dandrige a cabinet maker and minister, who seperated just before her birth. Ruby created a song and a dance for her two daughters, Vivian and Dorothy, under the name of The Wonder Children, that was managed by Geneva Williams. Dorothy and her sister toured the Southern United States almost nonstop for five years (rarely attending school) while Ruby worked and performed in Cleveland. During the Great Depression, work virtually dried up for the Dandriges, as it did for many Chitlin circuit preformers. The Wonder Children were renamed The Dandrige Sisters
Bio: Nora Roberts was born in Silver Spring Maryland, the youngest of five children. After a school career that included some time in Catholic school and the disciplines of nuns, she married young and settled in Keedysville, Maryland. She worked briefly as a legal secretary. "I could type fast but couldn't spell, I was the worst legal secretary ever," she says now. After her sons were born she stayed home and tried every craft that came along.
Malik Murray Tag 04/29/2007 Ms. Alexandria Wilma Rudolph Wilma Rudolph was born in Clarksville, Tennessee, in 1940. Wilma Rudolph was crippled with polio at the age of 4. Until she was 12 she had to struggle to walk, even a few yards with a cumbersome leg brace. Yet eight years later she emerged from the 1960 Rome Olympics as the "Tennessee Tornado" the fastest woman on earth. Rudolph was the 20th child in a family of 22 children.
God not only opened her eyes but opened others eyes too. Jessica had a troubled childhood, lost all trust in others, but found God and the 40 brown bags . Jessica grew up with really religious catholic parents. As a young girl Jessica was abused which led her to depression. In high school Jess met a boy named mike, she fell in “love” and got pregnant at the age of 16, and forced into marriage with Mike young and still
Wilma Glodean Rudolph was born prematurely at 4.5 pounds (2.0 kg), the 20th of 22 siblings from two marriages;[4][3] her father Ed was a railway porter and her mother Blanche a maid. [9] Rudolph contracted infantile paralysis (caused by the polio virus) at age four. She recovered, but wore a brace on her left leg and foot (which had become twisted as a result) until she was nine. She was required to wear an orthopaedic shoe for support of her foot for another two years. Her family traveled regularly from Clarksville, Tennessee, to Meharry Hospital (now Nashville General Hospital at Meharry) in Nashville, Tennessee for treatments for her twisted leg.
Her father was an alcoholic who was disowned by his family (Women). Her mother Anna Roosevelt, sometimes called “Granny” because of her old-fashion style, was somewhat distant to her family (Women). When her mother died in 1892 because of diphtheria, she moved in with her maternal grandmother, Mary Ludlow Hall (Roosevelt History). In 1894 when she was ten, her father, whom she rarely ever saw passed because of alcoholism (Roosevelt Bio). When she was sent off to school in England to enroll at Allenwood Academy, she went in a shy and awkward child, but when she was taken under the wing of the headmistress of the academy, Mlle.
The suit sparked her career as a journalist. “Many papers wanted to hear about the experiences of the 25-year-old school teacher who stood up against white supremacy” (Baker 1). Her writings made it difficult to lead a normal life. They got her fired from her job and almost killed when she began to write the facts about lynching. Wells was born as a slave during the second year of the Civil War six months before the publication of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks was born June 7, 1917 in Topeka, Kansas. That same year the Brooks family moved to Chicago. Gwendolyn’s mother knew she had a gift for writing when she was only seven. She tried to help her talent grow by exposing her to multiple types and forms of literature. Gwendolyn’s parents were very strict and did not let her play with other children which caused her to be shy her whole life and allow her acquire only a few friends in high school.
After having such a traumatizing childhood, she still found a way to overcome the obstacles and become a novelist. Soon after their mother died at such a young age, the three older sisters, Charlotte, Elizabeth, and Maria attended religious school. In one of Charlotte's novels she claims that abuse took place in the school. Emily enrolled a little bit later than her sisters did. When typhoid fever took over the school, Maria and Elizabeth caught it.