Preface
Ethel Waters had taken New York by storm long before I was born in an Iowa blizzard.
She had already received wide acclaim in elite nightclubs singing such hits as "St. Louis Blues," "Dinah," "Taking a Chance on Love," and "Stormy Weather," when she became the first Negro woman to star in a Broadway play.
The street life Ethel learned as a child in the slums of Philadelphia and Chester, Pennsylvania, contrasted greatly with the sheltered life I lived in the protective care of my parents in Correctionville, Iowa (pop. 992 — all white). I didn't know what a ghetto was. I never met a colored person until after I was eighteen. Racial prejudice were words unknown in my vocabulary.
By the time I boarded the yellow school bus to start kindergarten, Ethel was starring in the Broadway play The Member of the Wedding, was being seen in such movies as Cabin in the Sky and Cairo, and had been nominated for an Oscar for her part in Pinky. Even if her films had come to my little town, I would have missed them, since the local rundown movie house was "off limits" to those of us from the evangelical church.
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The big event in my life in 1957 was my eighth-grade graduation. I proudly wore the yellow chiffon dress my mother made for me as I took my place in the front row of our gymnasium. I was elated as I walked to center stage to get a big red "C" to wear on my sweater and a pin for my achievements in music. Ethel had a big event that year also — she turned her life over to Jesus. He had already been my friend for more than five years.
After completing my thirteen years at a big brick school house, I left Correctionville to conquer greater things. Traveling three hundred miles to Minneapolis to attend business school was the first battle won.
My wildest dreams could never have envisioned the opportunities in store for me when in 1963 I began working at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. My work as secretary to Billy Graham's press representative carried me to crusades in distant cities and countries.
Through my work, God brought me to a beautiful relationship with Ethel Waters. Though we were so far apart in our origins, the twelve years after we met proved to be a happy if bumpy ride, in which I shared her joys, hurts and tears — first as a good friend and then after we both settled in Los Angeles, as her "Girl-Saturday." (Each Saturday I'd take dictation, shop for groceries, and sit with her for long periods of time to help alleviate her loneliness.) I didn't take any salary for working for Ethel, but since she had always "paid her own way," we agreed to her giving me $25 a month for car expenses. That arrangement continued until her death.
Each weekday I would give her a phone call. Ethel had a way of answering the telephone with a "hello" that sounded as though she were at death's door — a sort of low painful groan. (This was done so that someone calling a wrong number would not recognize "the Ethel Waters," or if it were someone she didn't especially care for, it would discourage a long conversation.) When she would recognize my voice on
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the phone, the sparkle that characterized Ethel Waters would spring back into the conversation that followed.
My work as executive secretary to Bill Brown, president of World Wide Pictures in Burbank, California, did not allow long hours to spend with her during the week so these regular phone calls were my assurance to her that I cared.
One night while I was talking with Mr. Brown and his wife Joan about both the trials and happy adventures of my Saturdays with Ethel, Mr. Brown suggested I write down some of my experiences. "You're probably closer to her than anybody," he told me. "God has given you a unique opportunity to touch one of His choicest sparrows."
Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it.
Jesus said that!
