Edith Martin W. Oldham was born in St. George, S.C. in 1943. She is a 1960 graduate of Williams Memorial High School, earned a marketing degree from the City University of New York, retired from Verizon Marketing, and was a proprietor of Edith’s Hair Salon. She has two sons and five grandchildren; she now lives in Summerville, S.C. with her husband, Wally. The author is a poet with a passion for words, both written and spoken. Her first work, The Garden of Life, is a volume of inspirational poetry now in the second print. She has now challenged herself, in both pictures and words, to recapture the spirit and grit of a little-remembered group of people and their contributions to the Negro communities in St. George, S.C. and its bordering areas.