Emma Bridges

To Africa and Back for God Emma Bridges

This book is dedicated to the memory of my mother and role model, Mrs. Linnie D. Gray. She was a community activist, missionary, care-giver, and a friend to all who knew her. My mother was born in 1914 and was raised by her grandmother, Mrs. Liza Flowers along with her uncle Sam Flowers, whom she loved dearly. She stopped attending school upon completing the third grad in order to take care of her grandmother who was dying of cancer. My mother never complained about anything. She believed in the power of prayer and used it to get through the difficult times in her life. She had strong facial features due to her families Indian genes and long beautiful black hair. My mother went to church faithfully while growing up in Mississippi. Church is where she met her husband and my father, Joe C. Gray. Too their union they had nine children and all were born by a mid-wife except one. My father died at a young age and my mother was left to raise the children alone. The oldest son in our family was not old enough to plough the fields, so she did a man's job and ploughed the fields to raise crops. My mother raised cattle, chickens, cotton, corn, peanuts, cane, and the list goes on. Since my mother was raised in the church, she made sure that all of her children attended church, Saturdays was the day to get the hair washed and straightened, that meant that some one was going to have a burnt mark and sometimes it was me. When we arrived at church she would prepare a pallet under the church pew for the kids in case one of us fell asleep, the big children were responsible for caring the little ones.