Texas Adoption Activist Edna Gladney: A Life & Legacy of Love - Paperback

by Sherrie S. McLeroy (Author)

In 1941, Greer Garson earned an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of Fort Worth's Edna Gladney in Blossoms in the Dust. All eyes turned toward the small yet mighty Gladney and her fight for children's rights and adoption reform. Born in 1886, Edna Gladney was labeled as illegitimate from birth and, as an adult, lobbied for that label's removal from all birth certificates. During World War I, when many women left the home to work, Edna opened an innovative daytime nursery to care for the children of these workingwomen. What became the Gladney Center for Adoption has changed the lives of families and children the world over. Author and Gladney parent Sherrie McLeRoy tells Edna's amazing story alongside the making of the movie that launched Edna and adoption reform beyond Fort Worth's borders to national recognition..

Author Biography

Sherrie McLeRoy is an independent historical scholar and writer from Aledo, Texas. Her first career, from 1974 to 1988, was as a museum administrator and curator in Virginia and Texas. Since then, she has been a writer, speaker, historian and has written or contributed to more than twenty books on the histories of Texas and her native Virginia. From 2000 to 2002 she was a consultant, researcher and writer on an exhibit about the history of The Gladney Center for Adoption.