When Katie was just 6 months old her mother died after she was poisoned by her father's mistress at a cookout. After her mother's passing Katie was raised by her grandmother Katie Reid in Georgia. Her grandmother had several children and Katie enjoyed being raised with her aunts and uncles it was like having sisters and brothers. As a child Katie Reid was strict and she made sure that all the children did all the chores that they were assigned and if they didn't then they were punished for not being obedient.
Katie started working around her grandmother's farm at a young age and at the age of sixteen she married her basketball coach and later had two children. After her husbands infidelity she divorced him and married again having two more children with her second husband also. Katie divorced her second husband and continued to work hard taking care of her children.
Katie loved to read and write but she couldn't print this made her grandmother proud. Her grandmother would call her friends over just to show them what her granddaughter could do. Katie's grandmother wasn't educated and couldn't even write her name so Katie would handle all her business for her. Katie's grandmother was a hard working woman and as she would make money she would save it and put it in a sack behind her bedroom door. Katie's grandmother couldn't count so she never knew how much money she had but there was so many things that she needed.
One day Katie called one of her aunts for help her aunt agreed that she wouldn't say anything and Katie went in the sack and took money out for things that were needed around the house. One thing that Katie did do was replace the money that she took from the sack. Her grandmother never knew that the money was gone. Her grandmother went on to live to be 106 years old and before she passed she said she was tired of living because she was so old.
Katie left Georgia and moved to Florida where she enrolled in St Petersburg College. She didn't have a high school diploma she just knew that she wanted more out of life. She could read very well and write but she still couldn't print. She went on to have 11 more children, she had her last child at the age of 38 years old. Katie also had to deal with the passing of three of her children.
Katie Settled in and met many people in Florida. She was known not to take any mess off anyone. She was the only one that owned a pink cadillac in Florida and at the time there were very few. She worked in the field of nursing and worked two and three jobs at times to keep food on the table. Depending on welfare was not something that she wanted to do.
Katie worked hard all her life to take care of her children making sure that they had the best of everything. She later became disabled in her forties and was unable to work. She then began raising many of her grandchildren.
In 2006 Katie went into renal failure and was given the news that she would be on dialysis until a kidney became available she was just 70 years old. If Katie didn't know anything else she knew that she wanted to live so she began her dialysis treatments. In March Katie will celebrate her 74th birthday.
I celebrate Katie Mae Smiley she is a strong woman and also my mother. I am so proud to know her and just to be her child the last of the fifteen. We share a love for literature and I used to wonder where my love for literature came from and now I know.
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