Book Review

Recently I read a book called The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio-- How my mother raised 10 children on 25 words or less by Terry Ryan. It's not a new book, I just came across it. Basically Terry Ryan, who was one of a family of 10 children growing up in the 1950s writes about how her mother kept the family afloat. Her father had a dead end job in a factory-he earned $90.00 a week. He was an alcoholic, and spent $30.00 a week on his booze. The rest, $60.00 a week was what her mother had to run the house and feed her kids.

Obviously in the 1950s women did not work, especially a mother of 10 children. She would constantly enter contests that were popular in that era - come up with a jingle about Bic Razors! Describe in 25 words or less how you feel when you eat jello, write a slogan for Pepsi. etc. She was very talented and would come up with lots of different entries and send them in under different names- her kids, her own name spelled 10 different ways. She kept winning! sometimes stuff like bikes, toasters, sometimes cash, and occasionally a big win like a sportscar and big money.

This was how she supported her family. They were terribly poor, and it seems that whenever they were at a low point, some big win came through for them.

I suggest every mother (fathers could read it too) should read this book, because no matter how desperate things were, she always kept her household cheerful! her kids were happy kids, and she had a real challenge - a drunk husband, poverty, 10 children. While her husband was in the kitchen drunk, she was in the living room doing homework with her kids.

We can all learn from that. Most of us today live better than her, yet we dont manage to be content with our lot, and transmit that feeling to our kids.

I was looking it up on Amazon.com and I discovered that the book was made into a movie some time ago.