The Importance of Reading Evans, Rosetta SPEAKER: Why don't you give us your name? ROSE: Rosetta Evans. SPEAKER: And are you originally from Columbus? ROSE: Yes I am. SPEAKER: Well first I thank you for agreeing to tape the narrative with us and we are here just to kind of talk about literacy which is basically reading and writing, anything to do with reading and writing. So I'll start off by asking you a very simple question: Do you like to read? ROSE: Yes, girl, yes I do. SPEAKER: How long have you been reading? ROSE: Oh for as long as I can remember but that was so many years ago but for a long time, I've always liked to read. I think I was the reader of the family. SPEAKER: How large of a family do you come from? ROSE: Seven in our family and I was the third from the youngest. SPEAKER: Ok, do you have any memory or recollection of maybe an adult that was influential in your life that gave you books or placed upon you... ROSE: No, but what I do remember is for so long my mom couldn't read, she didn't have a good education so most of the reading I did, the bills, the letters, the Bible. So that's as far as I can go back as far as starting to read, reading the Bible to my mom, reading our mail and so forth. And we were down South and every year I read the Bible to the mail to the letters as far as sending and reading and writing. SPEAKER: What type, do you have a special type of book that you like? ROSE: I like drama, I like faith-based books, things that are encouraging. I'm not too into self-help books. I do read the Bible quite a bit and things that help me get a better understanding like the commentary reading and I go back and forth to get a better understanding of what this means and then I kind of weigh it out for myself. SPEAKER: Yeah, that's good, that's good. ROSE: I like this - I've read several of Terry McMillan's books when she first started out, Angela Mialo, I've read some of hers and Terry Morrison. Lately I've read, I can't remember who was the author of that, "The Shack" remember "The Shack"? SPEAKER: I do not. ROSE: And "Tuesdays with Morrie" that was really good. I like that because you have man who grew up with the college and his professor, they were close, but then he said after he graduated I'm going to make sure I come back to see you but throughout the years he never did and then after the professor started getting sick, somehow I can't remember exactly how he found out about it, he started going back to see him. So every Tuesday, it became every Tuesday with Morrie. So he said that he'd learned life from a dying man and it was a very good experience, a very good read. I had really enjoyed that. SPEAKER: Well I thank you so much; see that wasn't hard. We're done. ROSE: I don't know... SPEAKER: Is there any last thing that you would like to add? ROSE: Yeah, read the Bible, keep it because it is encouraging cause through these times of being a mother and a grandmother, you know, in my past I used to read back and forth, back forth, but then I got out of it, you know, but then now I'm studying the Bible more but it is very encouraging, everything that you go through, everything that I go through no matter what it is or the occasion but there is always something in there that will help me to find peace of mind. It helps settle my state of mind so that's all good, it's all good. [laughing] SPEAKER: Well thank you so much. ROSE: No problem.