Book Title: Bette Mae’s Coat

Book Description

Bette Mae’s Coat is fiction based on a true family event. The fact is, there really was a Bette Mae’s Coat. Born in 1923, she was the youngest of four children, and the only girl. Their father abandoned the family when Bette Mae was three. The oldest, Willmon, age 12, died on Christmas Day of tubercular meningitis, when Bette Mae was six years old. Their mother, Mabel, was a seamstress and held the family together. She also passed her skills onto Sherman, now the eldest child. Bette Mae said, growing up, she never knew they were poor. Her brothers kept that from her. Sherman made her a coat when the family couldn’t afford to buy one. She remembered that coat, and her brothers, with a great amount of sentiment. A few years ago, when I gave her a copy of the story, she was delighted. She spoke of the love that the coat, and the story, represented. She got teary and said it was the best book she had ever read. If you knew my aunt, Bette Mae, and her enthusiasm, you probably can’t help but smile.

Bette Mae’s Coat takes a few steps off the factual path (the fictionalized version the father is present, and the mother is absent) but returns to the factual foundation and the power of love – in the real world and this fictional one, Bette Mae gets her coat.

Ratch-e-da-

Hatch-e-da.