Daddy’s House

In this poignant memoir, a determined young girl becomes a formidable woman, confronting obstacles with courage, determination, and spirituality.

The third of seventeen children born to strict Southern Baptist parents, Mildred is so capable, at seven years old, her father taxes her to keep the books for his 60-acre farm. Mildred leaves for technical school in Ohio, and at 19, her world is turned upside down. On her way home from work, a stranger kidnaps and sex-traffics her for an evening to a baseball team. Mildred buries the memory of that night beyond consciousness and abandons her budding singing career, first love, and new job to start over in a different city.

Abuse for Mildred didn’t begin on that fateful 1970 day in Columbus, Ohio. She’s raised by a soft-spoken, loving, abused mother and a disciplinarian father, prone to emotional and physical abuse. Daddy’s House: A Daughter’s Memoir of Setbacks, Triumphs & Rising above Her Roots chronicles Mildred's life from an Alabama farm saddled with a 225-pound per day cotton quota to executive positions in corporate America. In the cotton field, her reward is Daddy’s leather strap if she fails to deliver.

After fleeing the rape, Mildred completes a year at university but finds herself pregnant, unmarried, and a college dropout dependent on a welfare check—but not for long. Throughout this gripping story, armed with an unbreakable mother-daughter bond and her father’s work ethic, Mildred confronts obstacles with stubborn resilience. At the end of the journey, Mildred does what God put her on earth to do—help others. And in so doing, she is able to recapture that buried memory and heal. Spending precious days comforting her father on his deathbed, Mildred finds peace and the strength to forgive every offender, including her daddy, a man she deeply loves, who is also the man who hurt her most.