Sarah Hudson-Pierce


Sarah Hudson-Pierce

I was born on February 22, 1948 on a back country road near Sulphur Springs, Arkansas. I was born at home in a house that is still standing that was built in the 1840's. I was born to Marcella May Morris Hudson and Roy Earnest Hudson, who married late in life.

My mother was born in 1906 in an underground sod Indian dwelling near Fairvalley, Oklahoma, in Woods Country. Her parents ran for land in the Oklahoma Land Rush. What shapes my story is the accident that occurred to my mother when she was only two and a half years of age while playing on the soft dirt roof of that dwelling. Her foot slipped and she fell through the roof suffering brain damage after lapsing into a coma.

Her mother was dying of typhoid fever at the precise time of this accident that forever shaped not only her life but mine as well. In addition to that, my mother's six year old brother also died of typhoid fever at that time.

Her father contracted the dread disease known as "germ in the water" as well and almost died thus leaving my mother and Aunt Gladys in the care of a kind neighbor, Clara Knox, who became my mother's foster mother until my grandfather remarried when my mom was eight, thus reclaiming my mother and Aunt Gladys.

Clara Knox lived well into her 90's, long enough to tell me the story of what happened to my mother. Due to my mother's accident, she didn't marry until late 30's and then only after her father died. I ended up in an orphanage, Turley Children's Home, near Tulsa, Oklahoma after my father died when I was ten.

Life in the orphanage was sterile--and very emotionally painful to me-- especially since I had first spent a very happy time in the loving foster home of Cullen and Martha Adair of Grove, Oklahoma.

In my junior year at Mclain High in Tulsa I turned to writing and public speaking as creative releases and even placed in a couple of Freedom Fair Contests under the supervision of Shirl White, now residing at Miami, Oklahoma.

During my middle thirties I increasingly turned to writing as a form of coping and have had five books published by small publishers. The first three books are free verse poetry and are titled:

  • Friendship Is A Journey(1987)
  • The Warming of Winter(1989)
  • To Soar Again!(1994)
and the next two are short inspirational pieces and are titled:
  • Southern Vignettes (1995)
  • Turning Points (1996)
Some of the highlights of my life have been being the mother of three children who are now grown; being friends with Erma Bombeck who dedicated a column to me on February 26, 1986; being published by Guidepost magazine in January, 1998 and hosting my own Sarah Hudson-Pierce cable television show with Time Warner since 1995.

In 2002 I founded Ritz Publications with the publication of a rare old, out of print book titled Poems, authored by the late Julia Pleasants Creswell.

Since the publication of that book two more of her rare books have been found and they are now in production to be released later in the year. The titles of those books are:
  • Aphelia and Other Poems
  • Callamura.
Founding this publishing company is my effort at preserving the legacy that Julia, her ancestors and heirs so richly deserve.

A dear friend asked me recently how I would sum up my life in two minutes or less. I thought about it for a few hours and replied "I would say I have had a good life. I have enjoyed my life to the fullest with all of its struggles."

At this stage of my life I realize that M.Scott Peck is right. "Life is difficult." However, the struggles are what makes us grow, that gives us the bounce, the resilience to keep on keeping on. It is in the attaining of goals that we blossom and grow.

Friendship is the magic key that puts the spring in our step, the light in our eye, as someone has said 'the wind beneath our wings.' Having said all of this, I know that God is the Source of my Strength and that without God I am nothing. He has been there for me every step of the way.


Sarah Hudson-Pierce

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© Sarah Hudson-Pierce 2003-2005

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