Dawson
Bronze with Sculptor Johnny Bryant - By Monica
Mendoza * Star-Telegram
About his life
George Dawson, the grandson of a slave, was born in a log cabin in Marshall,
Texas, on January 18, 1898. When he was just 8 years old, he began working
to help support his family. He never went to school or learned to read.
He married in 1926 and became a father in 1927.
Dawson survived a decade of hard work, chopping wood, working in a sawmill and building levees on the Mississippi river with the aid of a mule. He laid ties for some of the first railroads in East Texas. He swept floors, cleaned for white people, and for most of his working life - 25 years - ran the machines that pasteurized milk at Oak Farms Dairy. While working at Oak Farms, Dawson once lost a chance at a promotion because his boss asked him to sign his name and he marked an X instead.
Dawson outlived four wives, four siblings and two of his seven children. For much of his life, Dawson had to endure the segregation of the South, and he continued to deal with racism throughout his lifetime.
Dawson learns to read at 98On a winter day in 1996, Carl Henry was filling in for another teacher in an adult basic literacy class when George Dawson walked in. Henry, retired after 33 years as an educator in the Dallas school system, asked Mr. Dawson if he knew the alphabet. "No, son," was Dawson's reply. Over the weeks, months and years that followed, Carl Henry taught Dawson to read.
Richard Glaubman meets Mr. Dawson
In 1998, elementary school teacher Richard Glaubman read an article about
a Texas man who learned to read and write at age 98. Inspired and intrigued,
Glaubman arranged to meet him. Eventually the two men collaborated to
write the award-winning book Life Is So Good. The book tells
the story of George Dawson's remarkable life, showing us the entire 20th
century through his eyes and detailing his determination to become literate
after nearly a century of life.
Richard Glaubman has appeared on CBS Sunday Morning, Good Morning America and many other programs. Life Is So Good was favorably reviewed by The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, Washington Post and many others, and has been a selection of both the Book-of-the-Month Club and the Literacy Guild. Glaubman was awarded a Doctorate of Humane Letters for "outstanding achievement in the service of humankind" and won the Christopher Award for writers whose work "affirms the highest values of the human spirit."
Life is so good!
What makes a happy person, a happy life? In his remarkable book, George
Dawson reflects on the philosophy he learned from his father - a belief
that "life is so good" - as he offers valuable lessons in living
and a fresh, firsthand view of America during the 20th century.
Born in 1898, the grandson of slaves, Dawson tells how his father, despite hardships, always believed in seeing the richness in life and trained his children to do the same.
As a boy, George had to go to work to help support the family, and so he did not attend school or learn to read; yet he describes how he learned to read the world and survive in it. "We make our own way," he says. "Trouble is out there, but a person can leave it alone and just do the right thing. Then, if trouble still finds you, you've done the best you can."
At 98, George decided to learn to read and enrolled in a literacy program, becoming a celebrated student. "Every morning I get up and I wonder what I might learn that day. You just never know." In Life Is So Good, he shares wisdom on everything from parenting ("With children, you got to raise them. Some parents these days are growing children, not raising them") to attitude ("People worry too much. Life is good, just the way it is").
Richard Glaubman captures George Dawson's irresistible voice and view of the world, offering insights into humanity, history and America - eyewitness impressions of segregation, changes in human relations, the wars and the presidents, inventions such as the car and the airplane, and much, much more.
While living, George Dawson also received two Doctorates of Humane letters from Texas Weslyn University and New School of New York City. In 2002, George Dawson Middle School was named in his honor in Southlake, Texas. Throughout his story, George Dawson inspires us with the message that sustained him for more than a century: "Life is so good. I do believe it's getting better."
