Childhood
Betty grew up in the small town of Grant, OK. Daughter of Bernice Jefferies and A. B. Lennox, and was raised by her mother primarily. She was the eighth of nine children and the youngest daughter in the family. She has five brothers, named Freddy, Karl, A. B., Alfred, and Charles. She also has three sisters named Lela, Ruby, and Victoria, all of them older than she is. She learned to play basketball with her four older brothers and one younger, who did not cut her any slack because she was a girl. She would learn to not be intimated by others while playing with her brothers as a child. She also developed her work ethic from growing up on a farm with her family. She was loading bales by age ten, each bale weighing 30 to 40 pounds, and did many daily chores while in primary school in Grant. Her full name is Betty Bernice Lennox, getting her middle name from her mother.
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Famous quotes containing the word childhood:
“...I really hope no white person ever has cause to write about me
because they never understand Black love is Black wealth and they’ll
probably talk about my hard childhood and never understand that
all the while I was quite happy.”
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“The real dividing line between early childhood and middle childhood is not between the fifth year and the sixth year—it is more nearly when children are about seven or eight, moving on toward nine. Building the barrier at six has no psychological basis. It has come about only from the historic-economic-political fact that the age of six is when we provide schools for all.”
—James L. Hymes, Jr. (20th century)
“From his childhood onwards this boy will be surrounded by sycophants and flatterers.... In due course, following the precedent which has already been set, he will be sent on a tour of the world and probably rumours of a morganatic marriage alliance will follow, and the end of it will be the country will be called upon to pay the bill.”
—James Keir Hardie (1856–1915)