John Edwards: From mill town to the national stage

[LSK]

When Bobbie Wade Edwards entered the hospital in June 1953 to give birth to John, Wallace Edwards couldn't pay the $100 bill to bring his wife and son home.

This was nothing new. Ever since the Edwardses had come east from Georgia's Blue Ridge mountains to South Carolina generations earlier, settling in mill towns around the Piedmont plateau, money had been tight. Wallace's father sold shoes and rose to become a furniture store manager. Young Bobbie Wade's father, a handsome Marine with a seventh-grade education, worked cleaning mills after a boxing injury left him partially paralyzed.

To satisfy hospital officials and spring his wife and son, Wallace Edwards took out a $50 loan, at 100 percent interest.

snip

By Johnny's third birthday the family had moved five times across the Carolinas, and up the economic ladder as well. Wallace Edwards spent most of his career with Milliken & Co., which owned a string of textile mills, and he received promotions from floor worker to ``time study'' jobs - monitoring worker productivity - to supervisor. Over time, the family went from living in a public housing project to a ranch-style brick home on a tree-lined street.

Even then, Wallace Edwards believed that his lack of a college degree kept him from advancing at work, which he found both frustrating and embarrassing. ``I remember waking up at 5 a.m. and seeing my father watching those little shows on TV to try to learn how to do math problems,'' John Edwards says. ``He thought it would help him at work.''

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2003/10/05/from_mill_town_to_the_national_stage_boston_globe/?page=full

John Edwards story is the classic story of the American dream where if you work hard you can come from a blue collar background and eventually buy a big house on the hill.

For all the assholes who only want to look at the house on the hill, shame on you for not looking at how he got there and where he came from.

[The Magistrate]

1. Indeed, Sir

A number of comments on Sen. Edwards seem grounded in the assumption he was born to his present station in life, and nothing could be further from the truth.

[sandnsea]

2. I wish it were a solar house on a hill

I wish all our Democrats would take the extra steps to become truly energy independent themselves. I still don't think it's too much to ask of those who do have the money to do it.

[applegreen]

3. They do have solar

Hi, I remembered reading about it, so looked it up. The Edwards' house was designed for energy efficiency and has both passive solar, and active solar which covers some of their energy needs. (I have the simplest kind of passive solar myself - tall windows that face south and in the winter I let the sun stream in - it helps. Glad to see you're a solar fan.) John Edwards is very concerned, I am so glad to say, about climate change and energy independence, gave a great speech at a Step It Up rally, lists global warming as one of our critical action items, and has a comprehensive approach to deal with it and work toward energy independence. To me, this ties in with his concerns about poverty, because climate change is going to hurt the poor the most. Glad to see you're also concerned about this issue. It really is critical and you can't separate it out from all the other issues, including national security.

[sandnsea]

4. I mean all solar

There's all kinds of solar projects providing a lot more energy than what their house would take. I wish they'd spent the money to show it can be done, that's all.

[newyawker99]

5. Hi applegreen!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast: