please welcome barbara f. morrison. [applause] thank you. hi, everybody. welcome. i'm glad you're here. i may not look like what you would expect of a welfare mother but indeed i was on welfare. these days i successful engineer, but when i was 24, was a very scared young woman. i'd been abandoned by my husband and disowned by my parents. i had a baby and i was pregnant again. i had no money and i had no job. i have a lot of very serious decisions to make. i found a temporary place working as a live-in housekeeper for a family. they were very nice to me but when they found out i was pregnant, they asked me to leave so i'm going to read you a little from the book at that point. it was october by than by the time i realized i had to leave and the darkness closed in early. the house was empty and silent. the family having gone out for the evening. there were no curtains in the window of the sitting room on that third floor. i sit close to the window and look at the small bright stars in the sky so far away with jeremy, that was my baby. i went over and sat at the table