By Laurie LaMountain, Lake Living Magazine
Childrenâs author Robin Taylor-Chiarello got the idea for her latest book, Ella Sue and the Burlap Bag, about a year ago. She has been acquainted with the actual Ella Sue for many years, but the impending 80th anniversary of Ella Sueâs birth got Taylor-Chiarello thinking it was high time to share her story with a greater audience.
Born in the Deep South when the United States was poised between the end of the Great Depression and the beginning of World War II, Ella Sue Hargrove (Brewton) was one of six children raised by sharecropper parents who picked cotton and worked the fields in exchange for housing and a share in the proceeds from each harvest. When she turned six, Ella Sue was given her own burlap bag to fill. âWe work as a family, it helps pay for our meals,â her father explained.