The Dallas Morning News
February 16, 1999 Column: BOB ST. JOHN Woman credits strong roots for good growth
Author: Bob St. John Edition: THIRD
Section: NEWS
Page: 13A
Estimated printed pages: 2 Article Text:Roxie Glenn grew up in a poor but close-knit family of seven children in the farming area between Brenham and Chappell Hill, in southeast Texas. The children picked cotton and helped around the house, but when Roxie was 5 she'd sometimes get frustrated trying to do chores. "My daddy would always tell me, "You can do it. You can do it,' " she recalled. "I never forgot that. He gave me the will to keep trying, not to quit." Roxie, 71 next month, has always drawn strength from the lessons she learned as a youngster from her parents, Albert and Ann Brooks. She believes that their influence and her strong Christian faith have helped inspire what she's accomplished in the East Texas city of Athens. The former Dallas resident has been an outspoken child advocate, helped start churches and befriended and offered guidance to troubled young women. Most recently, she helped inaugurate monitors on school buses to help drivers cope with ! kids. She suggested the idea to the Athens school district because of increasing discipline problems and was immediately hired as one of the monitors. Setting an example "I believe it's helping," she said. "I haven't faced any problems I can't handle with the kids. I give them love but can also be firm. We keep hearing that kids are different now, but I don't think they really are. In some cases, they just don't get the love, attention and discipline from parents that we used to get." Roxie feels that she had those things growing up, though times were difficult. She was 7 when her father died. Her mother moved the family to Brenham and did housework in private homes. The children worked, too, and finished school. Roxie was 11 when she stood on a box to work as a cook in the St. Anthony Hotel. "Our family always shared and helped each other," she said. "But you learned to do things yourself rather than depend on somebody else. That's how I lea! rned to appoint myself a committee of one." During the! years s he worked cleaning dorms at Trinity Valley Community College, she appointed herself surrogate grandmother to the students, listening to their problems and offering help and advice. Positive influence She does the same thing for single mothers. Some had children when they were very young and, consequently, feel cheated out of their youth. So they sometimes start living their lives at the expense of their children's needs. Roxie steps in when she sees this happening, and she thinks it's time for other grandmothers to do the same. Roxie also has taken it upon herself to correspond with and visit incarcerated young women in Henderson County. She worries that when they get out of jail, they'll go back into the same environment and get into trouble again. She hopes that some way, somehow she can start a special home for them, offering, of course, love and guidance. A member of First Baptist Church in Athens, she helped start New Life Baptist Church ! and Bible Way Baptist Church. When members of Bible Way were looking for a place to build their church, she put them in touch with United Methodist officials, who donated the land. "Charity and good will have no denomination," she said. Roxie once baby-sat for the Hawn family and became a trusted friend. Charles Arthur Hawn even employed her to care for his ailing father, Charles F. Hawn, the late civic leader for whom the Hawn Freeway in Dallas was named. And in 1981 Roxie, a widow who had nine children, married Judge Glenn, a widower with six kids. She now has 19 grandchildren and 22 great-grandchildren. And she has cared for 23 foster children, practically raising two of them. I'm not sure whose burdens she'll take on next, only that she'll keep trying to help. Copyright 1999 The Dallas Morning News
Record Number: 4033081
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