While compiling this memoir, I was reminded of a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: Do not follow where the path may lead, but instead, go where there is no path and leave a trail. I titled this memoir Perseverance because in January of 1990, my son, Ross Richardson Bettis, received orders to go to the war called Desert Storm. Ross later reflected that after the first night of his arrival to the war, he fell on his knees and prayed to the Lord for safety and protection. He told me that he had decided that his life was not in the hands of President Bush nor Saddam Hussein. After praying, he said he felt like he could fly to freedom or to peace instead of war. Back home, I (Rosss mother) was busy writing and calling the governor of Alabama and the Pentagon as Ross was the only son born to this union of marriage between his fatherthe late Dr. Roseal B. Bettis, who died a tragic death of a tractor accident in our farm in the month of his birthday, October, of 1975and me. At the time of his death, he was a professor at Tuskegee University and Ross was only five years old.