Funding for the digitization of this title was provided by the City of Covington, with additional funding from the Institute for Museum and Library Services through Georgia Public Library Service, a unit of the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia and generous donations from Dr. Thomas Crews and Dr. R. Steven Whatley.
Newspaper Page Text
Members of the Fellowship Club for Senior Citi
zens observing their birthdays during the months
of September and October are (1-r) Mrs. Maggie
Range, Mrs. Ella Hailey, Mrs. Carrie Wright Sin-
L ife after s urgery...
Author candidly discusses problems
By Joy Stilley
AP newsfeature writer
NEW YORK (API — Betty
Rollin can talk calmly now about
having had a breast removed —a
straightforward term that she
prefers to the “euphemistic mastec
tomy.”
But it was different 18 months
ago when the writer, network cor
respondent for NBC News and
former columnist for Look maga
zine learned that the lump was
probably cancer.
“First, You Cry,” admits Miss
Rollin, who has written a book by
that title describing with poignancy
and humor what she went through
physically and emotionally after
that.
“It spilled out,” she said, discuss
ing her decision to write about the
experience. “I was so stunned by
the event I just started to write
things down to make some sense of
it. The journalist in me began ob
serving me experiencing things. It
wasn’t only awful — it was also
fascinating and the writer in me
kept noticing the fascinating things.
“Betty Rollin the person felt sad
but Betty Rollin the writer went to
the typewriter,” she added, conced
ing that it was difficult to tell “a
whole lot of stuff about myself I
don’t love having people know.”
But she came to the conclusion that
it was worth it for two reasons:
“I feel very good that it's an
honest book and as such it’s bound
to help other women; also, it
makes me feel far less isolated with
my problem.
Even before she wrote the book
she made no effort to hide the fact
of the surgery. She reports that
men “tend not to want to hear
about it and shift uncomfortably in
their chair” but that women have
been sympathetic although she
detects an “I’m glad it’s not me”
attitude.
The petite, dark-haired Miss
Rollin, wearing a turquoise shirt
dress open at the throat with a
silver bracelet and silver earrings,
said she felt absolutely no resent
ment that it happened to her.
“I read the papers and know the
awful things that happen to
people.” she said. “I hated it, but
how could I feel this wasn’t fair? I
still consider myself a fortunate
person. It’s a liability but not as
bad as other liabilities like being
stupid or ugly.”
Miss Rollin, 40, has since been
divorced from author Arthur
Herzog but says that the operation
led to the divorce only in that “I
Banks
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Atlanta Covington
Phone 525-9087 Phone 786-81 1 8
1141 Clark St., S.W. Covington, Ga. 30209
Happy birthday!
gleton and Luther Benton. Those absent for the
picture and birthday party given at the club were
Ellen Thompson and Lucille Maddox.
felt suddenly in a hurry to be
happy. We're all going to die but
maybe I was going to die sooner
than other folks.
“If I hadn't had breast cancer
maybe I’d have endured it (the
marriage) either forever or at least
longer. But I wasn't in the mood to
endure. I was in the mood to
gratify.
Her attempt to “gratify” led her
to leave her husband to live with
another man, an arrangement that
didn't work out.
“Things like guilt, convention,
sense of honor, justice, morality,
suddenly fell in the face of my
sudden need to have a really in
stantly happy and marvelous life,"
she said, explaining the episode.
Miss Rollin, who says she liked
being married, doesn’t foreclose the
possibility of marrying again and
adds that the publication of her
book has solved the problem of
whether or when to “tell" a poten
tial husband.
As for how it has changed her life,
she says, “The corny things are
Senior citizens wed
Mrs. Carrie Lynn Wright and Aaron D. Singleton were en
tertained at a reception given by Mrs. Wright’s children on Satur
day afternoon following their marriage in the Newton County
Courthouse with Judge Donald Stephenson officiating. The
reception was held at the Fellowship Club for Senior Citizens,
where the couple met. They are the first black couple to marry
since the club began in 1974. Many members of the Fellowship
Club attended the reception. The newlyweds are making their
home on Johnson Drive.
really true. If you've had a semi
brush with death it does make you
value life more; you wake up and
feel grateful to be alive; you pay
more attention to pleasure and pay
less attention to small difficulties
and irritations.
“I do value people I love and
people who love me and I know
who they are now. I feel good
about myself that I've gotten
through something I hadn’t expec
ted and I didn’t crumble except for
a day or two here and there.”
She says she can’t understand
women being afraid of self-exam
ination of seeing a doctor about a
lump — not doing “something that
will save your life.
“I still have bad moments when I
go to the beach and see women in
teeny-weeny bikinis. I still swallow
hard. And I’m hypochondriacal. If
something hurts I think I have
cancer of the left earlobe.
“Aside from that I’m okay. I
really am.”
("First, You Cry" is published by
Lippincott.)
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THE COVINGTON NEWS — THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1976
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