In the compelling memoir Beauty and Truth, Vera Chappelle shares her personal journey beginning in 1938 at a creek in Moscow, Texas, traveling through five continents, and ending in San Francisco, California.
Born as the youngest of seven children who lived with her parents and grandparents on a farm surrounded by cotton and peanut fields, Vera details her father's childhood on this same farm about thirty or so years earlier. His life was filled with racism and violence as hundreds of insecure white men, whose ignorance prevented them from embracing his family, attempted to make their lives miserable. Vera Chappelle moved from her grandpa's farm to Houston, Texas when she was five years old. Her family eventually relocates from Texas to California. Vera chronicles how she continued pursuing the creative passions that made her heart sing-the piano, the violin, the choir, Shakespeare, Dickens, and art. Even as trouble brewed at home, Vera chronicles how she was able to emerge from pain and heartache as a child to find peace and joy as an adult.
As Vera's life story circles back to today, she offers a deeply personal, but incredibly meaningful, life lesson with others-no matter whether we are white, black, yellow or brown with eyes that are slanted, straight, or curved in shape-we are all here to love each other.