Blossoms in the Dust

A semi-fictionalized account of Edna Gladney is presented. This phase of her story begins in early-1900s Wisconsin, where Edna grew up, on the day she would meet who would become her husband, Sam Gladney, although she was already engaged to someone else. Sam was just beginning his career in the flour business back in his native Texas, his business fortunes which would rise and fall over his life. Edna and Sam would have a son, but upon his death would eventually learn that Edna could bear no more children. To overcome her grief, Sam wanted to adopt, specifically the child of a young woman who worked at his flour mill and who could not both work, which she needed to do to survive financially, and take care of the child. As a compromise, Edna decided to keep the child during the day, which led to her opening a day care center. Upon learning the plight of children given away largely due to being born out of wedlock they who are marketed largely as commodities instead of human beings, Edna would open a children's aid society to try to find loving homes for these children, who live with the stigma of being officially listed as illegitimate. Based on a story of a young woman who comes into the aid society, seemingly headed in the same direction of Edna's own adoptive sister Charlotte. Edna begins her fight to have the word "illegitimate" stricken from the official documentation of such children in Texas, her assertion being that there are no illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents.