97th birthday celebration for inspiring mother

By The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

The 17 million copies of the July 1977 Reader's Digest told an inspiring family story that will be revisited Friday in Little Rock when the surviving seven daughters and four sons of Leona Stith Duffy invite the public to join in celebrating her 97th birthday.

The occasion, as Jack Schnedler reports in Thursday's Style section, is an evening of gospel singing, dance and poetry by family members at Bethel A.M.E. Church, followed by a reception where visitors can meet Duffy. She and husband O.C. Duffy, who died in 1991, labored as sharecroppers on 25 rented acres near McCrory in Woodruff County while rearing their dozen children.

"We owe so much to our parents," says Nancy Duffy Blount, a state representative who is principal caregiver to her mother in Marianna. "They brought us up in a strict environment, but they blessed us with love. They insisted on us becoming educated, in order that we would be able to have a better and easier life than they had."

All 12 children (including Henry Duffy, who died in 2006) went on to gain college degrees.

Read tomorrow's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.

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