And I Will Bless Thee

This autobiography of Laura Etta Benson stands as a testimony to what God can accomplish when a person entrusts herself into his hands. Although she is a modest, simple woman, we are aware of an underlying strength and endurance that has its source in her unquestioning faith. She wrote this account of her life in her eighty-fifth year, with the exception of the final chapter, which she wrote at the end of her eighty-eighth year. She tells of her childhood in Yazoo County, Mississippi, in the late 1800s as the daughter of a small hill farmer, the youngest child in a family of eight. She recounts the details of her life with her husband, Shum, the son of a Swedish immigrant; the coming of seven children, and the story of their move across the state in a buggy because they felt God had directed their move; their survival on a small farm during the depression; the coming of grandchildren; her life following the death of her husband; but most of all, she recounts the joy of living with a sense of divine guidance throughout her entire life. Told in a simple, conversational style, this story could be described as "Southern literature."