Miriam Edwards
Name: Miriam Helene Edwards
Place of Birth: Philadelphia PA
Tell us about your childhood/family- I moved to CA when I was 10 days old. So I am a California Girl! I have a younger sister who is the head of a large federal grant aimed at getting African-Americans to go into the field of teaching. She is married and has two sons. My late father was an electrical engineer at Rockwell, which is now Boeing. Although you wouldn’t know it, I have been around technology all my life. My mom stayed home until I was 8, I remembering enjoying that. She later came to work at the CSUF and retired as the Senior Director of HR. That was before it was the division of HRDI. We would go camping on vacations. Christmas was a special time for us. My parents always tried to make sure we got what we wanted from Santa Claus. I remember one year I wanted a bike. I saw it in the garage somehow, when I went back to look again, it was gone. My parents told me it was never there. They have never told me what happened to it, and why they had it in the garage in the first place. Lol I have two children, Lauren, 30 and Erikson 26. They live in Cleveland and Chicago respectively. Lauren works for a church as the director for child and youth programming. Erikson is working to build his own magazine and currently makes a living as a bartender. I have been married to my husband, Mark for almost 2 years. He teaches part-time at CSUF and works for a bank in his day job. He is working on a PhD in Information Systems.
What stories did your family members tell you growing up? My mother is the storyteller of the family. She tells tales of life as a Black girl in post-WWII Philadelphia. She and her cousins were very close and would roller skate in the house on the hard wood floors and play beach on the back stairs of the house. My favorite story though was about how my parents met. My mother was a Freshman and my father was a Senior at Howard University in Washington DC. One of the premier HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). My mother loved to tell how they were in line in the cafeteria and my dad minding his own business told the friend he was with that he was going to have the cow tongue for lunch. My mother butting in to there conversation said to my dad, you eat tongue? That began a relationship that lasted 62 years and only ended in November with the death of my sweet father.
Hobbies/extracurricular activities? I read, a lot! I also knit. Because it is never really cold enough for sweaters and such, I make things for my daughter who lives in Cleveland. I am working on a sweater for her right now.
What makes you proud of yourself? I feel proud when I can find the words to stand up for myself, or someone else who is being treated unfairly.
What are you studying and why? I am attending seminary working on a Master’s in Divinity. My goal is to become an Episcopal Priest.
If you could snap your fingers and instantly make the world better, what would you do? I would change our economic system so that so many are not left behind and unable to earn a living wage and support themselves.
Do you live by any piece of advice or motto? Love your neighbor, and everyone is your neighbor.
