THIS WEEK’S WINNER
Rowena Wendy Lei is a freelance writer who contributes to several magazines, including Working Mom, Good Housekeeping, Moms Today, and Health Today. She maintains a blog at http://animetric.info so she can write to her heart’s content even when there are no articles to work on. When she’s not writing, she’s playing video games or tinkering with the various gadgets.
Who would’ve thought that P379 could change my life forever? I certainly did not. And yet, that is exactly what happened some years back when I picked up a copy of The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio off a bookstore shelf.
I was at a standstill at that point in my life. Mine was a quiet, normal, and predictable existence — married with children, helping out in the construction supply business, managing a household. I did not lack nor want for anything in terms of necessities and material things. But then I couldn’t help but ask myself if that was all there was to it. Am I to live out the exact same routine every single day for the rest of my life? There must be something I wanted to do passionately, something that would excite me and give me fulfillment.
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio is the true story of an American housewife in the 1950s named Evelyn Ryan. Evelyn was an intelligent woman. While she may not have made all the right choices, she definitely knew how to make the best of her decisions. When she made a detour from a budding journalistic career to the life of a stay-at-home mom to 10 children and a long-suffering wife to an alcoholic husband, you’d think she’d be daunted and depressed. I know I would, I’d probably curse the day I met the man and live in regret for as long as I had to endure the consequences of that one decision. But not Evelyn. Evelyn was an endless ray of sunshine in a life marked by poverty and domestic violence.
“I want you to know that I don’t regret any part of my life,” she once said to her daughter, “including marrying Dad. I wouldn’t trade any of you kids for a whole illustrious career.” It was impossible not to love and admire her.
Amid the possibility of eviction, starvation, and other problems brought about by financial difficulties, Evelyn manages to keep her chin up and continue fighting. She can’t get a job since she has to take care of her 10 children and the household. I believe God smiles down on good souls like Evelyn, and so armed only with her wit and talent for writing, Evelyn is able to cash in on the golden age of jingle contests in the United States. This explains the book’s subtitle, How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less. Evelyn would win everything from groceries to appliances, jewelry, cash, vacation trips, and eventually even a car. Most of the time, winning a contest would save Evelyn’s family from something major like losing their home, the children not being able to continue school, or getting their things repossessed. There are a lot of situations that are resolved just in the nick of time, and these reaffirm Evelyn’s faith in miracles. In the 367 pages that span Evelyn’s fascinating biography, never once does a mean or negative word escape her lips. She maintains her calm and positive attitude no matter how hopeless the circumstances may seem.
Although I wasn’t impoverished or dependent on winning contests in order to survive, I had just discovered the joys of joining writing contests and actually winning them during the time I was reading through The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio. I could fully relate to the sense of elation Evelyn would feel every time she would get a winning notification in the form of a letter or a phone call. I became acquainted with the triumphant feeling of seeing my written works published in newspapers and magazines. I was happy when people would actually respond to what I had written. It gave me a rush and got me high. It made me feel alive. After a couple of years of making a career out of writing contests, I decided to finally try my hand at writing for real. I was no longer content waxing witticisms and penning prose for prizes. I wanted to write and to keep on writing even if there wasn’t anything at stake. In 2008, I compiled all of my published works from writing contests in a CD and handed them to the editor-in-chief of a popular parenting magazine. That was how I got started on the road of a sub-career in freelance writing. I say sub-career because I’ve accepted the fact that due to the choices I’ve made, I can’t work in publishing full time. It’s something I can only do on the side, but the fact that I can even do it at all is enough for me. I guess I somehow learned how to make the best of what I had decided on from Evelyn.
Evelyn Ryan passed away in August 1998. She was 85 years old. She was writing until the very end. Reading about her extraordinary journey and feeling her indomitable spirit reaching out from the book’s pages enabled me to get acquainted with this remarkable woman whom I consider my hero. Years have passed since the day I “met” Evelyn Ryan, but it’s one I will not soon forget.