The Legacy of a Humble Black Woman: From Field to Factory to Mastery . . . of Estella's Brilliant Bus

By Estella Pyfrom

Because of Estellas great work, Estella and her Brilliant Bus has been celebrated around the world by all major networks, such as NBC News; Worldwide; Top 10 CNN Hero, profiled as ordinary people doing extraordinary things around the world; Oprah Winfreys Florida VIP; The Dr. OZZ Show; Microsoft Super Bowl Commercial; and more. This lady and her husband, Willie, have earned the celebrity status as one of the most celebrated project in the world not only because of the great work but also because they proved that they know how to give back. Willie and Estella took a big chunk of their retirement money to start and grow this great project and named it Estellas Brilliant Bus.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514415733

Estella Pyfrom

Estella Pyfrom grew up in Belle Glade. She is the daughter of migrant parents who worked hard to educate six girls. Both parents understood that education was to key to success. Estella started picking beans at the age of six and worked hard in the fields as she and her family traveled from Florida to New York for nineteen years. Estella went to college and returned to Belle Glade, where she spent forty-nine of her fifty years working in public education in Palm Beach County schools. At the age of seventy-one, Estella said, “I am not tired yet.” So she put together her dream plan, created and built a state-of-the-art bus, equipped it with her own Estella’s Brilliant Bus Wi-Fi Zone, seventeen learning stations, a forty-seven-inch TV monitor, adjustable seats, seventeen computers and monitors to provide education and technology for children. At age seventy-eight, Estella continues to work hard to help close that digital divide that pulled us apart for too darn long.

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Copyright © 2016 by Estella Mims Pyfrom. 674462

ISBN:   Softcover       978-1-5144-1574-0

              EBook           978-1-5144-1573-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 12/09/2016

Xlibris

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When I look in the mirror, what do I see? I see a brilliant mind looking back at me.

~Estella Pyfrom

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1 Growing up Migrant

Chapter 2 The Good’ole Days

Chapter 3 The Day I Met Bill Willie Pyfrom

Chapter 4 Raising Pyfroms

Chapter 5 A Servant’s Hands, A Servant’s Heart

Chapter 6 Retired and Restless

Chapter 7 The Power of Miracles

Chapter 8 Building a Legacy

Chapter 9 Not Just Any’ole Bus

Chapter 10 Serve. Give. Live.

Acknowledgements

The Shoulders on Whom I Stand

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The most influential people in my life are my father Roy Mims and my mother Leola Gilcrease Mims. In a perfect world there is no perfect person, but there are people who have tremendous influence on the lives of many people for many generations. My mother and father were those people. Born to Allan and Augusta Mims in Quincy, FL.

My father was the second oldest of six children. My dad was a very happy person; he was playful and loved people. He started out spending many hours away from home hunting, fishing and gathering wood from nearby areas to make the family comfortable. We did not know that our parents were struggling to survive because we were never hungry, we had a place inside to stay and we always felt secure. He was most influential in helping all of my sisters and I learn the value of hard work. His favorite words of wisdom were, Don’t expect anything to be handed down to you on a silver platter. You have to work hard to get what you want. His wishes were that everyone would be self-sufficient and successful, especially his children. My father spent most of his adult life caring for families on the migrant trail. The trail stretched from Florida to New York. Sometimes we would stop off in Virginia. He would take his last dollar to help feed families and the homeless. In fact, the day my father died, he told the Hospice nurse how proud he was of his six girls.

My father loved people–period. Whenever someone approached him about taking in a homeless person he’d always say that’s somebody’s child.

My mother, Leola Gilrease-Mims, was born in 1916 to Sally Williams-Gilcrease and Harmon Gilcrease. Her mom passed away when my mother was 4-years-old. My mother was the younger of two children. She and her one older brother, Elton, spent most of their early childhood years growing up in Jasper and Bluntstown, FL. They lived with her father Harmon Gilcrease and stepmother Darkist Johnson Gilcrease. During the 84 years that I knew my mother, she was always a hard worker and taught my sisters and I how to survive– inside and outside of our home; she taught us everything she knew about life and living. My mother passed away in October 2000 at the age of 85. I asked God to heal her; however, I could see the fear in her eyes. When she slipped into eternity, there was a sigh of relief because I didn’t want to see her suffer anymore. I don’t believe momma was afraid to die; just the inability to breath frightened her. She fought for every breath until she couldn’t fight anymore. I am glad that I was there for her and I know she is resting in peace.

Momma’s greatest love was cooking and day-long fishing. She enjoyed cooking so much until she always prepared enough food to feed several families in the neighborhood and the church…all at no charge. My mother also traveled from Florida to New York with my father and the rest of the family while transporting migrant workers. We took the road trip every summer. They traveled for 19 years up and down the road. During those years, momma operated a sandwich wagon in the fields in which she cooked and served hot fish sandwiches, hot dogs and sausage sandwiches. She would cook the food on oil stoves that were powered by kerosene. She charged a small fee for the sandwiches. The food must have been good because she operated the food wagon all 19 years that we worked as migrant laborers.

When I was a young girl, my mother would take me to the grocery store with her to shop for big bags of flour. She always shopped for either a five or10 pound bag so that she could use the cloth from the bags to make something later. During that time, a five-pound bag always came with flowers or some kind of colorful design. My mother would always ask me to pick out the design that I liked. After she used all of the flour, on making homemade biscuits, she would wash the flour bags and make nice underwear for my sisters and me. She made everything by hand. She sewed them and used rubber strips, cut from worn-out tire inner tubes, to use in the waist. Momma never could afford a sewing machine but she was able to dress us very well by using the fabric from an adult dress or shirt. She would cut down dresses and blouses to smaller pieces to make a nice dress or blouse for us. My mother took very good care of our clothing and she taught us how to take care of our clothing because we knew that we had to pass them down to the younger siblings. My mother taught us everything she knew about how to help take care of ourselves, how to make things and how to take care of each other. She really taught us how to survive while she and my dad worked. This was the only life we knew; therefore, we thought we were living pretty well. We never experience having excess so we never missed that we never had. We took pride in sharing and passing down clothing from one kid to another. Fortunately, all my siblings were girls. Thanks to my mom,