Autobiography of My Life: + Divine Success

By Josephine Pierce O.P.

Josephine Pierce is a bold, remarkable, and inspirational woman who found divine success through trials and tribulations. Her fascinating true story illustrates love with joys and sorrows. The desire to become a registered nurse was not achieved by her. Disappointments continued after a childhood of love and light. Subsequently, darkness became evident during two marriages and her schooling. Depression, anxiety, and inability to cope plus major life changes lead to a nervous breakdown. Convalescence from these catalysts took many years. Her religious experiences convey graces received as a chosen one. Happiness came from clinging to the will of God with utmost devotion. Light continued thereafter by living a prayerful, humble, and simple life with trust in God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638855163

Book preview

The War

World War II had begun in 1939, principally with Germany, Italy, and Japan and the Allies, one of which was the United States. Consequently, my daddy was of the age to participate in the war, but having a wife and three daughters, he was told to go to New Orleans, Louisiana to help with plumbing work on the PT ships. He already was a plumber in Hammond, Louisiana, so he found a suitable house in the Higgins projects area there. I really don’t remember very much of my living there. I do know that there was a little red schoolhouse. Being five years old, I was accepted.

One day, my sister next to me walked to the school and told the teacher, Mama sent me to give to Josie a peach!

How cute can that be! During the day hours, there was the visiting of other families. The subdivision of houses were all alike. We knew one of my daddy’s friends whose name came up quite often. Wonderful to reminisce.

Then we moved back to our hometown in Hammond in 1945 when the war was declared to be at the end. I don’t remember the feeling of my daddy as far as being concerned as to whether his house was still in good condition as he had rented it, which was newly built. Neither was he troubled about moving his wife and three girls back home. When we got home, I started the first grade one year early having been to school already. At sixteen and making seventeen on April 1, I graduated high school younger than the other students. Almost one year made hardly any difference.

Childhood

So now I will begin to explain the intimate life our God had given to me to live on this earth. My parents were of Italian descent. They both have relatives in Italy and in Sicily. My mother’s father was more fair complexioned with blue eyes and blond hair. My father was blond with greenish eyes. My mother had brown eyes. The rest of my relatives had dark-colored hair. I turned out to be blond with blue eyes and fair skin. My family had a religious ancestry. A nun on each side of the family and a great-great uncle as a bishop in Italy. I truly believe my ancestors are interceding to God for me and my family.

I was born in the house Daddy built in 1937. We were six children. Five were girls and one boy. We were very close to each other in age and grew up all together with Mama and Daddy. My brother and sisters did the same work around the house as I did such as sweep, dust, and polish furniture, make beds, wash clothes, hang clothes on the clothesline to dry, iron, and sometimes even mow the grass. One day, as I swept my bedroom, I left the trash in the hall in a pile. When my mother saw that, she made me immediately pick it up! I did not do such a thing again! While washing a glass one day after lunch, I put the dishcloth in a glass to clean, and the glass broke with my hand in it. The cut definitely needed a bandage.

I would say that my siblings and I got along well. Sitting on the front porch on the swing and rocker was lovely in the summertime. We would go out in the yard and do what we called tumble sets. The grocery store was one block down the street from our house, so we would ask Mama for a quarter and go buy a chocolate candy bar to divide among us all. We were conservative as children. I would use Mama’s sewing machine to sew dresses as I got older. Mama had sewn all three of us girls white shorts and bodices matching with a sash around the waist.

Daddy wanted us to help him with