With a nod to baseball, Ira advised “you need to be a two-strike hitter”. Gladys characterizes some of the challenges she has faced in her career as being from having “two strikes against her”-being a woman and black in the mid-20 th Century. Ira was also a pioneer in his career, and once passed up an offer to become a professional baseball player to continue in mathematics. Both Wests worked on naval technologies, Ira in submarine missile systems and Gladys on ballistics and later space-based geodesy (that would become essential to GPS). She feels that it was the hand of God that saw her come to Dahlgren-and to meet Ira. The book is also about Ira West, her husband of over six decades, whom she met at the Naval Proving Ground in Dahlgren Virginia, the remote military research facility where they both worked as mathematicians. Ira and Gladys at a recognition event in their honor at the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren Virginia Quoting Maya Angelou: “The more you know of your history, the more liberated you become,” West has presented a very personal account of living history, not just in terms of her own career, but of the black women of her generation. Yet, she does not dwell on the negatives and specifics, but instead weaves elements of history into her own story to show the changes, however small and hard won, to society and race relations. West does not sugarcoat the terrible inequities of the era of her youth, many of these difficulties extended throughout her life and career. But those were difficult times, what she calls the “separate but unequal” era. West considers what accomplishments these many figures like Ma Macy and others in her life might have achieved if they had the same opportunities forged through education. The heart and soul of a loving family with a hard-working father and supportive siblings, Ma Macy inspired by example, and gave sage advice-all with unrelenting encouragement and love. But more so than others, an amazing woman named Ma Macy Brown, her mother. So many more strong women have figured in her life-friends, family, and colleagues. John Hunter were an early power couple in a growing community of black scientists and educators. Louise Hunter, who along with her husband Dr. West dedicates her book to the “strong women in my life, who said I could do it”. West and her sister on the farm in Sutherland, Virginia
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