A free country? they asked. You should live so long. What's free about it, they reasoned, when the law forces you to educate your children and then endangers their lives to get them into school?

In 1938 Betty Smith divorced her husband and moved to Chapel Hill North Carolina. There Betty Smith honed her skills in journalism literature writing and drama winning a prestigious Avery Hopwood Award. Smith a fellow Brooklynite Betty Smith moved with him to Ann Arbor Michigan where he pursued a law degree at the University of Michigan.