Search - The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio : How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less

In this book
you will see
a mother's love
through creativity

This is an entertaining and true story of a wife and mother of 10 who uses product contests in the 1950s to supplement her family's meager living. An easy but interesting read about a great family.

While the blurb on the back of the book describes the book perfectly, I was most impressed by this woman, who after raising 10 kids and sending them all off to college on full scholarships, continued to support her husband while he eventually became a better man. He banked every penny of his pension as she supported him in retirement, and surprised her with a gift of it all, upon his death. It was so much money that she was able to live and travel off the interest and her own pension, and leave the total amount to her kids!

Blurb on the back of the book: "This plucky middle American chronicle, starring an unsinkable, relentlessly resourceful mother and her Madison Avenue-style magic, succeeds on many leels -- as a tale of family spirit triumphing over penury, as a history of mid-century American consumerism, and as a memoir about a woman who was both ahead of her time and unable to escape it." --- The New Yorker

Great book, great true story. It will really make you laugh and cry. Highly recommend!

What a fun book! Really captured what it was like to be involved in contests in this timeperiod, great pictures, samples of contest entries and a story line that made it fun to keep reading.

Great story about how a mother in the 1950's kept her family from poverty by contentiously winning prizes for writing witty jingles or catchphrases for companies. It's a good movie and an even better book.