It begins, "Marian Lois Shields Robinson — our mother, mother-in-law, and grandmother — had a way of summing up the truths ...

"Marian Lois Shields Robinson - our mother, mother-in-law, and grandmother - had a way of summing up the truths about life in a word or two, maybe a quick phrase that made everyone around her stop ...

Marian Lois Shields was born in 1937 in Chicago's South Side and grew up in a small house with seven siblings. She married Fraser Robinson III, a pump operator for Chicago's water department ...