Down in Tallapoosa County, Alabama, on the banks of Kowaliga Creek, where Hank Williams dreamed the songs that set a nation chanting, Lueada Meadows Smith was born.  Back in the early 1900`s, when she was a very small girl indeed, Lueada too had a dream, of quite a different kind.  She wanted to go to Africa, as a missionary to her own people.  The dream of Africa did not materialize; the field of service has been Alabama, her native state.  But Lueada is truly a missionary of the most needed kind, for she has opened doors which will never close, the good she has done is more than a dream and will live forever.

        Kowaliga Academic and Industrial Institute, the school where Lueada received her early training, was established in 1896 by William E Benson, a Negro educator.  It was a flourishing institution for many years, giving elementary and vocational training to the Negro children in that area and attracting boarding students from several states.

        Just taking about Kowaliga tends to make Lueada a little homesick.  "It's the most beautiful place in the world," she says.  "It has the tall pines that they used to make masts for ships in World War One, good farms and low, lovely hills, and now the lake--but the school is gone, and water has covered most of the school acres we used to farm."

        Green Meadows owned his farm on Kowaliga creek, and although he never learned to read or write himself, he was most anxious for his children to go to school and become good citizens.  Lueada was the second child in a family of eleven, and she early developed a thirst for learning and an urge for service.  After her elementary training at Kowaliga she went to Hampton Institute in Virginia, to Kansas State Agriculture College, to Texas College in Tyler, and did two summer terms at Spelman Institute in Atlanta on a Rosenwald scholarship.  She received a degree in Library Science, and was the first Negro librarian in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she worked for ten years.
 
        While in Tulsa, in 1930, Lueada learned that a librarian was needed in Jasper, Alabama, and she took the place primarily because it meant coming home.  Sad times had come upon the Meadows family in the 1920`s.  When Martin Dam was built, Green Meadows and other farmers in that section were advised that they should sell their farms because "it wasn`t healthy" there, so farmer Meadows, under pressure, had exchanged his 160 acres of rich farm land for sixty acres of upland.  A short time later, while walking on the highway, he was killed by a hit-and-run driver.  Lueada felt that she was needed by her mother and younger brothers and that she could care for them better by taking a position nearer to them.  True to her urge for being of service, she helped all the younger  children through school, and now is assisting with the education of a young nephew and niece.  Having no children of her own, she has mothered her relatives and the children of the community as only a woman with a great heart and a great will to serve can.

        The new job in Jasper might have been hopelessly unattractive to some, but to one worth the missionary spirit it was a challenge.  The people of Frisco, the colored section of the town, were mostly industrial workers.  The library was new to them, and they did not clearly understand the advantages it offered.  "It was not what I expected," Lueada said, " but very soon I knew that these were my people and this my mission.  The work has been hard, and at times progress has seemed slow, but I decided long ago that this is my job, and I have no regrets."

        The Negro Branch of the Walker County library had been established only a few months in 1930, and already two librarians had worked there and had given it up.  When Lueada took charge of it, she felt that her first job was to win the confidence and understanding of the people. She worked out a visiting campaign, and within a short time she had visited every home in the community, and all that she could reach in the county.  She was particularly interested in the young people.  She made the library a social center.  She organized picnics, and fishing trips,  and talked to them casually of things that she had read, told them stories,  and with gentle skill introduced them to the wonderful world of books.

        Under the guidance of the new librarian a "Go to College Club" was organized.  Vegetables were raised on the vacant lot behind the library which were sold and the proceeds put in the College Club bank account.  Lueada taught the girls to can, to cook, and to sew.  But most important she instilled ambition and encouraged initiative in the young people, and many of them went to college as a result of the Club, and the money made on the vacant lot.  This busy woman has followed the careers of all her "children" and speaks with quiet pride of their success.

        The library serves about seven thousand people, but most of this number is scattered over a large county.  Lueada covers the county, visiting sixteen colored schools which are used as distribution points for books.  Her 1941 Studebaker has 57,000 miles on it, but still performs faithfully.  HER SALARY NEVER EXCEEDED ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS A MONTH.

        Her most earnest desire is for a new library building.  She also needs new books, a new typewriter, and more filing cabinets.  The county has not been too generous with library appropriations in recent years.  However, it is not with a dingy and outgrown library, or with shabby books or an ancient car that this woman works--it is with the minds of her young people.

        The profusion of flowers around her house is not  tended as carefully as in years gone by, due to Lueada`s failing health, but in civic and church affairs her energy is unflagging as ever.  When I saw her last she was planning an Easter Sunrise Service.  "I have faith," she says, "faith in God, and in the ultimate good.  And when the going has seemed hard and slow, these lines always comfort me:
                                Heaven is not reached in a single bound;
                                But we build the ladder by which we rise
                                From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,
                                And we mount to its summit round by round.

She has an ageless quality--her smile is as young as an April morning.