She never owned a car. She never learned to swim. She raised six children through Jim Crow-era poverty, the grief of losing a son, two heart attacks, and the quiet, daily miracle of keeping a family together — armed with nothing but faith, love, and an unbreakable will.

Her name was Annie Lee Roland. Her children called her Mother.

This book is their tribute to her.

Mother: The Definition of a Mother is a beautifully written family tribute memoir that follows Annie L. Roland from her birth in 1937 in the American South — into a household shaped by a stern single mother, systemic racism, and a faith that bent but never broke — through the full arc of a life that left behind six children, ten grandchildren, eleven great-grandchildren, and ten great-great-grandchildren, each one carrying her love forward.

What makes this book exceptional is its structure: each of Annie’s six children — Nita, Jewel, Renee, Gene, Joe, and Ramon — offers their own voice and their own lens on a woman who was different things to each of them, and everything to all of them. Together, their testimonies form a full portrait of a woman the world might never have noticed, and whom no one who loved her will ever forget.

• Annie’s origins — born to a strict, loving single mother in the Jim Crow South, shaped by poverty, segregation, and an unyielding faith in God
• The essence of her motherhood — hard work, sacrifice, meals simmered with love, prayers whispered before dawn
• The loss of Jewel, her eldest son, and how a family holds together when its foundation is tested
• Her daily life and struggles — years as a caregiver to others even while raising her own
• A vacation to Branson, Missouri — a luminous chapter of joy organized by her son Joe, in a life weighted by hardship
• Her final days — brain death after a second heart attack, and the family’s act of grace in letting her go
• Her legacy — alive in the laughter and values of four generations

This book is for families who want to preserve their own matriarch’s story before it fades. For readers who love African American family memoir rooted in the realities of mid-century America. For anyone who has lost a mother and needs to be reminded that some people’s love genuinely does outlast a lifetime. And for children and grandchildren who want to give the women who raised them something that says what no greeting card ever could.

“A mother’s love is at once the simplest and the most profound force shaping who we are.”
— Andre Roland

Honor the mother who gave you everything — or remember the one who already did.

Pick up Mother: The Definition of a Mother and bring Annie Lee Roland’s story into your home.