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Thursday, june 16, 2016
The Five Fs of Fatherhood Dr. Ron Henderson Reflects on His Life in New Memoir
By Emily Williams
This month, Henderson released his memoir, “The Tenant Farmer’s Son,” which recounts his life story from his humble beginnings on his family farm in Prattville to his long list of accomplishments serving Birmingham and Alabama through various positions in health care. “I was born on a 116-acre farm with cotton, cattle and corn, and I helped my father work that land from sun up to sun down from the age of 5 until I started playing football in high school,” Henderson said. Probably forecasting his son’s future success, Henderson’s father was a bit of a brain, graduating high school with honors before the Great Depression halted any hopes of further education. Hardened by the state of the economy, he raised his family on a tenant farm for five years before he was given the opportunity to buy the land. “To put the dollars into perspective, after that five years, he was given a 40-year note at 3 percent interest for which he annually – and I mean annually – paid $164. That’s $164 for the entire year,” Henderson said. In his book, Henderson describes his parents’ struggling every year to make that payment, but somehow they did make it, and he is a product of
Journal photo by Emily Williams
You can call Dr. Ronald E. Henderson, better known as Ron, a lot of things. ¶ You can call him a doctor – an OBGYN to be exact. You can call him an entrepreneur, leading him to found the Southeast’s first stand-alone surgical center. You can call him an advocate, writing a book on how to cope with myasthenia gravis. ¶ But you also can call him a farmer, the first job he ever had.
Dr. Ronald E. Henderson released his memoir, “The Tenant Farmer’s Son,” this month.
See henderson, page 12
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