Erma Loraine Webb, 52, was born in a missionary hospital in Africa to the Reverend Thomas and Mrs. Adelaide Webb. Erma spent her first 10 years living and attending school with the children of the little African village that housed her father's mission.
In her 11th year, the family returned to the US and a small town in Kansas. Erma found she missed living in the African village where she'd been treated with the respect and dignity befitting a pastor's child. Erma was used to being a person of authority and expected her requests to be recognized and granted.
When she realized that not everyone would bow to her wishes, instead of backing off, she became even more assertive. Despite her demanding ways, she loved teaching, and when not in school, she gathered all the younger neighborhood children to play school. Not surprisingly, she was always the teacher—never a student.
Throughout her high school and college years, Erma became accustomed to being unpopular, but she never considered changing her demanding ways. She was a loner, and she kept her focus on her schoolwork to earn her degree and teaching credential.
Upon graduation from college, she served in her church missionary project, teaching migrant workers in the South. Then, an opportunity opened to serve on Molokai, Hawaii, teaching and ministering to migrant workers and their families. In an un-Erma-like impetuous moment, she applied and was accepted. The 27-year-old looked forward to her move to Hawaii the following year with excitement.
Soon after her arrival on Molokai, Erma met Chun Aquino, one of the adult migrant workers. The handsome, charming young Filipino asked her to help him improve his reading and writing skills. Erma was so impressed by his desire to better himself that she gladly scheduled evening tutoring sessions. The learning sessions soon stretched into long walks on the beach and watching the sunsets. Erma was surprised to find herself hopelessly in love.
It wasn't long before Erma learned she was pregnant. She did not tell Chun. She feared his reaction and thought she might lose him. At the end of the season on Molokai, Chun left the island, and she never saw or heard from him again. Erma was resigned to raising her child alone. Any other alternative never entered her head.
The child, Rachel, was born in Honolulu. Mother and daughter remained in the islands. Erma resumed her teaching and went wherever she was most needed.
When Rachel was nine, Erma was called to serve in an outreach program in the Mississippi Delta. She and Rachel moved to Clarksdale and have lived in Mississippi ever since.
Erma has never swerved from what she saw as her real mission in life: to see that her daughter had the chances she'd never had. She managed everything about Rachel's life and pageant career. Her way was always the only way. She tolerated no deviance from what she dictated to Rachel. She told her daughter what to eat and what to do—as well as when and how to do it.
Erma said many times that she would do whatever it took for Rachel to win the Yoknapatawpha Literature Festival Beauty Pageant, and she expected the same of Rachel.
