Mother Lillie Janice McEachern Brooks was born on September 17, 1943, to Aaron and Hattie McEachern in the small town of Marietta, North Carolina. Often called Janice by her family and friends, she was born the middle of ten children born to Mr. and Mrs. McEachern, and spent her childhood joining her parents in sharecropping when not in school. She graduated from Fairmont High School in 1961, and soon after made her way north to New Haven, Conne…