Alpha Andrews was born on August 20, 1932 in Habersham County, Georgia. She was the oldest of five children born to William and Laura Andrews. She grew up surrounded by a large extended family of numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins. Alpha married at nineteen, before graduating from high school, and soon became a mother. Her family grew to five children over a ten year period. Her husband died when her oldest child was sixteen and her youngest was eight.

The challenge was hers to support herself and her five children. She began doing bookkeeping and tax preparation in her home, and at the same time became the Georgia correspondent for the Anderson Independent newspaper. Eventually she developed a network of livelihoods to suppo...