Dr. Yvonne S. Thornton: The Ditchdigger's Daughters - Black History Month 1997 - Re-Air

The "Kelsunn-on-the-Air" Social Work Podcast

The Ditchdigger’s Daughters is the story of Donald Thornton, a laborer, and his wife Tass, a domestic, who managed to shepherd their six daughters into careers of professional status. Consider the results of their efforts: Two physicians, an attorney, a court stenographer, a dentist and a registered nurse.

Written by middle daughter Yvonne S. Thornton, M. D., The Ditchdigger’s Daughters is far more than a goody goody story. Although music, self sacrifice and upward mobility all figure prominently in this memoir it also merits readers’ attention for its effective recreation of the characters, its important messages, its genuineness, its overall excellence, and its inspiration.
The book contains plot turns that everyone can identify with. Parts of the story even read like a thriller. When the two oldest daughters’ defect from the family because of Donald’s stringency, they start a chain of reactions that threaten the viability of this heretofore loving and stable unit. Donald becomes verbally and emotionally abusive to Tass. As a result Tass experiences a depression that necessitates clinical treatment. The remaining daughters were filled with fear and confusion at these events. The Thornton family found themselves facing a crisis of epic proportions: would this black family survive? The answer is not as neatly packaged as a sitcom, and reflects the messy fits and starts of real people living real lives.

Yvonne was the first to fulfil her father’s dream of becoming a physician. Her recounting of her climb to become a respected and successful Obstetrician-Gynecologist is an endearing portrait of a physician as a young woman. As a black female doctor she suffered many rude comments and one remark, made by a white male colleague who said, "I assume you know what you’re doing", was particularly distressing. "I arrived back home crying and raging’. If I’d been a man, he wouldn’t have talked to me like that. If I’d been white, he wouldn’t have questioned my ability to do what was right."

Since the book’s publication in 1995 it has received much acclaim as a Literary Guild Selection and a Pulitzer Prize nominated book. A for television movie was made with Carl Lumbly portraying Donald Thornton.

Listen carefully to this ditchdigger’s daughter. Dr. Yvonne S.Thornton is a woman who has walked this walk and knows of which she speaks.