Nancy Mae Green 

On Thursday, June 23, 1921, Will and Ethel Ross welcomed their third child, Nancy Mae, into the world. Nancy was cherished by her parents and sisters, Wilma and Doris. The family lived in Malvern, a quaint city in central Arkansas known as the Brick Capital of the World. 

It wasn’t long before Nancy was old enough to help her parents, both at the family store and as a big sister to her younger siblings. She attended Malvern’s Rosenwald school, which, at the time, was the only school available to the city’s Black children.

After completing the ninth grade, 14 year old Nancy Mae moved to Reading, Pennsylvania to complete her high school education. She returned to her hometown
every summer and somewhere along the way, she took a fancy to fellow Malvernite, James Green.

Once Nancy graduated from high school, she returned to Arkansas to attend Philander Smith College in Little Rock. She also reunited with James. They married on August 11, 1942. Theirs was an epic love story. It took Nan and Jim from Arkansas to South Carolina to Pennsylvania where they welcomed their only child, Lawrence Schaffner.