The Ditchdigger's Daughters: A Black Family's Astonishing Success Story

An inspirational story of how a poor and uneducated black laborer, a child of the Great Depression, overcame incredible obstacles to give his daughters a better life. In a time when there were distinct gender roles, especially for women, her parents refused to accept these limitations for their daughters. Instead, they had the wit to value education, which enabled their daughters to rise and stand on equal terms with anyone.

This man, left home in his teens, fought in World War II as a Navy seaman, second class. By age twenty-seven he had five children to raise—all girls, and no boys. He dug ditches for a living while his wife cleaned houses. Together, they formulated a dream: that all their daughters would be doctors. Fortuitously, his daughters formed a traveling band, 'The Thornton Sisters', which achieved not only musical success on the “college circuit” from 1963 to 1976, but earned them college tuition money as well.

From the tenements of East Harlem to the footlights of the Apollo Theatre to the halls of an Ivy League medical school, Dr. Thornton has written a family biography that is a modern Horatio Alger saga. The book tells the true story about a black family of all girls that transcends race, color and gender to rekindle our belief in the American spirit and the human will to succeed despite adversity. Today, two daughters are physicians (high-risk obstetrician and psychiatrist), one an oral surgeon, one a nurse and one an attorney. The book, The Ditchdigger's Daughters is a tribute to Dr. Thornton's father and celebrates her family's fulfillment of the American Dream.