Libba moore gray biography of william

By Amy McRary of the Knoxville News Sentinel

Posted: Feb. 27, 20160

Libba Moore Gray was too weak in her hospital bed on June 3, 1995, to look at the book that daughter Amy placed in her hands.

But she knew.

The book was a copy of "My Mama Had a Dancing Heart." Gray, an actress, teacher and author, had written the children's book as she fought breast cancer. She and ballerina daughter Amy Morton Vaughn were the inspiration for the story about a little girl and her mother who celebrate each season's change with an outdoor dance.

Libba moore gray biography of william

Vaughn is choreographer and artistic director for the Maryville-based Appalachian Ballet.

"She'd met the illustrator, she got to see the pictures (for the book,)," Vaughn remembers. "The hard copy came in the mail when she was in the hospital.

I handed it to her. She just patted it and smiled. And I said to her, 'I'm going make us a ballet one day.' "

Gray died hours later.

Ten years later, in 2005, Vaughn choreographe