Sharrie Williams interview with Woman Talk Live with Ann Quasman

WTL 5: Meet Sharrie Williams

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Five provocative questions answered by an inspiring and fabulous woman – a woman with something to say.

http://womantalklive.com/2015/02/26/wtl-5-meet-sharrie-williams/

                                    Meet Sharrie Williams

Sharrie Williams, heir to the Maybelline legacy, is Tom Lyle Williams’ (the founder) great-niece and is steward of the vast Maybelline archives. Sharrie tells the story of the birth of the Maybelline empire and reveals intimate and never-before-told details about the fascinating family dynasty behind it in her book,The Maybelline Story.

People would be surprised to know that: I graduated from Vanguard University with a Bachelors degree in Psychology when I was fifty-four years old, just two weeks after my twenty-four year old daughter graduated Arizona State University with the same degree.

The WTL 5:

What’s the conversation that changed your life?

My writing teacher told me I had discovered my voice and had something to say. She told me to write a book.

What are you most conscious of today?

The importance of women discovering their true identity and sharing it as role models for the next generation

What part of you have you yet to give voice to?

My life story. I finally believe my personal story will be more important than The Maybelline Story

What’s the conversation women need to be having collectively? 

Getting involved on any level to keep our values and culture protected.

What needs to be said bigger, louder, stronger?

For me, it’s “GOD BLESS AMERICA.”

***

Thank you, Sharrie, for sharing your powerful voice
with WomanTalk Live

I found my writers voice the Ira Progoff Intensive Journal Keeping Program.  If you are interested in learning how to connect with your voice check out the program at http://intensivejournal.org/index.php

Priceless Maybelline Family History

I've had a passion for my family history since I was in Jr. High School.  My grandmother told me about the birth of the Maybelline company and how my Great Auntie Mabel mixed the ashes from a burnt cork with Vaseline and dabbed the mixture on her brows and lashes to make them grow and give them more color.   She told me how Mabel’s brother, Tom Lyle, a 19 year old entrepreneur with a small mail-order business in 1915, realized the value of her idea and brought it into the world.  He invented mascara and he named his company Maybelline in her honor and it became the greatest success in the cosmetic field.  I gave a speech, got an “A,” and won popularity overnight. From that minute on, I became obsessed with uncovering the lost story about the people who shaped my life.  

I spent time with all my grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, collecting stories, photographs and vintage Maybelline ads for years and years.  Then, in 1978, when my grandmother was killed in an arson related fire, I was determined not to let her memory die and vowed to write her story.  For the last the next 20 years, I became an intensive journal writer, using the Ira Progoff system, and eventually found my writer's voice.  

When a fire took my own home in 1993 and all my memories with it, I turned to my father for support and sat for two and a half years writing a 963 page manuscript about the family and the Maybelline history. 

The Maybelline Story was born and will be sent out into the world to inspire, entertain and leave a legacy for the people I have loved and who have passed on.  If I wasn’t given this passion, a piece of American history would be lost forever and would have died with me.  I hope other people have also been inspired to research their roots and capture what they find for their children and grandchildren.  

History is the greatest gift one can pass on, and to be able to connect to your background is priceless.