Lillie Mae West entered this world on December 12, 1930, in Laurens County to the late Lula Saxon Nelson and the late Claude H. Nelson. She was the only child. This was the beginning stage of The Great Depression.

Her early education started at the Mt. Carmel School (Rosenwald School) where she would stay with her grandparents, the late Frances and Mack Saxon, Jr. She would later graduate from the Fountain Inn Negro High School (Rosenwald School) in 1947. She would go on to attend and graduate from South Carolina State University in 1951 with a B.S. Degree in Home Economics.

Lillie started her career as a teacher in Inman, South Carolina, at Ben Bomar High School. Shortly after, she moved to Brooklyn, New York, where she worked as a dietician at a hospital and lived with an aunt, Lizzie

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