Claudia Washington graduated from the University of Mary Washington and hopes to go to graduate school. SCOTT NEVILLE/THE FREE LANCE-STAR

Claudia and Tamonte Washington stare toward the street while sitting at their home in this 2002 photo. The man who fathered three of her four sons, including Tamonte, had just driven past without even acknowledging them. SCOTT NEVILLE/THE FREE LANCE-STAR

- SCOTT NEVILLE/THE FREE LANCE-STAR

After her son worked hard to pull himself up out of poverty, Claudia Washington did the same

Date published: 6/18/2007

By CATHY DYSON

Claudia Washington stopped drinking the day her son went to college.

She had used alcohol to cope with her "miserable life" since she was 14. Born into poverty in rural Stafford County, she was one of eight children whose father regularly spent grocery money on liquor.

She got pregnant at 15 and gave birth to four sons in five years. As a single mother, Washington raised her family in the same Fredericksburg-area neighborhoods she'd grown up in.

Her second-oldest child, Tamonte, was determined to make a better life for himself. He studied hard and worked through high school, giving his mother half his salary to help pay bills.

When Tamonte went to the University of Virginia in 2002, Washington realized the cycle could be broken.

"It just felt like, out of this whole miserable life, something good happened," she said. "If it was possible for him to go to U.Va., anything was possible."

Washington, 41, started taking college classes, too. Social Services paid her tuition and transportation so she could get a work-related degree from Germanna Community College.

But she didn't want to stop there.

She transferred to the University of Mary Washington and devised her own degree in African-American studies.

"Her drive and determination are extremely inspirational," said Xavier Richardson, a MediCorp executive and mentor to hundreds of minority students. "I use her as an example about rising above the conditions you find yourself in."

Washington worked through college, but her sons had to pay the bills when most of her money went to tuition.

When she didn't have enough, Richardson asked others in the community to help. He showed them a 2002 article in The Free Lance-Star that featured a photo of Tamonte and his mother.

Tamonte was looking ahead, while his mother seemed stuck in her surroundings, a beer bottle at her side.

"People were extremely proud of her change in lifestyle and her desire to get a degree," Richardson said.

Washington was grateful for the help from strangers.

"So many bad things happen, you feel like you're living in a selfish world," she said. "You're surprised when people help."

Then, she joked: "They say it takes a village to raise a child. Well, it takes a village to send an old lady back to college."

Claudia Washington has done a lot of thinking since she stopped drinking and now believes depression caused lifelong problems. "I drank because I was depressed," she said. "Then it was like the alcohol turned against me, and the more I drank, the worse I got." She was told in 1994 she suffered from depression, but dismissed it. When another doctor gave the same diagnosis in 2002, she listened. She takes medication when she can afford the pills, which cost $3 each. Nearly half of all alcoholics have an overlapping mental illness, according to the Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health Administration. It's referred to as dual diagnosis. Claudia Washington has a new addiction that meshes with her love of learning: thrift stores. For 25 cents, she gets paperback books by her favorite authors: Alice Walker, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson and the Harlem Renaissance poets. One semester she saw "July's People," about a future revolution in South Africa, on the list of required books. She knew she had seen the book somewhere. Seven thrift stores later, she found it. "I paid a dollar for it," she said. "It was a hardback."

Date published: 6/18/2007

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