Farmer's Wife: Fired USDA Official Saved Us

The wife of the white farmer at the heart of the Shirley Sherrod controversy has come forward, saying she considers Sherrod her “friend for life.” Backstory: Sherrod lost her job over a video clip in which she said she hadn’t done all she could to help the farmer keep his farm because he spoke condescendingly to her. But the farmer’s wife, 82-year-old Eloise Spooner, tells the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that in reality, Sherrod did save their farm and “kept us out of bankruptcy.”

Sherrod’s quote was part of a story about an incident in her past—long before her USDA tenure, when she worked for a Georgia land assistance office—in which she learned to see past race. “She took probably two or three trips with us to Albany just to help us out,” says Spooner, who called Sherrod this morning to console her. “She’s very sad about it. She told me she was so glad we talked. I just can’t believe this is happening to her.” (More Shirley Sherrod stories.)