"I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids--and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me."

 - Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man"

Elise and James O. Allen

Elise and James O. Allen

Photo of the married couple's first child, Carol. The picture was taken at her parent's home in Peoria, Illinois.