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Family heartache preceded Nathan’s Olympic blessing.

Her mother, Beverly, was eighteen when she gave birth to LaShundra Denise on April 20, 1968, in Birmingham, Alabama, also the birthplace of Lewis. Beverly’s sister began calling her niece DeDee, and the name stuck.

Beverly left Nathan’s father, moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana, in 1970, and married a police officer. The daughter never saw her father again until she was twenty-one.

He was in and out of prison, Nathan said.

Beverly and Robert Nathan had a son, Keith. DeDee took her stepfather’s name. The couple divorced while DeDee was in high school. She said her stepfather was overbearing and that his relationship with her mother was volatile. Theirs was not spiritual home.

However, Nathan and her half-brother were picked up by a Baptist church bus for Sunday services. Beverly said her daughter was strong-willed and energetic. DeDee liked to run and climb trees and fences.

“Everything had to be DeDee’s way,” the mother said. “I’d tell her life doesn’t work that way. You have to bend down sometimes.”