The greatest influence in setting the course of anyone's destiny is where and to whom they're born. What we're taught to believe, what is asked of us, the burdens we're given, the lies we share all start there. Mrs. Imogene Ware, born in 1928 in the post-Civil War enclave of Small Town in rural Mississippi, understands this better than most. Yet through the eyes of this illiterate albeit discerning Black housekeeper, the reader is offered uncommon insight into the last half of the racially charged, politically divisive 20th century. In Book One, ten-year-old Miss Imogene goes to work with her mother, a housekeeper for the Sutton family, to learn the only job that will be open to her in the 1940s in Mississippi. She takes over the position at age 19, startled at how much move involved it is than it appeared when her mother was in charge. Following her mother's invocation to live loving the world, Miss Imogene's initial struggles and trials set the stage for Book One as she allies herself with one of her charges, Katie Gayle Sutton, a child prodigy, in order that the child might survive her abusive parents and succeed as a dancer, the one escape route life offers her. Aided by her earthy wisdom, her sense of humor, her loving husband, her cart horse, Polly, and her conversations with God Almighty as if He were the guy next door, Miss Imogene persists in her efforts only to find her own family becoming a target of a century's old racism erupting once again in Mississippi.