In these stories of her mother, her Aunt Bet, and other women who influenced her, author and storyteller Kathryn Tucker Windham reveals the complexity of Southern women in the days before feminism entered the common vocabulary. A legacy of independent women permeates these recollections: women who managed households, who became entrepreneurs, and who managed public facilities. The women she remembers may have been fair, but they certainly were not weak.

Nowhere are Kathryn Tucker Windham's transcendent themes of community, fidelity, and family more evident than in these stories. The author calls them "recollections of a happy Southern childhood", but her avid admirers would tell you that they are much more than that.

When 15-year-old Marigold becomes pregnant amid the Great Depression, she is rejected by her family and forced to fend for herself. And when she loses her baby in the forest, her whole world turns upside down. She’s even more distraught upon discovering she has an inexplicable power that makes her both beautiful and terrifying - and something of a local legend. Meanwhile, migrant workers Vern and Paul discover a violet-eyed baby and take it upon themselves to care for her.

Close your eyes and you can almost feel the rocking of the chair as you listen. Kathryn Tucker Windham's gentle Southern accent winds its way through these childhood and adult recollections, while her traditional wisdom and sharp sense of humor eventually break the spell she casts like a blanket over her listeners.

The title story of this collection might have been dubbed "Mother Knows Best". Kathryn Tucker Windham has always had a healthy respect for wisdom, but her true love has always been humor. The stories in this collection reflect her appreciation for traditional values and traditional ways, but they also beguile the listener with that most enchanting of Southern traits, a keen sense of humor.