Lloyd E. Lenard's love and admiration for his mother gave rise to this memoir, which is a tribute to "this tiny woman who had only Christian love and pioneer courage with which to hold her family together after her handsome, womanizing husband left her on a tenant farm with seven children and no resources." In this memoir readers join them in their incredible journey from the dark days of the Great Depression into the sunshine of occasional times of escape from poverty. You'll laugh with them, cry with them, and feel the humiliation of the social ostracism accorded to people of lesser economic means. You'll cheer and applaud their efforts to survive in hopes of the better times, which Mama told them were ahead. Mama's journey is one of nostalgia and beautiful dreams of a time when life seemed far more simple and people helped each other. "No, sir," Mama often told her children. "We'll take care of ourselves and stand on our own two feet." They did just that, and in her declining years, the children took care of her and, strangely enough, of their handsome father who had no others to whom to turn as he became ill and started his long slide into death.
