This book is set in a small town in South Carolina in 1924. It traces three women, of differing races and classes. The author does an excellent job of telling each woman’s story, in her own voice. While the women know each other, and occasionally help one another, they would not consider themselves to be friends. The book shows what the lives of a family living in abject poverty, the life of a descendant of slaves, and the life of the wife of a plantation owner might have been like at that time. While I don’t want to give away any plot points, this is definitely not a book for younger readers.
One aspect of the book I found interesting was the variety of levels of importance of faith and religion, and also superstition, in each of the woman’s lives. They all have to make difficult decisions in their lives, which are informed by their past experiences and their current place in society. Another thing the book makes clear is that there were specific “places” in their society, and they were all aware of where the lines were, and people were expected not to cross them.
You get some descriptions of clothing, and quite a bit about food. One of Oretta’s skills is cooking, and since she works for Annie, she has no shortage of ingredients, at least when cooking at Annie’s house. One thing I found amazing is how Gertrude, the woman who is so poor her children are literally starving at the start of the book, is able to take very little, and make something of it. For example, at one point she comes into the possession of a couple of dresses that are too big for her. She is able to use her skill at sewing to make five dresses, for herself and her daughters, from those two. She also knows how to take meager amounts of food, and make it stretch.
There are mentions of “new-fangled” things like telephones, automobiles, and electric sewing machines. Each woman has her own approach to medicine, both for doctoring herself and others, depending on her knowledge, skill, and wealth.
If this was your family, how would you research them? As a genealogist, part of this book made me despair, because there was probably one marriage, and at least two deaths, that might not have been recorded in the county records. The easiest person in this book to research would have been Annie, the wife of the plantation owner. Not only would the Charleston society pages have been a wealth of information about her youth, but she was also the owner of a small business. City directories would probably list the business, and show when they moved or possibly expanded. Maybe they even advertised. Oretta, who was Annie’s maid, might be the hardest to research. I don’t know if church records would exist for a small congregation such as hers; cemetery records should exist, however. Oretta’s husband worked for the railroad; that might be a source of employment records for him. Gertrude’s early life was probably not well recorded, but after the events in the book, there might be some legal and/or land records that would be of interest. Never underestimate land records!