Jeannette Walls writes a story about her grandmother, Lily Case. Lily, together with her young sister, Helen, and her young brother, Buster are taking the cow home from grazing. On their way home, it starts raining. Flash floods force them to take shelter under a tree. Upon arriving home, her religious mother believes that her children were saved by God. The family is experiencing difficulties. Their first house is made of cow dung and mud. Unfortunately, it is destroyed by flash floods, and they decide to erect a wooden house. When the second house is destroyed by a tornado, the family moves to a ranch in New Mexico.
Lily is hardworking, and at the age of fifteen, she is hired as a teacher in Red Lake Arizona. With the end of the First World War, she also stops teaching and starts working as a maid in Chicago. Here, she meets and marries Ted Conover, whom she breaks up with barely in two months. Subsequently, she meets Jim Smith and marries him. The couple is blessed with two children, namely Rosemary and Jim Jr. However, life becomes unbearable, and Lily is forced to hop from one employment to another to make ends meet.
Lily completes her college degree and is hired as a professional teacher. Rosemary grows up as a naughty girl, but Lily manages to contain her. Lily and her husband, Jim, love each other. Jim Jr. becomes a policeman. On the other hand, Rosemary meets and marries Rex Walls, whom she meets in a college. The two look up to Jim and Lily and compare them to “half-broke horses.” Rex and Rosemary are blessed with three children. Jeannette, the author of this book, is the third born. Jeannette gets to interact with her grandmother before she dies.
