The true life story of a woman who survives a rural childhood of poverty, ignorance, and sexual abuse in the 1920’s, and against all odds grows into a successful person of grace and honor.
Ray Don Johnson is a bully and a moonshiner living in the hills of Kentucky. The story opens with him beating his wife senseless and berating her because she did not treat his friend correctly during sex. Ray Don took money for her services on a regular basis, and then added his daughter Mary to his offerings. An incredibly cruel and evil person, Ray Don abandons everyone in the family except Mary because he wants to use her for himself and for financial gain.
When Ray Don moves with Mary to a low rent trailer park because the authorities are scrutinizing him, she meets Tyra, an Africa-American girl about Mary’s age. Mary does not go to school because Ray Don doesn’t want her noticed, and Tyra does not go to school because in the 1920’s children of color often did not have a school to attend. The two girls make a pact to find one another some day when they are rich and famous, agreeing to take care of one another.
As Ray Don continues to sexually abuse her, Mary finally reaches her breaking point, and during one of her father’s attacks she stabs him with a knife. Convinced that she has killed him, she runs, hitchhiking across country. She stops in a small town with big-hearted sheriff who gets Mary a job at Ruby’s Diner. Mary can’t even make change, so she leaves the cash register open and customers put in money and take their own change. That tradition continues permanently, becoming part of the atmosphere of the diner.
