"Jessie is Her Name" is the oral history of three generations of an Irish Shenandoah Valley of Virginia family. It tracks the life of Jessie Brown from her early childhood on an Estaline Valley farm to her becoming the beloved foster child of a wealthy Staunton Virginia couple.

Her early training as an upper class young lady is shown in counterpoint to her fiery Irish temper as she encounters the mores and mannerisms of an established Victorian culture.

It is told from the viewpoint of her youngest child, Donnie, who heard her many stories as he grew up and filed away this oral family...