Fourteen-year-old Martha Mary Overstreet only dreams of becoming a doctor until she writes an essay about "women having a say in their own lives, like choosing whether or not to get married or have children" -and begins to realize that she can have "a say" in her own life. She doesn't win the DAR essay contest, but she comes to the attention of Dr. Klinefelder, the Mayfield physician.
In 1888 in Mayfield, Texas, a girl lived in her parents' home until she married or became a teacher. But Marty, the oldest of six children, has seen her mother exhausted by child-bearing and the...