The daughter of a hardworking sharecropper in Arkansas, Loretta longed for something better. Determined to escape poverty, she left the farm to live with relatives in Little Rock two days after graduating from high school. Within a year she headed west and began her new life in Los Angeles.

This is not your typical, "we were poor, but never knew it" account of one who grew up happy though penniless during the Great Depression. Far from it, Loretta reveals, "I despised my life of painful embarrassing poverty." Her anthology of personal stories demonstrates a deep desire to improve...

The daughter of a hardworking sharecropper in Arkansas, Loretta longed for something better. Determined to escape poverty, she left the farm to live with relatives in Little Rock two days after graduating from high school. Within a year she headed west and began her new life in Los Angeles.

This is not your typical, "we were poor, but never knew it" account of one who grew up happy though penniless during the Great Depression. Far from it, Loretta reveals, "I despised my life of painful embarrassing poverty." Her anthology of personal stories demonstrates a deep desire to improve...