"When Frank Sikora's six-year-old daughter contracted pneumonia in 1962, his wife Millie vowed that would be their last winter in Ohio. Despite misgivings about the racial tensions erupting there, the Sikoras moved their family of six south, where Frank hoped to fulfill his dream of becoming a newspaper reporter. When those dreams didn't materialize immediately, mounting bills, repossession, and eviction forced them to move in with Millie's parents, Dan and Minnie Belle Helms, in rural Wellington, Alabama." "The Helmses were uneducated, unpolished people, and Sikora's narration of his life with them - often humorous but never condescending - provides a compelling portrait of the attitudes and lifestyle of poor whites in Alabama during the second half of the 20th century. Sikora details how resourceful southern women, in particular, held their families together through trying times." "Interwoven with this commentary on rural white culture in the deep South is the story of Sikora's developing career as a newsman. Determined to succeed, he finally landed a job with the Gadsden Times reporting the news of black citizens. From that introduction to journalism, Sikora became one of Alabama's most acclaimed chroniclers of the civil rights movement."--Jacket.