The collection is a compilation of four creative nonfiction writing essays. Though separate entities (each essay is capable of standing alone), the four are meant to be read together and put into conversation with one another. The essays cover the span of the four living generations of women on the maternal side of my family. My great-grandmother, Ruby May Lyles, is the focus of one essay. Growing up in a town that is being industrialized in the early 1900s shapes a person; her essay reflects that. The essay about my grandmother, Janet Lynn Walker, focuses on the morphing of marriage over time and the attempt to understand generational differences. For the essay on my mother, Sherry Lynn Bertram, the focus is on stature and physical pain through untaught lessons and how that influences the lessons we willingly teach. And the essay focusing on myself looks at my transition over time under the influence of these women and the struggle with femininity, persona, and a hideous pair of pink eyeglasses. The collection is meant to use memoir and essayistic styles to better understand the complexities of these various relationships. Each essay is unique in topic, but also in style. Some have sequential plots and scenes while others abandon a chronological timeline and work through fragmented threads. The essays have been put together through family research, multiple interviews, and a bit of personal millennial perspective.

The essay being presented at Scholars week is the essay on my great-grandmother, Ruby, and her struggle with the social norms, the town she grew up in, and her interactions with the rest of the women in her family.