Harris collects the stories of her maternal grandmother, Lucille Leatham Rudd, "a mother, a nurse, and a ranch woman." Harris explains that in her study of women in Western American literature, she found mostly stereotypes who didn't measure up to her cowgirl grandmother. She discusses the value of discrepancies between the actual life of a person and the way it is portrayed in memories or stories. Harris identifies three major groupings of narratives about her grandmother in this collection: ranch woman stories, accounts recalling the Rudd's role as a storyteller during the potato harvest, and descriptions that came from Rudd's daughters, who felt compelled to preserve her memory. Created by Lisa Rumsey Harris while she was enrolled in Jacqueline Thursby's English 667 course during Winter Semester 2003.