Jessie "Byma" Bolt was a vigorous piano player and a stern supporter of table manners. She wore a brace on her right leg and a thick sole on her shoe. To her granddaughter, Linda Bolt Whitlock, who was just fourteen when Byma passed away, these were the only things she knew for sure about her grandmother. As she later discovered, there was much more to Byma's life than that. In this fictionalized account of a true story, Whitlock pays tribute to Bolt 's ability to overcome countless struggles throughout her life. Starting in childhood when Jessie is first afflicted with polio, the touching story documents her life throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries-as she witnesses the election of Abraham Lincoln and the aftermath of the Civil War while bearing the lasting effects of her early illness. But just as Jessie recounts Bolt 's difficulties, it also honors her triumphs. A fierce determination characterized her life; it allowed her to walk, ride horses, and even receive an education while shaping her into the person that Whitlock fondly remembers.