Pretty: A Memoir by Karen Vorbeck Williams takes us back to middle America in the 1950s when the author was growing up in the small town of Grand Junction, Colorado, seemingly in the perfect '50s family. Williams, however, knew that beneath the smiling perfection things...

Mary Bliss Parsons and Sarah Lyman Bridgeman are young girls who have just arrived in the Connecticut area from England. Mary’s family struggles to make ends meet in the new country, while Sarah’s family has a little more success. It is a new frontier where...