Arlene Nelson

"Sarah Richards, the oldest of five children growing up in the early 20th century rural Midwest, struggles to hold her family together as she and her four siblings attempt to survive illness, abandonment, abuse, neglect, hunger, institutionalization, and loss. In Crackers and milk, Arlene Nelson retells her mother's amazing story of an unusually tarnished childhood, as her mother told it to her many years ago"--Cover p. [4].