What do you know about your ancestors? What was their home like? How did they make their living? What shaped their values? How are you like them and why did they leave their homeland?

The author tries to answer these questions about her German ancestors from Ladbergen, Germany in this historical memoir of her ancestral village. The research was conducted through family genealogies, ship records, and histories of life in Ladbergen. The author uses impressionistic art to recreate typical life on a small German farm in the 1800s. Traditional cottage industries and farm life are shared through illustrations and simple descriptions.