"The Bootlegger's Other Daughter"

by; Mary Cimarolli

 

Follow the life of Hopkins County native, Mary Gammill Cimarolli, as she recalls a childhood of growing-up on the family farm, south of Sulphur Springs, during the Great Depression and the 1940's, as the fourth volume in the Sam Raburn Series, published by Texas A&M University-Commerce.

Called "The Greatest Generation," those who toiled through the Great Depression and won World War II, have left their mark forever in history, but Cimarolli gives us a "not so glamourous" account of what life day to day was really like in rural Hopkins County.  In this tender but unsparing memoir, Cimarolli remembers a world in which the family home was lost to forclosure, her father made his way by bootlegging, and school was a haven in which to hide from her brother's teasing. Her stories are about struggle and survival, making do and overcoming, and ultimately, reconciliation.

From Cimarolli's perspective as a child, she describes the cotton stamps, and other facets of the New Deal Program, the Yellow-Dog Democrat politics and racism of East Texas, and the religious revivals and Old Settlers reunions, that gave a break from working in the cotton patch.  Follow the excitement of getting electricity on the farm and the modernization that came with The War.

Capitalize  on the author's recollections of what it was like to grow-up on a family farm in rural Hopkins County and sit by the fire, and learn how modern times have become!