This volume traces nine generations of the author's paternal ancestors—one line of the Mire family in Louisiana. It begins with the progenitor of this line, Nicolas Lemière, of Normandy, France, in the 1600s. It continues to her Acadian ancestor and fifth great-grandfather, Pierre Martin Lemire, in the 1700s, and ends with her father, Hilliard Joseph Mire (1920–92).