In 1905 at a young age, Adeline contracted rheumatoid arthritis and spent the rest of her life in a rocking chair.  She kept the farm accounts for her father and then once she moved in with her widowed brother, Henry, she helped raise his two sons.  Her diary is written in the Great Depression.  The Mathers had two farms and lost one of them when they could not make the mortgage payments.  The diary takes us through that story and shows their frugal ways during that trying time.