When Father goes away with two strangers one evening, the lives of Roberta, Peter and Phyllis are shattered. They and their mother have to move from their comfortable London home to go and live in a simple country cottage, where Mother writes books to make ends meet. However, they soon come to love the railway that runs near their cottage, and they make a habit of waving to the Old Gentleman wh…
The year is 1937, and the Great Depression has hit the Dowdel family hard. 15-year-old Mary Alice is sent downstate to live with Grandma Dowdel while her ma and pa eke out a meager living in Chicago. Mary Alice is less than thrilled with the arrangement. Grandma's hickville farming community couldn't be more different from Chicago if it tried, and the grandmother Mary Alice remembers from child…