The 1918 flu epidemic killed more Americans than all the wars of the twentieth century combined. This novel takes one family through that challenging time. The first light-hearted chapters of "Cutlers' Gate" introduce the Cutlers. The two parents and ten children are an idyllic dairy-farming family near a small Colorado town. They are hard working, close, and happy. Bit by bit, the influenza epidemic, embedded in the influence of the Great War, gnaws away at their pastoral lives. Deaths of friends, ethnic discrimination, potential disintegration of taken-for-granted morality in their small town, and finally sickness and death in their own family, challenge their assumptions about life, about their faith, about their community, and about their family. Even their family mantra, "Excuses don't get the cows milked," threatens to fail them. In the end, friends, family, faith, and community help the Cutlers restore a sense of normalcy and hope.