The author grew up listening to family stories that were handed down through generations like treasured pieces of needlework. In this book she records stories told by her mother, Vera Mary Begue Booksh. Mama tells of growing up in the part of New Orleans known as Algiers. She also tells stories passed down from her parents, grandparents and great-grandparents stretching back over 160 years. The Begue family had stories of lost fortunes and disinheritance, stories of larcenous lawyers and disreputable relatives, stories of mysterious apparitions and ghostly happenings. The stories give eye-witness snapshots of everyday life in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast area from 1840 to the middle of the twentieth century. The Begue family history extends back from Louisiana and Mississippi to the Pyrenees Mountains in France. Other branches of Vera Mary Begue's family tree stretch back to Germany, Denmark, Ireland and Spain. Their stories offer a look into the struggles of immigrants who came to the port of New Orleans in the mid-1800s seeking a new life.