The letters in this book tell two stories: my father's experience as an 18-year old Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army between 1947 and 1948; and his mother's struggle to run a funeral business in a small North Carolina town. In the letters, Julian Carr Burroughs, Jr. is preoccupied with the girl he left behind and the morale of his family--while his mother, Ruby Morton Burroughs Sedberry, confronts her loneliness and isolation in a home that doubles as a place where bodies are embalmed and placed in caskets for their loved ones to view. These letters between mother and son paint a unique and detailed picture of the challenges faced by parents and children involved in the military right after WWII and by Southern women emerging from the Great Depression to the possibilities of a better life.