Under the Gallus Frame is the story of Marija, who is forced to leave her sweetheart Gus in Croatia in 1889 to marry a selfish, violent man in the rough-and-ready mining town of Butte, Montana. She transforms herself from an illiterate immigrant to owner, with a re-emerged Gus, of a thriving business and Matriarch of the Bartolji family. Her four children become leaders in The Company, The Miners' Union, The Church - and a hopeless drunk.