The autobiography of former Franciscan nun Anne Smerke, a resolute woman born in 1918 of tough Slovenian immigrants. The Smerke family lives are a tribute to hard work, discipline, faith and family, as Smerke relates in her moving narrative of her family"s hard life on a farm in Minnesota during World War I and the Great Depression. As a Franciscan nun, Smerke endured the convent"s silence in in frigid Minnesota winters. As a talented nun she taught music, and in her late 40s began living her heart"s desire as a nurse. In 1978 Smerke left the Franciscan order and moved to the Southwest.