Choices Author:Mary Lee Settle When her father kills himself during the Depression so that his family can live on his insurance money, Melinda realizes that she will not be happy leading the genteel life desired for her by her mother. Joining the Red Cross rather than making her debut, she becomes embroiled in a bloody coal-miners' strike in Kentucky, where she witnesses ... more »firsthand a poverty and desperation she scarcely knew existed. Then she volunteers for the Republican cause in Spain, where amid the horrors of war she falls in love with and marries Tye Dunston, an idealistic young doctor. As the war reaches its tragic end, she escapes Spain with barely her life and a demure little orphaned girl in tow. And in the turbulent sixties, she returns to America to champion the civil rights cause, aiding a brilliant young man whose only crime is his skin color.« less
"One woman's extraordinary journey through the maelstrom of the 20th century... As a young southern belle of shallow longings in the early 1930s, Melinda Kregg leads a safe life built on guilt-edged securities in coal. When her mother suggested she volunteer for 'something nice,' Melinda willfully signs on with the Red Cross in Harlan County, Kentucky. There her conscience is stirred by the bloody coal-mining strike, but when she aids the black-listed miners, she is branded a Communist and dismissed from the Red Cross. Her innocence shattered, Melinda moves to other battlefields, tending to the social wounded wherever it may be - the Spanish Civil War, World War II London, the civil-rights torn South."