The year is 1937, and the Great Depression has hit the Dowdel family hard. 15-year-old Mary Alice is sent downstate to live with Grandma Dowdel while her ma and pa eke out a meager living in Chicago. Mary Alice is less than thrilled with the arrangement. Grandma's hickville farming community couldn't be more different from Chicago if it tried, and the grandmother Mary Alice remembers from childhood is a multi-chinned no-nonsense country gal.