Jelline Smith lives with her husband in Decatur, Illinois. The couple has one son and seven grandchildren. She loves the Midwest but longs for her home state of Mississippi. She always said that someday she would return to Mississippi to live, but there was always something to stop her such as a better paying job or a better way of living. The main reason for staying is her family, parents and siblings, living in Decatur. She simply couldn't bear the thought of leaving them. The author believes in and loves her family, but her love for God is greater. She gives God the glory for the writing of this book. Although she knows God has brought her a long way, she tries to refrain from the phrase and points to personal motivation. Jelline always knew she wanted to be a writer ever since she was a little girl. She was always making up songs and poems, but nothing ever came of them. Someday, she told herself, she would see her name in print. I will see my dream come true, and people enjoying it as much as I enjoyed writing it, Jelline said. A friend once told her if she ever wrote a book to make sure it was about something she knew because it takes more to write about something you don t know about than it takes to write about what you know. Jelline said her childhood was what she knew best.