With the tragic death of her family in 1915, Allison McKelvey was sent to live with three old maids. Not just any old maids, but women who were members of the Old Maids' Club, in which membership was mandatory, not voluntary. Mandatory because each of the three women, fifty years earlier, had stood on a balcony and waved her handkerchief as her beau rode off to fight the invading Yankees. None of their young men returned. Neither did their brothers, cousins, uncles, or fathers. Others returned maimed and crippled, broken in both body and spirit, unable to assist in rebuilding the South. And into this club came young Allison McKelvey, an orphan with her whole life before her. Some changes were about to be made in the Old Maids' Club.