A Whiff of Pennyroyal: A Southern Woman's Story

In 1919, without warning, a little four-year-old girl was given to a family she had never seen before. From a situation of abject poverty, she was provided a life of safety and privilege. But with this came a childhood full of conflict as she faced another struggle: living with a tyrannical, impossible-to-please woman who had become her new mother. Years later she met a young man with whom she experienced an instant attraction, and who became her longed-for escape from her ironhanded mother. But the future is not always what one envisions. In 1936 they married, barely knowing each other. Little did she realize she had escaped from life with one difficult personality to another: the affectionate, talented man with whom she fell in love, and a desperately mentally ill individual. This true story, full the of the culture, attitudes, foods, and smells in the South in the early to mid 1900s, is a journey into her struggles, triumphs, joys, and sorrows. This is the life of Patti Rust.