Myers begins his memoir with an account of the world (and family) he was born into, explaining that this backstory cannot be separated from his own experiences: "While we live our own individual lives, what has gone before us, our history, always has some effect on us" (1). In Myers's case, this history can be traced back to the era of slavery; his great-great-uncle, Lucas D. Dennis, worked on a plantation in what would later become West Virginia. After the Civil War, Dennis moved to Martinsburg, West Virginia, where his family "merged" with another family—the Greens—ultimately leading to the birth of Myers's mother, Mary Dolly Green (3).

Molly, however, died while Myers himself was too young to remember her. What's more, his family life was complicated by the fact that Molly was his father's, George Myers's, second wife. George’s first wife, Florence, was the woman who actually raised Myers. Myers therefore details Florence's background as well, explaining that her mother was a German immigrant who married a Native American man. However, while Florence herself was biracial, her family didn't approve of her marriage to George Myers, which ended in divorce after the couple had two daughters, Geraldine and Viola.