Water Under the Bridge

Late in the fall of 1918, two neatly dressed young men knocked on a farmhouse kitchen door. Chester Hall invited them in. These missionaries stayed two weeks with the family in rural Missouri, during which time they explained the mysteries of Joseph Smith-telling of the tablets of gold on which the Book of Mormon had been written, and of a new Church that thrived in the western states. Within three years, the Hall family had packed up and moved to Mesa, Arizona, adding a fourth child along the way: Amelia. This is her story. At age six, as Amelia starts school for the very first time, she realizes something about her papa, something she can't quite comprehend. But by the age of nine, as her family withstands both the Great Depression and their patriarch's increasing religious fervor, Amelia begins to understand the danger faced by she and her sister.