In the year 1910, at age twenty, Karl Artur Johan Gustafsson leaves Sweden to follow his older siblings to America. Renamed "Carl Arthur Gustafson" at Ellis Island, he begins a new life in Forestville/Bristol, Connecticut, where he falls in love with and marries Jennie Anderson. Together they build their "house," guiding their family through the rapidly changing events of the twentieth century. In this multi-layered, multiple-generational story, their third child takes her readers on a journey through WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, changing technologies, changing roles, and the tumultuous sixties and seventies.