All the Forgivenesses Summary: A Story of Family Survival
TL;DR: The Short Version
In 1906, on a family farm in Galena, Kentucky, a hog-killing day turns into the moment that shapes the rest of a young girl’s life.
Six-year-old Albertina “Bertie” Winslow loses sight of her little brother Timmy for only a few minutes.
What follows haunts her for the next twenty years.
All the Forgivenesses by Elizabeth Hardinger follows Bertie from that Kentucky hillside to the prairies of Missouri and the oil boomtowns of Kansas.
Along the way she becomes a stand-in mother to her siblings, marries a kind-hearted fiddler named Sam, and carries secrets she cannot speak aloud.
It is a plainspoken story about poverty, endurance, and the long road toward forgiving yourself.
- Who: Bertie Winslow, the eldest daughter of a struggling Kentucky family, and the people she tries to hold together.
- Where: Rural Kentucky, small-town Missouri, and the Kansas oil fields between 1906 and 1926.
- What happens: A childhood accident, a mother’s death, an early marriage, repeated losses, and a runaway sister’s children arriving on a train platform.
- What it’s about: Guilt, caretaking, addiction, faith, and the difference between earning forgiveness and receiving it.
- Tone: Quiet, unvarnished, and steady. The book moves at the pace of ordinary life rather than dramatic plot turns.
- Best for: Readers of rural American historical fiction, family sagas, and coming-of-age stories with a strong first-person narrator.
Characters In This Book
| Character | Role |
|---|---|
| Albertina “Bertie” Winslow (later Frownfelter) | The narrator and protagonist, who raises her younger siblings after their mother’s death. |
| Sam Frownfelter | A drayman, oil field worker, and fiddler who becomes Bertie’s husband. |
| Polly Jolene Sweet Winslow (“Mama”) | Bertie’s mother, who becomes chronically ill and bedridden before her death. |
| Albert Winslow (“Daddy”) | Bertie’s father, an alcoholic horse trader. |
| Dacia Winslow | Bertie’s younger sister, who reveals a family secret and later runs away. |
| Opal Winslow | Bertie’s younger sister, who becomes a dressmaker in Kansas. |
| William Winslow | Bertie’s older brother, who marries Dora Darling and takes in the twin boys. |
| Buck Winslow | Bertie’s older brother, who becomes a barber and cares for Daddy in his final years. |
| Timothy “Timmy” Winslow | Bertie’s younger brother, who drowns at age three. |
| James and John Winslow | Twin brothers born after the family moves to Missouri. |
| Alta Bea Snedeker (later Satterfield) | Bertie’s wealthy childhood friend from Missouri. |
| Harold Satterfield | A banjo player and oil lease broker who marries Alta Bea. |
| Hiram | An orphan boy taken in by Dacia who brings her children to Bertie. |
| Trouble (Travis) | Dacia’s non-verbal son, who plays piano by ear. |
| Sorrow (Sarah) | Dacia’s three-year-old daughter. |
| Will Frownfelter | Bertie and Sam’s firstborn son, who dies in infancy. |
| Mr. and Mrs. Snedeker | Alta Bea’s wealthy parents in Obsidian, Missouri. |
| Bernard | A schoolteacher who proposes to Bertie. |
| Mrs. Whiteside | Bertie and Sam’s landlady in Wiley, Kansas. |
| Dora Darling Winslow | William’s wife, who raises the twins. |
| Cousin Ina | A relative in Galena who recounts family history at Daddy’s funeral. |
Read Also: The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett Summary: A Southern Gothic Tale of Secrets and Survival
All the Forgivenesses Summary
Spoilers ahead.
The novel opens in 1906 in Galena, Kentucky. Six-year-old Bertie Winslow lives with her parents, her older brothers William and Buck, her little brother Timmy, and an infant sister named Dacia.
During a hog-killing gathering at her grandparents’ farm, Bertie loses track of three-year-old Timmy. He wanders to Tenmile Creek and drowns.
Bertie tells her parents he simply strayed off. She keeps the truth to herself for years, believing she caused his death.
When Bertie is nine, her father takes her on a horse-trading trip to Feldspar. A violent dispute there leaves him badly beaten.
Mama responds by packing the family up and moving them five hundred miles west to Obsidian, Missouri. Before they leave, she takes Bertie to visit Timmy’s unmarked grave.
In Missouri, the Winslows settle into a converted pump house. Bertie meets Alta Bea Snedeker, the daughter of the local banker, and the two form a friendship that crosses a sharp class line.
Mama loses her religious faith, stops attending church, and gradually takes to her bed. A doctor visits regularly with hypodermic injections of what the family calls “dope.”
Over the next five years, Bertie runs the household. She cooks, cleans, dresses chickens, takes in laundry, and raises Dacia, Opal, and the twins James and John while Daddy trades horses and drinks.
When Bertie is fifteen, Mama becomes pregnant again. Her health collapses, and she dies early one morning while Bertie is briefly out at the backhouse.
Bertie and Alta Bea wash and dress the body themselves. Before dying, Mama had charged Bertie with the care of the children, calling it a sacred task.
A month later, Daddy gets drunk and hangs five-year-old John in a tree as a joke. Bertie grabs a hayfork and stabs him in the arm. The wound takes fifty-two stitches.
William and Buck return home. That Thanksgiving, William announces his engagement to Dora Darling and his plan to take the twins to Trenton, while Buck intends to move to town and become a barber.
Bertie realizes she cannot support everyone alone. She decides she needs a husband with steady income who will accept her sisters.
Alta Bea introduces her to Bernard, a cultured schoolteacher who proposes but admits he cannot offer physical intimacy or children. Bertie declines.
At a dance in Sullivan County, Bertie meets Sam Frownfelter, a scrawny drayman and fiddler. They fall in love quickly.
At sixteen, Bertie elopes with Sam to Turner Falls, Oklahoma, funded partly by eighty dollars Alta Bea secretly takes from her father’s bank. They marry in April 1916.
Back in Missouri, the family breaks apart. Daddy moves to town with Buck, William takes the twins, and Bertie, Sam, Opal, and Dacia rent three rooms behind a dry goods store.
Drawn by the Kansas oil boom, Sam moves the family to Wiley, Kansas. Alta Bea and Harold marry and follow them to Oil Hill.
In late 1917, Bertie gives birth to a son named Will. He dies within months. In shock, Bertie drops his body on the floor, a moment that haunts her for years.
More miscarriages follow. Sam and Harold are drafted into World War I and serve in France. Sam returns changed by what he saw.
In 1920, fourteen-year-old Dacia reveals that Mama did not simply die of illness. She claims Mama swallowed rat poison little by little to avoid bearing more children, and that she made Dacia her confidante.
Bertie beats Dacia with a pickle spoon in her rage and grief. That night, Dacia steals eight dollars from Sam’s boot and disappears.
Years pass without word. Bertie suffers miscarriage after miscarriage. Alta Bea, now wealthy, sinks deeper into alcoholism.
In 1925, Daddy dies in Kentucky. Bertie returns to Galena for the burial and learns the truth about an old family story involving snake handling and a bite on her own infant foot.
Shortly after returning to Kansas, Bertie suffers a hemorrhage and undergoes an emergency hysterectomy. She offers Sam a divorce so he can have children. He refuses, weeping.
In June 1926, a message arrives from the train depot. Three children have arrived asking for Bertie: eight-year-old Hiram, five-year-old Trouble, and three-year-old Sorrow, sent by Dacia from a destitute tent camp.
Bertie and Sam take them in. Trouble, who does not speak, turns out to play piano by ear with astonishing skill.
Struggling with fear that she is unfit to mother them, Bertie has a spiritual realization in her car during a storm outside Browntown. She comes to understand grace as a free gift rather than a punishment.
She reconciles with Sam, they buy a piano for Trouble, and in court they formally adopt all three children.
That night, Bertie concludes that Dacia sent her children away to save their lives, not to abandon them. She forgives Dacia, her mother, and herself, and decides to write the family history down.
You May Also Like: Where the Forest Meets the Stars Summary: A Healing Tale
Summary by Chapter
Spoilers ahead. This section offers a brief look at each chapter for readers who want to see how the book is put together. All the Forgivenesses contains 27 chapters divided into two books.
Book One
Chapter 1: In 1906 Galena, Kentucky, six-year-old Bertie attends a family hog slaughter and loses track of three-year-old Timmy. Timmy drowns in Tenmile Creek and is found the next morning. Bertie lies about what happened and carries the guilt in secret.
Chapter 2: At nine, Bertie accompanies her father on a horse-trading trip to Feldspar, where he is beaten in a bloody dispute. Mama confronts him with a lantern and a hidden hammer, then announces the family is moving to Missouri. Before leaving, she takes Bertie to Timmy’s grave.
Chapter 3: The Winslows settle into a converted pump house in Obsidian, Missouri. Bertie meets twelve-year-old Alta Bea Snedeker and visits her wealthy home. When Bertie mentions her father’s snake-handling relatives, Alta Bea becomes agitated and slams her forehead against her knees.
Chapter 4: Mama stops attending church and begins disappearing for hours, eventually taking to her bed. A doctor administers hypodermic injections of “dope.” William and Buck cut prairie hay while Daddy keeps trading horses instead of farming.
Chapter 5: Over five years, Bertie takes over the household and the care of Dacia, Opal, and the twins. Alta Bea graduates with top marks and urges Bertie to keep studying, lending her books. When Bertie turns fifteen, Mama becomes pregnant again and her health fails rapidly.
Chapter 6: Mama dies while Bertie is briefly at the backhouse, after telling her to care for the children as a “sacred task.” Bertie and Alta Bea wash and dress the body. Daddy refuses a formal service and buries her quickly. Bertie contemplates suicide with a pistol but chooses to live for her siblings.
Chapter 7: A month after Mama’s death, a drunk Daddy hangs five-year-old John in a tree as a joke. Bertie charges him with a hayfork and stabs his arm, requiring fifty-two stitches. William and Buck return home and begin sleeping in the barn to watch him.
Chapter 8: At Thanksgiving, Dacia mocks Alta Bea and sours the meal. William announces his marriage to Dora Darling and his plan to take the twins to Trenton, while Buck plans to become a barber. Bertie eventually accepts that she must let them go and decides to find a husband.
Chapter 9: Bertie asks Alta Bea to help her find a respectable husband. Alta Bea introduces Bernard, a thirty-year-old schoolteacher who proposes but admits he cannot have a physical relationship or children. Bertie declines because she wants both.
Chapter 10: Bertie meets Sam Frownfelter, a drayman and fiddler, at a dance in Sullivan County. They court by buggy and riverside picnic and fall in love. Daddy confronts her drunkenly, and Alta Bea’s condescending advice leaves Bertie feeling isolated.
Chapter 11: Sixteen-year-old Bertie tells Sam she must marry quickly to keep her sisters out of the poor farm. They plan to elope to Turner Falls, Oklahoma. Alta Bea secretly takes eighty dollars from her father’s bank to help fund the trip.
Chapter 12: Bertie and Sam marry before a Justice of the Peace in Oklahoma and consummate the marriage in a hotel. Back in Missouri, Sam charms Daddy into letting him stay on the property. Alta Bea is disowned by her father and turns to heavy drinking.
Chapter 13: The family holds a final dinner before William and Dora’s wedding. Sam, William, and Buck persuade Daddy to move into town with Buck. The twins leave for Trenton, and Bertie’s household prepares to move into rented rooms behind a dry goods store.
Chapter 14: In Obsidian, Sam hauls goods but the family struggles with debt and Dacia’s headaches. After a public confrontation over sixteen dollars, Sam reveals his childhood terror of poverty. He proposes moving to the Kansas oil boom, and Alta Bea agrees to follow.
Read Also: The Giver of Stars Summary: A Story of Horseback Librarians and Defiant Women
Book Two
Chapter 15: Bertie and Sam arrive in Wiley, Kansas, a landscape of derricks and dust, while Bertie suffers severe morning sickness. They lease a rundown farmhouse on the Whiteside property. Alta Bea writes that she and Harold are marrying and moving to Oil Hill with Dacia and Opal.
Chapter 16: Dacia, now eleven, and Opal arrive by train, with Dacia bitter and rebellious. Harold and Alta Bea settle into a company shotgun shack in Oil Hill. When Bertie tells Alta Bea she is pregnant, Alta Bea responds with cold indifference.
Chapter 17: In late 1917 Bertie gives birth to a son, Will, who is sickly and dies within months. In shock, Bertie drops his body on the floor, an act that haunts her. Mrs. Whiteside pays for the coffin and burial. Alta Bea gives birth to a daughter, Alice, and Bertie suffers a secret miscarriage.
Chapter 18: Sam and Harold are drafted and sent to France while Bertie and Alta Bea follow the war in newspapers. The Spanish Flu sweeps through Kansas and the family survives. Both men return in 1919, with Sam scarred by what he witnessed. Bertie suffers another miscarriage.
Chapter 19: In 1920, Bertie catches fourteen-year-old Dacia cutting a doll’s hair and throws the scissors. Dacia reveals that Mama killed herself with rat poison to avoid more children and that she made Dacia her confidante. Bertie strikes her with a pickle spoon, and Dacia steals eight dollars and runs away that night.
Chapter 20: Searches across multiple states find no trace of Dacia. Electricity arrives in Wiley by 1922, and Harold builds Alta Bea a large house while she sinks deeper into alcoholism. Bertie suffers recurring miscarriages and feels cursed.
Chapter 21: In 1925, Daddy dies in Kentucky, and Bertie and Alta Bea travel to Galena for the funeral. Cousin Ina recounts the story of Bertie being bitten by a snake as a baby. Shortly after returning, Bertie suffers a hemorrhage and undergoes an emergency hysterectomy. Sam refuses her offer of divorce.
Chapter 22: Bertie burns her bloodstained linens in a yard bonfire. Opal’s dressmaking business thrives. In June 1926, a message arrives from the train depot: three children sent by Dacia are asking for Bertie.
Chapter 23: Bertie and Opal bring the children home and feed and wash them. Hiram explains that Dacia lived in a tent camp with a panner named Tom, and that he found a gold nugget that paid for the children’s train fare. Bertie resolves to keep them.
Chapter 24: Bertie establishes a routine for Hiram, Travis, and Sarah. Trouble repeats phrases like “pickle spoon,” showing he overheard Dacia’s stories. Sam takes a steady oil company job for insurance and housing, and the family moves to a company house in the Murphy field.
Chapter 25: The family settles into the Murphy house while Opal moves into her own apartment. Alta Bea visits with her four daughters, gets drunk, and makes disturbing remarks about harming her children. Bertie accepts that the friendship has permanently drifted apart.
Chapter 26: Trouble reveals an ability to play complex piano pieces by ear with no training. Sam decides to buy a piano. At a funeral home piano showroom, Bertie is overwhelmed by guilt and flees, then experiences a spiritual realization in her car during a storm. She returns and reconciles with Sam.
Chapter 27: Sam and Bertie appear in court and formally adopt Hiram, Travis, and Sarah. That night they conclude that Dacia sent her children away to save their lives. Bertie forgives Dacia, her mother, and herself, and decides to write the family history for Sarah.
Read Also: The Wild Beneath Summary: A Tale of Love, Loss & the Ocean’s Mysterious Song
What the Novel Keeps Returning To
| Theme | How the Book Presents It |
|---|---|
| Self-Forgiveness | Bertie carries guilt over Timmy’s drowning, over dropping baby Will’s body, and over the family’s breakup. The book’s resolution comes when she stops treating these events as debts she must repay. |
| Maternal Burden | Mama passes the care of the children to fifteen-year-old Bertie as a “sacred task.” Bertie then raises siblings and later her sister’s children, repeating the pattern across two generations. |
| Addiction and Its Reach | Daddy’s drinking, Mama’s opiate injections, and Alta Bea’s alcoholism all shape the households around them. Each addiction alters what the family can do and who must take over. |
| Endurance | Bertie’s repeated phrase “got to stand it or bust” appears at moments of extreme grief. Chores, meals, and survival continue regardless of what has just happened. |
| Punitive Faith vs. Grace | The novel contrasts serpent handling and hellfire preaching with Bertie’s late realization that grace is unearned. That shift changes how she sees her mother, Dacia, and herself. |
| Class and Female Friendship | Bertie and Alta Bea’s bond crosses the line between a banker’s daughter and a tenant family. It survives poverty and distance but not Alta Bea’s addiction. |
Book Details at a Glance
- Genre & Subgenre: Historical Fiction / Rural Coming-of-Age / American Family Saga
- Core Narrative Tropes: Found family, parentified child, secret guilt and redemption, hidden family secret, boomtown transformation
- Tone & Atmosphere: Melancholic, stoic, plainspoken, rustic, and resilient
- Primary Conflict: Bertie’s internal struggle with guilt and shame over perceived maternal failure, alongside the external struggle to keep her family fed, safe, and together
- Pacing Style: Chronological, episodic, and character-driven across twenty years, mixing quiet domestic realism with dramatic turning points
- ISBN: 978-1496720450
- Pages: 368
- Book Structure: 27 chapters across two books
Continue Reading: All the Ugly and Wonderful Things Summary: Plot, Characters & Ending
Elizabeth Hardinger: A Voice for Rural Lives
Elizabeth Hardinger is an American novelist and educator. All the Forgivenesses is her debut novel and was published in 2020.
Her writing centers on working-class families in the rural Midwest and South, with attention to the labor women performed and the losses they carried quietly.
Her work has been recognized for its authentic first-person voice, which mirrors the plainspoken speech of early twentieth-century Kentucky and Kansas.
Books Like All the Forgivenesses
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens: A coming-of-age story about a girl left to raise herself in a rural setting, shaped by abandonment, isolation, and the natural world around her.
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson: Set in rural Kentucky, it shares the Appalachian setting, plainspoken voice, and focus on women surviving poverty and rigid community expectations.
Plainsong by Kent Haruf: Small-town life in the American Midwest, quiet endurance, and the informal families that form when people step in to shelter children in trouble.
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah: A story of maternal sacrifice and survival through economic hardship and historical upheaval in the American heartland.
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson: A reflective first-person narrative rooted in rural America and questions of grace, forgiveness, and family inheritance.
Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons: A young Southern narrator survives neglect and family loss and builds a new household from the people she chooses.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith: A girl’s coming-of-age amid poverty and family instability, told in plain language with an emphasis on endurance and small victories.
