Diane Jacks Saunders Grace Street

Annotation

Grace Street is about children growing up in a Lebanese neighborhood in Michigan City, Indiana, during the 1950s. Children in that era were safe to walk city streets and explore parks and wooded areas. Racial prejudice was rampant, and most families had stay-at-home mothers. The South Shore Railroad was in its heyday and Washington Park was a popular recreation area. With a healthy dose of humor tempered with a pinch of pathos and a sprinkling of irony, Grace Street touches on old-world beliefs and customs while telling the story of siblings and cousins who grew up in a sometimes confusing ethnic environment. This close-knit family had a few secrets, including an alcoholic uncle and a grandmother who was nearly deported, but the parents rarely spoke of these matters, especially to the children.