Chapters 1 and 2 Summary

Chapter 1: The narrator reminisces about her family when she was just a young girl on Castro Street in 1920s San Francisco. This includes Mama, Papa, brother Nels, sister Christine, littlest sister Dagmar, crazy Uncle Chris, and four Aunts.

Every Saturday night Mama would separate Papa's wages for the necessary expenses coming up - rent, food, fixing a shoe or getting a book for school. Every week there seemed to be just enough to not have to dip into Mama's Bank Account. Mama assured the children she had an account in a big bank downtown, which goes far in reassuring the children during tough times. When the children watch another family being evicted for failure to pay, Christine assures the narrator (Katrin) that such a thing could never happen to them because of Mama's Bank Account.

Mama's other source of money was...