Crystal Faye Thrasher was born on December 5, 1921, in Oolitic, Indiana. She was the fourth of six children of Virgil Leroy and Rozella (Bennett) Knight. Crystal Knight graduated from Salisbury High School and married Joseph Martin Thrasher in 1939. At seventeen she felt ill-prepared for adulthood and the challenge of raising three children, Carol, Joseph, Jr., and Janis.

Her life in a home where parents allowed her to be herself and encouraged her to do what she wanted to do, contributed greatly to her love of books and writing. Her home was a poor one with the coming of the Great Depression and her father's loss of a job. At the age of ten, she and her siblings moved with their parents to Greene County, Indiana, where they planned to wait out the Depression. Thrasher spent the years from ten to seventeen in Greene County. Everyone...