Lyddie lives with her mother, brother, and two sisters because her father left them.
Lyddie is the adult in her family. Her father left them on the farm and went west to seek his fortune, because he was unlucky at farming. After her father left, her mother was not able to take care of them. She was just too unstable, something that had started when Anges was born. Lyddie, the oldest, had a brother a...
Lyddie lives with her mother, brother, and two sisters because her father left them.
Lyddie is the adult in her family. Her father left them on the farm and went west to seek his fortune, because he was unlucky at farming. After her father left, her mother was not able to take care of them. She was just too unstable, something that had started when Anges was born. Lyddie, the oldest, had a brother a few years younger named Charlie and two “baby” sisters. Agnus was the youngest, followed by Rachel.
In the beginning of the book when Lyddie is describing the incident with the bear, she lists the ages of her youngest siblings.
No, Mama had never laughed, but Lyddie and Charles and the babies had laughed until their bellies ached. Lyddie still thought of them as the babies. She probably always would. Agnes had been four and Rachel six that November of 1843‐the year of the bear. (Ch. 1)
Lyddie was thirteen and her brother ten when they first went off to work. Lyddie had to go to work at a tavern, and Charles at a mill, in order to pay off the family’s debts. Since she does not last long at the tavern, Lyddie loses track of what is happening to her family. She gets a factory job and tries to make some money, but she worries about her mother and sisters because they are staying with her aunt and uncle, who are not nice people.
She hadn't seen her mother for two years. She had no way of knowing what her true needs were. And surely, as mean as Judah was and as crazy as Clarissa might be, they would not let their own sister or her child go hungry. (Ch. 13)
Lyddie’s uncle drops Rachel off, even though she is too young to work at the factory or live at Lyddie’s boarding house. She finds out her mother has been sent to an insane asylum by her aunt and uncle so they could sell her family farm.
Lyddie tries to come up with a way to help her little sister. She is not supposed to stay at the boarding house because it's for workers. Rachel wants to be a doffer, but Lyddie wants her to go to school. She regrets never having gone to school herself.
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