While living in Stockton Flora meets and falls in love with Booker Palmer. The two marry, have a son named Willie, and Booker becomes a sharecropper soon after they marry. Booker experiences financial difficulties, which force him to steal cotton from other farmers. During one of his nightly runs, he is shot and killed. Flora later buries Booker, but only after remaining with his body all night. Shortly thereafter Flora receives news that her sister Jossie is ill and dying. Flora travels to her sister and ends up taking her niece Ruthana back with her to raise as her own daughter. Throughout the 1930s Flora raises both Willy and Ruthana in Stockton, but when Willie gets into a fight with some White boys he's forced to escape to Chicago where Ruthana's father lives. Once there, Willy stays with Georgy, who shows him the area and finds Willy a job. One night Willy ends up gambling and smoking marijuana, which causes him to lose his home. Willy moves into a basement with his friend Josh, who is later arrested for dealing drugs. During all of this time Willy continues to write his mother, cousin, and his girlfriend Ernestine, but lies and tells them that everything is fine. Later at the outbreak of World War II, Willy joins the army and upon his return he proposes to his girlfriend. The two marry, move to Chicago, and have three children.