The Cotton Queen

The road away from home always seems to lead back to our mothers

"I'll never be the kind of woman who wears pearls with her apron while cooking meat loaf for her husband. But when I was a kid, my mother, Babs, prepared me to be the next June Cleaver—teaching me lessons that belonged to another era. Another world, practically. My mother's world. But what can you expect from a woman whose biggest aspiration was to be Cotton Queen? I couldn't wait to leave home and get away from her. But now, well…let's just say life hasn't turned out quite like I'd planned. And heaven help me, I'm going home."

—Laney Hoffman, Cotton Queen, 1975