Alice Edmunds Sauer, a native Nevadan and member of a pioneer western family, was born in 1877. Mrs. Sauer's parents lived and worked in Virginia City, her father as a mining engineer, her mother as a schoolteacher. She remembers a number of events of the post-boom days on the Comstock, and recounts them with obvious relish.

The memoir includes her reminiscences of childhood life in Virginia City, Nevada, an account of student days at the University of Nevada at Reno, her subsequent teaching career in Nevada and Montana schools, and biographical sketches of her children.