Gifts of Grace

This story begins in Mount Olivia, North Carolina, on young Grace Lane Miller’s birthday. Her second cousin, Thomas Riley, a tobacco tycoon, 30 years her senior, gives her a gold necklace and pledges that one day she will be his wife. Thus begins a romantic life of this couple. After Grace’s graduation from college, she moves to Weston Ridge to become Thomas’ secretary at the T. R. Riley Tobacco Company. Grace’s marriage to Mr. Riley, their European honeymoon, and her subsequent settling “at home” on Elm Street in Weston Ridge, portray their love and devotion to one another. As one of the South’s earliest feminists, Grace influences many of the early T. R. Riley Tobacco Company policies at the turn of the century, convincing her husband to shorten the work week, start a nursery for employees’ children, and provide a company cafeteria, medical clinic, and water fountains for both white and black workers. Giving birth to four children does not deter her from spearheading various social reforms. With her husband’s blessings and moral support, she personally supervises the building of the family’s Rilea Village. One of the first progressive farmers of the state, Grace sets policies that ensure crop rotation and revolutionary sanitary dairy conditions. When Thomas becomes ill with cancer, she travels with him for medical treatments. After Thomas’ death, her charitable contributions are even more accelerated.

The tone and mood of the novel shift when Grace hires Jonathan Taylor as headmaster of Rilea School. When Grace and Jon fall in love and eventually marry, she is 41; he is 28. The gaiety of the Jazz Age, which has now reached Weston Ridge, brings exquisite parties, polo matches, and distinguished guests to Rilea.