Loretta Miller Mehl

Tell Me You Love Me Loretta Miller Mehl

The daughter of a hardworking sharecropper in Arkansas, Loretta longed for something better. Determined to escape poverty, she left the farm to live with relatives in Little Rock two days after graduating from high school. Within a year she headed west and began her new life in Los Angeles.

This is not your typical, "we were poor, but never knew it" account of one who grew up happy though penniless during the Great Depression. Far from it, Loretta reveals, "I despised my life of painful embarrassing poverty." Her anthology of personal stories demonstrates a deep desire to improve her life and to receive the affirmation of her father's love.

Heartbreaking and playful, her accounts are fascinating. She shares many surprising practices and beliefs from the South. Despite taking action to overcome the difficulties of her childhood, she discovers a deeper and overwhelming need that she cannot fulfill on her own.

Loretta writes from her memories, sometimes as if you are there and at times as reflections of the past. This is the inside story of a sharecropper's daughter who found herself forever drawn back to the place of her birth and the people she loves.