A Life of Tears is the story of Rosie, a young girl who lives in a coal camp with her mother, father, and many brothers and sisters. Because they are poor, her parents decide that she must marry a young friend of her father's to ease the burden at home. Rosie is twelve years old and the man is nineteen years old. She is afraid and does not want to leave her family but after a short courtship, they are married and within a few months she is pregnant. Gradually, Rosie falls in love with her husband, Willie, and they begin to build a good life for themselves and their growing family. But tragedy strikes and Rosie begins a life of heartbreak as she quests for the one thing that seems to be just out of reach, love. A Life of Tears is the story of a young girl who must become a woman very early in life. It chronicles her struggles to hold her family together through the many adversities that come into her life. As she desperately tries to bring her family out of a life of poverty, she begins to understand what she must do to survive.