Summary

Phelps-Roper continues to catalog what she knows about her grandfather beating his children and recalls hearing that he had also hurt her grandmother. Once again Shirley denied this was true, but also said that even if it were, he should be forgiven for his sins. Megan also remembers Shirley hitting her when she made mistakes during piano lessons and an earlier instance when Shirley pulled her own sister Dottie's hair during an argument.

In Chapter 4, “The Tongue Is a Fire,” Phelps-Roper recalls being compared often to her aunt Margie, as they both had “big hair, [a] big voice, [and a] big personality” (65). The author was very close to Margie growing up and learned lessons about subtlety and “finesse” (69) from her.

The author recalls the late 1990s and mid-to-late aughts when Westboro began receiving an increasing amount of attention from the media. When a...