Burnam Ledford was born in the year that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone and the United States celebrated its one hundredth birthday. He married Addie King the day after the Wright brothers flew through the air at Kitty Hawk. Burnam and Addie lived their lives in Kentucky, raised children, worked and matured and saw the world widen. John Egerton met them in 1977. He was looking for a family that he "could present to the reader as a metaphor...