Lucretia Ayers Donnell was born in a covered wagon near Blanket, Texas in 1893. She graduated from Baylor Female College (University of Mary Hardin Baylor) in 1912 on a Fine Arts Scholarship and won the Gold Medal Award for her original designs in china painting. Later, she studied art under John Knott, Frank Klepper, Martha Simpkins and Frank Reaugh, as well as Oscar Berninghaus, Ernest L. Blumenschein and Frederick W. Becker in Taos. For forty-five years, Lucretia taught oil painting and fine china painting in her University Park studio and was instrumental in forming the China Painting Teachers of Texas, serving as its first president from 1958 to 1960. She also was a founder of the National China Painting Teacher's Organization that became the International Porcelain Artists and Teachers Organization. Earl Roe Donnell was born in 1889 in Wellborn, Texas. His father served in the Texas House of Representatives and owned the Donnell Creamery in Temple where young Earl worked. After working in the oil business, he founded the Donnell Ice Cream Company in Dallas. He was a member and officer of the Dallas Lions Club, Gilbraltar Blue Lodge and the Hella Temple Shrine. After retiring from Borden's, which had bought the Donnell Ice Cream Company, Earl raised and exhibited cattle and founded the Donnell Farm Implement Company. Lucretia Donnell Newman Coke, Lucretia Ayers Donnell's daughter, was a recognized pastel artist, having been a student and protégé of Frank Reaugh. She excelled at portraiture and landscapes and exhibited throughout Texas. During the Pan American Highway trip, her mother mailed letters home to the family in Dallas. "Little Lucretia," as she was called, then typed the letters and painted the images in this book in India ink and watercolor using the postcards the Donnells sent to their three grandchildren.