Book excerpt: The life of a remarkable woman and educator, Marion Parsons, is told through the story of a school started in a hen house in a cherry orchard in 1926 that became one of the highest-ranked schools in New York State. The book includes remembrances of those who were there with her during the Great Depression and World War II and the post war boom. The back story tells of her life on the farm along the Genesee Turnpike in Central New York during the late 1800s through World War I. Marion Parsons sacrifices desire for duty and discovers her dreams in ways she would never have imagined.