Minnie's Potatoes is a true story of a urban, cultured woman from late eighteenth century Prussia who has two lovers who happen to be brothers. Pregnant with one brother's child, she travels steerage with her three sons to join her husband. He works in the crude, untamed wilderness of Michigan's early lumbering era so he can own land he can leave to his sons. Minnie survives his wrath, the forest fires, and the life-threatening accidents that plague lumberjacks and their families working on a river that threatens to sweep them all into Saginaw Bay. Widowed and left with ten children, she survives by working alongside her children in the lumber camps, in their potato fields and by distilling illegal alcohol. The family faces the pressures and penalties of Prohibition's Purple Gang and Al Capone's territorial moves into central Michigan while being protected by the local sheriff. Her former lover finds her, attempts to take over the family's land and bootlegging operation, but meets his end when he is judged by the family bull in an open field. Minnie dies leaving land to her children, land still held by her great grandson. This romantic narrative is based on the life of the author's great-grandmother and is told in her voice.