Returning to her family home after losing her husband at the end of their thirteen-year trip to Africa, Aunt Catherine is frail and confused. Blind since birth, Catherine now has to cope with new surroundings and unfamiliar relatives. And only she and her middle son Jedidiah, who accompanied his father and mother on their travels, know the contents of her late husband's will, and of the keepsake trunk, stored all these years awaiting her return. As Catherine disembarks from the ship, she is welcomed by her childhood friend Becky, and Becky's daughter Myrtle. Myrtle has also experienced loss; her husband and her father both died in a boating accident two years earlier, leaving her with two small boys to raise. Written in a style reminiscent of the popular author of the time, Victor Appleton (the pseudonymous author of the "Moving Picture Boys" and "Tom Swift" series), "Aunt Catherine" offers a glimpse into life in the American northwest at the end of the Great Depression, as it was experienced by Catherine and her extended family and friends.