Tinley Reat

Via pluck and ferocity, a scrappy orphan escapes horror to ultimately be “raised by a village” in Depression-era Alabama.

As Tinley Reat waited for her friends to hail a cab, she stepped to the newsstand. The Friday, December 4, 1942 issue of the Mobile-Press Register caught her eye. She silently read its headline, Twenty B-24s Bomb Naples. Tinley’s watch was in the shop, so she glanced up at the Battle House Hotel’s clock. Hanging above the hotel’s entrance, it glowed like a full moon against the dark sky. They had gathered…