How we cite our quotes: (Page)
Quote #1
Tommy lived in what everyone called the home-house—a four-room log cabin that once served as slave quarters, with plank floors, gas lanterns, and water Henrietta hauled up a long hill from the creek [...]. The air inside stayed so cool that when relatives died, the family kept their corpses in the front hallway for days so people could visit and pay respects. Then they buried them in the cemetery out back. (18-19)
Skloot describes the house where Henrietta grew up, started her family and where she was buried. We get a strong sense of family cohesion here just by the description of this communal home. It speaks volumes that this house falls apart after Henrietta's death. Shmoop loves the cold-storage feature of the house.
Quote #2
Each night, piles of cousins packed into the crawl space above a little wooden kitchen house just a few feet from the home-house. They lay one next to the other—telling stories about the headless tobacco farmer who roamed the streets at night, or the man with no eyes who lived by the creek—then slept until their grandmother Chloe fired up the woodstove below and woke them to the smell of fresh biscuits. (20)
Though we know that the Lacks family suffered from poverty, abuse, and lack of education, Skloot doesn't leave out the good memories. This recollection of childhood times sounds like the best memories of summer camp. It's important for us to see the life that Henrietta valued and loved, to keep her humanity front and center.
Quote #3
[...] Henrietta and Day had been sharing a bedroom since she was four, so what happened next didn't surprise anyone: they started having children together. (23)
Here's the darker side of living in the home-house: Henrietta may or may not have had much choice in starting a family with her first cousin. Though her family was precious to her, there's little doubt that this beginning caused a great deal of physical and psychological suffering for the children born to Day and Henrietta.