Annie Pearson was a docile, submissive and diminutive woman, taken for granted by her family, striving at the thankless job of being a mother and wife who neither received acknowledgement nor appreciation. Her children did not respect her and ordered her around while her husband considered her to be some sort of a personal servant, living her life at his beck and call. Mrs. Pearson had full reason to take desperate measures to drive some sense into the heads of her family members.