Her personality conflicts with her father often lead her to a whippin'. She often bragged that 6 of her 8 children have college degrees. Zora grew up in the small Florida town of Eatonville, away from racial violence and the lynching that was occuring in other rural southern towns. Eatonville was the first incorporated black community in America. Segragation existed even though the Civil War was over.
Poverty smells like death.
That is, the world which had been build out of her body and her heart. After her mother died her father sent her away to boarding school in Jacksonville. After returning home, homesick, she was horrified to find that her stepfather had re-married. She expressed her opinion about the marriage harshly and his response was a whipping. Her stepmother wouldn't tolerate stepchildren.