Fair and Tender Ladies comprises letters written by Ivy Rowe over the course of her life, and because of that, all events happen through the lens of Ivy’s interpretation. Ivy starts out as a poor, uneducated girl growing up in rural Virginia with a sick father, a worn-out mother, and many siblings. She stops attending school to help her family but loves to read and has an active imagination. Ivy has several teachers who believe she is special and has the capacity to learn more her peers, but Ivy’s circumstances prevent her from being able to realize her dreams of traveling the world.

As she ages, Ivy’s writing improves, but her imagination diminishes as she is pulled into the reality of rural life. Ivy’s impetuous innocence gives way to strong observational skills about life and those around her through her time living in Majestic and then Diamond. Unlike many women of her time, Ivy has no interest at first in getting married or having children, though she eventually changes her mind after becoming pregnant at a young age out of wedlock. Ivy marries Oakley Fox—more out of a sense of loss than out of love for Oakley—and builds a family with him back in Sugar Fork, effectively taking on the same role as her mother, as the matriarch of a large family living in the house in which Ivy grew up.