Readers were introduced to Lera Knox and her quaint country tales in Goodness Gracious, Miss Agnes, the first book published by Newfound Press, the University of Tennessee digital press. The former Lera Margaret Ussery, born in post-Victorian Tennessee, began her colorful adventures in 1896 on her grandparents' farm in Columbia, Tennessee. After a stint teaching school, Knox married and began to raise her family on a farm. Travels ef a Country Woman begins with the Knox family's emergence from the Great Depression, initially by way of a trip to the Chicago World's Fair in 1933. Traveling by "Elizabeth T," the family Model T Ford, Knox sent dispatches to the Nashville Banner recounting her family's adventures. Those articles marked the beginning of Knox's career as a columnist-a career that she pursued for the rest of her life. She wrote articles about her travels from Hollywood to Copenhagen, from having tea with Eleanor Roosevelt to attending the Coronation of Elizabeth II.

Lera Ussery Knox (1896–1975) wrote extensively for the Nashville Banner.