“Annie was the original voice for Egg McMuffin. She flew all over the country in Ray Kroc’s private jet to do in-house musicals for McDonald’s. And in Chicago, she was denied credit at the city’s largest department store because she was a single woman.”

“One day, riding home on the bus holding onto a leather strap, [Laura] asked herself, Why don’t I run for alderman? There has never been a woman on the city council.“

“’But Dad, no one I know is divorced.’”

It was the 1950s, and women had a narrowly prescribed set of rules to follow. Marcia Chellis is now an international best-selling author, but then, she and her friends were pretty dazed and confused as the real world of the 1960s and ’70s turned all those so-called rules completely on their heads.

How did they make it through? And what can today’s women learn from their experiences?