Merle, Cal, and Gladys are a typical, middle-class family living in a typical, middle-class Chicago suburb. An opportunity too good to pass up finds them as owners of a historic, antebellum home in an affluent neighborhood in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. Through a series of mysterious, otherworldly events that occur in their new dream house, each member of the family finds themselves transported back in time to Civil War-era Gettysburg, New Orleans, and Galena. Life without computers, cell phones, cars, and bottled water suddenly becomes a reality, if only temporarily.