MONTEVIDEO, Minnesota— After Hurricane Katrina struck, Tanya Thornbury spent hours watching news coverage of people clamoring for food, water and deliverance. One afternoon, she broke down crying after seeing a mother clinging to an infant. "I wanted nothing more than to help her," she recalls.

She called her partner, Tracey Thornbury, about having an uprooted family live with them and their three young sons in this Minnesota town of about 5,300. They figured they could afford to house, clothe and feed a woman and a child or two. They worried that Southern blacks might struggle in Montevideo, with its mostly white population and harsh winters. But, Tanya Thornbury says, "There wasn't a corner of our lives we weren't willing to share."

On Monday, Sept. 5, after searching the Internet for information on evacuees, she emailed a shelter in Baton Rouge, La. "I would Like to offer my home to a family effected by Hurricane katrina in need of temporary shelter," she wrote. "We have a large 2 story home with a nice finished basement fully furnished with satellite TV, 3 beds and a lot of privacy.... This is temporary housing up to 1 yr. Thank you and God bless you I hope you can find this useful."

Nicole Singleton, a 33-year-old mother of six, wound up at that shelter, where she saw the email posted on a bulletin board. "I don't know a thing about Minnesota," she said. But she wanted to give it a try.

As tens of thousands fled Katrina, Americans opened their hearts, their wallets and, in some cases, their homes. To their five-bedroom Victorian house on a tree-lined street, Tanya and Tracey Thornbury welcomed Ms. Singleton – and eventually her six children, ranging in age from 3 to 16, and her mother. The Singletons, who are black, hail from a poor section of New Orleans. Their hosts, two white women who have lived together for five years, hoped to help them build a new life in a very different setting. That proved much more difficult than either family expected.

MS. SINGLETON ARRIVED at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Sept. 8, toting a large knapsack and a Burger King bag. The rest of her family was to come later. The Thornburys' boys – ages 5, 7 and 12 – greeted her at baggage claim with a large sign they'd made reading, "NICOLE SINGLETON" in bright red and "NEW ORLEANS" in blue, surrounded by green hearts. "I'm so happy to be here!" Ms. Singleton recalls saying as she hugged the boys.

Tanya Thornbury (her legal name is Burkhardt but she goes by her partner's surname) and Ms. Singleton had talked only by phone. They got to know each other on the 130-mile drive to the Thornbury home. Ms. Thornbury had bought Ms. Singleton a bathrobe, pajamas and sandals from Wal-Mart. Ms. Singleton talked excitedly of her dreams of becoming a hair stylist, or even a nurse.

She had lived a rough life in New Orleans. She had her first child at 16, and says she began shoplifting soon after. She worked on and off as a hotel housekeeper, but says she got caught up with more crime and drugs. She went to jail several times, she says, and her mother, Dorothy Singleton, 52, increasingly took care of her children. For a time, the children lived with their grandmother on the streets and in abandoned houses.

Ms. Singleton says Katrina destroyed her apartment and left her stranded for seven days before she was rescued by boat. She says her mother and five of her children fled before Katrina struck. Her eldest child, 16-year-old Brittany, was temporarily missing after the storm, she says. Now all of them were homeless.

Ms. Singleton had never been out of Louisiana before. But she felt she no longer had much reason to stay. Minnesota, she thought, might be her chance for a fresh start.

Tanya Thornbury had been to New Orleans several times, going out in the French Quarter and visiting relatives in a prosperous suburb across Lake Pontchartrain. A few years ago, driving through the city with Tracey and their boys, Tanya recalls thinking, "You get a sense of how poor it is."

Tanya, a 36-year-old artist, grew up mostly in Idaho. After high school, she lived in several states before moving back to Idaho after a divorce. She met Tracey, a 38-year-old truck driver, in a bar in Boise in 2000. Soon they were living together. They sold their homes and traveled around the country in an RV for a year. They had vacationed in Minnesota, liked it, and last year moved to Montevideo with Tanya's three sons. (Tracey also has a 20-year-old son serving in the Army.)

Montevideo is a quiet, working-class community. Locals say the town views itself as a rural bastion of liberalism in a historically liberal state. Tanya says the couple saw online photos of their house, and after getting information about the community and its schools, bought the place without ever walking inside it.

The Thornburys had never taken in friends or family for long periods. Though they originally thought of housing just a mother and child or two displaced by Katrina, after talking to Ms. Singleton, they decided to accommodate all her children. "You can't pick and choose which kid can come," says Tanya Thornbury.

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AS NEWS OF MS. SINGLETON’S ARRIVAL SPREAD, townspeople dropped by to meet her and donate cash, toys and clothing. Someone donated a van, another person gave an RV. The pastor at the United Methodist Church invited Ms. Singleton to share her story over coffee with the congregation after Sunday services. Strangers came up and hugged her and the Thornburys. "It was very festive," says the pastor, Paul Woolverton.

Tanya says she told Ms. Singleton, "This is an awesome opportunity. How do you want to deal with the donations?" She says Ms. Singleton dismissed the suggestion that she open a savings account. Ms. Singleton says she doesn't recall that. Tanya says she received donations amounting to about $5,000, giving some to Ms. Singleton and depositing some in her own account to cover costs of a growing household.

Tanya says the home's electricity costs, for instance, rose to $211 in September from $100 in August. The monthly natural-gas bill went to more than $100 from $35, primarily, she figures, because more hot water was used for showers and washing clothes and dishes.

Shortly after she arrived, Ms. Singleton mentioned she had a boyfriend who was incarcerated in Louisiana. The Thornburys say they told her before she came that they wouldn't allow a man to stay in their home.

Ms. Singleton called her boyfriend's mother and wrote letters to him to let him know she had survived. She believed his release was imminent, but wasn't sure he would move to Minnesota to be near her.

Tanya Thornbury says she tried to pin Ms. Singleton down on why he was in prison, but all Ms. Singleton would say was that he had violated parole. Tanya says she feared Ms. Singleton would give him the layout of the Thornbury home so he could rob it. "It's not about race, it's about class," she said. "I don't want that criminal element around my kids."

Five of Ms. Singleton's children and her mother arrived on Sept. 15. Ms. Singleton slept in the basement with her daughters, Helen, 14, and Ebony, 6. Her 11-year-old son Esau and Ryan, Tanya Thornbury's 12-year-old son, slept in one room. Raheem Singleton, 8, slept in another room with Tanya's youngest sons, Christian, 7, and Kannan, 5.

Tanya turned her art studio into a room for Dorothy – known as "Dot" – Singleton and her 3-year-old grandson, Judas. The Singleton children were enrolled in public schools. Ms. Singleton and her mother set about looking for jobs.

The Thornburys posted a list of chores on the refrigerator. Bath time began immediately after dinner. The first child to finish eating would be first in the tub, with three to follow. The others would bathe in the morning. This was partly to maintain order, and partly to ensure enough hot water. "I got everything down on the schedule," Tanya says. "Kids crave structure."

Dot Singleton continued to be primary caregiver to the Singleton children. The morning regimen – from the time the children woke to the time they walked to the school bus stop one block away – took about 90 minutes.

Helen Singleton in particular took to her new home. The bright eighth-grader quickly made friends at middle school and considered trying out for the track team. "I'm happy," she said one day after school, adding that she wanted to work at the McDonald's in town and, someday, as a detective. Esau Singleton was doing well in school, and considered joining the wrestling team. Ebony Singleton and the Thornburys' youngest, Kannan, traipsed around the neighborhood calling each other "brother" and "sister."

Tracey Thornbury set a "family meeting," which she led on Saturdays after returning from road trips. House rules and any issues that had come up during the week were discussed.

Tanya says she confronted Dot Singleton about allowing her grandchildren to watch violent movies such as "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Halloween," which the Thornbury kids are forbidden to watch. "It promotes negative thinking, negative behavior," Tanya says she told Dot, and said "everyone has to live by the same rules." Dot disagreed. Tanya says she figured that, for the Singletons, "if you see [violence] on the streets, it's no big deal if you see it on TV."

One day, a contractor called and offered to build a house the Singletons could live in for a year, paying only utility bills, the Thornburys say. After a year, they'd have to pay the mortgage. Tanya says they sat Nicole Singleton and her mother down to talk about it. "This is completely up to you," Tanya recalls saying. But she also remembers thinking, "How are they going to get groceries? How will they get to work? They didn't know how to pay bills. We're setting them up for failure." She says the Singletons were discouraged that they eventually would have to pay the mortgage. They agreed she should decline the offer, Tanya says.

Nicole Singleton disputes this, saying Tanya merely told her "some people [were] supposed to get with her to build a house from the ground up. I told her that'd be good. I didn't hear no more after that." She says she would have accepted the offer. Dot Singleton says she doesn't recall the Thornburys telling her about an offer from a contractor. Tanya declined to name the contractor who made the offer.

On Sept. 27, Tanya says Raheem came home from school and asked her if he could buy a book that his school was selling. She said no. "We have 50 new books right downstairs," Tanya recalls saying, "and 50 more around the house that haven't been touched." Nicole Singleton says she told Tanya, "If he wants a book, I'll buy him a book." In addition to donations, the Singletons had received some money from the government because they were hurricane evacuees.

"Look," Tanya recalls saying, "that's money we can use for Christmas. I appreciate your point, Nicole, but I'm not putting you down. I know what it's like to pay a mortgage and pay bills...You have to think about saving for a house. You have to think about what happens if something comes up."

That day, Ms. Singleton landed a housekeeping job at a hotel, initially making $4.90 an hour during a training period.

Later that night, she and Tanya went out on the backyard deck and argued. Inside, Dot Singleton told a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, who was making regular visits to the home: "We've been in poverty so long, she doesn't know how to live up here."

The phone rang. It was Tracey Thornbury calling from a road trip. Overhearing the yelling, she asked Dot, "What's going on in there?"

"They're in there carrying on," Dot said. She thought Nicole was being difficult. "I know my daughter, and I'm not going to tell her she's right when she's wrong." She paused, then she said, "Tracey, just one thing. I don't want this to affect my [grandkids]. I've been homeless with my kids, and I don't want to be there no more."

THREE LETTERS ARRIVED AT THE THORNBURY HOME on Saturday, Oct. 1, addressed to Nicole Singleton. Ms. Singleton says they came from Lake Providence, La., and were stamped:

RIVERBEND DETENTION CENTER

MAIL NOT CENSORED

NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR CONTENT

Ms. Singleton was at work. Tanya and Tracey Thornbury opened the letters, which were from Ms. Singleton's boyfriend and which they say suggested he might come to live in Minnesota. "She's telling him where we live, that our house is hers," Tanya recalls saying.

When Ms. Singleton returned from work, the Thornburys say they called her into the dining room. "Have you been writing Tyrone?" Tracey recalls asking.

"No," Ms. Singleton recalls replying.

Tracey grabbed the letters and handed them to Ms. Singleton. Ms. Singleton says she told them, "Maybe I should go out on my own, and then my mama and [her children] can move in."

Dot Singleton, listening from the living room, says she chimed in: "You know I'm not going anywhere until you can prove you're going to get your life together." The Singleton women started to argue. The Thornburys told Nicole she would have to leave soon.

Tracey says they opened the letters "for the safety of my kids." She adds, "What if I wouldn't have read the letters, and her boyfriend showed up at my house thinking it's Nicole's house? How do I know someone's not going to come and shoot me in the middle of the night?"

Two days later, on Oct. 3, Good Morning America aired a segment on the Thornburys and Singletons shot two weeks earlier. The reporter called it "a heartwarming story of two very different families' efforts to become one." Later that day, the Thornburys say they called Ms. Singleton's boyfriend's parole officer and learned the man could be released soon. "We felt it was going to jeopardize the safety of our house," Tracey says. They made plans to take Ms. Singleton to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.

Ms. Singleton says she was happy to leave. She acknowledges her boyfriend "was a bad boy... but people change."

On Oct. 5, the day she was leaving the Thornburys, Nicole Singleton says she awoke in her basement bedroom, prayed and read her Bible. Then she packed her belongings into tattered suitcases and plastic bags, and carried them to the donated van in which Tracey Thornbury would drive her to the Twin Cities.

Tanya recalls hugging Ms. Singleton and saying, "I'm just really, really sorry. I only wish you the best."

"Thank you," Ms. Singleton recalls saying.

That night, she checked into a motel along a highway in Roseville, a suburb of St. Paul. The local Red Cross chapter arranged to pay for her room for a month, as it had for other hurricane survivors. She poked her head in the door and flicked on a light. "It's all right," she said, happy to have some privacy. "Ain't nothing like your own."

Ms. Singleton found another hotel housekeeping job, hoping to save enough for an apartment. Although her new life was 1,300 miles up the Mississippi River from her tough neighborhood in New Orleans, sometimes it felt a lot closer. One night, she had to shoo away two men who showed up at her door. Another night, she awoke to sirens as police broke up a fight in another room. She says she was propositioned by a man who thought she was a prostitute, and learned a woman she'd befriended was addicted to crack-cocaine. "I've been through too much to get here, just to go back," she said.

BACK IN MONTEVIDEO, Ms. Singleton's children went about their routine, accustomed to being cared for by their grandmother. The eldest, Brittany, arrived on a bus from Baton Rouge. Helen was delighted to be given the basement: For the first time in her life, she had her own room. She said she didn't miss her mother. "She hasn't been on my mind lately," she said.

The adults continued to quarrel. The Thornbury women griped that Dot Singleton, who'd taken a hotel housekeeping job and had for the first time opened a checking account, wasn't pulling her weight with housework. Dot Singleton says she gave up trying to clean the house because it got messy again too quickly. She says Tanya Thornbury tried too hard to impose her views, rather than accepting their differing opinions.

The Thornburys thought Dot drank too much. She sipped from a bottle of Crown Royal whiskey that she kept on her bedroom windowsill. Dot says she drank to relieve the stress of living in the Thornbury house. She also grew irritated that the Thornburys allowed their four cats to roam through the house, even on kitchen counters.

One Sunday in October, tensions were running high. Dot wondered about the donations. "You haven't been honest," she recalls saying.

"I've gone above and beyond for you people. I've loved these kids like my own," Tracey says she responded.

Dot threw up her hands and stomped into her room. Tracey says she followed her, shouting. As Tracey got close to Dot, 16-year-old Brittany jumped between them and started slapping Tracey on her arms and face, according to Dot Singleton and Tracey Thornbury. Tracey restrained the girl, then turned to Dot. "Dorothy," she said. "I want you out of my house."

The argument spilled outside. Neighbors came out to watch. Tracey called the police to report she'd found marijuana in Dot's room; it turned out to be a cigarette. Bruce Kann, chief of the Montevideo Police Department, says the city has domestic disputes "all the time. But this is different. There's a whole lot of stress, I suppose, with that many people."

News of the incident made its way around town. Pastor Woolverton says locals had been "so encouraged and supportive. And now, to see this family disintegrating because of whatever realities they brought with them, or some dysfunctions or cultural differences, is painful."

Dot Singleton moved in with a friend she'd made in Montevideo. She took Brittany, Ebony and Judas Singleton to live with her, while Helen, Esau and Raheem Singleton remained with the Thornburys.

On Oct. 17, the kids' first day at school after Dot left, Tanya Thornbury folded clothes and vacuumed Dot's old room while worrying about what might happen when classes let out. Would Dot show up at the school and whisk her three grandchildren away? Or would she come to the Thornbury house after school and try to get the kids to leave? Might the police have to be summoned?

"Can you imagine what the kids are thinking?" Tanya said, as she scrubbed a steel pot that afternoon. "They're probably in school, thinking, 'Are Tanya and Tracey packing up our stuff?' "

When the children arrived home at 3:30, Tanya and Tracey were waiting outside their house to greet them. So was Dot. Raheem, his book sack bouncing on his back, walked right past his grandmother. "That's all I get?" she said.

He stopped. He looked at the ground, then looked up at Tracey and Tanya. He stretched out his arms to Dot and said, "Can I stay?" Dot stroked his knotty hair. "Yeah," she said. "But we gotta get our own place." Tracey wrapped her arms around both of them.

"We ain't mad at each other," Dot said. "We can't get along sometimes, that's all."

She didn't want her grandkids to live with the Thornburys any more, but she didn't want to leave Montevideo. Dot felt she'd seen a big improvement in her grandchildren's spirits and attitude toward school. She thought their chances of success were greater in Minnesota than in Louisiana.

ON OCT. 26, NICOLE SINGLETON CALLED and told her mother she'd met a Twin Cities pastor who was arranging for the family to have a three-bedroom house for one year, rent-free. Social-services officials helped Dot arrange to gather all her grandchildren and leave. Dot says she didn't tell the children or anyone else out of fear the Thornburys might hear of her plans and try to derail them.

The next day, Tanya Thornbury says she received a call saying officials from Chippewa County Family Services would come to her home the next morning to pick up the Singleton children so they could move with their grandmother. When they came home from school, she told them they would be leaving. That night, the two oldest Singleton boys and all the Thornbury boys slept in the same room. "They're not like guests," said 12-year-old Ryan Thornbury. "They're like family."

Shortly after 6 the next morning, Tanya rose to prepare the children for school. She called into the basement for Helen Singleton. There was no answer. The girl was gone. Panicked, Tanya called the police.

Helen was still missing when three social-service workers showed up at 8:20 a.m. Tanya gave Esau Singleton her phone number, a $20 bill, and a stack of McDonald's coupons. "Hide this and don't give it to any of the adults, you hear me?" she said. She kissed the boy on the forehead, and walked him outside to a van. She kissed Raheem goodbye. After the van pulled away, Tanya says she went into her kitchen, fell to her knees and prayed.

Pastor Woolverton found Helen later that morning. She says she left the Thornbury home around midnight and went to a teacher's house, where she snuck into the attic and hid. After being reunited with her grandmother later that day, Helen moved with her siblings to Minneapolis. "I want to live with Tracey," the 14-year-old said, explaining why she ran away. "I have friends there, and I went through enough already. I want to make a new life."

Tanya and Tracey Thornbury say they underestimated the complexity of having so many people in their house. "I didn't think someone's going to come and try to take advantage of me," Tanya says. "I just wanted to help someone. I think Dot and Nicole just weren't ready for it." Tracey says, "We've busted our asses. I won't help anyone for the rest of my life. I won't put my family through it."

Nicole Singleton says living in the Thornbury home came to feel like living on "Tulane and Broad," a reference to the New Orleans intersection near the Orleans Parish Prison. "They'd be making decisions for us, like we're kids or something," she says. She continues to live at the Roseville motel.

Dot says she wishes she could have stayed in Montevideo, "but I can't have this drama every day." She worries about living in Minneapolis, a bigger city with more crime. "All I can do while I'm down there is pray that my children don't go astray. That's all I can do, put it in the hands of the Lord."

She and her six grandchildren moved into a three-bedroom white house in a working-class neighborhood of blacks, Latinos and Asian-Americans in Minneapolis. A Twin Cities church has offered to pay rent and utilities for up to a year, and another church will provide food and other essentials. Pastor Woolverton sent the pastor of the Twin Cities church a check for $2,500 – funds that were donated to the Singletons.

Helen Singleton is back to sharing a bedroom. Standing on the front steps of her latest home, she rolled her eyes as two young men in puffy jackets, sagging jeans and boots walked by. "I have a feeling it's going to be like New Orleans," she said. "We'll probably be homeless again and starving. They're only paying rent for a certain amount of time, and after that, we got to pay, and we won't have the money, and then we'll have to go."

• Read part one of Steven Gray’s Wall Street Journal series about the human toll of Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath.