this is the story, in her own words, of an adventurous young woman. Coming from divorced grandparents and parents, she struck out from Akron, Ohio, after high school, modeling shoes in St. Louis and performing in a show on a boat on the Ohio River. She found love at twenty-one and, just after turning twenty-two, married in time to leave Ohio to venture with her husband, raised on an Ohio farm, into the jungles of Sumatra. She went around the world, raised a family in the Philippines, and succeeded against great odds in keeping her family alive in Japanese prison camps during World War II. A strong woman, she demonstrated management capability and great social skills with people at all levels. With only a high school education, she homeschooled her three children, each of whom earned two degrees from well-known universities. Near the end, she used her excellent storytelling skills to dictate her entertaining, humorous, and unselfconscious story to a young neighbor girl. Her son has added family and newspaper photos and provided a setting for her story. The book takes us back to the time of weeks-long ocean voyages on large ships across the Pacific Ocean, face-to-face socializing before social media, and when a college degree was not considered a necessity for success-a time that enchants and instructs.