In this personal memoir, the author shares engaging stories about being a latch-key kid growing up in the American Midwest during the 1930s and `40s. Her father, `shellshocked' in World War I, had a dramatic impact on the family. Her mother, as a single parent, raised her through the hardships of the Great Depression. Janet grows from a lonely child to a twenty-year old mother, and blossoms into a complex woman who has uncommon experiences with family, friends, work, travel, health, and her sixty-five years of marriage to one man.