Many people have interesting childhoods, eccentric relatives, go off to college, and set out as adults to make their way in the world. Few people are as keenly observant or can write as compellingly about these experiences as does Helen Blackshear in this inviting memoir. Here we are invited into extended Southern families and are given glimpses of a world that no longer exists — of genteel women’s schools, of college towns when they were small communities, of first car trips and first suitors and a young girl’s coming of age. The author recalls us back to her world in the early to mid-twentieth century, and reveals in the process her own generous spirit and wise heart.