Plenty of womenand a few good menhave made Shirley Bathgate into the woman she is today. In this autobiography/memoir, she relives her childhood in Detroit, where she enjoyed exploring the alleys and playing at the big fire station at the end of her block with her brother and cousin. But life wasnt without hardships. After her father completed basic training, he was shipped overseas, where he spent almost a month going from unit to unit until he winded up at the last major battle of World War IIthe Battle of the Bulgewhere he died December 21, 1944, in his first real day of action. As an adult, she went on vacation to more than twenty countries in Eastern and Western Europe, South America, Asia, two former Soviet Central Asian republics, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji. She shares her experiences as a missionary in ten countries with six different mission organizations, including her work helping missionary James Kilgore photograph and interview women from the Central Asian republics who converted from Islam to Christianity.