Plenty of women--and a few good men--have 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 wasn't 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 II--the Battle of the Bulge--where he died December 21, 1944, in his first real...