It was a way of life that truly could be described as the good old days: a childhood growing up in the village of Osterville, Cape Cod, MA, in the 1930s and 40s. Pearl Marney Williams writes about these times in the first third of this book. She describes the beginning, where her family moved to Osterville when she was a baby, her small town upbringing, and the simplicity of the days prior to television and the modern conveniences.

In the second third of the book she describes her marriage to Howard, her family life raising five boys, her post children working career, and her physical decline due to complications of Type 2 diabetes and a slow acting cancer. Pearl writes all of this with wry humor in a simple, storytelling, manner that draws the reader effortlessly from page to page.

The final third of the book, written by family and friends, completes the Pearl and Howard narrative: describing interpersonal relationships that make each friendship unique, and telling the detailed story of this couple’s final battles with cancer and Alzheimer’s. A must read for people wanting to know how families care for one another, and what it’s like to grow old and face mortality.