<I>Eat, Drink &amp; Be Merry</I> is an entertaining and poignant memoir that begins with a curly-haired little girl whose life turned tragically upside down when she was five years old. Merry humorously and joyfully recounts stumbling into womanhood and taking on marriage, motherhood, and the classroom. An offspring of rural Iowa in the fifties, she learned to dance even when life didn't throw her a party. Readers can sense her innate passion for family and friends, but especially for kids. Merry's story is intended to be a legacy for her GRANDkids, but booklovers struggling with their own survival can elicit a couple of lessons (and recipes, too) from this gutsy risk-taker whose fate became her fortune.