Nina Stanton was director and curator of local house museum, The Johnston Collection 2000-2008.  When she died in 2009 she left behind an incomplete memoir with a request to writer and close friend, Mary Ryllis Clark, to complete the work.  It was a complicated project.  Nina had written her story in two streams, one followed the events of her life, in the other she selected objects from The Johnston Collection, using them as examples to teach the history of the decorative arts, but at the same time as triggers or prompts to her memory, linking the objects with the events in her life. Nina had completed a rough draft of her life, and she had selected the objects, but their stories were not finished nor had the links between the objects and her life been established. It has taken Mary several years to accomplish her task but she has now brought it to a magnificent conclusion.  The result is ‘a raw depiction of a painful childhood, a troubled life and finally entry to a world in which she found her passion not only for beautiful objects but a capacity to educate others’.