Life has been good to Gloucester native Louise D. Cosby, and she’s happy to tell that to anyone.

Although she has moved out of her Hayes home of 55 years and into a retirement home in Gloucester Court House, the 88-year-old lifelong educator and musician continues to be active and productive. She reads, puts together jigsaw puzzles, entertains friends, and gets out and about regularly.

“I go to everything I can go to,” she said. “If you don’t use it, you lose it.”

Born Louise Dabney in 1927, Cosby grew up on T.C. Walker Road in Roanes. Her parents, John Edward “Ned” and Ruth Ellen Dabney, were hard working people and strict but loving parents who emphasized the importance of being polite and well-mannered.

Ned, who had tried his hand at commercial fishing and at working as a maître d’hôtel at Seawell’s Ordinary, eventually settled into life as a butler for well-to-do white families, both in Gloucester and in ot...