This week I participated in a reading of segments from a book in which I had contributed seven stories. The stories were of women who had influenced me throughout my life and left an lasting impression.
This is me reading one of the stories from the book in the Woodstock, N.B. Library.
How it all started-
My childhood friend, Anne Murphy, messaged me to see if I would write some stories about the women I had known when growing up in our small village. She was compiling a book entitled
“Women Of Western New Brunswick.”
There was a set form to follow at the start of each story. This is also a wonderful record to have of family members and others who have left their earthy body.
NAME-
BORN -
PARENTS -
SIBLINGS -
MARRIED -
CHILDREN -
DIED -
BURIAL -
Some research had to be done to gather the above information. Often I was able to find information through cemetery records.
Finding the information for the start of a story put me in the mindset to flesh out what I knew of each woman’s life. I like to think their spirit was beside me as I wrote and would approve of what I had remembered and written about them.
The book was to be a cross section of women who were born or lived in the Western part of the Canadian province of New Brunswick.
I put my thinking cap on and started writing the first two stories about my mother and my grandmother. From there, memories flooded back to me.
It’s funny how even if you think you don’t know enough to write two sentences about someone from your past, if you think about them, many thoughts will come to your mind. In the end I wrote seven stories of women who had lived through hard times, good times, lost children and husbands. Throughout the stories the struggles of women and their resourcefulness and ability to cope under trying circumstances is explored.
Besides myself., there were about 22 contributors including my friend, Anne Murphy. She organized and published the book on Amazon.ca.
Included in my stories were ones of my mother, my paternal grandmother, an aunt, two friends of my mother, a young vivacious woman who survived a stroke and a story of the women who helped in making the St. Francis of Assisi Skiff Lake Shrine a yearly success.
The writing of the book brought many in the community together and they loved sharing the stories of remarkable women who, although no longer with us, will be immortalized in the book.
This is the cover of the book.
It was fun putting the stories together. Perhaps, in the near future, Anne will have a book on the men, of this region. I know a few I could write about.
