Let us Talk of Many Things; of Books and Queens and Pirates, of Mystery and Kings...: My spotlight guest: Elaine Cougler and Maggie...

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About the Book

Writing a Book With My Deceased Mother

by Elaine Cougler

My mother passed away twenty-five years ago just short of her seventy-fifth birthday. She never got to see any of the books I have written or, indeed, to see that I morphed from being a high school teacher to becoming an author. She does, however, enjoy pride of place on a prominent wall in my office as I write and she is thus always looking over my shoulder.

Last spring, I pulled out a file of her writing that I had saved for all of those years and discovered a treasure. Mom had written about her own mother’s life, telling in a fictional way of Grandma’s (Maggie’s) charmed childhood, loving family, and her own parents’ less than charming marriage. I was ecstatic.

Immediately Mom’s book began to take shape in my mind.

Mom wrote about the importance of growing up in a nurturing family not by making bold declarations but by showing Maggie’s loving family through plot points in the story and using dialogue to develop the characters. She didn’t mention once WWI which Maggie definitely would have experienced firsthand. Rather my mother let the events of the story encourage the reader to think about what Maggie’s outside world must have been like.

In a similar manner Mom wrote about strong women in a time when they were not supposed to step out of their prescribed roles. Women were to listen to their husbands and do as they were told. (I hope that has changed!) Without giving away the story, I can tell you that Maggie finds her own voice and the grandmother that I knew so many years after the time described in this book was quietly joyful in her life as she made it.

Such things as money being scarce and medical practices being different from our more modern world are addressed in the book as well. The Great Depression and the times before widespread inoculation of children against diseases are shown in plot details throughout the story. We can learn so much about daily living in those times from stories like this.

Sometimes, when working on the pages Mom had created, I was unsure just when the events took place. I knew my grandmother was born in 1890 so the opening scene in the book was about 1895. From there I could surmise approximately when events, such as Maggie’s sons playing hockey and their father coaching them, took place and I could draw on my own knowledge of world and local events at the time. If Mom and I had been working on this together I might have suggested she give some of those time references but, as it was, I decided on a different device. In the places where the story jumped years with no explanation, I inserted myself as a kind of editor and wrote a few sections explaining what might have been left out and explaining just where the next part of Mom’s story picked up. This, then, shows exactly what she wrote and what I wrote.

Many times I regretted not having her to sit and talk with about this. Why did we not realize how precious the time was when she was typing out those pages on her manual typewriter preparing them for me to check over. (I only edited a couple of pages at the first and then life got in the way. I thought she was writing fiction because I didn’t realize Maggie was my grandmother’s nickname long before I was born.) By the time she was writing this, she had lost her central vision in both eyes and could only see peripherally. Her ability to touch type saved the day and though I found it late, we have her wonderful story as a legacy.

Often I encourage others to write their stories. Many of us have had the same experience of our parents not talking much about the past. Perhaps this is because our generation had parents who lived through WWII and would do anything they could to forget it. They wanted to get on with their lives and build a better life for their children. And they did.

The gifts they left us just keep showing up, it seems, like my mother’s story that I’ve put in a format which will last. May a similar thing happen in all of my readers’ lives.

An excerpt from Maggie

Hiram was playing on the floor under the table. He had his favourite collection of toys with him and, every so often, one of them would roll out and get under the feet of one of the girls. With so many people moving around it was kind of dangerous.

“Maggie, take Hiram outside and play with him,” said Cindy, “and don’t take him near that creek.”

Maggie helped her little brother gather up his things and put them in a box. Then she carried it out to the back lawn. Most of the toys that Hiram had were things he got from the mill. There were pieces of wood cut from the ends of boards. They were all kinds of shapes—round ones from the ends of table legs, square ones, oblong ones and some shaped like triangles. The children built all sorts of things from these blocks—houses, barns, henhouses, fences—everything they could think of that made up a home and farm. One of the best things they made was a church and they made it look as much like their own church as they possibly could. Of course, Maggie had to do most of the building because, after all, Hiram was only two years old.

In fact, Maggie got so caught up in her building project that she pretty well forgot that her main job was to keep track of Hiram. As she reached for another block, she suddenly realized that she was all alone. “Hiram?” She called out. Where in the world could he be?

Jumping up, she frantically looked all around her. No Hiram. Then she spotted his white dress far across the field. He was heading straight for the creek, and he was almost there. Run, Maggie, run. She raced across the field in hot pursuit of her little brother who by now was almost at the edge of the water.

About Elaine’s Mother

Alice Garner was born Lillian Virginia Alice Doxey in November 1923, the youngest of four children. She grew up in a musical family and at age eleven walked into the radio station in Stratford, Ontario and got a job. She had her own show for which she had to learn new songs

every week. She went on to marry and have thirteen children of her own with whom she carried on her musical talents, teaching all of them to thoroughly enjoy music. She was active in her farming community rising to become the president of many of the community-oriented groups she joined. She even ran for provincial parliament at one point. In her later years she was working on this story when she passed away.

About Elaine

A native of southern Ontario, Elaine Cougler taught high school and with her husband raised two children until she found time to pursue her writing career. She is the award-winning author of four historical novels about the lives of settlers from the Thirteen Colonies who remained loyal to Britain during the American Revolution. She also wrote Amazon #1 bestseller The Man Behind the Marathons about the incredible life of the man behind Terry Fox's Marathon of Hope, as well as her personal memoir, My Story, My Song, about growing up in rural Ontario with 9 brothers and 3 sisters during the 50s and 60s. Her anthology, Canada: Brave New World, launched in 2023. Elaine is a sought-after speaker talking about many topics related to her writing.

Links

www.elainecougler.com

https://www.facebook.com/ElaineCouglerAuthor

Elaine is also on Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube

Elaine’s books (https://elainecougler.com) are available on Amazon in print and Kindle and on Kobo. Many are in audio format as well (through Audible).

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books written by Helen Hollick

Website: https://helenhollick.net/

Amazon Author Page: https://viewauthor.at/HelenHollick