A Canadian Girl's Memoir: The Early Years

By Charles Eastland

A Canadian Girl's Memoir: The Early Years, is an account of a friend's childhood on the St. John River in New Brunswick Canada just before WWII when King George VI and Queen Elizabeth were Canada's Royalty. On summer nights from her farmhouse she could hear the bugle sounds lifting over the trees from the great island in middle of the St. John River where the Carlton-York Regiment were stationed. Later Doris describes her meeting Jimmy, that bugle boy who gave her the first kiss.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles Eastland
• Release date: Dec 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9780984507719

Charles Eastland

Entity Enterprises.com Publishing is committed to bringing the eclectic works of Charles Eastland to the reading world. These inclue stories, novellas, stage plays,screenplays and poetry collections. A futuristic adventure novel is in progress.Visit us ocassionally at Entity Enterprises.com, and here at Smashwords.com, to see the works as they become available on the sites under construction.First entry will be: The Fire Poems, by Charles Eastland--available now on Amazon.com.Charles Eastland writes in Maine,Canada and in the Carribean.

Book preview

A CANADIAN GIRL’S MEMOIR

The Early Years

by

Charles Eastland

Smashwords Edition

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Published on Smashwords by:

Entity Enterprises Publishing

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A Canadian Girl’s Memoir—The Early Years

Copyright L.O.C. 2009, 2010, 2014 C. Eastland

ISBN: 978-0-9845077-1-9

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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Read also by Charles Eastland

THE FIRE POEMS

KEEPER OF THE TUSK

AN ANGEL ALONG THE WAY

Available at [e-mail] and other fine retailers.

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"As people grow older... they come at length to live so much in memory that they often think with a kind of pleasure of losing their dearest possessions. Nothing can be so perfect while we possess it as it will seem when remembered".

—Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

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CONTENTS

Author’s Preface

1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18

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Author’s Preface

This brief memoir is dedicated to my Dear Friend, Doris. She was born in Woodstock, New Brunswick, Canada. Her maiden name at the time was B. Doris Monteith. Much of the story here is set on the two farms overlooking the Saint John River where Doris experienced life as a young girl. It then follows her move to Aroostook County, Maine, her marriage and life with children in The County. Later, Doris and her husband Gene moved their family to Massachusetts. After a few years they return to live in southern Maine.

How this little gem of a story came to be.

I met Doris and her husband Eugene some years after she returned from Massachusetts to live in Southern Maine. Over the next twenty-five years, as happens with us all, many changes took places in Doris’ life. During that time we became close friends. We shared our personal life stories, played music gigs for veterans and seniors homes, shared out personal stories and all the daily stuff of life, as old friends do.

After Eugene died, Doris was living in a nice senior home in Maine. She adjusted well to her new life and was contented. I visited her often and she would repeatedly tell me of her hours alone. I reminisce so much lately about my childhood days. I can see my family … it’s all so vivid … back then, when I was a girl growing up on the farms in New Brunswick. We were poor … but if guests dropped in Mom would say, ‘Doris … .go out to the barn and see if the hens have a few eggs for our guests.’ We always managed to find something to put on the table for them.

It became clear to me as time went on, that Doris felt as deep a connection to her past as she did to her present life. The stories presented here, were from her favorite reminiscences during the days and hours alone in her apartment. She told me she would rather sit and look out her upper level window, watching the comings and goings of people in the large parking lot below—and thinking about her childhood days up in Woodstock, Canada. She enjoyed her trips in memory lane, more than watching TV. But Doris rarely missed her evening TV favorites—Wheel of Fortune, followed by Jeopardy. And for some years, she watched the Laurence Welk

Reviews for A Canadian Girl's Memoir

[Eoura Cambell · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A short but very real biography of a fascinating time gone by in New Brunswick, Canada and the state of Maine. The story appears to have been written from many years of conversations, the storyteller's oral history, and from her scant few notes, then interpreted and written for her by Eastland. Interesting the way he puts the story as if she were writing it, as he'd "heard these stories so many times." It is a sweet gift to a friend, and it has an honest down to earth ring. I appreciated the humor and sadness in the woman's memoir, and the detailed intro by the author was helpful. A good quick enjoyable read worth the time. I am reading Charlie Eastland's other book now, "The Fire Poems," and can't put it down.

E. Cambell