New book has local history ties

When your mother leaves a trove of stories as part of her legacy, what else is there to do with them than create a book.

At least that is what the daughters of Janet McLeod have done.

“Our mother passed away in 1991, at the age of 91,” said daughter Karen Cox, adding, “She left many stories.”

Cox who lives in the Detroit, Michigan area, along with sisters Margaret Ebert lives in Phoenix, AZ and sister Elaine Blake lives in London, ON., wanted to share those stories or at least some of them with a broader audience.

“We all served as editors for Memories of the Prairie: A McLeod Family Memoir by Janet McLeod, which is the story of her growing up and teaching in the years 1901-1921 in the area near Yorkton,” said Cox.

Cox said while she and her sisters had a hand in getting the book published, it is her mother who was ultimately the writer of the stories.

“Our mother, the author of the book we just edited, published and rereleased on June 5, 2020, attended elementary school in the Clumber School District, in the Bredenbury area, upper grades in the high school in Churchbridge, and eventually took courses at Normal School in Winnipeg at what became part of the University of Winnipeg,” she explained.

As the story goes McLeod was something of a ground-breaker.

“History has it that she was the first female from that newly settled area to seek higher education,” said Cox.  “She was the daughter of pioneers who emigrated from Scotland in the late 1800’s as adults and met and married in Canada.

“They valued education sufficiently and, seeing how smart she was, made sacrifices to make her education possible. 

“After graduating from high school in Winnipeg, and taking what was a truncated course at Normal School, because of World War I and the lack of male teachers, she began her teaching at an early age. 

“For two years she taught in schools where she was needed, most notably at the school in the Eden School District, where she met Malcolm McLeod married and “retired”. (Malcolm was the son of Allan and Mary MacLeod, farmers in the Saltcoats area. There are stories about them in the book.  My father, for reasons known only to him, chose to abbreviate his last name, using Mc in place of Mac.”

Cox said the sisters input into the book was more of a management of the material.

“My sisters and I, who served as editors of the book, writing just the editor’s notes, biography, dedication and book cover “blurb”, have no formal education or training as writers,” she said.

But, their mother had a definite interest in the written word.

“Our mother, Janet McLeod the author of the book had a natural affinity for the written word, honed, she always told us, by the education she received from attending schools in Saskatchewan, especially the one room schools where her eager ears picked up all of the poetry and English literature being taught to the older classes,” said Cox. 

As she tells it:

“The year my oldest brother was getting ready for eight grade exams, there must have been English literature requirements.  I remember so well the teacher reading Shelly and having the class memorize.

           Hail to the, blithe spirit

           Bird thou never wert

           That from Heaven, or near it

           Pourest thy full heart

           In profuse strains of unpremeditated art ...

 What thou art we know not;

           What is most like thee?

That was the beginning of my (McLeod’s) love affair with the English language.

 “Indeed, after we showed her stories to a published writer, we were encouraged to publish them, as it was her opinion that not only was the information in them sufficiently interesting, they were also ‘beautifully written’,” said Cox.

Cox said it was the content of the stories which ultimately inspired the sisters to create the book of their mother’s work.

“We knew these lovely stories should not be lost,” she said. “They are a detailed, colourful first person account of life on the prairie of Saskatchewan in the early 1900’s. 

“The experiences of the early pioneers, many of whom were ill prepared to farm, should be a part of the history of what is now often referred to as the bread basket of the world.

“How it became so is a story worth telling. The 1872 Dominion Lands act opened the North West Territories for settlement by giving 160 acers to anyone who could cultivate it and live on it for three years. 

“That promise attracted people from all across Europe, and, most especially in the earliest days, people from the British Isles. The Ross family and the Webster family about whom Janet primarily writes in this book were two Scottish emigrant families who took up the challenge. The adventures they incurred while homesteading, make for entertaining reading, but they are also a reminder of the hard work that was done to make Saskatchewan the prosperous farming area it is today.”

The stories were written over the last years of McLeod’s life, as a sort of testament to what she had experienced.

“(She) wrote these stories in the period encompassing her late 70’s to just before her death at 91,” said Cox. “She was mentally viable and vibrant all of her life and had a remarkable memory. Her obvious love for the land where she was raised seemed to flow through her onto the paper.

“It gave her great joy to settle down in a sunny corner, a tablet of lined notebook paper balanced on a book on her lap, a pen in her hard and recall her life, as she says in the opening line of the book as ‘…..a child of the prairie’.”

Since this was McLeod’s stories, in her own words, the sisters simply smoothed an edge or two, and the book came together quite naturally.

“We, her daughters, did not try in any way to change what she wrote,” said Cox.  “The ‘voice’ in the stories is hers. We did do some fact checking to be sure nothing was misrepresented in her writings. 

“We are also very fortunate that my daughter-in-law, Sandra Vasher, owner of Mortal Ink Press read the stories and encouraged us to make them available to an audience wider than Malcolm and Janet’s the descendants.  She was completely responsible for styling the book, which has as its cover a painting done by our mother, and getting it formatted for sale on Amazon. It is because she donated her services, the book is being offered at cost to anyone who cares to purchase it. 

Cox said the book project was something that became a family joy.

“None of it was challenging for us sisters; it was a labor of love.  I think the challenging, technical work was done by Sandra,” she said.

But, once complete what do the sisters see as the best aspect of the book?

“We wish our mother had left more stories,” said Cox.

But, the book is still a gratifying one.

“It adds to the body of stories of the history about the settling of Saskatchewan,” said Cox.  “Janet felt that many stories have been written about the American west, but too few about the pioneers of the Canadian west.”

Of course the stories deeply resonate for the family.

“It includes a story about our grandparents showing the respect they had for the displaced aboriginal people, the true owners of the plains of Saskatchewan. 

“And a story about her husband’s father, Allan MacLeod, who came down on the side of diversity and inclusion when his Scottish community of Gaelic speakers did not to allow a person of the Jewish faith to open a store in their town of Saltcoats.  His respected opinion that Levi Beck open his store prevailed against the opposition.”

Some stories of course carry more weight than others.

“Perhaps the most poignant story in the book is one about Janet’s brother, who like so many other young men in Canada in 1917, went off to World War I and was killed in the battle of Vimy Ridge,” said Cox.  “As she says in the book, ‘one more flower of the west picked for the carnage in Europe’.”

Cox said she hopes the book finds an audience broader than the family.

She noted obviously the book should interest the descendants of Janet Ross McLeod, her Webster and Ross relatives, many of whom still live in the Yorkton area, the descendants of Allan and Mary MacLeod, then added “but most importantly, any person who is interested in the history of Canada in general and in the development of Saskatchewan in particular. 

“It gives a greater understanding of those who came before and the sweat, toil and tears that went into making this rich agricultural area what it is today.” 

The book is available on Amazon under the title Memories of the Prairie and Other Stories, a McLeod Family Memoir by Janet McLeod.  The electronic version is, of course, readily available on Amazon for Kobo or Kindle.