Family history

A different kind of chicken soup.

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Chicken soup cover_art_209298 I am off to an event that would have given my mother a smile of pleasure. She had a way with words and, for many years, she wrote the Upper Mills news for the St. Croix Courier and it was enjoyed by many people who didn’t even know anyone in Upper Mills. She did some writing and recalled her arrival in Canada in Homeland to Homeland, a personal essay published in Treasued Memories. My mother enjoyed the Chicken Soup for the Soul books and I still have some of her favourites.

The Spirit of Canada is now in stores and tomorrow I am flying to Toronto to attend the official launch because . . . one of my stories, Where Ravens Fly Backwards, is included in this celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday.

I am proud of my country and proud to be a contributor.  Selma (Kater) Smith was born in Amsterdam but she embraced her new country with all her heart—I can not think of one way in which she was not Canadian.  My mother will be in my heart and I know her spirit will be close as I am signing books and enjoying the launch of The Spirit of Canada.

Holding Pattern

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My husband and I are just back from a week in Newfoundland. No writing, but my mother’s story kept asserting itself.

We left very early so I was dozing on the flight to Halifax when I felt the plane turning. when I saw land features re-appear, the pilot confirmed we were circling. “We can’t land in Halifax because of fog. We are waiting to see if it clears.”

I took out a December 2016 Reader’s Digest and, scanning the index, I decided on a memoir, The Chosen Path by Allison Pick. The author recalled hearing a conversation. “My Auntie Sheila was speaking to my mother about a couple they both knew, the husband Jewish, the wife gentile. . . .  So their daughter isn’t Jewish. Because Judaism always comes from the mother.”

It caught my interest—my grandfather, my mother’s father, was Jewish and my grandmother was not. For Allison Pick it was a lightbulb moment that  made her aware of the family secret and lead her on a journey to reclaim her heritage. It wasn’t the same for me—I can’t remember a time when I did not know my mother’s father was Jewish. I also knew that my mother was not Jewish because her mother was not. Family is family; I had no idea of the implications.  Was it a family secret? I didn’t think so, but now I am looking closer.  Continue reading →

Victoria Day Weekend

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On the Victoria Day weekend of 1946 my mother, Selma (Kater) Smith arrived at Pier 21 in Halifax, a Dutch war bride ready to embrace a new life in a new land. She travelled by train to Saint John, NB and  by bus to St. Stephen to join my father, Sidney Smith.

They had married at the Doorn courthouse, in Holland, on December 13, 1945 – five days before my father’s regiment was disbanded and he left for the UK on his way back to Canada.

On the Victoria Day weekend, seventy-one years ago, they began their married life together in Upper Mills, near St. Stephen, NB.

They never talked about the war years and they never talked about their lives before the war.  Several paths to information are now making it possible for me to see Mom as Selma, a unique woman with a fascinating story.