Shelter by Frances Greenslade
ISBN: 9781451661101
Starts out when Maggie was being told from her dad how to build a shelter. He used to work in Oregon but traveled north to BC to live off the land and avoid the Korean draft. He had come over from Ireland and had enough battles.
He knew many ways to make a shelter and she watched.
Scene at the homefront reminded me of when we first moved to the island-we had to carry our 5 gallon buckets of water up the hill 300 yards and we had no heat for the first several months, outdoor bushes for the bathroom.
After their fathers death they move to a camp where Irene, the mother cooks for those who come to camp. After summer they move in with a local woman who can do/fix anything. After a time they have to leave there and Irene puts the kids in a home with friends of the family-The Edwards while she goes to the logging camps to cook. no kids allowed but her kids will be able to attend school.
When Ted develops cancer she spends time with him in the hospital where he's on morphine for the pain. He tells her all about her father. She and her sister now work after school and their mother's last letter stated she wasn't feeling very well.
They stopped receiving money after that.
Maddie plans a weekend trip to try to find her mother, along with her sister and meet up with some crazy people while hitchhiking.
When Jennie gets pregnant from a boy who's left the area Bea makes a call and ships her out to a home for unwed mothers run by nuns.
She finally tracks down someone who knows Irene's past and divulges secrets to her in hopes it will lead her to find her mother...
Love all the descriptions about the meadows of flowers and other nature. Also learning what they used to keep the deer out of the garden, gonna have to try it.
Canasta talk is cool to read about. Quilt making and the patterns from the Indian tribe women.