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Pat Mattaini Mestern

Goodreads Author

Born

in Wellington County, Ontario, Canada

Genre

Historical Fiction, History, Literature & Fiction

Influences

My extended family - grandmother, parents, the characters that I've me ...more

Member Since

October 2008

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/mestern

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A Glimpse Into a Well Known Author’s Life:
Hello there. Thanks for dropping in for a browse-round. Perhaps a little bit about me would pique your interest in my books? I spent my childhood years in an eccentric, chaotic environment which guaranteed a titillation of the senses. I absorbed information and history through the vibrant lifestyles and memories of my grandmother, mother, father and a plethora of interesting people that lived in the area. I was surrounded by books, music and stimulating conversation. I was allowed to read any book that piqued my attention, no questions asked.
Mother, who could turn a loaf of bread and a tin of sardines into a meal for twenty, was a down-to-earth, sensible person with a wonderful sense of humour. Sh A Glimpse Into a Well Known Author’s Life:
Hello there. Thanks for dropping in for a browse-round. Perhaps a little bit about me would pique your interest in my books? I spent my childhood years in an eccentric, chaotic environment which guaranteed a titillation of the senses. I absorbed information and history through the vibrant lifestyles and memories of my grandmother, mother, father and a plethora of interesting people that lived in the area. I was surrounded by books, music and stimulating conversation. I was allowed to read any book that piqued my attention, no questions asked.
Mother, who could turn a loaf of bread and a tin of sardines into a meal for twenty, was a down-to-earth, sensible person with a wonderful sense of humour. She was the backbone of the household and had direct links to both Sir Walter Scott and a passenger on the Mayflower. On the other hand, Dad was one of the most eccentric individuals I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. He was born in Canada to parents of Italian heritage and prided himself on being an original back-to-the-lander even though his land was only two acres at the edge of the village. He dabbled in greenhouses, an orchard, beekeeping . . . all the while working full time at a factory job to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads - barely.
Dad’s maternal grandfather worked on the Eiffel Tower in France before immigrating to Wellington County, Ontario. My paternal grandfather, Charlie Mattaini, designed and built many of the beautiful bowstring bridges seen throughout Wellington, Grey, Dufferin and Bruce counties in Ontario. My paternal grandmother, who lived next door, was the only grandparent that I knew. She was passionate about life, an excellent seamstress and an astute business woman, at a time when the words business and woman weren’t thought of in the same sentence. Among other enterprises, she ran a boarding house through which a large number of immigrants passed, each with an interesting story to tell.
I found that history, as taught in school, was boring but I revelled in the anecdotal/folkloric variety heard around the dining room table. I was, and still am, an avid, fast and retentive reader. I did have a great high school English teacher, and mentor, Miss Amy Yourex, who boarded with Grandmother. My learning included attendance at grade and high schools and a stint at a business college where I admit that I went more to learn how to type - fast - then for any other reason.
I’ve never lived more than a mile from my childhood home. As a sweet young thing, I married Ted Mestern, and shortly thereafter moved into a heritage 1879 limestone house, aptly named Stonehome, which is still our home. Assuming the role of wife and mother in this heritage building, that is so powerfully evocative of the past, really matured my potential as a writer of historical fiction, and local history. My creative bent was further stimulated by a stint at the local County Museum where a love of history really came to the fore and took flight. The bent was also fuelled by a full-time job that kept me attuned to local scenarios and happenings, of political and cultural natures for a number of years - all providing food for thought, grist for the pen.
After moving into Stonehome, Clara Young, the main character in my first novel, “Clara”, was quick to imprint her unusual talents into my fertile mind, even though she’d been dead for thirty-four years. Clara, an eccentric spinster, owned “Stonehome” 1879 through 1931. I began to keep journals, gather folkloric stories and finally turned to writing, my first love - after hubby and children, of course - much to Miss Yourex’s delight because she said that she always knew I’d be a writer. I well remember the pivotal point in this blossoming career. As I left the dinner table one cold, stormy November night in 1977, Ted asked what I had planned for the evening.
“I’m going to write a book. ...more

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Pat Mattaini Mestern's Blog

Amazing what one finds in books.

It is always amazing what books I find when digging around in boxes at sales, and what I find tucked into books. After purchasing six titles at a recent sale, for .25C each, I thumbed through Antony & Cleopatra before donating it to to a Senior Centre's lending libray. Tucked into the middle of the pages, one third the way through the tome was money - $15. As I was twenty miles from where I purcha Read more of this blog post »

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Published on October 15, 2009 13:29

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Pat Mattaini Mestern’s books

Average rating: 4.22 · 50 ratings · 14 reviews · 9 distinct works • Similar authors

	Rachael's Legacy 4.35 avg rating — 20 ratings — published 1988 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Clara : An Historical Novel of an Ontario Town, 1879-1930 really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 12 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Fergus: A Scottish Town By Birthright it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 1995 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	No Choice But Freedom: A Novel of Treachery and Triumph in Colonial America 3.83 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 2006 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Granite 4.50 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2008 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Rachel's legacy 3.50 avg rating — 2 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Magdalena's Song really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 2014	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Vein of Love liked it 3.00 avg rating — 1 rating	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Granite (Large Print 16pt) 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Flowers and Ferns of the United States, Vol. 11

by Thomas Meehan

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Jun 23, 2009 08:08PM

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The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century

by James Howard Kunstler

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Pat wants to read ORIGINAL PATENT APPLICATION NUMBER 6,119 FOR IMPROVEMENTS IN THERMO-ELECTRIC BATTERIES (LONDON). by James John & Richard Mestern. Shedlock	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
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Pat’s Quotes

“Recipe For Greatness - To bear up under loss; To fight the bitterness of defeat and the weakness of grief; To be victor over anger; To smile when tears are close; To resist disease and evil men and base instincts; To hate hate and to love love; To go on when it would seen good to die; To look up with unquenchable faith in something ever more about to be. That is what any man can do, and be great.”
― Zane Grey

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¡ POETRY ! — 22549 members — last activity Mar 04, 2026 01:17PM
No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read it!) Goodreads honors wordsmiths: poets and poetry promoted and prompted here. ~~~ "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits." -- Carl Sandburg “God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.” —Anne Sexton On Clouds – “…what primitive tastes the ancients must have had if their poets were inspired by those absurd, untidy clumps of mist, idiotically jostling one another about…” —Yevgeny Zamyatin “If the poet wants to be a poet, the poet must force the poet to revise. If the poet doesn’t wish to revise, let the poet abandon poetry and take up stamp-collecting or real estate.” —Donald Hall “Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation’s tears in shoulder blades.” —Boris Pasternak “Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket.” —Charles Simic “Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.” —Gustave Flaubert “Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.” —Allen Ginsberg. ~~~~~ Amy King, Moderator Amy King is the recipient of the 2015 Winner of the WNBA Award (Women’s National Book Association). Her latest collection, The Missing Museum, is a winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize. She serves on the executive board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and is co-editing with Heidi Lynn Staples the anthology, Big Energy Poets of the Anthropocene: When Ecopoets Think Climate Change. She is also co-editing the anthology, Bettering American Poetry 2015, and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at SUNY Nassau Community College. ...more

Biographies & Memoirs of Other Generations — 87 members — last activity Mar 06, 2016 01:53PM
A place to share our favourite books about people who mostly made their mark pre-1960. Please add yours to the list! And please do comment on your fav ...more

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