I wouldn't want to read it today though, because parts are too sad. As a volunteer gravestone photographer, I can barely handle reading the old stones that tell a tale of diphtheria decimating a family, multiple siblings dying in the same week, or sometimes the same day. In Mrs. Mike you get to know the children first.
I looked to see what Wikipedia had to say about the book, and learned that it's probably much more fiction than fact. One reviewer said in 1947, "Nothing in [the book] even approaches the truth." I find that oddly reassuring.
The title puts me off, but the fact it was written so long ago would excuse it! And who cares whether it was true or not - you loved it, and that's what is important.
ReplyDeleteYes, I didn't think twice about the title when I was a kid. Or even later, as the title comes from the name given to the heroine by the native population. It reminds me in a way of the name given to my mother by a Chinese woman she befriended: Madam 3E. (3E was our apartment number.)
DeleteAs for truth or fiction, I'm just glad the children didn't really die. And maybe the house didn't burn down either.
In my inlaws' hometown there's a cemetery with a large family plot. They lost 6 children, all the children they had but one, in the 1918 flu epidemic in a single week. The couple then went on to have 4 more children and those, along with the baby who escaped the flu, lived to adulthood, marriage, etc. I can't fathom it, being them or the children--their flu survivor was an infant so none of their second set of children would have even known the first.
ReplyDeleteIt was a tragically common occurrence. Sometimes babies weren't even named before they were three, so high was the likelihood that the parents would lose them. I can't imagine how they kept from being attached. And if they succeeded in distancing themselves emotionally, how did that affect the child going forward?
DeleteThis was another book my mom insisted that I read. I did but the only thing I remember about it was that someone had pleurisy. It sounds like I wasn't paying attention.
ReplyDeleteWell, the pleurisy was important! Critical to the entire plot, actually. :-)
DeleteBecause if she hadn't gotten pleurisy, she never would have gone to Canada, never have met the Mountie, never have become Mrs. Mike. And then where would we be?
DeleteSee, I didn't remember that. I need to re-read this book. I know my mom loved it. The other book she urged me to read that I did was "Man Called Peter, A : The Story of Peter Marshall"
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