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"Where do I belong?"
In 1912, Mary Louisa Appleton is 27 years old and a domestic servant in Cornwall, England. She sees no future there, so she accepts employment with a family returning to Alberta, Canada. It is the land of unlimited opportunity, or so she has heard.
Once in Canada, Mary faces the dilemma of all immigrants - where does she belong?
She is conflicted: her body is in Canada but her heart is in England. She longs to return to England but wars, marriage, children, the Dirty Thirties, and economic circumstances conspire to keep her in Canada.
Then Mary faces a crisis, and she has to decide where she belongs.
Searching for Home is the story of the author's maternal grandmother and her journey to learn that home is as much a place in the heart as it is a place on the landscape
About the author
I now live in Airdrie AB but I grew up just outside a tiny village in southwestern Saskatchewan, on the farm that my paternal grandfather homesteaded in 1910, in the house that he built between 1917 and 1926. I was a voracious reader and, through reading, I discovered archaeology. It sounded like the neatest, most fun way to spend one's life. I have not been disappointed. After 12 years of university (McGill, U. of Manitoba and U. of Calgary), and after numerous summer jobs and contracts in both Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan, I finally was hired as curator at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum in Regina. Among other duties, I was in charge of the development of the First Nations Gallery which required extensive and close collaboration with First Nations elders, artists, and dancers. My archaeological research focused on northern Saskatchewan where I worked with Cree families and communities. In 2005, I traveled to Cairo to visit friends. There, I crossed paths with another of their friends. A year later, I was engaged to him. In August 2007, I married Roger Clayton of Airdrie, whose family has been here since the 1890s, and a month later I retired from the RSM and moved to Airdrie.
