Tender Years

Tender YearsThey came to Canada as newlyweds in 1835 to carve a life out of a rugged wilderness. Ester McWaters Kelly gave birth to 10 children while living in their log home in Ontarios Brooke Township her husband John away working in the Long Point foundry. The homesteaders were the beginning of a long line of hardy Canadian stock visited by writer Helen Kerr in her new book, Tender Years. Kerrs 229 page book chronicles her ancestors passage through young

They came to Canada as newlyweds in 1835 to carve a life out of a rugged wilderness. Ester McWaters Kelly gave birth to 10 children while living in their log home in OntarioÕs Brooke Township Ð her husband John away working in the Long Point foundry. The homesteaders were the beginning of a long line of hardy Canadian stock visited by writer Helen Kerr in her new book, Tender Years. KerrÕs 229-page book chronicles her ancestorsÕ passage through young Canada as well as her own family struggles homesteading in Saskatchewan before drought and the depression drove them out. Tender Years, with original family photographs and letters dating to 1882, also chronicles KerrÕs difficult training years as a nurse in a mental hospital prior to the discovery of mind-altering psychotropic drugs. That training was put to the test during the exciting years she served as a nurse in the Canadian Army in France and England in World War II Ð including her whirlwind romance with a British officer.