Searching for Home
“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.
Mary finally returns to England in 1952. What she learns surprises her.
Searching for Home is the story of the author’s maternal grandmother as she struggles to find her place in Canada.
Margaret G. Hanna grew up on the farm her paternal grandfather homesteaded in 1908 in southwestern Saskatchewan. After 12 years of university, she worked as a professional archaeologist, first on several short-term contracts in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta, and finally as Curator of Aboriginal History at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum, Regina. She retired in 2007 and moved to Airdrie AB where she lives with her husband and no pets.
She now uses her research skills to explore family and prairie history. For Margaret, writing is a portal to another dimension of reality. When she isn’t struggling to write, she gardens, reads, sews, and quilts. Her dream is one day to master the 5-string banjo, claw-hammer style.
Follow Margaret on Facebook, Blog and website, A Prairie Perspective Her books are available on Amazon, in the Women Writing the West Book Corral, and from her website.
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