Beneath The Alders

In the year 1907, all of Brampton is present at the sod-turning ceremony for the Carnegie Library. At the end of the event, the crowd rises as one to walk to the Presbyterian Church for a consecration service... Everyone except Jessie Stephens and her family. Her father will not allow them to enter the Presbyterian Church. No one will tell young Jessie the reason, but she learns that it has something to do with her grandfather Jesse Brady, who built it. As she seeks to solve that mystery over many years, Jessie slowly begins to learn the history of the town in which she lives. Her tales of everyday life in small town Ontario combine to craft a vivid portrait of a life and a family that are, upon closer inspection, anything but ordinary.

On an August afternoon in 1914, the Stephens family acknowledged what most Canadians knew: Canada was at war. They acknowledged it without knowing the innocence they would lose; the beleaguered state they would assume. Welcome to the world of Jessie Stephens, an inquisitive girl about to become a modern woman; her brother who vied for the Mann Cup in Vancouver and military victory in Greece; her sister whose chance for love was put asunder by bigotry. Written by the great-niece of the real-life Jessie, The Beleaguered follows the Stephens family at home in Brampton, to the war effort far beyond.

As the world settled the treaty to the recently concluded war-to-end-all-wars, and as the Canadian government repatriated the brave members of her expeditionary force, Canadians sought two things above all else: an end to the beleaguered state suffered during the war, and a return to the innocence that preceded it. In the final book of the Beneath the Alders trilogy, Jessie Stephens discovers that neither is entirely possible. Set between 1918 and 1931, Jessie comes of age on the heels of the Spanish flu epidemic, in a time where skirt hems rose, marriageable men were in short supply, and compliance with temperance laws fell. As modern medical, dental, and training programs strove to restore the lives of the war's injured, Jessie is a student at the University of Toronto, a mourner in the fields of France, a tourist in European capitals, a love struck guide in the hills of Caledon, and a devoted family member in her home town of Brampton. As she uncovers the secrets that have beset her since her earliest days, and others of more recent discovery, Jessie, her family, and her community begin to mend.