# 1 OPEONGO LINE 1907

CLONTARF, RENFREW COUNTY, ONTARIO 1907

It's about as far away from the English countryside of my youth as I can imagine.

Yet this dusty road feels like an English lane. It's not paved; has washouts where overflowing steams gain the right-of-way; rabbits scampering in the morning mist and the crows' cawings worry the air here too. This is where the likeness ends.

Split rail fences wind spider-like at the fields' perimeters;broken teeth tree stumps cling tenaciously in the middle of crops; log barns and outbuildings brave the barnyards ever fearful of the encroaching forest and lonely hayfields and cow pastures peek furtively from behind second growth conifers thronging the roadside like children at a parade.

But hold a minute. People live here and they do speak English. Of a sort. Not 'The Queen's English' but with pride in knowing the Irish, French and Germans were here first. They sculpted forests into farms; piled stones praying vainly that no more would surface in spring and gave the English language a sweet twist.

These same people share joy and sorrow, hope and despair, love and loss, rage and humility as the Englishman does. And most of all they have children.

Barefoot in summer children; fishing pole children; out early to do their chores children; walking miles to school children; playing in the hayricks children and children who have no mothers.

Tom and Mary. These are the two children I have come to mother. I will share my own four sons’ lives with them. Lives overshadowed by the death of my three husbands and their one sweet sister. Two are already fine young men in spite of England and two are yet children.

England is dead to me but the loved ones I lost there still haunt me here.