Daria Doering

Mrs. Mike

by Benedict and Nancy Freedman

This is one of the most affecting books I’ve ever read.  It was billed as a romance, and the reviewers seemed so enthusiastic about it that I decided to read it, despite my fearing it would be lightweight.  The opposite turned out to be the case.  As well as being a romance, the story is incredibly tragic, and true.

Katherine is a sickly girl who is sent to Canada to live with an uncle and improve her health.  There she meets Mike Flanigan, a Canadian mountie, falls in love and they decide to marry.  The first tragedy is that in those days, that meant a decision to be almost completely and permanently cut off from her family in Boston.  Her mother could not afford to come to the wedding, or even to find out about it until after it happened, since the only communication available was a twice yearly mail delivery.

Katherine goes to live among a population of trappers and Indians.  There are only a handful of other white women.  The Indian women are often treated very badly.

The book is filled with unforgettable stories, and gave me a very different perspective on life, and knowledge of a place and time where life was very hard but heroic.  Women speak of their “first, second and third families.”  Disease epidemics wipe out the old and the young in villages repeatedly.  Encounters with bears can be gristly.  And finally, World War I wipes out many who remain.

At a particularly low point Katherine travels back to her family in Boston, and doesn’t know if she will return to her husband and the north.  But after experiencing the pettiness among her mother’s boarders, she realizes where her heart and home are, and that she would rather deal with life and death problems than trivial ones.

The book felt like one long lesson in “don’t sweat the small stuff.”  The way Katherine dealt with her husband was also helpful to me.  It is written in a simple style, but very effectively conveys Katherine’s feelings and experiences.  It has changed my view of the world and how I treat my children as well.