Journal Into Yesterday

About the Book

The story is set in a small prairie town in pre-World War II years and is about the experiences of Anne, a creative and imaginative young girl. She loves her mother even though she does not help when her older brother, Horace, is being a bully to her. Anne loves her father, particularly when he is drunk and can tell her that she is special. And, she loves her identical twin baby brothers unconditionally.

Anne lives in Drumheller, Alberta, and thinks it is the best place in the whole world. She has special friends both adults and peers, special places, trees, flowers and the surrounding hills that nurture her.

Anne's memories include the exciting and disappointing sight of a bare-naked boy, the horror of the accidental death of a school mate and how her runaway imagination was cured in the face of her father's explosive temper.

About the Author

These stories are based on the memories of a highly imaginative little girl who spent the first 13 years of her life in the Drumheller Valley. To her, Drumheller was the best possible place in the world to live with its crocus-covered hills, mysteriously shaped hoodoos and a river that curled around its edges. There were talking trees and flowers to listen to her stories and painful and inexplicable experiences for her to try and sort out. The little girl hopes you'll enjoy her memories and the adult of that child hopes it will bring to mind memories of your own.

Lois Petty, nee Parker, moved with her mother and brothers to BC in 1940, as World War II was getting underway. Her father, a captain in the 1st Division was sent first to Camp Borden and then overseas with his regiment.

The change from prairie landscape to coastal mountains was immense and with time, Lois grew to love the lushness of the coast. She never forgot her prairie roots and prairie friends and her journal recollections are a testament to those deeply-imbedded influences.

Lois' husband was a member of the BC Forest Service and together they spent much of their married life in the remote areas of British Columbia. It was here they raised their children and here she began her twin vocations of writing and theology. Although she has been a poet for many years, she has now begun to write fiction as well. She and her husband live in Ashcroft, BC, where Lois is a deacon at St Alban's Anglican Church.