There’s a family mythology surrounding my mother.When she was a teenager, she left little Prince Edward Island to work at the beautiful St. Andrew’s By the Sea in New Brunswick for the summer. I don’t know exactly what she did there, but it was some sort of appropriate summer work for a teenage girl in the early 1950s.
Apparently she met an older “millionaire” couple from the United States and they liked her so much that they wanted to adopt her! My mum had golden ringlets, dancing brown-velvet eyes, and a fun sense of humor. But who adopts a teenager?! And who would leave her precious PE Island for good, except for a silly, overly ambitious girl?
Anyway, my mum returned home to complete her education, but the mythology remained. Growing up, I thought this scenario terribly romantic in an Anne of Green Gables sort of way.
My mum's in the second row from the bottom, the tall blonde to the right of the ladies and gent in black (in the front row).
Who knows what kinds of magical encounters could take place at this pretty hotel by the sea?
7 comments:
I love this story. I'd like to be adopted by American millionaires with an interest in small urban gardens and Victorian restoration!
Ah...a kinder gentler time when a teenage girl could leave her family and work at a hotel for the summer without anything untoward happening...except an offer of adoption by an American millionaire.
What a great story!
What a lovely story. It does sound like something you'd read in a book.
Thanks for the warm words, all. And I have indeed been thinking about writing a longer piece about this. Perhaps when I'm on the Island this summer!
Sounds lovely. Actually my grandmother adopted a fully-grown man in Korea (my mother was already a grown woman and had been in the States; to this day they have not met). She still sees him every time she goes to Korea!
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