Mary Soderstrom's Blog

The photo is a good 45 years old, but I love it.  The woman is my mother and the little girls are my daughter and her cousin.  Don't know what story was being read, but it must have been intriguing.  

Grandmothers are great for creating moments to remember, and what they talk about is the heart of our civilization.  Don't forget that!

 PS Wrote a book about remembering in which the role of grandparents, but particularly grandmothers, is highlighted.  Check it out: Before We Forget: How Remembering Will Get Us Through the Next 75 Years.  

 

A year ago we were in Reims, France, visiting the cathedral there, and checking out another Carnegie Library. It was closed because May 1 is a holiday in France, but the building was impressive even from the outside. It was built in the 1920s after much of the city had been badly damaged during the First World War. As a gesture of toward rebuilding civil society the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, helped finance new library buidings in three European cities which had been badly damaged during the war. Reims was one: the others were Belgrade and Leuven. Thinking of Andrew Carnegie's long reach. Compare that with what too many present-day billionaires are doing.  BTW, the trip to France was great. The guy to the right in the photo wearing the dentist-style turquoise shirt is my husband and travel companion. He likes libraries, but what he really wanted to see on the trip was cathdrals--we took four day trips out of Paris to see some on our 11 day jaunt.

 On my to Walla Walla a couple of weeks ago, I stopped to eat lunch in Ritzville, WA, a small town which was once a bustling shipping point on the Northern Pacific railroad. It was such a thriving place that in 1907 the town was able to get a Carnegie Library which is still in operation, one of the few in the world that maintain its original vocation. Trains hauling wheat and coal still roar through the town, but don't stop anymore. Yet when I was there people were reading during their lunchtime break at the old oak tables. Another example of the importance of libraries and archives. Needless to say I told the librarian about my book Before We Forget: How Remembering Will Get Us Through the Next 75 Years!

 Our extremely lovely cat Evi, a Siberian, turned one this week. Such a pleasure to have her around!

Been travelling these last two weeks.  The trip was part book promotion for Before We Forget: How Remembering Will Get Us Through the Next 75 Years, and part visit with family and friends.

Two weeks ago I met up  in Colville WA with an old friend whom I hadn't seen in 60 years.  By then the Easter Bunny had already arrived.  

Here spring is still in waiting in the wings, but perhaps there will be some chocolates hidden some place.
 

 This is where Quebec Highway 132 runs along the Gulf of St. Lawrence on the Gaspé peninsula.  Something is going to give as sea levels rise, and driving it got me thinking about the challenges we face in these difficult times.  

The result was first my book Against the Seas: Savings Civilizations from Rising waters (2023, Dundurn) and now Before We Forget: How Remembering Will Get Us through the Next 75 Years (just published by Dundurn.)  We should try to overcome climate change and the other threats  before us, but when we can't, our memories--individual and collective--are going to be what we need to pick up the pieces.

Spent an interesting and rather weird afternoon Monday at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. The visit was planned several weeks ago, but I never imagined that the world would be plunged in a new war as we walked through the exhibits. "War is not good for children and other living things." Never truer than now.
 

The days are getting longer, and the snow is melting....some days.  What is uncovered can be surprising.

You never know what kind of critters are under the snow!
 

 Happy Valentine's Day!

Don't know what sort of critter made these tracks, now somewhat obscured by blowing snow--mice, squirrel, gnomes.

But whatever it is/was it must be cold, as the temperature hasn't got above -15 C all day.  What a winter!