Elizabeth Murphy's Blog

If it hadn’t been for the opportunity to read my mother’s diary, this story would never have been told. Her first entry was as follows: Sitting at our table at Hill Crest. New Year’s Day. No snow. Had a dance at Hall tonight. My mother, eighteen-year-old Maisie, was at home at Branch, Newfoundland, on holiday from her clerk-stenographer position at the Fort Pepperrell base where she worked from 1944 until her marriage in 1949. Maisie’s descriptions of life in St. John’s featured parties, dances, concerts, movies, sports, and other forms of entertainment—nothing like what I’d expected for wartime.

Curious, I began reading books and articles about the period. What stood out was the positive social and economic transformation of Newfoundland during the Second World War. Before long, I’d imagined a story centred around themes of coming-of-age, development of agency, self-discovery, and determination.