The 4 remaining letters between Mary Ellen Scanlon's great-grandmother and grandmother
'It's a story that happened all over the north'
There are only four letters left of a correspondence that existed between Mary Ellen Scanlon's great-grandmother and grandmother.
The letters are from the winter of 1922.
Her great-grandmother lived on a farm on the south shore of Lake Nipissing. Her grown daughter lived with her husband and three children just a short distance away, in the village of Nipissing.
At the time, there were no roads to connect the two. So the only way to keep in touch was to write.
"It was a big deal to travel that distance," said Scanlon.
Her great-grandparents moved to the south shore of Lake Nipissing from North Bay in 1896, so they'd been living on the property for a few decades. The land was very hard to farm and her existence was very tough, she added. They grew vegetables, raised chickens and cattle.
"The men in the family rowed what they produced across the lake to North Bay and Calendar to sell it," said Scanlon. It was always a struggle to make it through the winters.
The letters are very newsy. Scanlon said the letters show an underlying concern about money and a sense of desperation to have enough food for the animals.
"It's a story that happened all over the north," she said.
There is also a lot of joy in the letters, Scanlon said. There are also words of advice, love for the grandchildren and concern for her daughter.
"What strikes me is that these letters and letters like them ... are a description of lives of women historically," Scanlon continued.
"We hear a lot about the people who get the streets named after them and the public buildings, but women's history is hidden in things like letters."
Scanlon says she spends a lot of time on the property where the farm once stood, and that makes reading the letters even more special.
"When I look at the lake, a beautiful sunset on the lake, it strikes me that my great-grandmother saw the same sunset."