A Century In A Small Town: One Family's Stories

by Evelyn Sangster Benson

Through oral history, Evelyn Benson succeeds in capturing the ambience of a small town in the Pacific Northwest by relating real-life events that happened to ordinary people through four generations. Learn about "street games", "Sunday Blue Laws", "wartime rations" and life before antibiotics and deodorants. With every story, young readers will learn something new, and old-timers will experience a flood of nostalgia. The author's folksy way of telling stories immediately engages readers of any generation. Read about: - the day an irate sports fan took a pistol shot at a referee - the horror and the humour of trench warfare as witnessed by a youngbuck private in WW I France - the fear all mothers felt as they fought deadly infections before the miracle of antibiotics - riding in the open trunk of a car on a family outing to the beach - witness the penitentiary escape of the infamous train robber Billy Miner through the eyes of three eleven year old boys Its people, their problems, their secrets and day-to-day happenings could be anywhere. The book is arranged in three eras: Part I 1893-1938 covers the late Victorian era, World War I, the Twenties and Thirties. Part II 1939-1947 describes the WW II years when the author was a child. Part III 1948-1993 brings us to the Fifties when she was a teenager, and beyond. As a high school substitute teacher for 27 years, Evelyn captivated her students with tales "of bygone years" and they urged her, "Mrs. Benson, you should put your stories in a book " This is that book. Many of the stories were passed down through family lore or recorded from interviews. The author lived many of the events herself. Evelyn Benson is uniquely qualified to author this book. Her middle class family has lived in the same town since 1893. Five generations have lived in the same house where many of the stories take place. Although New Westminster is in British Columbia, Canada, it could be a small town anywhere in North America. Most photos in this book were taken by the author's father who got his first camera in 1904. Over one thousand of his negatives were gifted to the New Westminster Archives in 2013, slated for display on the New Westminster City website.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1895493021
• ISBN13: 9781895493023
• Release Date: October 2013
• Publisher: Westminster Publishing
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 7.4" x 9.7"