BETWEEN US, a memoir by Finnish Canadian author Pirkko Rytkonon reviewed by Elma (Martens) Schemenauer

Author Pirkko Rytkonon has a Finnish heritage. She grew up attending Finnish Free Churches and Finnish Pentecostal Churches. I have a Mennonite background, and grew up attending Mennonite and Alliance Churches. Comparing our backgrounds drew me to her memoir BETWEEN US: A TRUE STORY OF LONGING FOR LOVE AND LETTERS. Set in the early 1970s, it features the long-distance courtship between her as a student in Canada and her future husband, a seminarian in Finland.

 

The Mennonites I grew up with and the Finlanders Pirkko describes both have distinctive food traditions. My parents were Dutch-German Mennonites immigrants from Russia to Saskatchewan. I grew up eating cabbage borscht, pluma moos (plum soup), sausages, and vereniki (like pierogies). As a teenager, Pirkko worked in a Thunder Bay, Ontario restaurant that served beef stew, kalakeitto (lake-trout stew), and Finnish pancakes. She ate rye bread at her grandmother's house in Finland, and pulla (sweet bread) in many Finnish and Finnish Canadian households.

 

Pirkko and I both grew up in faith communities that valued Bible study, prayer, God's guidance, missionary work, and high standards of Christian conduct. Many Mennonites I grew up with frowned on dancing, smoking, drinking, and going to movies. Pirkko's experiences in her Finnish community were similar in this regard.

 

Her connection with seminarian Antti began when a church friend asked her to write to him because he wanted to improve his English by corresponding with someone in that language. Through their correspondence, they gradually become what she calls "soulmate friends." Was there a romantic connection between them? Her doubts regarding the potential future of their relationship precipitated much of the conflict in their story. For example, he wanted to become a missionary in Ecuador. She wanted to stay in Canada. That wouldn't matter much if they weren't a couple. If they were, it would matter a lot.

 

Antti dreamed of a "partner called by God"—a wife who would help him in his pastoral and missionary work. Could Pirkko become that partner? She didn't feel worthy or gifted in the appropriate ways yet she longed to be more than a friend to him.

 

When Antti came to Thunder Bay to serve as a temporary pastor, she borrowed her brother's car to give him a tour of the area and take him home to meet her family. Yet the nature of their relationship remained "up in the air." Even after they declared their love for each other, she still wasn't sure God was leading them to marry.

 

Pirkko tended to be unsure and impulsive. Sometimes these traits worked in her favour; sometimes they didn't. Antti was a more confident and phlegmatic person.

 

How did these two find a road to the altar? What challenges did they face along the way? If you read the book, you'll find out. It's 243 pages, available from Amazon as a paperback and e-book.

 

There are similarities between Pirkko and Antti's story, and the story of Susie and Simon in my 1970s Mennonite novel SONG FOR SUSIE EPP. Susie lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. Simon lives in Sage City (Kamloops fictionalized). When they become pen pals, Susie is plagued with doubts about their relationship. What is it and what does it become? The novel explores the answers. It's available from online sellers including Amazon and Chapters Indigo.

 

 

 

 

More Than a Wise Woman by Elaine Gugin Maddex reviewed by Elma Schemenauer

The novel More Than a Wise Woman is a gentle read featuring widow Tessy McGuigan, a gardener, herbalist, environmentalist, history teacher, and all-around do-gooder in the village of Ladyslipper, Saskatchewan.

Many villagers, especially the outspoken Mrs. Chamberlain, don't share Tessy's beliefs and practices. She starts each day with grounding and meditation. She believes in faeries ("God's nature angels"), spirit guides, crystals, and protecting herself with white light. I don't share Tessy's beliefs and practices either, but I respect her wisdom and positive attitude. Examples:

She "tries to turn every experience into a lesson learned."

She believes people should "talk things out before any misunderstanding gets out of hand."

She loves her country. "Canada is so bountiful and every bit of it has its own beauty, right from the mountains to the prairies to the oceans."

I also admire Tessy for her desire to help others. The herbal remedies she makes include Sore Muscle Soak, Hand and Nail Repair, Screaming Headache Salve, and PMS/Menopausal Spray. She's happy to share them even when she doesn't get paid. There's an extensive index of her recipes near the beginning of the book.

The pharmacist in Ladyslipper appreciates Tessy, selling some of her naturopathic medicines in his store. A retired Winnipeg medical doctor visiting relatives in Ladyslipper appreciates her even more. A significant part of More Than a Wise Woman is devoted to the romance between the two. How does it turn out? You'd need to read this well-written book to find out.

Kamloops fictionalized in 1970s-era novel

In my novel SONG FOR SUSIE EPP, Vancouver pharmacy student Susie meets Simon, a veterinary assistant in Sage City (a fictionized version of Kamloops). They write to each other. In April 1970, Simon's boss offers her a summer job. She accepts. Here's Susie arriving in Sage City.

Simon met me at the bus depot, wearing a leather vest with fringes—quite trendy. His hair was longer. He'd mentioned in one of his letters that he was growing it out because I'd said crewcuts were going out of style.

The sky was clear, the city golden in the late-afternoon light. Pine trees and greening sagebrush dotted the mountainsides. "Welcome to Sage City," Simon said with a slow smile.

I saw bashfulness and uncertainty in his eyes. Or maybe I imagined them because I felt bashful and uncertain myself. Was Simon my boyfriend or potential boyfriend? If so, how should I act with him?

"How was your trip?" he asked, his big square hands clasping the handles of my suitcases.

"Fine, thanks." I swung my backpack over my shoulders.

As we headed into the parking lot, Simon adjusting his steps to mine, I wished I could think of something interesting to say to him. I would have if I'd been writing to him instead of seeing him in person.

A pair of mourning doves ambled across the lot near Simon's Volkswagen, their heads bobbing. As we approached the birds, they flapped up into a cottonwood tree and sat there cuddling, sure of their relationship.

If you'd like to read more about Susie, Simon, and Sage City (Kamloops fictionalized), ask for my novel SONG FOR SUSIE EPP in a bookstore or library. Or order it from an online seller such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Chapters Indigo. https://www.indigo.ca/en-ca/search?q=Elma+Schemenauer&search-button=&lang=en_CA

 

 

chicken soup and tough love

From the novel SONG FOR SUSIE EPP by Elma Schemenauer

Chapter 45

 

I was in the kitchen when my mother-in-law's Chevy pulled into the driveway. I allowed myself a bleak smile. Adeline was in for a surprise. Simon would be in rough shape by now. He hadn't eaten breakfast, and he'd been clinking his bottles in the bedroom for an hour or more.

 

I answered Adeline's knock with a mixture of anxiety and hope. Anxiety as I braced myself for her reaction to Simon's drunkenness. Hope because I thought maybe she could help. She might be able to get through to him where I hadn't. She was his mother; they shared a bunch of genes and a long history.

 

"How's by my son?" Adeline bustled in carrying a big blue soup pot. "I heard he caught the flu."

 

"Something like that." Bottle-flu.

 

Adeline jostled me into my kitchen and thrust her pot at me. "I brought you some chicken noodle soup."

 

"That was good of you." I cleared a space in the refrigerator. "It might fit in there." I stepped aside and let her wrestle it in.

 

"That's a lot of soup." I managed to shut the refrigerator door on the pot. "We'll be growing feathers before we finish it."

 

Adeline ignored my attempt at humour. "I brought Simon some cough drops, Russian ones." She rummaged in her purse and pulled out a red tin the size of a sardine can. "They're stronger than that sweet Canadian junk."

 

"Oma!" Emily darted out of the sewing room with Norine at her heels. "Come and hear. We learned the parrot to sing I'se the bye that builds the boat." She bounced on her feet. "We learned it to him the right way, not Uncle Ross's way."

 

A smile lit Norine's face. "We're making a boat."

 

"For Callum," Emily said. "A paper boat. Oma, come and see."

 

"Later," Adeline said. "I need to first give your daddy his cough drops." She opened the tin, and I caught a whiff of turpentine and camphor. Adeline extracted a couple of lozenges the size of horse pills, each wrapped in a twist of brown paper.

 

Emily reached for them. "Can me and Norine have one?"

 

I pulled my daughter's hand back. "They're too strong for you."

 

"We like strong."

 

"Let's see how they work for your dad first," I said. "You girls go into the sewing room and keep the parrot company." The encounter between Adeline and her drunken son was bound to be dramatic. I didn't want the girls witnessing it.

 

Norine ambled toward the sewing room, but Emily stood her ground, feet planted apart. "I want to see Daddy."

 

"Not now," I said. "Oma and I need to be alone with him."

 

Adeline grabbed Emily by the back of her tee-shirt. "Go already." She steered the child into the sewing room. After shutting the door on her and Norine, she bustled back along the hall to the bedroom door. "Simon!" she called, pounding on the door.

 

No answer.

 

Maybe he'd heard his mother arrive, and escaped through the window.

 

"Simon, son."

 

He coughed. Bedsprings creaked.

 

Adeline tried the door. The latch rattled in its metal eyelet. "I need to see you once." Her voice vibrated with concern.

 

Nothing.

 

She raised an eyebrow at me. "He's maybe too sick to open the door."

 

I shrugged. Let her do her own research.

 

"I wonder me…can we break that lock?" She backed away from the door, beckoning me to follow. "I'll say eins, zwei, drei. Then we'll run." She counted. We ran and hurled ourselves against the door. The latch screeched out of its screws and clattered to the floor. Adeline shot into the room. "Simon!" she gasped. "For shame!" She pounced on him where he lay on the bed in his rumpled pyjamas with a wine bottle in his hand. "Drunkenness is a sin. You know that." She yanked the bottle out his hand.

 

"Gimme that." Simon reached for it, but Adeline was too quick for her befuddled son. She swung the bottle away from him, scurried around me, and rocketed out of the bedroom.

 

"I'll spill this where it belongs," she called from the kitchen. Simon's face paled at the sound of liquid running down the drain. Glug, glug, glug.

 

Good for her. Three cheers for sweet Adeline.

 

"She'sh got no rrright to do that," Simon muttered.

 

"I'm glad she did," I said, plucking an empty beer bottle off the floor. "You deserve it."

 

Adeline loped back into the bedroom and grabbed Simon by the collar of his pyjamas. "Why are you bedrunken?" "What's loose with you?"

 

"You wouldn't undershtand."

 

She glowered around the room. "Does it give more bottles in here? Susie, help me look." She hustled over to the dresser, yanked a drawer open, and rummaged through it.

 

Suddenly my mother-in-law and I were allies. That gave me a good feeling, sort of. I hurried into the closet and searched among the blankets and pillows on the shelf. A wine bottle tumbled out, almost bonking me on the head. I checked inside the boots on the floor and found a bottle of beer in each of them.

 

I emerged from the closet and looked in the wastebasket, then behind the curtains. Adeline pawed through the bedding. Simon stood beside the bed leaning against a night table, stinking of alcohol. He didn't try to stop his mother or me, didn't seem to have any fight in him. We had the moral advantage.

 

Between Adeline and myself, we found ten bottles, some full, some part-full. We carried them into the kitchen, where she poured the contents down the drain. I made no attempt to stop her.

 

When all the bottles were empty, lined up on the counter, she barged back into the bedroom. "Simon," his mother barked, "get yourself dressed once."

 

He gave her a hangdog look and shuffled toward the closet. Adeline and I returned to the kitchen, where she started scrubbing the sink with bleach and detergent. "When did my boy start drinking?"

 

"After the teachers' Christmas luncheon." I blinked. The bleach made my eyes smart.

 

"Why?"

 

"We had a fight." I blinked again. "Then he drove down to Central Butte and bought liquor."

 

"What did my Simon and you fight about?"

 

For a moment I felt like spilling the whole story. It would be a relief, but I wasn't sure I could trust Adeline to that extent. "I'm sorry," I said. "It's a private matter."

 

She stopped scrubbing and gave me one of her search-light looks. "I'll pray for you, Susie. You and Simon."

 

"Thank you," I said. I meant it.

 

"Now let's make for Simon what to eat. A bowl of soup, and maybe a sandwich from cheese. And maybe a shtick cake. And coffee. Lots of coffee. Then I'll take him to Pester Warkentin."

 

"Pastor Warkentin?" I stared at her. "What will the pastor think?"

 

"It doesn't matter what Pester Warkentin thinks. "My boy needs to get right with God."

 

If you'd like to read more about Susie, Simon, and Adeline, ask for SONG FOR SUSIE EPP in a library or bookstore. It's also available from many online sellers including Amazon, Chapters Indigo, and Barnes & Noble.