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Advance Praise for The Innocent
“Lynne Golding has opened a magical door to the past and ushered us into Edwardian Brampton to marvel at a simpler time... [The Innocent] will make you laugh and weep and wonder, and be fondly remembered long after the final pages are read.”
—Cheryl Cooper, author of the Seasons of War series
“Lynne Golding knows how to tell a story. With yarns she gathered at her great-aunt’s knee, she has woven a compelling story that harkens back to a time of pre-war innocence in a town I’ve always been proud to call my own.”
—Former Premier the Honorable William G. Davis
“It’s easy to forget that everything about the roads we drive, the hydro and water to our homes, the schools and health care we need, comes from the cradle of community. This book is a journey back in time to what was needed for building a future that cares for many thousands for decades to come. Through a fascinating family, Lynne Golding’s novel leads us into the past in a whimsical way that can’t help but connect to our own ambitions.”
—Lorna Dueck, CEO, Crossroads
The Innocent
Copyright 2018 by Lynne Golding
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-988279-68-8
All rights reserved
Editor: Allister Thompson
Published in Stratford, Canada, by Blue Moon Publishers.
The author greatly appreciates you taking the time to read this work. Please consider leaving a review wherever you bought the book, or telling your friends or blog readers about The Innocent to help spread the word. Thank you for your support.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The Innocent. Copyright © 2018 by Lynne Golding. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Blue Moon Publishers. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.
Dedicated to Jessie Roberts Current, a dear friend to so many
CONTENTs
Chapter 1 – The Carnegie Library
Chapter 2 – Jesse Brady Arrives in Brampton
Chapter 6 – The Governor’s Story
Chapter 7 – Off to School
Chapter 8 – Jim and Eddie’s Folly
Chapter 9 – Jim’s Diversions
Chapter 10 – The Photograph
Chapter 11 – The Flower Town of Canada
Chapter 12 – The Verandah
Chapter 13 – The Mighty Etobicoke
Chapter 14 – Haggertlea
Chapter 15 – Christmas with Jane
Chapter 16 – The Johnstons
Chapter 17 – Mother and Her Shoes
Chapter 18 – Ina’s Journey
Chapter 19 – The Drought
Chapter 20 – The Mann Cup
Chapter 21 – The Homecoming
A Preview of Book Two, The Beleaguered
Author’s Note
About Lynne Golding
Book Club Guide
Acknowledgements
With thanks to my proofreaders, my mother-in-law Carol Clement and my late father-in-law John Clement, for their diligence and enthusiasm for every chapter dispensed; my good friend Candace Thompson for her marginal happy and sad faces, letting me know that the parts intended to be humorous or sad hit their mark; and my father, Douglas Golding, and his oldest friend, John McDermid, for their many helpful reflections about Brampton in years past.
With gratitude to the second-floor librarians at the Brampton Four Corners Library who helped me manage reels and reels of microfiche; to the thorough investigative work of Samantha Thompson of the Peel Archives; and to the fabulous team at Blue Moon Publishers: Allister Thompson, Talia Crockett, and Heidi Sander.
With heartfelt thanks to my husband, Tony Clement, who encouraged me year after year to continue the project, and to my children Alex, Maxine, and Elexa, who endured countless retellings of “interesting” tidbits I came across in my research.
Finally, with appreciation to my mother Barbara Golding, whose promise to read the book once it was complete spurred me to make it so.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time
—T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
Chapter 1
The Carnegie Library
As far as first memories go, mine is extremely apt. For there, in one scene, are nearly all of the elements essential to my early years: politics, religion, morality,
