The Innocent. Lynne Golding

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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

       Acknowledgements

       Chapter 1 – The Carnegie Library

       Chapter 2 – Jesse Brady Arrives in Brampton

       Chapter 3 – The Sneeze

       Chapter 4 – The Turners Leave

       Chapter 5 – New Year’s Day

       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, higher learning, municipal development, family, and friends. It is a panoramic view, this first memory, with many moving parts. There I am, four years old, perched on a white, straight-backed chair, a pink and white pinafore over my white short-sleeved dress, my white-socked, black-shoed feet dangling beneath me. My head, adorned with a high-set big bow, tilts back as I look up at Ina, my older sister, standing beside me. She commands me to stay put, to reserve the three chairs that are our joint responsibility to hold.

      Sitting midway back near the centre aisle of the dozens of chairs, I am surrounded by neighbours, friends, and family. There are the butcher who sells our meat and the green grocer from whom we buy our vegetables. Ahead is the man who delivers our milk and cheese. Behind is Mr. Thauburn, who owns the general store. Just to my left are the people who sit behind us at church. Rows ahead, in his best Sunday suit, is my friend Archie McKechnie, sitting with his sisters and their mother and father. Over to another side is my friend Frances Hudson wedged between her parents. My family is too busy to sit with me.

      Behind me, my brother Jim and his friends are delivering single Dale roses to the women assembled. To the