The Brucedale Press Titles

Books from The Brucedale Press

Biography / Autobiography

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Aggie’s Storms
by Donna Mann

As a young girl walking along a country road to school in Grey County, Ontario, she dreamed of teaching children like her sisters and their friends. Family, classmates, and neighbours knew Aggie as a determined, clever, fair-minded girl who spoke her mind.
None of them knew that, one day, the people of her community would elect her, Agnes Macphail, Canada’s first woman Member of Parliament.
“There’ll be lots of storms in life, you just have to pick the ones you’re going to venture into,” Grandma Campbell told her.

Aggie’s Storms takes readers back to 1900, when ten-year-old Aggie lived in a log cabin in the Queen’s Bush. Follow her schooldays at SS #4, Proton Township, her work in the family’s garden and home, and her challenges as a girl with a dream. The author of two books for adults and many articles in newspapers, Donna Mann lives in Grey County, Ontario, where she has led the movement to mark sites important in the life of Agnes Macphail.

Softcover, full-colour cover, 136 pages $15.00 in Canada ISBN 978-1-896922-37-9

Beloved Muskoka
Diaries & Recollections of Elizabeth Penson
by Joan E. McHugh

Elizabeth Penson (1884 - 1974) described herself as a Science teacher with a tendency to dream. .
In her ninetieth year, living with her grand-niece, Elizabeth Penson rediscovered her journals from the early decades of the 1900s. Reading them allowed her to recall her youth, her passion for studies, time teaching in Saskatchewan, and years pioneering as a female in high school science labs. Backgrounding all: a romantic story set in the District of Muskoka, where she delighted in family summers and eventually retired.
. . .memories, a vast sea of them, seem to lift me on a rising swell and whisper to me in the trough as I close my eyes. I am floating away through childhood memories of long ago.
Joan McHugh has drawn on her great aunt’s diaries and recollections to introduce a complex woman living, working, and daring in what is sometimes regarded as a simpler time.
You can read an excerpt from Beloved Muskoka? by clicking here

Beloved Muskoka 144pages quality softcover
ISBN 978-1-896922-43-0 $22.00

Even Cows go to Heaven
veterinary antics of the 1960s by Linda Knox

From gentlemen cows to sunburned sows, Doc Knox treated them all, driving the country roads in his black, red-winged Pontiac.
Linda’s father, Doctor Mel Knox, served as Owen Sound and Grey County’s Public Health Veterinarian,and raised cattle, goats, pigs, chickens, cats and Elkhounds on the family farm, Rock Acres, on the Niagara Escarpment near Owen Sound.
At the Knox Veterinary Clinic, in barns and barnyards, at horse races and rotisserie chicken vendors, adventures of Doctor Mel Knox yield a harvest of humour. The book recalls life in a family that included Norwegian Elkhound nannies and AWOL pigs.
Linda says, “The inspiration for this book came to me as I read James Herriot’s amusing and poignant British veterinary books during the 1960s. Since I saw many similar attributes in my father’s veterinary practice, I was motivated to record his adventures—someday.” Now ninety-three years old, Doc Knox is delighted to see his tales in print.
One of the few writers to hold a Certificate in Dog and Cat Nursing from the Knox Clinic, Linda says, “I had plenty of personal experience and memories that helped me to write the descriptions of people and places.”
Even Cows Go to Heaven is a quality soft-cover book of 144 pages. Full-colour cover art by Kristina Maus will make you smile, and the tales inside will prompt chuckles from readers.

Priced at $14.95 plus GST in Canada. ISBN 1-896922-30-9 978-1-896922-30-0

An excerpt from Even Cows Go to Heaven is available for your enjoyment.

Our Spirit Unbroken
by Andrew B. Cox, DFM

After more than 40 successful missions in World War II, Andrew Cox was shot down over Germany, and spent nearly five years as a POW.
His memoirs of that time are presented in Our Spirit Unbroken where he finds humour even in prison camp situations.
We are proud to announce that this book has been selected by The Dominion Institute for their Bridges to Remembrance School Project. The Institute will be recommending it as a book for branches of the Royal Canadian Legion to donate to school libraries across Canada, and will assist schools who wish to host author Andrew Cox. More information is available on the Memory Project website.
140 pages, softcover $16.95 plus GST ISBN 1-896922-11-2 978-1-896922-11-9

Somebody Move the Cat!
A family's up, down, and sideways journey
by Sheila Balls, cover art created by Lin Souliere

From her two-fold career as a teacher and musician, Sheila Balls draws humorous and touching anecdotes that will tickle readers' funny bones and strike chords of recognition.
As varied and satisfying as the foods at a community potluck supper, the more than forty personal reflections in Somebody Move the Cat! bring the flavour of fun to the adventures of family life.
Artist Lin Souliere has created cover art that conveys the warmth of Sheila's writing, welcoming readers into another quality softcover book that makes an ideal gift.

In a recent review of Somebody Move the Cat! [The Observer, March 2005] Muriel Duncan wrote, "These short anecdotes can be enjoyed a handful at a time but they are addictive enough to be totally consumed at a sitting."

A short excerpt from Somebody Move the Cat! has been provided for your enjoyment.
144 pages,softcover $14.95 retail in Canada ISBN 1-896922-27-9 978-1-896922-27-0

Thirty Years on Call, A Country Doctor's Family Life
by Doris Pennington

Born in Grey County in 1888, Robert James Tucker taught in rural schools to pay for his university studies. After medical service in World War I and Queen's Military Hospital at Kingston, he cared for people of Paisley, Ontario, until his sudden death in 1948. Viola Huton Tucker, his wife, was a nurse; they met in Kingston, and, after the birth of their first baby, the young couple left the city. In Thirty Years On Call, their second daughter, Doris, reveals the challenges and joys of their family life.
196 pages, softcover $18.95 plus GST when mailed to Canadian addresses. Outside Canada, please remit in U$ funds. ISBN 1-896922-14-7 978-1-896922-14-0

Why Not? a memoir in black and white
by Carolyn Muir Helfenstein

The feisty farmer who took on ownership of a small-town weekly newspaper recalls the ups and downs of life as co-publisher. In the twelve years that Carol and Harry Helfenstein published and edited The Teeswater News, they and their staff won fifteen awards. Starting in their own home on the Second Concession, they grew to an operation that presented two weeklies and several agriculturally oriented publication
From covering the Line in the Dirt farmers’ crisis to getting obituaries right, they faced the challenges and felt the satisfactions of active involvement in their community and beyond. We proudly offer this book as celebration of an important aspect of rural life and proof that farmers can do anything.
You can read an excerpt from Why Not? by clicking here

ISBN 978-1-896922-41-6 240 pages illustrated with photographs from the files of The Teeswater News $25.00 in Canada 8

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