Where the Meadowlark Sang: Cherished Scenes from an Artist's Childhood

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University. She is the author of several books, including The
Mountain Is Moving: Japanese Women’s Lives, Kurlek and Margaret
Laurence: The Long Journey Home.

Shaped by the seasons and by the lives of a Ukrainian farmer’s family
in Alberta, Where the Meadowlark Sang is a beautiful memoir that
children who love animals, nature walks, and grandparents will enjoy.

Spring is a busy time. It means new piglets, Saturday shopping in town
with a stop at the ice-cream parlour for a five-cent cone, and a new
foal, which father leads from the poplar bluff to the barn. There are
also gophers to be snared, and hunts for ginseng. The roots will be
shipped to Vancouver. In summer, farm children are busy picking
saskatoons, playing in the loft of the barn, watching occasional
weddings, and playing baseball on Sundays. Baking must be done twice
weekly. Fall brings leaves to be raked, fruit to be canned, and
cornstalks to be burned. Dirt must be wiped from carrots and turnips
before they are can be stored in the cool, moist cellar under the
kitchen. The threshing crew—some neighbours, some strangers perhaps
from another province—work hard and consume three “gargantuan
feasts” each day. Pickles and jam must be made, the pig butchered, and
blueberries picked. Winter brings its own chores, games, the Christmas
concert at school, and Hockey Night in Canada.

Hazel Litzgus’s illustrations bring these things to life. Litzgus
grew up in Alberta in the 1930s on the kind of farm she depicts with
love, sensitivity, and humour. Her illustrations, both coloured and
black and white, fill roughly half of every page. The story follows the
rhythms of nature. Litzgus is a largely self-taught artist whose
watercolours and graphite sketches have been featured in many Canadian
exhibitions. Highly recommended.