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Ellen Pilon is a library assistant in the Patrick Power Library at Saint
Mary’s University in Halifax.

This autobiography of Wilhelmina Fair Hayes focuses on the years from
1920, the year of her birth, to 1977, when she returned to Scotland, the
country of her birth, for a visit. Significant family events from 1977
to 1997 are also noted, along with details about the author’s
ancestors—the Fair and Aird families—living at the end of the 19th
century.

Hayes provides an interesting and detailed account of significant
events and people in her life: the circumstances surrounding her
mother’s death, accidents that befell the family, the accomplishments
of her children. She also describes what life was like for immigrants to
New Brunswick in the 1920s. Hayes’s family moved to a farm in
Carsonville, New Brunswick, where they experienced challenges in
adjusting to a rustic way of life. In the 1940s, the author’s husband
worked in lumber camps where she was employed as a camp cook.

Hayes’s memoir, which includes many photographs of her family and
some of the homes she lived in, will be of interest to Canadian history
buffs, genealogists, and students of early 20th-century social history.