A Novel About Autism in Nineteenth Century Nova Scotia
Suzanne Rent, a journalist with the Halifax Examiner, has an excellent piece today on one woman’s search for an ancestor who died at a Nova Scotia poor farm. You can read the full article here. I particularly appreciated Katy Jean’s reflection on how horribly Eliza was treated by her own relatives.
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The image above is from a recent CBC news article on one man’s quest to preserve Nova Scotia’s abandoned cemeteries. Steve Skafte, a Bridgetown poet and photographer, has created an online map of the forgotten graveyards that dot the province. I felt the same impulse to record the history around one of these sites when out walking with my son and we stumbled upon the Poor Farm burial ground. This became the opening chapter of my novel, Poor Farm.
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