'Very personal and very real': Retired Waterdown teacher makes literary debut
'Anna's Tree' set in Bruce County during Second World War
By Julia Lovett-Squires
Wed., April 13, 2022
A woman driving home from work on a wintery afternoon in 1941 sets the stage for a tale of war, discrimination and ultimately, family, in Cynthia Elliott Everest’s literary debut.
Set in and around Bruce County, 'Anna’s Tree' tells the story of five sisters struggling with their family farm during the Second World War after their mother dies in a traumatic accident that also injures their father.
“Although the story itself is fictional, there are many aspects of the book that are very personal and very real,” said Elliott Everest, retired English teacher and librarian at Waterdown District High School.
Elliott Everest explained that while growing up in Ancaster she and her four sisters had “loads of adventures” and she tried to incorporate their qualities into the Ross girls.
“It became a — I like to call it — a tapestry woven with the threads of imagination, family history, family and my own passions.”
The book took about three years to complete, and the Southampton-based author drew on her family’s experiences to fill out the character development with inside jokes, quirks, pet names and a tragic accident involving a pony helping to drive the narrative.
Elliott Everest calls the book a cross between 'Little Women' and the #MeToo movement, as a major plot point places Anna on the verge of love with a young English pilot. As her romance develops, she is faced with sexual harassment from a farmhand and other pilots.
Meanwhile, she and her sisters become targets of gossip and escalating threats.
“I wanted the novel to reflect the strength of women in the face of adversity and the things that they could handle and handle very well,” said Elliott Everest, referring to the wartime efforts of women on farms and in factories. “I wanted to show how the relationship between sisters can be a fractious one at times but at the same time that sisters are bonded and stand together.”
The importance of family and how they can see each other through the most desperate of times is one of the key themes and Elliott Everest added the English teacher in her added a list of discussion questions for her book.
“I wanted there to be discussion about the book,” she said. “So, the book also looks at things that can happen to women, experiences that women have that they have dealt with through all time.
“I just feel that it’s a period of time that deserves a lot of attention.”
For more information, visit www.annastree.ca.
