In progress...

In 1882, Mrs. Mary Georgina Caroline Hall, or Mrs. Cecil Hall for short, went to visit her brother's farm in Manitoba, Canada. He had immigrated to Canada the year before, one assumes to make his fortune. I say assume because my quick research has provided little more information about M.G.C.H. than that she at one time had posh digs in Grosvenor Square, London. As a consequence, I'll can say little more about her or her family except at one point in the book she refers to herself as a 'duchess'. It's said in such a way that it's not entirely clear whether it's an accurate description or not. (And I dread doing research on the peerage, so you'll hear no more on that from me.)

Now the copy I read of "A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba" was FREE and for Kindle (ASIN: B000JQUPQY). But the book is also available for free at GoogleBooks and Gutenberg, an audio recording being available at Archive.org.

As for the book itself, I thought that it seemed to consist of 3 distinct sections. The first part describes, very briefly, of her arrival in the United States, and then her experiences on her brother's farm. The second part tells about her trip to Montana, Colorado and points east. The third part being a financial description from the author's brother of his experiences -- the cost of goods, and amounts earned and produced.

Of these 3 parts I found the latter 2 of the greater interest. Although her initial comments about the poor unfortunates in steerage class, and her observations about NYC and Washington, DC (she like the latter better as it was prettier), as well as the immigration process were very interesting -- I learned that there was a Duty to be paid on all item/implements brought into the US that were not 6 months old -- I found her description of farm life more whiny than fascinating. Which is not to say that you can't garner information from those pages, but the descriptions of land burns, mosquito infestations, and the difficulties of procuring any sort of farm labor, are just aren't as intriguing as her descriptions of the characters and places she ran across later as she traveled in a more leisurely manner in section 2.

Pam T
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