From an autograph book dated 1930-1940

 I have this amazing autograph book, my mum kept during the 1930's, when she lived in Regina as a nanny. THough she would never tell y ou that she worked as a nanny. She married my dad in 1933 and moved to Victoria, glad to get away from the farm and the hard life of farm work. She loved poety, and would copy copious amounts of it. Some of these writings I found , in this little book, were incomplete.

 I have hardly anything from my dad. Except for a few entries in this book. At the time he worked at teh docks, in Victoria.

 The pages are quite stained, but none them are torn.....

 This is my grand father's ( Robert Shiels) writing.....the only example I found.

 This is from Kay, mum's best friend for years. She was killed a few years after this, in a bad car crash on the Malahat.  Kay pinned a lock of her hair into the book for safe keeping.

 Grandmother......Isabella Glen Shiels................apparently she was a bit of a tartar.

 Isabelle Cathie.....another one of mum's good friends. She painted cards for many years. I still have quite a number of those cards.

 My aunt, Isobel Schreder......she was 10 years younger.....not sure of the date, but about 1932, she would have been about 14

 My uncle, Stuart Shiels, second to youngest....Isobel being the youngest,he  went into the army as a Signaller about 10 years later.

                             My dad's sister, with an old diaper pin pinned into the pages.Can't believe I have a bit of each of them, and there are many more entries, with friends, relatives, poems, sayings, everything but recipes.......these people seem to just pop out of the pages once more........and live for just a moment longer.