Rooted and Remembered
A story of love, faith, and remembrance
Why this story
In 2020, facing the uncertainty of pandemic restrictions and lockdowns at home, I began exploring a story about a WWI soldier and his connection to a magnificent buttonwood tree that grows near my childhood home in southwestern Ontario.
The idea sprouted from a tiny seed into my first novel, a work of historical fiction based on a true story retold to me by storykeepers who chose to share the tale.
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The best bedtime story was true
Betsy Jane Carruthers masterfully crafted bedtime stories for her grandchildren. Their favourite one just happened to be true.
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In 1906, eleven-year-old Ellwyne Dacosta is uprooted from his home along the Hooghly River in Calcutta at the whim of his stepfather, a con artist searching for his next fortune. Neither had heard of Carruthers Corners in Ekfrid Township, Ontario until it was on their horizon.
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The Carruthers clan praises God when Ellwyne joins their farm, first as an untried farmhand, then as a dutiful son. Fascinated by the curious buttonwood tree growing in a farm field far away from the riverbank, Ellwyne wonders if he, too, may thrive in rural Canada, so far from where his life began.
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From lost to forever found
The Great War erupts. The boy, barely a man, volunteers to fight overseas. When he's mortally wounded by a shell blast, Ellwyne thinks of home one last time. Will he be remembered?
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In Ekfrid Township a buttonwood tree grows: Ellwyne’s Tree. In Rooted and Remembered, we gather with the Carruthers family in memory of a lost boy who is forever found.
Meet some of the characters
