NBTM Virtual Book Tour and Giveaway: Them Days by Glenn P. Booth

Welcome to my stop on the NBTM virtual book tour for Them Days by Glenn P. Booth. This book tour was organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. On my stop, I have an excerpt from the book and a fascinating guest post from the author about his research process for the book. There's also the tour wide giveaway for a chance to win a $15 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card. Be sure to visit the other stops on the tour for more content. Enjoy!

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Title: Them Days

Author: Glenn P. Booth

Publisher: Tellwell Talent

Publication Date: April 22nd 2022

Print Length: 334 pages

Genre: Historical Fiction

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Discrimination, war in Europe, a pandemic. . .

Sofiya, a young Ukrainian immigrant, experiences all of this and more. It could be 2022, but it's Manitoba in the early 1900s.

Sofiya is the third consecutive girl born on a poor homestead near Gimli in 1903. She is bright and feisty but nothing more is expected of her than to be a domestic, and at age thirteen she is sent to be a maid to a wealthy family in Winnipeg. There, she experiences the condescension of the English towards the 'Bohunks', while her half-brother is interned during WW1, deemed an enemy alien.

While the Great War is raging in Europe, an undeclared war between the classes is being fought at home. This conflict comes to a head in the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 when the working classes rise up against their English masters, shut down the city and demand a better deal. The city is divided and everyone must choose a side.

Them Days takes you on Sofiya's journey, as she discovers what it means to be an immigrant and a woman, struggling to find love and her identity – at the same time that Canada is breaking free from Mother England's apron strings.

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EXCERPT:

“In them days, we wuz poor but happy.”

You’re probably laughing at how trite this is. But I’ve heard my sister Helen, and several other members of my family, speak those exact words more times than I care to remember. And it’s exactly how they remember “Them Days.”

For us, Them Days goes back to growing up north of Winnipeg on marginal farmland at the turn of the 20th century. Like tens of thousands of Ukrainian and other Eastern European immigrants, my family had come searching for a better life in Canada, lured by the promise of free land.

For the most part, the promises were kept, although, as it would turn out, a few “extras” were thrown into the deal. Unfortunately for my family, like many Ukrainians, they had requested land with wood on it. Back in the old country, they had often frozen through long winters on the Steppes because of a lack of wood for building fires. The Canadian government’s land agent obliged, and they were given some scratchy stony ground near Gimli, Manitoba, where the fertile prairie gives way to swampy Boreal forest. But it had wood!

With this endowment, it was bound to be a hard life. But my sister still remembers it as a time of happiness.

Memories—how they play tricks on us—and how they vary from person to person. It never ceases to amaze me how my family members remember the same events so differently.

It was a warm June day in 1982, the last time the seven of us who had survived to late adulthood had gotten together for an informal family reunion. We were sitting in my youngest sister’s trailer, which was parked on the old family homestead. None of us were regular drinkers, but the occasion had inspired my brothers to have a little whiskey, and my sisters and I were sipping some white wine.

Sure enough, whether it was the heat, the alcohol, or just our age and the occasion, my siblings waxed maudlin. And it didn’t take long before Helen spoke those familiar words, “In them days…,” and my brothers nodded in agreement. Soon, happy stories of Them Days came pouring out like a prairie river spilling over its banks in the spring.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Glenn P. Booth was born and raised in Winnipeg, where he lived with his Ukrainian grandmother, Helen Lesko, after he and his brother were orphaned just before his fourteenth birthday. He grew up listening to Helen’s stories about ‘Them Days’ growing up on the homestead near Gimli, and life in Winnipeg in the late 1910s and 1920s.

Glenn attended the University of Manitoba and the University of Alberta where he respectively obtained his Bachelor of Science and Master of Arts (Economics) degrees. Among other jobs, he subsequently worked with Canada’s National Energy Board, where he held positions including Chief Economist, Executive Director of Corporate Planning and External Relations, and Executive Director of Communications and Human Resources.

Glenn has published one other novel, Demons in Every Man, a murder mystery set in the Calgary oil patch, published by Friesen Press in 2019.

The author lives in Calgary with his Brazilian-born wife of 36 years, Elisabeth. Glenn and Elisabeth have two grown sons who are now successfully making their way in the world. Glenn enjoys returning to Winnipeg every summer to visit with his cousins and old friends, and to enjoy cottage life on Lake Winnipeg. While in Calgary, he loves scrambling and hiking in the Rockies, as well as mountain biking and X-country skiing with friends. Of course, Glenn is also an avid reader.

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GUEST POST:

- What was your research process for this book?

Them Days is historical fiction loosely based on the experiences of my grandmother, her family, and thousands of other Ukrainian immigrants to the Canadian Prairies in the early 1900s. It follows Sofiya as she grows up on the homestead, and then moves to Winnipeg to be a maid to a wealthy English family at the age of 13.

To write a credible story based on the events of the time, I needed to understand my family’s history, the broader history of Ukrainian immigrants, and the history of Winnipeg at the time.

It was an incredible time and there were three major distinct events through which my grandmother lived as a young woman, including: WW1 and the internment of the Ukrainians; the Spanish Flu epidemic; and the great Winnipeg General Strike – all in a five-year time period! Putting this together, the novel required research into the following six categories:

1. My family’s history as Ukrainian immigrants to Manitoba

2. The general history of Ukrainian immigrants to the Prairies, and life on the homesteads

3. The history of Winnipeg, Manitoba from about 1910 to the 1920s

4. The internment of the Ukrainians during WW1

5. The Spanish Flu on the Prairies

6. The Winnipeg General Strike

In terms of process, in general terms it involved:

• Talking to family members about our family history

• Visiting museums, including the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village east of Edmonton, and the heritage museum in Gimli to better understand life on the homestead in “Them Days”

• Identifying the specific events to include in the novel

• Constructing an outline of the plot such that my protagonist, Sofiya, would be directly involved in each of these events

• Reading books about the events/time covered in the novel

• Searching the net for information/articles

• Visiting Winnipeg for the 100th anniversary commemoration of the General Strike and taking part in the memorial activities

Those are the main steps for the research process – but read on if you’re interested in specific sources.

For my family history, I primarily relied on my accumulated knowledge of the family stories I have been told throughout my life, not least by my grandmother. I verified a number of these stories by speaking with the few remaining relatives who are still alive today, and who were also aware of our family history (such as the original homestead burning down).

I was incredibly fortunate to find a book published in 1979 by Michael Ewanchuk, entitled “Spruce, Swamp and Stone” that documented the Ukrainian settlement near Gimli in the early 1900s. This book included detailed history about the establishment of homesteads, the first schools and churches, and the difficulties the pioneers faced. It also indirectly verified many of our family’s stories. I also found a wonderful short historical monograph on the hamlet of Berlo where my grandmother and her siblings attended school.

With respect to Winnipeg’s history, I relied partly on Jim Blanchard’s excellent book, “Winnipeg’s Great War”, which details the atmosphere in Winnipeg during WW1, including the English patriotism that gripped the city, and its flipside, the rampant discrimination towards eastern Europeans.

The Manitoba Historical Society (MHS) was a great source of information as it has published numerous studies on specific aspects of both Winnipeg’s history and Ukrainian history in Manitoba, including a very good piece on the internment of the Ukrainians, entitled “Enemies Within Our Gates” by George Buri. I also watched the National Film Board documentary film, “That Never Happened”.

For the Spanish Flu, I relied on a number of articles I found on-line, including a short piece by the MHS.

The Winnipeg General Strike was a landmark event in the history of the battle for workers’ rights in North America. I had studied the strike in a Labour Economics course in my university days, so I already had some prior knowledge about it. In 2019, there were a host of activities held in Winnipeg to commemorate the strike, including a special exhibit at the Manitoba Museum, a guided walk around the city where strike events occurred, and even a new musical, entitled “Strike”. Taking in these activities with my wife really helped me appreciate how divided Winnipeg was at the time, with the capitalists and the government lined up on one side and the working class on the other.

Lastly, as mentioned above, I visited Ukrainian pioneer museums in both Alberta and Manitoba.

Bottom line: it took a lot of research but I enjoyed every minute of it!

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GIVEAWAY:

Glenn P. Booth will be awarding a $15 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter. Good luck!

(All the Ups and Downs is not responsible for this giveaway, its entries, or the prize. Goddess Fish Promotions and the author assume all responsibility over this giveaway.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway