Intersection Column | Let Me Tell You a Story
- mtlmagazine
- 44 minutes ago
- 3 min read
by Patricia Johns
Family stories form us, for better or for worse. My family has a rich history of storytelling. My dad’s side of the family is Mennonite, and those tales are noble stories of bravery and valor as our family escaped Russia’s civil war in the 1920s and made their way to Canada. They started from scratch. They farmed the land. They endured. Stories on my dad’s side were for edifying and building up future generations.
My mother’s side of the family has a different approach to storytelling. They’re French Catholic, and their stories are half tall tale and are told for pure entertainment. My mother’s family came to Canada (or what would become Canada) in the 1700s because our ancestor killed a man in France and was escaping justice. Or so the story goes . . . we have zero proof of any of this. Those family stories are juicy!
The one that stands out most strongly in my mind is the story of how my grandmother was trying to protect her mother from being beaten by her father who was in a drunken rage. My grandmother cracked her father upside the head with an iron skillet and knocked him out. Then she called the police, believing she’d killed her father, an iron skillet being a rather heavy, blunt instrument. Her uncle was the chief of police (prove he wasn’t!) and he arrived on the scene, took one look at my great-grandfather on the ground and shook his head.
“Not dead yet,” he replied. “Hit him again.”
We chortle over that story, but the family lesson remains—be careful of alcohol. Stay away from drinkers. They can ruin your life. But there’s also another lesson—women and girls don’t have to take abuse. They can stand up. They can wield iron skillets, if need be, and they can survive to tell the tale.
Family stories form us, and they do more than teach lessons about dangers out there. They also tell us who we are. I grew up understanding that we had nobility of character from my dad’s side, and a surviving spirit from my mom’s. We were women who stood up for ourselves and never let a man put his hands on us in anger. We stood by our beliefs, and we never married a man who drank.
But what happens when you don’t have family stories? Or what happens when your family stories are painful, or if you feel ashamed of them?
That question was the beginning of Still Waters. In this book Beth Peachy is looking for answers in her family history. Her father never spoke of his childhood. Life seemed to begin for him when he married her mother. But what about the rest of his history? His family won’t say a word.
But when Beth’s grandmother—who is suffering from dementia—needs help getting the house ready to sell so she can move in with family, Beth takes the opportunity to start digging into her father’s childhood and finds more than she anticipated!
While I don’t use any exact retellings of my family stories in this book, my mother read an early manuscript of this book and recognized a few instances where the stories sounded a whole lot like some of my ancestors. In one of my drafts, an editor left a little “gasp!” note in the margin at one my fictional family stories that was familiar to my mother, and I realized then that truly juicy family tales don’t survive in every family. They get stamped out. Or perhaps they just have better-behaved family members. But those stories never embarrassed me or made me ashamed. Like the women in my family before me, I love being the bearer of a juicy tale!
Knowing that, perhaps my career choice makes a little more sense. In my experience, stories don’t only form us, they bond us.
So sit down, grab a cup of tea, and let me tell you the story of Beth Peachy and her search for her father’s childhood.
You’ll like this one!
About the Author
Patricia Johns is a bestselling author of Amish romance. She writes for Bethany House as well as Love Inspired Books, where she tells the stories of strong, independent Amish women and the rugged men who fall in love with them. She lives in Alberta, Canada, with her husband, their teenaged son, and a feisty parrot.
About the Book
Beth Peachy arrives in Lancaster County for the summer to care for her grandmother, but her visit quickly evolves into an urgent search for answers to questions that her relatives seem determined to avoid. Beth's childhood friend Danny Lapp faces his own family dilemma as his ex-Amish older brother turns his back on their family upbringing. Beth and Danny reconnect to help each other find the answers they’re looking for.