The Strawberry Girls
by Helen Milecete Duffus
introduction by Janet B. Friskney
A tale of two young women in "reduced circumstances" at the turn of the century
Strawberry Girls is the story of two young women in their teens--Lil and Nan Addington-- who play an essential role in their widowed mother's efforts to sustain her family on the proceeds from their small strawberry garden. Their lives are essentially happy ones, though making enough to live decently is challenging. On the cusp of womanhood, Lil is the most self-conscious about the family's reduced circumstances and the social decline it brings. Her anxiety is soon heightened by an unexpected visit from Mrs. Adelaide Sinclair, a wealthy cousin of her late father who married into the British nobility. Written in the style of the beloved novel Little Women, Strawberry Girls is a lost classic of Canadian fiction.