Book notes: Where Nests the Water Hen

Where Nests the Water Hen, a simple, quietly beautiful book by Gabrielle Roy. 

Roy was a franco-manitobain born in St. Boniface back in the day when it was it's own city (1909). She lived until the year I was born - '83.
I'm so curious what it was like for people like her and my great-grandmother (also born in early 1900's and lived to 103 yrs). Such a monumental cultural/technological/civilization shift took place during their lifetimes. What would it have been like to start out life in the horse-and-buggy era and end it with a Corolla? To start out in a francophone town of St. B, and live to see it disappear into an Anglo city?

Roy is best known for The Tin Flute (originally Bonheur d'occasion), which I have yet to read, but is widely acclaimed and credited (according to Wiki) for being part of the push towards the Quiet Revolution in Quebec.

I started with this lesser known novel set in the frontier of Manitoba's north, focused on the quiet lives of the rich characters living there. It wasn't a long read, but the interweaving stories spoke to me nonetheless. 

The story centred around a francophone mother securing education for her children...her joy in their advancement and her pain when it means they outpace her and she loses them to education and careers in the south. It flips back and forward in time and to the character of a priest through whom we get more sketches of the different cultures and characters around. This jolly priest delights in visiting and learning from his many far-flung parishioners and their varied languages and customs - a man who takes genuine pleasure in those around him.

I will definitely read more from her in the future - I think Tin Flute will have to move up on my (never-ending) list. I'd like to try it in French, but it would (a) take forever and (b) I'd miss a lot of the nuances. But it would be good practice...