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A Book of Kells recalls the lives and unearths the egos of John Kell and Kathleen Ward who meet in 1917 when he is a Canadian sailor stationed in Portsmouth, England. Her father, a Methodist Sunday School teacher, brings him home for tea. Kathleen's sister writes to Jack until she gets married in 1924 and Kathleen takes up the correspondence. Meanwhile, Jack has been getting an education and has s... More

A Book of Kells recalls the lives and unearths the egos of John Kell and Kathleen Ward who meet in 1917 when he is a Canadian sailor stationed in Portsmouth, England. Her father, a Methodist Sunday School teacher, brings him home for tea. Kathleen's sister writes to Jack until she gets married in 1924 and Kathleen takes up the correspondence. Meanwhile, Jack has been getting an education and has spent a year evangelizing the Swampy Cree to whom he plans to return for another five years. When he gets Kathleen's letter it is like manna from heaven. He proposes awkwardly and she asks him to come over for another look. But, when he does, she smashes him at tennis and banishes him to his far northern post. However, they agree to give themselves a year to reconsider. Seventy-two letters get through, even though the native reserve is cut off from civilization for six months of the year. They marry in 1927 and she goes up to Oxford House, Manitoba, by canoe along the old fur trade route. Nine months later, in mid-winter, she treks for five days by horse-drawn cariole to find a place to give birth. When I enter the picture during the Great Depression, a stressed-out minister's wife and three little girls are crammed into a duplex on a working-class street in Toronto. We're working our hearts out as little "examples," trying to help Father. In later years, I discovered an emotional toll to pay. I couldn't sit through a church service without breaking into unrestrained weeping. My teen-age and college years were near-suicidal. What seemed to be the fundamental problem was that I had been trained to put away my ego in favor of redeeming my soul. Still, religion was a great strength, protecting our family from tendencies towards alcoholism and mental illness. I struggle desperately to avoid the pitfall of black sheep, which seemed inevitable for the youngest of three "perfect" minister's daughters. The name of this family voyage recalls the famous ninth-century illuminated gospel manuscript, The Book of Kells.

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