[Teacher - Student - Correspond] Love, Muriel

“Love, Muriel” is a biography of Saskatchewan teacher Muriel Pattison crafted through a 50-year correspondence with her student, Marion Underwood. Although Underwood first encountered Pattison as her fledgling teacher at Harringay School District in 1937, it was after Pattison left to teach at Maymont, Saskatchewan (20 km away) that the correspondence began in earnest. Arranged chronologically, Pattison’s letters produce a personal, in-the-moment account of life as a teacher, minister’s wife, mother, and invalid. Intimate and candid, the letters in “Love, Muriel” are a treasure trove of humor, sorrow, and slice-of-life minutiae of a life of happiness and struggle in mid-century Saskatchewan and Alberta. No publication date indicated, but a final “In Retrospect” letter from 1991 makes a publication date of 1991 or later likely.