Mrs. Mike

by Benedict and Nancy Freedman

When sixteen year old Katherine Mary (Kathy) O’Fallon leaves Boston in the early 1900’s to travel to Calgary, Alberta, she begins the adventure of a lifetime. She lives briefly with her uncle hoping to improve her health, but she falls in love with Mike Flannigan, a sergeant in the Canadian Mounted Police. He is kind, courageous, and handsome. They marry and live in the wilderness of “the North” in very difficult and dangerous conditions—overwhelmingly cold in the winter and slushy wet in the summer with mosquitoes bent on driving them crazy.

From both Mike and the natives, Kathy learns hard lessons about survival in the wilderness. It is a time and place when women undergo difficult pregnancies and childbirths without medical intervention. Families are wiped out by plagues, fire, and hunger. Although Kathy was treated well, that was not the case for many women. Their status was low, especially if they were native or half-breeds. Their languages and customs were different from her own, but she cultivated friendships based on common suffering and aid.

Mrs. Mike is historical fiction, but it is based on the life of Katherine Mary Flannigan. Full of adventure, history, and romance, Mrs. Mike is well written with great descriptions of the hardships of travel and the beauty of the northern wilderness. The reader experiences the tragedies of life and death along with people who endure the cold and scarcity of necessities, but have the moral fortitude to share and help their neighbors.

Rating: 5/5

Category: Historical Fiction

Publication:  1947—Berkley Books

Memorable Lines:

These big things, these terrible things, are not the important ones. If they were, how could one go on living? No, it is the small, little things that make up a day, that bring fullness and happiness to a life.

I couldn’t stand so many people so close to me. I was overpowered by the noise, the perfume, the decorations, and by the glare of the electric lights. After the soft glow of candles, everything seemed harsh and artificially bright.

The heart is a resilient thing, capable of enduring great pain and still finding joy.