Author sticks to what she loves best

Steve Newman, Renfrew Mercury

August 29, 2011

Like most books, the title requires a little explanation … or a little reading.

The novel, Decent People, is written by Donella Dunlop, a Manotick resident who was a teacher at Renfrew Collegiate Institute and Pembroke resident more than 50 years ago.

There are strong links to herself and her family, but the book is mostly about fictitious characters who bring life in the Ottawa Valley to life from the 1930s through to the 1960s. Decent People is not about superstars or celebrities, but, as the author puts it, ordinary people who lead extraordinary lives.

The Ottawa Valley people are a special breed whose stories deserve to be recorded, to guarantee their place in history, she says.

“I wanted them to know the Ottawa Valley. I love it very much. I think everyone has a place where their heart is, and mine is in the Ottawa Valley.”

In the first chapter, entitled Raspberries, one of the Dunkeld family children goes missing in the raspberry patch. That same day, the book’s main character is born.

“The new baby, Anna, proved small and sickly and later almost died of whooping cough, but she had intelligent blue eyes and curly brown hair, and was the bonniest baby ever born in Dunkeld Village,” says the final paragraph of Chapter 1.

“She was raised in a cocoon of love in a family that cared for its own and everyone else’s too. And she emerged an innocent, determined butterfly into the light.”

Several pages later, borrowing from her own “wonderful” childhood growing up and attending a private school run by nuns in Pembroke, Dunlop’s chapters visit many places. One is a cloakroom, at home, where preschooler Anna often choses to play.

 “Anna was playing in the cloakroom,” Chapter 10 begins. “It was small, and there was a window, and she liked to play there because she could pretend it was her house.”

Anna recalls lighting a candle, after making a cave from chairs and a sheet, and closing her eyes really tight. She imagines seeing the Blessed Virgin, only to have the candle set fire to the sheet.

GROWING UP

Another chapter, entitled Growing Up, deals with learning about one’s own private parts and growing up in other ways. Events include Anna’s own sense of body awareness, hearing a friend recount how how babies are made, and discovering a used condom while walking down the tracks.

“Everyone has to grow up, some bad, some good,” says Dunlop. “I think it’s important to write down someone’s life, even if it’s fictional, so that you don’t leave anything out.”

Finding material for the chapter wasn’t hard, she adds.

“Writing is difficult,” she says of the need to rewrite and rewrite. “But the subject matter is easy for me.”

Other chapters, like The Sewing Box, Go in Peace, The Picnic Basket or Mean People, take the reader back to an unnamed Ottawa Valley village. Whether it’s the hungry ‘30s, the Second World War, the tentative ‘50s or the early ‘60s, much of the focus is on a young Catholic girl – stubborn, open-hearted, curious and kind − who often casts herself as the hero in her adventures, both big and small. 

At the same time, Dunlop stresses that Anna’s stories really are Anna’s own.

“She’s not me,” insists Dunlop.

Dunlop’s sisters were instrumental, as were dozens of other Ottawa Valley residents, in the development of the book. But her sisters are not characters in the book. Certainly, her own mother and father are more closely aligned to Anna’s mother and father in Decent People.

As several chapters show, Mumma was not a fierce disciplinarian. But she might have an unhappy look if someone did something dangerous, like walking home on the railway tracks. And that unhappy look was often enough to make the children wonder what they’d done.

“She was so gentle and loving, we didn’t want to hurt her,” explains Dunlop.

“She used love to discipline her children. She was a very special person. We wanted to please her because she was special.”

RCI MEMORIES

As a young woman, Dunlop taught at Renfrew Collegiate Institute in the late 1950s. She remembers being an innocent 20-year-old teacher.

“I was inexperienced and I went to a girls’ private school,” she says, “so I wasn’t used to boys and their mischief. But I was very fond of all of them (the boys and girls).”

She wasn’t an author yet, but wanted to be.

She had always wanted to tell stories. For example, in Pembroke, at age seven, she started her own story-writing society.

“I was pretty precocious because I could print,” Dunlop says, remembering she was the only one in the group to produce a story.

And so, she emerged to write several books, including Decent People.

“They have a decent life,” she says of Ottawa Valley residents, “and I wanted to show that a decent life is just as interesting as the story of a murderer or Napolean.”

After all, she adds, “Ordinary, decent people have wonderful lives, and if you don’t write it down, it will be lost.”

Dunlop has written five other books. Decent People is the fourth member of her Ottawa Valley historical novel series. The others are Menominee, The Wild River People … about the Valley’s ancient people; Sagganosh, The Britisher … about the Scots and Irish of the 1850s; and Mittigoush, The French … about the French of the 17^th century.

Dunlop’s books are available from the Arnprior Book Shop, Coles Books, Chapters and other Ottawa Valley bookstores. Decent People is published by Trafford Publishing.  For more about her books, visit dunlophousebooks.com.

 steve.newman@metroland.com