favourite place in the village for young people to meet in the evenings. Although Kathleen may have watched wistfully the comings and goings at the Kinkora railway station, there was always lots of activity in the Keefe home to keep her occupied.

One outing which Kathleen was allowed was a twice—daily trip to the post office up the road. Just as the railway provided a transportation link, the post office provided a communications link: letters from family and friends away, mail order catalogues, parcels, the Guardian newspapers. The mail would come by train twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening. People gathered at the post office, whiling away the time until the mail arrived. There was a swing outside the post office where local girls and boys met to play until the mail was sorted and ready to

be distributed. Kathleen eagerly looked forward to getting the mail and bringing it home. If there was no mail for the Keefe household the people at the post office would invariably come up with a flyer or some other item so she would not have to go home empty—handed.

Just as the railway and the post office brought the rest of the world to Kinkora, they also connected Kinkora to the rest of the world. As part of Kathleen’s early years, the railway and the post office illuminated the surroundings of her childhood — and the path that would lead her away.

Kathleen (nicknamed Kitty as a child) was born on the 7th day of September in 1927, John and Angelina’s siXteenth and last child. By then, some of her older brothers and sisters had already moved away. Her eldest brother Johnny was working with an electrical utility in Philadelphia; the second eldest brother Wilfred was teaching in Alberton and would go on to study for the priesthood at a seminary in Quebec City; and her eldest surviving sister Edith was studying for her teacher’s certificate at Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown. (Edith would not meet her new young sister until Thanksgiving, the first time she was able to return home for

a holiday.)

Still, there were 10 children in the Keefe home. The three older children, Earl, Maurice and Leslie, were 15, 14 and 13 years of age, Mary was

11, Gerald was 10, Marion was eight, and the three youngest children, Elmer, Leonard and Lorne, were siX, five and two. The house, constructed

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