Mercedee Meehan, Acadian Free Spirit: The true story of loss and perseverance in 1890s Nova Scotia

In 1892, at the age of 13 and her mother bed-ridden with tuberculosis and her father in Boston struggling to support them financially, Mercedee Meehan sets off to a small Catholic convent school near Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. While at the school her mother passes away and Mercedee, with nowhere to go moves in with her aunt on her farm near Yarmouth. Fortunately, Mercedee’s father makes enough money to pay for one school year at the prestigious Mount Saint Vincent Academy in Halifax. Although Mercedee’s family had been well off when she was younger, she was now a shabby girl with clothes that hardly fit entering a convent school with upper-class girls and very strict Sisters. She has many conflicts with rich girls, overbearing nuns, and her own impetuous and rebellious nature. Through it all she grows into an independent young woman of 15, and against her father’s wishes leaves Mount Saint Vincent and buys a ticket on a steamship to New York City. She sails off on her own to forge a life with her aunt Monique.

Derek is a native of Mancos Colorado who has degrees in Geology from Fort Lewis College, Old Dominion University and the University of Oregon. He has written scientific papers and mountain bike guide books, and self-published an Old Western Satire. He researched Nova Scotia and New England history and visited Nova Scotia for this book. Mercedee Meehan is his great grandmother.