Community studies inform us about social organization and general conditions, and this study does indeed show us how the community as a whole functioned. But Zembrzycki brilliantly organizes her book so that oral histories show us individual lives: the women who refused to talk about domestic violence but could not leave out all signs of it; women who gleaned a feeling of belonging by working with other women, often to raise money for the Catholic Church; octogenarians who fondly remembered themselves as teenagers going to dances and eating fried chicken sandwiches early in the morning; men who described the excessive heat in the mines that caused many to pass out. This study is grounded in careful research in both written records and oral histories. It is also deeply personal and unforgettable.
Valerie Yow, Independent Scholar
Ontario History Review
“Who has not struggled to understand the older people in their lives,” asks Zembrzycki by way of her conclusion to this tremendously interesting and thoughtful book. This study provides a good, honest reckoning with an unusual research process. In this sense, it does all historians a service because it makes obvious those parents, grandparents, and other older people who almost invariably inspire – but almost never receive more than a passing mention – in the work of academic historians.
Karen Dubinsky, Queen's University
Canadian Historical Review