Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely remember that when I was in maybe 8th grade at the MK school, after lunch our teacher Mrs. Richardson would have story time, in which she would read aloud to us a chapter from a book. One of the books she read to us was a novel, although I cannot remember the title of it, or maybe there was a true story behind it, about some people who came to Canada from Russia and found Christianity. The heroine, who might have been Jewish or not, I don't remember very much about this book, when in her youth living back in Russia, or maybe Eastern Europe, worked as a maid in the very large house of very wealthy people, often on her hands and knees scrubbing the fancy flooring. Eventually she escapes to America where she finds true love. Also, another character in the book was a Jewish man who is caught in a storm, while touring the many islands of the St. Lawrence River, and finds God. Whether it was the storm or the still small voice, I don't remember. Our teacher, Mrs. Richardson, was Canadian so sometimes she reminds us that some things are not a matter of nationality. Anyway, I think that all of us who come to America were escaping something in Europe, if only a lack of new opportunities. No need for more recent immigrants to imagine that earlier American pioneers were not also hard-working people just doing their jobs.