After last week’s tough realism, this week I needed a book that helped me relax. “With a Merry Heart” is perfect for the reader who wants to leave the high cost of everything, the war overseas, and every personal problem for just a few hours, and enjoy this tale of childhood in New England.
Author Janet Gillespie grew up in a loving family of five. Her tale begins with vignettes of summers spent at the family place at the shore, where her Victorian grandmama celebrated her birthday with the planting of a special lane of trees. The year was 1914. Each chapter is a look back at her truly merry childhood, with a father (“Pop”) who was a pastor and then chaplain at Princeton, and a mother who loved cuddling her babies.
Tolstoy once said “every happy family is alike.” That may be true, as the pictures of the happy Wicke family in this book are of universals and American traditions: family gatherings, the birth of new babies, childhood playmates, going to school and Christmas celebrations. The beauty of this memoir is in the details. Gillespie tells the stories of her young life so that we are transported back a century and more; it made me feel I was there on the Point, their summer place, taking part in the sledding at their childhood home in Holyoke, or sitting surrounded by plush green tufted chairs and mahogany furniture in her Pop’s study, reading before dinner.
This book is a magical experience. As Pop exclaimed each morning at the Point, “This is the day which the Lord has made! Let us rejoice and be glad in it!”
Notes from Aunt Gem 