Mereline Griffith’s Valley Girl preserves a vanishing way of life
“Rural is rural, and it always will be.”
Mereline Griffith was talking about her new book, Valley Girl: These Are My Stories—a memoir of her youth in the northern BC interior.
Griffith and her husband Bill now live on the shore of Moose Lake, near Bonnyville. She has published two books of cowboy poetry, Tales and Trails and There’ll Always Be A Cowboy. Rodeo-goers will know of her from the cowboy poetry circuit.
She has also published a children’s book, The Secret of Shay Cho Bay.
In our own age, we are not many generations removed from the pioneers and homesteaders who had to cut wood, haul water, and hunt and fish for subsistence. The old life was full of life lessons and hard knocks, but it also had joys and simple pleasures.
In our comfortable modern lives, we often don’t appreciate either the hard work or the happiness that went with such a seemingly-primitive way of life.
Griffith brings it all to life. The book is inspiring, insightful, and thoroughly entertaining.
“It’s been five years in the making, and it’s from the heart,” she said.
“Personal stories, a memoir of growing up in a time that’s sort of past, I guess. It’s stories that I just wanted to collect and preserve, because I believe young people need to know what it was like in the past.”
Griffith says a lot has changed as technology has taken over our lives—not that she begrudges progress. She says she wouldn’t have been able to write her books without her computer.
But the old ways revealed a lot about people’s character. Griffith said for all its hardship, life was good, and the book reflects that.
“It’s mostly positive stuff,” she said. “I don’t dwell on the negative things in life, either in my writing or in real life. I try and look on the positive side.”
Part of the book’s charm is the way Griffith organized the stories. We learn about the important characters—Griffith’s family, friends, and neighbours—but each of the chapters could almost stand on its own. It’s a perfect book for those who like to read just a few pages at a time.
And whether you’ve earned your way on the land or have an armchair romantic’s view of rural life, you will find the writing disciplined, readable, and beautiful.
“I want my writing to be not only read, but I want it to be seen like a picture, and felt and heard like the river,” Griffith said.
The placement of old photos and the occasional poem offers a variety of reading and a little help for the imagination.
Valley Girl is a testament to a vanishing way of life, and a tribute to those who lived it.
“Probably most importantly, the book is a celebration of a place and the people that lived there at that time. And good memories of these people, because it was a time when people really, really helped each other. They supported each other. Whatever they had, they shared,” Griffith said.
And although it is set in Salmon Valley, BC, the stories ring true for rural people across Western Canada.
“It’s things that people experience everywhere,” Griffith said. “Especially rural people in Western Canada in the 1940s and 1950s, they pretty much lived the same type of life.
“Rural is rural,” she said, “and always will be.”
