Good advice.
Steve was once helping a friend clean out a house he was rent manager for and came across a bunch of junk stuffed under the house. He brought a box of paper home with him and when we sorted it, we found about 30 pages that had faint type-written words on them.
When we read them we were convinced that it was a real life story someone had taken the time to write. The spelling and grammar were so bad it wasn't easy to read but it was worth it.
It started with a woman's birth in a tent in northern Saskatchewan, in the winter. The story went through the "dirty thirties" describing and naming some of the jobless men and their families who stopped by their rickety cabin, some just looking for food. Some stayed and cleared land for them just to be able to eat.
She travelled west, when she was older, married a drunk, had children and hitch-hiked all over BC.
She eventually left her husband and found a job as a waitress.
The only clue we had to the author was that she signed the last page. No one knew where the last renters went to.
We searched phone books and the internet. We called people but no one seemed related to this woman.
I have since given this transcript to a friend who is an aspiring writer and she is slowly, re-writing the story.
We have the distant hope that one day it may be published and the rightful heirs will read it and recognize it! You never know.