Prisoners in the Promised Land

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I am sorry that I cannot be with you on your namesday. It is hard to believe that my little girl is now twelve. I am sending you this diary so that you can write down all that you experience as you leave our beloved village and travel across the ocean to be with me.

Your loving tato

Monday, April 13, 1914, early

at home in my beautiful Horoshova

Dear Diary, your soft cover is dancing-boot red and your pages are the colour of freshly churned butter. When I hold you to my cheek you smell clean and fresh like Tato when he’s just shaved.

I like having a diary, but I’d rather have my father come home. He wants us to come to Canada instead. Mama showed me a drawing of the house Tato has found for us. It is so huge compared to our little home. The Canadian house is made of little rectangular bricks instead of plaster like all of the houses in Horoshova. It is as tall as three regular houses stacked on top of each other! Each level has its own set of windows and a door, and there is a long metal staircase on the outside that goes all the way to the top! There must be a room on every level in this huge Canadian house — maybe even two rooms on each level! It will be fun to run up and down those stairs!

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