Cynthia Fedak had an emotional reaction as she read the tidy handwriting strewn across three weathered pages.
“I could almost feel for her,” says Fedak, referring to Jeanne, a mystery woman whose desperate decades-old letter to her mother was recently discovered inside a Flin Flon home.
The letter encapsulates an era when Flin Flon was a frontier town, husbands controlled their wives and marriage outside the wrong religion was taboo.
Fedak’s son was in the process of demolishing a Terrace Avenue home when he found the pencil-written letter inside one of the walls.
As someone fascinated by history, Fedak, a Creighton retiree, took an immediate interest in the correspondence.
In the letter, dated Dec. 17, 1930, Jeanne – no last name given – described her stressful life as a newlywed in Flin Flon. She addressed the letter to her mother, Emile Lafrauce of Chapeau, Quebec.
Jeanne expressed apprehension about writing the letter and having her quick-tempered husband Bill – again, no last name mentioned – find out.
“She has to do all of the letter writing in secret and everything else,” says Fedak. “You wonder what kind of a life that this poor [woman had].”
While Bill had friends from the mining industry, Jeanne had none in Flin Flon.
“She didn’t know a soul and was really lonely,” says Fedak, who envisions Jeanne as a young woman.
The letter conveys other familial tensions, as Jeanne assures her mother she had been married in the Catholic Church – and that she hopes to see her mother again.
It’s unclear if Jeanne and Bill were married in Flin Flon. Also unknown is whether the letter was ever mailed, as Fedak notes Jeanne’s mother could have possibly returned the letter to her daughter before it somehow ended up in the wall.
Fedak is now searching for more information on Jeanne and Bill. She invites anyone with information to call her at 306-688-7362.
