Happily Ever After: A Silent Night

Can a Silent Night lead to a happily ever after life?

Before writing for A Pioneer Christmas Collection, Anna Urquhart had seldom heard of pioneers traveling by water and examined the opening of the Erie Canal in 1830’s which led to settlements in Michigan Territory. A Silent Night actually begins in Edinburgh, Scotland and follows the challenges of making a life in the big woods of the upper Midwest.

The drama of a marriage lost and found is played out over Christmas in a barn beside a smoldering cabin in A Silent Night.

The rest of the story

A Silent Night ends on Christmas Day in 1830. The Findlays—Iain, Lorna, and Afton—are spending Christmas with Sissy and Charles Grayson in Sissy’s home because the Findlay’s cabin was burned to the ground. After wintering with Sissy, the Findlay’s return to their homestead in the spring, after the worst of the snow has melted. They rebuild their home, and Iain builds Lorna a new table, using the wood from the land on which there are rebuilding their lives.

One day Lalawethika, the Shawnee who saved Iain’s life, appears with a baby in his arms—a white baby he came upon whose family had all died from small pox. Iain and Lorna take in the child, a little boy whom they name Jonathan, meaning “Jehovah’s gift.” They once believed they would never have another child; Jonathan, indeed, was a gift from the Lord.

Afton is delighted by the arrival of a new little brother. She grows up, inquisitive and vivacious as ever. At 18, she meets a young minister in Detroit and they eventually marry and have several children, filling Lorna and Iain’s lives with the sounds of more pattering feet and childhood laughter.

Jonathan eventually returns to his birth-family’s homestead, which—after a long legal struggle—now belongs to him. He rebuilds his home and works the land, learning from Grayson how to sow and tend and harvest. He eventually marries a young Shawnee woman and they too start a family. They face many challenges—since Indians of any tribe are not seen in a favorable light. Yet they keep hold of hope and work to spread grace and love amidst the difficulties they face.

Sissy, tough as ever, continues to work her land with the help of Grayson. She eventually succumbs to pneumonia and leaves her home and land to Grayson. She passes quietly, but not before whispering to Lorna, “He still sees the sparrow, and this sparrow’s goin’ home.” Grayson and the Findlays bury her on the hill by the row of hemlocks alongside her husband and children, overlooking their land.

Grayson continues to live and farm on Sissy’s homestead after she dies. He never marries, though he comes close to marrying a widow, Margaret, who has lost her husband and is left with 2 small children. He continues to help Margaret (as he did Lorna) until she is able to move back East to her family, yet Grayson senses the Lord has other plans than marriage for him. Grayson makes amends with Joseph Edgar, who has taken to drinking and hiding away on his farm after setting the Findlay’s house afire. Edgar, too, makes amends with the Findlays, who eagerly forgive and accept him back into their lives. Grayson and Edgar live out their days as close friends and dedicate themselves to helping those in need on the Michigan frontier.

What’s happened to Anna Urquhart?

Since A Silent Night was published, Anna has been hard at work and recently received a Masters of Fine Arts in Writing. She’s revising a full-length historical novel and publishing freelance travel stories.

As to A Pioneer Christmas Collection, she wrote this:

“What makes Pioneer Christmas different is that every story is set “in transit”—the settings (especially the Christmas scenes) are at times precarious and at times surprising, and they show the reality for people of that time that Christmas wasn’t necessarily a day “set apart.” It was a day still filled with challenge and requiring courage.

It was more about the people and finding contentment and joy amidst difficult circumstances.

I love that all of the writers of this collection didn’t shy away from making things hard for their characters. I also love that they didn’t shy away from acknowledging that joy and hope is always possible, regardless of circumstances.”

Enjoy your silent nights!

Tweetables

Edinburgh, a burnt cabin and A Silent Night. Now what? Click to Tweet

Finding contentment and joy in difficulties. Click to Tweet

The rest of a story, A Silent Night, in a Pioneer Christmas Click to Tweet

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