The Light In The Window

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As June Goulding tells it, things were even worse for those in the hospital where no assistance apart from that of the midwife was allowed - no pain-relief, no episiotomies, no sutures, no healing baths, a doctor who only came to take Wassermann tests or, once, to provide anaesthesia. This is the true account of nurse June Goulding who took a position as a newly qualified midwife for a year between 1951-1952 in an Irish “home for unmarried mothers”. A still-birth was no tragedy, and breast-feeding was enforced so that mothers had to accept babies other than their own at the breast. After the women had given birth, the babies were kept a while, but then were sent by the nuns themselves over to America to be adopted, giving the birth mother no indication of what may have happened to their baby, again, this was done as a form of punishment. Berlin, 1941: The story opens with a bang - quite literally - an air raid on the city sees the Hubers scrambling to the safety of their cellar. An officer of high standing within the SS, Huber and his wife along with their daughter Annegret push their maid aside in an attempt to save themselves without sparing a thought for her. And why would they? She was nothing but a dirty Jew, employed as a housemaid to undertake their every whim and every chore...ableit unpaid. Her life meant nothing to the superior greatness of the German people.

This story follows Margarete from Berlin to Leipzig to Paris and the French Countryside. She is living as a Aryan German, but in her heart she is still a Jew. What will she do to survive? I loved Margarete's character. She is a strong woman wit courage, conviction and compassion. She has a moral dilemma which many people faced in war, "is saving many worth killing one?" The other characters were well developed and it was easy to dislike the ones we were meant to dislike. This book was emotional, as well as gripping. Some of the chances Margarete took had me sure she was going to be caught. Reading about how brainwashed the German officers and some civilians were difficult to believe, but I know it happened. In Paris, Margerete awaits the connecting train that will take her to her destination when she comes face to face with Wilhelm once again. Instead of revealing her true identity, he introduces her to his friends as his sister Annegret citing that she has come to join him for Christmas. Margerete has no idea if Wilhelm will report her to the Gestapo and yet she knows that if he does he faces charges of treason himself for maintaining the deception. Instead, he has a proposition for her. She is to continue to live as his sister so that he can marry her off and gain control of her inheritance. All they have to do is to continue to hide her from his brother Reiner who will spare neither of them should he learn the truth. This life-changing moment spins into a fascinating narrative that leads this brave young woman to Leipzig and then to Paris, resulting in narrow escapes and a life-threatening emotional attachment. The story is too complex and interesting to summarize but needs to be experienced first hand. June is a young midwife in Ireland when she accepts the post of midwife in a home for unwed mothers. It was an honest read and must have been a challenge for June to write. She describes her role and her inability to challenge the ways of the home, without trying to paint herself as a hero - it is quite clear that she was complacent, she was young and inexperienced and was tied up in the horrible well established system. It was a different era after all, one where religious figures were the highest authority and young midwives did as they were told. I particulary found her discriptons of the nuns 'after hours' interesting. You can't help but assume that women who did what these women did would be rotten and bitter to the core, yet after hours June gave us an account of the nuns that was playful and frivolous as they fussed like excitable teenagers whenever June had a date with her long time boyfriend.The only thing that didn't sit well with me was that Ms. Goulding seemed a bit too chummy with the cruel head sister running the home, and that she didn't fight hard enough for the girls. I know, it was the dawn of the 1950's, in a strict Irish Catholic home for unmarried mothers. June Goulding was almost as much a prisoner there as the captive girls she was caring for. Speaking up more than she did probably would have just gotten her booted out, so she tried to hang in there and gift the girls with the only thing she could give them, just a little human kindness. I try and keep it in perspective. I enjoyed this book, except at times the writing was choppy and hard to follow. There's also some swearing in it, but not so much or else I wouldn't have finished it. You’ve often said how important a rural upbringing was for you. How has it influenced your writing? In Ireland homes run by the Catholic Church and nun’s for unwed pregnant young women were sadly very common. These young girls and women were treated like prisoners, but that of course was kept from the public. They worked like slaves, where told that they were no more then whores and sinners. Then their precious babies where taken from them. They were not given even the most basic medical treatment, were barely given enough food. Then after their babies were born, unless they had the money which, most did not, they had to stay for three years to work off their “debts.” The children often were adopted overseas, the church of course profited from this. The mothers had no way of knowing what happened to their babies.

Minor characters are an important part of the Mitford books. Can you name four minor characters? What does one minor character contribute to the fabric of village life in Mitford? The constant threat of exposure that Marguerite faces enables the author to accurately evoke what the Jewish people endured in both Nazi Germany and occupied France. The role of French resistance fighters is also highlighted, along with many other historical phenomena that give the book an aura of authenticity. The author creates realistic characters, exposes the diabolical Nazi belief system and its devastating effects, especially for its primary victims, the Jews. Marguerite lives both sides of the Nazi-Jewish experience as she struggles to stay true to her heritage while still maintaining credibility as a daughter and sister of members of the Nazi hierarchy.

It is fair to say that there would be few in her position who would have the stones to stand against the might of the Catholic Church in Ireland, in the fifties, but one would hope that there would be fewer still who would witness the abhorrent treatment of these women by a nun, and then allow that nun to slather her in tanning lotion before she tripped off out to a "dress dance". While parts of it were compelling, one thing over shadowed the clumsily written memoir - her wait of half a century to write the damned thing. On the farm there were long passages of time in which to observe. The senses are very important to me, and I try to bring the experience of the senses into my writing. And life on the farm is very graphic. Calves are dropped, colts are foaled, manure lies steaming in the sun. It’s the bottom line of what life is about.

This was an Ireland in which such abuses involved the collusion of society itself. The most striking message from June Goulding's volume is one of absolutely no questions asked, ever. Born Janice Meredith Wilson in 1937, Jan Karon was raised on a farm near Lenoir, North Carolina. Karon knew at a very early age that she wanted to be a writer. She penned her first novel when she was 10 years old, the same year she won a short-story contest organized by the local high school. Karon married as a teenager and had a daughter, Candace. I still have in me a great love for the agrarian — for what this country was, for what we still are. People say, “Oh well, I guess there’s no such thing as Mitford.” Well, the good news is there are Mitfords all over the country, and there are still great stretches of open land and pastures and meadows and fields. It’s not all bad news. There’s so much left of this country that is reasonable and moral and strong. And that’s the part I relate to. The author tells the story as a memoir without naming the establishment or real names of the nuns and patients, except for a couple of the latter. While the author is brave for doing so, I struggled to understand how she could have limited her involvement to being the merciful one and not gone to greater lengths to fight for these defenseless women. This was especially disconcerting as she had medical connections and could have tried to expose what was going on as soon as she left the place. Of course there is a different social climate towards helping others now than at that time when authoritative figures yielded immense power. I can always count on Marion Kummerow to pen a compelling historical fiction novel that grabs my attention, holds it and rewards me with a plethora of knowledge learned!ETA 2023: I think I paid more attention this time to Father Tim and Cynthia's love story. Each of them was afraid (in different ways) to fall in love. She, because she had been hurt big time when her then-husband had a series of affairs. He, because he had been single all his life and was afraid of sharing his heart and his inner life with someone else. I could identify with both. The older we get, the more difficult (for me at least) it looks to share life with another person. I've been divorced for 22 years, and lived alone for 12. I can't imagine how it would be to try to integrate another person into my life, or me into theirs. And having been abused and severely hurt during my marriage, I don't think I have enough trust to allow someone else to know me again. So it was with understanding that I watched these two characters struggle to give up their fears and take a chance on love again. It's a pity that my dislike for Wilhelm colored my enjoyment of this so much because I liked Margarete and was rooting for her and the writing was lovely but I just couldn't bring myself to enjoy this as much as I could have.

My two stars serve only as a hope that other will be able to read this book and realise the horrors of what women in that place went through, but please borrow this from a library, don't do anything to furnish that woman's estate with any more ill gotten gains. In the tradition of James Herriot, Bailey White, and Garrison Keillor, author Jan Karon brilliantly captures the foibles and delights of a hilarious cast of characters.

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The only positive I could take from this book was that these women had June looking after them, by all accounts a kind and caring person. She details some of their stories here and I often think of those women now and what happened to them as the years went on.