Born in 1907, Ida Martin spent most of her life in Saint John, New Brunswick. She married a longshoreman named Allan Robert Martin in 1932 and they had one daughter. In the years that followed, Ida had a busy and varied life, full of work, caring for her family, and living her faith. Through it all, Ida found time to keep a daily diary from 1945 to 1992. Bonnie Huskins is Ida Martin's granddaughter. In Just the Usual Work, she and Michael Boudreau draw on Ida's diaries, family memories, and the history of Atlantic Canada to shed light on the everyday life of a working-class housewife during a period of significant social and political change. They examine Ida's observations about the struggles of making ends meet on a longshoreman's salary, the labour confrontations at the Port of Saint John, the role of automobiles in the family economy, the importance of family, faith, and political engagement, and her experience of widowhood and growing old. Ida Martin's diaries were often read by members of her family to reconstruct and relive their shared histories. By sharing the pages of her diaries with a wider audience, Just the Usual Work keeps Ida's memory alive while continuing her abiding commitment to documenting the past and finding meaning in the rhythms of everyday life.
This book was written because of my youth. I spent it saying the word IF all the time as a child. If I do this what would happen? Usually the results were not quite what I expected, but as people say nothing ventured nothing gained. I loved to imagine things in that way, if I do this then what will the results be? Pretend is a word that seems to be one, our children use less and less these days. I do not have anything against video games and exciting toys, however somewhere along the line we seem to have lost word if. I had two wonderful sisters' who loved to play if games. A few times that got us into trouble, but for the most of the time we had wonderful fun! Most of the family got involved with the fun, and we all loved playing together. I have five wonderful grandchildren and they seem to play games more and use their imagination. So my If today would be, I hope that parents' read this book to their children and start to again use that special word IF!
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