20 Jun 2009
Rita’s Experiences
About Living
A local author originally
from St. Vincent’s, St.
Mary’s Bay says that growing
up poor was hard enough for
a young woman during the
50’s and 60’s in a small Newfoundland
outport community,
growing up poor - and
catholic, was even worse.
In her book, ‘REAL.,
From the Edge of the Rock.,
Rita Mary Stamp who now
lives in Ontario, talks about
how difficult life truly was for
her. Some people, she maintains,
would rather she buried
her unpleasant memories
than bring them to the surface
again for all to see. Abuse, she
says, is more than physical as
most people associate with it,
it’s psychological, spiritual,
mental, financial and social.
Sometimes, she says, it’s all of
it combined.
‘Ghastly sounds
made by dishes being
smashed, pots and pans propelled
across the kitchen after
midnight hour were all too
familiar events in the life of
young Rita Mary Stamp.
However, when morning arrived
nothing was ever out of
place. Unusual sightings, the
presence of ghosts in the family
home, myths, belief in fairies
and superstitions were all
a part of growing up poor and
Irish in the small outport village
of St. Vincent’s. Rita also
grew up in fear: Angst related
to her father’s harsh discipline,
as well as threat-based
schooling deeply rooted in
rote learning and religious
rites. Her father’s unyielding
and virtually unattainable expectations,
as well as those of
the Roman Catholic Church,
combined with the unrelenting
hardship and cyclical poverty
of mid-century rural
Newfoundland, provides the
context and the content for
this remarkable tale. Dominated
by a priest who reigned
with a steel will and iron
hand, invoking the fear of
God and the leather strap, Rita
left Newfoundland in 1969,
one of many
Newfoundlanders to depart -
to Toronto. For generations it
was the lot of many
Newfoundlanders to depart -
to head down the road - for
economic reasons, but Rita’s
motivation for leaving ran
much deeper. Forty years later
she sees that choice - and her
Newfoundland home - in a
very different light.’
Rita Stamp held the
second of two book launches
this week. The first was held
at the Parish Hall in St.
Vincent’s this past Saturday
and the second was held five
days later at the Downhome
Shoppe on Water Street in St.
John’s. Her book published by
New World Publishing, is
available at the Downhome,
Chapters and Coles for $19.
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