Far From Home: Dr. Grenfell's Little Orphan

By Nellie P. Strowbridge

Clarissa, eleven, has been orphaned by a disease that has kept her far from home for as long as she can remember. Despite the many inmates in Dr. Grenfell’s Children’s Home on Newfoundland’s northern tip, she lives a lonely life. She longs to be able to do something as simple as pushing her feet into boots in a blink and skipping down the road holding hands with Cora, her best friend.

Will Clarissa get to go home? If so, what will she discover about her past that will help her understand why she spent her childhood at the orphanage? There are times when she is not sure if she wants to go home. What if she doesn’t like anyone there? Worse—what if no one likes her?

The story begins in 1924 at St. Anthony, with flashbacks to earlier times. One bright memory is folded in a blue handkerchief, which is given to her by a kind nurse and carried to the end like a security blanket.

Shortlisted for the 2006 Heritage and History Award

• Language: English
• Publisher: Flanker Press
• Release date: Sep 27, 2004
• ISBN: 9781771171397

Nellie P. Strowbridge

Nellie P. Strowbridge is one of Newfoundland and Labrador’s most beloved, prolific, and respected authors. She is the winner of provincial and national awards and has been published nationally and internationally. Her work is capsuled in the National Archives as this province’s winner in Canada’s Stamp of Approval Award for a letter written to Canada 2117. A former columnist, editorial writer, essayist, and award-winning poet, Strowbridge has won the NL Arts and Letters Awards a record seventeen times. Al Purdy included her in the Sandburg Livesay Award Anthology No Choice but to Trust, featuring outstanding populist poets around the world. She has been Writer in the Library, a mentor to young writers, an adjudicator in the NL Arts and Letters Awards, an assessor on the NL Projects Grants Committee, and a judge for the WANL Book Awards and Fresh Fish Awards. Strowbridge has held school workshops in Canada and Ireland and hosted a Seminar/Gabfest for International Women’s Day in Cobh, where she was writer-in-residence. The Canadian Embassy in Dublin sponsored a reading and reception for her. She also read from her work during a Scotland bus tour. The author is a member of The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC), The League of Canadian Poets (2009 NL and NS Representative), the Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador (WANL), and Page One.

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