Tea with an angel: An epistolary/narrative examination of Helen Marie Paquet's diaries

Helen Marie Paquet, a Prince Edward Island woman and relative by marriage, wrote diaries for more than 23 years. In 2002, Helen Marie Paquet died and left behind 35 notebook-long diaries rich in stories and events. This thesis examines these diaries and highlights five themes that represent a life revealed. I respond to her revealed life through a series of creative letters and diary entries that themselves tell a story.

To study my own evolving relationship with Helen Marie Paquet, I use methods common to autoethnography. To respond to her diaries, I use an epistolary/narrative form. In using this form, my goal was to create an analysis as original and accessible as the diaries themselves. While I do not examine a difference in the cultures of Paquet and myself, I do create in the epistolary/narrative analysis and responses a fictive culture of its own. Through creating this culture in this form, I demonstrate an imaginative way to mediate between primary materials and research materials. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).