When They Took Dad Away

More about the book

In the spring of 1952 eight-year-old Barbara and her brother Clement, fourteen months her senior, return from Sunday School one afternoon to find that Daddy has been taken away. He is confined for the next one-and-a-half years in Augusta State Mental Hospital. When They Took Dad Away depicts the four McGillicuddy children's shock at losing Daddy, Mumma's struggle to provide for their future, the generous and disruptive ministrations of relatives, and, ultimately, Daddy's reentry into family life, difficult in various ways for all involved. The story begins in Woolwich, Maine, population circa 1000, and ends in Houlton, Maine, population circa 8000