The Whittaker Saga

  As Alice is having her transformative experiences in Britechester, life goes on in its own pace in the Whittaker households. Thanksgiving is a quiet affair where they after dinner just spend time together. Abigail teaches Melanie to knit, the boys play together in Williams room, Joseph reads to the children.  On Saturday Frank hosts a small birthday party for his closest friends. It's a fairly successful affair, or so Emily thinks, especially as Frank stays in and does not go out with James and Mathias after the evening is over. Her boys are developing well, Harold oh so quickly, and Edward and John seem to take care of each other, playing in the first snow of the season. The scout movement has been good for them, she thinks. Taking them out of the house on the long weekends where Frank is more likely to be in a foul mood.   The new reverend is proving interesting and provides the town with plenty of gossip as he quickly marries Viviana Sinclair. How such as fast ...

  Dear Alice,  I hope my letter finds you well as I long to hear from you. Most likely this letter will find you almost as soon as my last, but I feel I need to write to someone least my frustrations get the best of me. Mother had her charity club here today. You know how I always thought they were just a bunch of women talking but doing little. Well, after joining the meeting today I cannot say that my view has changed much. They're all horrified by the war, of course, and talk about the need of action, but then settle on things like knitting sweaters or hosting charity balls!  Can't they find no more direct way to take action? I have never been patient enough to knit, and as you know I abhor balls. Why spend so much money on entertainment when you could just ask people for money? I do not know what to do myself, but I do feel the need to do something other than eating and chatting and hosting parties!  It's so bizzare that when people are dying, here they were kn...

As a new week starts, so does Alice's new life as a university student. As she settles in, she writes to her sister:  Dear Anna,  So now I'm finally here. I have barely settled in, but I already feel at home. It's just as you described it, even Miss Tanner. She's not the friendliest of women, is she? The other girls in the dorm seem nice, and chatty. I can barely read my homework for how much they want to talk all the time.  My first classes has started, and they're tough but fun. Especially the acting classes! The others are mostly about how to get charisma. I suppose it is something you need at the theatre, but I do wish there were more proper acting lessons.  I have yet to start an acting club, but as I get more comfortable, I do intend to start one, just like you said, but I want to settle in properly first. Britechester is so beautiful, I think I will be happy here.   Lizzie sends her best. I can't believe my luck that she's here, sleeping in the bed n...

  As the week ends together with the year 1913, Alice and Anna are spending as much time as they can get away with before the boys' birthday party. They talk, cloudgaze and dream about their future. Tomorrow it's Alice's turn to leave for university, as Anna tries to figure out what to do with her life, but today they're just two sisters watching the sky. Soon enough, however, they need to head inside, as the entire family and all the kids in the neighborhood fill up the house for the boys birthday party. Joseph plays the violin, Abigail reads to the youngest kids, there is food and cake and as soon as they can get away with it, young Edward and William sneak away to play by themselves in William's room. Who need other kids when you have each other? For Abigail this is a strange birthday. On the one hand she's proud of her little boy, on the other it will be the first time in almost twenty years that there will be no babies or toddlers either in the house or...

  In Frank and Emily's home, life continues on much as before. With one newborn, one infant, one toddler and one child, Emily has little time for anything but her children. Between feeding and changing diapers she tries to have time to actually educate her little ones as well. Especially young Edward, who is not yet old enough for school. It's not easy and Edward is not nearly as well developed as Abigail's William, even if they are exactly the same age. Beatrice too, is behind in her development. She learns to sit late, and even as she is about to age up, she has just barely started on real food. Emily tries to keep it together and to keep the... challenges of her and Frank's marriage from the kids, but the constant fighting is affecting them, whether she wants to admit it or not. John, especially, is hit hard by his father's mood changes and sudden burst if ill will. But life moved on, and by the end of the week, Emily still manages, with Virginia's help, ...

  For Emily, it was not such a hard decision to join in the protest against the bar. After all, she has seen first hand what can happen when someone is in the grips of an addiction. Frank, however, did not approve, and by the time she returned home he was livid. "How dare you humiliate me like that? What were you thinking!" "Can't you see that I'm doing this for you? You can't even spend a single night at home without getting drunk!" Emily retorts, but Frank is in no mood to listen to reason. At the end of the fight, both are left deeply unhappy, wounded and hurt. Frank doesn't like to admit it, but what if Emily has a point? What if he is really a failure? And Emily worries she went too far, said too much. What if Frank falls out of love with her? What if he isn't just at the bar every night? What if he has found someone else to spend his nights with when she and the children are not enough to keep him entertained?  As they fight, John escap...