What was the First World War really like for Maritimers overseas? This epistolary book, edited by historian Ross Hebb, contains the letters home of three Maritimers with distinct wartime experiences: a front-line soldier from Nova Scotia, a nurse from New Brunswick, and a conscripted fisherman from Prince Edward Island. Up until now, these complete sets of handwritten letters have remained with the families who agreed to share them in time for the one-hundredth anniversary of the Great War’s end in 2018. These letters not only give insight into the war, but provide greater understanding of life in rural Maritime communities in the early 1900s. In Their Own Words includes a learned introduction and background information on letter writers Eugene A. Poole, Sister Pauline Balloch, and Harry Heckbert, enabling readers to appreciate the context of these letters and their importance. A welcome companion to Hebb’s earlier book, Letters Home: Maritimers and the Great War; 1914–1918.

Although originally from Nova Scotia's South Shore, Ross Hebb is now a long-term resident of New Brunswick. A graduate of King's College and Dalhousie University, Dr. Hebb received his PhD from the University of Wales, Lampeter, in 2002. Along with volumes on Maritime Church history, he has also written about the golden age of shipbuilding at St. Martins on the Bay of Fundy. In 2014 he edited the collection Letters Home: Maritimers and the Great War, 1914–1918; in 2018, In Their Own Words: Three Maritimers Experience the Great War, and in 2021, A Canadian Nurse in the Great War: The Diaries of Ruth Loggie, 1915–1916. Dr Hebb is an Honorary Research Associate at UNB's Historical Studies Department. He has authored academic articles on B. J. Murdock and on the literary accounts of Canadian First World War nurses. Dr. Hebb is married and lives in Fredericton, NB.

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