Author Earl Pilgrim set to release new book months after fire destroyed his house
Newfoundland author Earl Pilgrim is rising from the ashes after his home burned to the ground last spring with thousands of books inside, including some he'd written himself.
Less than a year after losing everything, he has a new home and a new book in the works. Despite that, the 79-year-old says he stills feels the loss on a daily basis.
"Every moment you go to reach for something it's not there. It's very awkward," he said.
"I had to buy everything and fit the house out. There was nothing in the house when I bought it. There's a lot of things of course, you can never again. But you try to get along the best way you know how."
"There's no way to cope with it. People's names and dates — you'll never get it back. - Earl Pilgrim
Pilgrim also lost a lifetime worth of of notes and documents about the area around Roddickton where he lived, as well as unpublished information about Sir Wilfred Grenfell, who was the subject of a few of his books, including The Day Grenfell Cried.
"There's no way to cope with it. People's names and dates — you'll never get it back. I had documents on everybody and pictures of them, and of course you just don't have it anymore," he said.
"I'm trying to get a new book together and all the information you had it, I mean everything is gone, destroyed. When you're writing a book you like to refer back to documents, study it and write a story on what you found out. And when you don't have that available, what do you do?"
New beginnings
Despite these major setbacks, Pilgrim said he is forging ahead with his latest book that he estimates will come out six months from now.
"It's a story I should have had years ago. After a while the people you talk to and do research on have gone on. But it's a story of a ship that left Alabama and come to Canada Harbour to get a load of marble, and what went on, my Lord, it's a cruel story," he said.
To add to an already tragic chapter in his life, Pilgrim's wife died of leukemia about a year and a half before his house burned down. He said he had just barely started to get back into writing again when he lost his home.
Now almost a year later he said he's been slowly able to get back to himself with the care and support from the community of Roddickton.
"Everybody gave me support. I even had support from Italy, people from all over just helping me out," he said.
"The food that people gave me, I mean they're still bringing it now, good Lord. It's a job to know what to say because people are so good."
