Edna Staebler who passed away in 2006 in her 101st year was an award-winning journalist and a regular contributor to Maclean's, Chatelaine, and many other magazines. She is the author of Cape Breton Harbour, Places I've Been and People I've Known and the Schmecks cookbook series. Must Write: Edna Staebler's Diaries, edited by Christl Verduyn, was published by Laurier Press in 2005. Marlene Kadar is an associate professor in humanities and women's studies at York University, and the former director of the graduate programme in interdisciplinary studies.

"Access to this type of normally private commentary is an inestimable boon to the social historian. The physical, intellectual, and emotional work of making a life for oneself, one's family, and one's community are movingly laid out in details that few public documents preserve. Ruby's letters ultimately supply a salutary reminder of the past's, indeed our parents,' right to tell their own story in their own way. If we listen closely to Ruby and her contemporaries, we will learn that the generation of the 1950s represents more than mere creators of today's self-absorbed boomers." -- Veronica Strong-Boag, University of British Columbia -- Canadian Historical Review

• Haven't Any News: Ruby's Letters from the Fifties, edited by Edna StaeblerIntroduction to Ruby's Letters Edna StaeblerRuby's Letters Ruby CressAddendum Edna StaeblerAfterword Marlene Kadar

Edna Staebler who passed away in 2006 in her 101st year was an award-winning journalist and a regular contributor to Maclean's, Chatelaine, and many other magazines. She is the author of Cape Breton Harbour, Places I've Been and People I've Known and the Schmecks cookbook series. Must Write: Edna Staebler's Diaries, edited by Christl Verduyn, was published by Laurier Press in 2005. Marlene Kadar is an associate professor in humanities and women's studies at York University, and the former director of the graduate programme in interdisciplinary studies.

"Access to this type of normally private commentary is an inestimable boon to the social historian. The physical, intellectual, and emotional work of making a life for oneself, one's family, and one's community are movingly laid out in details that few public documents preserve. Ruby's letters ultimately supply a salutary reminder of the past's, indeed our parents,' right to tell their own story in their own way. If we listen closely to Ruby and her contemporaries, we will learn that the generation of the 1950s represents more than mere creators of today's self-absorbed boomers." -- Veronica Strong-Boag, University of British Columbia -- Canadian Historical Review

• Haven't Any News: Ruby's Letters from the Fifties, edited by Edna StaeblerIntroduction to Ruby's Letters Edna StaeblerRuby's Letters Ruby CressAddendum Edna StaeblerAfterword Marlene Kadar