Lois Meier

The Apostate's Woman Lois Meier First edition

The Apostate's Woman is a love story taking place in Illinois and Canada in the midst of local, national and international hatred and intrigue in the last half of the 19th century. Euphemie, an attractive 23-year old, falls in love with Evaloe, the husband of her invalid cousin, Marie, for whom she works as a nanny and housekeeper. After Marie's death, Evaloe asks her to wait for him to return from The War Between the States. In the meantime, she becomes the housekeeper for Father Chiniquy, world renown excommunicated priest. The local schoolteacher, Francis, is a would-be suitor. Both he and Evaloe are killed in the war. Chiniquy, twenty-five years her senior, asks her to marry him. They discover a deep love for each other. She bears him one son and two daughters. She changes from a young girl dependent on her parents, fearful of the Roman Catholic clergy and in awe of Father Chiniquy into a capable, strong-minded woman who faces her many responsibilities with cheerful acceptance. During his many absences, she endures gossip and derision labeling her "The Apostate's Woman." The noisy drone of the insects called cicadas runs through the story including the wedding night as well as the final episode when she is sixty-two and he is eighty-seven. He tells her the cicadas are informing the world "Phemie did" instead of "Katie did." When she asks, "Phemie did what?" he replies, "Made one old apostate one angel of a wife!"