I include a newspaper clipping from the Ottawa Citizen because, small though it is, it gives a picture of some of the issues of that year.
The establishment of the American Peace Corps that decade influenced the start of similar organizations in other counties, including Canada. [Ten years later, Linda would go to Nigeria, along with a cohort of other young Canadians, teaching there for two years with CUSO, working with Nigerian teachers, NYSC graduates, and other ex-pat teachers; meeting volunteers from the VSO in England; making friends and enjoying her students in what was a very positive experience.] Cyn and her mother exchanged news, letters and newspaper clippings about subjects of interest, and Carol kept one of these from October 1968, about an Ottawa surgeon volunteering in the summer in St. Vincent, so that the local surgeon could take a holiday. The Canadian Executive Services Overseas and the Canadian Medical Association worked together to make this possible and it seemed to be successful.
On the reverse side of the clipping is a story about children sniffing glue, citing the death of a 10-year-old Ottawa boy, and the efforts of a local entrepreneur in Hull, across the river from Ottawa in Quebec, to restrict the sale of glue to minors. Linda and Charlie may have been unaware of it at the time, but the drug culture was affecting their school and their generation.
The last story on the clipping is pure 1968, in that the very respected fundraising of the United Appeal featured a “psychedelic go-go breakfast” for its campaign workers! Sadly, the story does not feature the menu, but focuses on the need to “hustle” to beat the figure raised in the previous year.
A Family History in Letters 