Amidst the intricate threads of Edmund Blythe's ancestral story, a figure of undeniable significance emerges—Catherine, his mother. Her essence, a testament to unwavering character, weaves through a narrating a tale of fortitude amidst life's trials and tribulations.

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Catherine's transition into womanhood was neither conventional nor gentle, shaped by the hands of adversity and nurtured by resilience. Guided under the guardianship of her brother Sean, she was ushered into maturity, quickly.

 

When she was only thirteen, her father, officer Colonel John Harrington of the British army, left for America to fight the colonials. This cast a shadow of duty and sacrifice upon her upbringing. His noble quest to stop America's  desire for independence echoed in her memories, though his physical presence was forever lost to time.

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Catherine's heartache deepened with the premature death of her mother, Sara, just three months after her father had left. Then in 1778, a cryptic package bearing her mother's name arrived at the farmhouse awakening the dormant forces of fate, leading to her brother's murder, meeting her future husband, Charles and the birth of her first son, Edmund.