Description:

At nine o'clock on the morning of December 6, 1917, the close-knit family of James Jackson and Elizabeth (Halloran) Jackson-five sons, four daughters, their spouses, forty-eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren were happily engaged in their everyday lives in Richmond, Halifax's North End. The women had sent their children off to school; their husbands had gone off to work at Richmond's dockyard, rail-yard or sugar refinery. Another day of activity and promise had begun. Within five minutes, forty-six members of the Jackson family were dead, and nineteen were badly injured. Within five minutes their homes, schools, and places of work were completely demolished. Within five minutes the hopes and dreams of a family and community were destroyed forever.

Too Many To Mourn tells the tragic story of the Halifax Explosion through the lives and deaths of the Jackson family. It is a meticulous reconstruction of the personal events of their lives in the face of this disaster, and an affecting account of a community's endeavours to abide an unfathomable loss.

Published May 2008