The Second Mother

Widowed at nineteen and determined to secure a future for her young daughter, Margaret Peppers enters training as an Episcopal deaconess, placing her child in the care of her husband’s family while she prepares for service in a world on the brink of upheaval.Margaret’s path leads far beyond California to mission houses in the Philippines; rural parishes in the Pacific Northwest; Japanese immigrant communities, and even the stark confines of wartime incarceration camps. In orphanages, parish halls, and barracks converted into classrooms, Margaret is a constant in the lives of children whose own families have been fractured by poverty, migration, and war.Yet the life Margaret builds in service to other people’s children unfolds alongside a quieter, more complicated bond with her own daughter. As the years pass, motherhood takes another shape, and devotion—to God, country, and family—reveals its hidden cost.Inspired by the real life of Margaret Peppers, The Second Mother is a work of historical fiction that traces one woman’s search for purpose across continents and crises. Read more