When The Leaves Turned

When the Leaves Turned is a sweeping, multi-generational tale based on a true story rooted in the prairies of southern Alberta. It begins with Freda May Shorto, a young English woman who crosses the Atlantic in 1927 seeking a new beginning. She finds love with Carl Fraser, builds a family, and creates a warm, music-filled home despite the hardships of prairie life and the looming shadow of war.

But on October 25, 1943, everything changes. A troubled drifter named John Kelly enters the Fraser home and murders Freda in front of her mother and children “the first shot cracked through the room... Freda staggered backward” . The tragedy reverberates through the lives of her children, Muriel, Robert, and little Neilson, each carrying the trauma in different ways.

Through meticulous research, archival records, and family stories, the book reconstructs not only the crime but the lives shaped by it. Readers follow Carl’s grief, Muriel’s forced maturity, Robert’s quiet resilience, and Neilson’s lifelong echoes of fear. The narrative ultimately expands into the present, where the author, Freda’s granddaughter Sherry, reflects on inherited memory, healing, and the legacy of a woman she never met.

This is a story about love, loss, and the invisible threads that bind generations. Heartbreaking yet hopeful, When the Leaves Turned honours a life stolen too soon and the family who carried her forward.