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As Julie Wheelwright explores the epic life of her distant relative Esther Wheelwright she also brings a unique perspective to the 18th century struggle for political and religious dominance in North America.


Wheelwright tells the irresistible story of a 7 year old New England Puritan daughter kidnapped by Abenaki warriors and then adopted by an Abenaki family.  Since the tribe was an ally of the French, she was baptized into Catholicism and traded to the French.  Esther then had the harrowing choice:  be ransomed back to the English Puritans and face a lifetime of their condemnation or enter the convent and be saved.  She chose the latter and rose to become Mother Superior of the Ursuline Convent in Quebec City.


When Quebec City surrendered to the British in 1759, Mother Esther Marie-Joseph Wheelwright de L’Enfant Jesus opened the convent doors to all those in need of refuge.