Knowing By Heart is a loving tribute to family life on a small farm. In the mid-1970s, the author and his family made a momentous decision; they turned their summer residence in the province of New Brunswick into a fully developed homestead way of life. At the time of this decision, Lee Whitney was a professor of medieval literature and history at the University of Toronto. Their New Brunswick property was a 70-acre farm tucked into a hillside overlooking the Kennebecasis River Valley in the south-central part of the province. Once the decision was made they "never looked back and never regretted it." Soon after their arrival in the community, the editor of the Kings County Record induced Lee Whitney to start writing a weekly column about his family's life on their homestead farm. He titled the column, "A Letter from Home," and used the pen name "Jacob Erdman." The column was a hit with readers and continued for over three decades. Knowing By Heart is composed of essays drawn from this archive and arranged into chapters and themes.