Madame Albani Comes Home 1905

A playbill for Sherbrooke’s  Clement theatre, for Madame Albani concert, 1905.  The playbill doesn’t give date but I have it recorded by Norman in his store book. He gave Edith 2.35 for the concert.

Madame Albani was the Victorian Celine Dion, world famous soprano, in the last decade of her professional life.She was Emma Lajeunesse of Chambly and there’s a huge Wikipedia entry on her.

In my book, Diary of a Confirmed Spinster, the follow up to THRESHOLDGIRL I think I will have Edith mention the concert. It would have been a big event.

 

I tried to find a report on Albani’s world tour in the Montreal Gazette, but to no avail. I did find an awful lot of booze ads. No wonder The Gazette was not exactly for women’s suffrage.

 

 

I even found this ad for Radnor, which plays into my Milk and Water story, about 1927 Montreal and Corruption at City Hall.

 

Radnor was official supplier to the British Royals. Laurentian was not. In this same edition an advert proclaims that Laurentian is now supplier to the Allan Line. (Sir Montague Allan.. oh my! This is important to my play as I mention the guy. I saw the Prince of Wales is supping at Ravenscrag, Allan’s home that became the Allan Memorial Hospital, so I’ve been there too!  As a visitor.)

 

It also plays into Threshold Girl. In 1911 Flora Nicholson, my heroine, has  a crush on one Ross Cleveland, who went on to marry the niece of Sir Montague.

 

 

And that same March edition has an advert for SN Townsend, for booze, they are also mentioned in Milk and Water. They made a fortune in one year during American Prohibition.

Tiny Little Tintype

Unknown girl. This is a tiny tintype, the size of a dime, framed in a large embossed piece of pink paper. I don’t recognize the girl as an adult: from what I can see she would be a fabulously beautiful woman. Although there is something about that gaze that is very familiar.

I got ahead of myself posting blogs with pictures, and am catching up, filling up the blogs with chit chat or, more hopefully, scenes from my book. So, despite the date above, I am writing this on December 18th. Just remembered! This is my wedding anniversary.

How cool, writing this blog has allowed me to do something I’ve never done before, remember my anniversary. My husband always does, and some years, I’ve gotten a ring at the front door, accepted flowers and STILL not realized what they were about. I forget my anniversary because it comes so near Christmas and I have so many other things on my mind. And I do not consider marriage my defining act.

Now, how can I segue into Flo and the City, my novel in progress about a girl coming of age in the exciting 1908-1913 era, from real life letters posted on http://www.tighsolas.ca/ my social studies website? Easy.

Marriage is central to this story, or the pursuit of marriage. Because this is REAL LIFE and not fantasy or wish fulfillment, not all the heroines of this piece end up ‘happily ever after’. Well, none do, because happily ever after does not exist.

And not all the heroines of this piece fit into ‘categories’ such as the plain, good one, (well, Flo does sort of fit) and the beautiful, shallow one.. No Edith was not shallow, etc. The Nicholson women are real people, with a mix of characteristics, some sort of cliche, but most not.

If I want to convey anything with this novel, is that each of us is a product of our time and place as well as a ‘unique’ combination of genes…genes that have come before in our ancestors and will come after in our descendants, expressing in physical characteristics and in personality, but due to ‘accidents’ of birth, these genes can only realize themselves in certain ways in any given time or context… (I will work on this.)

The little girl in the tintype above, who lived her life as a wife and mother, has similar genes to her great great granddaughters, who may be dancers or scientists. The same potential…

This is an age old theme in literature, conveyed ably in those inter-generational epics like East of Eden, so I am doing nothing new thematically (hubris to think otherwise). Well, really it’s all about nature/nurture and that’s an old debate. But I am treading new territory in that these letters -and technology- are allowing me to explore the nature/nurture issue in a slightly different way. (The fact that I know the descendants of these people also helps.)

There is a school of thought, (American) that ANYTHING can be achieved with the right character. This is hoo-ha, of course. It’s all about being the right person, in the right place and the right time, and having luck on your side. Character has a place to play as the contrast between the characters of Marion and brother Herb prove.(My idea.) The Nicholson saga proves that you can do everything right and still have to struggle, even in a time of great promise and prosperity. Or does it? But as I wrote in my ‘obit’ of Norman Nicholson, this man was not a success at business, but he was a success at life. www.tighsolas.ca/page98.html

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