Sir Wilfrid in Richmond Wolfe 1891

Sir Wilfrid and wife at the 1908 Quebec Tercentenary. Margaret Nicholson attended the celebrations.

As I write Diary of a Confirmed Spinster, the follow up to the ebook Threshold Girl I am finding out new information.

I’ve got the story plotted out, and I’ve written key scenes longhand, and I only need for my cervical disks to heal so I can type away. The story is based on the letters of Tighsolas, the letters of middle class Canadian family in Richmond Quebec in 1908-1913.

Now, in Threshold Girl I wrote a line for Flora, the heroine (a college student in 1911/12). She is being teased by a local shopkeeper about her father.  The shopkeeper asks, “Has Monsieur Laurier given your father his job back.” (Her father, Norman, worked on  Laurier’s Transcontinental Railway from 1907-1912, but was fired in 1910 for reasons explained in my ebooks.)

Flora thinks, “As if my father knows Prime Minister Laurier personally.”

But then yesterday I find out this: That Wilfrid Laurier ran as the Liberal Candidate in Richmond Wolfe in 1891! Yikes. He lost by a few votes. He also ran in Quebec East, where he won and became leader of the Opposition, lent his name to a pivotal era in History, and created a vision for Canada that lasted for a century (and my just be dying right now.)

From wikipedia.

Norman was active in Politics at the local level from 1900 to 1910, but did he vote for Laurier in 1891? I doubt it. He probably voted for Local Man Cleveland.

As you can see, J.N. Greenshields ran for the Liberals in the election before and lost. In 1911, he supports the Tories, not liking Reciprocity, which is Free Trade. He is President of a Textile company by then.

A voting list for the 1904 Canadian Federal Election. Norman kept it so he likely was the invigilator.

A little voting promo. The story of this election is told in Threshold Girl

Those Titanic Odors (strong but delicate )

Twiggy Eyes! Circa 1967.

I’m not much of a make=up user, too lazy, and at 57, who cares anyway.  Although it probably didn’t help me in my career. (One must play the game, you see.) But back in 1966, they almost got me!

It was the Yardley ads, mostly placed in the Monkees TV Show and in luscious magazines such as Seventeen. (VEEERRRRRY appealing to a 11 year old pubescent girl.)

My favorite ad, (let’s see if I can find it anywhere) is Yardley Opens Your Eyes. What a mystical message, “Wear make-up, be a wise-woman, at 11.” Yes, here it is, on Flickr. SugerPie Honeybunch’s pictures.

The Yardley ads  were sheer genius.  It was the age of the Flower Child and just about every fruit and flower  figured in their product line. It was sensual in a very innocent way!

Yes, they almost hooked me back then.

I write this because today I read an article online (Toronto Metro) magazine, one of those fillers in those free newspapers they give away on the subways across the country.

“Eastern Quebec has plenty for the flower lover.” It’s a competent piece that feels as if it was edited down. Likely (I can’t be sure) the author was paid to write this. (It’s kind of an advertorial.) Maybe he was paid by Tourism Eastern Townships.

You see, if enter the search term “Eastern Townships” into Google news, their website, www.easterntownships. org is the first to pop up, although that site is NOT A NEWS ITEM.

Today (on March 24) the second item to pop up is this “advertorial” piece on flowers in the Eastern Townships.

Anyway, this article talks about a E.T. Tourist attraction called Bleu Lavande, lavender fields planted by one Pierre Pellerin south of Magog.

I love LAVENDER, so I know where to go next time I head out to the E.T. to check out Richmond, (and pay my respects at the Nicholson gravesite in Melbourne.)

I love Lavender despite the fact that aroma wasn’t popular in 1960. It was “old fashioned.” It had that Edwardian tinge.

Here’s the Google ngram to prove my point:

The use of the word lavender peaks in 1920 and 30! So it’s more a roaring twenties smell.

In my ebook Threshold Girl (about Flora Nicholson of Richmond, Quebec and her year at College in 1911/12) I have Marion Nicholson trailing the smell of sweat and lavender water as she returns to her home in the E.T.  from Montreal in the summer of 1911, the year of a serious heatwave, in Canada and the U.K.

So, what else did women smell of in the Titanic Era? I wonder.  Rose water of course. (And I have Flora smell the rosewater on the neck of a girl on the tramway in Westmount as she travels with sister Edith to see a British Suffragette at St. James Methodist downtown.)

The 1913 Eaton’s catalogues sells all kinds of perfumes.

There’s an ad for an non-alcoholic floral concentrate, rose, lilac and lily of the valley. (All my favorite smells. I AM a throwback!) “These floral concentrates are of the highest order being very strong, yet delicate.”

Eaton’s has its own brand of toilet water:”Refreshing  and cooling when added to the bath.  In the odors of violet, helitrope, jockey club (horse manure! Another of my favorite aromas), lily of the valley, a few others, no LAVENDER.

Maybe Marion should be trailing the smell of lily of the valley. No, I like Lavender.

Over the years, I myself have tried to grow lavender in pots in the backyard, without much luck. Maybe Mr. Pellerin  of Magog can give me tips. When I go visit this spring or summer.(I want to visit Magog this summer as I write about the Dominion Textile Plant in my story, Threshold Girl. I want to see the old plant.)

Which brings me to my main point. For five years now, thousands upon thousands of people have been coming to my Tighsolas website,looking up all manner of things about 1910 – and learning about a family in the Eastern Townships, the Nicholsons. And now it’s speeding up because of the upcoming Titanic anniversary on April 15.

Most students who drop on my site are from BC or the Catholic side of the Ontario Schools for some reason, probably due to curriculum. Hardly any are from Quebec. Alas.

And now my Threshold Girl ebook is being read around the world: It is popular in Germany, for some reason. And the US. And Radcliffe has a copy in their library.

Maybe I should contact “Canada Economic Development” and “BonjourQuebec” about funding. They underwrite this Tourism Eastern Townships  site.  I’m surprised it isn’t receiving funding from Heritage Canada. That department seems to fund all the E.T. non-profits.

But my story is too political, I suspect. Once again, as with make-up, I’m a maverick. I refuse to play the game.

Introducing my new blog about the Nicholsons

Margaret and Norman. Studio photo taken on Bleury, in Montreal. Now, on the website, http://www.tighsolas.ca/ I call this their wedding photo. I didn’t notice, however, that she was pregnant here.

I’ve decided to start yet another blog based on Tighsolas.

It’s here on Blogger.com and is called The C-Files 1910: One Family’s Carbon Footprint.

Now, the Nicholsons didn’t only leave behind letters. They left behind complete household accounts for the years 1883-1921.

I only figured out yesterday, what to do with this useful information. I will investigate the family’s carbon footprint – and compare it to the carbon footprint of today’s average Canadian family.

For perspective!

Some of the most popular pages on my http://www.tighsolas.ca/ website is ‘Cost of Living 1900, or 1910.”

And this blog won’t be ‘stream-of-consciousness’. (That process is good for creative thinking.)

It will be well thought out, a series of vignettes with a purpose, and I will call on expert analysis.

Stay tuned.