Canada’s Would be British Suffragette Leader

Barbara Wylie, From WSPU. She was on her way in September 1912 to convert Canadians to the cause, taking the Empress of Ireland (which would soon sink, I think).

Well, earlier I referred to Barbara Wylie as a rogue suffragette for the brazen way she promoted militant values in the speeches, when all the other visiting suffragists were much more careful to tone down  their rhetoric.

But she wasn’t rogue. She was sent by the WSPU as their representative.  They mentioned it in their magazine. Of course, one wonders why they sent her away to the colonies at all.

A short biographical paragraph about her I found on the Net from a book on the Suffragettes says she stayed in Canada from 1912-14, but not true, as I saw another article where she entertained a US journalist in her London home in August 1913. And she becomes spokesperson for the WSPU for a short while in 1914, with the Pankhursts in Jail again.

She had been the head of the Glasgow  branch of WSPU (some say Edinburgh) and then she came to London. She was one of the suffragettes put in jail for civil disobedience, window smashing in 1912, but apparently she was allowed out due to her mother’s ill health (ie. her parents had pull.)

She came to Canada as a brother was a MLS in Saskatchewan. (Perhaps she had dreams of becoming THE Suffrage Leader in Canada, as there was a vacuum, but that didn`t pan out.)

Anyway, Wylie figures in my story Threshold Girl. I fidget with dates, tho, bringing her to Montreal in May of 1912.  Flora Nicholson and Edith Nicholson go to see her speak in a church but miss the actual speech. I use dialogue from the Montreal Daily Star account in the book, the account I have on a news clipping belonging to Edith.  Yes, Wylie was militant, as in unapologetic about the more violent acts of the suffragettes, including attacks on the Prime Minister.

And the WSPU magazine, Votes for Women, figures in the follow up Diary of a Confirmed Spinster. Edith reads the article about women being tortured in jail and gets inspired to act out on an injustice in her own life, a perceived injustice.

Canada’s official women suffrage history centers on the Famous Five out west, Emily Murphy and Nellie McClung and those others  And like Carrie Derick in Montreal, who founded the Montreal Suffrage Association in 1912 maybe after  meeting Wylie, their women’s rights activism is all tied in with murkier things, like eugenics and temperance and moral and social reform.

Emily Murphy also got into the ‘war on drugs’ business, in the 20′s, a decade later than the Americans, but with the same racist slant.

That’s probably why they didn’t teach about suffrage movement  in City schools in my day.

As I’ve written, the Nicholsons of Richmond were tea-totalling Presbyterians, but only father Norman ever wrote about the dangers of drink. The women seemed more intent on getting all they  could out of life for themselves, love, nice clothes, great jobs, lots of travel, the right to earn a proper living, suffragettes in the truest form, wanting the same rights as the men.

There were not interested in social welfare per se, but as teachers in the big city, they were thrown head-long into the problem and given hands on experience.

Biology and Ambition, the epistolary novel about Marion Nicholson’s early life reveals that this future union leader just wanted an even playing field. She was willing to work for the rest. (Boy, would she have made a great suffragette!)

Anyway, the press covered Miss Wylie (that was the point and she was so PRETTY! sic) in Toronto her speech is reported on and in Calgary I found an article that makes fun of her militancy, light of it.

Actually, a ‘snippet’ tour I just took of Google Books shows that Miss Wylie has left a legacy as a suffragette, in the scholarship, mentioned in Dame Pankhurst’s 1930′s autobiography.

And her Canadian tour aroused interest, at least converting women journalists to the cause. One account said she received a cold shoulder in the East but a nicer reception out West. After the Calgary talk, a suffrage association was started up, so even with the mocking, it worked. And she was active in BC. Her brother, the MLA, pushed for women suffrage in Saskatchewan.

One Man’s Terrorist is…a Suffragette

My improvised work station.

I have set up a workstation where my arms and wrists and gaze are all properly aligned. Hopefully, I can get to typing Diary of a Confirmed Spinster, my story about Edith Nicholson of Richmond, Quebec, a prim and proper Presbyterian teacher who was all for the militant suffragettes.

The other day I listed to some installments of a BBC Radio Four re-run, called History We’ve Forgotten to Remember.

The series reminds us that history gets rewritten, often by omission, and often on purpose.

I listened to the episodes called “The Suffragettes.” I wondered what part of the Suffrage Movement they’d focus on, so much of it has been rewritten and/or forgotten.

Well, they focused on that fact the suffragettes were militant, even committing ‘acts of terrorism’ over and above the window-breaking that has been remembered in popular culture such as TV shows like Upstairs Downstairs etc.

Well, nothing I don’t go around telling people. The suffragettes were the militant arm of the suffragists.

As I Canadian I learned NOTHING about the suffragettes at school. *I’m pretty sure, anyway. I took two years of British History in High School.

Indeed, I only started learning about them when I started researching the background to the Nicholson Family Letters I found in 2005.

I couldn’t help it. The Nicholsons left behind plenty of Montreal press clippings about the suffragettes. Some I transcribed and put on the Tighsolas website.

One such clipping told the story of British suffragette Barbara Wylie’s September 1912 trip to Canada.  As she detrained at Montreal’s Place Viger reporters asked her about the hurling of the axe at Asquith. (It would have knocked some sense into him had it landed, she replied.) Also about a bombing at a Dublin Theatre.

1912/13 was when the militancy was at its height, over and above the famous theatrics of Pankhurst’s WSPU.

Indeed, the suffragettes became militant because the government over-reacted and sent them to jail for acts that were not criminal, just effective in getting good press, in getting the word out. If they were going to be persecuted for non-criminal acts, such as chaining themselves to buildings, they  might as well do criminal acts. That was the thinking.

Asquith getting ‘pied’ with flour

The BBC Four Story focused on a possible assassination attempt by some suffragettes on Asquith. Not all the scholars interviewed agreed this happened for certain. Somewhere on this blog I have an press image of the suffragettes throwing flour at his car. Today that would be considered an act of terrorism – and not  mere theatrics.

One scholar who disagreed thought that the Pankhursts were far too image conscious to allow this to happen. That’s another thing, apparently, forgotten by history about the suffragettes.

Again, nothing I haven’t figured out myself. The suffragettes were masters of the media image, for their time.

Hence this Miss Wylie a fairly unknown almost rogue spokesperson, dazzled reporters with her wit and good looks. Suffragettes made sure to dress well. Even their magazine was full of dress ads. The WSPU magazine is online and I just had to read a few issues to realize how clever these suffragettes were.

I have put something about Wiley’s visit in Threshold Girl  my story about Flora Nicholson in 1911/1912. I will put something from WSPU magazine in Diary of a Confirmed Spinster. I have her reading the article on Russian Treatment of Women in Prison, the force-feeding.

On her trip, Wylie tells reporters that there are many members of the WSPU in Canada. I know Edith was a militant suffragette supporter because she writes so in a May 1913 letter. I guess I have to go through all era issues to see if her name is listed as a donor.

All to say, there is a great deal to be learned from History, REAL history. The protests happening right now in Quebec could be analyzed from that angle, but won’t be.

Edith’s clipping of the Wylie Visit from September Montreal Daily Star. “Will Canadian suffragists adopt militant tactics?” the headline asks.

ell, I also listened to another edition of the History program on BBC. This one about the Great Depression. Their conclusion, the New Deal did not end the Depression, WWII did. Hmm. I read so much about the mass youth unemployment in the Western World. It scares me because they had the same problem in the 1910′s… and that’s probably why there was a War. To kill off these excess souls rendered unemployable by the change over from an agrarian to industrial economy. (At least some historians say.)

But they can’t do that now, right? They learned their lesson. WWI killed off many unemployable men and then also the best and the brightest.

My BBC Program claims that  history has forgotten the militancy of the British Suffragettes because it was soon followed by the carnage of WWI that made the violent actions of the militants seem like harmless child’s play.

Politics, Education and Quebec

 

Education in Quebec is getting worldwide attention these days, and many would say ‘negative’ attention, although not all. Line Beauchamp, the Education Minister resigned yesterday over the issue and the Charest government is struggling with how to deal with the politically charged protests.

 

But I’m living in the past, 100 years ago, when it cost money to go to school, elementary and high school, let alone college and when the issue in education in the Protestant sector was “the Jewish Question.”

 

I am writing Biology and Ambition, about Marion Nicholson a teacher in Montreal in 1909-1913, the follow up the Threshold Girl (about her younger sister Flora in 1911/12 when she attended Macdonald Teachers College) and available on free ebook, and Diary of a Confirmed Spinster, about her older sister Edith, who was a teacher at French Methodist in Westmount in the same era.

 

The ebooks are based on real letters, but I am weaving into them political issues. Marion’s political issue is this Jewish Question and I have been reading up.

 

In 1909, an MLA, Mr. Finnie, introduced a bill in the Provincial Legislature, allowing for the Directors of the Protestant Board of Education to be elected rather than appointed.
In those days most of the Board Members were clergyman. (It is always said the Catholic Church had too much power in Quebec in the old days(keeping the people down) but so did the Protestant Clergy. The difference being the Protestant Clergy promoted education, as their constituency was more elite.)

 

There is a heated debate and a Commissioner, Dr. Barclay slurs the Jews and has to backtrack a bit. Also P Mackenzie, the member for Richmond ( and a ‘friend’ of the Nicholsons) seems to argue against the bill.  Finnie and his supporters say that the Board has to have more businessmen. Most Board Members are Clergymen. He brings up to recent fires in Montreal Schools (one in Marion’s Royal Arthur in 1909 and one other one where a teacher and some students died.)

 

It is a private members bill and is quashed early on. Those for the bill, Finnie and others, claim that the clergyman are just trying to save their good jobs.

 

But during that period, apparently, a lot of fear mongering happens, saying that Jews will take over the Board and change the Christian character (at least two schools in Montreal are overwhelmingly filled with Jewish students.) And that Jewish teachers will be allowed to teach and they too will start preaching their religion in the schools. (The Canadian Jewish News reminds people that Jews don’t proselytize like the Protestants do.)

 

Anyway, by 1913, Jewish Teachers are allowed to teach. The Board has consulted its lawyers (Greenshields!) and they said it is legal as long as Jewish Teachers don’t teach Bible Class.

(From Images Montreal)

The New Royal Arthur, Canning and Workman in Ste. Cunegonde or Little Burgundy. The school was built in in the 1860′s, but partially burnt in 1909, when Marion was a teacher, but in January when empty. Her mother remarks, ” I read about the fire. Is that your school? It is so lucky school was out.”

 

A Dr. Scrimger is all for it. He is a preacher very familiar to the Nicholsons. He preaches at Macdonald when Flora is there and she remarks upon it to her father.

 

I see by reading the papers that the Jewish Question of Representation on the Board was still going strong in 1965 when I was at school.

 

Anyway, this story will be edited into Marion’s actual letters. She doesn’t mention it. Oddly, none of the 1909 letters I have mention the typhoid epidemic either. It killed people in Westmount and Ste. Cuengonde, so both Edith and Marion must have been aware. I’ll have to add something about that. My play Milk and Water (taking place in Montreal in 1927) covers that issue well.

 

Another thing Marion didn’t talk about directly in letters was about the classroom. I guess that was confidential. Too bad, I’d like to know what went on.

 

The only time in a letter she remarks on students is in 1906, her first job, as a summer teacher in a town in the ET. She says she has two new students, the dirtiest people she ever saw and both dunces. She names them and asks her Dad if he knows the family. Beginner’s mistake, I guess.

 

I will put the letter in the book, changing the names and place. It speaks to why teachers didn’t want to work in rural schools.

 

In the same letter she mentions she is bored to death because there is nothing to do and she asks Mom to send some needlework, ‘fancywork.’

 

When she starts work in a city school, there’s no  time for such things. 50 children. And plenty of outside distractions, like Dominion Park and the Nickelodeon!

Easter 1912..Titanic Week

Norman Nicholson in his Masonic Regalia. In 1912, they were starting up a Chapter of the Eastern Star, a group for women. Norman was a Presbyterian and the Presbyterians frowned upon the Masons (for keeping secrets from their wives.) Still, he spend a lot on fees to remain a Mason. He needed it for social standing.

Well, it is Easter Sunday, 2012, the 8th of April. It seems that Easter was around the same time in 1912, because I have this letter from exactly 100 years ago.

Well, I checked. It was the 7th!

The letter is from Norman Nicholson of www.tighsolas.ca . He was writing to his wife in Richmond, Quebec, from his post on the Canadian Transcontinental Railway in Cochrane, or at least near Cochrane at “end of steel” as they called it.

Their daughters, Flora, Marion were at home for Easter.  Another daughter,Edith, had to stay in town I guess to watch over students at Westmount Methodist, a boarding school.

Flora was a student at Macdonald College, studying to be a teacher, Marion and Edith were already teachers in the Big City. Flora’s story is told here Threshold Girl in free e-book form.

Cochran Ont April 8^th, 1912

Dear Margaret,

I am writing you my usual weekly letter. Did not receive yours that I usually get Saturday? I suppose your are busy entertaining your girls. But I expect to get a long one from you when the girls leave. Trust you are well.

Well, I have nothing new to write about from here. Last Friday and Saturday we had a big thaw here. It took away half of our snow and in lots of places the ground is bare and where it is the mud is terrible would prefer snow to it.

  It turned cold last night and this morning everything is frozen solid with snow falling and a north wind blowing not a very good day for Easter Bonnets here.

Did not go to Church this morning, it was too cold. I had letter yesterday from DB McLennan of Scotstown wanting to know if I could get him a job here.

I think I forgot to tell you in my last letter that I had a post card from Sophia Nicholson in Edmonton wanting to know if I had received the epistle she wrote me at Xmas.

Said Gordon was sick with the measles. I haven’t heard from Herb since writing your last, nor any of the girls.

How is Han and the Hills getting on now? As I haven’t any news to write about I will close awaiting your letter. My eye is all right but not quite as clear of the red yet as the other. Cold is quite well now. Hoping you are enjoying the Easter Holidays with your girls. I will come later if spared.

Now, My sweet pet, I will say love to your own self. Trusting to hear from you soon, Your affectionate husband N. Nicholson

Here’s the letter wife Margaret wrote back: Her letter is peppered with references to the family problems, the largest of which was a large debt owed by her son, on an insurance policy. And the family is squabbling with Margaret’s brother over care of the aged mother. The last line of her letter reveals Margaret finds it ironic that people are asking them for help getting jobs.

Richmond Thursday April 11, 1912 Dear Norman, Yours of the 8th received Tuesday night – I look for them on that day. Marion returned to the city Tuesday afternoon, Flora returned Wednesday afternoon. They both had a nice long holiday which I enjoyed very much. E. did not come. We wrote to her every day and she wrote that Marion’s young man had been very kind took her, taking her to the theatre so she was not too lonesome. Grandma is feeling better. I was up this afternoon stayed three hours and had a talk of the will business. Bella said Mother made her will the other day but she does not know what is in it. Tom  Bushell and M. Cleveland are the witness and her money is in the bank. While we were talking Clayton came in. He said they did keep Mother for nothing and that it was not a lie, though I told him mother paid her board. I said I always understood she did. Well, I suppose you think you will get your pay now. They have it in for me. How I wish I did not have to go near them. Han is having her sale the 16th, then she is going up to the farm. Sis is with her and looks black when I go over. Still I go and Han comes up here. Marion wondered why you did not say anything about Herb’s insurance. George Alexander called me up to ask. Said you told him there was a letter from Herb for you. I said I did not think it was an answer to the one you had written. Marion thought of going to see George but did not like to tell you. Am glad your cold is better.  The ice is moving a little today. Still there is a cold wind. I have to make a fire in the furnace every day.  Crombie is busy with his chimney for the fire place. Mrs. Gawn has bought Fran Shaw’s house in upper Melbourne. The new notary is moving into the Sutherland’s house. Mr. Rothney is staying in the Kelly house. Mrs. Skinner has gone to Melbourne. I do not miss them so much.  The Dr. wrote her that he was offered 90 dollars a month for his house. I sat up with grandma two nights last week. Now she does not need any one after Han’s sale and if she keeps better I am really going out to Kingsbury for a few days.   As I now see things, Bella and Clayton have made most of the trouble for us among the friends just because they are jealous of us.  I have not heard anything about our lodge yet. It may take some time. What do you think of my office? Do you think I can manage it?   I paid water tax telephone and PO box rent and got a gal of maple syrup from Fowler when the girls were here. It is very nice I wish you could have some now when it is new however there will be some when you come. Now with much love Your wife Margaret Write me what to say about the insurance PS Write to W Keenan about your wagon. The very idea of McLennan writing you about a position. I wish you was a good as most people think.

Here’s the letter Marion wrote upon her return: Her lodgings were on Tower, which is near McGill off Sherbrooke.

Edith and Marion seated Circa 1912.

Tower Avenue,

April 13, 1912

Dear Father,

You will see by the heading that I am again in Montreal and mother will have told you that I was at home Easter. Mother is busy but well. She had been with Grandma quite a lot and now I hear Florence Pepler is not well  and she has been there. Everything is much the same only the Skinners have left their house.  Flora came back the day after I did. She is well but not quite as fat as she was at Xmas. Edith has, I suppose, told you that she was thinking of taking a summer school out West somewhere, that is if she can get one and there is a  slight possibility  that I might do the same if I can find a place for the two months.

Was in at Dr. Cleveland’s yesterday having a tooth filled. He was enquiring for you.

There was nothing doing at home except the talk of Uncle Dan’s will but mother has told you all about that I suppose. Aunt Han gave them a great old calling down and does not want to have anything more to do with them. I saw Aunt Sarah and Florence. They left the day after I got home. There is not any more news so I will stop now and write later. Rec’d your check all right and Flora is all right for this month.  What about Herb’s insurance?  I was going to speak to Geo Alexander when at home but thought perhaps I had better not as I had not heard back from you. Let me know: I  can take it over all right without burdening myself. Now, I think this is all for now,

Lovingly

Marion

PS Am enclosing the take on the Liberals but think it should apply to the Cons don’t you.

Marion.

Here’s a letter Flora wrote to her Dad upon returning to school for the final push before graduation.

She mentions the Titanic – but also the death of  a girl at school. In those days, someone could get sick one week and be dead the next. Pneumonia. The King of Death. Charles Hays, President of the Grand Trunk Railway, was the most prominent Montrealer to go down with the Titanic. (He was American.) He had visited Richmond in 1911,  because the railway station there burnt down. This was a significant event, as Richmond was an important railway hub.

Flora 1908, on the beach at Nantucket. The Nicholsons had many relations in Boston. During this visit she took a car ride (in a Stanely Steamer) to Wellesley College. She thought Macdonald College resembled Wellesley.

A page from her  Spring 1912 Nature Diary.

Macdonald College.

April 19, 1912

Dear Father,No doubt you will be thinking it is about time you were hearing from me. I intended answering your letter long before this but it seemed as if I never could get around to it.

I suppose mother has told you I was home for Easter holidays. We had a week, from Wednesday to Wednesday.  It seemed good to get home, although I was in the house all the time with a cold. Still, Marion and I helped out with Mother’s day at home. She had 10 visitors, so we all got the local news.

 Apparently, they are thinking of setting up a chapter of the Eastern Star in Richmond.  Something else for mother to do.

One day Mother Marion went out the cemetery to see Uncle Dan’s grave.

Ever since I have got back I have been quite busy. Our exams commence about the middle of May and it won’t be long before they are here.

I applied for a school in the city but have not heard yet anything about it. I won’t know until June whether I will be accepted. I supposed they have to wait until they see what we will do in our exams, that is, if we manage to carry off a model diploma.  Mabel is going to Valleyfield  next year. She is to have first and second model.

I don’t think there is any danger about not getting a school. The commissioners of schools are really at our mercy. There are so few qualified teachers and so many new students. I hope I will be accepted in the city as I think I will like it fine with Edith and Marion there too.

Next week I have to assist in the Kindergarten from 9 to 10.20. am  in the day school and next week in the upper grades. So you see, I will be pretty busy but it will be good practice for me…. I suppose you have not heard about the death of Edith Storke, one of the girls attending the college. She was in the Elementary class. She took cold and it developed into pneumonia and died in a few days. She did not live in residence as Dr. Lynde, one of the professors, is her brother-in- law.

This is the second death of a student this year.

The Titanic is all everyone can talk about. Mother saw Mr. Hays, the President of the GTR , at the Train Station last summer. Edith says she is going to the American Presbyterian church to hear the eulogy for him.

They are having a service here, too. But for all the dead.

Your Loving Daughter, Flora

Edith sends Norman a letter later in the month:

1095 Greene Ave Westmount Quebec April 19, 1912 Dear Father, I suppose you heard that I was unable to go home for the holidays. I got through the time very well, considering  Marion and Flora both had a very nice little holiday  and it did them good. I just got a letter from Mother this morning. What a time she is having between Florance and Grandma. If there is any work to be done they, of course ,will  have to have Mother. I think they are perfectly dreadful, the things they have said and done. And all for the sake of a little money. I hope we shall never have to be so mean. Only 5 weeks until we close. This year has gone by very quickly after all. What a dreadful accident to the Titanic and such a great loss of life. It seems to have cast a gloom over every one. People can talk of nothing else.  Mr. Hays will be a great loss to the Grand Trunk. There are to be memorial services in all the churches on Sunday morning. A special one for Mr. Hays in the American Presbyterian. I think I shall go out to Macdonald tomorrow and see Flora. Later Sunday Afternoon. I went out to Macdonald on the 1.30 train and spent a pleasant afternoon. She is looking splendid and is to beautifully dug out there. It is an ideal spot. The ice has moved out of the Ottawa a little but not yet from the St. Lawrence. I went to the memorial service in the American Presbyterian this morning. The front was draped with black. The pulpit with the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes. The service was very impressive . He is certainly well spoken of. Today is anniversary service in St. Andrew’s. Dr. Barcley is preaching.  It has been a beautiful Sunday, the warmest yet and getting so nice and dry.  How are things up North? What do you think of the coming elections in the province? Do you think Peter will have a hard run. Saw by the Record that Charlie Campbell started on a business trip to Winnipeg. M. Got your letter the other day. Your loving Edith In my story, Threshold Girl  I have Edith come home for the 1912 Easter Holidays.  Creative License.

Nicholson Family Saga: Letter 4, A wedding, a funeral, a graduation and a Coronation

June 15, 1911,

Dear Norman,

You’re letters of the 11th and 12th just received. I hope you have already received one from me with Herb’s enclosed.

You will be surprised to hear that Edith had a trip to the city by auto with the Skinners. (Whoops. She told him about this in last letter.) She had a delightful trip, no breaks or stops and arrived home at 7 o’clock safe and very hungry. We had everyone come in for a cup of tea and I had just baked bread so they thought that was fine.

Edith had Lulu Stevens sewing for a few days, so I got her to do same for me. I had my muslin dress also one from the print you bought me. And my white skirt. So we won’t be sewing all summer as we used to do.

Charlie Wilson came up and told me he could not do the lawn, so I will have to look for someone else tomorrow.

Old Mr. Hill died yesterday at 5.pm, the 14th. Funeral Saturday, the 17th. Masonic. I went up for a while this evening.

Today Mrs. Campbell, Grace (Cross) and Bert (Cross, a woman) called. They were asking for you. I told them it was a great deal better than La Tuque. I trust it is.

Is the handcar safe? It will be easier than the walking. Happy to hear McKechnie is all right. If he is a Liberal and a Mason he will be better!

I am sorry you are having such a hard time with flies. Well, their season soon will be past.

Well, the Census man was around. I gave him your age as 60. Was I right. You know I always save a few years for myself. He did not take Herb’s or Marion’s. So that is over.

Flora will finish her exams tomorrow. She has kept well. The weather has been cool, so that made it pleasant.

Dr. Moffat’s loss is the talk of the town. Dr. Skinner said he has heard they will not be able to pay him for than 15 cents on the dollar.

Marion is not going to wait for the wedding (Isabel McCoy’s) as it would keep her too long in town.

As you can see by Herb’s letter he feels lonesome to think of you being so far away, but if we all keep well, we will all be together for the summer months.

We will manage everything here all right until then. Only it does seem ages since you left. We have not got used to staying alone.

Kenneth got your letters. Big Kenneth said he thought you were taking Laurier’s place while he was away at the Coronation.

He told me to tell you he said so.

Christina Watters went into Montreal to May’s (daughter’s) graduation, which is today. Henry (Dr. Henry Watters of Newton, Center, Massachusetts and May’s brother) is coming up if he can get away.

Right now, Edith is at the Skinner’s playing cards. Flora is looking over her lessons, so I thought I would write to my best fellow.

(Uncle Dan (Margaret’s brother) says you are all right on the railroad. He was often out in the woods, he says. Still I think 63 miles a long distance. Is it all woods from Cochran? Will the work last long there?

I have mailed you your check book. We have not seen the Herald all week. Take good care of yourself. I will write again soon.

With much Love,
Margaret.

Marion Nicholson never did get enumerated for this 1911 Census. How do I know? Grace Cross lives in Montreal at 5 Tupper, with her mom. They are former Richmondites. A Mrs. Ellis owns the house next door and takes in boarders because that’s where Marion lives during the school year. Only 2 boarders are listed at that address, a nurse-in-training and a stenographer.

Census Page for Nicholsons. The Skinners are Frank and Ruby, son Floyd.

May Watters, Norman and Margaret’s niece, is graduating from Macdonald Teachers College.

According to the Census Records, her family lived in Kingsbury in 1911. (The Census has them as Waters!) May stayed with the Margaret and Flora 1908-1910, likely to attend St. Francis.

She is the same age as Flora but one year ahead at school. Henry is her older brother (born 1880) and, from all accounts an exemplary young man, indeed, everything Herbert Nicholson is not. Henry is hard-working, kind, generous and devoted to kin. In the summer of 1909, he takes his dad on a visit to the homeland. Norman remarked on it in a letter. “Dr. Henry and his father are sailing by this time. When they get back you will get a whole new set of stories when he calls. It’s nice of Henry to take his father on that trip. Every boy is not so thoughtful. Some if they have the means would prefer to go alone or with friends “

May and Flora visit him in 1908 (and ride in his Stanley Steamer to the Wellesley Campus)and Edith and Marion visit him in 1912 and are taken to Norumbega Park. Henry is unmarried and lives with his sister Christina, who is a few years older than May. But his clapboard Colonial house on Commonwealth Avenue is equipped with all the latest gadgets, Flora says.

“Big Kenneth”… These Scots tended to rotate but a few names, Malcolm, Norman, Kenneth, John.. so they needed ways to distinguish one from the other.

Isabel McCoy is the daughter of family friends in Montreal. They live on Hutchison and in the 1911 Census Isabel is listed as ‘professeur’ earning 700. a year. Marion earns 650. in 1912. May, if she gets a job on the Montreal Board, can expect to earn 550. to start. Were she a male graduate, she would earn 800. to start.

The pencil has faded on the 1911 Census form, but Norman puts his salary at 1,200. That’s 100 a month. Unfortunately, it gets halved in 1912.

Margaret is worried for Norman. She senses railroad work is dangerous, and it is. A highly publicized book has just come out to that effect. And then there’s the mud and the blackflies and extreme heat and the extreme cold. But it’s the loneliness and boredom that gets to Norman the most. At 60, he is too old to play on the Residency hockey team. As a Presbyterian who has signed a temperance pledge he does not drink or gamble.

Unnatural Selection 1910 Style

Isle of Lewis Scot Immigrants. My husband’s ancestors or at least relations.

Hmm. As if finding a husband wasn’t hard enough for Marion, Flo and Edith Nicholson of my Flo in the City story, based on the letters of http://www.tighsolas.ca/.

They had to find a good Presbyterian who would not mind that they came to the marriage with only the (homemade) dress on their back.

And let’s face it, they were over-educated for their social standing (financially speaking) and as they couldn’t marry down.. well…prospects were dim.

And now there was the promoters of the eugenics movement to futher muddy the marital waters, suggesting that it was up to women to maintain and increase the purity of the race, to prevent ‘race suicide’, as it was called.

They must make sure their future husbands had good genes, too. No criminal genes, no ‘feeble-minded’ genes, no inferior race genes.

“Women rather than men have always been the conserver of race purity,” says Dr. H. E. Jordon. “In eugenics she will find an intelligent guide to the selection of the father of her children, to the reduction of 3/4ths of all diseases, to the elimination of 1/2 of the morbidity of children.”

(I must admit, I’m fascinated by the eugenics movement. Such nonsense being promoted by such prominent folk. No wonder this chapter of history has been effectively censored. (Hitler didn’t help, either.) According to one source, the movement originated in England in 1867, but didn’t become “powerful”until 1900.

Here are some quotes from a 1912 lecture in Montreal that botanist and social activist Carrie Derick attended. “The incident of ‘genius’ among royalty is 100,000 times higher than that among industrial classes.” “The Upper classes and country folk are fairer and taller than the industrial classes of the city” -and from these people derive all the literary and artistic talent” “Racial elements of southern origin have been the least productive of men. ” Hmm. Take that Pablo Picasso, who in 1912 had just moved to his new digs in Montmartre.

The New York Times has more on the movement than the Gazette, which suggests that it was more popular in the US.

Mendelian science was sometimes invoked by the proponants of eugenics. All screwed up of course. And still Carrie Derick, botanist, bought into the BS.(But who understands Mendel and all that pea-pod business.)

They sort of had it backwards, from what I see, at least with respect to physical health. (The morality aspects of the movement were plain racism and class warfare, disguised as science.) They believed you in-bred people to keep bad genes out, so that European Royalty had it right, as opposed to the opposite, that you mixed the genes to breed strong genes in.

Even the Church got into it. No one could be married in the Church without a blood test.

“In a sermon preached at the Episcopal Cathedral, March 23, 1912, no persons would be married by the clergy of the Cathedral, except upon presentation of a reputable physician, showing that the contracting parties are physically and mentally normal, and that neither has an incurable or communicable disease.”

All very ironic. Of course, the Nicholsons were a case for inbreeding. The Isle of Lewis Scots were a hardy lot, and from what I have read, in the early 1800′s their genes were almost the same as the genes of the Norseman who landed there many centuries before – and that because the population were so isolated.

Natural selection had killed off the weaker ones (I’m guessing) so many of these people lived to a ripe old age, many women into their nineties, on a diet of oatmeal and dire deprivation. Apparently, this group had few health problems, that is until they emigrated to other parts of the world. But that decline likely had more to do with the change of lifestyle.

Norman was a Nicholson, from Isle of Lewis, but by way of Skye, and Margaret was a McLeod from Isle of Lewis. All these immigrants inbred after coming to Canada for a generation or two.

My husband’s family is a good example of how it went. Norman married Margaret, both from Isle of Lewis stock. Marion Nicholson, their daughter, married Hugh Blair, product of lowland? Scotland with a French Canadian mother and Cree grandmother. Marion’s kids married English speaking Montrealers, Marion Hope, her second daughter, married Thomas Gavine Wells, Anglican, sort of, product of Welsh-Canadian and Irish American and I’m guessing African American (Virginia) (cousin of General Douglas MacArthur) and their kids married English and French Canadians (Roman Catholic but not too serious about it) who married, well, people from all over the world, including East Indian (Hindu, sort of) and Franco-Gypsy.

A STRANGE QUIET BOY 37th installment

Hats from 1909-1910 Eaton’s Catalogue for Fall. The catalogue for spring of the year isn’t online, but I just have to look at my Delineator from August to know what the prevailing fashion was…a profusion of petals. And this is why I have photos of Marion and Flo in such hats, posted on this website. Just look at the slideshow.

So, I decided to check the archives for any discussion of Mack Sennett earlier than 1930. It is unlikely Marion and Edith knew that the man in the movie was Mickael Sinnott from Richmond. I found a 1934 Time Magazine article and his origins are not mentioned. He is born in Canada in 1884, it says. Sennett mentioned his origins in the first chapter of his autobiography.

The lastest bio says he was born in Richmond, in 1980. That would make him a contemporary of the Nicholson kids, one way or another.

Anyway, as I scoped the Montreal Gazettes for January 18, 1909, to see where Man in the Box was Playing I noticed that a man called W.C. Fields was performing his act at a local musical hall. Hmmm. Quelle coincidence. Mack Sennett discovered W.C. Fields. I could re-write history and make, say, Herb, discover W.C. Fields and tell Sennett. Wouldn’t that be fun?

Meanwhile, I’m re-writing history just a bit as I have Flora Nicholson, of Flo in the City, my novel in progress about a girl coming of age in the pivotal 1908-1913 era, make a hat to try to impress local milliner Eugenie Hudon.

“Have you got your examination marks back from the teacher?”Margaret asked Flora, as they sat together at lunch, on the Saturday. In return for the maple syrup she had sent in to the McCoys they had sent her, among other city specialties, a strange new product called peanut butter. The mother and daughter were trying it out spread on oatmeal bread.

“The peanut butter has a dreadful texture,it sticks to the palate” Margaret remarked, placing the rest of the sandwich back on the plate, “although is it pleasingly sweet. They say children love it. Well, children can keep it.”

Flora did not answer right away. Luckily for her, the new teacher who had replaced Mr. Jackson was not as severe. She had received her marks 2 days before, just as she was putting the finishing touches on her Spring Bonnet. She had passed all subjects, but just in the case of French and Composition. (With the hat she had gone for a garlard of small poppies, pink ones, over the red satin ribbon. The poppies she had crafted herself from old organza like dress material. She had placed small purple felt dots in the center of each bloom and pasted the orange wings from Eaton’s at the side. Flora could see from the Delineator Magazine, that small florets were out this season and a profusion of petals was in. )
Margaret was diverted by the telephone’s ring. She stood up, wiped her hands with her apron, and walked into the hall. There was short pause, then she said “That is dreadful news, but expected all the same.”

“Another good Liberal gone,” she said to Flora, when she returned after hanging up the phone. “Bella tells me found Driver’s body in front of Pope’s, where he had fallen in. The Stevens of Melbourne found his body. He is being buried today. And Mrs. Montgomery tells me they are dragging the lines at La Beniere for George Sutherland’s body. He had been acting strange for a while and wandered away from home. They are offering a 100 dollar reward for information.”

Flora let out a little gasp, she didn’t know the Drivers, but she knew Sutherland, a strange and quiet boy at the best of times. There had been a rash of deaths in the past two months in Richmond, from La Grippe and Old Age and The Drink, the usual, but these two drownings seemed an odd coincidence.

She eyed her Mother who, with this news, had forgotten about her initial line of inquiry.

She had better get down to Miss Eugenie’s, as soon as possible, she thought to herself, before her luck with her Mother runs out.

MEN WILL BE MEN – 35rd installment

Ivory Soap Ad circa 1910. “No other soap is so pure.”

In the 60′s Ivory Soap sold itself on being pure. But the concept of “pure” wasn’t quite what it was when Ivory Soap first started promoting itself widely, in the 1900-1910 era. That was the era when just about everything, food, medicine, makeup and cleaning products, even milk, well, especially milk, promoted itself as pure, because, in the decades before, many consumer products were found to be tainted with dangerous elements. Lead was the most common additive, because it actually tasted and smelled nice. In the 60′s I recall being drawn to the smell of car exhaust, which I knew to be dangerous. The lead in the gasoline!

A balmy Saturday in April. Mrs. Montgomery, Margaret noticed, was taking advantage of the fine weather and had her carpets out. Rather early she thought. Margaret was on the back porch, hanging some rags to dry. She had no intention of embarking on any major spring cleaning, so she was somewhat irritated when Mrs. Montgomery, seeing her, waved and shouted out”So Margaret, when are you going to put yours out?”

I’d rather not, in case of rain, Margaret shouted back, annoyed to find herself apologizing to her neighbour for her housekeeping. “i’m doing the windows,” she added, defensively. In fact, she had done one window and had no intention of doing more, not today.

Why couldn’t nice weather be enjoyed for what it was: Nice weather and not an opportunity to do more work.

Flora was in the garden, raking. Mae was on kitchen duty. Flora had received her results from Easter Examinations. They were neither here not there, so she had not bothered to bother her mother about them, not yet. Her plan was to finish her hat, visit Miss Hudons’, and see if there was a future for her in millinery, first. Insurance of a sort.

Mrs. Montgomery put down the broom she was using to beat her hall runners, and walked over toward Tighsolas, her boots sinking slightly in the muddy grass. She was on an intelligence mission.

“How are your Edith and Marion making out in the city? she asked. Has the snow melted? No more falling into snowbanks, I hope.”

Margaret had told her nosy but kind neigbour about the tramway incident, for it was the most innocuous piece of news about Marion she could offer up to the woman, harmless. If fact, she didn’t have much news from either daughter, a true embarrassment were the fact widely known. Edith wasn’t writing much and Marion wasn’t big on giving out information at the best of times. Her two daughters were going to see the Merry Widow at His Majesty’s, that as much she knew, but she didn’t say, for she wasn’t sure how Montgomery would take it.

“Yes, the snow melts much faster in the city as you know. Well, except for the snowbanks.. The sun radiates off the building and the cobblestones heat up.”

“Ah,” said Mrs. Montgomery. “I only ask because Nathan is going to the city.. so I wonder what boots he should wear. He has been looking to buy an auto. He is planning to sell the horse and even build a shed for the auto.”

Margaret stood still, amazed.

“That’s wonderful, he can take us out motoring,” Flora said. Flora had read about many such excursions in stories in magazines. The motorcar figured promintently, these days in the literature. All elegant people rode in them.

Mrs. Montgomery replied, “Well, they are very expensive and very dangerous, I see no point, but men will be men. They love their toys.” Flora noticed that she seemed at once proud and unhappy about the impending purchase.

“Well, I’d rather a fine horse and carriage any day, than a car.” And then she stopped, realzing the Nicholsons could afford neither and that this was common knowedge.

“Me as well,” replied the neighbour, pretending not to see the irony in the statement.

Flora gazed upon the two matrons, aware that much more was going on here than an exchange of local news. Mrs. Montgomery was happy to be able to say that her husband was buying an automobile. Some autos cost as much as 3 thousand dollars.

Mrs. Montgomery then returned to her carpets, just as Florence Peppler, Margarets’ niece, appeared from across the street.

“Have you heard?” You probably know that Mr. Driver who bought the Saunders’ old place has been ill with Grippe and seems to have lost his reason. They were trying to watch him, but yesterday morning he got up at four o’clock, his wife was alone with him and tried to prevent him going out. But he turned on her. He got out and no trace has been found of him. They think he must have got into the river and men are looking by the bank. The river keeps very high, still, a terrible thing. Mrs. Driver blames all those patent medicines he has been taking. They have addled his brain, all the opiates and impurities.

And they were dragging the lines at La Benere for George Sutherland’s body. He had been acting strange for a while. He wandered away from home last Saturday, a reward of 100 dollars offered for any clue.

It is a strange coincidence,don’t you think?

Margaret wasn’t so sure about that. It seemed but another reminder that some women had it much worse than she did.

The Rich in Montreal 1910

Horse and buggy in front of Tighsolas. Circa 1910

About six years ago, when I first found the stash of Nicholson letters and papers, I went through it and filed documents I felt were significant in a photo album.

Today, I went through the album. I was looking for a wedding invitation for Mae (Marion) Watters, the cousin who figures in the story. I believe I ‘found her’ at Riverview Cemetery in Compton. It says she was born 1892 (same age as Flo) and died 1977 same year as Edith. Flo died in January 1978.

Mae married a Samuel Scott.

There was lots of Mason documents in the stash. I filed a receipt for Norman’s initiation dues in 1880, $25.! I also filed a program for 1910 in Richmond. Clayton Hill, Norman’s brother-in-law and nemesis had a high rank.

I had filed a printed 1908 invitation…(in pencil) To Mr. and Mrs. Nicholson and Family

“The pleasure of your company is requested at an

AT HOME

in the Town Hall, Richmond, Friday Evening, April twenty-fourth , nineteen hundred and eight.

Patronesses: Mrs. Lance, Mrs. Campbell and Mrs. Ross… Palmer’s Orchestra. RSVP ( and written in pencil) Gentlemen $1.50.

I’ll use this I guess. Funny wording.. to an AT HOME

I filed a newspaper clipping of a list of millionaires in Montreal

“Montreal is one of the richest cities in the world”

The year 1910 has increased the number of Montreal millionaires very considerably…

Sir W. Macdonald

Sir M. Allan

Hon. L.J. Forget (a relation of mine through my mother’s family)

James Ross

C.R. Hosmer

Jeffrey Burland

J.R. Wilson

H.S. Holt

R. Reford (Mrs. Reford was a famous society woman social activist.. Edith sees her at an event in 1909 and describes her..

Shirley Ogilivy

A. Haig Sims

Hugh Paton

C.B. Gordon

A. Baumgarten

A.E. Ogilvie

R. Forget M.P.

Henry Birks

James Morgan

Mark Workman

N. Curry

G.E. Drummond

Wm. Yuile

H. Timmims

Col. Carson

H. Drummond

T. Trenholm

Hon F Beique

C.F. Smith

Sir. W. Van Horne

Sir T Shaughnessy

Hon. R. Mackay

R. B. Angus

Sir E. Clouston

D. Morrice

F.W. Thompson

R. Meighen
D.L. McGibbon

G.A Grier

H.V. Meredith

A. R. McDonald

J.T. Davis

G. Caverhill

J. P. Black

E. B Greenshields

Milton Hersey

W. M Aitken. MP

G W Stephens

T. J. Drummond

Peter Lyall

J.K.L Ross

J.N Greenshields

D. McMartin

E.T. Galt

J E Aldred

H. H. Lyman

AND THEN THEY NAMED THE LADIES

Mrs. Hector Mackenzie

Mrs. Duncan McIntyre, Lady Drummond (social activist and suffragist), Mrs. F.Orr Lewis, and some ESTATES.

Hmm. The fact that 1910 increased the number of Montreal millionaires considerably just goes to prove the central point of Flo in the City, based on http://www.tighsolas.ca/ my social studies website. Ogilvie had a famous store. Edith and Marion buy hats there in 1910. Morgan too had a department store too. Henry Birks is the owner of a famous jewellry store across from Morgan’s on Saint Catherine. (Is it still there?)

I also filed a piece of onion skin paper with Morse code on it. Margaret had worked in a telegraph office. I see that Edith was accepted at Simmons College in Boston in 1917. I also have a most important document, a long letter describing an insurance debt Herb has. From the letters I can see it is a real problem, that almost sinks the Nicholsons, that Herb shrugs off, and that Marion ends up paying for. But now I can see Exactly what the debt was and can now write about it in detail.

And there was something else, a list..from 1882 belonging to Norman. I suspect this is a list of his setting up house as a bachelor. He marries the next year.

1 broom

1 lamp

1/2 yard of wick

1 tea set

2 bedroom set

1 doz dinner plates

1 wash tub

1 vegetable dish

2 pails

2 platters

1 washboard

1 coal oil lamp

1 gal coal oil

1 box matches

1 tea kettle

1 mop handle

1 dust pan

1 felts paper

1 boot black

1 stove black

1 brush

2 mirrors

1 doz knives and forks

1/2 doz spoons

3 panes of glass

1 package tacks

10 yards window curtains

1 cord wood

1 shirt

total 14.28

I have the cost of setting up house with a wife in 1883..here: it is considerably more

www.tighsolas.ca/page594.html

BLUE UMBRELLA YELLOW MACKINTOSH 10th installment

That baby again. I assume it is Mrs. Montgomery’s. This is the only Tighsolas photo with images of local workers. 1910 era.

I have a list of trees and shrubs planted on Tighsolas grounds in 1897. “Purchased from H.W.Beebe, Plain, Quebec, Grower, Dealer and Importer of Hardy Varieties of Fruit and Nursery Stock. One current tree, one McIntosh Red Apple, one Bismarck Apple, one Bradshaw plum, 6 Floyd currant, 6 white grape currant, one Norway Maple, one Weeping Birch, one Paul’s new double thorn, one hydrangea, one purple Clematis, one Malbara raspberry and a partridge in a pear tree.”

Next day, in the evening mail, a letter finally did come from brother Herb in Montreal. Flora handed it to her mother in the vestibule first thing. As Flora removed her raincoat, Margaret ripped it open, read it, turned white, and told Flora, “I am going to the Hills. I am not sure when I will be back.”

And then she whipped her own frayed yellow Mackintosh from the stand inside, wrapped it tightly around her, and stomped out the front door, grabbing Flora’s wet umbrella, open in full bluish bloom on the porch, by its upturned handle as she blew by. Flora closed the front door.

No homework help tonight, either. That was clear. Flora had hoped her mother would have the time to ask her her Latin verbs.

But no. Margaret didn’t even have the time to ask about the other envelope in Flora’s hand.

What has Herb done now? Poor Mother. She seemed to bounce from one family crisis to another.

Flora casually hung her slicker on the newly naked hook of the rickety coat tree and looked again at the envelope in her hand. It was addressed to her and postmarked Newton Center, Massachusetts. Cousin Henry! But she already knew that.

She decided to brew herself a cup of tea to warm her blood before taking the letter opener to it.