Pretty in pink and blue and gingham and galatea

The August 1911 edition of the Delineator has a feature on children’s outfits, so I thought I’d scan them for those who might be interested. In Threshold Girl I weave in a tale about a woman working at Dominion Textile in Magog.
The second dress on the left is a practical school dress, if developed in serge or flannel. Unlike many of the sailor models, the five gored skirt, which is attached to a belt or underbody, is fitted about the waist and left quite plain except for the inverted plait, which is made at the back. The blouse is regular naval style and may be slipped over the head or closed in front.

The dress on right is very simple in construction and it is particularly effective in poplin or pique, when a contrasting colour is used for the collar and trimming bands. A very lovely reproduction of the design, which closes in front, was composed of white linen, with a sailor collar and belt of lilac linen, the edges of the collar, belt and peasant sleeves and and closing were finished with a scallop worked in lilac floss.

Nice writing! I wonder if Theodore Dreiser wrote it. He was editor of this magazine, which also covered many of the social issues of the day, focusing on ‘child rescue’ …adoption. (Nah, his style wasn’t as nice!) He got fired when he, ahem, had an affair with a underage woman… or something.

Well, these clothes were for the Middle Class and higher, I imagine. Marion’s children, students at Royal Arthur in Montreal’s Little Burgundy, were working class and probably dressed more like the above pic of poor kids vacationing at Camp Chapleau.

If any kids in Marion’s board dressed like the magazine kids, it was at the new Roslyn School in Westmount.

In September the schools reopen and you mothers are already beginning to find that the question of pinafores and school dresses is much on your mind. For children who live in the City, where there are steam-heated houses and schoolrooms, the smartest materials for their dresses are the linens, piques, poplins, repps, galateas, percales, ginghams, chambrays and cotton drillings.

Of course, for children who live in country districts where furnaces and radiators are unknown, wash dresses in Winter are out of the question. They should wear pretty little dresses of serge, flannel, or any good woolen material and washable pinafores and aprons.

I haven’t shown a boy, there are only  few pictured, but they are wearing knickerbockers or shorts, not skirts. In Richmond, Quebec, at least in and around 1910, Flora’s nephew, Stanley Hill still wore a skirt. And her brother Herb wore one in 1889 or so.

Not sure who kids at bottom are or when it is taken. The Dalmation may be Floss around 1909, but the Nicholsons may have had an earlier Dalmation. It is possibly Stanley Hill younger, so 1905ish?

The coat: A serviceable box coat for a girl is displayed. The model may be made in full or 7/8ths length with the fronts closed to the neck and rolled open.  Many of these coats for girls are made with striped or plaid weaves and they look very smart when the collars or cuffs are faced in a one tone contrasting material.

In the Laurier era in Canada the vast majority of children lived in poverty. Many of their moms could sew, but they did so in factories, making clothes for the burgeoning middle class.

Margaret Nicholson made her daughters’ clothes, until they got into working suits, then she made just the ‘waists’ or blouses and skirts. However she bought her son’s and husband’s clothes.

Below, Nicholson invoice 1901, sewing notions

Holiday Musings

I posted a draft of my ebook Biology and Ambition a few days ago and within minutes the Googlebot came around and it was available on Google, second when a person enters Biology and Ambition.

Pretty fast.

Biology and Ambition is the follow up to Threshhold Girl and Diary of a Confirmed Spinster, to make the omnibus School Marms and Suffragettes.

About 3 young women in 1910 Canadian, their hopes, dreams, disappointments. Middle Class Women. Pretty much like Middle Class Women today.

I’m watching the Djokavic Nadal final in the Spanish Open or something and just missed Nadal winning the second set.. Gotta pay attention.

My husband asks why I watching in French. I like the French commentary, that’s why.

The colour commentator whoever she is uses eloquent language, much different from hockey commentators.

Something to do on a nice Monday holiday, Victoria Day but not here in Quebec, where my husband is so bored he is cleaning out the BBQ.

The bugs get you outside and if we put the mosquito netting around our little shelter the idiot dogs run through it every time they hear a noise – and they don’t learn.

We live in a suburb and suburbs now are dead quiet, except on Saturday morning when the neighbourhood men (yes, men) do the lawn.

Two days ago we went Costco and bought an instant garden, a few ready made pots for next to nothing, 10 to 15 dollars.

I usually buy the flats, but this spring I am injured, I can’t use my arm.

Instant garden, like instant pudding or instant mashed potatoes. I usually don’t like instant things, but in this case, why not.

My magnolia. Just blooming now. Last year I rolled these potted trees out into the family room and they blossomed inside in April. But the aroma was disgusting!! The thought the cat had peed on the carpet.

Love Letters and the Epistolary Form

 

I’ve posted my first draft of Biology and Ambition, the follow up to Threshold Girl and Diary of a Confirmed Spinster, which is finished but not yet posted as this book requires a lot of typing and I’m injured.

 

Biology and Ambition is about Marion Nicholson, a teacher in 1910 and is in epistolary form. Sort of cut and paste for me. Easier on the hands, but not on the brain. It is HARD to edit letters! Very hard. Even if you know your subject backwards and forwards like I do.

 

Threshold Girl is in narrative prose form and is about Marion’s young sister Flora, a college girl in 1911/12.  Diary of a Confirmed Spinster is about her older sister Edith and is a murder/mystery. I play with history here, filling in blanks, missing information with the most audacious explanation.

 

All stories in the School Marms and Suffragettes series are based on the letters of Tighsolas.

 

The ebooks complement each other and are meant to be read together, with Flora’s story first, Edith’s second and Marion’s third.

 

My stories are about teachers in the Edwardian Era, or the Laurier Era in Canada.  But, these letters cover the issues that are relevant to all middle class women, but I add  eugenics, child welfare, suffragettes, etc.

 

The story of the Edwardian or Laurier Middle Class has not been especially well told. Upstairs Downstairs, Downton Abbey etc. like to contrast the rich and the poor and leave out the middle class.  Not enough drama.

 

But the Nicholson family saga is a story that resonates today. The Middle Class never really changes. It’s a class full of people who aspire to be high class but fear falling into the lower class, a much much MUCH easier thing to do, especially in a bad economy. Hence, it’s a nervous class. An antsy class. And as GB Shaw said, it’s a moral class, I mean sanctimonious. The Nicholsons, who are experiencing financial problems, are all these things. They are also terribly fun loving. They want to eek the most out of existence.

 

 

 

 

Freedom 1910 Style

In a 1911 letter home Marion Nicholson describes catching up with the Montgomerys who are in town to buy a new car, their second in two years. This may be a pic from that event. They are at Atwater Street.

I am writing Diary of a Confirmed Spinster, the follow up to Threshold Girl and I’ve got to the part where Edith Nicholson goes on a 6 hour car trip from Richmond, Quebec to Montreal in June 1911.

In a letter she describes all the places she passed through.

My job is to describe the experience.

Now, today, 6 hours on bumpy hills in a car with no shocks (I don’t think) and in a tight corset would be torture, but for Edith it is euphoric.

That’s the word I’ll use.

The freedom of it! Before long trips were taken by train or by horse carriage. This car, going 14 miles an hour over the hills and dales of the Eastern Townships, must have thrilled the passengers, much like a long long ride at Dominion Park. And there was always the danger of breaking down to add spice to the occasion.

14 miles an hour is the speed limit in the country. 7 miles an hour in the city. (Horse drawn vehicles and autos were beginning here to fight over the road space, a fight which would continue until the late 1920′s, when cars WON.

Ad for Piece Arrow. Car Rides were classy thing! No kidding, cars cost as much as a house.

A recent Salon.com article claims that statistics show that Americans at least are driving much less. The author of the article ascribed this to the Internet, saying young people would rather surf than drive.

(I thought maybe GPS’s had something to do with it. Or Google maps. No getting lost. No spending hours driving all over town looking to buy some item. Etc ete.

Whatever the reason, the thrill is gone. The high price of gasoline doesn’t help either, I’m sure.

In the 60′s I went for a lot of car drives with my dad. It was his recreation. Cheap and he got out of the house. We had a little Austen Cambridge, but my father, a former ferry command pilot, drove fast, 80 miles an hour on the highway.

As his daughter, I wasn’t afraid, although I do distinctly remember almost getting killed by an oncoming 16 wheeler as he passed a car on the highway.

But he swerved in on time, obviously.

Marion sits in her Uncle Clayton’s car.It broke down a lot.

The T Can wasn’t as crowded with trucks as it is today.

I liked looking out the window.  On long distance treks to the US for vacation, my Dad had a game. He had great long distance eyesight (Pilot!) so we called out the state or province of the licence plates ahead,the minute we could guess them. And then there was I Spy..

Today kids don’t look out the window. They are too busy playing or communicating on their iPads, etc. Or watching movies.

We experience the world second hand today. Technology changes us.

Free at Last: In the 1910 era, men drove the cars, but by the 1920′s women went it alone! Here’s Flora second from last. Cars gave women and teens unprecedented freedom.

Teacher’s Little Helpers

Well, as I write Diary of a Confirmed Spinster, the follow up to Threshold Girl I wonder if I am being too harsh on Edith Nicholson, the heroine of  the Spinster story, as I make her an opium addict.

My husband’s great Aunt Edie was a prim and proper Presbyterian, after all, a tee-totaller, in her youth at least.

But then I have a 1911 Na-Dru-Co Atlas to prove my point.

Na-Dru-Co was the National Drug Company of Canada and they sent around a thick promotional brochure in 1911, the time of both my ebooks. I found this brochure in the Nicholson collection.

Most of the products they are pushing remind me of medicines “Granny Clampett” used, sarsaparilla, or parilleeee as she said.

The cough syrup contains licorice, linseed and chlorodyne. I looked up chlorodyne to see that it contained opium and cannabis. Bull’s Eye!

Oddly on a testimonials page someone claims they give it to a baby of 8 months. Another person says she knows someone who got cured of a cough and only used one bottle.

Edith had tonnes of colds and she was always on some medicine. Everyone was afraid of dying from pneumonia or TB!

And then came the horrible tragedy that took the life of her fiance and the Principal of the School where she worked, who was also a medical doctor, fixed her up with ‘heart medicine.’

There’s a product called Nervozone advertised in this brochure with the following blurb:“In the strenuous rush of commerce, the severe strains of depressing social conditions, overstudy, changes of female life, or impending attacks of disease, the nerves become impaired. Irritability, brain worry, Sleeplessness ensue, accompanied by lack of Energy, Emissions, Impotency, Nervous Dyspepsia, Partial paralysis, palpitations of the heart,incontinence…NA-DRU-CO nervozone is specially prepared to cover all such cases…”

I wonder what this concoction contained?

Another blurb about it in the book says “Teachers and especially women teachers are the most fit subject for rest and vacation than any other workers in the country.  One day of worry in the school room is more trying than  a month of hard labour… The best advice we can give teachers is to keep a box of Nervozone in their desks…Tsk Tsk.

I have to have Edith read this..

Ironically, in a 1909 letter, Edith says the doctor has told her – once again – to give up tea. LOL

A Tale of Two Montreal George Drummonds

Three Rivers in 1910

Well, in a letter from Radnor Forges Quebec in 1908, Edith mentions a “George Drummond’ who seems to be boss.. Was this the same George Drummond of Redpath Sugar who married Julia Grace Parker? I wondered… because wouldn’t that be useful for my story about Edith Nicholson, tentatively called the 1912 Diary of a Confirmed Spinster Edith Nicholson and posted at www.tighsolas.ca/page11.pdf.pdf, which is a follow up to Threshold Girl, published at www.tighsolas.ca/page10.pdf.pdf.

But no.. George Edward Drummond was an Irish Canadian Business man who owned the Canadian Iron Furnace Company which owned the works at Radnor Forges, where Edith worked in 1908.

George Alexander Drummond was the Scottish Canadian businessman who married a Redpath and then Julia Grace Parker.

George Edward was younger and his original name was Drumm. I wonder if Drummond is Scottish, and that’s why he changed his name.

“At least I know where my  pots and pans come from, ” said Margaret after a visit to Radnor, a sad little company town, on the steep  decline. It would close right after Edith quit.. I guess she wasn’t that impressed. It was a company town. No ‘real’ town, no community, had sprung up around iron works la Mauricie in all the decades they had been in place.

But the Forges at the Mauricie were the first iron ore companies in Canada and they manufactured bog ore.

So they were significant. And there’s a heritage website involved. http://www.pc.gc.ca/fra/lhn-nhs/qc/saintmaurice/index.aspx

For the purposes of this story, they are significant in how Edith’s teaching job reflected how LONESOME it was to be a teacher in a rural place.

Anyway, in 1959, I also lived in a lonesome mining town, called Wabush. My family was among a handful of pioneer families who went out to Wabush Lake Labrador to live. We stayed two years, some families stayed much longer.A community did spring up around the iron ore mines, though.

The Three Rivers Forges were a Crown (Canadian ) concern, but the Wabush mines were owned by Americans.

Death of a King, Death of a Love, May 1910

Edith and a beau. Is this Charlie Gagne?

In early May, 1910, Edith  Nicholson writes her mom a letter from her Missionary School in Westmount. She thanks her mom for the phone call the night before, consoling her for her loss. Her ‘beau’ one Charlie Gagne has been killed in a hotel fire in Cornwall, the Rossmore Fire.

In all the Nicholson stash of letters of the 1910 era, there are only a few long distance phone calls made.  All for very special occasions. It cost too much to use the phone – and besides, the post moved quickly in those days.

The Rossmore Fire of Cornwall, Ontario is an infamous one: a dozen or so people died. Many more escaped, climbing out of windows. According to the news accounts of the day, it was mostly the boarders who died. These people felt they knew the hotel, so tried to escape by taking halls and stairwells… but they wereover come with smoke. Only a part of Charlie’s body was recovered. Hopefully, Edith didn’t read about that fact.

Coincidentally, another, more important person died right around then: Edward VII.  Likely all the public mourning over the King’s death must have somehow played into Edith’s own, more personal mourning. I will have to figure this out as I write her story for my next e-book. The follow up to Threshold Girl www.tighsolas.ca/page10.pdf.pdf

Edith and Charlie were not engaged, but they did have ‘an understanding.’ This is how Edith later explained it to a niece.

If the Census of 1911 is correct, Charlie was a French Canadian, the only son of elderly farmers and he worked as a bank clerk. Not a very likely prospect for Edith…Perhaps this is why her father, Norman, doesn’t comment on the man after being introduced to him at the train station.

Charlie is a Presbyterian, for in a letter to Edith before his death, he tells her he is spending all this time at the Presbyterian Church. Perhaps he converted for her..Who knows?

I think, for the purposes of my book about Edith, I will make him a convert of Westmount Methodist… that can be why she finds work there, he tells her about the school.

 
1095 Greene Avenue

May 3, 1910

Mother Dear,

Your letter received this am. It was so good to hear your voice over the phone. It was quite natural. Oh, how I wish I could talk over everything with you. It seems terribly hard to think it all for the best, when there are so many that are of no use living on and others that are held in esteem cut off in a moment. One thing, I am very thankful for that he wrote me. No doubt one of the last things that he did. I can’t express my feelings. I never felt so badly in my life. But I suppose there are few who have had so pleasant a one as I have, and trouble comes to all.

I had a letter from Bert this noon. Said she knew I must feel very badly as they all did. She said all she could think was the way he used to jig around the camp and tell us about all of his many trips. Herb Tucker called her up on Friday night and told her. I am wondering if he will call me up when he returns from Toronto

I wrote father a long letter last night and Marion wrote one today. It is a blessing that I have my work and that we are nearly finished. Three weeks will soon pass. I interviewed Dr. Villard yesterday afternooon. He said I was wanted back. I asked if it would be possible to get any raise in salary. Said he was sure he could get me $25. That would make $200.I’m glad that that’s settled: same staff back next year.

Tell Bert I received her letter, but I won’t write for a while. She was very kind to think of it.

Your loving
Edith

Sad Mother, Sad Son, Sad Story: the Coys of Newton, Mass. 1910

Nantucket. 1908. Flo and May.

Flora Nicholson and May Watters visited Newton Massachusetts in 1908, before my story Threshold Girl begins.  I do mention the visit, though. I mention that they travelled to Wellesley College in Henry’s Stanley Steamer! All true as I have a letter from Mrs. Coy in Framingham, where she describes how they dropped in on her unexpectedly and how she was doing housekeeping so a bit embarrassed.

 Marion and Edith visit Mrs. Coy in 1912, and she tries to pawn her son Chester off on Marion. Alas, Marion is not impressed.  Chester visits the girls in their new flat  in 1913, in Montreal, but they still aren’t impressed. (Mrs. Coy sort of implies he is not that keen on marrying, anyway. Hmmm.) Then, in later letters, I see that he has gone mad.  Insane.  (Mr. Coy writes this upon Mrs. Coy’s death in 1922. He says he visited Chester who was not able to grasp the extent of the tragedy.)  I wonder if he went mad after fighting in the war.  I’m thinking that’s the  most likely thing. 

Mrs. Coy mentions “the Prince.” Well, Margaret and Norman visit Quebec for the tercentenary celebrations. They were huge! And the Prince of Wales, soon to be king, arrived on a glistening battleship. I mention this in Threshold Girl. www.tighsolas.ca/page10.pdf.pdf   Marion goes to see the films of the Coronation and Margaret says she doesn’t need to, as she has seen the KING  already, IN PERSON.

Flo also writes in her letter home that she went to Nantucket with some nurses from the Newton Hospital. And to Norumbega Park.

August 4, 1908
148 Hollis Street,Boston.

My Dear Marion,

Yesterday AM, when I arose I put on an old kimono as it was cool to do a wash in – did a large wash as Chester was gone. I got every extra thing I could into the wash, about 11:am I was just putting things to rights after I had finished washing, and I was about to put a clean table cloth on the dining table as I had taken the other off to wash – when the bell rang. I answered and what was my surprise to find Flora, her cousin Miss Watters and Dr. Watters. I was glad to see them but felt ashamed of my appearance (just my luck). Flora has changed I scarcely think I would have known her had I met her elsewhere. They must be having a good time. They came up in a “Stanley.” I did not get time to ask half I wanted to: I should like to have had the girls come up for a day, but I did not insist as I know there is a lot to see and even half a day with me would not be interesting for young folks.

Dr. Watters appears like a fine young man. Flora said Marion is to teach in Montreal this next year. Herbert might like that. I do not know, but you might go there to live? I supposed Mr. Nicholson can’t go home often, he is so far away. Does Edith return to Three Rivers? I want you to sit down and write me: you owe me a letter. Last summer, you know, Old Orchard had a big fire and one of the cottages burned, I think, belonged to Mr. Norman Nicholson, formerly of Lawrence. I thought you might be a relative of Mr. Norman’s.

Mr. Coy is well this summer. Chester has gone to Maine and New Hampshire. I wish I could have known we were to be alone. I would have asked Ross down. You see, our quarters are limited and I have no help, not so fortunate as you with your three girls. How is your mother. Please remember me to her and your sister, Mrs. Hill. I suppose you had a great time at Quebec and saw ‘The Prince” which to your loyal heart would be reward enough for going.

Love,
Marion (Coy) (cousin)

In-Between Stairs

Tea Party 1910 style

This is “The Tea Party” 1910 style. The Nicholsons in Richmond, with Mrs. Montgomery, the ‘comic’ figure of my book Threshold Girl presiding,and looking very ‘waiterly’ in her tie, which were fashionable for women in the 1910 era.

 

A 100 years ago. The so-called Century Mark. It’s just a number, significant only because we have 10 fingers.

 

My book, Threshold Girl, www.tighsolas.ca/page10.pdf.pdf  is about EXACTLY 100 years ago today, in Quebec, Canada in a town called Richmond and a city called Montreal. The book is based on letters I posted years ago, in their raw form, on www.tighsolas.ca.

 

In August 1911, an election has just been called (the famous Free Trade Election) and Flora Nicholson has just been accepted to Macdonald Teaching School, despite failing French.

 

Her mom, Margaret, and her sister, Marion, get busy sewing her up for school.

 

If the ratings for the British television show Downton Abbey are any indication, people are still interested in the Edwardian Era, as it were, The Laurier Era in Canada.

 

Downtown Abbey is just a twist on the Upstairs Downstairs Theme, an ‘iconic’ television show which is also being brought back.

 

I saw Upstairs Downstairs for the first time just a couple of months ago. (I missed it when it originally aired in the 70′s, cause I was a way at college.) It’s terrific, of course.

 

Threshold Girl covers much the same area as Upstairs, Downstairs, except it is more of an In-Between Stairs.  The Nicholsons were middle class and had no servants.  So they played both parts, sitting in their ‘white dresses’ at tea, and then doing the dishes afterwards. 

 

That’s what the middle class is, I think: a class that aspires to better things, and fears falling back into the lower class.  We all know the feeling, right? What with the stock market crash of August 2011 (as it will be come to be known).

 

Considering that my retirement savings are now back where they were in early 2006, when the bank manager told me “You are right on track” it feels comforting to run away to 100 years ago. When times were simpler. Or were they?

 

Threshold Girl was originally called Flo in the City. I have been writing a blog for two years under that name, as I worked out the plot and researched ‘deep background.’  Flo in the City -a Work in Progress.blogspot. http://flointhecity-aworkinprogress.blogspot.com

 

 

Funny Hats and All

I'm so pretty

Four Women, 100 years ago. They left behind letters. I wrote a book. Threshold Girl, the first of three books about Women in the 1910 era. The Laurier Era in Canada.  www.tighsolas.ca/page10.pdf.pdf.