Here’s a snippet from the 1909 Eaton’s Catalogue, the patent medicine page. Patent medicines were full of big promises and opiates.
Well, as I wrote the last installment (36) of Flo in the City, my novel in progress, about a young woman coming of age in the pivotal 1908-1913 era, based on the letters of http://www.tighsolas.ca/, I decided to check the Net for information on where the Motor Company of Canada was located. And lo and behold, I found out. On Atwater and Ste Catherine, where the Forum is.
I found out, because the Montreal Gazette has archived some of their newspapers from the era. I had seen some before, at McGill, for the newspaper archives are available there on microfilm, but what a process to go there and look up stuff. I’ve only been once.
So how pleased was I to see that some issues are now available at my fingertips.
I found out that motion pictures played at the Royal and the Princess. During the week of May 4 edition, a number of funny and ‘educational’ films were playing. The Last Days of Pompeii, a Wilbur Wright motion picture and one silent short entitled The Chaperone and one titled Asking Father’s Consent. (The subject of women and marriage was a big part of motion pictures, back then and still is, isn’t it?)
I will have fun researching details for my story. In this case, I found an article on the event at Knox Church that Marion attended and wrote about in her letter of May 5!
Peter Hing, the first ever Chinese graduate of McGill was honoured. The article in the May 4th paper, says that Princpal Peterson of McGill used the forum to criticize the 500 dollar head tax, claiming it discouraged bright minds from China coming to McGill. (The US was ahead of Canada in this regard.) Apparently, Hing outlined the situation in English and then spoke directly to the Chinese Montrealers in the audience. He finished by saying that opium was very bad…
Why Marion went to this affair, I don’t know. It was a McGill do aimed very much at the Chinese community. It just shows that the Nicholsons had quite an open mind about the world and interesting connections…
Another cool thing. A large ad on the same page was for Laurentian Spring Water. My next project after this one will be about the Montreal in the 20′s, and focus on my grandfather, the Director of Services for the City and my husband’s grandfather, T G Wells, the President of Laurentian Spring water. It will be titled Water and Milk and it will be a two solitudes style thriller with a social welfare theme.
