Detail of Valentine and Son’s postcard Dominion Park with woman who could be Marion. Marion’s white dress was just like this. But then the women of the period dressed all alike.
I don’t know why Dominion Park fascinates me… It seems from the photos on the web, all derived from Post Cards, that the woman visitors all dressed to the nines.
And yet they probably climbed onto the thrill rides like the men. YouTube has a cute video (I believed it is a film) of some young women from a girls’ finishing school visiting Coney Island having a great ‘unladylike” time, riding all the rides, in their long dresses and tight-laced boots. Why not?
In a 1911 letter, Marion Nicholson, my husband’s grandmother, writes about going to the Horse Show, a big event in Montreal every May 1.
She says she got dizzy watching the horses go round and round. So I doubt she went on too many rides. My husband gets dizzy easily too, as does my son. Genes.
So, I this plays into my scene at Dominion Park, where the heat and the activity and the strong man fighting snakes, makes her dizzy and hot and bothered.
My story is called Flo in the City and focuses on Flo but it is really the story of the 3 women, who are so different. In 1908, Edith will be the one expected to marry and Marion the one expected to be a success at work. And by the end, Edith will end up unmarried and Marion married. I will soon post another report of another suffrage meeting in Montreal in 1909. I think I will have Edith attend most of these meetings.
Marion will be too busy to do this.
