False Memories Winners and Immortal Balustrades

Well, as fate would have it,this picture dropped into my hands off the  mantlepiece. (Sometimes that happens to me. Weird things fall into my hands at weird moments.)

It’s a picture of me and my Aunt Denise at the Mount Royal Look Out.

Just two days ago, I visited the same Look Out with my son and his girlfriend, Meaghan,who despite being a suburban Montrealer, had never been up there.

“I haven’t been there many times myself,” I told Meaghan. “The first time, I think, was two years ago. My husband and I drove up in the winter and walked Darcy, the lab, on the icy path.”   And then I remembered the the time my husband and I drove up in 2005 and I took a picture and put it on my www.tighsolas.ca website. “But those were the only times I visited the Look Out,” I told her – and I believed it to be true.

Well, was I wrong. (Sometimes that happens to me, my memory proves wrong.) I was there with my aunt in 1978. This picture is the proof. We took a caleche up to the mountain, I recall, the pricey 3 hour drive. (It’s the touristy thing to do.)  It was an unpleasant ride as it was damp and very cold. We bundled ourselves under a fur carpet provided by the caleche driver. Typical English weather I guess.

I had never met my aunt before. This instance, she had dropped in on a whim, from South of London, taking a room in the Holiday Inn on Sherbrooke, around the block from where I worked in a travel agency. And then she phoned me up and popped by.

I visited my aunt in England, just once in 2006.She had this same picture in her living room, perhaps put there just for the occasion, perhaps not.

I remember that leather coat I was wearing. It was not a warm coat and far too small for me, a second hand thing,  and I was slimmer then, although I thought I was fat.

In 2002 or so, my aunt lent me my grandmother’s Changi Diary and I wrote Looking for Mrs. Peel about the Double Tenth Torture Incident.

I see that Colin Firth is about to start filming Railway Man, about someone who worked on the Thai Burma Railway and was tortured.

Hmm. My grandfather, also a Changi Prison,worked on that internee railway project, I’m told.

Anyway, down below is my Aunt Alice on the same balustrade in 1922 or so. She’s a character in  my Milk and Water Story about Montreal in 1927, when the Prince of Wales made a visit and when my Grandfather was Director of City Services.

Here she is in the crowd on the steps of City Hall in 1927. (I’m fairly certain.)

Ironically, the Mountain is now named for Camillien Houde the Mayor who ‘fired’ my grandfather. Well, the road leading to the East Look Out is named Camillien Houde Way, and the Look Out is named for him too.

And I think a cemetery. WOW. HE WON!  The short little guy with the wrinkled suits and quick wit won. The guy who hated by grandfather so much, and all the tramway people on my grandfather’s side.  My grandfather, Jules Crepeau, has a little road and park in Ahunsic named for him.  But I wrote this play, Milk and Water so my grandfather may be still in the running!

State of the Union, Milk and Water

A tram in Montreal 1910.

Well, the US news media is all abuzz (to use a cliche) about Obama’s State of the Union Address where he called for income equality. This right after the release of beleaguered Republican candidate Romney’s income tax status, where he paid under 15 percent last year.

I’m having a serious case of the Deja Vu Blues right now, as I edit Milk and Water my eplay about Montreal in 1927, the era of US Prohibition.

In Milk and Water, my grandfather, a top Civic Servant in the Montreal Administration and my husband’s grandfather, Thomas Wells, a Westmount businessman, have a talk in front of a dance club/speakeasy , while awaiting the possible arrival of David, the Prince of Wales.

Now, my grandfather got his job as Director of the City in September 1921. In August of 1921, the Financial Post out of Toronto (Mclean) ran a profile of ‘fiancier and advocate” Herbert Ames, the author using a pseudonym.

Eerie, because the point of view of the Financial Post echoes what many Republicans feel, or at least what they have been told to feel, what is ‘good’ for them: that the rich are special and deserve more power than the poor. On the News I’ve heard the Rich like Romney called ‘the job creators.’ (Which is kind of funny, as the 1% earns its bonuses often on the basis of jobs cut.)

I’m quoting directly from the teaser of this 1921 Financial Post..

“The sketch of Herbert Ames in this issue, not only gives an insight into the character of this outstanding financier, and public worker, but in enlarging about his efforts to introduce reforms of Civic Government in Montreal reveals many of the issues of the Municipal problem of that city.

Montreal is ruled, in a business way, by a relatively small faction of financiers and businessmen who live in another city, Westmount, and is controlled by the French majority who vote a solid French ticket for City Hall.

Thus the people who pay the biggest taxes have little say in the spending of them. (Dumb democracy. Doh!)

It has been with efforts to bring about something better that Sir Herbert Ames has been identified for many years.”

Yikes! No wonder there is no street names for Herbert Ames in Montreal!

There is a street names for my grandfather, Jules Crepeau (in Ahunsic) and a long street on MOunt Royal and a Look Out named for Camillien Houde, the Mayor who ousted my grandfather.

I find this a bit strange, as it was the Anglos who hated my grandfather, Edward Beck the crusading journalist (who I suspect wrote that 1921 article) and Lord Atholstan, Hugh Graham of the Montreal Star.

They hated my grandfather, and McConnell.

I suspect this had something to do with my grandfather’s connnections, with Rodolphe Forget the Industrialist who controlled the Montreal Transportation System. With McConnell and others.

All very confusing. Why would Mayor Houde, populist French Mayor, want to oust him too?

Well, he felt he was allied with the previous City Hall Administration..

Strange bedfellows, Houde and Lord Atholstan. Did an anglo help get legendary French Canadian Mayor Camillien Houde elected? I suspect so.

Good Businessmen, Shady Politicians and Montreal 1927

My father in law always told us that his father, Thomas Gavine Wells was a founding member of the Rotary Club in Montreal. But a couple of years ago, I found a website mounted by that same organization only to see that his name was not listed among the Presidents. I emailed a contact person, who was kind, but he had no information on “Fuddy” Wells, even when I told him the story about WWII, when Fuddy invited his son -my future father in law – to a dinner in honor of some European Royalty.. The King and Queen of Roumania, I think (she was a daughter of Victoria) and when introduced, my father in law, got a standing ovation because he was an enlisted man. I think the Mayor was at this dinner. Hmm. Was it Camillien. Was he in jail yet?

Anyway, today, I was scoping the Net hoping to find some document that showed how many employees Laurentian Spring Water had in 1930.. But no luck. I’ll guess at 200.

But his name came up in a volume called the Rotarian for 1916. He was President of the Montreal Chapter and District Head too.. so for Quebec and Ontario. (He is listed as Thomas J. Wells. Could it be that he had a French secretary who pronounced G as J.?

I needed this for my story Milk and Water. I’m writing it now, and when Thomas accuses Jules Crepeau (my grandfather) of nepotism and cronyism at City Hall, he will reply.  ”And you don’t belong to any clubs? The Masons?

Fuddy will say, “I am not a Mason” but I did help found the Rotary Club here. And I belong to St. Georges Curling Club and the Mount Royal Club.

My grandfather will then remark on how English people conduct business as usual and then cover it up with good works.

Something like that.

There’s another angle: The early Rotary Club in Montreal was concerned with rehabilitated male youth. Weredale and Shawbridge.

Interesting. Because the two men will discuss the Laurier Theatre fire,where mostly boys died because mostly boys snuck into the movies in those days.

Girls were either too protected or too busy, being ‘little mothers’ to their siblings.

My grandfather was accused of controlling police who wanted to close down theatres that let in children under age without a guardian. And that’s in 1925, before the infamous fire.

The Rotarian Magazine says that to be a Member a person must be the controlling head of a Company. It was a President’s Club of sorts and in 1916 Fuddy got to go to Cincinnati and meet the other business leaders in North America. Of course they had to be ‘good’ businessmen who acted on their principles. I have no indication Fuddy wasn’t. Ok, he liked to bribe bartenders… and he lied on his marriage certificate, saying he was a lawyer and (bigger lie) that his bride was widowed. Yea, right!

A Family Story, Milk and Water

Still Life with History: my Austrian amphora vase.

Now, my mother had always told me my grandfather picked it up in Europe on a trip.

That’s all. He picked up two other vases, too. My Thomas Foresters, that I’ve written a lot about on this blog.

My mother always said this was a trip to Holland. So I could not help but wonder if he went to Holland on a fact finding mission with respect to water purity.

I believe he did and in 1909. Why, because in 1909 there was a typhoid epidemic and the papers were full of awful talk about Montreal’s water.

“That the drinking water of Montreal appears to be a fairly reliable means to reaching the cemetary appears to be the consensus among experts at a round table…”

That’s in the Gazette.

This vase is from the turn of the last century.

Anyway, the same article shows stats revealing that the typhoid rate is lowest in Holland and Germany.

Bingo!  He went to Holland in 1909 when he was Assistant City Clerk and also on the City Improvement League Board.

Perfect for my play Milk and Water, about Montreal in 1927, where I have

Jules Crepeau, my grandfather, have a long talk with Thomas Wells, the President of Laurentian Spring Water about life, business and ethics.

They are sitting outside one of Montreal’s more popular ‘dance halls’ awaiting the possible arrival of David, the Prince of Wales, on a private outing. They are bringing a supply of fresh water..

My grandfather will complain about Mr. Wells ruining the reputation of Montreal with his ads for Pure Water. He’ll say the water has been fine since 1914 (when it was filtered.)

In the background you will hear the tune Hello Montreal by Billy Eckstein, “Who the heck wants water when you are dying for a drink?”

It’s Prohibition in the US and at least one Canadian Temperance type has complained to the American Senate about Corruption at Montreal City Hall, specifically naming Jules Crepeau, my grandpapa, as a person who pulls the strings at the Police Department.

The Ultimate Canadian Race

Black spinster in US. With a little training, could this woman make a good wife for a home-steader out West, Maclean’s Magazine asks in 1911?

A few blogs ago I wrote about Marion’s school trip in 1905, to see Booker T. Washington and hear him speak. And I scoped the Montreal Gazette to find articles that might have influenced her ideas about the Black Community in Montreal, some of whose children she likely taught in her school in Little Burgundy.

Then I went on to writing about the Fannie Farmer Cook book. Well, what would fall out of Marion Nicholson’s edition of the 1912 cookbook but a poem.

The Negro’s Dog

Upon his playful hands the great hounds leap,

They fawn around his knee and eye his face,…

Do they not see the Man is Black? etc.

And then yesterday, I discovered some Maclean’s Magazines from the era, posted on archive.org (public domain) and noticed a 1911 article on the Canadian Negro.

I read it and cringed. I know from my previous research that this article isn’t an anomaly. It reflects the entrenched beliefs of the day.

The article starts out in a promising way:

“To be perfectly honest with ourselves, there is no such thing as a Canadian. Canadian so far is a geographical and political term. There are English Canadians and French Canadians, Galacian Canadians, Icelandic Canadians, Yellow Canadians, Red Canadians, Black Canadians. And one day, all these people’s may mix their blood and become a Canadian Race.

Then the author, a Britton B. Cooke, writes: The simplest division that could be made is the division of colour. There are white Canadians and the rest.

The article then talks about the Underground Railroad, already a legend in 1910, and the Southerners who are heading out West.

And then the ugly stuff starts, a deconstruction of the character of the negro (the stereotypes) leads the author to claim that the Negro is not right for assimilation in Canada and in the making of the Ultimate Canadian Race. (Neither, he says, is the Yellow man, as it has been proven in B.C.)

Hmm. This is history I think we need to know. White-washing the past (to use a poor pun) doesn’t help future generations deal with the present. Remember, the Canadian Government was actively seeking Americans to come to Canada to work the land out West, preferring these nearby immigrants over the others from overseas.

Canadians can be smug about their past, largely because they don’t know it. We often feel ourselves superior to the US, a kinder more inclusive country. But are we?

The Servant Problem: I’ve written about it on http://www.tighsolas.ca/. Many suffragist sympathizing rich women were hypocrits when it came to the women they employed. Indeed, many of the recommendations of the Royal Commission were designed to solve the servant problem.

History Redefined.

Tighsolas porch circa 1900, Richmond Quebec.

Today, it was reported in the Montreal Gazette, and only the Montreal Gazette from what I can see, that Canadians, today, aren’t big into History.

Very few Canadians read history books, or scope websites about history.

No real surprise here. Not if the poll defines history in the traditional way.

Of course, if you include ‘genealogy’ in history, and movies etc, it’s a different story.

As I continue to procrastinate on editing my novel, Flo in The City, about a girl coming of age in the pivotal 1910 era in Montreal, based on the letters of http://www.tighsolas.ca/, I am always thinking about history. But not so much wars and such (since my story takes place in those years before WWI) but about fashion history, technological history, women’s social history, the history of medicine. EVERYTHING is history. Anyway who collects things is an historian of sorts, a curator.

The problem is traditional history books are boring. They are written by scholars and not writers. (Pierre Berton was a notable exception.) Historical writers tend to put story above facts. I just watched Young Victoria and and it was girly fun but who knows how close it was to history. I imagine a young pre-Victorian (tsk)teenager, even a princess, would have acted very different from the girl in the movie.

Anyway, I must get to writing. I am thinking of making this blog bilingual. But my French….

Aujourd’hui on a publié une sondage dans La Gazette qui disait que les Canadiens ne sont pas les grands consommateurs de l’histoire. Aucune surprise ici, mais je me demande, c’est quoi l’histoire? Est-ce que la genealogie est l’histoire? Bien sur. Les flics? La mode? Pourquoi pas? S’il les Canadiens n’aime pas lire les livres d’histoires, c’est par-ce que la plupart de ces livres sont ennuyeux, écrites par les academiques et pas par les écrivains.