This is from a 1908 Technical World Magazine, showing the Olympic and its sister ship the Titanic being built.
Well.
As I was looking up information on the garment worker’s strike in 1912, I found an interesting article from June 15 about Big Ships. This was just a few months after the Titanic sank, or is it sunk?, anyway.
“Large ships are still in demand. Olympic sails today with full list. 676 first class passengers.”
“The popularity of the large steamer with the travelling public does not seem to be on the wane, as was feared might be the case in consequence of the accident to the Titanic. White Star Olympic is due to sail from New York today for Cherbourge and Southampton.
It sailed every three weeks or more, from what I can see. July 6, July 27, August 17, Sept 18. “All steamers equipped with wireless and submarine signals.”
Now, I’m not sure, but the McCoys, Mr and daughter, of Flo in the City sailed to Europe on Sunday June 16, according to a letter from Marion to Margaret. Maybe they took the Olympic, who knows?
There were many liners sailing. These boats were big business. Hence the Titanic event being described as a mere ‘accident.’ Didn’t they see James Cameron’s movie?
That’s the trip to Paris and other destinations that they invited Marion along on, where she despondently wrote “Teachers will have to make much more money before I will see Europe.”
The Nicholsons were right in the midst of huge financial struggles, with Marion as their life-line.
In September, the McCoys brought her back a gift. “Imagine me in a Parisienne blouse,” Marion writes in a letter. The McCoys (an old Richmond family) also helped her land her own apartment on Hutchison, not an easy thing for a single woman to do in 1912.
In August, 1912, Edith and Marion went to Boston instead, to visit Dr. Henry Watters. They were introduced to a “Great Yankee” Chester Coy. “Chester is the man, now,” Marion jokes in a letter. Mrs. Coy, a hapless homemaker with no daughters to help, is anxious to marry her son off.
In September he visits Marion, in Montreal in her new flat on Hutchison. (How scandalous! Gentleman callers.) No use, though. She is already hung up on Hugh Blair. He dumps his old girlfriend “we were never engaged and I only thought of you as a very good friend” and proposes to Marion in May, 1913. (I guess it doesn’t hurt to have rival suitors when trying to get a man to propose.)
Marion finally does see Paris, in 1946, as a delegate of the Canadian Teaching Federation.
I saw notices in the 1912 Gazette, declaring which Montrealers, or Quebeckers were visiting Paris or London and in what hotel they were staying.
