Pork and Berries and Opium!

Direct mail advertisement Crisco 1916.

Well, back in 2003, the first item I pulled from the old Victorian trunk that contained The Nicholson Family Letters was this Direct Mail Ad, from 1916, addressed to Mrs. N. Nicholson.

Lucky I did, because it piqued my curiosity. I could see it was an interesting item, pretending to be a friendly letter from the neighbourhood grocery, but really part of a slick  advertising campaign. Lots of North American women got this very ad, I’m sure. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps.

It came out of Chicago.

I did some research and decided it was likely an early campaign of female advertising legend Helen Landsdowne Resor of J. Walter Thompson. Apparently her signature style was to appeal directly to the homemaker with a three paneled brochure with a coupon. This Crisco ad fit the bill.

But today I read the small print that said Copyright J T N Mitchell Chicago. Another advertising man.

It is possible that Resor did this, before she was hired by J. Walter Thompson. She would have been a Landsdowne then.

Her Wikipedia entry says that the New York Daily News did a profile of her, as a top  advertiser, but all I can find are wedding and death notices.

Well, I’m glad I found I first. The trunk was under a shelf, so I could only open it a few inches and stick my hand in.

Yesterday, I went over the Nicholson house accounts, 1883-1921, for my book Diary of a Confirmed Spinster, the follow up to Threshold Girl. I am writing a digital trilogy about Margaret’s three daughters, all ‘new women’ of the era.

Margaret did not change over to Crisco, I have her 1917 butter bill.

What struck me this time, was that the Nicholsons ate very well, even when struggling financially. Beef, pork, chicken (a relative luxury) turkey, lamb, canned cod and salmon, fresh fish earlier on. Lots of Haddie (haddock) a national dish. Oatmeal, oatmeal, oatmeal and I bet it tasted WAY better than the 1 minute crap we buy today. They seemed to sweeten more with molasses and honey than refined sugar. And all that opium in their sodas. Yum!

Pears, apples, bananas! (yes) and all kinds of  berries in season. Fresh veggies from the garden. And Margaret was a master baker, like so many of the Scots. (Now, their garden was not organic; they used  the Paris Green a lot. (It’s in my Threshold Girl book.)

In 1908 some local cows trampled their garden and Norman wanted to sue if the damage was over 2.00.

My gosh, everything must have tasted to good. Everything slow cooked in the wood oven.

When the girls were living in the city, they were always pleased when Mom sent in a “Care Package.” They were all becoming de-skilled. Their own daughters would feed their kids on canned garbage in the sixties.

I once heard Jamie Oliver say, on the BBC, that the middle class, today, never had it so good, with respect to food. (And the poor are worse off.) He’s wrong with respect to the middle class in towns at the turn of the last century. They may not have had the selection of foods, like we have today,  but the quality was amazing no doubt. And they knew what to do with it.

The back of Tighsolas in Richmond, Quebec, where the garden would have been.

SCANDAL AND FIREWOOD 28th installment

A Man at Work, 1910 era. From the Tighsolas album. Perhaps a worker at the Transcontinental Railway. Or maybe a teacher.

December 1908 and Flora was struggling at school, as per usual. Her Latin results were abyssmal and her French borderline. To be fair, the atmosphere in Mr. Jackson’s classroom was not at all productive, for it was now widely known that he had asked to have his contract terminated.

Many parents had made formal requests for their children to be transferred out of his class, but not Flora’s parents, who were, again, as per usual, otherwise preoccupied.

Mrs. Montgomery was very ill, so mother Margaret was busy fulfilling her neighbourly obligations, providing meals for the family, in rotation with other neighbours. Montgomery wasn’t suffering from typhoid, or diptheria or tuberculosis, nothing contagious, so Norman wasn’t afraid for his wife. Indeed, the occasion provided the couple with another chance to give each other moral support in hard times.

“I hear Mrs. Montgomery is ill. Is it her ‘old troubles’? Well, as you said, it is better to be healthy with no money then wealthy with no health,” he wrote to her. “Keep well, and tell Herb, next time he is down, to get about 8 cords of wood from the Last Factory at the best price. That is what I got last year.”

Flora was reading that very line, in that very letter when Margaret came in from next door. 8 Cords of Wood. Flora knew she would be the one getting up at 6:30 to stoke the furnace in the winter – again. She examined her little birdy wrists. At ninety pounds, she was hardly the image of the person usually entrusted in a household with such an important task.

Margaret said, “Mrs. Montgomery is a little better. She ate quite a bit of my soup. Are you reading Father’s letter? He is upset that the Danville people didn’t read out his regrets at the St. Andrew’s Dinner.

“He is a Past President,” Flora replied. “But the Danville people aren’t as backward as he says. Certainly, the dresses on the Danville women put ours in the shade.”

“And the haggis was interesting, was it not?” Margaret added. Margaret and Flora had enjoyed the St. Andrew’s Festivities in the neighbouring town immensely. In fact, Flora had travelled a great deal around the E.T. in the fall as she had been appointed by the Presbytery to one of their Committees, a solemn responsibility, with many social perks, including teas at the homes of some of the E.T’s most respectable citizens.

Margaret was busying herself with the stove, setting some burning coal on the kindling, for she had prepared her scones early this day. “I want to go to Church, if nothing, to show them I still have my dignity. Did I tell you, Mrs. Kelloch is still ignoring me and the others act like they do not want to talk to me. Still, I am curious for news about Lindy Anderson. Jim Anderson, father says, has applied to Parliament for a divorce.”

Edith, no doubt, would have proferred an opinion here, but Flora was not interested in the lives of Old Married People. “Is Herb coming,” Flora asked, wondering if her mother had any idea why the Ladies of the Missionary Society were being so cruel to her. “Father seems to think so.”

Margaret took a deep breath and for a brief moment her hands were still, the steel poker pointing up at the ceiling.

“Yes, he is coming home. In fact, it looks like he has been transferred back to Cowansville, full time,”she said, closing the door on the firebox.. Hopefully, away from all the city’s temptations, he’ll finally straighten out.” Margaret tested the temperature of the oven with her elbow, then popped the scones in.

As usual, what Margaret was leaving unsaid, spoke volumes. So, she knew. Mother knew about Herb and de Bullion Street. She knew why he wasn’t speaking to Marion. She must have discovered the uncomforable truth about her only son on that trip to Montreal two weeks ago to buy Edith a suit.

“Did he ask for the transfer? ” Flora asked feigning innocence. She gentle fingered the rim of the pan with the uncooked biscuits.

“Well, no.” Margaret stood up and turned to Flora. “I believe your Father had something to do with it. In Quebec, we ran into Mr. McKinnon of the Eastern Townships Bank, and father and he had a private meeting, while I sat in the sitting room of our hotel and wrote a letter home. I couldn’t concentrate for curiousity. “Anyway,” she said, gazing out into the hallway, “something had to be done.”

I must go upstairs and change and find some spare linens for the Montgomery’s. They have not had a chance to do the laundry. Flora you are in charge of supper. Just keep an eye on the scones and heat up the leftover haddie.” Margaret disappeared up the stairs. “Oh,” she hollered down to Flora, “and I’m expecting a delivery from McCrae’s.. mostly spices for the Christmas cakes. I must get started. Ring over to them, will you and tell them to add some candied pineapple, if they have any.”

Flora walked to the phone, on the wall in the hall and picked up its earpiece and looked up McCrae’s number. 30 06 on the list tacked to its wooden side. She cranked the bronze handle to make the call. So a year had passed, since Christmas 1907, when Margaret had got but a ‘glimpse of her family’ as someone had said, she couldn’t remember who. So so much had happened over the past 12 months, the brilliant Tercentary, Boston and Wellesley, the Election, Marion and Edith’s moves, it was dizzying, and yet… if she thought about it, so little had really changed. At least, all the family’s problems remained pretty much unchanged.