Tennesee Williams and Me

Madeleine Sherwood in Sweet Bird of Youth

Yesterday, I watched Sweet Bird of Youth on Turner Classics, part of their Tennessee Williams festival.

It reminded me of 1982, when I worked as a copywriter at a radio station in Montreal. I guess Tennessee died in 1982, because one of the other copywriters came into the room and announced, “One of us has died.”

I turned to my friend, Nora, and smiled. One of us indeed. We wrote ads for Greeks restaurants, “Step into the Sunshine at la Casa Grecque,”

I just checked. He died in 83, so my memory serves.

You see, I was a big fan of the playwright. I had studied theatre at McGill, not for the acting bit, which  I simply hated, but for the plays. Tennessee was a favorite. Edward Albee and Pinter, too.

Now, I don’t recall reading Sweet Bird of Youth, although I likely did. I missed the movie, though for sure. In 1962, when the movie came out, Montreal children couldn’t  go to the movies. (My play Milk and Water explains.)

And besides, I was just 8. Anyway, this movie is still damn relevant, I think.

Now, Madeleine Sherwood is in the movie Sweet Bird of Youth, playing a distinctly different character than she played in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. A mistress to a powerful man. She played the same role, Miss Lucy, on stage.

Madeleine Sherwood, as it happens, is the granddaughter of Paul Villard, who figures in my story Diary of a Confirmed Spinster, the follow up to Threshold GIrl.

My ebook story is based on family letters from the 1910 era and in that era Edith Nicholson was working at French Methodiste Institute. Paul Villard, a medical doctor and doctor of divinity, was the Principal of the Missionary School on Greene Avenue.

He figures largely in the story, as he helps Edith through a number of crises and then she suddenly turns on him and quits. (I have somewhere a letter of recommendation he wrote, rather abrupt and hastily written.) Edith seems to have been friends with Yvonne Villard, his daughter. Yvonne visits Tighsolas in the summer of 1911.

I have spent a great deal of time trying to figure why. (I wondered at one time if it was because of the Church Union controversy going on. Edith was a Presbyterian.) But no, I realize that it had to do with Villard appointing another woman head of the teachers.

So I am writing that part right now. I have read Dr. Villard’s books on the school and its mission, so know all about it.

I see on the net that Nicole Kidman was set to start in a revival on stage, last year, but nothing more has come of it. Nichol does have a similar acting style to Geraldine Page, I think.

Ecole Methodiste teachers. I am pretty sure the man on the right is Paul Villard. One of the girls other than Edith, might be Yvonne Villard.

Fire and Water and Milk.

My grandfather’s letter of resignation to the City Council, dated September 23, 1930. It is stamped by the City Clerk’s office, Sept 29 and was debated in Council that very evening.

(Before Jules Crepeau, my grandfather,  was appointed Director of Services in 1920, he was the Assistant City Clerk. I thought that ‘ a little job ‘ but it wasn’t. EVERYTHING pertaining to City Business went through that office and my grandfather had a memory like a steel trap.)

Anyway, I have transcribed part of the long debate over my grandfather’s resignation, that has it all, anger, indignation, innuendo, veiled threats, humour and buffoonery, even some wit and clever repartee (a skill now extinct among politicians of all stripes and levels.)

I put it on my other blog, which mirrors this one: Flo in the City:

http://flointhecity-aworkinprogress.blogspot.com/2011/11/mayor-houde-picks-up-gloveand-loses-his.html

Hmm. The more I read this front page Gazette report, the more questions I have about the REAL reason my grandfather was fired. Indeed, the opposition keeps asking this very question. I suspect EVERYBODY knows, but no one wants to spell it out.

The given reason, that it was his job as Director of Services to STOP the purchase of Montreal Water and Power is nutty. As if it was his job to tell the elected officials what to do.

During this debate, towards the end, Houde brings up the Laurier Theatre Fire, totally out of context. Now, that was, from what I have dug out of Internet archives, a troubling issue with respect to my grandfather….That’s the infamous fire where many children were killed and the reason why I couldn’t see movies in theatres as a child in Montreal.

So much so, I am wondering whether I should change the working title of my play about Montreal in 1927, Milk and Water, to Fire and Water.

My grandfather’s brother was VP of United Theatre Amusements. He ended up falling from an office window in 1932. In 1926, My grandfather is accused of allowing theatre owners to break the rules and let in young children unattended(by controlling the Police) by a Mr. Raney testifying before a US Senate hearing on Prohibition. Raney is a former Ontario Attorney General and one of those anal anti-everything fun Presbyterians. )

(I thought my mother once told me another brother was Fire Chief, but I have found no evidence of that.)

The 1927 Typhoid epidemic was caused by milk, not water, although the US scientists brought in to investigate couldn’t pinpoint the genesis of the epidemic, which  afflicted 5,000 and killed a few hundred.

An article was published in September in the Journal of the American Medical Association. My grandfather will talk about this in the play, which takes place in early September.

The scientists gave Montreal Tap water a clean bill  of health then. My grandfather will get down on my husband’s grandfather for exploiting the situation to sell his bottled water. As he did in 1909 the date of the last big typhoid epidemic, and since.

“It was from MILK, not water, ” my grandfather will say.

“Six of one, half a dozen of the other, “my husband’s grandfather will say. (This is an inside joke, as my husband uses this expression a lot!) It’s also what most people thought.

“Then why are we here?” my husband’s grandfather will ask.

“The Prince never drinks tap water, anywhere,” will reply my grandfather.

“I’m here to get him to approve of my new ginger ale, ” says my husband’s grandfather.

Something like that.

Here’s the ironic part. I found an article from the 1927 in the Gazette which claimed that 3,000 caught typhoid (“not alot in a city of a million”) when 4,500 did, according to the JAMA report.

That May article doesn’t say where the contagion came from though, so they didn’t know then. The article says city water is tested for bacteria daily and then goes on to praise Montreal’s wonderful water works.

So, in early September, when Milk and Water takes place, because the Royal Princes are in town to decompress and have fun, it probably wasn’t widely known that the epidemic came from milk.

I can play around with this.

The article mentions that the last great typhoid epidemic was in 1909. Funny,  no one seems too concerned about city water in the Nicholson Letters. There are no warnings from Mother Margaret, and she worries about EVERYTHING. Especially about her daughters catching colds and La Grippe.

I think this speaks to another key ‘angle’ of the MILK AND WATER  story… The Presbyterians weren’t worried so much about water and stuff, as they were CLEAN in spirit and body and habits.

Disease was a French and immigrant problem. Or so it was thought.

And the French and Immigrants looked skeptically upon the HYGIENIST movement because they were aware, of some level, that clean and pure meant WHITE and Protestant. They were aware the PURITY MOVEMENT was as much about ridding the world of certain races, as about health and well-being.

Father Norman, who had typhoid in 1896, says he doesn’t trust the water up North on the railway and goes around parched all the time. Funny.

A Clearer Pic of Edie

A cleared scan of the picture of Edith Nicholson and teachers at Westmount Methodist.

I checked with another picture and the man at right is certainly Dr. Villard and these are certainly the M.A.A.A. grounds.

Not surprising, as the grounds were just a couple of blocks from the Westmount Missionary School.

The Westmount Methodist building is gone now. A playground is there now. And all these pointy buildings are gone too, although ‘the green’ still exists as a kind of playing field.

Edith looks young in this photo. It is not often that the photos capture texture, but here you can see her smooth, young skin and the pattern on the shirtwaists.

Protestant vs. Catholic

Edith Nicholson circa 1910

I found Preparing the Way, the book by Paul Villard that discusses Westmount Methodist Institute in far greater detail than the Westmount News article.

I had seen it before, five years ago.

But now, as I embark on Edith’s Story, I realize this book is key to explaining it.

Edith’s story will focus on her suffrage activism, but during the story she is teaching at this Missionary School in Westmount.

She is teaching there when she loses her fiance in a fire and Paul Villard, a doctor, gives her a ‘heart tonic’ -I assume something laced with Opium.

Preparing the Way explains every aspect of the curriculum and even gives the kid’s schedule.

What will her story be? Will she try to convert Miss Gouin? The Roman Catholic, who likes to have fun…Yes, maybe she will meet Miss Gouin at a meeting… Hmm.

Preparing the Way is all about converting Catholics, who like to have fun, even on Sunday….

Of course, in 1912, Edith becomes very angy with Paul Villard but there are no details given. Preparing the Way goes to great length to show that everyone lives in harmony at the school, the pupils, and the teachers.

Hmmm.

I have to take a wild guess about what irks Edith… Is it about Presbyterianism vs. Methodism or is it about workload vs. pay.

Edith seems to think the Board would be upset if they knew the truth.

Three Steps Forward, One Back

A picture of Edith with very possibly staff from Westmount Methodist Institut. Myabe Yvonne Villard is there.

Well, five steps forward, one step back.

I wasn’t finding much online about Westmount Methodist, so lucky, I thought, for the Preparing the Way document by Paul Villard. Only a few copies of this little pamphlett remain in existence, one supposedly at McGill and one copy at Westmount Library. And his other book, Up to the Light, contains only a bit on the Institut -because I found a French webpage that said as much.

I decided to check the Gazette archives and didn’t find much either, just a few graduation notices… and a strange article from 1960′s, about the actress Madeleine Sherwood, the Mother Superior, I think, in the television show The Flying Nun and also that very bitchy pitch-perfect Sister Woman in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, one of the movies that should have won Best Picture but didn’t. (Did she play the same character on Broadway?)

It seems this Montreal-born actress’s grandfather was a certain McGill Prof, Paul Villard, who was also an MD and a preacher.

Could it be the same Paul Villard. I couldn’t be sure, until I found an article in the 1911 (YES) Westmount News about The Institut that claimed this Paul Villard was a doctor, too.

Too much of a coincidence. I couldn’t be 100 percent sure, until I found a bio for Ms. Sherwood that claimed her Mom was named Yvonne.

Well, that nailed it.

The Westmount News was so useful. I discovered a great deal of useful information for my first draft of Threshold Girl, the new title for Flo in the City.

The Horse Show was in early May at THE ARENA in Westmount. So I have to fix that. Westmount Park wasn’t referred to as Victoria Jubilee Park anymore, but The Westmount Park. So there, I have to change it back to what I had.

And there wasn’t a tram on Sherbrooke,not until 1913, like I had supposed. The St Catherine tram was cramped and crowded.

And the Merry Widow wasn’t playing (well, I knew that ) but Brewster’s Millions was. The Westmount News goes into great detail about What’ s On at the Orpheum and Princess… And in 1911, Sir Wilfrid bought some land in Westmount for his wife. And there wasn’t much crime in the city, (well, I saw that from the Yearbook) but a lot of ‘car’ accidents. The trouble is, ‘cars’ could be motorcars or tramcars.

And they were showing Kinecoloured films of the Coronation at the Princess.. with realistic colours.. so they wrote. So maybe I will have Marion go to this, instead of the same Somner Park show that Edith went to.

And one tidbit I will put in my story: a Laurentian Water horse ran amok in Westmount. Well, I write about runaway horses, in my story and Laurentian water was owned by my husband’s relations on the other side. I think I will have Flo and Edith witness this!! I want to put a bit about Laurentian in Marion’s story anyway. (Here’s a quote about the need for a children’s library in Westmount: “Pure water, effective drainage, fine sidewalks,beautiful parks, and the annexation of profitable lands are material things worth striving for, but the things of the mind, things that build charcter should not be overlooked,these build for time and eternity. It was a wise Jesuit who said, “Give me the first 7 years of a child’s life, and you can take the rest.” (This quote is similar to my “healthy home” quote at the beginning of Threshold Girl.”) Intellectual, physical and MORAL health were considered ONE AND THE SAME THING in 1910.)

But I also discovered something that messes me up a bit. In the article about Westmount Methodiste, Villard writes that Academy I graduates can enter the Model Course at Macdonald. Hmm. So that means Flora wasn’t in Academy III but Academy II, as she just took one year of the course.

I guess I have to change that. I wonder why Edith didn’t take the course, money I guess. Just like so many people, she didn’t have enough money to take off a year and to go school.

Oh, and another thing I read, wedding announcements in Westmount tended to describe the weddings as ‘quiet.’ Many of them. I figure this is to appease those who were not invited..

A signed George Eliot edition of Middlemarch?

Edith’s 1884 copy of Middle March, signed by the author ont he outside and signed by Edie inside. (So my title is correct, even if it is Tabloid style.)

E Nicholson 1930, is written inside in pencil So she got the book, part of a set, when it was 50 years old… oh, and so was she as she was born in 1884.

Hmm. I wonder (and I just thought of this) is she got it as a 50th birthday present.

Very likely. And that goes to show you what kind of person she Edie was.

Well, I didn’t work on the novel Threshold Girl, because it’s a beautiful summer day, not too hot, not too humid, so I thought I’d go back into Montreal, and visit the Westmount Library to photocopy their version of Preparing the Way, the book Principal Villard wrote about Westmount Methodiste. I had a photo copy, from my first visit six years ago, but I threw it out. And now I know I need it in order to write the Edith story…

And there are only a few copies of this in existence, one at McGill, but it’s on microfice and who knows if it is still there.

It’s a not a part of history anyone is proud of. I swear I saw a copy on archive.org, but if it was there it got taken off. Or maybe it was Canadiana.org.

But I don’t have it on my puter, so maybe I am remembering wrong.

The problem is, driving in Montreal this summer is a nightmare, even worse than usual. So it’s better that I take a train, someday next week.

Anyway, this book is just about the oldest thing I have belonging to the Nicholsons, although they didn’t have it in 1884. I do have a letter from 1879, very hard to read… a love note to Margaret, but by a girl, I think.

Oddly, I have never read Middlemarch, at least not all the way through. Dunno why. Maybe, in honor of Edith, I will read her edition.