“Twilight,” by Alice Winlow Hucks

Hucks, Alice Winlow. “Twilight.” Vancouver Sun (3 July 1943): 2.

This poems might be called “Twilight,” but it seems sufficiently eerie to post on Hallowe’en.You’re welcome.

“The poems appearing today were written by members of the ‘B’ (junior) Section of the Vancouver Poetry Writers’ Group which is affiliated with the London Poetry Society. … One dollar was paid for every poem on this page.”

Interestingly, Alice Winlow Hucks is not the same person as Alice Dudley Winlow (1879-1946), who was an executive on the board of the Vancouver Poetry Society and lived in Vancouver from her 1905 marriage to Frederick Winlow until her death in 1946, only three years after the publication of this poem. Alice Winlow Hucks was born in Elgin, Ontario, in 1904—the year before Alice Dudley moved to Vancouver—and married John Stewart Hucks in Vancouver in 1934. By all appearances they are in no way related, but one can imagine that Alice Winlow Hucks might have felt it an honour to share the name of an illustrious older member of the Vancouver Poetry Society at the beginning of her own poetic career.

Don Andondo and the Poppydophilus (1935), by Lesley Drummond Ross

Back in August of 2014, I was contacted by Helen Ross, the daughter of one of our authors, Lesley Drummond Ross. Helen was greatly helpful in creating a complete entry on her mother’s life and work, and shared with me some of her mother’s poetry, which I then posted here. Helen also sent me a complete copy of her mother’s play, Don Andondo and the Poppydophilus: A Play in Three Acts, as a pdf. I have finally found the time to do the necessary magic to share with you the following images of the pages of the play, as well as a searchable pdf file.

Ross, Lesley D. Don Andondo and the Poppydophilus: A Play in Three Acts (New York: French, 1935).

Ripples from the Ranks of the Q.M.A.A.C. (1918), by Isa Grindlay

Grindlay, Isa. Ripples from the Ranks of the Q.M.A.A.C. (London: Erskine MacDonald, 1918).

You might recall an earlier post wherein I told the story of the discovery of a new collection by one of our poets, Isa Grindlay Jackson. Through the dedication of Simon Fraser Library’s of Inter-Library Loans librarians, and the generosity of the Georgetown University Library in Washington, DC, I have procured a rare and very delicate copy of this out-of-copyright item. Gently, we have photographed the item without further compromising the physical book (it could never be scanned at this point!) and would like to share it here with you. I believe this is the only digital copy available, but please do send me a link if you know of another.

Images of the pages follow. The bibliographic details above contain a link to a searchable pdf.

 

“Night-Laughter,” by Elsie A. Gidlow

Gidlow, Elsie A. “Night-Laughter.” The Lingerer: A Bibelot of Amateur Belle Lettres 10.4 (1919): 44-45.

Kathleen Wilhelmina Ellis, aged 8

“When I grow up I want to take care of people.” At age 8, Kathleen Ellis apparently already knew where her life was headed. Born in 1887, Kathleen was the second Euro-Canadian child to be born in Penticton, BC, one of nine children of Thomas and Wilhelmina Ellis, who had settled in the Okanagan Valley in 1865. She had to fight against her family in order to achieve her goal, but in 1915 she earned her nursing degree from Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Maryland. Thus began one of the most distinguished nursing careers in Canada.

Kathleen Ellis in 1955; image courtesy of the Penticton Museum and Archives, Penticton, BC (PMA 5703).

The Penticton Museum and Archives has a number of archival gems in its collection, including (not surprisingly) articles by and about Kathleen. But the most interesting item relating to her is this little soft-leather bound notebook, in which the 7-year-old Kathleen records a bit of her day-to-day life. The curators of the Museum were generous enough to let me photograph the notebook, and post it here to share with you all.

“By the Northern Seas,” by Elmar [Elma] Machan

Machan, Elmar [Elma]. “By the Northern Seas.” Forest & Outdoor (September 1941): 283-4.

(Higher resolution images are available upon request.)

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“Dawn,” By Lois H. Gilpin

Gilpin, Lois H. “Dawn.” The Arbutus Tree [Author, 1926]: 32.

“Autumn,” by Catherine de Vaux MacKinnon

“Trinette” [Catherine de Vaux MacKinnon]. “Autumn.” Creative Young Canada: Collection of Verse, Drawings and Musical Compositions by Young Canadians from Seven to Twenty Years of Age. Ed. Aletta E. Marty. Toronto: Dent, 1928. 118.

Catherine de Vaux MacKinnon, the daughter of Lilian Vaux MacKinnon, wrote this in her youth; it is one of her three poems included in Creative Young Canada (1928). We have posted “May,” “The Tree and The Child,” and “The Clock’s Advice” earlier.