Murder by Accident (1947), by Leonie Mason (Joan Walker)

“This is a book for those who prefer to take their murders quietly” (dustjacket)

I’ve been in conversation with Brian Busby, of The Dusty Bookcase and Canadian Notes & Queries, about a number of authors of obscure Canadian mysteries, and he has kindly lent me his copies of Joan Walker’s East of Temple Bar (published in 1946 under her maiden name, Joan Suter) and Murder by Accident (published the following year under the pseudonym Leonie Mason). By the time these books were published in England, Walker had already (just) moved to Canada, where she married Major James Rankin Walker. Her early life as a war bride became the fodder for her Pardon My Parka, which won the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour in 1954… but that is not (mostly) what this blog is about.

This blog is about mysteries. Most notably, British mysteries and how hooked I am on them as a genre. Not only do I devote most of my television viewing time to shows like Vera, Shetland, and Agatha Christie’s Poirot and Miss Marple, but recently having contracted covid, I have not only binge-watched the entirety of the Endeavour – Morse – Lewis -verse but also revisited a number of favourite authors: Dorothy Sayers, Ruth Rendell, P.J. James, and of course Agatha Christie. So Leonie Mason’s Murder by Accident is in esteemed company. In the world of early Canadian women’s novels that I have read, though, it lies beside such questionable delights as Mabel Broughton Billett’s Calamity House (1927) and The Robot Detective (1932), and Mary Coad Craig’s The Two Decanters (1930), in much the same way as the Brokenwood Mysteries overshadows the trite Midsomer Murders or the dark, convoluted Hinterland.

In his review of Murder by Accident, Brian points suggests that its greatest failing lies in the title being “somewhat of a spoiler.” I have to admit that it turns out to have been an anti-spoiler for me. Brian’s comment led me to expect the initial poisoning to have actually been accidental, and I thus suspended my disbelief far more in reading than I usually would with mystery novels. “I don’t trust those mushrooms not to have been accidental… so let’s see what she does with this.”

What she does is weave a relatively successful mystery, albeit incorporating perhaps more than its fair share of tropes… but then, were the recognized elements of the British detective drama as ubiquitous in 1947 as they are now? So many of them can be attributed to Agatha Christie (certainly the drawing room conclusion scene, which Murder by Accident manages to avoid), and her first novel was published only in 1922.

As to tropes: Green Acres, the guest house owned by Christie and Henry Burton, is obvious (and yes, it not only was, but is a real thing: I have had the delightful experience myself); it also reminds me strongly of one of my favourite mysteries, Mary Stewart’s Wildfire at Midnight (1956), which also draws on the conventions of the “country hotel” trope, complete with love triangles, marital discord, and a femme fatale. Similarly, Mason’s cast of characters, like any Agatha Christie novel, spans the gammut, including the members of the Ladies’ Auxiliary, but missing the vicar and his entourage. Hotel guests Major Guy Warren, recently demobbed from the Intelligence Corp, and Angela Nash, the young, attractive secretary of the first murder victim – the acerbic author Anna Rawlings – combine forces and with the help of Guy’s friend Peter Martin, CID, unravel the mystery of what appear to be a series of coincidental accidents occuring at Green Acres. Other guests include the femme fatale, soon-to-be-divorced Lydia French; Anna’s toy-boy husband, Frank; and the greedy businessman George Heskett, who is attempting unsuccessfully to coerce the Burtons into selling the guest house.

And so the stage is set: but the story could go either way. That it turned into an enjoyable afternoon of reading is unquestionably for the same reason that the authors won two literary awards in the 1950s: Leonie Mason has a rather engaging narrative voice and facility with language. There is levity, too, although this is in no way a humourous book. The cabbie in the opening scene, who “had a private theory about bumps and potholes in the road” (5), and thus aimed for them to – successfully – increase his fare, reappears at times like Macbeth’s gatekeeper. The local poachers, when a shot is fired in the woods, are ”seething with indignation”: they “are far too good at the job to mistake Angela and Christie for a brace of pheasants” and not willing to become “the laughing stock of the place for their bad aim” (123). I enjoy a book, too, that includes as the final sentence of a chapter full of deep discussion of plots and motivations: “They queued up to use the boot scraper just outside the front door and they they went in to lunch” (183). One gets the sense that the irony of the prosaic action is intentional.

Overall, I’d have to say that I really enjoyed Murder by Accident, but I have to agree with Brian that the climax was highly disappointing. It was easy to anticipate, and the run up to the final scene included all of the information necessary, leaving no possibility of a satisfying denouement. We are just left there: “Oh. Okay then. Right. Next novel.”

Speaking of which: I now feel that I need to read Pardon My Parka (1953) and Repent at Leisure (1957), both of which deal with war brides. The opening pages of Murder by Accident hold some interesting comments about war brides, and I wonder how this fits in with Joan Walker’s biography. She married Ogilvie MacKenzie-Kerr in London in 1938, but had obviously divorced by 1946 when she married James Rankin Walker in Toronto. She had emigrated to Canada in April 1946, just as the novel was being published, so one wonders about her characters. Guy is glad he had avoided “making a fool of himself … with some unsuitable girl who had seemed to be the sun and the moon and the stars during a brief forty-eight hours’ leave” (11). And Lydia married during the war: “At first it was such fun. Leaves. … Dancing until all hours … and then when peace broke out, Rodney didn’t” (13). The tensions in the plot are underpinned by relationships built and destroyed during the war years, when men were deployed or on leave, and women stayed on the home front and… well, it depended, apparently, on the woman. But Joan Suter, Mrs. Ogilvie MacKenzie-Kerr, became a war bride herself. So where does that leave us? I’ll have to read on.

“Rhymes in a 10-Cent Scribbler” (1952), by Janice Tyrwhitt, an interview with Edna Jaques,

Tyrwhitt, Janice. “Rhymes in a Ten-Cent Scribbler”. Maclean’s (1 September 1952), 14-15, 42-44.

In honour of International Women’s Day 2021, SFU ran a Wikipedia “Edit-a-thon,” with the focus on building the Wikipedia corpus to include more women, especially strong, entrepreneurial women who are working these days to make our world a better place. Well, given that most (all at this point I believe) of our authors are no  longer living, that wasn’t going to work. But Edna Jaque, called “The Poet Laureate of the West,” was missing. So I fixed that.

In doing my online research, I found this 1952 interview with Enda Jaques, published in Maclean’s magazine. I really enjoyed the immediacy of the author’s voice coupled with the interviewer’s talent, and thought I would share it here, even though this is a digital copy from Maclean’s online archives.

 

Women of Canada (1930), revisited

Women of Canada. Montreal, QC: Women of Canada, 1930.

I posted this back in January of 2012, but I thought I would revisit the volume, to offer, as I have done with the National Reference Book, my services as a pseudo-librarian. This book is out of copyright, and it is a beautiful volume, I have TIFF files for every page, and have contemplated posting it in its entirety, but the files are too large and too many (about 300 pages). So if anyone would like information about on of the women included, please email me, and I will Dropbox the appropriate page image.

The original post

No poem today, but a list of women included in this remarkable biographical collection. If anyone is working on early Canadian women artists, or musicians, you must read through this text; I am sure you will glean some fascinating new names and biographical information. The collection does not appear to be based on level or quality of production, but rather on who felt like getting a page together in honour of a woman they thought should be included.  Some of the pages’ sponsors are explicitly named, but most aren’t.

A few of the women are “famous” for being the wives of famous or affluent men, but for the most part these women have contributed significantly to the building of Canadian society: some authors, artists, and musicians, but also a number of women who sat on boards or were active campaigners for social justice and change.

I have marked those authors who we are to include with an asterisk*, and identified the two (yes, only two!) that we already have included in our database at Simon Fraser University.  But the wealth of information was something I could not put back on the shelf unrevealed, so I have marked the names of all of the women, as they appear in the book. This way, too, when one of them shows up on our radar in the future, we will know she is here…

Enjoy!

Women of Canada: Contents

Willingdon, Viscountess (née Lady Marie Adelaide Brassey)

Aikens, Lady (née Mary French Colby)

Aikens, Mrs. W.H.B (née Augusta Wood Hawkesworth)

Allan, Lady (née Margaret Ethel MacKenzie)

Allan, Mrs. Andrew (née Charlotte Elizabeth Torre)

Anderson, Mrs. H.B. (née Florence Northway)

Ashdown, Mrs. James Henry (née Crowson)

Atkinson, Mrs. J.E. (née Elmina Elliott; “Madge Merton”)*

Austin, Mrs. A.W. (née Mary Richmond Kerr)

Aylmer, The Honourable Mrs. Henry (née Louisa Blanche Fanny Howe)

Bagg, Mrs. R. Stanley (née Clara Smithers, but see for Catherine Bagg—daughter?)

Baillie, Lady (née Edith Julia White)

Bates, Miss Mona*

Beal, Mrs. Norman R. (née Mary Elizabeth Gould)

Beaudoin, Madame Charles (née Mary Lanahan)

Beck, Lady (née Ottaway)

Bell, Mrs. Leslie Gordon* (née Florence E. Seymour)

Bennett, Miss Mildred

Bell, Mrs. R.D. (née Marguerite Phyliss Wainwright)

Birge, Mrs. C.A. (née Mabel Irene Sturt)

Black, Mrs. J.H. (née Elizabeth Morrow)

Black, Mrs. William* (née Margaret Edgar Wright)

Boomer, Mrs. Harriet A.* (née Mills)

Boothe, Mrs. Charles (née Margaret Florence Boyle)

Boswell, Mrs. Vesey (first marriage to Mr. Hugh Browne; née Elizabeth Margaret Bowen)

Bowen, Mrs. A.C.H. (née Minnie Henrietta Bethune Hallowell)

Bracken, Mrs. John (née Alice Wylie Bruce)

Bowman, Mrs. A.A. (née Lily Louise Dyer Morey)—included

Brown, Mrs. T. Albert (née Jane M. Bickell)

Brown, Lady McLaren (née Eleanor Grahame Crerar)

Bruce, Mrs. John (née Helen Roswell Tiers)

Bullock, Mrs. T.H. (née Jeannette Chestnut Wood)

Bundy, Mrs. John Wesley (née Henrietta Thompson)

Burden, Mrs. C.E. (née Margaret Beattie Eaton)

Burland, Mrs. Jeffrey H. (née Isabel May Megarry)

Campbell, Mrs. Austin (née Alicia Carveth)*

Campbell, Mrs. W.R. (née Gladyes Emily Leishman)

Carroll, Mrs. Henry George (née Amazelie Boulanger)

Cape, Mrs. E.G.M. (née Lilian Elizabeth Guest Smith)

Chambers, Mrs. W.D. (née Evelyn Brown)

Chaplin, Mrs. R.S. (née Henrietta Maud Dunsmuir)

Charlton, Miss Elsie*

Christie, Mrs. R.J. (née Emma Louise Lee)

Clemes, Mrs. W.H. (née Mary Bertha Williams)

Codere, Madam Louis Edward* (née Josephine Doherty)

Codère, Madam Louis-F. (née Annette Desnoyers)

Coghlin, Mrs. Bernard W.P. (née Louise Jean Dawes)

Colby, Mrs. C.C. (née Child)

Colquohon, Mrs. Evelyn E.* (née Gourlay)

Colville, Mrs. A.B. (née Kemp)

Conant, Mrs. G.D. (née Verna Rowena Smith)

Cowan, Mrs. F.W. (née Lily McMillan)

Crawford-Brown, Mrs. T. (née Eallien Necora Melvin-Jones)

Crombie, Mrs. E. (née Elizabeth Jane Pendleton)

Crowe, Mrs. G.R. (née Mary Elizabeth Alexander)

Cummings, Mrs. Willoughby (née Emily Shortt)*

Davies, Mrs. Dalton (née Chaplin)

Dawes, Mrs. Norman J. (née Claggett)

Dignam, Mrs. J.S. (née Mary Ella Williams)

Dixon, Mrs. Wellington (née Isabel Greenshields)

Doolittle, Mrs. P.E. (née Emily Ester Pearson)

Drummond, Lady

Drummond, Mrs. H.C.* (née Helen Frances Mitcheson Bagg)

Dunnington-Grubb, Mrs. H.B.* (née Lorrie Alfreda  Dunnington)

Dunlap, Mrs. D.A. (née Jessie Donalda Bell)

Dupuis, Madam J. Bachand (née Bachand)

Eaton, Lady* (née Florence McCrae)

Eaton, Mrs. R.Y. (née Hazel Margaret Ireland)

Eaton, Mrs. Timothy (née Margaret Wilson Beattie)

Eaton, Mrs. W.F. (née Gertrude Nora Cook)

Edwards, Mrs. A.T. (née Fanny Laura Derby)

Edwards, Mrs. George (née Alice Catharine Edwards)

Elliott, Mrs. Dawson Kerr (née Mary Alice McCreary)

Etherington, Mrs. Frederick (née Richardson)

Fairbairn, Mrs. Rhys D. (Ida Dregge Aikins)

Ferguson, Mrs. George Howard (née Ellen Cumming)

Ferguson-Burke, Mrs. A.J. (née Annie J. Ferguson; Mrs. William Robert Burke)

Finniss, Mrs. C.M. de R. (née Turner)

Flavelle, Lady (née Clara Ellsworth)

Fleming, Mrs. Sandford (née Gertrude Dickinson Mackintosh)

Forbes, Mrs. Kenneth K. (née Jean Mary de Coetlogan Edgell)

Forget, Lady (née Blanche McDonald)

Forster, Mrs. J.W.L. (née Emma Frances Aikens)

Foster, Mrs. Ellen Green (née Ellen Green)

Frame, Miss Margaret*

Fraser, Mrs. J.B. (née Beatrice Bertha Curran)

Freiman, Mrs. Archibald J. (née Lillian Bilsky)*

Fuller, Mrs. James Gibbs (née Alice Nunns; Mrs. John Edward Keough (d. 1895)

Furber, Mrs. Montague (née Beatrice Alma Ashley Vernon)

Gage, Lady (née Ina Grafton Burnside)

Gartshore, Mrs. W.M. (née Catherine McClary)

Gerin-Lajoie, Madam Marie* (née Marie Lacoste)

Gibson, Lady (née Elizabeth Malloch)

Godfrey, Mrs. Forbes (née Mary Melissa Carson)

Goffatt, Mrs. W.C. (née Fannie Alice Gill)

Gooderham, Mrs. A.E. (née Mary Reford Duncanson)

Gordon, Lady (née Edith Ann Brooks)

Gouin, Lady (née Alice Amos)

Greening, Mrs. O.S. (née Jane Herald)

Griffith, Mrs. J.H. (née Katharine Ada Bagg)

Guerin, Miss Bellelle*

Gullen, Dr. Augusta Stowe*

Gundy, Mrs. J.H. (née Serena Lake Clarke)

Hamber, Mrs. E.W. (née Aldyen Irene Hendry)

Harte, Mrs. Edwin (née Gwendolyn Anne McGregor)

Harris, Mrs. Sam (née Currie)

Hawkins, Mrs. W.C. (née Mary Elizabeth Chambers)

Hearst, Lady (née Isabella Jane Dunkin)

Hendrie, Mrs. (née Mary Murray)

Henry, Mrs. George S. (née Anna Ketha Pickett)

Hodgins, Mrs. W.E. (née Eleanor Jaffray Ritchie)

Hodgson, Mrs. William Cassils (née Madelene Joleaud de St. Maurice)

Howard, Mrs. Benjamin Cate (née Salls)

Howard, Mrs. Charles Benjamin (née May Campbell)

Huestis, Mrs. A.M.

Hughes, Mrs. James L. (née Adalaide Augusta Marean)

Hume, Mrs. George L. (née Elizabeth Sarah Smith)

Jones, Mrs. Sarah A. (née Oakes)

Joseph, Mrs. Henry (née Ethel Walkem)

Justin, Mrs. B.F. (first marriage to Gerrard Noble; née Mary Louise Brick)

Kemp, Lady (first marriage to Norman Copping; née Virginia Norton)

Kennedy, Mrs. Robert A. (née Victoria Jane Dent)

Kiely, Mrs. P.G. (née Elizabeth Bethune McDougall)

Langmuir, Mrs. John William (née Esther Lee Comstock)

Lawler, Miss Elizabeth Gertrude*

Learmont, Mrs. Joseph B. (née Charlotte Smithers)

Leonard, Mrs. Ibbotson (née Sarah Brinton)

Lovering, Mrs. W.J. (née Henrietta Allicen Bury)

Macaulay, Mrs. T.B. (née Palin)

MacDonald, Miss Eldred

MacDonald, Mrs. Donald Walter (née Edith Myra Kerr)*

MacKinnon, Mrs. George Douglas (née Mary Louise Bowman)

Macklem, Mrs. F.P. (née Heloise Keating)

MacLaren, Mrs. J.P. (née Edith Constance Elwood)

MacLean, Mrs. J.B. (née Anna Perkins Denison Slade)

MacTier, Mrs. A.D. (née Ethel Louise Waddell)

Mann, Lady (née Jane Emily Williams)

McBride, Mrs. Samuel (née Frances Jane Whitcombe)

McDougald, Mrs. A.W. (née Annie Bethune)*

McKenzie, Mrs. M.E. (née Florence Barbara Edwards)

McKinney, Mrs. J. (née Louise Crummy)

McLaughlin, Mrs. R.S. (née Adelaide Louise Mowbray)

McMarton, Mrs. John (née Mary Catherine McDougald)

Mercer, Mrs. Frederick (née Margaret Isabellah Ferguson)

Meredith, Lady (née Isobel Brenda Allan)

Meredith, Mrs. Charles (née Elspeth H. Angus; sister-in-law of the above)

Merritt, Miss Emily Lena

Millichamp, Mrs. R.W. (née Paterson)

Mills, Mrs. C.N. (née Helen Beatrice Thomas)

Miner, Mrs. W.H. (née Mabel Elizabeth Chambers)

Mitchell, Mrs. Nelson (née Marion Sophia Roberts)

Molson, Mrs. J. Dinham (née Mary Cronyn Wilson)

Mulock, Mrs. William P. (née Kathleen Eleanor Johnston)

Nanton, Lady (née Ethel Constance Clark)

Neill, Mrs. C.E. (née Mary Louise Crerar)

Niven, Mrs. J.S. (née Mary MacBeth)

Northover, Mrs. C.A. (née Gertrude Constance Fraser)

Norquay, Mrs. John (née Elizabeth Setter)

O’Flynn, Mrs. H.H. (née Edith Mulock)*

Ogilvie, Mrs. D.W. (first marriage to C. St. L. Mackintosh; née Eileen Mary White)

O’Neill, Mrs. G.H. (née Bertha Fadehla Drake)

Pantazzi, Madam Ethel* (née Ethel Greening)

Patterson, Dr. Margaret (née Norris)*

Perley, Lady (née White)

Perron, Mrs. Joseph Leonide (née Berthe Brunet)

Pettes, Mrs. Nathaniel (née Narcissa Farrand)

Phin, Mrs. W.E. (née Bertha Scarfe)

Pillow, Mrs. Howard Winthrop (née Lucile E. Fairbank)

Pitblado, Mrs. John (née Mary Lydia Inglis)

Price, Mrs. C.B. (née Marjorie Meredith Holden Trenholme)

Price, Mrs. William H. (née Alice Gentles)

Richardson, Mrs. James (née Muriel Sprague)

Robb, Mrs. James A. (first marriage to Albert Kenneth Wattie; née Mary Elizabeth Fletcher)

Robb, Mrs. W.D. (née Catharine Haggart Black)

Robins, Mrs. F.B. (first marriage to Charles Reed; née Jessie McDonald Skitt)

Roddick, Lady (née Amy Redpath)—included

Roell, Madam Adrian (Lady) (née Kathleen Myra Kerr MacDonald

Rogers, Mrs. Robert Arthur (née Edith McTavish)

Rogers, Mrs. Robert (née Aurelia Regina Widmeyer)

Ross, Mrs. William Donald (née MacKay)

Ross, Mrs. Philip Dansken (née Mary Beasley Littlejohn)

Routledge, Mrs. George Albert (first marriage to James Bunyan Morgan; née Emily May Vanderburgh)

Ryde, Mrs. W.O. (née Edith Sarah Dawes)

Samuel, Mrs. Norman (née Constance Montgomery Wilson)

Sanford, Mrs. W.E. (née Vaux)*

Sangster, Mrs. Andrew (née Maud Giff)

Scott, Mrs. John (née MacMaster)

Sewell, Mrs. Colin C. (née Webster)

Shortt, Mrs. Adam (née Elizabeth McGee Smith)*

Shuter, Mrs. J.G.R. (née Marjorie Anna Heney)

Smith, Mrs. E. Atherton (née Nan MacPherson Robinson)*

Smith, Mrs. E.D. (née Christina Ann Armstrong)

Smith, Mrs. Julian Cleveland (née Bertha Louise Alexander

Smythe, Mrs. R.G. (née Agnes Mary Lind)

Spence, Mrs. James (née Margaret Hackland)

Starr, Mrs. F.N.G. (née Anne Callander Mackay)

Stewart, Mrs. John A. (née Jessie Mable Henderson)

Stewart, Mrs. J.W. (née Elizabeth Jane Moran)

Stewart, Mrs. McLeod (née Linnie Emma Powell)

Taschereau, Madam L.A. (née Adine Dionne)

Sweezy, Mrs. R.O. (née Harriet Whitcombe Watson)

Tate, Miss Gertrude

Tory, Mrs. J.C. (née Caroline Emma Whitman)

Tooke, Mrs. Benjamin (née Kirk)

Tulleken, Lady Van Hoogenhouck (née Frances Lillian Dignam)

Turnbull, Mrs. John (née Castle)

Waagen, Mrs. Carsten B. (née Mary Elizabeth Hickson)*

Warren, Mrs. Harry Dorman

Watson, Mrs. Robert (née Isabel Brown)

Webster, Mrs. Lorne C. (née Taylor)

Webster, Mrs. William Robert (née Mary Ellen Jane Shorey)

Weller, Mrs. William (née Evelyn Louise Gowan)*

Whelen, Mrs. Peter (née Lydia M. Hume)

White, Miss Eva Matheson

Wilkinson, Mrs. William Lackie (née Caroline Eleanor Carter)*

Williams, Helen Ernestine*

Williams-Taylor, Lady (née Jane Henshaw)*

Wilson, Mrs. E.W. (née Sara Etta Lamb Bricker)

Wilson, Mrs. John Armistead (née Henrietta Lætetia Tuzo)

Wilson, Madam Joseph Marcelin (née Alexina Geoffrion)

Wright, Mrs. Gordon (née Sara Alice Rowell)

“Two Ears,” by Marjorie Pickthall

Pickthall, Marjorie. “Two Ears.” Marjorie Pickthall: A Book of Remembrance, by Lorne Pierce (Toronto: Ryerson, 1925).

More gems discovered while poking about looking for obscure answers, such to the question: Was Marjorie Pickthall’s first publication—”Two Ears”—part of the “Circle of Young Canada” column in the Toronto Globe?

“Two Ears” was first published in 1898, and according to Lorne Pierce, after that publication—for which she received three dollars— she began to contribute to the “Young People’s Corner” column in The Mail and Empire. In 1899, she submitted “Two Ears” and a poem, “Song of the Nixies,” and won awards for both of them (to the tune of $15). What I still can’t figure out is whether or not “Two Ears” was originally published as part of the “Circle of Young Canada.” It would almost certainly have had to have been, but I would love to see a digitized copy of the column. The Toronto Public Library has digitized some articles, including “The Children’s Circle” on page 7 of most issues, but searches don’t turn up “Two Ears.” This does suggest, though, that the “Circle of Young Canada” might have begun life as “The Children’s Circle”… but I can only download the articles they have digitized, even though I can view the entire paper. The mind boggles.

Regardless, here is the story, “Two Ears,” from the pages of Marjorie Pickthall: A Book of Remembrance as well as an article about Pickthall from the 25 July 1925 edition of The Globe (p. 18).

Ballades and Bits (1937), by Isa Grindlay Jackson

Ballades and Bits (Toronto: Ryerson, 1937) is the second of Isa Grindlay Jackson‘s two published books of poetry. The first, Ripples from the Ranks of the Q.M.A.A.C. (London: Erskine Macdonald, 1918), by Isa Grindlay, was published before her marriage to Lionel Leslie Jackson (1888-1965), while she was was stationed at the Scottish Command School of Musketry in St. Andrew’s, Scotland, as a member of the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (later Queen Mary’s Army Auxiliary Corps, or QMAAC). Her first husband, Canadian Charles Grindlay (1887-1916), had died in the trenches in November 1916.

Her history, as well as the history of our discovery of her fascinating biography, is recorded in other posts as well as her full entry in the Canada’s Early Women Writers project. The current volume was a gift from Isa Grindlay Jackson’s grandson, Jason Johnson, who was so generous in helping to create our bio-bibliography of his grandmother.

An Index to The Paint Box (1926-1930)

Val Lem at the Ryerson University Library, called to my attention an artist, Rowena Gross, who attended the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Art in 1927-28, and published in The Paint Box, a school publication intended to advance interest in the decorative arts, especially in BC.

What makes Rowena Gross particularly interesting to our project is that she also illustrated Lilies and Leopards (Ryerson, 1935) by Annie Charlotte Dalton, as well as designing the cover for Dalton’s The Call of the Carillon (posted earlier on our website).

Val sent me a link to the complete run of The Paint Box, which has been digitized by the Emily Carr University of Art + Design here in Vancouver, so I have diligently gleaned the names of all of the contributors so we could add the women authors to our Database of Canada’s Early Women Writers. The volumes may be useful for artists’ biographers, as they list the names and addresses of students; the 1930 volume also provides short biographies of some graduates. It appears, though, that our Rowena attended for only two years before branching out into her artistic career. I am only beginning to research the finer details of her life, which will be available in our project in a few weeks. The point of this posting is to share with you the comprehensive index of contributors to The Paint Box during its five-year run.

The index below lists all authors and artists identified by name. Dates in isolation indicate a written contribution; other contributions (art, executive committee rolls) are labelled on a separate line.

In addition to the index, I wanted to share this image with you. Each volume has two pages for autographs; in the Emily Carr collection, only in volume 2 (1927) have the autograph pages been used.

 

A Student Potter	1928
Amess, Fred	1928; 1929; 1930 cover design, 1928; woodcut, 1928; linoleum cut, 1929
Atkins, Violet; as Vi Atkins	1929
Bell-Irving, B.	1926
Binning, Bertram	1930 business manager, 1930
Brown, Louise	1930
Carter, Edith	1926
Carter, Margaret	1930
Cianci, Vito; also as V.S. Cianci	1926; 1927; 1928; 1930 editor, 1927; woodcut, 1928
Corry, Margaret	1926; 1927
Cummings, Parke	poem from Saturday Evening Post, 1927
Cuppage, E.M.; also as Mrs. Cuppage	1929
Currie, Ada F.	1928; 1929 woodcut, 1928; linoleum cut, 1929
Davey, Brenda	1926
De Pencier, Betty	1927
Erb, Marion	linoleum cut, 1930
Farley, Lillias	woodcut, 1928
Farmer, Madge	1927; 1928; 1929 editor, 1929; woodcut, 1928; linoleum cut, 1929
Findlater, Betty	1929
Fisher, Orville	linoleum cut, 1930
Fowler, P.M.	1926
Fuller, Phoebe	linoleum cut, 1929
Gatewood, Frances V.	1926; 1927; 1928
Gordon, Mary	linoleum cut, 1930
Gostick, Marg	linoleum cut, 1929
Gross, Rowena	1927; 1928 editorial staff, 1928
Harris, Irene E.	1929 editorial staff, 1929, 1930; linoleum cut, 1929, 1930
Harrison, Katherine	1927; 1928 cover designer, 1927; business manager 1928; woodcut, 1928
Hensman, Dorothy	1926; 1927; 1928
Herchmer, Laurencia A.	1927
Hill, Sybil	1927; 1928 editor, 1928; woodcut, 1928 (often about First Nations: those Hills?)
Hoffar, Irene	1930 woodblock design, 1928; linoleum cut design, 1929; linoleum cut 1930
I.E.H.; likely Irene Harris	1930
I.W.	1930
Jensen, Maude	1926 woodblock design, 1928
Johnson, Ruby; also as R.J., R. Johnson, and Ruby Johnston	1927; 1929
King, Hermione	1926 business manager, 1926
Kirkpatrick, Phillis M.; also as Phyllis	1926; 1927; 1929 woodblock design, 1928; linoleum cut, 1929
Lennie, Beatrice; also B. Lennie and Bee Lennie	1927; 1928; 1930
Lewis, Margaret	1928 woodcut, 1928
Lyne, Marjorie	1929 cover design, 1929
M.A.L.	1927
M.C.	1930
MacDonald, Ione; linoleum cut, 1930
MacDonald, J.W.G.	1927; 1928
MacIntosh, H.	1927
MacPherson, Alice M.; also as Grease-Monkey Al Mac in 1930	1929; 1930 linoleum cut, 1929
Marega, Charles	1926
Mason, Dorothy	linoleum cut, 1929
McGregor, E.	1927
McKechnie, Eleanor	1929
Meilleur, Peter	business manager, 1927; editorial staff, 1928; woodcut, 1928
Melvin, Grace W.	1928. 1929; 1930
Moore, Ellen M.	1926; cover design, 1926; cartoon sketches
Moore, Rosalie	linoleum cut, 1930
One Who Knows	1930
Park, Marjorie K.	1928; 1929
Park, Norma	linoleum cut, 1930
Patterson, Monica	1930
Pluto	1927
Priestman, Roger B.	1927
Quinn, Bert	1927 assistant business manager, 1927
Robertson, Masie	linoleum cut, 1929; woodcut, 1930; cover design, 1930
Scott, Charles H.	1927; 1928
Sharland, Mrs. T.J.	1927
Sharpe, Alice	editorial staff, 1929; woodblock design, 1928; linoleum cut, 1929
Sherman, Maud	1926; 1927 woodcut, 1928
Smith, Kate A.; Mrs. Frank Hoole	1928; 1929 linoleum cut, 1929; linoleum cut, 1930
Sutherland, Mary B.	1926; 1927; 1928
The Potter	1928
Tisdall, Dorothy A.; also as D.A.T. and Pindy Tisdall	1929; 1930 business manager, 1929 (Pindy Tisdall) moved to Kamloops after graduation
Turpin, Dorothy	editorial staff, 1928, 1930
Tweedie, Edith	1929; 1930 editorial staff, 1930
Underwood, Evelyn	linoleum cut, 1929
Vanderpant, J.	1928
Varley, F.H[orsman]	1927; 1928
Vera, Ada and Theodore	1928
Walker, Eula B.; “alias ‘Peter at the Dam’”	1928; 1929; 1930
Ware, Ruth; also Ruth Ware Notzle, and R.W.N.	1927; 1929; 1930 editorial staff, 1929 married Clifford Arthur Notzle, 27 Sept 1930
Weatherbee, Vera	woodcut, 1928; linoleum cut, 1929
Weston, Betty	woodcut, 1928
Wilcox, Laura	linoleum cut, 1930
Williams, Margaret; also M.A.W., Margaret A. Williams, and M.A. Williams	1926; 1927; 1928; 1929 editor, 1926; woodcut, 1928 moved to Los Angeles, CA, after graduation

 

“In Memoriam,” by Blanche Elmore

Another research enigma.

We know basically nothing about Blanche Elmore, and Ancestry.ca is notably unhelpful on this one. She was born in England; she lived in Toronto in the 1890s; she wrote at least five poetry chapbooks, all entitled Poems (1st through 5th series, all published in Toronto). A sixth collection was published in Detroit, that contains poems from at least the 3rd and 4th series volumes: my guess is that if I could hold the other three volumes in my hand, I would discover that the Detroit edition is an anthology of previously collected works, perhaps even a pirated publication. Copyright was constantly infringed upon at the time, given differing national copyright laws between Canada, Britain, and the US.

Another though I have is that the poem I am including here could actually be autobiographical, in which case we are dealing with Mrs. Blanche Elmore, née something else.

It would be wonderful if somewhere out there in the digital ether-world a relative could step up and tell us more. But I’m not holding my breath.

Here is the poem for you: Blanche Elmore, Poems, 4th series (Toronto: Imrie, Graham & Co., 1989) 7-8.

C.A. Frazer: Another research mystery

Adapting the SFU entry for C.A. Frazer for inclusion in our new Canada’s Early Women Writers project, I have run up against a wall; or rather, a chasm. There are holes in our knowledge that need addressing, and I am not sure the answers to my questions are known. Let me share with you.

Many sources—notably Lewis Horning and Lawrence Burpee in A Bibliography of Canadian Fiction (1904) and Henry Morgan in Canadian Men and Women of the Times (1912)—list Miss C.A. Frazer—with a “z”—as the co-author of the fairy tale collections A Wonder Web of Stories (Montreal: Grafton, 1892) and With Printless Foot: A Holiday Book of Fairy Tales (Montreal: Sabiston, 1894); the other author is Margaret Ridley Charlton. The title pages of these collections, which are now both available in the Internet Archive, list the author as Caroline Augusta Fraser and C.A. Fraser—both with an “s”—respectively. The University of Alberta copy of Atma: A Romance (Montreal: Lovell, 1891), by A.C.F., is attributed (in hand-script) to “Miss C.A. Frazer.” Internet Archive thus lists all three titles under the author C.A. Frazer, but I have questions.

The first is: where does the attribution of Atma to C.A. Fraz/ser come from? The answer may be the following convoluted path, which our earlier research followed:

In the genealogical catalogue Major Alpin’s Ancestors and Descendants (1915), a Charlotte Fraser is listed as a sub-editor for the Montreal Star. Research on Ancestry.ca reveals a great deal about this Augusta Charlotte Fraser (c1849-1896), but there is no documentary evidence on Ancestry.ca that she authored any full-length texts. Nonetheless, the date and location are correct, and how many A.C. Frasers (A.C.F.) could there be in Montreal? And isn’t Augusta C. Fraser rather similar to C. Augusta Fraser? So ran the logic, I assume (this was before my time).

So you can see how we got here, with the three titles attributed to Augusta Charlotte Fraser, who for some reason chose also to publish as Caroline Augusta Fraser. And you can see, too, where my doubts come from. It becomes more interesting as we delve deeper.

Atma: A Romance is set in the Punjab at the time of the Second Sikh War (1848-49). It is a typical novel of British India at the time, incorporating the tone and tropes common in literature produced by those who actually lived in India (although it contains no actual Hindi words, as much of their literature does). It does not feel like the work of a female author from Montreal who also wrote fairy tales for children. That being said, it is hard to judge a novel of war and spirituality against fairy tales for children, and the introduction used in both Wonder Web and Printless Foot could possibly be the same voice. Still, it is not obvious to me, given the A.C.F. / Augusta Charlotte Fraser / Charlotte Fraser / Caroline Augusta Fraser / C.A. Frazer conundrum, that we have here a single author.

Throw into the issue a text entitled In the Days of Sir Walter Raleigh (s.l.: s.n., 1900), also for children, attributed in our older entry to Margaret Ridley Charlton and C.A. Frazer—but only to Charlton in the two reference books cited above—and I become even more questioning. At the moment, our entries assume that we have here only one author, with the caveat that we have concerns; I will update the entries, and our blog audience, as more information becomes available. I am really hoping that someone out there is asking, too, and can help us out.

Titles pages:

Martha Craig: Scientist, Author, Charletan?

As promised, here is the fifth and final of our “Adventures in Research,” previously published on the now-defunct CWRC project blog. This was written by one of our research assistants, Lindsay Bannister, and represents only a small portion of the information she has amassed about Martha Craig over the years. This research has been supported by the invaluable contributions of historian Nevin Taggart, of County Antrim, Ireland, whence Craig’s family hails.

Martha Craig’s Story of Reincarnation

by Lindsay Bannister

Martha Craig as Princess Ye-wa-go-no-nee. (Legends of the North Land, frontispiece)

Days after his death, an article in the North Bay Nugget revealed the true identity of writer, lecturer and conservationist Grey Owl (Archie Belaney) (1888-1938). While Grey Owl publicly identified himself as the son of an Apache woman and Scottish man, he was, in truth, an English man fascinated by North American indigenous cultures.   Nearly forty years prior to this revelation, the Irish-born writer, explorer, and scientist Martha Craig (b. c1875) lectured to crowded halls and auditoriums in Toronto, New York and Washington D.C. as Princess Ye-wa-go-no-nee. “Will you believe me,” Craig asked an audience in Brooklyn, “when I tell you that in the life before this one, I was a Canadian Indian girl [?]”

Craig’s complicated life story is difficult to piece together. Newspaper reports detail the story of an intelligent child born in County Antrim in present-day Northern Ireland. Craig’s family sent her to England and France for formal schooling. The writer developed an interest in the sciences; however, she eventually pursued a career in journalism because it allowed her the freedom to travel. In the late 1890s, Craig left Ireland for the United States, where she might have encountered President William McKinley. Craig’s interest in indigenous cultures led her to Canada where, in Northern Ontario, she met Anishinaabe chief Buhgwujjenene (d. 1900) and (possibly) resided with the Ketegaunseebee or Garden River First Nation. According to an article in The Friend, Craig was adopted into the Nation and given the name Enookwashooshah meaning “Brave One.” (“Princess Ye-wa-go-no-nee” was later adopted as part of Craig’s on-stage persona.)

Two years later, in March 1902, Princess Ye-wa-go-no-nee entertained two thousand spectators in Toronto’s Massey Hall with a lantern show titled “1,000 miles in a canoe in the land of Hiawatha.” In 1905, Craig gained considerable attention for her trek to Labrador. Newspapers describe Craig as the first woman to explore Labrador. (In truth, Craig’s journey may coincide with Mina Hubbard’s own extraordinary expedition; in her journal, Hubbard refers to “Miss Craig,” a pesky journalist for Century Magazine.) Afterwards, Craig returned to the lecture circuit; however, her career then veered in an unexpected direction.

“All life is a vibration,” Craig explained to an audience in Brooklyn: “Through this vibration, […] it is possible to separate the soul from the body, or to live continuously. Therefore, […] it is a crime to die of disease or old age” (“Girl’s Weird Story about Reincarnation”). In this same lecture, she outlined her theories about reincarnation, describing her past life as Meta, the daughter of the chief of a Labrador tribe. The lecturer was an easy target for cheeky reporters but, incredibly, her inquiries into the nature of gravity and the aurora borealis garnered the attention of researchers at the Académies des sciences in Paris. Craig published her findings (First Principles: A Manifesto of the Vortex Theory of Creation, London: Harrison, 1906) in addition to her book of poems, Legends of the North Land (c1910?).

After 1907, Craig disappears from the public record. While a 1905 New York City census situates the journalist in Brooklyn, few details have emerged in regards to her later career. It is highly possible, given Craig’s frequent wanderings, that she might have left the United States, married, or assumed a new identity. Curiously, cataloguers at the British Library attribute a 1907 book, Men of Mars by “Mithra,” to Martha Craig. Is Mithra our writer?

Because of her brief association with Canada, we will include a short snapshot of Craig in our database. The writer’s connection with Canada might be fleeting; however, her unusual career gestures towards broader issues. Unlike Grey Owl, the writer did not conceal her true identity as Martha Craig of County Antrim, but she did use clothing in order to fashion an indigenous persona. In light of ongoing conversations about clothing, identity, and cultural appropriation, what does Princess Ya-wa-go-no-nee reveal about white settler representations of indigenous cultures? And how does Craig’s strange story tie into the larger legacy of colonialism?

Lindsey Bannister

Works cited

Craig, Martha. “My Summer Outings in Labrador.” Cosmopolitan (July 1905): 325.

“Don’t Die, Vibrate Away.” New York Times (12 December 1905): 7.

“Genealogy of the President.” Chicago Tribune (28 February 1898): 1.

“Girl’s Weird Story about Reincarnation.” Amador Ledger (15 June 1906): 1.

Hubbard, Mina. The Woman Who Mapped Labrador: The Life and Expedition Diary of Mina Hubbard. (Montreal, QC: McGill-Queen’s UP, 2005): 335.

“Noble Words of a Dying Indian Chief.” The Friend (22 December 1900): 178.

Addendum

Lindsay wrote part of a subsequent blog, but it was never published. Still, it has some interesting additions to her story of Martha Craig.

Filling in the Gaps

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post detailing the remarkable life of Martha Craig. Craig was an Irish-born poet, scientist, and explorer whose lectures provoked Canadian and American audiences. Since then, Karyn Huenemann (Data Entry Supervisor for the Canada’s Early Women Writers project) and I have discovered more information about this unusual figure: around 1907, Craig abandoned her North American lecture circuit and travelled to Europe. After attending the Sorbonne, she became one of the first women to lecture at the University of Salamanca, until her academic career was cut short by the First World War. Craig returned to France as a nurse. After the war, the shell-shocked writer travelled back to her family home in North Ireland, where she lived in relative peace and stability until her death in 1950.

We must thank Craig’s great niece, Anne Milliken, and Nevin Taggart, of the North Antrim Local Interest List, for clarifying some of the murkier details of her life story. Without Anne and Nevin’s help we would not have discovered that the poet was also a pioneer in aeronautical engineering, who, according to a signed declaration dated 1914, worked to improve the design of dirigibles (as the document suggests, these improvements were of potential interest to the British Government—whether or not the British military used these designs is yet to be determined).

Adelaide Hunter and her Far-Flung Relatives

As promised, here is the fourth of our “Adventures in Research,” previously published on the now-defunct CWRC project blog.

Adelaide Hunter Hoodless and Amelia Hunter Tennant

by Karyn Huenemann

Adelaide Hoodless, portrait hung at the Adelaide Hunter Hoodless Homestead

This is a bit of a shaggy dog story, so I hope you will bear with me; the way it weaves in and out of past and present peoples’ lives brings me back to one of my favourite epigraphs, E. M. Forster’s “Only connect…”

This year [the original post was published on 20 November 2012] marks the 200^th anniversary of the War of 1812, a moment in history that has always interested me greatly. Notable is that many of the battles between 1812 and 1814 took place in Brant County, Ontario, a location that has similarly always interested me greatly. At a Children’s Literature conference down in North Carolina in 2007, I met fellow academic Dr. Lisa Wood, now a close friend, who lives in Brantford and teaches at Wilfrid Laurier University. Putting these details together, it is not surprising that last September I pulled my history-loving daughter from school and travelled across to Brantford ostensibly to see a historical reenactment of the Battle of Malcolm’s Mill, the last battle of the war fought on Canadian soil.

My daughter was very patient with my concomitant design of visiting the homes and haunts of the myriad of, as she calls them, “dead women writers” who hailed from the Brantford area. My interest in Brantford began over 20 years ago when I discovered Sara Jeannette Duncan, but the more I learned about early Canadian women writers, the more fascinated I became with the seeming coincidence that so many Canadian “female first” achievers came from Brant County: not only Sara Jeannette Duncan, but also E. Pauline Johnson, Emily and Augusta Stowe, June Callwood, and Adelaide Hoodless. There are others, I know; I have not compiled a comprehensive list, although I would love to.

The evening after we arrived in Brantford, Lisa (whose historical period is the 18^th century) called in her early Canadian Literature expert and friend, Dr. Kate Carter, whose name many of you may know, as she worked on the Orlando Project. Over tea—or was it wine?—we drew up our game plan. During the discussion, Lisa casually mentioned: “oh, yes, Adelaide Hoodless: she’s a relative of mine…” and my spidey senses began to tingle…

Adelaide Sophia Hunter (1857-1910) was born at what is now the Adelaide Hunter Hoodless Homestead near St. George, Brant County, national headquarters for the Federated Women’s Institutes of Canada, the first branch of which Hoodless was instrumental in founding. Her father died shortly after her birth, and her mother struggled to keep the homestead running, while still managing to educate her children. Adelaide moved in with her older sister, Lizzie, while attending “Ladies’ College,” where she met John Hoodless, who became her husband. Their fourth child, John (1888-1889), died in infancy, apparently from tainted milk. Adelaide Hoodless took it upon herself to campaign for better attention to sanitation in the delivery of milk in urban settings; from there, her career as a domestic science educator and an activist for women’s education took off. In addition to a number of articles and government publications, she published Public School Domestic Science in 1898, “a compilation of recent scientific findings derived from the application of chemistry to the understanding of food values, preservation, and preparation” (DCB), aimed at prospective teachers.

Adelaide and John Hoodless

Lisa’s great-great-grandmother, it turns out, had been adopted by Adelaide Hoodless’s sister Amelia. Lisa had tried to discover more, but the records were sketchy and inconclusive. Even the Dictionary of Canadian Biography notes that Adelaide was the youngest of 12 children, a list (found in family records on ancestry.ca) that does not include an Amelia. When we visited the Adelaide Hunter Hoodless Homestead, the director remembered Lisa from their shared attempts at discovering more about the elusive Amelia, whom even the historians at this National Historical Site were not 100% sure was not apocryphal. Intrigued, and loving a mystery, as well as helping others, and of course playing on ancestry.ca, I promised to try to track down a real, documented connection between Adelaide Hoodless, the seemingly non-existent Amelia, and Lisa’s great-great-grandmother, Mary MacKay.

Late into the night, Lisa and I poured over ancestry.ca. We telephoned her mother to get all the details she could remember about who married whom in Mary MacKay’s more immediate circle, including the name of the adopting family (verified by the historian at the Adelaide Hoodless Homestead): Tennant. Eventually, we found what we were looking for: a Mary MacKay listed on the 1881 Census of Canada as living with James and Amelia Tennant and their 5 children, in Toronto. From there, we traced Mary MacKay’s line to her immigration to the United States, and virtually met her descendants searching back up their family tree into Canada. Mary married an American man named Solon Washington Barnes, and we even have photographs of her husband and son, as well as records of all of her other children. Significantly for my friend Lisa, Mary MacKay bore Gertrude Barnes in 1897; who bore Gertrude Buckle in 1916; who in turn bore Mary Kerpan in 1937; and Mary Kerpan is my friend Lisa’s mother.

Solon Barnes, Junior

But we had travelled a long way from Adelaide Hoodless, which is of course where my interest began and still lay. The shaggy dog has travelled all the way from a small homestead near St. George, Ontario, in the 1850s to Michigan, USA, and back to Brantford, Ontario, so close to where it all began. In tracing this web of relations, we discovered that—despite the Dictionary of Canadian Biography entry—Adelaide Sophia Hunter Hoodless was born on 27 February 1857, youngest of possibly 13 children* of David Hunter and Jane Hamilton of St. George, Brant County, Ontario. It feels satisfying to have solved a mystery that others have wondered about for years; I love ancestry.ca.

(*Two boys appear in family records, both born in 1853: Joseph (1863-1913) and George. We can find no record of George on ancestry.ca, so he either never existed or is a twin who didn’t survive until the 1861 census.)