Tag Archives: Walter Cripps

The Battle Ships are Fine

Postcards from Portsmouth and Memories of Battle

I nearly missed this postcard in the collection.

It’s another from the city of Portsmouth, also printed in Germany with no writing on the back. It shows the Garrison Church, with a military or constabulary unit in the foreground, standing at attention.

It made me pause and look a little more closely at Portsmouth. Harold and Walter obviously spent some time there and the place impressed Harold enough to send three postcards home about it. What made this place so fascinating for our 18 year old ancestor in mid-1914?

I’ve never been to Portsmouth and while I knew it was both a recreational destination and a port, its story is much richer than that. It has a very long and important history as a naval base and is still home to about two thirds of the Royal Navy’s fleet. It also had a long and illustrious history as a ship-building city; once employing more than 20,000 people in the industry. Portsmouth, in 1914 was growing rapidly; its population was just under 250,000. In June 1914, It must have been a lively place — a jolly place as Harold said — with plenty of people flocking to the seaside looking for things to see and do. There must have been naval activities happening too and I want to find out more about those, but first I want to find out about the sites that inspired the postcards home.

The Church Garrison in the postcard photo is one of the oldest buildings in Portsmouth, dating back to 1212. It was a built as a hospice and shelter for overseas pilgrims on their way to Canterbury (Domus Dei). Inside the church, there are hundreds of memorials to England’s better known naval and military figures (and other notables) such as Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington. Sadly, during WWII, the roof of the nave was lost and never replaced. Many of these memorials are now deteriorating. I can imagine Harold and Walter among the many tourists leaning in, looking closely, pointing at the historical names they recognised, reading up in the guides about the ones they did not.

By Rennett Stowe from USA (Royal Garrison Church) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

By Rennett Stowe from USA (Royal Garrison Church) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

In the postcard Harold sent to his brother Percy, he mentioned the large anchor on Clarence Esplanade as being from ‘The Victory’. The HMS Victory, was Lord Nelson’s ship from the Battle of Trafalgar. The ship itself may have been in Portsmouth when Walter and Harold were there but it would have been in very bad shape (restoration would begin in 1922). I can’t find any record of it being on show at the time. Harold didn’t include any further explanation on the card; the name of the ship and the story of the Battle would have been a well-known story taught in history books throughout the British Empire.

Original postcard photo of the anchor of ‘RMS Victory’ on the left. (Click to enlarge)

The Esplanade as it is today, below (Google street view).

*****

I intended to write about the other postcard from Portsmouth as well, but as I researched links to include about the city’s history, I experienced some personal explication I didn’t see coming. I’ll admit, it was a bombshell moment for me, but it explained a lot.

In my original post, I wrote about my discomfort with the whole notion of war. I have always had an aversion of anything to do with it; I even skipped history classes at university when the topic was to be covered. I never stopped to reflect on why I felt that way. It just seemed natural — why would anyone want to dwell on such horrible things?

As soon as I opened the National Museum’s website about the Battle of Trafalgar and saw the painting of the ships at battle, I felt shaky. I remembered something from childhood that I had completely forgotten. When I was seven, my mother, sister and I travelled to England to visit relatives. Mum took us to Madame Tussaud’s while we were in London and one of the exhibitions had been of the Battle of Trafalgar. It was (to say the least) a full-on experience. I remember the smell of gunpowder, flashes and the roar of cannons; the deck of the ship rocked and men screamed and groaned. They were covered in blood, slumped over guns, Admiral Nelson lay dying in another man’s arms. It was like walking through hell and it was terrifying.

The memories that came back were vivid and charged, but were they accurate memories or the exaggerations of a small child’s over-active imagination? My heart was racing just thinking about the experience.

I got back online wondering if the exhibition still existed or if there was any record of it at all. British Pathe had just what I was looking for and I’ll admit I had to get up from the computer the first time I watched the video. The exhibition opened in 1967, the year we visited, and the news footage shows all the preparation and work that went into making the exhibition an authentic replication. The final scenes will give you some sense of what the seven year old experienced.

(To be fair to my Mum, she probably had no idea what to expect when we went into the exhibit.)

Their English Vacation — Part One

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It doesn’t matter if there’s anything written on the back or not, postcards can fill gaps in the story if you know how to read them. The pictures on the fronts may be of significant places, events or sentiments. If there are a few words on the back, they might communicate details, a mood, a motivation for travel, mention other people or reveal the sender’s relationship to the person getting the card. The address provides details of who the card was for and where they were. The postmark can place the sender in a specific place on a day, even down to an hour — if it’s not smudged and if they didn’t have someone else post it. Even the company that produced the postcard can add to the pool of information.

So I’ve been spending a lot more time with the postcard collection, examining the messages, dates, photos, and publishers. I wanted to work out where Harold and Walter went on their tour of England. Four of the postcards I am sure were sent during their overseas trip, two others were probably purchased at the time, but I can’t be sure.

Here they are in chronological order:

Postcard #1

Front photo: The High Altar at Westminster Abbey, London
(Printed in England, no stamp or postmark).
Addressed to: Mrs. Gillespie

Croydon, May 8th, 1914
Dear Mother,
I received your letters this morning. I was so glad to get them I didn’t expect them for a day or so yet, but I was looking for them just the same. I have seen all the pictures that I am sending you on these cards. I am having a jolly fine time. I will write you again in a day or so. We are having quite a lot of rain. Solong (sic) love to all, Harold

NOTE: Most of the postcards have ‘Croydon‘ written above the date. Walter’s family was recorded as living in Croydon in the 1911 UK census so were likely still there. It looks like they used Croydon as their homebase while they travelled around.

Harold was apparently sending postcards back in batches (‘… all the pictures that I am sending you on these cards”) which may explain why there are addresses but no stamps or postmarks on them.

Postcard #2

Front photo: York Minster (Published by T.T. & S. ; Thomas Taylor & Son England, no stamp or postmark).
Addressed to: Mr. Gillespie

Croydon, June 12th, 1914
Dear Father,
I am sorry I didn’t tell you how much money to send. But I hope you have sent it, about a week before this reaches you. I am afraid I wont (sic) be able to see the falls on the way home. Mr Cripps has got to be back at a certain time. If I want to see the falls I will have to go alone. I have a half a notion to. It will only mean a day more from home. I am very anxious to see it. But I will be home in lots of time for the work. Solong (sic) Love to all, Harold

NOTES: This message highlights for me just how young Harold still was. When he sent this, he was financially dependent on his parents and the farm; still not confident about travelling on his own, and in need of his father’s permission even as he asserts his desire to be away a little longer. The falls he was anxious to see I imagine were Niagara Falls (I don’t know if he went on his own or not).

It also proves some things don’t change much in 100 years, I remember writing home for money when I was first travelling too.

Postcard #3

Front Photo: Clarence Esplanade, Southsea (Published by Eyre & Sportiswoodes, England. No stamp or postmark)
Addressed to: Percy Gillespie

Croydon, June 20th, 1914
Dear Brother,
The sea shore that you see on the card is very pritty (sic). I was down yesterday and walked all the way along it. The anchor that you see standing up the (sic), is off the Victory. It is an enormous size. It is a jolly fine place to be, is Portsmouth. Well solong (sic) With Love
Harold

NOTE: His youngest brother was fourteen at the time. Neither of the brothers back home would have ever seen the ocean.

Postcard #4

Front Photo: Portsmouth Harbour (Published by: B & R Ltd.; Brown & Rawcliffe Ltd., Liverpool)
Addressed to: Ray Gillespie

Portsmouth, June 28, 1914
Dear Ray,
I’ve been in the dockyards. It is a very nice place to go to see some nights. The battles ships are fine. Well I guess you will have my letter by this time I have many to write, Solong (sic) with love, H

NOTE: His brother Ray was sixteen years old when Harold sent this postcard. It’s interesting that there is one postcard to each member of the family saved in this collection – was it on purpose? It’s fascinating to compare the content and style of each message he wrote.

While nothing is written on the last two postcards, they have both been printed in Germany and so must have been purchased before the First World War started (after which time Germany obviously did not import to England). The card on the left is from London and the one on the right is from Peterborough (click on them to see larger versions).

Royal Exchange And Bank of England, London

Plotting the postcards on to a map made their trip even clearer. From Liverpool, they travelled to London and Croydon where Walter’s family lived. Based on the postcards and dates, it’s likely they travelled north for a spell (I’ll get to Middle Herrington and Allen’s family in the next post) , returned to Croydon then travelled south to the coast before returning to Liverpool to sail back to Canada.

Now that I have a better idea of where they went, I want to know more about what they saw and what they heard. What news was available, how aware were they of what was to come as they travelled around a country on the very brink of declaring war.

All Aboard the RMS Cedric

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The closing of Altorado appears to have been providential. Without a ministry to tend to, the spring of 1914 becomes a chance for Walter to return to England to visit family and friends and an opportunity for Harold to travel with him.

The years between 1910 and 1914 are filled with significant events for Harold’s family; his parents take several trips, his older sister Edna marries (in 1912) and the following year, she and her husband have a baby (the first of the next generation). In April of 1914, Harold turns eighteen.

Harold, photo taken in 1914. Back stamped ‘US Postcard’

Perhaps the trip was in celebration of his coming of age. Whatever the motivation, his parents could not have asked for a better travelling companion for him – Walter is a minister, he is someone older and more experienced in travel and he has respectable connections on the other side of the ocean.

There’s no trace of the letters that must have criss-crossed the prairie in 1913, but plans were made and tickets were purchased. In late April 1914, the young men travel to New York City where they board the RMS Cedric and sail third class to England. They land in Liverpool on May 1st, 1914.

RMS Cedric passenger list 1914

******

There is a postcard of the R.M.S. Cedric in Harold’s collection and it is possible to gain some basic details from the ship’s manifest so I couldn’t resist straying a little to find out more about this White Star ocean liner and the voyage. After all, it is only two years since the Titanic disaster and Harold and Walter are recorded as travelling Third Class (isn’t that the same as steerage?) I wondered how much had changed for transatlantic travellers in the two years since and how much had not.

RMS Cedric postcard 1914. Note the old style sailing ship being pushed out of the picture.

R.M.S. Cedric was the second of the White Star Line’s ‘Big 4 ships built by Harland and Wolff (the same company that built Titanic). New York – Liverpool was her regular run until the war broke out then she, like so many others, was refitted for carrying troops. It could carry just under 3000 passengers, 2300 of whom would travel in Third Class accommodation. The voyage took five days.

One of the first things I found online is a site with brochures depicting the interiors of the Big Four. The interior of Third Class on the Cedric doesn’t look too bad (you’ll need to scroll down to the photos in the linked site).

Thankfully there were also changes in Maritime regulations and practices including:

provision of enough life boats for everyone on board
trained staff and designated roles for emergency situations
improved reporting procedures and protocols
improved communication equipment
improved hull construction and testing regulations
a binding agreement (between participating countries) for Ships’ Masters to respond to distress signals

The first International Conference for the Safety of Life at Sea met and signed the agreement bring about these changes in January 1914.

Less formally, but perhaps more importantly was the change in the competitive culture of the commercial lines in making the crossing. Transatlantic crossing times increased slightly after the Titanic disaster.

Harold and Walter arrive safely and in style.

I Don’t Know if We Can Call Them Settlers

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Antoine of Oregon by James Otis

In school we learned about brave pioneering folk who travelled west, put down their roots and their crops, built cabins then prairie dynasties and their families owned the land for generations. They made it sound like once settlers secured a Land Grant no one went much farther than the local church or possibly the next town ever again.

But that was generic Pioneer history taught from textbooks. We have postcards — lots of them — that tell our family’s version and it’s quite different from the ‘settled settler’ one.

While the urge to farm on their land and succeed drove them hard, there was also the urge to explore even farther when there was the chance. Walter wasn’t the only person Harold knew who adventured West and wrote back about it. In the summer of 1910 (the year before the family met Walter) Harold’s parents left the boys in charge of the farm and travelled across the mountains to visit family on the West Coast. They spent July and August there, enjoying many of the local sites.

Landing North Vancouver, sent July 10, 1910

The following year (the same summer Walter travelled to Cardston) Harold’s mother made a second trip on her own to the West Coast. She was in her mid-forties by then, yet the backs of her post cards are filled with lively adventures.

She visited her sister Isabella and family living in Bellingham, Washington, a timber boomtown due to the reconstruction work in San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. While visiting, Harold’s mum sent several postcards to Harold including one telling of their wonderful time spent on Lake Whatcom.

"Bellingham 1909" by Sandison, J. Wilbur (James Wilbur), 1873-1962 - Library Of Congress CALL NUMBER: PAN US GEOG - Washington no. 48 (E size) [P&P] http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pan.6a12756. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bellingham_1909.jpg#/media/File:Bellingham_1909.jpg

“Bellingham 1909” by Sandison, J. Wilbur, 1873-1962 – Library Of Congress Licensed Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bellingham_1909.jpg

Once back over the border, Catherine stopped in Aldergrove to visit her sister-in-law and family then tram-hopped her way back to Vancouver. The Ringling Circus came to town that week and Catherine, and her sister-in-law took the children to watch the parade.

Even before his parents travelled to the coast, Aunt Isabell, as she spelled herself, sent Harold at least one postcard (in 1908). It showed a giant felled cedar tree on the trunk. The radius of the trunk is twice the height of the man proudly leaning against it. His auntie promised to send him more in the future, and hoped he would come to visit someday.

To Harold, From Aunt Isabell, jan 10, 1908

So many places to go and extraordinary sights to see.

*****

From: An Entangled Object by Bjarne Rogan in Cultural Analysis 4 (2005)

For years I thought my grandfather was a deltiologist (although I didn’t know the term then); I have more than a hundred post cards from his younger life. But as I’ve become a better historian, I have learned to ask better questions. Instead of wondering — Was Harold a collector of postcards?, I set out to answer — Why are there so many postcards? After reading about the history of picture post cards — the short answer is that post cards were the emails and Instagrams of their time. They became popular after the World Fairs and Exhibitions in Paris, London and Chicago used them to commemorate their events. Soon every town and city was selling them as a way of promoting their local sights and civic accomplishments to tourists. People were collecting and sending hundreds of millions of them around the world each year. Post cards were perfect in so many ways: they had just enough space to dash off three or four lines, were cheap to post, and captured a place if you didn’t own a new-fangled Kodak camera.

******

Sent to Harold from Papa, July 04, 1910

Receiving postcards always make me restless, even if they are the kitschy ones flaunting fluffy native animals or photo-shopped sunsets. Postcards rub my nose in the fact that I’m in a small, comfortable corner of Australia – bogged down in routine — no sign of adventure in sight. I know that’s only the view from where I sit; many people would trade places with me in a shot, but postcards are a reminder that someone is out there living large while I are not. I become restless because I’ve never seen that beach, that animal, that city. Maybe I don’t even want to; it’s just a reminder of being stuck. I’m stuck and they are not.

I can’t help but think that maybe it was the same for Harold. Perhaps it’s no wonder he was able to talk his parents into letting him head overseas.

My Address will be “Altorado” Alberta

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The postcards Walter sent to Harold and his brothers may have looked wild and exciting like the sets from a Western, but they didn’t show the real challenges ahead for the young layman.

A. J. Wilkinson, lay-minister, Alberta circa 1913

Walter had arrived in Cardston in the southwest of Alberta. Winters could be long and brutally cold on the open prairie. Locals told of the white skulls and skeleton bones of hundreds of cattle that perished a few years earlier, in the winter of 1906-07. They had drifted with the storms, reached the barrier of a railroad fence in a stretch of land between Lethbridge and Burdett and died of cold and starvation.

The area also suffered from frequent droughts; the land was rocky, the wind blew dust and tumble weed for miles, and farmers were only beginning to understand that it was more productive to graze cattle than raise crops, but that was not always a sure thing either.

Charles Ora Card (1901). Photo by Andrew Jenson [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Perhaps the biggest challenge would have been the locals themselves. Cardston was named for its founder, Charles Ora Card, a Mormon fugitive from Utah. He and some followers had escaped the crack-down on polygamy by the American government. They had set down roots in the area in 1887/88, establishing the first Latter Day Saint’s settlement outside of the United States. So Walter Cripps had come to carry out missionary work in a place where a large percentage of the local population were Mormon and had been living in the area for a generation already. The Anglicans view of the situation in Cardston was clear:

Eighty percent of the people … are Mormons, who never cease proselytising, and have put up a fine brick building, costing 8000 (pounds), to the name of their Mormon false prophet. Our people are but few out of the other twenty percent., but they are learning self-support and give 65(pounds) a year for their priest; and when they can raise 450 pounds a little ‘frame’ church will stand under the shadow of the big Mormon temple. (Our Opportunity in Canada, 1912).

Walter arrived in Cardston in May 1911, just before construction on the big Mormon Temple began, but he didn’t stay in town long. On the back of one postcard he tells Harold, ‘My address will be “Altorado” Alberta.’

Alberta Temple, Cardston, AB. Prairie Postcard licensed by University of Alberta Libraries under the Attribution – Non-Commercial – Creative Commons license.

From the Central House in Cardston, Canon Mowat’s ministers established mission houses in outlying areas. Each out-station was meant to be run by a priest and a layman who would live and work together. The priest was to do the ministering and family visits, the layman was to manage paperwork, assist with manual labour and housekeeping. Every three months the ministers were to travel back to the central house to meet up with their fellow clergy-men. In the early years, there were eight ministers, two laymen and a lay reader. Walter T H Cripps was assigned to the Altorado area and quickly dispatched.

I find Walter’s name on the 1911 census, taken only five weeks after he arrived in Alberta. It records him living in a rural area south of Medicine Hat. It also records him as Head of the House and as a minister by occupation.

Many missionaries coming to newly opened settlements had to build their own meeting houses and dwelling shacks. The mission houses, meant for meetings, services and Sunday school were little more than crude lean-tos fashioned from rough-cut timber; one door, one window and a stove to keep the congregation from freezing to death. The living shacks were even smaller; not much bigger than our garden tool shed, some were built with roofs too low for a man to stand up straight once inside, most were unfinished timber, and if it could be had, covered in tar paper to keep out the wind and dust. These constructions were knocked up in a few days with the help of neighbours if they could spare the time, or wanted to help. In 1911, Altorado was a brand new Mormon settlement of about 100 people.

Families moved to Altorado, in anticipation of the rail passing through. Like any large endeavour, there were problems with contractors and misinformation from land purchasing agents and the railway company generally made slow progress. When the route was finally announced in 1913, it was not good news; it would pass north through a new settlement to be called Foremost. Within the year, most of the population had shifted, and Altorado rapidly became a ghost-town.

Perhaps this is why Walter decided to take a trip home to England in 1914 and invited his young friend to travel with him.

*****

Census and Common Sense

I’ve already found that census data while very helpful, can sometimes get things wrong. Like the one where Harold’s younger brothers have been attributed to the neighbour’s family just because they were at the house on the day. So doubt and reservations need to equally apply when reading the 1911 census record for Walter’s household. While it records him as Head of the House there is someone else recorded there that day, a 17 year-old girl, Frances Exley. Her relationship to the ‘Head of Household’ is left blank, their marital statuses were first marked as “M” then scratched out. It is easy to jump to conclusions, and perhaps that’s what the census-taker did in first marking them as married. I haven’t found any further record of Francis and so while it could be tempting to interpret it as an interesting (and shocking!) scandal on the prairie, I am thinking it is more likely she was either domestic help at the shack on the day, or a visiting parishioner.

Harold’s Friend Travels to Tame the West

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From “The Church on the Prairie” (1910)

The story goes that Walter was a minister who came from St. Aidan’s Church in West Herrington, England to Canada. I haven’t found anything to confirm that yet; what I have found is that Walter was born in Brighton in 1884 and lived in Croydon. His father was a boot-maker, Walter was his only son and an only brother to three sisters. He sailed to Canada in Sept, 1910 soon after the two original Anglican mission groups were raised for Western Canada. At that time, Walter wasn’t a clergyman; he was a layman and listed himself as a student on the ship’s register.

Harold in the Winter of 1913

I think the Gillespie’s were his family away from home in this new country. As he travelled West to his Mission House in Southern Alberta, Walter regularly sent the Harold and his brothers letters and picture postcards full of brotherly concern and encouragement.

In one card, he was glad to hear that Harold had returned to school after the harvest to continue his studies; he reminisced about the fun they had had skating the previous winter and hoped they could do it again someday, he mentioned his best suit had gone missing and that he was travelling on a stubborn horse.

In another, he tells Harold he’s keen to hear of his mother’s travels but won’t be able to meet up with her on her return journey from British Columbia, he is simply too far away from the railway. He promises to write again next month. The photo on one card shows a dusty, one-street frontier town and on another, a flat-topped mountain.

Both postcards came from Cardston, Alberta.

******

It’s fascinating to read some of the handbooks these missionaries were given to prepare them for their life in the West. They pulled no punches — it was going to be a tough job.

It is even more fascinating when you discover an actual photo.

After months of searching through archives and local histories online, I find Walter T H Cripps in a digital collection from the Glenbow Museum Archives.

Image No: NA-1687-43 Title: Anglican clergymen in southern Alberta. Date: [ca. 1914] Remarks: Back Row: Extreme left: Canon S.H. Middleton. Front Row: (hand to eyes), Mr. Cripps. [Used in conjunction with script of talk on Anglican missions in Western Canada.

Reproduced with permission Glenbow Archives. Image No: NA-1687-43
Title: Anglican clergymen in southern Alberta. Date: [ca. 1914]
Remarks: Back Row: Extreme left: Canon S.H. Middleton. Middle row, second: Rev Canon Mowat, Front Row: (hand to eyes), Mr. Cripps. [Used in conjunction with script of talk on Anglican missions in Western Canada.

There he is in the front row. This friend of grandfather’s, this man who will change the course of our family history.
He sits cross-legged on the grass, looking inquisitive, perhaps a little uncertain, one elbow propped on his knee, his hand shading his eyes so he can meet the camera’s lens. All the other clergymen squint into the sun, their lips pursed, brows wrinkled; serious and somewhat pained. The men are positioned at the front corner of a rough timber building. In the background, there is a wide dirt road; one commercial building peeks over the shoulder of a young clergyman, two telephone poles rise up and out of the frame. Everything is still so new.
There is no indication if this was a special occasion or a regular quarterly get-together. It may have been taken for fund-raising purposes (it was later included in a lantern show to raise funds).
Whatever the reason for the photo, Walter was remembered by someone in the community. They identified him in the photo, recorded it in the archives, what extraordinary luck.

The Grace Race

His Stories, My Stories

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After finding the Christmas gift and the book dedication, I start rummaging through the rest of the old books from home, wondering who originally owned them. Every one of them has either a bookplate or an inscription inside — good fortune for me and an indication of the value they had for the owner and the giver.

One of the novels was presented to Harold by a teacher as a prize for ‘perseverance’. Perseverance can mean many things, but maybe it meant that he valued learning and was able and willing to keep attending school when surrender to family duty and hard work on the land was a more common choice.

Home boy Barnardos 1900 Russell Man Collections Canada. Public domain – available from Wikimedia Commons.

I find more books with Harold’s name in the front — presents from his brothers, presents from his friend, Walter. I’m surprised to find that even Rilla of Ingleside has Harold’s name on it — the year1919, is written underneath. I leaf through L.M. Montgomery’s story of the the home front during the Great War. When I was young, I hadn’t recognized the historical accuracy of it; back then it was just the romantic end to the Anne series.

I open up my copies of Ishmael and Self-Raised by Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth, Great Heart by Ethel M. Dell , John Halifax, Gentleman and Lazarre by Mrs. Craik; Harold’s name is in nearly every old book that’s been passed on to me.

His stories were my stories.

These books are the old romantic stories I read, loved and reread when I was a teen, but skimming through them now, I see they are not merely romantic novels. They all have protagonists with shining moral standards who maintain their integrity throughout their trials because of their strong Christian values.

I begin to wonder – was that what Victorian/Edwardian novels were like or were they just the type of book Harold preferred to read?

*****

To find out what people were reading at the time, I used two sources.

First, I found two databases of American Best-sellers of the 20th Century. One was compiled as a joint project involving students from several American universities. The other from Publisher’s Weekly (made available on Wikipedia). The lists cross-checked and two of the books from the lists, The Virginian by Owen Wister (1902 #1 best-seller, 1903 #5 best-seller) and The Rosary by Florence Barclay (1910 #1 best-seller, 1911 #9 best-seller) are in my collection of grandfather’s books. (I didn’t looked into Canadian publishing only because none of his books were published in Canada. They were from Britain and America).

The second source was the good old Methodist survey of the Swan River Valley. It provided a local focus. The surveyors not only recorded the reading habits of the people, they recorded the most borrowed titles from the Bowman Public Library that year. They were:

Popular books at that time turned out to be a range of melodramatic romance, action/adventure, mystery and biographical stories. But what was popular is only part of the answer. I also have to consider, what might have been available to Harold? I don’t know what else Grandfather may have owned or had access to. And I don’t know how hard it may have been to even acquire books.

*****

Religion seems to play a significant part in the Gillespie’s lives even influencing Harold’s choice of literature. But I wonder what the norm was back then, perhaps my family was just very religious. I want to better understand what part religion played in the history of this time for these people. I have a couple of solid clues I want to follow — one is the Methodist survey and the other has to do with Harold’s friend, Walter.

	Catherine Hainstock on Farm Boys and Neighbours
	Bill Rodgers on Farm Boys and Neighbours
	Larry on All Aboard the RMS Cedric
	Larry on All Aboard the RMS Cedric
	Larry on All Aboard the RMS Cedric