For the Love of Dirt

Friday, January 26, 2018

The JEWEL BOX ( circa 1920) Stories about Heroines

"A Lady with a Lamp shall stand in the great history of the land,a noble type of good Heroic womanhood..." --"Lady of the Lamp" from " The Jewel Box"

Nessie, in 1936, in Victoria ( yes, my mother)

It finally came. The second copy to my original that belonged to my mother in the first half of the 20th century. Hers damaged with fire and water and the second still quite clean, with crisp colours and pages untarnished with mold spots.

One of the few perks my mother had, living on the Bethune Farm, she told me, were her books. They were like good friends. And there weren't that many of them to go around. How she LOVED to read. To imagine she was one of the characters in her books. "Nothing could break the spell unless I, as a swineherd, married a kings daughter, and brought her home to the wedding feast in that hovel.YOu have rescued the land......" - "Jewel Princesses

Laurie, Mrs. Clark , Nessie, 1920's

The Jewel Box had been a school prize she had been given. Just like the second book.....it had also been a school prize for "Good Conduct and Deportment".1911

Herbert Strang was the pseudonym of two English authors, George Herbert Ely (1866–1958) and Charles James L'Estrange (1867–1947). They wrote adventure stories!Modern and Historical. The "Mrs. Strang" , as in the Jewel Box "author" was the pseudonym for stories for girls. They worked for Oxford University Press and as such were held in high regard.

WWII Nessie heading off to work at Dockyard

My mother used to tell the story of how she would read the Jewel Box outside in the piles of sweet hay that her father and work hands had tumbled together to go into the barn.

Or she would take it with her when on a community picnic. Such as this one, above,down at Long Lake. 1919 about. "She spurred her house forward and seized her opportunity. She grabbed the reins of the other horse and she was off in a twinkling...." "Ride of a Dauntless Girl"

Stuart, Isabella, Robert, Bill 1940

And then it was left in the attic once day. In the small cabin they lived in. And on this particular day, her brothers, Stuart and Bill, were smoking in the attic. It caught fire. There was a lot of damage. But her book was saved. Grandfather and Grandmother weren't too impressed.

Nessie and Grandfather Robert 1933

The colour plates still as bright as they were one hundred years ago. One of my favourites is the story of Florence Nightingale "The Lady of the Lamp"...."Lady in chief enters, shading a small lamp with her hand. She stops by each man, and speaks to one and another, soothing this one's delirium...."

"An Adventure in Dutch Guiana", "Emperor's Bird's Nest", "The Heroine of the Quetta", "Prince Boohoo's Powder","the Jewel Princesses", "Ann Judson-Heroine","The Terra Cotta Coat", and "The Ride of the Dauntless Girl"

Cutter in Winter, 1920's

The Jewel Box is filled with stories that are most likely difficult to find these days. Stories of brave young women, who , against all odds manage to overcome their fears and become real life heroines."You have broken the enchantment, said the King. ....." -The Jewel Princesses

And yes, there was no "Mrs. Strang" ,it was the two authors, Ely and L'Estrange who wrote the heroic girls stories. They were ahead of their time. "She determined she would try to save them all. She was only 16. She tied the severed rope around her body, and slipped into the ocean and started to swim...." "Heroine of the Quetta"

Bill, Nessie, Isobel, Stuart, 1920's

My mother also said she would read these stories to her siblings, on just warm days with their dog Jessie. They would read about girls scaling walls, or riding to in the dark of night to save a man's life, paddling rapids, and towing a raft to land. "It was a race for life now, any moment an alligator might seize her. There was a sound like thunder in her ears, then she was drawn up into the boat...." -An Adventure in Dutch Guiana

Heroines doing things they had never thought they could or would do. But did. "Oh I must be brave, I must, and god will help me out!-"An Adventure in Dutch Guiana"

Davy and Nessie, on board the "Kathleen" 1936 honeymoon

2018

Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Winter Day.....

"In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer..." -Albert Camus

WINTER DAY by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) (excerpts)

The sun that brief (winter) day rose cheerless over hills of gray.

And, darkly circled, gave at noon a sadder light than waning moon.

Slow tracing down the thickening sky Its mute and ominous prophecy,

A portent seeming less than threat,

It sank from sight before it set.

A chill no coat, however stout, of homespun stuff could quite shut out.

A hard, dull bitterness of cold, that checked, the circling race

The coming of the snow-storm told, the wind blew east, we heard the roar

Of Ocean on his wintry shore, and felt the strong pulse throbbing there

Beat with low rhythm of inland air.

Meanwhile we did our nightly chores, brought in the wood from out of doors,

Littered the stalls, and raked down the herd's grass for the cows;

Heard the horse whinnying for his corn, and sharply clashing horn on horn,

Impatient down the stanchion rows the cattle shake their walnut bows;

While, peering from his early perch upon the scaffold's pole of birch,

The cock his crested helmet bent and down his querulous challenge sent.

Photographs 2018 "Winter Day by J. G. Whittier from A Treasury of Great Poems 1942" From the foundations of the english spirit to the outstanding poetry of our own time with lives of the poets and historical settings selected and integrated by Lous Untermeyer. NY Simon and Schuster "