SS 100 – THE PATRIARCH

My Great-grandfather, Neil F. McNeil, husband to “The Matriarch” seen here earlier.

(N.B. Please see the very bottom of the page for a very important development!)

I had a chat with my mom yesterday after coming across something significant online (below).  Her head was filled with memories of her grandparents and this morning she informed me that last night she dreamed about her grandfather, or “Papa” as he was known to her.

She recalls that he was a very upright man, a little stern even, but not with his grandchildren.  He used to lift his young grand-daughters, my mother and her sister, Joan, up on the kitchen counter next to the sink so they would be at his level, and he used to sing songs to them.

He was always impeccably turned out, as was his wife, Alice.  They were a handsome pair.

This is the man who became the first Town Clerk of Glace Bay in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia in 1901.

This is the man who, in that capacity, took my grandmother, Katie to meet the inventor, Marconi when he was in Glace Bay in December, 1902.  That’s how she got to sit on the Italian’s knee when she was just a tot.

Mom says, in her dream, Papa was singing a song* and she remembered what it was when she was dreaming, but it is lost again now.

Mom  tells me, that when Papa died suddenly in 1938, he was laid out in the front parlour “up home” at 6 Cottage Street.  She and Joan were required to kiss his forehead as he rested in his open casket.  Quite a fearsome thing for a six and an eight-year old!

She remembers him fondly, and I, I can only  research and piece together who he was from cold census data, and the occasional pay-dirt such as this, found at  (and borrowed from) INTERNET ARCHIVE:

“That Neil F. McNeil, of Glace Bay, Cape Breton County, has
been selected to discharge the duties of town clerk, is an indication
that he is not only a man of ability and public-spirit but also of
integrity and reliability; for it is not often the case in Nova Scotia
that incompetent and irresponsible men become public officials.

Mr. McNeil was born in the above named town and county,
February 7, 1866. He is a son of Malcolm and Ann McNeil, the
father a native of lona, Cape Breton County, and the mother was
torn at Grand Narrows, that county. Neil McNeil, the grandfather,
was a native of lona, Cape Breton County, and the mother was born
at Grand Narrows, that county. Neil McNeil, the grandfather, was
a native of Barra, Scotland, where he spent his earlier days, but was
young when he left there and came to Nova Scotia.

Malcolm McNeil, father of our subject, removed to Glace Bay
about 1864, where he married and engaged in mining. His death
occurred at the age of sixty-three years. His widow is still living.
To these parents only one child was torn, Neil F. McNeil of this
sketch. After attending the public schools a few years he engaged
in mining, later becoming check weighman for the miners, making
his home in Glace Bay the meanwhile. In 1901 he was appointed
city clerk, which position he has since filled to the satisfaction of all
concerned, doing his work well and treating the people with courtesy
and consideration.

Mr. McNeil was married July 26, 1892, to Alice Guthro, of
French Vale, Cape Breton County, where the family has long been
well established. She is a daughter of James Guthro.

Ten children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. McNeil, named as
follows : Steven J. was recently graduated from a school of pharm-
acy: Lucy is the wife of Albin Bates, a jeweler of Sydney; Katie
was graduated from Mt. St. Vincent College and is now at home ;
Anne is attending school; Matilda is also a student; James is attend-
ing school ; Malcolm is deceased ; Mary Josephine, Clara Agnes, and
Alice Marguerite are all attending school.

Politically, Mr. McNeil is a Liberal. He is a Catholic, and be-
longs to the Knights of Columbus, also the Catholic Mutual Benefit
Association. “

Thank you to the great gods of Genealogy for this gift, and thank you to Alan Burnett for the equally great gift of Sepia Saturday!

(Click the image to visit the blog!)

*This morning, mom has come up with the song, and it’s a doozy! We need your help to track down the title and the rest of the lyrics, as Google is not proving fruitful in our search.

“When a man is dead, he’s cold in the ground,

cold in the ground,

cold in the ground.

When a man is dead, he’s cold in the ground;

The merry go round and round.”

(Probably from a Vaudeville tune, according to my mother.)

Saturday, November 12, 2011.

Mom has corrected me about the lyrics to the song, and I have found the source!  She was right about the vaudeville origin, but it came from a much earlier production written by Frederic Thompson, the architect who designed Luna Park on Coney Island in New York.

Here’s an excerpt from a book about the very man!

“Evidence of his audacity and of his achievement is suggested by a small sign that appeared on a ticket kiosk outside one of Luna’s attractions in 1912 0r 1913.  It announced: “Frederic Thompson’s Life is Only a Merry-Go-Round.”  The inscription was a miniscule feature in the sensationally Orientalized surrounding of the park, but its insight went to the heart of Thompson’s amusement enterprise.  As a practical matter, it alluded to a musical number from Thompson’s 1910 Broadway revue, Girlies, which had been notorious for its liberal “display of lingerie and limb”.”

(Taken from page 142 of “The Kid of Coney Island: Fred Thompson and the Rise of American Amusements by Woody Register, Oxford University Press, 2003.)

Here are the actual lyrics from the song  (music by Benjamin Hapgood Burt and lyrics by John L. Golden):

“Life is only a merry go round
The more I go round, the more I have found,
When a man is dead and he’s stuck in the ground,
The merry-go-round’ll go round and round.”

According to the IBDB (a website devoted to Broadway) the number was performed by “Dr. Oscar Speil and Male Students”. Hmm.

And here is an actual advertisement for the revue:

Ironically, the producer, Thompson was only 47 when he himself, died and was “stuck in the ground”!

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