The Clonard in Belfast.

It’s very likely, that my father, William Henry, known to his friends and family as “Hoick”, would at one time or other have entered these Colosseum-like doorways, fished a few pence out of his pocket and slid them through the hole in the glass window where, an older hand was waiting to drag them across the counter and slip them into a till.

Both my father and my mother had an abiding love of movies.  My mother still does.  All his life, “Harry” (who became “Bill” once he crossed the Atlantic) craved the thrill of a good western, war picture or gangster-film.  I remember, when I was nine years old, he took me to see, “The Battle of Britain”. He loved every single minute of it, and so did I!

He had his favourites: actors and actresses like, Jimmy Cagney and Edward “G” (Robinson), the “Singing Cowboy”, Gene Autry, and Spencer Tracy, Humphrey Bogart,  Hedy LaMarr, Joan Fontaine, and Grace Kelly – he loved them all!

There were a few movies in particular that I associate with my father and I have seen most of them, all but one that he thought was great.

This was 1939’s “Gunga Din”.  My father would have been 12 at the time he saw this action/adventure/war flick.  It starred Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine and Victor McLaglen (who had done a brilliant turn in John Ford’s, “The Informer”) and Sam Jaffe as an Indian (he was actually Jewish – born, “Shalom Jaffe”).

Loosely based on the poem of the same name, by Rudyard Kipling, it appealed to my father for his entire life. Whenever discussion of great movies was on the table, “Gunga Din” was always mentioned. Every time.

Reproduced interior of The Savoy, in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia.

Meanwhile, in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, my mom, Alice (“Betty”) Harris and her sister, Joan were pleading with their father (my grandfather, Guy Wheelock Harris).  “Have you got any money, for us to go to the pictures,  Daddy?” They’d ask.  “Well now. Let me see.” He’d say, and he’d fish around in his big pants’ pockets and is if by magic, produce a few coins for his two daughters.

Off they’d go to see the latest show and thanks to their father, they’d have a bit extra for some toffee. It was the Victorian-style, Savoy Theatre where they saw all sorts of wonderful things!

They were not allowed to see anything risque. Their father had been raised a Baptist, but converted to Catholicism and between the two philosophies,  they were prevented from seeing hot Jane Russell in 1943’s, “The Outlaw”. One of mom’ and Joan’s favourites is the 1945 biopic of Robert Schumann entitled, “A Song to Remember” and they were still quite young, so they must have seen that in secret.  (She will correct me when she reads this, if I’m mistaken.)

Among their long list of favourite actors were Tyrone Power, Glen Ford Paul Henreid and Cornell Wilde.  (Not my idea of heart-throbs, but they certainly set the Harris Girls’ hearts fluttering!)

Mom is quite a movie afficionada.  At 82, she still enjoys all the old shows, but is not averse to watching something new – even if it has subtitles!

Asked to choose her very favourite, she will tell you, “Gone With the Wind” and “Waterloo Bridge”.

I have very catholic tastes when it comes to films, myself.  From my father, I inherited that love of a good war movie like, “Bridge on the River Kwai”,  and I adore westerns.  One of my top 25 films of all time is, “Once Upon a Time in the West”.  I love Cagney in “White Heat”, and like my mom, I really enjoy the song-and-dance musicals of the 1940s, 50s and 60s.

My movie-theatre home as a child was a large picture-house that was attached to the local mall.  I spent hours there both with my parents and my friends.

I think the legacy has been passed down, thanks to the great cinemas of old such as the Clonard and the Savoy.

My dream would be to own an old movie theatre in a small town somewhere and have enough money to just run all the old movies I love.  Wouldn’t that be great?

This is a Sepia Saturday post. Please visit to read other great memories inspired by old photos.

Mabel Wilson Fenwick, circa 1912.

My husband’s great-grandmother, Mabel was born in 1867, in Delgany, Co. Wicklow, Ireland.  She was the daughter of a British-Army Colonel by the name of Augustus Wilson, and Adelaide Elizabeth Badham-Thornhill, descendant of Henry Badham Thornhill of Castle Kevin in Cork. (My husband’s obviously the one with the wealthy, Irish side; I come from the northern peasants!) (More on the Wilsons in the weeks to come.)

Some time between 1871 and 1891, Mabel came to Canada with her father and mother and seven siblings. There is no Census for 1881 with her name on it, that I can locate.

In 1898, she married Thomas Emery Fenwick, a well-to-do textiles-merchant, originally from Richmond, Yorkshire in England, It was her first marriage, and his third (he was twice widowed). They set up house in Hochelaga (now Montreal) and had two children of their own, along with two of Thomas’ from an earlier marriage.

The Fenwicks eventually moved to York, Ontario (now Toronto) where Thomas set up his business, and they had another child—a daughter, Edith Barbara “Betty"—my husband’s grandmother.

Mabel was always well turned out and I suppose this hat could be considered the height of fashion to some, but to me, it appears that she’s about to lift off!

I have taken the liberty of adding a couple of lines to an old children’s rhyme below:

Mabel, Mabel, if you’re able,

Take your elbows, off the table,

And when you’ve finished doing that,

Please remove that frightful hat!

I’m joking! Hats off to my husband’s great-grandmother, Mabel Wilson Fenwick, who had the panache to carry off such prominent headgear in the early 20th Century! Talk about your FASCINATORS!

Visit the Sepia Saturday blog where you’ll find tons more fascinating things to read and photos to peruse.

Me, in one of my many hats – literally!

I found a photo of a hat that has the winged element of Mabel’s hat.  This one makes Mabel’s look good! I’m still looking for the actual one.

Photo borrowed from http://dorotheascloset.com

Kat's Zoo (1968) Some of my stuffed toys assembled to help celebrate my birthday, loads of animal gifts, and of course, my "Teddy" in my arms, as always.

Now to the real story:

You must all have a look at this!  My husband and I saw a television program about this artist some time ago and I’ve been meaning to post about him.

Chilean-born, now Toronto-based, Rafael Goldchain, has transformed himself into members of his own family.  By using costume and artistry and photography, he has created his own ancestral photos!

I just had to share this!

Rafael Goldchain website

Rafael Goldchain blog

I would LOVE to be able to do this. Imagine the possibilities!

Anybody good with Photoshop, or Corel Draw?  I need a tutor!

(photos coming soon!)

St. Anne’s Church, Glace Bay, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, 1939.

My uncle, Jimmy Harris, is dead-centre in this photo which originally appeared in “The Cape Breton Post” and his first cousin and best pal, Neil F. McNeil, named after his grandfather, ( The Patriarch of an earlier post) is directly to his left.  Don’t they just look as if “butter wouldn’t melt” in those mouths?  You’ll notice that Jimmy isn’t making much of an effort to put those palms together in prayer. And Neil is the picture of innocence, isn’t he?

Well, these two were notorious for ice-clamper- (the Cape Breton word for icebergs) jumping in Glace Bay Harbour (this particular activity still has its own CB vernacular and is known as “skooshing”), hanging around the railroad tracks, playing hookey to spend the day in the woods and later on, shooting pool and smoking cigarettes.  If you’ve ever seen the opening number from “The Music Man” then you can just apply that “Trouble” song to these two angelic faces in this photo.

At least one of the boys in this group photo ended up as a priest. It certainly wasn’t my uncle who, got kicked out of the University of Dalhousie, joined the Navy for four years, and finally returned to successfully complete his degree.

According to my aunt Kay, who is in her late 80s, Jimmy and Neil were also known as pretty good musicians.  Jimmy used to play the piano (by ear) and Neil could blow a mean trumpet.  Jimmy’s favourite music has always been, and still is, Jazz.

Now, the only way I can link this to the SS challenge, is to say that my uncle Jimmy was always known around our house as, “The Masher”.   Not because he was a Ladies’ Man.  No! It was because he was a dab-hand with a potato-masher and we always let him have a go at the spuds when he was at our house for a holiday dinner.

Jimmy and Neil were 12 at the time this picture was taken. On December 26, Jimmy will turn 85. He’s still got a devilish grin and a mischievous twinkle in the eyes and has some great stories to tell about his rebel-days.

(on the back: “Taken in Dublin, Ireland in or near the month of July 1952)

Taken by Kat in June of 1994 while on honeymoon.

After extensive Googling of maps and even a virtual “stroll” along O’Connell Street in Dublin, I have come to the conclusion that, were the men in the foreground of both of these pictures to somehow come together in a time-space continuum, they would pass each other on the street.

By determining the placement of statues on said O’Connell Street, I have deduced that my father is approaching the statue of Daniel O’Connell (with angels). I cropped a copy of the original (see below) to find that the statue in the background of his photo is that of Sir John Gray, a man who supported both, O’Connell and Charles Parnell. In fact, it was Gray himself who was responsible for the statue of O’Connell on what was then, Sackville Street.  Gray’s is the second statue on the street as you proceed north, after Parnell’s.

The white-haired man, is standing opposite the statue of O’Connell that is adorned with the bullet-ridden, bronze, winged-victories (courtesy of the Easter Uprising and other conflicts between 1916 and 1922). I can easily imagine him crossing the road to find the pavement on the east side where the shops are.

By my reckoning, were my dad and the white-haired man to proceed at a clip (that was my father’s way, and the determination in his face and the angle of that left hand tells me he was true to form on this occasion), they would pass each other across the road from the William Smith O’Brien statue.

O’Brien, interestingly, was a Protestant who was a member of the Young Ireland movement.  In 1848 he was convicted of sedition for his support of Catholics.  He was deported to what was then known as “Van Diemen’s Land”, but is now called Tasmania and part of Australia.

Coincidentally, when my Catholic father left the British Army in 1953, he considered emigrating to Australia.  Fortunately for me, he did not do so, and settled instead on emigrating to Canada where he met my mother, and the rest is history (as most of you know).

On the other hand, this white-haired fellow looks as if he just might be heading to the pub.  In which case, I’m pretty sure my dad would be keen to join him and wet his whistle on this summer’s day in an alternate universe. They might even share a slab of “Mackintosh’s Toffee” since my dad was also quite partial to it.

What the heck! If there’s going to be some Toffee involved, then I’m going to find a Tardis and see if I can join them!

(click to enlarge and see the Gray statue)

A really great website I discovered in my travels is IRISH HISTORY LINKS where you can find lots of other photos of Dublin through the years.

Don’t forget to visit the Sepia Saturday Blog to read and enjoy other articles and photos of great interest.

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”!

Great-granny Margaret Polland, her daughter and 2 grandchildren on the Mourne Mountains

Fitting fragments
of my long-gone family
from census dates and grainy
photographs.
Files recalling names and years,
and ships.
Few lips turned upwards when the shutters clicked.
Those troubled Ulster men and women
who triumphed when the picked potato failed
They lived their lives of rag and bone
against the granite’s crag.

Someone* said, the same sun shone
on them, as that which shines on us.
They turned their faces to it—
let it burn their cheeks
when God’s gift peeked through
the fog and mist.

I close my eyes
and feel their presence with the sun’s warm kiss.

Kat Mortensen©2011

*Credit to Nancy Messier, on whose blog I read the notion about the sun, which gave rise to this poem and my return.

My Great-grandfather, Thomas Polland delights a crowd of offspring with his fiddle. Photo courtesy of my cousin, Colin Polland (Click to enlarge.)

Photo courtesy of my cousin, Colin Polland (my Great-grandfather, Thomas Polland delights the offspring with his fiddle.)

Although a paid subscription to Ancestry.ca has reaped great rewards, this blog has been of tremendous benefit in discovering heretofore unknown relations.

While it was once astonishing to discover e-mails in my inbox from distant cousins on both sides of my family, now it is a delight, but no great surprise. I, myself, have found cousins through various genealogy sites. It truly is a marvelous world we live in when we can simply drop a line to an oddly coded “mail” address and instantly be in contact with our blood-kin all over the world.

A while back, such an occurrence did arise. I opened my online e-mail at Yahoo, to find a letter from a female, claiming to be the grand-daughter of my father’s mother’s sister. (Are you still with me?) Not only that, but her husband also is my relative (it gets very confusing on that score!) and both of them had seen the photo of my Great-grandparents on this blog.

Even better, we discovered that we are all on Facebook and through that social medium, we have been able to converse and share loads of photos. The one above is an absolute prize among many, for it clearly conveys the love of music that runs in my Northern Irish family. My mother says that my dad used to speak of the man with the fiddle, not realizing that it was actually his grandfather! I’m not certain how often my father would have seen him – he grew up in Belfast, not in Glassdrumman, although he did visit as a child. Perhaps with the very large families and all their children around, it would have been confusing to a small boy, or maybe there was another fiddler-man? In any case, there’s lots of music on both sides of my family, but the fiddle has always been my favourite and when it comes to classical music, the violin can make me weep.

I had to write this:

HUM

In my head,

The father’s mother’s father (long-dead)

Is playing a tune—a runic melody;

It tumbles o’er the hills and out to sea,

To rise above the atmospheric scum—

Becoming part of the universal hum

For all eternity.

Modernity

Has stolen snatches;

Scratches and squeals reel against the strings—

My heart sings.

I know my fingers would fumble with the rosined bow,

But my toes involuntarily tap—my soul wraps the sound round

And round me like the winds that whirl and skirl up the Mournes.

We hum.

Kat Mortensen©2011

PLEASE ADJUST YOUR FEED-READERS TO REFLECT MY NEW URL for the Invisible Keepsakes blog : poetikat-km.blogspot.com  Thank you!

Entrance to the street where my great-grandmother's house (see insert in sepia) used to be. After she died, my great-aunt Clara lived in it. When I visited, my grandmother Katie, Clara and another sister, Mamie were all there.

I’ve been doing a great deal of family research lately and that always gets me emotional.  I feel I’ve missed opportunities in the past to find out things about my ancestors.  I’ve been to Ireland and even Northern Ireland, but at the time, I was either a teenager tagging along with my parents, or a newly-wed, with anything but ancestry on her mind.

I’ve been to Nova Scotia countless times, but I have not once thought to look up my ancestors or even visit a grave!  I am kicking myself now. 

I do hope to remedy this situation, but in the meantime the only way to get my emotions released and dealt with is to write poetry.  A Poetry Bus prompt proved ideal for me at this time.  Based on the phrase, “The last time I was there…”, I decided to write about  a visit I made to my great-grandmother’s house ( lovingly known as “up home”) quite some time ago.

Katie and Clara in their younger days in the garden up home.

UP HOME

It was twenty odd years ago, the last time I was there;
Rooms smelled of old knitting; the skinny cat was sitting on the piano bench—
The last time I was there.

Pictures in wood frames of people whose names I was told, but can’t recall;
Grand dames and old flames and uncle James on dustry shelves—
The last time I was there.

Three dear ladies were there, in printed dresses, their silvery tresses
Tucked behind ears—an auburn wig askew; I snapped a photo or two—
The last time I was there.

Spindly hands filled bowls of vanilla ice cream topped with fresh strawberry jam;
There was spilled tea on the parlour table—
The last time I was there.

Tiger lilies towered at the drive’s edge, peonies and pea-flowers
Blew in buzzy trellised towers—
The last time I was there.

Hearing aids hissed; dry lips kissed my cheeks goodbye, and I never thought
How they would all be missed—
The next time I’d be there.

Kat Mortensen©2011

Please don’t forget to visit the designated Sepia Saturday blog where other contributors are lined up to share their stories.  You may even consider joining in yourself!

In the early 1900s, Two Brits by the names of Roberts and Patterson, invented Bisto.  It was a meat-flavoured powder that could be added to gravies and sauces to make them more robust.  The moniker, “Bisto” was really an acronym for “Browns, Seasons and Thickens in One”. 

In 1919, a cartoonist by the name of Wilf Owen (NOT the poet), created the “Bisto Kids” – a pair of urchins in the style of “Oliver Twist”.  They were  cleverly crafted to appeal to the working-class market.  The “Bisto Kids” were captured in a posture of catching the tantalizing aroma of Bisto on the wind and sighing, “Aah, Bisto!” with great longing.

Bisto became  hugely popular in the U.K., as did the “Bisto Kids”.  There was even a competition in the 1930’s to name them. It was won by a couple called Simmonds who named the “kids” after themselves: Bill and Maree.

Later on, Wade Pottery produced a collectible set of “Bisto Kids” salt and pepper shakers (see above).

Until today, my knowledge of “Bisto” was really vague.  My mom favoured OXO cubes when I was growing up. I do recall the occasional appearance of “Bisto” in her cupboard to enhance gravy for a roast. (It must be said, however, that my mom’s gravy was excellent without it!)

This morning, I happened to be going over my rather slim collection of artefacts from my dad’s side of the family and I was rereading a letter from my dad’s sister, Betty that she had written to him in 2002.

At the top of the letter, she begins,

“My Dear Will. Bill. Harry. (whatever, your my brother whom I love. xx)”

My father was born and  baptised , William Henry Davison.  He was always referred to as “Harry” as a child, and I learned recently that his nickname was “Hoick”.  My guess is that this name came from always having to hoick up his pants!

When my dad came to Canada, he reverted to his birth name of William and became known familiarly as “Bill Davison”.  This is why his sister, Betty wasn’t sure how to address him.

What was of even more interest to me, was how she signed off on the letter: 

“All my love from Bisto Kid (one)
To Bisto Kid (two) Ha. Ha.”

Undoubtedly, this was a family in-joke, and now I’m delighted to say that I’m in on it too!

Bisto Kids and Mom: Mary Ann Davison, daughter Betty on the left at back and my dad, Harry on the right  (looking a little like Alfred E. Newman! ) The others are Mick, R.J., Patrick and Hugh (of the car-ride post). Jane (a.k.a. “Girlie”) is in the tam.

Please visit the Sepia Saturday blog for more fascinating family stories and photographs.  You won’t be disappointed!