Mabel's Photo Album, Part 2

 

These 2 inch by 3 inch snapshots are glued into Mabel's small photo album.

Mabel, no date.

Mabel at wheel of the Reo. Note the right-hand drive.

CPR Staynerville station.

Unidentified house.

Mabel, no date.

Mabel and probably some classmates from Macdonald College.

Mabel Rodger's class at Staynerville.

Untitled.

Morning milk run arriving at Staynerville - operating Ottawa to Montreal.

George H Gagnon 1865-1940, Part 1

This post provides a quick overview of my great-grandfather's life. My father spent a good deal of time piecing together this data - often in the course of corresponding with his uncles and aunts. 

(In case the generations get confusing: George H Gagnon > George B Gagnon > LC Gagnon > DJ Gagnon ... who is assembling this account.)

Compiling this history was more challenging than most because George H became an Anglican minister in Quebec. While the prestigious big city jobs may have been beyond his reach or interest, his ability to conduct a service and communicate in French and English allowed him to minister to the many smaller Anglican congregations around the province.

His eldest son, George B - my grandfather - began his teaching career in a similar way, working as a schoolteacher when he was quite young in small settlements around Quebec.

George H Gagnon, undated photo.

Apparently wearing a wedding ring ... 1898 or later?

 

The text above comes from a sociological study of St Denis Kamouraska.

St Denis, A French-Canadian Parish; Horace Miner; 1939; University of Chicago.

The text below comes from a sociological study of 'Cantonville' (actually Drummondville). 

French Canada in Transition; Everett Cherrington Hughes; 1943; University of Chicago.

These studies were done because there was an interest in the 'archaic' (aka well-preserved rural) French-Canadian (I'll use Canadien to include areas beyond Quebec's changing borders) culture seen at St Denis in the 1930s. Located 50 kilometers up-river from Riviere du Loup, it was essentially untouched by most English-Canadian or American influences. The Catholic church was the main consistent connection with developments in the outside world.

Because there were some 'negative outcomes' for locals who contributed particular information to the study when the unmasked St Denis study was published, Drummondville was masked as Cantonville. 

The traditional large families of Canadien farmers were routinely dispersed. The lucky (usually the eldest) son chosen to inherit the family farm was the exception. It was necessary for the others to find natural resource-related work in the Canadian hinterland, menial work in the cities, or immigrate to the US in search of work. Women had fewer employment options - although an unmarried daughter might stay on the family farm to help with 'women's work'. 

... The Catholic church and its institutions were often the default employers of children forced to leave the family farm. Their 'employment' would usually involve a vow of poverty.

Drummondville was an example of English-Canadian or American (textile) businesses providing factory work which suddenly enabled many Canadien farm children to work and live close to their family roots. The intriguing sociological question was to find out what happened when the two cultures came together.

George H had just retired by the time these studies were undertaken, however, it seems reasonable that they provide an objective model of the kind of environment he worked in. 

Drummondville ...

Here is my father's summary of George H's key information ...

George H's early career information appears on the following pages

of the history of the Anglican Diocese of Montreal (1910) ...

Diocese of Montreal 1910 on archive.org

Sabrevois College was originally in Sabrevois, Quebec, 

(south of St Jean sur Richelieu)

but it was relocated to Montreal.

The details about the school can be found in the book linked above at its Page 225.

from: BANQ postcards online.

My grandfather George B, added to his father's published career information, below ...

In the early 1960s, I was on at least one trip to see some of George H's former charges north of Montreal.

George B was the guide and my father (LC Gagnon) was driving.

Expert in correspondence and helping people return information to him,

in 1979 my father prepared this 'map kit' for the rector at Rawdon to complete.

As a generalization, the map locations indicate George H

had many parishes in the Laurentians north and west of Montreal,

as well as a couple to the south.

The letter from the rector appears after the maps.

*  *  *

To wrap up, here are a few more photos ...

Larger image files (duplicates) are provided in their 

as-scanned form at the very end of this post:

1. So others (esp. family) can have good copies to work with and use.

2. It can't hurt to have some backup for the physical originals.

At the left: George H's wife Adelaide (Earle), George B.

(The others are not labelled.)

Studio Portrait:

The Reverend George H Gagnon, Adelaide Gagnon.

Doris (Dolly), Evelyn, George B. (no date).

(circa 1906)

George H; George B; Mabel (Rodger) Gagnon - George B's spouse; 

Carl youngest son of George H.

Arundel, April 1926.

While George H's long career was in the 'Church of England' ... his daughter-in-law, Mabel, 

had actually been taken on a special tour of English and Scottish cultural sites 

before she was married. This group tour was designed to give selected school teachers

an appreciation for the splendour at the centre of the British Empire ...

so this could be imparted to their hundreds of students in the coming years.

Some of Mabel's life is covered in these posts.

Relatives Who Went Overseas

*  *  *

from: findagrave

George H Gagnon and Adelaide are buried 

in the northern section of the Mount Royal Cemetery in Montreal.

With this 'introduction' complete, 

additional posts will fill in aspects of George H's life and family.

*  *  *

Below are the photos in 'as scanned' large-file form.

At Oxford and Stratford

Continuing with my 22-year-old grandmother's 1922 summer tour for teachers from Canada (and other British Dominions and Colonies) to Britain and the battlefields of France with the Overseas Education League .. 

In the previous post, she had crossed the North Atlantic on the Canadian Pacific steamship Scotian. On docking at Southampton, the group was taken to London to where they would finally meet Major Frederick Ney - who was making the final arrangements for the group's tour. Contrary to the original printed itinerary, I believe they must have first rallied at the Pembridge Gardens Hotel in London, rather than travelling direct to Oxford by special train from the Southampton docks.

While he appears in OEL literature as the 'Honorary Organizer' Major Ney was actually the originator, promoter, main organizer and key person raising funds and 'services in kind' to transport, shelter, receive, educate and entertain the groups. His devotion to his mission spanned a period of decades from the time before the Great War 1914-1918 until after the Second World War and into the 1950s.

In writing these posts, I am using the terms Colony, Dominion and Empire as Major Ney employed them - for historical reasons. Many Canadians were thoroughly finished with the concept of 'Empire' after the Great War.  

Further, on terminology: Recently-written scholarly papers on Ney state that he continued to promote the 'Empire Youth Movement' as the name for his student tours even into the 1950s rather than using the term 'Commonwealth'. There was debate about this as .. 'some officials felt strongly that "the word Empire stirs up so many noxious feelings" in the colonies'.

The map below shows the British railway system circa 1900. Southampton appears at the south-west corner of the map. From London, the group would have travelled roughly west to Oxford and later to the north-west corner of the map to visit Stratford-on-Avon, before returning to Oxford.

from: Handy Reference Atlas of the World; J G Bartholomew; 1904; London.

from: The Railways of Britain, Past and Present; OS Nock; 1947; BT Batsford, London.

The Southampton docks after World War 2. The ship-to-passenger-train connections may have been made at the far side of the docks. In the centre is a large ship in a floating drydock.

from: Alden's Oxford Guide 1903; Alden and Co Ltd, Oxford.

[note: it is actually a 'Norman crypt' or Romanesque.
The Victoria League program - see July 16 - below is incorrect.]

from: Alden's Oxford Guide 1903; Alden and Co Ltd, Oxford.

from: Google Earth, 2015

I believe this was the house to which Mabel and three others were invited for tea after church.

The Victoria League was a voluntary charitable organization which still exists. Back in this era it functioned as a type of Imperial glue to foster better relations with the far-flung parts of the Empire. A similar organization existed in Canada - the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire - "One Flag, One Throne, One Empire". As the IODE was not at the 'centre of the Empire', it generally felt it was getting short shrift from the VL and the relationship always suffered accordingly.

from: Alden's Oxford Guide 1903; Alden and Co Ltd, Oxford.

The martyrs were: Thomas Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley, Hugh Latimer.

from: Alden's Oxford Guide 1903; Alden and Co Ltd, Oxford.

Letter continued from above:

'We spent Friday at Stratford ..'

from: Stratford on Avon; HW Tompkins; 1904; JM Dent, London.

from: Stratford on Avon; HW Tompkins; 1904; JM Dent, London.

In a small, separate album, I have found a handful of tiny, uncaptioned prints of Mabel's tour with the OEL.

Mabel Rodger (right) and fellow OEL tour participants in Britain

Beginning the tour at Oxford and Stratford immediately presented several concepts about 'the centre of the Empire' to the teachers just arriving from the Dominions and Colonies. Here are a few passages from the letter above:

• We have been through all the Oxford Colleges and all they contain and show would take a month for me to relate. 

• .. the English well-to-do people are so nice. 

• .. the afternoon teas we are invited to are unexplainable. 

• .. we have scenery at home it is Nature's; here, everything is so well preserved.

The women teachers stayed at an ancient centre of knowledge which had existed for 800 years and which had eventually been 'encouraged' to provide undergraduate examinations to women for almost 50 of those years.

Reference was made to the monarch-centred mother church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Local church officials had been martyred for their beliefs by a church based in Rome.

The teachers were warmly received into a sophisticated foreign social sphere with its own complex traditions and customs.

They were taken to the home town of an astute observer of the human condition - whose observations were still apt 400 years after his death. His works were widely known and studied in their home Dominions and Colonies.


In terms of understanding The Empire .. the teachers had seen little of what made it a successfully functioning 'empire' up to this point in the tour. The things they saw were worthy of continued preservation because human knowledge and genius, and ancient objects of aesthetic beauty, are worthy of careful preservation.

*  *  *

There are more letters and artifacts to follow. I have only skimmed the letters to ensure they are in chronological order before I assemble the components for each post.

There is also the 15-page manuscript my grandmother prepared about her tour. This was presented, by invitation, as a speech to a meeting sponsored by the Women's Institute after her return to Canada.