We went to Cornwall Ontario yesterday to do research for my story about Edith Nicholson, the follow up to Threshold Girl
Threshold Girl is about Flora Nicholson and her year at Macdonald Teacher's College. 1911/1912
Edith's Story (The Diary of a Confirmed Spinster, Militant Suffragette Sympathizer and Inadvertent Opium Addict, is about Edith Nicholson's year at French Methodist Institute in Westmount, 1909-1910, the year her fiance, Charles Gagne, dies in the infamous Rossmore Hotel Fire.
It was the spur of the moment trip and I didn't check out where the Rossmore had been, so we drove around not knowing where to find the exact locale.
We ate at the Mall on Pitt Street and then drove around the water, where I assumed the OLD TOWN was, and saw the Old Cotton Mill, all renovated and looking quite beautiful (it's been renovated much more nicely than the Dominion Textile Plant in Little Burgundy) and then we walked the dogs at the Park on the Water under the Bridge that goes to Messina New York.
There were plenty of Canada Geese there, well, two little flocks, and the grass was totally covered in goose poop. Oddly, the dogs didn't bother with the poop, which is odd. As dogs like poop. Of any kind, or so I thought.
These turds, about the size of miniature poodle poop, didn't do it for them.
Anyway, it's a nice park, despite the poop and frankly you don't expect it to be 15 degrees in mid-November and it was a weekday. Only a few other strollers were taking advantage of the gorgeous day.
Anyway, we headed home soon after and I was disappointed that I didn't get a pic of the Rossmore Locale.
But this morning, looking up info on the fire, I discovered the Rossmore Block had been on Pitt Street, where the Bank of Montreal Building is.
We had passed right by it and turned onto Second Street and passed right by the Presbyterian Church were Charles Gagne, Edith's fiance, told her he always hung out... before his death in the fire. It's just around the corner from the place where the hotel was.
So it all works out.
HOW IRONIC. Charles Gagne died because he was a clerk for the Bank of Montreal in Levis and Danville and had been transferred to Cornwall. (In my story, I will take license and say he asked to be transferred... because I am going to play with history and have him murdered. You know, they never did figure out for sure what started the fire and from what I have read, only PART of his body was found in the the ashes. How can that be? And he had just come back from some mysterious trip to Mexico...)
And then they go build a new building sometime in the 30's over the site of his death.
By the way, Ryan Gosling is from Cornwall. I have just seen two of his movies, the Ides of March and that other one Dirty, Crazy Love is it and frankly, he's quite impressive. Especially in the Ides of March, which is a terrific movie.
Also, upon our arrival home, we rented from the satellite that Beginners movie with Christopher Plummer and Ewen McGregor... Odd non-commercial movie, (as in Indie style) a downer in some ways, but a downer with one of the most positive 'messages' as in "it's never too late to decide to be happy."
Ewen McGregor plays a 38 year old who can't commit because he is still working out his mother's issues... she married a gay man to try to convert him and it didn't work out great, although it didn't work out terribly either. And Plummer plays a man determined not to be bitter about the past...he's the dad and at 78 he comes out as gay and becomes a social activist and bon vivant too.
A real good message. I should pay heed.
