Aunt Flo and Mom circa 1927.
I just added a bit to my eplay Milk and Water, about my Aunt Flo, who was 'plucked' from the city streets in and around 1912 to live with my grandparents. Milk and Water is about Montreal in 1927, and it's a Two Solitudes type story, about political corruption and the power of words.
It's in the section where the two men compare families: yesterday I added detail about the death of Morris, Thomas Wells's second son. He died in South America, on a job. I assume he worked for the Canadian Industrialists who were setting up big POWER projects in Mexico and South America in the 1910 era. William Mackenzie, McConnell.
In Milk and Water a powerful French Canadian, Jules Crepeau, and a Westmount Businessman, Tom Wells, have a long talk.
Tom: Three,
really, I’m on my fourth marriage. Between us, my wife and I have been in seven
marriages.
Jules (Now
Jules appears dumbfounded.) C’est vraiment vrai?
Tom: I’ve
been widowed 3 times and my wife, well, let’s say, she’s had her adventures.
She married her first husband on a dare. No children though, so no harm done.
She told the Minister she was a widow so we could get married. (He snickers and
makes a jabbing motion toward Jules with his elbow.) I had to grease his palm
so there’d be no publication of banns.
Jules: Maybe
30 years is too kind. I have one wife,
of 26 years, and one son, 25 years, and three daughters, well four, if I count sweet
Florida, the adopted girl. As a young child, she came begging at our door all
the time, around 1912. My wife would feed her, give her a clean new dress and
send her home. She’d return a few days later in rags, so one day, we just took
her in for good. And I had a young son
who died as an infant. At 3 days old.
Tom: I have
3 daughters and 2 sons. Three, if you count my second son, Morris. He died, in
the prime of life really. On his first job as an Engineer. Way down in South
America. He drowned, they said. An accident. But he had been a top competitive swimmer
at Lower Canada College. And at McGill. So I’ll always have my doubts. My
eldest son survived the Belgian Front without a scratch and my second son died
on his first job building a dam in Brazil, for Mackenzie’s big concern down
there. With McConnell. I got him the job. Through my Rotary Club connections.
Jules: My
son, too, is a McGill Engineer.
A while back, I think I found Aunt Flo's family on the 1911 census. The father was a City Worker. So he would have known about Jules and maybe found out where he lived.
