POSTING # 39

Lives of Upper Canada Women in the 19th Century; Tailor Made in Yorkshire; Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)

Lives of Upper Canada Women in the 19th Century

Niagara-on-the-Lake is fortunate to have a very active Niagara Historical Society which operates an impressive Museum (click here for its website.

In addition to their work in the Museum, the energetic curator, Clark Bernat, and the equally energetic Society Administrator, Amy Klassen, organize an annual series of lectures on local historical topics.

The topic for the 2009 lecture series was the lives of women in Upper Canada.

There were several lectures---all of which we found stimulating---that discussed the lives of reasonably prominent women using information contained in books, diaries, letters and newspaper articles.

The last lecture,---presented by Professor Douglas McCalla from the University of Guelph---discussed a way of learning something about the life of less prominent women, women who didn't leave any written records of what they thought or did.

Thanks to new tools such as Ancestry.com, we can piece together some of the vital statistics of our ancestors---when they were born, whom they married, how many children they had, when they died. Unfortunately, many of our ancestors were too busy just surviving to produce or preserve written records of what life was like for them.

Professor McCalla has been working for some years on how to make these women a little less invisible using what may seem at first glance to be an unlikely source: the account books maintained by stores in Ontario's rural communities.

In the lecture he examined in detail the purchases of one woman in 1861 and invited us to join with him in some detective work. What did the items she purchase tell us about her life?

Some items seemed obvious: tea, soda, a washboard, a clock.

Other items, especially the fabric purchases, raised interesting questions. What exactly was she going to do with items such as: 2 yards of flannel, 9 yards of printed cotton, 10 1/2 yards of stripe shirting, 2 1/2 yards of cashmere?

It was fascinating to listen as the professor teased out all kinds of interesting speculations and conclusions from the purchases.

Professor McCalla is writing a book on his research. We can't wait to read it.


Tailor Made in Yorkshire

In Posting #37, September 13, 2009, I told some stories about the woollen mills in the area around Leeds in Yorkshire.

Leeds in the early 1960s, when Pat and I lived there, had a large clothing industry that produced ready-made and made-to-measure suits for the whole country.

A fellow Canadian at our Immigration office in Leeds, Henry (not his real name), decided to have a suit made.

Not just a normal suit, but a very special suit.

Now, Henry although a Canadian and supposedly used to the cold, found Yorkshire unbearably cold.

Part of it, I suppose, was a result of his own choices.

He chose to rent an historic stone house with high ceilings, and with drafty windows and doors, a house that was heated by inefficient fireplaces (central heating was just starting to move into Yorkshire).

He also drove a British sports car---with a canvas top---that was as cold as his house.

Henry's solution was to have a suit made of heavy overcoat material---not material in the normal 10 to 12 ounce range per fabric yard, but something up in the 20 to 30 ounce range.

His landlord knew a Leeds tailor who had a thriving wholesale business making made-to-measure suits for men's clothing stores around Britain but who would sometimes make suits for friends of friends.

Henry approached the tailor with his plan.

The tailor said he had never made a suit from such heavy material but he was up to the challenge.

In a few weeks, Henry had a handsome, if somewhat bulky, three-piece suit (jacket, pants and vest) of gray and white overcoat tweed.

He was delighted, but more than that he was warm.

Except for his head.

Another problem, another solution.

He had a peaked cap made from the same material.

Now he could toodle around the moors and dales of Yorkshire in his sports car with the top down, his face a little pink but the rest of him as warm as Canadian toast (British toast was always served cold) in what he called his 'fog-proof suit'.


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I arrived in Leeds in the fall of 1960 to work in the Canadian Immigration office.

As I was getting ready to fly home in June 1961 for my wedding to Pat, I started looking for a couple of suits.

Henry suggested I try his tailor.

After climbing the steps to the second floor of an old building, I entered a huge room full of cutting tables, sewing machines, tailor's dummies and all the other paraphernalia of a clothing factory.

The tailor, a short, wiry middle-aged man, came out of his small cubbyhole office with sample books of fabric. As the workers looked on, we talked about fabrics and weights---not as heavy as Henry's! I decided on a couple of fabric samples.

We then talked about style. I had worn a Canadian off-the-rack suit and asked if he could produce something similar. I didn't want it to appear that I had 'gone native' (that could be fatal for someone in the Foreign Service). I didn't want, for example, jackets with double vents that left a little flap that bounced off the bum as you walked.

He studied the cut of my Canadian suit, the width of the lapels and so on. He declared that he could match the Canadian style but I could tell he wasn't enthusiastic. Why would anyone want to walk around in a suit that looked like that when one could have a British-style suit?

He said he would insist, however, on using a better quality lining and real horse hair canvas backing for the jacket. I got the impression he didn't think much of Canadian tailoring. Come to think of it, I have never run into a tailor who had anything good to say about another tailor's work.

The tailor got out his tape and measured me.

I told him that I had put on a few pounds due to the heavy but delicious Yorkshire food but that I intended to take them off. He could, therefore, make the suits a little tight.

The tailor paused in his note taking. "Sir, I have been a tailor for twenty-five years, and no one EVER loses weight."

I protested but he wouldn't budge.

Then I raised an issue that was more important to me. I wanted a fly with a zipper, not buttons.

Once again the tailor stopped his note taking.

"No sir, you don't. If a button pops off, you are still all right. If a zipper breaks, what can you do?"

I noticed that the nearby workers had stopped to watch. Protesting, I showed him the zipper on my Canadian trousers. It had never broken.

He shook his head and I could tell from the stern look on his face that this was a deal-breaker. Some standards had to be maintained. The British Empire depended on keeping buttons on flies.

A quick glance at the surrounding workers told me that they agreed with him---totally.

I gave in---buttons it would be.

How soon could I have the suits? There would be three fittings, and the suits would be finished in three weeks.

How much would that be, I asked.

He motioned for me to follow him into his tiny office. He closed the door and pointing to the fabric samples told me what each would cost.

I knew that I was being taken advantage of---that's why he didn't want to quote prices in front of his workers---but I also knew that I was getting a great bargain by Canadian standards.

The suits were ready on time, fitted perfectly and the styling while not exactly Canadian was acceptable---sort of mid-Atlantic.

I eventually lost some of the Yorkshire fat but not until the suits were worn out. It was good that he hadn't made them tight. I guess we can say he was partly right about people not losing weight.

But I never got used to the buttons on the fly.

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It is sad but the Leeds clothing industry started to decline about the time Henry and I were buying our suits. I understand that it is now just about extinct.

After the early 1960s, clothing became more informal (the Beatles and all that) and people bought fewer suits.

And suits that where being bought were increasingly made in countries with lower wages.

I count myself lucky that I had the experience of buying some suits from that Leeds tailor.


Short Stuff (Mini-Stories about Kids and Pets)

Pat's mother, Georgina, was about 10 or 11 when her mother---Pat's grandmother--- decided that she should find a time to tell her daughter the facts of life.

She thought that a good time would be while she and her daughter were returning home in the family's horse-drawn buggy from a shopping trip in Barrie.

As the horse trotted along the Ridge Road toward Oro, her mother explained to Georgina about the birds and bees, and about what was going to happen to her body.

Georgina just listened, didn't say anything.

Finally her mother asked, " So, what do you think of that?"

Georgina crossed her arms, and looking straight ahead replied, "I don't believe a word of it."

We aren't sure what Pat's grandmother thought of Georgina's response but it is likely that she secretly admired the spunkiness of the little girl. And she probably felt relaxed that she had done her duty, and that time and nature could now take over.

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See you next Sunday for Posting #40 with more stories from our family’s universe! If you have comments or suggestions, please leave a comment at the bottom of this posting, or email me at johnpathunter@cs.com.