Laura Secord

Laura Secord House Queenston



Historians of the War of 1812 have recorded various accounts of Laura Secord's walk from Queenston to Beaver Dams. 

Ruth McKenzie, author of Laura Secord, the legend and the lady*, writes,  "Laura Secord had found her niche in Canadian history as the agent of victory at Beaver Dams.  It was a distinctive niche because it was held by a woman, and in the next two decades women played a large part in bringing the name of Laura Secord into prominence as a great Canadian heroine."

*McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1971.  Maracle Press.

 

Today visitors can sit in the adjacent tea room and enjoy the historic surroundings.  North-west corner of Queen and Partition streets, Queenston, Ontario.

Lundy's Lane Niagara Falls

Photos:  lbw Click on photos for larger image.

Laura Secord's Young Friend

Carla Ann Kuchard has created a charming little tale of a young Native girl's chance meeting with Laura Secord.  While picking strawberries, eleven year old Lucy is surprised to discover a stranger resting under a tree.  As Lucy approaches her, the lady invites her to sit and talk.  The two become instant friends.  Laura has been traveling by foot since daybreak and gratefully accepts the girl's offer of strawberries and a drink of water.

As the new friends part ~ as Laura has an important message that must be delivered before dusk ~ they exchange gifts.  Lucy gives Laura her "good-luck" doll, beautifully dressed, wearing bead-worked moccasins.  Laura gives her young friend a dainty handkerchief.

After Laura disappears into the forest, Lucy unfolds the handkerchief.  To her delight it is edged in embroidery.  In all four corners tiny red stitches ~ strawberries! 

[Available at The Neat Little Bookshop, all proceeds go to the Thorold and Beaverdams Historical Society.]

Note:  Be sure to read "the other Maria's" comment on Lucy's Special Day.

Wisdom

For three days there have been no bookshop posts.  Frankly it did not matter what I tried, nothing worked.  Today I noticed a blank field with tiny, pale words, "Enter title" ~ Enter a phony title ~ no attention to key words and voila!

William James said, "The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook." 


[The underlined, mandatory title is not attractive.  Personally I preferred a choice of font, colour, italics, spacing, etc. as before.  Even the option of no title was preferable!  Why the change?]

Smile for Today ~

"I do not object to people looking at their watches when I am speaking.  But I strongly object when they start shaking them to make sure they are still going."

~ Lord Birkett

Family Holidays ~

NO SMALL LEGACY ~

One need only read the writings of early settlers of Upper & Lower Canada to understand that we stand on the shoulders of many individuals.  There are numerous diaries and biographies that describe the hardships and challenges of clearing and governing a new land.

HAPPY CANADA DAY

Battle of Stoney Creek ~ Canada

"The country which the government of the United States has undertaken to conquer."
~ David Longworth, American Statesman's Kalendar, 1812. [An almanac of census figures, time tables, federal gov't. depts., and army & navy lists.]

Billy Green

www.battlefieldhouse.ca  Photos:  Battlefield House Collection lbw

Canada's Come a Long Way !

[In the thirties] "'Lewd' performances in theatres were forbidden.  In Montreal, where all performances had to be governed "by the dictates of propriety and refinement,' the Board of Censorship explicitly defined a lewd performance as the appearance on the stage of 'bare-legged females,' 'the wearing of one-piece union suits by women,' or any dance that involved 'suggestive or repulsive contractions of the human body.'

"Toronto was equally puritan.  When the distinguished British actor Maurice Colbourne appeared at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Reunion in Vienna, a Robert Sherwood play, the censors were in full cry.  Thanks to the vigilance of Mrs. Henry Cody, wife of the president of the University of Toronto, the police forced a number of script changes.  The word 'bathroom' was deleted, an eight-second kiss was reduced to five seconds, the word 'damn' was cut out, and a love scene was toned down. And when the wildly successful new picture magazine, Life, published a photographic essay on the birth of a baby that year, the issue was denied entry into Canada."

~ Pierre Berton The Great Depression, 1929 ~ 1939, McClelland & Stewart Inc., 1990.