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.

PTE. WILL DUFF KILLED*

Seeking Information ~

One of the exciting pastimes in a bookshop is meeting people from all walks of life ~  "Fascinating People."   This week Brendan Oliver came in looking for any information regarding a WW1 soldier, William Selkirk Duff.
Brendan researched the name and learned that Mr Duff went overseas with the 114th Battalion "Brocks Rangers."  He died of wounds at the Battle of Passchendaele and is buried in Nine Elms British Cemetery in Belgium.
The son of David and Angelina Duff of Cayuga, William had two siblings: sister Jessie and brother Oliver.  David Duff was a well known teacher and Principal in Cayuga.  The rest of the Duff family is buried in the Cayuga Cemetery.

If you have any information about William Selkirk Duff or if you are a relative, Brendan would certainly be happy to "hear" from you.  Please contact Brendan at griff8_@hotmail.com

*The yellowed newspaper clipping that sent Brendan Oliver on his search to find out more about a young soldier from Cayuga killed in the war.

Cayuga Cemetery