“Forget-Me-Not” before the Poppy

Archival Moment

July 1: In Newfoundland and Labrador is Memorial Day.

Forget me Not. The Flower of Newfoundland soldiers.

Forget me Not. The Flower of Newfoundland soldiers.

Legend has it that when God was naming flowers that a plant called out to God saying ”Forget-me-not, O Lord!” God replied, “That shall be your name.”

In Newfoundland and Labrador, the “Forget-Me-Not” was used to commemorate “our nation’s dead” those who had died in WWI or WWII. The small flowers were pinned in the same way that the poppy is used on Remembrance Day.  In Newfoundland and Labrador the tradition of wearing a ‘Forget Me Not’  is still in limited use today. Following  Confederation with Canada the tradition of wearing the ‘Forget Me Not”  was displaced by the poppy.

The “Forget-Me-Not”  are used internationally to remind people to reflect over something worthwhile that has been given.

Recommended Song: “Little Blue Forget Me Not”  written and performed by Bud Davidge; music by Sim Savory  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrfWQl_n28w

Recommended Action: On July 1 wear a ‘Forget Me Not’.

Follow related stories and traditions about Newfoundland and Labrador on Archival Moments at www.archivalmoments.ca sign up at the site or follow Archival Moments on Facebook or on Twitter @LarryDohey

The Oldest Man in the World is a Newfoundlander

ARCHIVAL MOMENT

June 18, 2013

James Foster McCoubrey "The oldest man in the world."
James Foster McCoubrey
“The oldest man in the world.”

James Foster McCoubrey originally from St. John’s, Newfoundland is 111 years old and became the oldest man in the world upon the death of a 116-year-old man in Japan last week.

McCoubrey was born in St. John’s on September 13, 1901.  He was baptized at St. Mary the Virgin Church, St. John’s on September 29, 1901.

The baptismal register identifies his father as George Andrew McCoubrey  and his mother as Jennie Isobel (Chafe). The family lived on Water Street.

On May 23, 1904, McCoubrey lost his father, the second engineer on the Virginia Lake, a coastal mail streamer running from St. John’s to St. Anthony. His father obituary reads that  “he was ill for about three months of pneumonia caused by a heavy cold.”

George A. McCoubrey left to mourn his wife Jennie and two children James and Charles.   He is buried in the Old Anglican cemetery on the shores of Quidi Vidi Lake in a family plot.

James moved with his mother and brother Charles to Halifax, Nova Scotia shortly following the death of his father.

The family later relocated to Cambridge, Massachusetts. The state  of Massachusetts is known to most Newfoundlanders as the ‘Boston States’ and one of the favored destinations for Newfoundlanders in the early 1900’s seeking work.  It is likely that that James and his family would be joining family already established in the Boston area. The  1915 Commonwealth of Boston census  reports that 13,269 residents of the Boston area claimed Newfoundland as their place of birth.

McCoubrey married in 1929 and worked as a motorcycle insurance salesman. Then he got into the stove burner business until he retired at the age of 62.

Mr. McCoubrey has one daughter, Mrs. Patricia Salveson. He currently lives in Walnut Creek, California in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Mr. McCoubrey is a member of an exclusive club known as the “Supercentenarians” His membership in the club was verified by the Gerontology Research Group. Founded in 1990,  the GRG  are physicians, scientists, and engineers dedicated to the quest to slow and ultimately reverse human aging within the next 20 years. The group is the world authority on validating Supercentenarians, persons 110 years old or older.

Mr. McCoubrey will have to keep an eye to the Guinness World Book curse. The Japanese gentleman (Kimura) who has moved on at age 116 is just the latest to die after being picked by Guinness as the world’s oldest person.

Significant Events in 1901, the year that James Foster McCoubrey was born in Newfoundland.

January 1, 1901:   The world celebrates the beginning of the 20th century.

January 1 The birth of Pentecostalism at a prayer meeting at Bethel Bible College in Topeka, Kansas.

January 22 Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom dies at age 81.

Jan 10th – Oil discovered in Texas

January 28 – Baseball’s American League declares itself a Major League

February 6 – First public telephones at railway stations in Paris.

Safety Razor , King C. Gillette and William Emerson Nickerson found the American Safety Razor Company to begin mass producing Safety Razors.

April 25 – New York State becomes the first to require automobile license plates.

May 23rd – Ottawa Mint Act receives Royal Assent

Jun 2nd – Benjamin Adams arrested for playing golf on Sunday (NY)

Jun 24th – 1st exhibition by Pablo Picasso, 19, opens in Paris

August 30 – Hubert Cecil Booth patents an electric vacuum cleaner in the United Kingdom.

October 2 – The British Royal Navy’s first submarine.

Oct 12th – Theodore Roosevelt renames “Executive Mansion,” “The White House”

November 25 – Auguste Deter is first examined by German psychiatrist Dr Alois Alzheimer, leading to a diagnosis of the condition that will carry Alzheimer’s name.[3]

December 10 – The first Nobel Prize ceremony is held in Stockholm on the fifth anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.

December 12 – Guglielmo Marconi receives the first trans-Atlantic radio signal, sent from  England to Newfoundland.

Recommended Archival Collection: The Rooms Provincial Archives:  Marriage, Baptismal Registers. St. Mary the Virgin Parish, St. John’s.

Recommended Website:  GRG: Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers dedicated to the quest to slow and ultimately reverse human aging. http://www.grg.org/

The Portuguese White Fleet in St. John’s

Archival Moment

April 10 at 7:00 p.m.  (Presentation at The Rooms)

The Portuguese White Fleet in St. John’s

Photo Credit: A 34-28, Portuguese White Fleet, St. John's, NL

Photo Credit: A 34-28, Portuguese White Fleet, St. John’s, NL

Join local business man, Jean Pierre Andrieux at The Rooms as he shares a collection of images surrounding the Portuguese White Fleet in Newfoundland. From the evolution of the White Fleet to the end of an era, these images capture memories of three and four-masted ships moored two and three abreast in St. John’s Harbour, playing soccer on the waterfront, parades, decks piled high with wooden dories and so much more.

St. John’s became the primary port of call for the White Fleet, which fished for approximately six months of the year. When the ships made scheduled and unscheduled calls to replenish supplies, make repairs, provide shore leave, land sick or injured men or seek shelter from bad weather, the sailors and fishermen became a prominent part of St. John’s life.

The presentation is presented by Engaging Evenings at The RoomsTheatre, Wednesday, April 10 at 7pm.

Recommended Reading: Port O’ Call, Memories of the Portuguese White Fleet in St. John’s, Newfoundland, by Priscilla Doel (Institute of Social and Economic Research, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, 1992).

Recommended Website:  The White Fleet – Portuguese Fishermen on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zpMPmhPdWI

Skittle Alley for Sale

Archival Moment

March 20, 1888

Farmers playing at skittles

Farmers playing at skittles

There was a time in the history of Newfoundland when one of the favorite recreational activities enjoyed by both men and women was the game of ‘skittles’.

St. John’s and other towns throughout the colony (later the province) could boast of “Skittle Alleys” where teams would gather to play their game.

On March 20, 1888 residents of St John’s discovered that the “Skittle Alley”, situated on Springdale Street was going on the auction block.  The owner of the property, James McKay, had died the year previous and the executors of his estate wanted to sell:

  “All the right, title and interest in and to all that Piece and Parcel of land with the building thereon, situate on Springdale Street, and formerly used as a skittle alley, having a frontage of 94 feet on Springdale Street and a like frontage on Thomas Street, and from front to rear 26 feet.”

The auction may have been necessitated by competition  from the opening of the new  indoor bowling alley just two years earlier in 1885, on the east end of Duckworth Street.

Skittles was played for centuries in public houses or clubs, mostly in western England and the Midlands, southern Wales, and southeastern Scotland. The rules and methods of scoring varied from place to place, but the basic principle of bowling a wooden or rubber ball (weighing about 10 pounds [4.5 kilograms]) at nine large oval-headed pins, set in diamond formation 21 feet (about 6.5 metres) away, remained the same. The player who knocked down all the pins in the fewest throws was the winner.

Does St. John’s need a new ‘Skittle Alley”?

Recommended Reading: The History of Skittles. http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Skittles.htm

“Their wails of distress … would melt the heart…”

Archival Moment

February 27, 1896

Octagon Castle, Octagon Pond, Topsail Road, Paradise

Octagon Castle, Octagon Pond, Topsail Road, Paradise

For many of our ancestors the family cow  was essential.  Having a cow often  was the difference between success and destitution.

On February 26, 1896, Michael Farrell, his wife and eight children were devastated by the news that “an engine (train) with a snow plow ran over and killed two valuable cows.”   The animals “were almost the sole support of the poor family.”

The death of the cows was most traumatic on the children and Mrs. Farrell.   Professor Charles Danielle,  a neighbor who lived in the Octagon Castle, Irvine Station  who was a witness to the horrendous accident wrote:

“Two of them (little girls) were trying to drive the cows from the track when the killing occurred  and their screams and that of the distressed mother when she arrived at the scene threw herself upon the body of the cow that was not killed outright … “

So traumatized was the family that:

“their wails of distress have continued … far into the night, and would melt the heart, to pity and charity of anyone that has a heart to feel in a case of such keen edged distress.”

The purpose of the letter by Professor Danielle, known about St. John’s as a well-established dancing teacher, costume maker, restaurateur, and resort owner was to help out the destitute family, financially. He wrote:

“I appeal to your influential journal (The Evening Telegram)  to the kind hearted people of St. John’s to help replace these bread winners (the two cows) by sending merciful aid to me through the Editor of this paper, and I will see that the amount is employed in replacing the cows as far as possible, with an acknowledgement of each amount.  I donate two dollars. Come friends and citizens; help me in this distressing case.”

There is no response to the letter but it can be assumed that the “very eccentric owner of Octagon Castle” must have gotten some positive response.

Octagon Castle at the time was a popular resort for “the pleasure-loving public of St John’s.”  No doubt Professor Danielle would have encouraged the many societies and clubs that held their picnics on his grounds and the hundreds of excursionists who  flocked to Octagon Castle to enjoy the boating and other amenities to support his neighours the  Farrell’s.  The Octagon Castle disappeared in a fire in 1915.

The Farrell Family continues to live on  in the area.

Recommended Reading:  Dictionary of Canadian Biography:  http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=6657&terms=created

Recommended Song: A Ballad by Johnny Burke: http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/29/lines.htm

Tar and turpentine remedy for diphtheria.

ARCHIVAL MOMENT

January 25, 1890

Fearing Quarantine many people denied they had diphtheria.

Fearing Quarantine many people denied they had diphtheria.

A diphtheria epidemic raged throughout Newfoundland from 1888 -1891, medical officials identified at least 3,183 cases and it had resulted in at least 624 deaths.

Parents were desperate for a cure and sought any remedy that they could find.  As a result adults and children were subjected to all kinds of treatments.

On January 25, 1890, the Newfoundland newspaper the ‘Twillingate Sun’ printed, “A Cure for Diphtheria.”  The article read:

“At the first indication of diphtheria in the throat of a child, make the room close; then take a tin cup and pour into it a quantity of tar and turpentine, equal parts. Then hold the cup over a fire so as to fill the room with fumes, the person affected will cough up and spit out all the membranous matter and the diphtheria will pass off. The fumes of the tar and turpentine loosens the matter in the throat and thus affords the relief that has baffled the skill of physicians. “

The St. John’s medical doctor, Dr. Thomas Howley in a report to government official explained how the disease was being spread. His report did not paint a pretty picture of St. John’s.  Howley wrote that the spread of the diphtheria epidemic in St John’s was caused by the:

 “wretchedly constructed and located dwellings”; houses were “built in defiance of all sanitary laws; damp sodden foundations; rotting timber sills; mouldy cellars; earth piled up against the bared walls preventing all chances of dryness; no house drains at all in the great majority of instances, necessitating the throwing out of the house slops out of doors, to still further saturate and poison the surrounding soil. . . .”

The St. John’s Board of Health, appointed in October, 1887 to eradicate the disease faced a number of obstacles.  Many of the poor families concealed the fact that they had the disease. The reason for such concealment was that families feared they would be quarantined to their homes, restricting their ability to earn a livelihood.

So intent were families to hide the fact that diphtheria was in their home, that a woman whose children had diphtheria hid the knowledge of the disease from her sister, the latter’s children being frequent visitors to the infected household.

In 1889 legislation was passed to enable the Board of Health to have a doctor visit any person sick or suspected of having a communicable disease   By April, 1892, diphtheria had all but disappeared from St. John’s, the number of deaths for the first three months of that year were 23.

In 1923, Gaston Ramon developed a toxoid vaccine, and clinical trials the following year showed that this vaccine induced a high level of protection among recipients. With the widespread use of this toxoid vaccine, the incidence of diphtheria dropped dramatically. Diphtheria is very rare in North America today and is considered to be eliminated.

Recommended Archival Collection:  At the Rooms Provincial Archives take some time to explore GN 2:17  known as the Quarantine letter books / James Crowdy these are not particular to the Diphtheria Epidemic  but the decisions made during  the outbreak of Asiatic cholera in 1832-1833  would have been the foundation for the preventive measures being discussed by government, including the proclamation and enforcement of quarantine regulations on incoming vessels, crew and passengers; the distribution of medication and literature  and the like.

Recommended Reading: Home Medicine: The Newfoundland Experience, by John K. Crellin, McGill – Queens University Press, 1994.

Laws to protect horses in Newfoundland needed

ARCHIVAL MOMENT

January 5, 1888

Lash the Captain to the Foremast

The horse was tied to the deck exposed to the winter elements.

The horse was tied to the deck exposed to the winter elements.

In a letter to the Editor of the local newspaper the ‘Twillingate Sun’  in January 1888 a resident of Little Bay wrote that he was infuriated with the practice of shipping animals on the deck of steamers in the winter season.

The person who penned the letter under the pseudonym “Humanity” was on the wharf in Little Bay, Twillingate waiting for the arrival of the local steamer the “Conscript.” The “Conscript” was used on the Newfoundland coastal mail service running from St. John’s to St. Anthony.  The run from St. John’s to Little Bay took a minimum of 72 hours.

The letter to The Editor read:

“Dear Sir – Allow me to call attention of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, (if not yet organized) to the shameful sight which met the gaze of those who visited the steamer “Conscript” on her arrival this afternoon. A fine black horse, which had been shipped from St John’s, in a box on deck, exposed to the frost and dashing spray, had at length been overcome and lay perishing on the deck and probably ere this, is dead.”

The writer was so angered that the horse was left to stand tied on the deck of the steamer exposed to the freezing elements that he had a suggestion for the Captain of the Conscript. He wrote:

“We would suggest that next trip, the shipper of the poor animal should be lashed to the foremast, and let take his chances at this inclement season, on a trip from St. John’s to Little Bay.

He continued:

“However, we protest against such inhumanity as shipping animals on deck in winter season, as was the case the last two trips of Conscript.”

This incident and others like it stirred supporters like Daniel W. Prowse, a lawyer, politician, judge, historian, (Prowse is the author of A History of Newfoundland which is considered one of the most complete and meticulous colonial history books in existence) and others became active supporters for the establishment of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) which was established in Newfoundland in November 1888.

The first work of this newly formed Society was mostly amongst horses, issues like their transportation in the winter months and the hardship they endured from pulling heavy loads.

Recommended Archival Collection:  AtThe Rooms Provincial Archives: MG 593 is the SPCA Collection 1912 -1927. It consists of correspondence; complaint books, and investigation reports into complaints of cruelty.

Recommended Song: Tickle Cove Pond. Allan Doyle (Great Big Sea).  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SNScBpa4lc

Recommended Web Site:  Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals – http://spcastjohns.org/home/

Internationally known architects have work in Newfoundland

ARCHIVAL MOMENT

December 14, 1924 

The New Palace – One of Several Buildings in Newfoundland by Internationally Celebrated Architects.  

The Palace, St. John’s, NL under construction in 1923.

The local St. John’s newspaper The Telegram on December 14, 1924 reported that::

The exterior work (of the New Palace) was constructed of bluestone taken from the quarries of Signal Hill. Freestone used in the construction was imported in the rough from the Wallace quarries in Nova Scotia. The architects of the new Palace were Delano and Aldrich of New York.”

The article was referring to the new home for the Catholic Archbishop of St. John’s, Edward Patrick Roche and the priests on the staff of the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. John the Baptist (now Basilica). They moved into their new home on December 14, 1924.  The new home referred to locally as “The New Palace”  replaced the “Old Palace’ that burned to the ground in 1921. Palace was the name given to the official residence of a Catholic bishop.

The Palace located at 200 Military Road, on  the corner of Military Road and Bonaventure Avenue, (across the street from The Rooms)  is now the home of the Offices of the Archdiocese of St. John’s and is officially known as the Archdiocesan Pastoral Centre.

Although it was the official residence, Archbishop Roche never did live in the Palace.  He opted to make his home at Beaconsfield located on Topsail Road.  He commuted by car to the Palace every day.

The firm of Delano & Aldrich were no strangers to Newfoundland and occupied a central place in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, substantially shaping the architectural climate of the period. The grand country estates, striking townhouses and club buildings, churches, schools, and public buildings designed by William Adams Delano (1874–1960) and Chester Holmes Aldrich (1871–1940) are exceptional examples of architectural creativity and originality.

The New York Firm designed the American Embassy in Paris, France in 1929; construction began in 1931 and was completed in 1932. The Chancery of the Embassy is remarkably similar to the  St. John’s, Palace.  It has been suggested that the American Embassy in Parish is a larger scale version of the Palace in St. John’s.

Archbishop Roche became quite good friends with Delano joining him for lunch at the prestigious Knickerbocker Club in New York whenever he visited.  The Club was designed by Delano and Aldrich and was considered one of the bastions of old-world society.

View of front facade and right side, King George V Building, 93 Water Street, St. John’s.

William Adams Delano was quite familiar with Newfoundland. He was a board member for the International Grenfell Association (IGA) and was responsible for donating a number of designs for several hospitals and orphanages to that organization.  In St. John’s two of his most recognized designs are St. Clare’s Mercy Hospital (1938-1939) LeMarchant Road and  King George V Building,Water Street, erected in 1911.

Recommended Archival Collection: Archives of the R.C. Archdiocese, St. John’s . The Delano and Aldrich archive is held by the Drawings and Archives Department in the Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library at ColumbiaUniversity.

Recommended Reading:  The Architecture of Delano & Aldrich (Norton) by Peter Pennoyer and Anne Walker, 2003. (Eighteen projects are examined in detail, and a catalogue of the firm’s complete oeuvre.)

The First Transatlantic Radio Message

ARCHIVAL MOMENT

December 12, 1901

Photo Credit: The Rooms Provincial Archives: A 66-145; Guglielmo Marconi, with instruments used to receive first transatlantic message,St. John’s. Photographer James Vey, St. John’s.

On December 12, 1901, at the Signal Hill, St. John’s, Italian scientist and engineer Guglielmo Marconi sent and received the first transatlantic radio message.

The test signal was sent by electrical engineer John Ambrose Fleming in Poldhu,Cornwall, 3,200 km away across theAtlantic Ocean. It came in through a 121 metre long copper wire antenna trailing from a box kite and out through a radio speaker.

Marconi had set up temporary masts, but high winds had blown them down. The kite contraption worked. Marconi heard the first signal as the faint clicking of Morse code – of the letter ‘S’ –three short clicks– repeated over and over, and he passed the ear piece to his assistant, G. S. Kemp for corroboration.

Marconi first started experimenting with radiotelegraphy around 1895 and he realized that messages could be transmitted over much greater distances by using grounded antennae on the radio transmitter and receiver.

A few years after his successful transmission with Fleming, Marconi opened the first commercial wireless telegraph service.

Recommended Archival Collection:  At the Rooms Provincial Archives Division see  F.37-’37  one of the archival documents is the Proposal of the Canadian Marconi Company to establish a wireless telephone service between St. John’s and Canada, the United States and Great Britain

Recommended Reading:  Marconi, by Giancarlo Masini, Marsilio Publishers: 1999.

Recommended Website:  http://www.marconicalling.co.uk/  Marconi Calling is a fascinating exploration of Guglielmo Marconi’s life, his scientific discoveries, the impact of wireless and the development of modern communications