Month: February 2018

Horrors! Sweater-wearing Freshmen

Liz Gauffreau 10 Comments

This odd little op-ed piece in the February 19, 1915 Dalhousie Gazette1caught my eye as I was looking through the Dalhousie University archives for insight into what campus life would have been like for my grandmother Velma during her time there. Based on the time and place, I would expect there to have been a dress code in force. The 1916-1917 University Calendar has a Discipline section prohibiting students from “conducting themselves in an unbecoming manner on or beyond the premises of the College”2 However, there is no dress code delineated. Young gentlemen and young ladies must have been expected to know how to dress appropriately for the classroom without being told.

As I was smugly thinking that my professors at Old Dominion University were much more progressive and tolerant than the unnamed professorial chair, I remembered a certain professor of British literature who launched into a complaint at the start of class one day about young women wearing eye makeup that gave their faces a reptilian appearance. That remark was probably uncalled for and displaying questionable taste–particularly in view of the fact that one such young woman was sitting in the first row right in front of him.

Academic Costume

While I didn’t find a dress code in the University Calendar, I did discover that students at that time could wear academic gowns to classes, in the British tradition:3

More snapshots from Velma’s Dalhousie days explained!

Lois Smith, Velma Moore, Ottillie Caddell

Velma Moore, Lois Smith, Ottillie Caddell

1“Has This Professor Too Much To Say?” The Dalhousie Gazette XLVII, no. 9 (February 19, 1915): 10.

2Dalhousie University, Calendar of Dalhousie University: 1916-1917 (Halifax, Nova Scotia: Wm. McNab & Son, 1916), 21.

3Dalhousie University, Calendar of Dalhousie, 22.

Sentimental Sunday: A Grandmother’s Love

Liz Gauffreau 8 Comments

My mother saved this little notecard from my grandmother Velma in my baby book, which I used to look through on a regular basis when I was a kid. I liked studying pictures of myself from a time I couldn’t remember. (I found my infant and toddler selves quite fascinating, in fact.)

When I began looking through family pictures and memorabilia last year with the thought of starting a family history blog, I hadn’t looked at the note in decades. Reading these lines sixty years after Velma wrote them and forty years after she died, I was struck by just how much she must have loved me.

Velma was not a demonstrative woman, and I was not a demonstrative child–but the connection between the two of us was there, and it’s even stronger now that I have reached the age she was then. How I miss her.

Dear Liz – ‘beth’ –

Thought you might like your “tickle” feather, which was on the bathroom floor — We enjoyed your visit and look forward to when you can come again — perhaps with mummy, daddy + baby George —

Much Love + “Hugga”

from Grandmummy

 

Today’s post was inspired by Elizabeth Swaney O’Neal’s Genealogy Blog Party for February: Stories of Love. I’ve been participating in Elizabeth’s Genealogy Blog Party for the past several months now. It’s a great way to sample what other family history bloggers are doing, offer encouragement, and get ideas. I encourage you to check it out!

Update on the Clarence Moore House

Liz Gauffreau Leave a comment

In a recent post about my grandmother Velma Brown [Moore]’s living arrangements while pursuing her bachelor’s degree at Dalhousie University from 1915-1918, I noted that my husband and I had tried with no success to find the former Clarence Moore house on LeMarchant Street in Halifax where she stayed while a student.

Once we got back to the States from our trip, I thought that if I could get the house number, I would be able to find out whether the house is still standing and what it looks like today. I began by trying to to find a digitized copy of the McAlpine’s City Directory for that time period online. I was unsuccessful with Internet Archive, Google Books, and HathiTrust; however, the Nova Scotia Archives website indicated that their microfilm holdings include the city directories I was after.

An Archivist Steps in to Help

I sent an e-mail inquiry to the Nova Scotia Archives asking if there might be another online source where I could find Halifax street addresses for that time period. In only two days, I was very happy to receive the following response from the senior archivist:

The home of Clarence Leander Moore (1869-1953) was torn down several years ago. It is possible that the Dalhousie Gazette or the Dalhousie University Archives may have images of the house. If you Google 1234 LeMarchant Street you can see the new residence on the property and an image of the houses that were there previously.1

In addition to the street address for Clarence’s house, I now have his middle name, the year he was born, and the year he died. As I believe he is a relative, this information should prove useful when he rises to the top of my research list. In the course of Googling “1234 LeMarchant Street,” I also learned that it had formerly been numbered “14 LeMarchant Street.”2 Another nugget of information I expect could prove useful in the future!

1234 LeMarchant Street Today

Today 1234 LeMarchant Street is part of the Dalhousie University campus. LeMarchant Place includes residential housing for students, as well as student services.3

A Husband Is Intrigued

I was satisfied with learning that the house had been torn down. However, my husband was intrigued and wanted to find out more about the house’s history. He kept digging until he found additional information in a Dalhousie University case study of construction and demolition waste, of all places. The photograph of the house at the top of this post was included in that report.4

When I read through the report, I learned that Dalhousie University had tried to save the former Clarence Moore house by conducting a feasibility study to move it three blocks away to another campus location.5 Unfortunately, at over $300,000, the cost of saving the house was three times the cost of demolition, and the house was ultimately demolished.6

1Garry D. Shutlak, “91 then 8 , 12, 14 and finally 1234 LeMarchant Street,” e-mail message to author, January 2, 2018.

2Council of Nova Scotia Archives, “Creighton Family,” Memory NS, accessed January 7, 2018, https://memoryns.ca/creighton-family.

3“Dalhousie University Building Directory: LeMarchant Place,” Dalhousie University, accessed January 14, 2018, https://www.dal.ca/campus-maps/building-directory/studley-campus/lemarchant-place.html.

4Colin Jeffrey and Rochelle Owen, Increasing Construction and Demolition Waste Diversion in Halifax Regional Municipality: A Dalhousie University Case Study (Halifax, Nova Scotia: Dalhousie University, 2012), 21.

5Jeffrey and Owen, Increasing Construction, 18.

6Jeffrey and Owen, Increasing Construction, 19.