My first thought, or impression, was quite startling: These women sounded so modern to me! I actually transcribed a few letters and e-mailed them to a girlfriend (someone my age I've known since high school) and she wrote back, "These letters sound so old-fashioned."

Hmmm.

I agree, stylistically, they have an "Elizabeth Bennet lilt" but the women's mindset doesn't feel all that different from my own (no coincidence of course, husband married me because I was a familiar sort) - and I'm a sixties 'women's libber.' Who was to guess that while I was walking around in my micro mini in 1969, there were women in their late seventies who had 'been there, done that' in their youth - in their own way of course, but every bit as daring, perhaps more so because more was at stake.

I didn't have any aged relatives; and besides the relatives I knew were French Canadian.

As I continued to read, I got the distinct impression the letters were more than mere correspondence, that they reflected something bigger about history. I had no real understanding of that era in Canada; I preferred the Belle Epoque in France, much more glamourous.

So I started doing more research, on the Net, at libraries, at Historical Societies and EVERYTHING I found, confirmed this fact; these letters reflected a pivotal era in our history.

What surprised you once you got involved with this project?

How everything fits together: big picture, personal, political. How money makes the world go round, and there's no escaping that fact.

No matter how hardworking you are, even if you do everything right by Society's standards, if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time -historically speaking, you cannot 'make it'.

Character has a part in things, but it's not nearly the whole story.

Now, had Marion been Herb, she would have ended up Prime Minister or something. Herb's character (he blamed all his problems on others) kept him from achieving anything substantial in life despite being a man, although his lack of family money also was a factor. Marion's character (she never held grudges, apparently and, boy, was she treated badly by some) allowed her to achieve great things even as a penniless widow of 4 children. (Hugh died in 27). But being born a woman clearly confined her.

I put in Mack Sennett and Coco Chanel as examples of talented people who took advantage of a paradigm (economic) shift in society: Mack Sennett was a poor uneducated Irish Canadian and laborer who happened upon a new industry called film and the rest is film history. Most people wrote film off as flash in the pan, but it wasn't.

Coco Chanel was a talented woman with no family connections, or money who took advantage of the changes in society to launch a legendary career. (It helped that she was pretty, for she caught the attention of a rich man and became his consort. I'm sure there were some 'ugly' Coco's who never got to show what they were made of.)

The courtship part of the story in the letters is particularly interesting. Marriage is about money, although we may like to think differently.

That's why these letters have a "Pride and Prejudice" feeling.

The Nicholsons, like the Bennet girls, were educated beyond their means and pretty well doomed NOT TO MARRY. Marion gets married only because her beau ignores his parents wishes (and they both suffered for this forever) and Edith, the romantic, the beautiful, never gets married and perhaps concocts a romantic reason why and Flo marries 'down' later in life - much to the disapproval of her own family. So prejudice works both ways.

Letters - A Link to Our Past -2 (Continue)