​February 14 is the day when thousands of people around the world will receive sentimental or humorous greetings cards from sweethearts, friends, or family members. I thought it might be fun to take a step back in time and examine the history of this unique giving-of-cards tradition.

​But first the story of St. Valentine himself -
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It is believed there was a man named Valentine, a Roman martyr, who refused to give up his belief in Christianity. He was, therefore, imprisoned and put to death on February 14 269 AD.  He left behind a farewell note to his jailer’s daughter who had befriended him and brought him food while in jail and signed his note “From Your Valentine.” This might well have been the very first Valentine Day card.
 
The giving of a Valentine also comes from the Middle Ages when lovers sang or recited their valentine verses to a beloved, and the oldest Valentine message still in existence was made in the 1400's. Today it is on display at the British Museum.
 




Early Valentines in Europe were made of colored paper and were very popular in England where wooing one’s beloved with a valentine message was especially favored.  Cards then were mostly hand-made and came in various types and designs.
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There were, for instance, Acrostic Valentines where the first lines spelled out the loved one’s name. There were also Cutout Valentines which were made by folding the paper many times and then cutting out a lace-like design with small, pointed scissors.
 
An unusual design originating in the Orient was called the Theorem or Poonah Valentine. These were painted through a stencil cut out in oil paper.  And a Rebus Valentine had verses inside where small pictures took the place of some of the words.  Pinprick Valentines were made, as the name implies, by pricking small holes in paper with a pin or needle, creating the impression of lace.
 
Fraktur Valentines were popular in the Middle Ages because they were composed of ornamental lettering which was in the same style as the illuminated manuscripts of those times.  And one's beloved always enjoyed receiving a Puzzle Purse Valentine, a folded puzzle which could be read and then refolded.  Each fold contained a verse and the verses had to be read in a certain order.

 
By the early 1800s, Valentines were being made in factories, and much of the charm of the hand-made Valentine had disappeared.  The earliest manufactured Valentines were made on black paper with white pictures painted on them by the factory workers.  The more fancy Valentine cards were made with real lace and ribbons with paper lace being introduced about the mid-1800s.  By the end of the 19th century, Valentines were being produced entirely by machinery.
 
Soon after the beginning of the 20th century a card company named Norcross began to manufacture the Valentine card.  Then Hallmark got in on the act. The rest, as they say, is history. 
 
Crown Center in Kansas City is today the international headquarters of Hallmark Cards Inc, the vision of Joyce C. and Donald J. Hall.  The building of Crown Center reversed years of decay in that area which was just blocks away from Kansas City’s commercial district.  The Halls managed to halt the decay and revitalize the inner city. 
 
Since 1968, about half of the original 85 acres have been developed and today the Crown Center complex houses hotels, meeting rooms, restaurants, theaters, and of course the headquarters of Hallmark Cards Inc.  The creation of an international institution based on caring gives rise to the Hallmark philosophy of “when you care enough.....”
 
Each year, Hallmark displays collections of rare and antique Valentine cards at their card shops across North America, and many museums and libraries also offer antique valentine exhibitions around St. Valentine’s Day.
                                                       
Love makes the world go round, and as long as that is true, the Valentine Card will forever flourish.
 
Do you still send Valentine cards?  Let me know in a comment below.

                                                                                                                             

Near where I live on Vancouver Island in Canada, there is a First Nations legend which has been told many times.  But its message of goodwill is still applicable in today's world. It goes like this.

One Christmas Eve soon after the establishment of Fort Victoria in the 1840s, a large bird appeared in the western sky. It swooped down over a native Indian village on the outskirts of the old Fort, roughly where the Parliament Buildings stand today in the inner harbor.  The great black bird headed straight for a small baby sleeping in its papoose basket, picked up the infant in its beak and soared off into the sky.

The baby's mother was grief-stricken and frantically called for help among her tribe members as she ran to and fro in a distraught state. She soon managed to rally assistance, not only from her own tribe but from others who saw her despair. Fur traders, Hudson's Bay Company men and nearby settlers all rallied to help her. A large party of people then set off in the direction the bird had taken, continuing the search far into the night, carrying flaming torches to light their way. Men of all colors and creeds banded together to walk through the dense forest surrounding the Fort in order to help the woman find her child.

Early on Christmas morning, the missing child was discovered. He had been placed on the summit of a small hill a few miles from the Fort and had been covered in leaves to keep him warm. He smiled up at his mother as though trying to reassure her that he was quite unharmed, despite his adventure.

It was said that from that night on the small hill became known as Christmas Hill and this is confirmed by mention of it on some of the very earliest surveyors' maps of the area. Unfortunately the legend was forgotten over time and even the name of the hill was changed to "Lake Hill."

In 1937, however, a family built a house on the summit of the hill and decided to resurrect the legend by calling their home "Christmas Hill."

The hill is fifty feet lower than nearby Mount Tolmie and less than half the height of Mount Douglas to the north. From the summit you can look down on Swan Lake to the south and on Lost Lake in the opposite direction.  Despite being so close to the city, this rocky little hill soon became an area of rural beauty and a nature lover's haven for botanists and bird lovers.

If legends are to be believed though, it was another bird, raven-like in appearance, that had once stolen a child away from its mother and then carried it with gentle care to place it where it would easily be found. But what was the purpose of this act?

Perhaps it had simply been to teach mankind the importance of working together in times of need towards an ultimate goal, regardless of color, creed or race.

It was an important message delivered those many years ago in the mythical form of a legend, but a message that is still important today. In times of trouble, sometimes against all odds, the incredible power of the human spirit for caring, always manages to come to the fore - if we all stand together.

At this time of miracles, I wish all my book readers and blog followers a very happy Christmas and may the New Year be kind to each and every one of you. 

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What is it about gold that has fascinated man throughout time?

Mark Twain once said, “Genius, like gold and precious stones, is chiefly prized because of its rarity.” He might well have been right.

But the lure of gold is as contagious as any other fever, even though only a few have ever struck it rich. Most have only experienced hardship and heartbreak.
 
Around the world, the largest gold strikes have been in Australia, Canada, China, New Zealand, South Africa, South America, Russia, and the United States. The one in Australia in New South Wales began in 1851 and continued for the next 50 years. 
 
Hard to believe but gold rushes were happening as far back as the days of the Roman Empire and Ancient Egypt. By the 18th and 19th century, they helped spur immigration, leading to permanent settlement of new regions.

​On the North American continent, gold fever ran rampant after James W. Marshall, a carpenter and sawmill operator, found gold on Sutter’s Creek on January 24, 1848. This discovery set off the California Gold Rush. But invariably any gold rush has a relatively short life span, and when it begins to draw to a close, prospectors seek more adventure and gold prospects elsewhere.
 
Once the California Gold Rush petered out and an economic depression set in, many people began to head north, having heard of gold strikes in what was then New Caledonia (now British Canada) in Canada. In 1858, steamers full of miners eager to “strike it rich” headed north to Victoria, a small English village of less than 500 people.  Overnight, the “village” transformed into a tent city of over 30,000 people, among them 4,000 Chinese.

The miners headed to the Fraser River where the first major gold find was at Hill’s Bar, south of Fort Yale. Some made small fortunes while others merely suffered from mosquito bites!  The Fraser Valley was notorious for them.
 
The next major gold rush in British Columbia was in the Cariboo in 1861, which lasted until 1867. Between 1859 and 1869 there were also many minor gold rushes in places such as Similkameen, Peace River, Shuswap and Omineca, but the next major gold rush happened between 1896 and 1899 in the Klondike, labelled one of the last “great gold rushes” in Canada.
 
Here are some fun facts about gold mining and the eternal lure of the yellow metal:
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1. The first gold nugget on the North American continent was actually discovered in North Carolina in 1799 by a 12 year-old boy playing on his family’s farm. It weighed 17 pounds (7.7kg).
2. The largest gold mines in the world existed in China, Australia, the United States, and Russia.
3. South Africa has produced the most gold in the world.
4. A site that today is only a clearing in the forest near the Sooke River on Vancouver Island was briefly a thriving town called Leechtown, named for Lieutenant Peter Leech, who discovered gold there in July 1864. His discovery set off a frenzy of miners seeking their fortunes. Over 227 mining licences were issued and as much as $100,000 in gold was reputed to have been taken out by one miner alone. But just one year later, Leechtown had already passed its peak and the small town was no more.
5. An Englishman named Billy Barker went to the Cariboo and made a fortune. Barkerville, near Quesnel in British Columbia, is named for him and today is a major historic tourist site. Unfortunately Billy spent his fortune unwisely, giving most of it away to other prospectors, and ended his days penniless, dying in a nursing home in Victoria in 1894. He is buried in a pauper’s grave in Ross Bay Cemetery there.

 
Perhaps Mark Twain was right when he also said, “If everyone else is looking for gold, it’s a good time to be in the pick and shovel business.” 

The hero in my forthcoming historical saga Providence soon finds this to be true. The ones who made a fortune in gold rushes were usually the ones, like him,  who let others chase the golden rainbow while they were simply content to sell them the tools, supplies and transport to get to the goldfields! 

​If you had lived in those times, would you have ventured to the goldfields? Were those who did incredibly brave or incredibly foolish?

Let me know what you think in a comment below.

On January 5, 1907, Baroness Angela Burdett-Coutts, was laid to rest at Westminster Abbey in London, England. 

At the time, King Edward VII was reported to have said, “After my mother [Queen Victoria], she was the most remarkable woman in the kingdom.”
 
The baroness was born Angela Georgina Burdett, daughter of Sir Francis Burdett and Sophia Coutts, who was the daughter of wealthy banker Thomas Coutts, founder of Coutts & Company. 
 
In 1837, at the age of 23, Angela inherited her grandfather’s fortune of nearly two million pounds. She could easily have spent the rest of her life living in luxury, enjoying the pleasures and extravagances of the very rich. Instead, she chose to devote her life to helping others and spreading her fortune where it was needed the most.
 
Having befriended many notable people, such as Louisa Twining, Florence Nightingale, and Charles Dickens, and learning of the plight of orphans and the very poor in London, Angela used much of her wealth to help those causes.  
 
She also became a notable benefactor of the Church of England, building and endowing churches and church schools around the word—in Africa, in Australia and in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
 
Her contributions to Victoria included donating money to help build Angela College on Burdett Street, a prestigious Anglican school for young women. Both the building and the street honor this woman today, even though, like Queen Victoria, she never visited the city.
 
In addition she donated money for the church bells in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, for cotton gins in Nigeria, and for drinking fountains for dogs in large cities. She assisted Turkish peasants and refugees of the 1877 Russo-Turkish War, organized housing schemes for the working class as well as giving money for the Ragged Schools Union, soup kitchens, and the Temperance Society in London. She also helped place hundreds of destitute boys on training ships for the navy and merchant service.                              

Speaking of ships, at Angela's instigation, vessels were sent out to British Columbia (the most notable in 1862 being the Tynemouth, known as the Bride Ship), which carried 60 women to the colony, where there was a great shortage of women at that time.

In 1871, Queen Victoria bestowed a peerage on Angela with the title of Baroness Burdett-Coutts of Highgate, and the following year, she became the first woman to be presented with the Freedom of the City of London. She also received the Freedom of the City of Edinburgh in 1874.

Although she had many suitors throughout her life, she refused all offers of marriage until she was 67 years old, when she shocked society by marrying her secretary, a young man of 30, William Lehman Ashmead Bartlett, who was also a member of Parliament. In an unprecedented move, he changed his name to Burdett-Coutts after the marriage.
 
By the time Angela Burdett-Coutts died in December 1906 at the age of 92, she had given well over three million pounds to needy causes around the world. 
 
The benevolent baroness makes a brief appearance in my forthcoming novel, Providence, as a motivator for my main character to set out from England for the new world on the SS Tynemouth.  

For most married women in the 19th century, being pregnant was a frequent occurrence. They believed it was their duty to produce many children, so consequently, Victorian families were very large. Without benefit of any kind of birth control, babies “just came”—year after year.
 
In addition to being in a constant state of expectancy, childbirth itself was both painful and dangerous. Pain relief was minimal—maybe some opium or laudanum—but according to their religious beliefs, it was assumed that women were supposed to suffer in child birth.
 
Babies were always born at home. The mother was helped by family or female friends and sometimes an inexperienced midwife. Midwifery did not come into its own until much later. Doctors were only called at the last moment when it was feared the mother might die. If instruments were used for delivery, they were not sterilized.
 
Doctors were seldom trained in obstetrics. They didn't wash their hands—an obvious cause of infection, so when babies were not in the correct position and had to be turned either by hand or instrument, the mother experienced not only excessive pain but also bleeding and infection.

Infection and heavy bleeding were in fact the main causes of death for both mother and baby. Hardly any wonder that women approached childbirth (often described as “a woman’s time of trial”) with great fear. Nonetheless, it was deemed to be a normal course of events, and little thought was given to birth control until much later.
 
It was also believed that women were “unclean” after childbirth, so they were given the sacrament at the communion rail but only after post-childbirth bleeding had ended and women had been “churched.” The 1789 Book of Common Prayer celebrates women who survived childbirth in The Thanksgiving of Women after Childbirth, commonly called the Churching of Women.”
 
From the 1870s onward, a transition in fertility control was finally happening. With still no significant birth control in place, families were simply modifying their sexual activity, but by 1900, the size of families had certainly decreased to around four children, approximately half the number 20 or 30 years before. Numbers continued to fall in the first few decades of the 20th century.
 
In addition, pain relief in childbirth began to increase slowly toward the end of the century.  Queen Victoria herself pioneered the use of chloroform for her eighth confinement in 1854, though its use was still opposed by many doctors.
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Eventually a belief grew that many women’s lives could be saved if babies were delivered under more stringent medical conditions in hospitals, but this did not fully happen until the 1940s when it became more common for babies to be born in hospitals rather than at home.
 
Here are some additional facts about childbirth throughout the years:

1. “Twilight sleep” involved giving the mother scopolamine and morphine during labor, which made them forget the labor experience soon after giving birth. This became popular around 1910.
2. By 1915, a growing feminist movement was championing more pain management during childbirth.
3. Hospital births became more common in the 1920s with the use of forceps, episiotomy, and anesthesia advocated by Dr. Joseph Delee.
4. In his best-seller Childbirth without Fear, Dr. Grantly Dick-Read proclaimed the benefits of “natural childbirth without anesthesia or tools.”
5. By the 1960s “twilight sleep” had lost popularity because of its side effects, which had included hallucination and a temporary impairment of the baby’s ability to breathe.
6. During the 1970s epidurals increased, together with other techniques, such as Lamaze breathing and water births. Fathers were also beginning to be allowed into the delivery room with their partners during labor.
7. By the year 2000, C-sections became more common and accounted for about a third of deliveries, while over half of the women who gave birth vaginally could receive an epidural or spinal block.

In today’s world, women have many more childbirth options, including deliveries at hospitals or at  home, and second vaginal births after a C-section, gentle "C-section,” and epidural births. 

Thank goodness childbirth has come a long way since the 19th century! 

Ladies, do you have a delivery experience that was out of the ordinary? Let me know in a comment below.

​​It’s been a while since I last posted a blog, so I thought I would start 2019 off right.
 
The New Year has been observed as a holiday celebration for over 4,000 years, since ancient times in Babylon. 
 
At that time, however, a new year began after the vernal equinox, the first day of spring. It seemed more logical to begin a new year in spring, which is generally thought of as the season of rebirth. 
 
January 1, on the other hand, has no particular significance other than the fact that in 153 BC the Romans decided that a new year should begin on that date. But the date wasn't firmly established until around 46 BC, when Caesar ordered the observance of the Julian calendar, which would then be coordinated with the sun.
 
So now around the world, we celebrate New Year’s Eve on December 31 with parties, festivities, and the playing of “Auld Lang Syne” at midnight. But did you know that December 31 is also important for many other reasons? 
 
Here are just a few:

• On this date in 1687, the first shipload of Huguenots (French Protestants) left France for South Africa.
• In 1776, Rhode Island established wage and price controls to curb inflation. Carpenters were paid a limit of 70 cents a day and tailors 42 cents. 
• In 1841, Alabama became the first state to license dental surgeons.  
• On December 31 in 1857, Queen Victoria decided to make Ottawa the new capital of Canada.

• In 1902, the Boers and the British army signed a peace  treaty, officially ending the Boer War.
• And in 1911 Marie Curie received her second Nobel Prize.

  
For all you trivia buffs out there, here are a couple of famous people who were born on New Year’s Eve:
  

• Bonnie Prince Charles Edward Stuart in 1720      
• French impressionist painter, Henri Matisse in 1869 

  
Those Babylonian New Year celebrations apparently lasted for eleven days, with each day having its own particular role to play in the festivities.

Today, our New Year’s Eve celebrations—known as Hogmanay in Scotland, Evacuation Day in Lebanon (1946), Grand Purification day in Japan, and the day when the Grand Imperial Ball is held in Austria—all pale in comparison with those celebrations held in Babylon.
 
The significance of a baby to herald in the new year began in ancient Greece around 600 BC. The baby signified the annual rebirth of their god Dionysus, god of wine and the spirit of fertility.  The image of a baby was continued by the Romans but was denounced by early Christians as a pagan practice. The tradition was brought to North America by the Germans who had used this image since the 14th century.
 
And if you're looking for good luck in the New Year, the shape of a ring is considered to bring good luck (symbolizing coming full circle and completing the year), and in that context, the Dutch believe that eating donuts on New Year’s Eve will bring good fortune for the coming year! I particularly like that idea.
 
Cabbage is another good luck vegetable consumed by many cultures on New Year’s Day. Cabbage leaves are supposedly a sign of prosperity, and rice eaten on New Year’s Day is also considered by some to be lucky.
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Whatever your beliefs or traditions might be, I wish each and every one of you a very happy and healthy New Year. And make sure that one of your resolutions for 2019 is to read more books!                                                     

Welcome back for more little-known information about Gone with the Wind, one of the most popular film adaptations.

It is hard to imagine that more than 30 million copies of Margaret Mitchell’s book have been sold around the world. The publisher offered Mitchell a $500 advance and a 10% royalty in 1936, which was pretty good at that time.

Although the movie was widely anticipated following the success of the book, there was still much opposition along the way.

For example, the Daughters of the Confederacy campaigned against Vivien Leigh playing the part of Scarlett O’Hara because she was British. But when they were told that the role might go to Katherine Hepburn, they stopped protesting, declaring “better an Englishwoman than a Yankee!”

The fact that the movie had three directors also caused many incidents on set. Vivien Leigh apparently brought a copy of the book to the set every day to irritate the second director, Fleming, because not only did she disagree with George Cukor being replaced by him, but she also thought the book was far superior to Fleming’s interpretation. When Selznick finally became the third and last director, Leigh recalled that he “shouted at me to throw the damned thing away.”

One scene called for Clark Gable (as Rhett) to resort to tears, but he refused to cry, claiming it would “ruin his image.” He even threatened to walk off the set.

Fleming decided to shoot two versions, one with Gable crying and one with his back turned away in heavy sorrow. He then managed to convince Gable that the weeping version was better as it would endear him to his audience. 

Burning of Atlanta
And then of course there was the famous “burning of Atlanta” scene, the filming of which was so sensitive to many Southerners.

This scene was the first one to be shot even before Vivien Leigh had been cast as Scarlett O’Hara. It was the most expensive scene ever shot at that time at a cost of $25,000 and was a big risk for the studio to undertake. If something had gone wrong, the whole film might never have been made.

The studio chose to burn the old set of King Kong for the burning of Atlanta, and local residents thought it was so real that they called the fire brigade.

At that time in movie history, the Atlanta-burning scene was the most epic visual depiction ever shot. It managed to show the absolute terror of being trapped in a city while desperately trying to escape. It was accompanied by the brilliant Max Steiner musical score and marked a turning point in the relationship between Scarlett and Rhett, when he appears suddenly and whisks her to safety on a road exiting the city but then abruptly leaves her to make her own way. This turns her emotions upside down as she resents him while not wanting to be parted from him.
 
More Gone with the Wind Facts
Three other things about this iconic book-to-movie saga intrigue me:

1.  Did you know that Olivia de Havilland who played Melanie Wilkes in the movie is the only living member of the main cast today? At 102, she resides in Switzerland, and although she starred in many other movies, she will always be best known for her portrayal of Melanie in Gone with the Wind.
2. In the early 2000s, some previously unseen footage of the making of the movie was discovered in Brucemore Mansion, the home of Howard Hall an Iowan business magnate and film enthusiast. During the filming of the barbecue scene at the beginning of the film, Hall was allowed on the set, where he shot scenes of the famous cast and some of the extras and doubles around Busch Gardens in Hollywood where the scene was filmed. The footage shows Gable and Leigh enjoying a cigarette in a break and Olivia de Havilland’s double strolling through the grounds.
3. The footage and the estate have been turned over to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

So, even if you “don’t give a damn” about whether books or movies are better, remember one more thing about this saga. The famous line at the end of Gone With The Wind spoken by Rhett as he leaves—“Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn!”—came about with its own amount of controversy.

​Producer Selznick had pleaded for months to keep the word “damn” in the film and past the Hays Code. It was an integral part of the story and summed up Rhett’s feelings about Scarlett and everything he had endured. “My dear, I don’t care,” would NOT have had the same impact. Even the dictionary definition of the word “damn” only records it as “a vulgarism.”  Eventually Selznick won his point and the famous line remained.

Interesting how times have changed! 

Enjoy this 1961 theatrical re-release trailer for Gone with the Wind, which marked the 100th anniversary of the Civil War in 1861.

Do you prefer to read the book before you see the movie? Or do you like to see the movie first?
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Often we are disappointed and even critical, asking ourselves if the movie did justice to a brilliant piece or writing. Or did the screen adaptation improve the words of the author? Or perhaps you liked the book and the movie equally?

There have, however, been many excellent books made into movies. J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, for instance, as both books and movies have been equally well received and idolized by many!  But that doesn’t happen very often.

My all-time favorite book/movie is “Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell.  

​In my opinion, both the book and the movie are excellent, considering the fact that the book was written in 1936 and the movie was made in 1939 without benefit of the modern screen techniques of today. It soon became the most successful film in box-office history and the highest-earning film made up to that point, a record it held for the next quarter of a century.

Some facts about the book and movie you may not know:

THE BOOK

1. Margaret Mitchell wrote Gone with the Wind  because she was bored! She was a journalist for the Atlanta Journal Sunday Magazine but had taken a leave to recover from a recurring ankle injury. During her recovery, she decided to occupy herself with writing a book. Over the next decade, she kept the book a secret from everyone.
2. She had no intention of publishing “Gone with the Wind” until after she finally told a friend she was writing a book, to which the friend replied sarcastically, “Imagine you trying to write a book!” Mitchell was so annoyed she sent off her manuscript to a Macmillan editor the next day and then regretted her decision so followed up with a telegram, saying, “Have changed my mind. Send manuscript back!” Luckily the publisher kept it.
   
3. Scarlett’s name was originally Pansy, but the publisher insisted on a name change. Mitchell apparently told her editor, “We could call her ‘Garbage O’Hara’ for all I care. I just want to finish this damn thing!”
4. The Tara plantation was originally called Fountenoy Hall.
5. Mitchell’s cousin by marriage was gunslinger/dentist Doc Holliday, who many believed she used as the inspiration for her character Ashley Wilkes.
6. In 1945, Mitchell told Yank magazine that she didn’t know what happened to Scarlett and Rhett after their parting.  “Rhett may have found someone else who was less difficult,” she said. I suspect she would probably have been disappointed in the sequel “Scarlett’ written in 1991 by Alexandra Ripley. I know I was.

Not everyone liked Gone with the Wind. Many reviews were uncomplimentary, including Ralph Thompson of the New York Times: “The book would have been infinitely better if it had been edited down to 500 pages . . . Every reader will agree that a more disciplined and less prodigal piece of work would have more nearly done justice to the subject.”

Unfortunately, Margaret Mitchell's life was cut short. Ten years after the release of the film, on August 11, 1949, she was fatally struck by a car as she and her husband crossed the street after leaving a movie house.  She was only 48 and had never written another book.

THE MOVIE
The movie set a record with its many awards, receiving 10 at the 1939 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress, and Best supporting actress (Hattie MacDaniel), who set a record by becoming the first African American to win an Academy Award.

Production for the movie had been difficult from the start.

1. It was produced by David O Selznick and directed by Victor Fleming. Fleming was the third director chosen after problems with the first two!
2. Thousands of actresses auditioned for the part of Scarlett, but only 400 actually read any lines. None were suitable until one day Vivien Leigh came on the set with her husband, Laurence Olivier, and the director immediately insisted she should read for the part of Scarlett. He decided there and then he had found the right actress.
3. Leslie Howard hated playing Ashley Wilkes. He supposedly wrote a letter to his daughter, saying, “I hate the damn part. I’m not nearly beautiful or young enough for Ashley [he was in his early 40s and Ashley was supposed to be 21 at the beginning of the film], and it makes me sick being fixed up to look attractive.”
4. Vivien Leigh did not like kissing Clark Cable because she claimed he had bad breath due to drinking whiskey and smoking!
5. There were not enough extras in the Screen Actors Guild to shoot the Confederate wounded scene. Selznick wanted at least 2,500 extras to lie in the dirt portraying the dead and wounded soldiers, but there were only 1,500 available. The extra thousand were dummies—it also saved him some money!
6. Hattie McDaniel (who played Mammie) was the first African American to win an Oscar but was banned from the premiere. For this reason, Clark Gable almost boycotted the premiere himself.

But the story certainly does not end there. There is, of course, the famous “burning of Atlanta” scene to talk about. That alone, and so much more about the actors and the movie, deserves another blog: next week!

What's your favorite scene in Gone with the Wind?

With all the craziness going on in the world today, both tragic and unbelievable, I thought I would take a break away from the serious side of life and work on a simpler, slightly amusing blog, while enjoying these strange "dog days of summer." ​

I was recently reminded of something that happened to me not long ago and it concerns dogs and cats.

I was at a meeting in the home of a friend who owns a cat. There were 14 people in the room. Thirteen of them were cat lovers. Enter one silky black cat. It surveyed the scene in typically superior feline manner and headed straight for the one person in the room who dislikes cats. Me!

Settling itself complacently on my lap despite my initial protest, I then pretended I was enjoying the attention. Inwardly I was trying to tell it—nothing personal, fella, but I’m a dog person! Always have been.

I admit that cats are definitely intelligent creatures. How else would every last one of them in the neighborhood know when there is a freshly dug border in our yard ready for planting? With an instinctive built-in radar system they all head straight for it. They then proceed to open an account and leave a deposit!

Another thing about cats is that they don’t seem to need people. Mostly they live out their nine lives as independent beings, oblivious to us humans other than for a need to be stroked, fed or to act as their obedient slave. I feel they are always judging us and more often than not we are found to be lacking.

Dogs, on the other hand, love you unconditionally. You are their pal for life. I know I am biased, but most dogs we have owned confirm this belief.

When I was a child we owned a German shepherd who was so intelligent she always knew when a visitor to the house had outstayed his or her welcome. She would stand up, stretch, walk over to the visitor and yawn very loudly. It always did the trick!

More recently we owned a dog that was part French poodle and part English Terrier known as a Terripoo. Because of his mixed heritage he was cursed with an adorable split personality. The poodle in him liked to be bathed, perfumed, fed treats, cuddled and thoroughly spoiled. His terrier blood enjoyed digging holes, chewing and eating rags and going for long walks with the wind in his nostrils and his ears blowing behind him. We named him Jake (a mixture of French Jacques and English Jack.)

Territory is always important to a dog. Jake knew exactly where he was or was not allowed to go. In our kitchen, breakfast nook, hallway and family room he was King, but he was never allowed in the front room or upstairs. The temptation for him was great, but his four tiny blonde paws never strayed across the imaginary lines. He respected our decision. We respected his control.

I could continue to extol the virtues of the dog although I have to admit that the last dog we owned, Rupert, was a little different from the rest. He was a breed apart. He was part poodle but mostly Shih-Tzu. He was lovable and cute but very stubborn and thought his Chinese background allowed him to lie on a cushion all day and guard the “palace” as his ancestors had once done.

I am sure I have already alienated myself from every cat lover I know and for that I apologize. And somewhere out there is a cat who knows I have written this piece and is lying in wait for me. He wants revenge and he means business.

So I will continue to enjoy these “dog days of summer,” an expression which dates back to ancient times when people in different parts of the world began drawing images of the sky by connecting the dots of stars now called constellations.

Among the images they drew were dogs (Canis Major and Canis Minor) and the brightest of the stars was Canis Major (a big dog named Sirius) which rises and sets with the sun in late July. This star adds heat causing sultry weather to follow, sometimes well into September, hence the name the “dog days of summer.”

And I think I will continue to “go to the dogs.”

But I’d love to hear from both dog and cat owners with your opinions. I have thick skin, so please let me know if you agree or disagree. I can take it!

Due to a shortage of females in British Columbia, Canada, in the 1860s four ships were sent out from England to Victoria carrying, among other things, a cargo of young women. 
 
The four ships (the Tynemouth, Robert Lowe, Marcella, and Alpha) became known as “the bride ships” and arrived as a result of the Columbia's Emigration Society’s initiative to send women to help populate the colonies with British citizens.
 
The most well-known of these ships was the S.S. Tynemouth, which arrived in September of 1862, a year of great change in Victoria. Included in her cargo were 60 women aged between 14 and 20 who traveled to the new world in unimaginable, horrific conditions in steerage.
 
Throughout the mining camps, there was a surplus of men anxious for female companionship! The hope was that these women would marry and settle north of the 49th parallel.  But their journey to the west coast was horrendous.

Only half of the 60 young women aboard the Tynemouth have been officially traced. After all, these were the frontier days of British Columbia and few records of their whereabouts were kept.

However, Frederick Whymper, an artist, wood engraver and travel writer, traveled aboard the S.S. Tynemouth and kept a journal of the events that took place. Today a mountain on Vancouver Island is named for Whymper.

​Many of the women aboard the Tynemouth  did eventually marry and have families, and we have learned their names and future whereabouts from the passenger list.
 
For instance, Mary Macdonald, a musician, later married Peter Leech, a one-time gold miner and then Victoria’s city engineer; Jane Saunders married extremely well and helped turn her late husband James Nesbitt’s biscuit company into something of an empire; and Isabel Curtis married at fifteen and went to live in what is today the town of Chemainus on Vancouver Island.

On the other hand, some of the women ended up in the mining camps along the Fraser River and made a living as prostitutes. But some did work at other things and became midwives, governesses, and teachers, thereby bettering themselves and the lives they had left behind them in the old country.
 
The emigration of young women was taken over by the Salvation Army in the late 1800s and after that by the YWCA. The sponsoring of British women to the west coast of Canada did not, in fact, end until just before World War II.

Although many of the so-called “brides” did well for themselves, there remained something of a stigma attached to the women sent out aboard these ships. This may have been simply because their origins were often unknown, ranging from orphans and the working poor to prostitutes.

Peter Johnson’s book Voyages of Hope, tells the story of these bride ships. It is well worth a read.

In my soon-to-be-released novel Providence, I have placed my heroine among these women. I think you will enjoy her fictitious story as she journeyed to the new world in search of a better life.