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Tableaux, marbres, dessins, aquarelles et miniatures : collections de San Donato

Collectionneur : San Donato

Women’s Literary Club of St. Catharines Fonds

The Women's Literary Club of St. Catharines was founded in 1892 by a local author, Emma Harvey (Mrs. J.G.) Currie (1829-1913) and held its last official meeting on February 19, 1994. The Club developed, flourished and eventually waned. After more than one hundred successful years, the last members deposited the Club's archives at Brock University for the benefit of researchers, scholars and the larger community. The ‘object of the Club’ was established as “the promotion of literary pursuits.” The Club was a non-profit social organization composed of predominantly white, upper middle class women from the St. Catharines and surrounding areas. Club meetings were traditionally held fortnightly from March to December each year. The last meeting of the year was a celebration of their Club anniversary. The early meetings of the Club include papers presented and music performed by Club members. The literary pursuits that would dominate the agendas for the entire life of the Club reflected an interest in selected authors, national and local history, classical history, musical performances and current cultural and newsworthy events. For example in 1893 a typical meeting agendas would contain papers on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hawaii, Brook Farm, Miss Louisa May Alcott and “Education of Women 100 years Ago.” Within the first year of the Club’s existence, detailed minute books became the norm and an annual agenda or program developed. The WLC collection contains a near complete set of meeting minutes from 1892 until 1995 and a comprehensive collection of yearly programs from 1983-1967 which members took great care to publish each year. Mrs. Currie brought together a group of women with a shared interest in literature and history, who wanted to pursue that interest in a formal and structured manner. She was well educated and influenced at an early age by her tutor and mentor William Kirby, local historian, writer and newspaper editor from Niagara-on-the-Lake. While Currie’s private education influenced her love of literature and history, the Club movement of the 1890’s offered a more public forum for her to share knowledge and learning with other women. Mrs. Currie was the wife of St. Catharines lawyer, James G. Currie, who also served as a Member of Parliament for the county of Lincoln. Mrs. W.H. McClive, who was also married to a St. Catharines lawyer, worked closely with Currie and they began research into the possibility of a literary Club in St. Catharines. Currie corresponded with a variety of literary Clubs across North America before she and Mrs.McClive tagged onto the momentum of the Club movement and published “A Clarion call for Women of St. Catharines To Form a Literary Club” in the local paper The St. Catharines Evening Journal. in 1892 and asked like Clubs to publish the news of their new Club. The early years of the WLC set the foundation of how the Club meetings and events would unfold for the next 80 plus years. Photos and minutes from the first ten years reveal an excitement and interest in organized Club outings. One particular event, an annual pilgrimage to the homestead of Laura Secord, became a yearly celebration for the Club. Club President, Mrs. Currie’s own personal work on Laura Secord amplified the Club’s interest in the ‘heroine of 1812’ and she allocated the profits from her publication on Secord in order to create a commemorative plaque/monument in the name of Laura Secord. The Club celebrated this event with a regular pilgrimage to this site. The connection felt by Club members and this memorial would continue until the Club’s last meetings. The majority of members in the early years were of the upper middle classes in the growing city of St. Catharines. Many of the charter members were the wives of merchants, business men, lawyers, doctors, even a hatter. Furthermore, the position of president was most often held by a woman with a comprehensive list of interests. This is particularly the case in Isabel Brighty McComb (1876-1941). Brighty who became a member in 1903, became Club president in 1932 and stayed in her post until her death in 1941. Similar to Mrs. Currie, Brighty was a local historian and published 2 booklets on local history. Her obituary indicates her position in the community as an author and involved community member committed to lifetime memberships in the Imperial Order of Daughters of Empire, I.O.D.E., the National Organization of Women, N.O.W. and the United Empire Loyalist Society, as well as the WLC. She was a locally known ‘teacher of elocution’ and a devoted researcher of Upper Canadian history. In a Club scrapbook dedicated to her, the biographical sketch illustrates the professionalism surrounding Brighty. There is very little personal history mentioned and the focus is on her literary works, her published essay, booklets and poetry. This professional focus, evident in both her obituary and the scrapbook, illustrate the diversity of these women, especially in their roles outside of the home. The WLC collection contains a vast array of essay, lectures clippings and scrapbooks from past meetings. Organized predominantly by topic or author, the folders and scrapbooks offer a substantial amount of research opportunity in the literary history of Canada. The dates, scope of topics and authors covered offer historians an exciting opportunity to examine the consumption of particular literary trends, artists and topics within the context of a midsized industrial city in English Canada. This is especially important because the agenda adhered to by the Club was bent on promoting, discussing and reviewing predominantly Canadian material. By connecting when and what these women were studying, scholars many gain a better understanding of the broader consumption and appreciation of literary and social trends of Canadian women outside of publishing and institutional records. Furthermore, because the agendas were set by and for these women, outside of the constructs of an institutionalized canon or agenda, they offer a fresh and on the ground examination of literary consumption over an extensive length of time.

Lini Richarda Grol Fonds, 1946-2007

Lini Richarda Grol was originally born in Nijmegen, Netherlands in 1913 and immigrated to Canada in 1954 after working as a nurse in South America for three years from 1951 to 1954. She was granted her first Canadian passport in 1961 and worked full-time as nurse at the Welland County Hospital. While nursing she would enroll in writing courses at McMaster University and Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, now Ryerson University. Eventually she decided to dedicate herself to her writing and artwork and began to only work as a nurse part-time and then later opened the Fonthill Studio to devote herself to her writing and artwork full-time. Her status as an immigrant and career as a nurse provided inspiration for much of her writing and she frequently tackles the experience of the female immigrant in her works. Her first publication was in 1938 in a small literary and women’s magazines in Holland and Belgium and her first work of poetry was entitled Stive Gedachten. None of these publications exist in this archive. Her most well-known publication, Liberation, centers around her experiences leading up to and after the liberation of Holland during World War II. Grol was, and continues to be a prolific writer in the Niagara Region and has been published in the Welland Tribune, Pelham Herald, Thorold News, Parent Magazine, Dunville Chronicle, and various Christian publications and literary newsletters and journals. Grol also started her own poetry magazine entitled Canadian Poets Pen Club to help aspiring writers get published. Perhaps her most recognized achievement was the inclusion of one of her poems and the recognition of her novel Liberation into the Thank You Canada Day celebration in May 1970. Grol participated in many local writers’ groups such as the Welland Writer’s Club, and the Canadian Author’s Association. Grol was membership secretary for the Canadian Author’s Association in 1984. She also founded a writer’s club in 1995 in her retirement home, Holland Christian Homes where members meet to talk about their poems and short stories either in English or Dutch. Participating in and creating a writers’ community is integral to Grol’s identity as an author and can be related to the feelings of isolation she felt as an immigrant to Canada. Grol also hosted her own television shows entitled Discovery with Lini Grol which featured guests, usually local artists and writers, and Holland en Hollanders a cultural program for Dutch immigrants. Grol’s most recent activities include the publication of a one act play entitled Peppermint Problems [1996] and a short story entitled “When our War started in Rotterdam” [2004]. In 1994, she moved to Brampton, Ontario into a Christian retirement center called Holland Christian Homes. For further biographical information about Grol see two books contained within this collection Women of Action [1976] and Something About the Author [1976].

Community Newspapers on Microfilm

Reel 1. E.J. Palmer's Grimsby illustrated; Merritton advance; The Evening review; Niagara Falls evening review; The academy; St. Catharines constitutional; St. Catharines daily news; St. Catharines daily standard; St. Catharines daily times; St. Catharines evening journal; St. Catharines evening star. -- Reel 2. St. Catharines evening star. -- Reel 3. St. Catharines evening star. -- Reel 4. St. Catharines evening star; St. Catharines gazette; St. Catharines journal; St. Catharines semi-weekly post; St. Catharines star journal; St. Catharines weekly news; St. Catharines weekly star; St. Catharines women's patriotic journal; St. Catharines women's standard; Welland Canadian farmer supplement; Welland Canadian farmer and grange record; Welland Canal works; Welland telegraph extra; Welland telegraph; Welland tribune and telegraph. -- Reel 5. Beamsville express; Vineland Jordan post; Grimsby independent; Haldimand advocate; Haldimand tribune; Niagara onghiara; Smithville pioneer; The Irish Canadian. -- Reel 7. St. Catharines daily times. -- Reel 8. St. Catharines daily times. -- Reel 9. St. Catharines daily times. -- Reel 10. The Monck reform press; Herald (Fonthill); Independent (Grimsby); Beamsville express; Post express (Lincoln); Jordan post (Vineland); The gleaner and Niagara newspaper; Niagara advance; Pelham herald; Port Colborne news; Farmers' journal and Welland Canal intelligencer; Welland tribune; Welland Tribune; Welland tribune and telegraph; Evening tribune (Welland Ship Canal, centenary issue).

The 19th Century Tombstone Database Project Records, 1790-1890 (non-inclusive)

The 19th Century Tombstone Database project was funded by the program Federal Summer Youth Employment scheme in the summer of 1982 and led by Dr. David W. Rupp, a Professor at the Classics Department, Brock University. The main goal of the project was to collect information related to various cemeteries in Niagara region and burials that took place from 1790-1890. Data was collected and presented in the form of data summary forms of persons, tombstone sketches, photographs of tombstones, maps, and computer printouts. The materials created as a result of a research completed for the 19th Century Tombstone Database project are important as a number of the tombstones have been damaged or gone missing since the research was finished. Before Dr. Rupp retired from Brock University, he donated project materials to the Brock University Special Collections and Archives.

Fonthill to Fenwick - Postcards

Board of six postcards of Fonthill to Fenwick. First postcard, "The parting of the ways", Fonthill. Second postcard, Canboro Road, looking west, Fonthill. Third postcard, unknown caption, Fenwick. Fourth postcard, Dominion Canners, Factory No. 50, Fonthill, Canada. Fifth postcard, Street Scene, Ridgeville. Sixth postcard, Post Office, Ridgeville.

St. Catharines Collegiate Institute - Literary Meeting and Presentation of Prizes

A pamphlet detailing the programme events for the Literary Meeting and Presentation of Prizes for Thursday December 22, 1921. The pamphlet includes examination results, scholarship recipients, prizes for public speaking and the annual field day results.

Article - "Fonthill Woman Among 21 Pilots in Welland - Florida Air race", 1953

An article in The St. Catharines Standard that discusses the upcoming sixth all-women's international air race from Welland, Ontario to New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Mrs. Rungeling will be accompanied by Beverly Belfry of St. Catharines and wife of a Thompson Products executive. Thompson Products is also sponsoring Mrs. Rungeling's flight and a representative, Mr. Stauffer, of Thompson Products, states "It is encouraging to see the international air race grow as it has done...This year's list of 21 probable entries compares with eight in last year's race".