The Wedding Trip

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The itinerary of my grandparents’ 1906 honeymoon reads more like a business trip than a romantic vacation, nevertheless, they both seemed to enjoy their trip to Chicago, Toronto and Montreal.

My future grandfather was planning on running for election to the school board, so he wanted to research schools, and my grandmother wanted to shop for things she couldn’t find in stores at home. Meanwhile, both were interested in medicine, so several hospital tours were on the agenda.

The bride and groom were Dr. Thomas Glendinning Hamilton, 33, a Winnipeg physician, and Lillian May Forrester, 26, a nurse. Lillian had trained at the Winnipeg General Hospital and graduated in May, 1905 with the class prize for highest general proficiency. They met at the hospital and she resigned when they became engaged.

This photo, taken around 1932, is the only one I have of the couple alone together.

According to a newspaper account, the wedding took place at the Winnipeg home of the bride’s uncle, lawyer Donald Forrester, at 4:30 p.m. on Nov. 26, 1906: “The bride, who wore a pretty gown of white net over taffeta and carried bride’s roses, was given away by her father, Mr. John Forrester, of Emerson…. There were no attendants, only the immediate relatives of the happy couple being present.” Following the brief Presbyterian service, the bride quickly changed into a red and grey travelling outfit and they left for their honeymoon on the 5:20 train.

Lillian kept a diary of the wedding trip, leaving out any romantic details, which is probably why that account is available for all to read at the archives of the University of Manitoba.

They spent their wedding night on the train to St. Paul and reached Chicago late the following evening.  Staying at the 16-story Great Northern Hotel, they visited the Marshall Field’s department store, viewed the impressive tower of the Montgomery Ward Building and attended a play. They also visited the 1,400-bed Cook County Hospital which, Lillian noted, treated 25,000 patients a year and did an average of 10 operations per day. They then headed by train to Detroit for a brief stopover, and to Toronto, where they began exploring the neighbourhood around Queen’s Park and the University of Toronto.

Niagara Falls was on their honeymoon bucket list. T.G. and Lillian spent a snowy day there, seeing both the Canadian and American falls. Dressed in waterproof clothing, they viewed the back of the falls, and they took a cable elevator car to see the Whirlpool Rapids and have photos taken. Back in Toronto, they stayed two nights with T.G.’s Aunt Lizzie Morgan, then boarded a train for Montreal.

Lillian noted some of the towns they passed on that leg of the journey, including Belleville and Shannonville. She did not add in her note book that her family lived in this region before moving to Manitoba in the early 1880s, and that she had been born near Belleville. It was now early December, and there was a heavy snowfall in Montreal, nevertheless they walked down St. Catherine Street and took the street car to Notre Dame Cathedral, which they found to be “as grand and beautiful as we anticipated.” Lillian ordered 50 visiting cards – she would need them in her new social role as the wife of a busy physician – and she visited several stores “and spent her first pin money.”  She described Morgan’s department store as “the most beautiful store we have ever seen. The art gallery, glass room, electrical room and furniture department are all exceedingly fine.” Meanwhile, T.G. interviewed the Superintendent of Schools in Montreal.

No visit to Montreal is complete without a trip up Mount Royal, and T.G. and Lillian went to the top “in a warm red sleigh, had a splendid view of city, canal, river and Victoria Bridge.” On the way back downtown, they visited the Royal Victoria Hospital, ”a beautiful, well equipped building” with 300 beds.  The next day they explored the Redpath Museum, had dinner at the Windsor Hotel (one of the city’s best) and took the overnight train back to Toronto. Again they stayed with Aunt Lizzie. It was a Sunday so, after church, T.G.’s cousin accompanied them to visit more relatives. The following day, T.G. met with the Superintendent of School Buildings in Toronto and with a former principal of Wellesley Public School, said to be the most handsome and modern school building in Toronto.

Over the next few days they visited more extended family members and went to see St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Scarborough, where T.G.’s father and grandparents were buried. They also visited the Scarborough farmhouse where T.G. had spent his childhood. They stayed downtown on their last two days in the city, and attended a lecture on new developments in vaccines. Finally, they headed west on the night train to Chicago and Minneapolis. When they arrived back in Winnipeg, Lillian’s brother picked them up at the station and they went to buy furniture.

The last entry of the wedding trip diary was dated three days before Christmas 1906, and almost one month had passed since their wedding: “Dec. 22. Had tea at 8 a.m. in our own house.”

Sources: 

Lillian Hamilton, “Wedding Trip,” University of Manitoba Archives and Special Collections, Hamilton Family Fonds, Hamilton Family – Personal; Box 1, Folder 1.

Note: a slightly shorter version of this story is posted on the collaborative blog, https://genealogyensemble.com

A Visit to the Holy Land and Egypt

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A Mediterranean Cruise in 1910, Part 2

When my great-great-aunt and her husband visited the Holy Land in 1910, she regretted that they arrived in Jerusalem by train. This modern mode of travel seemed out of place in the ancient city. “We should have come by donkey or camel,” she wrote in a published account of their trip, Reminiscences of a Cruise in the Mediterranean and a Visit to the Holy Land and Egypt by Mrs. W. Lennox Mills.

Katharine Sophia Mills (1850-1938) and her husband, Rev. William Lennox Mills, who was the Anglican Bishop of Ontario, were on a four-month cruise from New York to ports around the Mediterranean, including the Holy Land and Egypt. They travelled by sea, by rail, motorcar, horse-drawn carriage, as well as by horse, donkey, and camel. Katharine seemed to take it all in stride, including stormy seas and deeply rutted roads.

Getting around the way people did in the past, watching them use primitive farming techniques and visiting ancient places sparked her imagination. She especially wanted to see the places that had been central to the Bible stories with which she was so familiar.

One day, she wrote, they drove from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. “It did not require a very vivid imagination to picture many of the scenes in the Bible story which took place here. How clearly one could see Ruth gleaning in the harvest field (the spot was pointed out to us) and Boaz coming among the reapers. What a scene of pastoral life and love in these fields, thick with corn and wheat! …. But transcending all other associations are those connected with the marvellous event which here took place, the birth of the world’s Redeemer, who is Christ the Lord.”

Later, Katharine and her husband visited the peaceful, walled garden at Gethsemane, and other locations associated with Christ’s crucifixion, and being in these places reminded her of the events that had happened there some 1900 years earlier.

She sometimes questioned whether some of the places their guide pointed out were really the locations of these events. In Nazareth, for example, they walked around the ruins of Joseph’s workshop, “said to be genuine. One cannot be quite sure, of course, that the very spot pointed out is the real one, but amidst all the changes and the desolation of the centuries, the distinguishing characteristics yet remain. One great memory lingers, and every spot seems hallowed ground.”

Another day, her skepticism was justified. “We passed the ‘Inn of the Good Samaritan’ and a little further along the road, the spot was shown us where the man fell among thieves. Those who are responsible for the locating of places mentioned in Scripture as the spots where certain events took place seem in this case either to have forgotten or ignored the fact the episode of the Good Samaritan was a parable.”

Like many others of her generation, Katharine grew up hearing stories from the Bible. Her father, Montreal landowner and notary Stanley Clark Bagg (1820-1873), was a deeply religious man and no doubt instilled his Christian beliefs in his five children. He was also interested in history, archaeology, coins and antiquities, and it appears that Katharine, his eldest daughter, shared these interests.

She especially enjoyed visiting the pyramids of Egypt and the Cairo’s Boulak Museum, now known as the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities. She wrote, “Cairo is simply fascinating: the new part of the city is very handsome, reminding one rather of Paris, with its wide streets and attractive shops, and there is a wonderful glamour and air of enchantment about it. The old Cairo is dirty, but most interesting.”

One of the highlights of their visit was watching the “gorgeous spectacle that was the return to Cairo of the pilgrimage from Mecca with the Holy Carpet, as Sheikhs, Bedouins and Arab riders, carrying flags and banners, and splendid camels, richly caparisoned, moved along with stately tread.”

For the most part, Katharine focused on her experiences as a tourist, and she did not mention politics often, although she did note there were tensions in Egypt. At that time, Egypt was part of the Ottoman Empire and was occupied by British forces. She commented that the University of Mohammedanism was “the centre of dissatisfaction with British rule, and the seat of probable revolt.” In fact, although Egypt became independent in 1922, British troops did not entirely withdraw until 1956.  
While many North Americans visit this part of the world today, in 1910, Katharine’s trip would have only been possible for a privileged few. Also, two world wars, political upheaval in the Middle East and technological advances have changed this region forever, making her reminiscences all the more interesting.  

See also:

A Mediterranean Cruise in 1910, Writing Up the Ancestors, Oct. 30, 2019 

Notes and sources

Reminiscences of a Cruise in the Mediterranean and a Visit to the Holy Land and Egypt by Mrs. W. Lennox Mills can be found in several Canadian university libraries, and online.