If you turned 90 this year, your private schooling in the Montreal of the 1920's would be very English class-system driven indeed. I was seeing Birthday Girl #2 today listening to her reminiscing on those long-ago days.
" I was not going to make it."
"I just didn't fit in. It was a good school and my parents were paying alot of money to send me there. The local High School where I should have gone was scandalised by a *BOY* getting a *GIRL* pregnant and in those days that was a terrific mess. My father would not allow me to attend that school due to it's moral laxitude.
"My new school was populated by the Sons and Daughters of Canada's elite. At Christmas time my Mother sent me with a gift to my teacher of Irish Linen Hankerchiefs that were hand embroidered by the very best Needleworkers. The teacher opened it and said distainfully: "OH more hankerchiefs" and put them to one side. She did not notice nor care to about the quiality. Hankerchiefs just were not anything interesting. Of course she got a gold pocketwatch from the Jewish girls there so why would she get excited about my gift? No, I just didn't fit in.
"Luckily my Mother caught on before I completely vanished from the world and I was sent to The Misses Palmer's School for Girls. It was in an olde Victorian home and two sets of sisters ran it. Miss Jenny and Miss Laura Palmer were among the first women to graduate from McGill University. They had opened this School for girls who were, you know, not doing well in the regular system."
"Hmm, was it a Finishing School?" I asked.
"No dear," she said, "It was for girls who were slightly backward."
"No way!" I couldn't believe it. This woman is very well-read and clever.
"Well dear, I just was not thriving. My mother had to do something!"
She told me it was the "Westmont School for Girls."
She spent 45 minutes telling me how wonderful these women were.
So wonderful that73 years later she can describe them perfectly.
Bless those two long-gone dear souls who took a girl and made her into a woman who married well and lived a long happy life.
Well done the Misses Parker.
I am certain there are a hundred similar stories from their HomeSchool that I will never hear.
I don't need to. I see them in Violet.
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