Unheard of

Watching a documentary on PBS about prohibition, my thoughts turned to my paternal grandmother.  Actually, she was the age of a great-grandmother, my father having been 47 when I was born.  The images in the film were of the US in the late 1800's and the dress of the members of the Women's Christian Temperance Union was exactly like my grandmother's in ancient photos taken of her and her sister.

Her name was Marguerite Viallancount and she was from Montreal.  Must have been born around 1875, as my Dad was born in 1899.  A nurse, she and her sister moved from Montreal to Kansas City Missouri to work.  When I think about it, who would let their young daughters move to the drunken Wild West when they were in their early twenties?  What traditional French Canadian Catholic mother would have thought that was a good idea?  But what adventurers the sisters must have been.

I remember being stricken with worry when my daughter moved an hour away to Kingston to go to Queen's.  Then I had to worry again when she did post-graduate work for a year in Australia.  What must my great-grandmother have gone through when her daughters struck out for crazy Kansas?

Marguerite and her sister were obviously early feminists.  They had careers and -- unheard of -- they hit the pioneer road.  My father used to tell me of the adventurous cross-country train adventures he and his two brothers were treated to when his mother took them all over the US -- thanks to the free fares she garnered, her husband having been an executive on the railway. 

My dad used to talk about meeting Buffalo Bill when he came through town.  He also knew Frank James, brother of Jesse.  "He ran a hardware store in town," said my Dad, matter-of-factly. 

One day I discovered in my dad's papers the discharge papers of one "Greenberry Griffith" from the Civil War.  To this day, I don't know which side he would have been on?

Lots of American and independent woman in me.