“I’ve met a lot of girls but none that mean as much to me as you do,” he said softly. He stroked her hair and kissed her, like he’d done so many times in the past. One unruly lock of dark hair kept falling over her left eye. Her heart raced. Is this the moment that she had waited for, the moment most young girls dream about for years? Was he going to ask her to marry him?
“I love you Mary,” he paused. “I want you to be mine.”
“It’s all I’ve ever wanted,” she replied without hesitation. He started to unbutton her shirtwaist. “What are you doing?” She screamed and splayed her fingers across her chest.
“You said it’s what you wanted.”
“I didn’t say that at all. I said I wanted to be yours … your wife is what I meant.”
“Wife! Who said anything about getting married? I’m talking about … you know, becoming closer.”
“You mean …” she stopped mid-sentence. Mary couldn’t bring herself to say the words. She was shocked. Ethel had been right. She jumped up and ran to the canoe. “Take me home, I’ve nothing more to say to you.”
Jim paddled back to the boathouse, returned the canoe, and without a word spoken they headed back into town on the streetcar. As they approached her street she said, “I never want to see you again,” ran up the steps, let herself in, and slammed the door. She ended up confiding in Ethel, who was very sympathetic. Her friend honestly believed that she’d been spared inevitable heartache down the road.
Mary turned twenty finding little to celebrate. Her job would end in September since Matthew was starting school and a live-in nanny was no longer needed. She read the signs posted in shop windows looking for help but most wanted restaurant or office experience and didn’t provide room and board. What a servant girl knew best was babysitting, cooking, and cleaning.
Ethel finally talked her into going back to the dance hall again. It was the last weekend of the summer and an exceptionally humid evening. She’d only been there a few minutes when she felt a hand tap her on the shoulder. Mary, taken by surprise turned quickly toward the voice. “Will you dance with me?” Jim asked with that innocent boyish grin, the one that she’d never been able to resist in the past.
She shook her head and whispered, “No, it’s over. Please leave me alone.”
“Just one dance for old times’ sake. You won’t regret it Mary.” She hesitated long enough for him to continue. “One dance, that’s all I’m asking.”
“Then you’ll go away?”
“If you still want me to, I’ll go.” He took her arm and they moved out on the dance floor. The musicians were playing “Love’s Old Sweet Song,” a well-known tune that’d been around since the year she was born. “I’ve missed you so much,” he said softly in her ear. “I can’t tell you how much. I made a mistake, a terrible mistake. I should have known you weren’t that kind of girl.”
The air was stifling and she felt short of breath. Voices around her, intermingled with young girls’ laughter, seemed to be getting louder in order to be heard over the music. The smoke from men’s cigarettes curled up toward the ceiling in spirals making Mary light-headed and confused.
“I have something to show you,” he said, taking her by the hand. They left the dance hall and headed down the street to the park. It was quiet there, almost serene. It would have made the perfect photograph, a young couple sitting in the dimly lit park, framed by large stately trees moving slightly in the wind like the fringe on a winter scarf. They were oblivious to the sound of the tower bell ringing in the fire hall. Was a fire out of control, a child lost or was it just a reminder of a curfew?
For a moment Jim held her hand and then he reached into his coat pocket. “I’ve been carrying this around for over a month, hoping to see you.” He held up a small box. “I want you to be my wife. I don’t want to live without you anymore.” Mary looked down at the gold ring with a modest, pear shaped bluish-violet stone. She was speechless. “If you still want me to go away, I will,” he said quietly.
“I never want you to leave me … I never did.” Tears ran down her face as he quietly slipped the amethyst on her shaky finger and wrapped his arms around her. Mary gave Mrs. Heppleton two weeks’ notice and happily quit her job. She sent a note to her sisters in England, glad that she’d hung on to Carrie’s last letter, and hoped they hadn’t moved in the past four years.
This contemporary photo of the courthouse still boasts a massive building of sandstone with a complex roofline. The building directly behind was the county jail, which houses the Oxford County Board of Health today.
Courtesy of Rowena Lunn, Caroline Janeway’s granddaughter.
Mary had dreamed about her wedding day and knew exactly what she wanted. For her “something old” she clipped her ivory-tusk comb in her hair. She chose sateen in a creamy, rich ecru fabric at John White & Co., and along with a picture she’d snipped out of the Eaton’s catalogue, went to Elizabeth Farrington the dressmaker over on Wellington Street. She borrowed Ethel’s timepiece broche and found a dainty linen hanky edged in cornflower-blue embroidery to tuck into her sleeve.
Since Jim already owned a dark suit that he’d bought a year ago for Minnie’s funeral, he went to Amos Harwood, a well-known boot and shoemaker to have a genuine leather pair of boots custom made. As soon as Joseph A. Copps, the local barber, opened his shop the morning of their wedding, Jim got a haircut, a shave, and a cigar, and he was ready to get married.
Mary studied herself in the mirror. She’d been born in a leap year and hoped that getting married in one was a good omen. She brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes, hair that had darkened over the years. A tiny silver pair of pince-nez gave her eyes more distinction; perhaps she was realizing her own maturity. She took off her amethyst ring, believing that once a wedding band was placed on her finger, it should never be removed.
They exchanged their vows at the courthouse on Hunter Street. Mary had walked past the huge stately building many times. She’d never noticed the monkey heads hidden among the capitals of the red marble pillars at the two front entrances or stepped inside to see the ornate interior cast-iron stairways until the day she got married. And she didn’t notice them that day either.
At eleven o’clock in the morning on Wednesday, October 5, 1904, with more than a hint of fall in the air, Mary Janeway became Mrs. James Church. F.W. Hollinrake officiated, Ethel was her maid-of-honour, and Harold Teetzel, one of Jim’s co-workers at the Canada Furniture Manufacturing Company, was his best man. It was a civil ceremony that lasted fifteen minutes — the happiest fifteen minutes of Mary’s life.
Mary Janeway looked elegant on her wedding day in a laced-trimmed shirtwaist with pouched sleeves, boned-standing collar, and a skillfully arranged pleated skirt just clearing the floor.
The Pettit Collection.
Six
Hamilton
“In 1903 the Hamilton Automobile Club was founded, the first such club in Canada. Yet the impact of this technological revolution was slow to develop, largely because of the lack of adequate roads. Up to 1914, motor vehicles were curiosities or luxuries more than essential components of the transportation system.”[1]
October 1904
Three days after they got married, the newlyweds headed for Hamilton. Jim had worked there before and was optimistic he’d find something. Mary knew very little about Hamilton except its nickname,