Working through the boxes in our attic, doing a purge, I came across several letters written in the mid-1940s by my mother’s Aunt Peggie. I only have one side of the correspondence, but from the sounds of it, my mother often wrote letters to her aunt complaining about the lack of good men. Also about the many un-good men that she dated, including a church minister who turned out to be married.

My mother, who was called Binks by her family, was a nurse in Vancouver in her mid-twenties.  She’d grown up in the small town of Keewatin, Ontario, outside Kenora. Aunt Peggie was a Scottish immigrant who had lived in Keewatin for years, but was living in Fort William as she wrote; what is now Thunder Bay.

Aunt Peggie had some advice on offer, which gives such an unedited look into the era that I can’t resist transcribing one of the letters.

231 S. Archibald St., Fort William, Ont. July 8, 1946.

Dearest Binks,

Skinny talking! I sure was pleased to get your last letter so soon. I had a long one from your mother at the same time so I had a feast. Yes your mother will feel Barbara’s death more even than if it had been any of the others. (Barbara was one of my grandmother’s sisters.) I asked her to come here and she says she would except that your dad is so busy & of course thinks the place couldn’t get on without him & he is so jumpy and nervous she feels he needs her there & wouldn’t be happy leaving him. But she bound me not to mention this in any of my letters as if he read it, it would annoy him. 

It seems a shame we have all to be punished as a visit from her would be at least as much pleasure to me as her & do me good too. But these are the things we are up against my sweet when those dear husbands we all long for (so naturally) when we are young, come along. Why we want them I often wonder. I know I would be uneasy leaving Ban (her husband) here alone because well I know that when the cat’s away the mouse will play. When I returned from Keewatin after my visit in Jan. 1945 I found a good-sized hole burned in the blanket—he fell asleep one night with a lighted cigarette in his hand!

I can quite understand your unsettled and frustrated feeling. It began with me just about your age I think & lasted about five years. Then I began to feel—I suppose it was just settling into old maidenhood that life could still be sweet even if single. I’m afraid my great wisdom can provide no remedy but I do know it is no uncommon thing in an unmarried girl after a certain age. In extreme cases they go nuts. (I know one who did.) Then, I believe it is called sex repression or something but I’m sure it had nothing to do with sex with me as my “castigated pulse” (to quote Burns) never even gave “one wallop” all my life. Yet I remember quoting dramatically to Margaret Leggat from a book I had just read, “More life, more life, even if it leads to pain & agony & tears!” I really believed I meant it! 

I think it arises from a thwarted & unfulfilled feeling. Of course your life is full of interest beside my one in a dull hole like O.M. (Oldmeldrum, Scotland, where Aunt Peggie had been born). There a possible young man was a rare phenomenon & there was exactly one eligible whom I did have at my beck and call for years, Taylor who was 20 years older than me & a bore, whom I didn’t want! But none of us want pain and agony really! Life can be just as unfulfilled etc. in marriage, as, if he’s man & not a mouse, you’ve got to go fifty-fifty & let your own leanings go and gradually you grow into something quite different from what you would have been unmarried. 

Of course to have your ideal is natural & yours doesn’t sound impossible & as you say some seem to attain it (Margaret for one) (my mother’s twin sister) but though I too say just wait & he’ll come along, he might not be in the least like the hero of your young dreams but you’ll know him because you’ll fall in love with him even though he may be entirely different from anyone you imaged it possible to love—but you’ll see the real thing shining below and realize that this is him!

So you see I haven’t much comfort for you except that it isn’t unusual and will pass & just try, as I know you do, to realize all you have at present, youth, health, an interesting job, friends and lots of love of another kind, & enjoy all that till the day comes when you’ll be somebody else’s darling, and I believe that is really what you are intended to be—not a career woman any more than I was. 

Of course I know you have a good share of grey matter as I know I had (I say “had” & mine is addled a bit now but it is no good pretending we don’t know) & this is really a handicap with boys. Men don’t really like clever girls—at least 95 per cent of them don’t—the frivolous empty-headed type seems to get on best as far as that goes. But I could never bring myself to wish I was like that even though they do get through life easier when they don’t continually strain after something unattainable but drift with the stream. They are the type that Bella and Dora Bruce (her cousins) used to call “cows” (I mean that you grow into that after marriage). Don’t you know they type—there are quite a few in Keewatin? 

I must see if “This Side of Innocence” is in the library. It sounds intriguing & I’m longing to read it. One so seldom gets a good book. I’ve just finished “China to Me” by Emily Hahn who also wrote the “Soong Sisters.” She is an American newspaperwoman who got caught in Hong Kong & was repatriated in 1944. It is very interesting. She is a lady who knew just what she wanted & went after it but in a very selfish way I thought, but she makes no apology. 

Your mother sent me a pair of lisle stockings & pants but I’d be glad if you could do likewise. Fine lisle & cotton or silk whatever you can get if any. The lisle or fine cotton is really more useful to me as I can only wear silk when it is hot and we’ve had little heat this year thank goodness, & the season is already half over. My size in stockings is 9 ½ & I like pants with plenty of room even if I am skinnier! I’m pretty substantial yet. It is my legs from the hips down & my face that show it. I mean the loss of weight.

I’m writing this in bed in the morning as I usually do & I’m beginning to crave a cup of tea & a slice of toast so I’ll bestir me. Then I must get out for some shopping. I sure miss Mrs. Keneally (a former resident in the small apartment/rooming house where Aunt Peggie lived) for more reasons than just selfish ones. She kept the place lively. The new folks upstairs are very stand-offish & have put the door at the foot of their stair on. In two weeks, I’ve spoken to the woman just once. She was nice but one can see she avoids contact. I don’t mind in the least although it is kind of insulting & Mrs. Ouilette (who owned the house) is mad at her though she is a relation whom she liked. 

            Lots of love, Rosy Apple

Aunt Peggie Ferguson was born Maggie Jane Bruce on December 22, 1884 in the Scottish town of Oldmeldrum, north of Aberdeen. I don’t know why she was christened Maggie instead of Margaret. She was the older sister of my grandfather, Frederick Bruce, and they emigrated separately to Canada. My grandfather was an accountant and banker in Keewatin. Aunt Peggie arrived there in 1921. Her husband, Banantyne (Ban) Ferguson, was another Scot whom she married when she was 37. The Fergusons had only one stillborn child and Aunt Peggie remained close to her nieces and nephews.

Since half the family was named Margaret–and nicknamed Maggie–Aunt Peggie didn’t keep her birth name. My mother was the only one to call her “Rosy Apple,” and she referred to herself as “Skinny” in this letter after a series of medical problems that sound like cancer, although the word was never mentioned. 

In fact, reading through the couple of years of letters that my mother kept, I came to realize that she’d probably saved them because these were the ones her aunt had written before she died at 62. Aunt Peggie mentions a series of problems, including three lumps removed from her neck, the doctor being out of town when she needed help, the expense of medical care, the inadequacy of pain medications, and finally a hospital stay. 

Then comes a telegram from November 28, 1946: 

“Auntie Peggie passed quietly away without suffering early Monday morning twenty fifth stop Mum was there stop laid to rest at Kenora yesterday stop love from all Dad”

My mother met my father a few months after her aunt died and they married shortly after that. My parents didn’t seem able to have children, so my mother continued nursing, a career woman despite herself. My arrival years later was a surprise, my younger brother’s a shock. My mother stopped working when I was eleven years old but always regarded herself as a nurse and always spoke fondly of her aunt, as if she’d just left the room.  

The photograph above is the only one I can find of Aunt Peggie. She is shown with my mother’s family on the shore of Clearwater Bay, Lake of the Woods, where my grandparents had a cottage. Cabin, as they said.

Aunt Peggie is kneeling on the right of the photo with her husband, Ban Ferguson, behind her. Standing on the left is my uncle, David Bruce, with my grandmother, Margaret (Maggie) Bruce, beside him. The children in front are my mother Isabel Bruce on the right and her twin sister Margaret (Marg) Bruce. Yes, a lot of Margarets. In the rear is a family friend identified as Mrs. Riddell. I know nothing about her.

Lesley Krueger’s latest novel, Mad Richard, is available here.