The recent trip to Canada included many wonderful experiences but one that rises toward the top of the list is my visit to the Rideau Street Convent Chapel inside the National Gallery of Canada.
The chapel, designed in 1887 by Rev. George Bouillon (who, interestingly, was not a trained architect), was part of the Convent of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart on Rideau Street in Ottawa. It was consecrated in 1888.
In 1972 the Roman Catholic “Grey Nuns of the Cross” or Sisters of Charity of Ottawa sold their property to a developer. The interior of the chapel was rescued from demolition by a coalition of government and community groups, including the National Gallery of Canada. The chapel was deconsecrated and dismantled. In 1988 it was rebuilt, as it had existed in 1972, inside the National Gallery.
I knew the chapel was inside the museum but I was not expecting the experience of seeing it. I imagined a museum gallery space featuring an alter and screens and display cases housing ornate gold and silver objects of Catholica along with tasteful signage conveying interesting historical factoids. I was so wrong!
Entering the chapel, one feels it is a separate building. The installation is in a windowless, interior, gallery space but the chapel’s walls and ceiling, as well as the artificial light behind it’s simple stained glass windows, removes all sense of the museum surrounding it.
Most of the pews have been removed and replaced by two backless benches in the center of the chapel. In a circle around these two benches are 40 small, free-standing, speakers; each projecting one voice of Thomas Tallis’ 40-part motet “Spem in alium”. One might imagine the introduction of visible technology in the neo-Gothic space might be jarring or distracting but that, surprisingly, is not the case. And the music, literally being surrounded by the music, is overwhelming. I am not religious and was I raised as a Southern Baptist. I can appreciate the beauty of a chapel and the artistry of music but I’ve never had the experience of being emotional affected by it before. For some reason I found it incredibly moving. I am not sure why.
In preparing this post I stumbled across one tidbit that is as bizarre as it is ironic. “Spem in alium” is included in the score of the recent film adaptation of “50 Shades of Grey”. I have not included a link to the piece. It is nine minutes long but those wishing to sample it can find it on iTunes on the “50 Shades of Grey Seductive Soundtrack”. I’m glad I did not know that before visiting the chapel. I don’t think an allusion to the “Grey Nuns of the Cross” was one of the ’50 shades’ intended by E.L. James when she penned her trilogy of soft-core potboilers. I will certainly strive to remove the image from my mind. And I sincerely hope there are not poor French-Canadian nuns somewhere spinning in their graves.
Bears! Oh my!
Harper’s Other Dad and I met while on winter vacation. We were staying at the same guest house in Key West. Since then we have continued to vacation around that same time each year. For years, we planned the trips around the anniversary of that first meeting; January 31st, but recently we’ve pushed it back to Valentine’s Day. The weather is warmer in many destinations and it is a little farther from the holidays. Last year we went to Puerto Vallarta for the first time. We liked it so we’re going back. We vacation with another couple; friends we met more than a decade ago on one of these winter trips. The 2014 trip will be the second week of February.
On the dates we wanted to travel, I could get one round-trip Coach ticket for 55,250 miles but if I wanted two Coach tickets they were 75000 miles 
n the end, we used 110250 Frequent Flyer miles, about 9000 more than we actually had, and spent $531 for one Coach ticket and one First Class ticket to Mexico. I am not unhappy with that price. It is less than I thought we’d pay and less than we are spending to go to Detroit for Christmas. I just wish I could find the logic in the process so I would not have had to spend so much time getting it done. Oh well, come February we will be sipping our $.80 Coronas overlooking the Pacific, or sipping our $.80 Pacificos gazing at the corona (I’m flexible) and trying to decide how many is ‘too many’ times to eat Chile en Nagada in one week.
I struck out in my annual visit to Theatre Books; the universe’s way to telling me I already have too many books I haven’t read.
I enjoyed the unseasonably cool weather in Stratford. The locals and travelers from other places were not happy but after an Arizona summer it was pleasure to put on a sweatshirt and eat breakfast outdoors by the lake with temps in the lower 60’s.
I should be getting good at it. I’ve been doing it a lot lately; travel prep.
Established on its current site in 1912, Evergreen Cemetery replaced the Old Park Cemetery which had been established in Brewery Gulch twenty years earlier. Around the turn of the 20th century, some Bisbee residents became concerned about Old Park Cemetery’s Brewery Gulch location being upslope of the city’s water source so, in 1914, the City Council ordered that all the graves in Old Park Cemetery be relocated to the new Evergreen site. Evergreen is still in use and now contains more than 10,000 graves.
The 
An attempt by the Western Federation of Miners to organize the Bisbee mine workers in 1906-1907 had failed. About 1914 the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW – also known as ‘The Wobblies’) established offices in Arizona with the goal of organizing the State’s mine workers. In Bisbee they established Metal Mine Workers Industrial Union Local #800.
Executing a plan allegedly developed by Walter Douglas, General Manager of the Phelps Dodge Corporation, owners of the Copper Queen Mine, County Sheriff Harry Wheeler formed the “Workman’s Loyalty League”. Wheeler deputized and armed more than 2000 men as a posse and on July 11, 1917, identified by their white arm bands, they took men from the picket lines, union organizers or suspected union sympathizers from their homes and any men on the street who were not working and marched them to the local baseball field for “trial” on the charges of “vagrancy, treason, and of being disturbers of the peace”. If a citizen the Loyalty League found “respectable” vouched for a man and the man agreed to abandon the strike and return to work, he was released. At the end of the process more than 1200 men were still held prisoner. The men were loaded onto boxcars and transported 200 miles through the desert, without food or water, and unloaded at Hermanas, New Mexico, without money or transportation. They were warned not to return to Bisbee under threat of lynching.
During the deportation, employees of the mining companies seized the telegraph offices to prevent news of the events from leaving the area. Loyalty League members guarded the roads around Bisbee for several months and allowed no one to enter or leave the city without a ‘passport’ signed by the Sheriff. After the deportation, some of the deportees managed to return to their families in Bisbee and obtain work under assumed names. Most never returned to Arizona.
In the aftermath of the deportations, a federal commission investigating the events concluded; “The deportation was wholly illegal and without authority in law, either State or Federal.” The Justice Department ordered the arrest of 21 mining executives, including Douglas, as well as numerous elected officials. All were released when a trial court ruled that no Federal laws had been broken. The Justice Department appealed but the US Supreme Court, in an 8-1 ruling, upheld the lower court’s determination and said it was a matter for the State. No State charges were filed against the organizers of the Deportation.
Visiting this cemetery is unlike any other I have experienced. With my interest in Find A Grave, I visit cemeteries fairly often. It is not usually a sad or depressing experience but I am always aware of the meaning of my surroundings. The graves are the final resting places of human beings so a certain amount of respect, if not reverence, is appropriate. That should be no less true of the people interred at Boothill and yet it has a tourist attraction feel to it. Possibly it is the distance in time. Possibly it is the ‘wild west’ feel of the place and the familiarity of the stories. Maybe it’s just that families come with children of all ages to look at the graves of strangers. Whatever the cause, it is not at all a sad place to see.
Dutch Annie was a prostitute. Actually, she was known as the Queen of the Red Light District. The caption on her photo at the Bird Cages says when she died “the whole town of Tombstone turned out to bury her with dignity”.
The morning started with an exciting thunderstorm in Bisbee. We drove through torrential rains on the way to Tombstone but, by the time we arrived, the weather had calmed. Umbrellas were needed but it was not unpleasant for the tourists. The poor man in cowboy drag and his horses who had to wait in the rain hoping someone might want a stagecoach ride must have been miserable, however.
The most famous event in Tombstone history was the gunfight at the OK Corral. Fought on October 26, 1881, the gunfight matched the local U.S. Marshal, Virgil Earp, along with his deputies; his brothers Morgan and Wyatt, and Doc Holliday, against outlaw cowboys Billy Claiborne, Ike & Billy Clanton and Frank & Tom McLaury. Claiborne and Ike Clanton fled before the fight. The fight lasted approximately 30 seconds leaving Billy Clanton and both McLaury brothers dead. Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday were wounded. Only Wyatt was unharmed. 
While the event was short in duration it was a long time in coming. Tensions had been increasing between the Earps who, as law enforcement, primarily represented the mining interests; most of whom were Republicans and Northerners who’d supported the Union in the Civil War, and the cowboys who were primarily Democrats and former Confederates. Billy Clanton and the McLaurys are buried side by side in the Boot Hill Cemetery. Virgil Earp would be shot 3 months later by a sniper in retaliation. Morgan Earp was killed 3 months after that by associates of the Clantons.
As expected, the highlight of the trip to Tombstone was my visit to 
The Bird Cage opened its doors on Christmas Day, 1881 and was open 24 hours per day, 365 days per year until it closed in 1989. The store front entrance was into the saloon. Through the saloon was the entrance to the theater. From the main floor seats, customers could enjoy performances of traveling actors and musicians as well as more exotic entertainments such as belly dancing. On the second floor there were private boxes on both sides. With the curtains open, box patrons could enjoy the performances on stage and get a bird’s eye view of the action on the main floor. When the curtains were closed, the patrons could chat privately with young women of flexible virtue.
Prostitution was legal in Tombstone and to work in any of the established houses of ill fame a license was required. Separate licenses were required for Madames seeking to run such an establishment. The licenses for all involved had to be renewed annually. Please note the requirement that the license had to be “displayed in a conspicuous place above the bed”. This is the license of “Sadie Jo”. Her real name was Sarah Josephine Marcus. The license is signed by Marshal Wyatt Earp who would later be her husband. She had previously been engaged to County Sheriff John Behan but he disapproved of her professional endeavors.
Harper's Valley 