Collection search - Marshall, Vera - Interview

Record information – Brief

1

Marshall, Vera - Interview

Item number (ISN):

379733

Series title:

[The Great War and Canadian Society]

Hierarchical level:

Item (Accession level)

Date:

1974-08-01

Item number (ISN):

379733

Type of material:

Sound recordings

Found in:

Archives / Film, Video and Sound

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Record information – Details

Fonds/collection:

THE GREAT WAR AND CANADIAN SOCIETY PROJECT

Accession:

1975-0098

Media:

Sound

Part:

1 of 1

Production date:

1974-08-01

Production company:

Opportunities for Youth

Production credit:

interviewer, Pauline Pytka

Description:

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Interview of Mrs. Vera Marshall, age 76, who was born in Barrie, Ontario in 1898. She talks about: her parents’ occupations; her childhood; her music training; her education; her decision not to go to high school and her parents’ upset about this; her job playing piano for silent movies circa the age of 17 or 18; getting the job when her mother, who also did this, got sick and needed a replacement; her leisure activities such as skating, carnivals, visiting friends, going to Sunday school and church, and going to birthday parties; being the only black student in school; school discipline; feeling pressured by her teacher because she was left-handed; falling behind in her studies; dealing with racism at school; boys calling her a dirty name; fighting aback against children who tried to do something to her after school; having to stay late at school for doing things like eating candy or chewing gum; activities such as playing ball, going fishing and berry picking; spending time alone because she was an only child; going to Guelph for a summer holiday; her parents’ family background; her Irish grandmother; other ethnic groups in Barrie such as Italians, Jews and Chinese; a Chinese laundry in Barrie; never seeing any Chinese women or children; farms in the area; the market in Barrie; stores in Barrie; employers such as the tannery, shoe factory and telegraph office; more about the tannery; feelings when the First World War broke out; a group of boys who were excited about the war and enlisted; going to the station when a number of soldiers were going overseas; meeting her husband at Camp Borden; going to London for a church conference; her fiancé going overseas; not being allow to date before this; visiting relatives in Collingwood; visiting Guelph; going to parties when she was a teenager; not being able to knit very well; her girlfriends waiting for letters from their boyfriends overseas; pressure on young men to enlist; the motivation to stop the fighting from coming to Canada; being taught that the war was a “must”; patriotism for the British Empire; her father feeling bad about a friend’s son enlisting; hostility towards Germans; conscription; sons not being able to take over family businesses because they were overseas; going to meet her husband when he came home from overseas, not knowing that he had already gone to her house to see her; her marriage two years after he came back from overseas; her opinion that his war experiences did not really affect him, although he had nightmares; his work as a customs officer; her job playing piano at dances and for silent movies; getting paid $2 a night to play the piano while the silent film played; matching the music to the mood of the film; improvising music and the need to know a lot of pieces; a man complaining that she played “Poor Butterfly” too much; a light illuminating her piano keys and sheet music; the crowded movie theatres; the heartbreak when cables brought bad news about soldiers; a soldiers’ memorial in Barrie; women’s suffrage and hearing that women were going to “take over”; her lack of interest in voting when she was first married; how senior citizens such as her grandparents did not get any help when she was young, and that senior citizens get more help now; her father’s first pension; more about her grandparents; a poorhouse outside Barrie for old people who could not take care of themselves; Sunday school; her religious background; postwar unemployment; pensions for injured veterans; changes during the war such as women working in factories; women working in the shoe factory; working at the post office during World War Two and leaving the job after the war so that the jobs could be given back to men; how few women worked outside the home before the First World War; and businesses in Barrie.

Language:

English

Notes:

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1. The interviews took place in 1974 and resulted in the publication of a book entitled "The Great War and Canadian Society" edited by Daphne Read - copyright 1978 - New Hogtown Press, Toronto.~2. Release forms, data sheets, and summary analysis/transcripts are available in binders labelled Opportunities for Youth - War and Canadian Society in VSA's audio-visual section.~3. Part of a series of recorded interviews with elderly citizens who lived in Canada during the period of World War I. The interview material consists of their opinions and observations about the war, the war years, and the effect on Canadian society during and after WWI.~4. The interviewee signed an agreement giving consent for a recording of this interview to be placed in the Public Archives of Canada for the purposes of historical research and also signed a publication agreement allowing any transcribed portions of the interview to be used in the book under the condition that no full names, addresses or phone numbers would be published.~5. Subject description is based on information found in the fact sheet, deposit agreement, publication agreement and summary analysis.~6. Mrs. Vera Marshall was contacted for this oral history project via the Toronto Negro Coloured Guard.

Detailed holdings information:

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Vault ISN:

437636

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

C01982

Vault code:

GAT

Number of items:

1

Kind of sound:

R/R

Technical description:

POLY

Made from:

FROM LOANED MATERIAL

Status:

MASTER

Vault ISN:

737132

Format:

SOUND

Location number:

1975-0098/177
1975-0098/178

Vault code:

GAT

Number of items:

2

Kind of sound:

CASSETTE

Made from:

DEPOSIT

Status:

ORIG
Ordering and viewing options

Conditions of access:

Open

Restrictions on consultation:

No Restrictions / Pas de restrictions

Reproduction access:

With written permission of Copyright Owner / Avec la permission écrite du détenteur des droits d'auteur

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Date modified:: 2024-07-24