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Mary McDonald-Rissanen’s In the Interval of the Wave captures the hidden histories of Prince Edward Island women in their handwritten pages.
The following excerpt is about Mrs Joseph Stretch’s ledger, one of the oldest documents written by a woman in PEI, and how it reveals the complexities of pioneer life on the Island.
When the barque Isabel set off from the English coast in early autumn 1856, her passenger list included two families bound for a new life in the British colony of PEI on Canada’s east coast. The story of the Harris family is well documented, as two of their sons gained national recognition: Critchlow for his architecture and Robert for his painting. The other family, the Stretches, went on to establish tenacious roots in PEI almost immediately after they entered Charlottetown harbour on 11 October 1856.
My interest in this story stems from the handwritten ledger of Mrs Joseph Stretch, which she started keeping three years after her arrival, during 1859–1860; I stumbled upon it in the PEI provincial archives. Emma Chadwick Stretch’s ledger is about sixty pages. It began as a record of the goods and services exchanged from the Stretch household in England; the earliest entry is dated 1850, six years before they emigrated. Among these early entries in the now-tattered book is a plea to one of their clients to settle his account, as the Stretches desperately needed the money. The account book was obviously precious to the Stretch family, since they carried it with them to the new world. Through a close reading of the jottings in Stretch’s shop ledger and Robert Critchlow Tuck’s The Island Family Harris, the circumstances of the Harris and Stretch families’ departure from England and entry into pre-Confederation Canada emerge.
D.M.R. Bentley, in his article “Breaking the ‘Cake of Custom’: The Atlantic Crossing as a Rubicon for Female Emigrants to Canada?” explores the processes of migration – departure, voyage, and arrival – and the literary response of women such as Catharine Parr Traill and Susanna Moodie to the transatlantic voyage. Bentley suggests that such pioneer women “forged in their lives and in their writings a new role model for Canadian women in the pioneering and post pioneering period.” Stretch similarly deals with the consequence of migration, how she disengages with some old practices, retains others, and adapts her life and that of her family to their new locale. Writing her ledger diary was her means of reassembling her life and recreating a recipe from old and new world ingredients. Stretch’s writing, like that of other emigrant women, serves as a record of her construction of her new world identity from the “cake of custom” shattered by her relocation.
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At first, Stretch’s diary appears fragmented and opaque, but after multiple readings her handwriting becomes more familiar and her character emerges through her scrolling and occasionally cryptic text. Stretch’s dexterity as a shopkeeper and recorder of goods and services to and from her household predominate in her diary discourse. Take for example an entry from 22 November 1859: “Peggy here working Peter McFagan sold us two geese for a lb of tea.” This shorter-than-average entry illustrates a typical daily pattern in the diary, an exchange of labour and goods, with reference to Stretch’s currency, tea. Almost daily throughout her diary, she mentions various labourers or employees, such as Peggy or Betsy, who assisted her with the washing and cleaning and were often paid in tea. Callers such as Peter McFagan and Mrs McEachern generally came to purchase tea with their own produce, such as geese or hand-knit socks, as items of exchange.
A second entry from a few days later is somewhat more complex. More people call in to the Stretch home and various types of arrangements for payment are recorded: “on trust”; in exchange for services; or on the family account, sometimes with a down payment. The complexity of her dealings required Stretch to keep track of the transactions. On 25 November 1859 she wrote: “McPhail boy came for 1 lb of tea on trust Chad went to Mrs McEwen for letters also took her 1 lb of tea McLaughlans girl got 1 lb of tea paid 2/3 on a/c got blk pkg.”
A third type of transaction does not involve currency of any material nature but is simply a gesture of good will. On Monday, 28 November 1859, Stretch’s complete entry reads, “Hector Blue brought a little pig for baby.” Apparently Grace and Hector Blue had a special relationship with the Stretch family; in August 1859 when the baby was seriously ill, Stretch records their visit and how they helped out.
Cash was obviously the desired currency, and when it arrived in the Stretch household in the form of a draft, possibly from England, Stretch was able to buy geese and rum in time for Christmas and pay off debts to their neighbours. The day before Christmas 1859, Stretch writes, “Joe & Josy croped the ice going to town received note from Ian Tom enclosing draft bought beef 5 geese 2 gal rum paid ‘Tho’ Dodd £3 – Rankin £3 also W Dodd for things bought at Burrow’s sale £5–7–6.”
All four entries indicate how Stretch managed the business of her pioneer household in a community that could not rely on a regular flow of cash. This system is based on an agreed rate of exchange, as seen when Peter McFagan gives two geese for a pound of tea. Many other types of exchanges exist, such as Stretch’s children helping out neighbours or the lending and borrowing of farm animals and equipment. Stretch represents her family and community in her accounts primarily as being active on their farm and beyond by their bringing material wealth into the family/community in addition to sharing and exchanging the fruits of their labour.
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