In 1891, Alice Barrett moved from Port Dover, Ontario, to the Okanagan Valley to keep house for her brother and uncle. She soon married Harold Parke, a former NWMP officer, and spent the next decade recording her experiences in a series of notebooks sent to her Ontario family. Few women?s diaries have survived from that time, and Barrett Parke recalls a period of profound transformation in a region newly opened to white settlement by the railway. She was an astute observer and an exceptional writer, and her diaries provide invaluable insights into work, health, religion, race and gender relations, and women?s lives. On a personal level, her writings show the conflict between her independent spirit and women?s traditional roles. Although wary of the emerging feminism of the time, Alice was co-opted into the ?vice-regal circle? of the Countess of Aberdeen, who stayed at nearby Coldstream Ranch, and became the first corresponding secretary of the Vernon chapter of the National Council of Women. Selected as a BC Book for Everybody.
Authors
- Control Number Identifier
- CaOOCEL
- Dewey Decimal Classification Number
- 971.1/503/092
- General Note
- Issued as part of the desLibris books collection
- Geographic Area Code
- n-cn-bc
- ISBN
- 9780774850100 0774808527
- LCCN
- F1089.O5
- LCCN Item number
- P37 2001eb
- Modifying agency
- CaBNVSL
- Original cataloging agency
- CaBVAU
- Physical Description | Extent
- 1 electronic text (xxxiii, 349 p., [8] p. of plates ; ill., geneal. tables, map, ports.)
- Published in
- Canada
- Publisher or Distributor Number
- CaOOCEL
- Rights
- Access restricted to authorized users and institutions
- System Control Number
- (CaBNVSL)jme00324058 (OCoLC)667850685 (CaOOCEL)404234
- System Details Note
- Mode of access: World Wide Web
- Transcribing agency
- CaOONL
Table of Contents
- Hobnobbing with 1
- Hobnobbing with a Countess and Other 3
- Okanagan Adventures 3
- Contents 7
- Acknowledgments 9
- Abbreviations 11
- Introduction 13
- Hobnobbing with 35
- Quite away from 37
- The real the useful the necessary these occupy one here 63
- A very cosy happy home 91
- How many people I have got to know 112
- Oh I do hope Ill be able to do something useful and good 132
- A great many people have ailments here 144
- How I love them all 183
- Oh I wish I could hear someone who would stir me up 201
- A man of Mr. Parkes ability 213
- I have been as busy as I could be 237
- There is much of the untamed animal nature in me 255
- The women work much harder than the men 276
- Hob-nobbing with a Countess 284
- I think if I were a man Id want to go in for politics 297
- People really seem to be getting sanguine over the mining prospects around here 307
- It really is shameful the way I neglect my poor old diary lately 313
- I wonder when Im a grey haired old woman if I will enjoy reading these papers 326
- Notes 340
- Appendix A 382
- Appendix B 383
- Appendix C 384
- Bibliography 385
- Index 390
