Zona de identificação
tipo de entidade
Pessoa singular
Forma autorizada do nome
R. [surname unknown], Irene
Forma(s) paralela(s) de nome
- T.I.R.
Forma normalizada do nome de acordo com outras regras
Outra(s) forma(s) de nome
identificadores para entidades coletivas
área de descrição
Datas de existência
1930s
Histórico
Irene R. [surname unknown] was a young woman from rural Southwest Oxford County in the early 1930s. Likely in her late teens or early twenties at the time, in 1933-1934 she wrote newsy and romantic letters from rural addresses in Mount Elgin, Ontario and Ingersoll, Ontario (about 40 km east of London, Ontario), to her sweetheart George Philpot. Irene and George seem to have met and begun their courtship during a mutual year or two at the London Normal School (later Teachers’ College), with Irene returning home to her parents’ farm in Mount Elgin for the summer.
Teaching was one of a limited number of professions open to women at the time, and the London Normal School offered a two-year program with a focus on academic subject. The student population of mostly-rural teens tended to form strong, enduring friendships. Irene had a lively social life in her rural community and kept in touch with many friends and mentors from Normal School. She appears to have taught Primer/I/II students in a rural school prior to earning her teaching certificate, and to have pursued additional qualifications via home study during the summer after she finished Normal School. During that summer she applied to teach at many schools in rural Southwest Oxford County, and eventually found a position for September 1933 in the Junior room (grades I, II, III, and IV) in the two-room school at Foldens near Ingersoll (where she boarded). In 1934 she again applied for schools, including at least one in Windsor, Ontario, likely in the hope of being near George.
Irene’s correspondence with George was a secret from her parents, whom she felt had “ethical” issues with it – possibly because George may have had a son (Harry). The romance was discovered and disapproved of by Irene’s mother, but Irene and George continued their secret correspondence interspersed with occasional meetings. By August 1933 there appears to have been an “understanding” between the pair, that they would be married in 1937. In the final letter (July 1934) Irene speaks of coming to visit George in Windsor and receiving a list of boarding houses from the principal of Kennedy Collegiate (perhaps indicating she had been hired to teach there, or that George taught there). No further information has been uncovered.
Sources: Sharon Hill, “Hidden Love: Demolition of Windsor house uncovers Irene’s old love letters to George,” The Windsor Star, 27 October 2017 https://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/hidden-love-demolition-of-windsor-house-uncovers-irenes-old-love-letters-to-george (accessed 30 October 2020); Cassidy Foxcroft, “A Century of Ontario Normal School Yearbooks,” OISE Library News, 13 June 2017, https://wordpress.oise.utoronto.ca/librarynews/2017/06/13/a-century-of-ontario-normal-school-yearbooks/ (accessed 30 October 2020); Susan Gelman, “Stratford (Normal School) Teachers’ College, 1908-1973,” Historical Studies in Education 14, 1 (2002): 113-20.