Showing posts with label Ruttan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ruttan. Show all posts

16 April 2010

A Second 'To Jas. McIntyre'


from William Arthur Deacon's The Four Jameses (Ottawa: Graphic, 1927)
TO JAS. MCINTYRE

A man of mighty mark,
Who crossed the ocean dark
To win some glory;
Resolved to carve his name
High in Canadian fame,
And live in story.

And this methinks will be,
For friend and foe agree
Rare is his talent;
And as much diversified
As our world is wide.
Hail Scotia's gallant!

He racy is, and witty,
As shown by many a ditty
In humourous vein;
And some say wit's his forte,
His muse all turns to sport,
He eschews pain.

But we who know him best
'Gainst this view must protest
He's oft pathetic;
And with his pen so wise,
Can bring tears to the eyes
Of each ascetic.
Related post: Don't Answer the Door!

15 April 2010

Don't Answer the Door!


Fort Frances Times, 8 February 1917.

The devoted daughter of James McIntyre, Kate Ruttan wrote several poems honouring her father, including at least two titled "To Jas. McIntyre". This, the superior, was written in happy times, before McIntyre's business was lost to Canada's River Thames. Late in life, she described the gothic scene in a letter to William Arthur Deacon:
Foundation of furniture factory fell & sailed down the River Thames. Coffins, caskets, cupboards, card tables, chairs, pianos, pianolas - all commingled in confusion worse confounded. Also he was previously burned out. He wrote me his true townsmen collected Six Hundred Dollars for him that mournful morn. He was the loveliest man on earth.


It seems Mrs Ruttan inherited her father's bad luck. Widowed at a young age, she struggled to support her small family by working as a schoolteacher, postmistress, newspaper columnist and, it seems, door-to-door salesperson for evangelist Billy Sunday. Her only volume of verse, Rhymes, Right or Wrong, of Rainy River, was published in 1926 by the Fort Frances Times. She died two years later.