The Autograph Album Of Miss Janet Fraser

 A shopkeeper’s daughter living in rural Victorian Ontario, Janet Fraser (1867-1921) as did many young

girls of the time, collected autographs. Collected during the 1880s, the autographs generally consisted of personal messages, scripture, or silly verse from family and friends.  Many generations later, Janet’s autograph album still survives as a family heirloom.

Janet Fraser was one of my great grandmothers, the mother of my maternal grandfather George Dixon (1903-1990).  Growing up in the village of West McGillivray north of London as the daughter of Scottish immigrants, she would go on to marry my maternal great grandfather John Thomas Dixon (1870-1952).

Although most entries in the album are not dated, those that are range from mid-1882 to mid-1888, indicating that Janet compiled her collection from about age fifteen to age twenty-one.  There are 64 separate autographs, many from family relatives and others from neighbours and school friends.  The book is rather handsomely bound in multi-coloured leather.  The first page bears Janet Fraser’s signature and the original price of the album which cost a then rather expensive eighty cents. Not surprisingly, the first entry in the album is from Janet’s father William Fraser (1834-1906).  The fatherly advice is consistent with what one might expect from a dour Scot Presbyterian trying to ensure that his daughter at all times conduct herself with propriety.  

                             

Just in case there was any doubt, Janet received even more moral instruction on the very next page from her uncle William Wright (1854 – 1892), her mother’s half-brother:

                                      “To my niece Janet

Take your Daddy’s advice my dear Janet

Be gentle, affectionate, Kind,

T’will add to your own life’s enjoyment

Leave no sad regrettings behind

                                                    Uncle Willie”

Earnest admonishments such as these were very much the norm for the times as well as concerns about omnipresent sin:

                                               “To Miss Frazer

You ask me to write in your album

I scarcely known how to begin

There is nothing original in me

Excepting original sin

                                          Yours sincerely

                                      M. Robinson

                                            West McGillivray”

To further emphasize the point, there is later found the following:

                                                          “To Janet

If sinners entice thee

Consent thou not

                                M. Paterson” 

The preceding two autographs are equally illustrative of the disparity of education present in rural Ontario at the time.  “M. Robinson”, likely a neighbour, appearing by her handwriting to have been barely literate, likely had received no more than a rudimentary education.  “M. Paterson”, believed to be Mary (Sinclair) Paterson the wife of Janet’s uncle John Paterson (1839 – 1923), wrote in a markedly different good hand. She likely had good reason to be concerned with sin and its enticements, her husband having been described by grandnephew Andrew Dixon (1907-2002) as “a rough talker, hard drinker, and fighter”.

Competing with Aunt Mary Paterson’s penmanship was that of Janet’s first cousins once removed, Andrew and William Lawrie (spelled Laurie by some family members) who had also emigrated from Scotland.  They were the sons of William Lawrie, brother of Janet’s maternal grandmother Janet Nicholson Laurie (1808 – 1885).  The fine, almost artistic, penmanship of these two brothers stands out as does Andrew’s Scottish dialect.  Equally impressive is the penmanship of one Thomas Setterington.

“Forget me not” writes William Laurie at Forest on March 22^nd, 1866 while brother Andrew, with a trace of his Scots accent, writes “Dinna Forget Your sincere Friend”, also in Forest, on February 24, 1885.  More formally, in an equally fine hand, we then see:

“My dear young friend so kind

It gives me great pleasure

In this your page of Navy Blue

To leave my autograph behind.

                                                     Thomas Setterington late of

                                      London, England”

There are many additional examples of the religious motif such as “May the pearly gates of heaven, Far far beyond the sea, Open wide dear Janet, To welcome you and me” and “If thy friends despise thee, Take it to the Lord in prayer”.  One touching sentiment, probably not original, is “In life’s golden casket, Place one gem for me’.

Apart from spiritual encouragement and a frequent requests to “forget me not”, the other preoccupation of those penning entries seems to be with the prospects of marriage.  Although marriage was light on romance and heavy on drudgery, spinsterhood was, if at all possible, considered something to be avoided in an era when women, largely having no independent livelihood, depended on men for support. 

As a result, there is much good humoured verse about Janet’s future prospects.  One friend pens “Janet Fraser is your name, Single is your stations, Happy be the little man, That makes the alteration”.  Another writes “May you always remain as you are, May you always be faithful and true, And if a man tells you he loves you, Tell him that is just what he ought to do”. 

Another author hopes that “May you never be an old maid with a temper like a pickle, May you never be a widow with a heart both gay and fickle, But may you be a wife with a heart both good and true, To cheer the path of some man’s life, Is the wish I have for you”.  Even cousin William Lawrie makes a return appearance in the book and weighs in on the subject:

                                   “To Miss Janet Fraser

Here’s Miss Fraser to be had for a wife

She’ll make a man happy all the days of his life

Jolly, good looking as neat as a pin

For further particulars “Inquire within

                                                           William Laurie

                                             Forest 22^nd March 1866”

More sage, albeit not rhyming advice comes from another who advises “Be kind to your lover, Not everyone knows, The pleasure it is, In having a beau”.

Janet eventually found her beau, marrying John Thomas Dixon, three years her junior, on September 25, 1901.  Almost 34 years of age at the time, she  must at times have considered that dreaded spinsterhood was likely to be her lot.  Although Janet had completed high school and even attended Alma College in St. Thomas, a sort of finishing school for young ladies, the shopkeeper’s daughter from West McGillivray ended up, however, as a farmer’s wife. Working herself to the bone while caring for four sons born between 1902 and 1907, she raised them in a strict religious environment consistent with the times.  After marriage and the birth of her sons she unfortunately suffered from a myriad of health problems.  Some believe she eventually had worn herself out in the marriage that all her friends had hoped for so fervently those many years before.  She died in 1921 not quite fifty-four years of age.

How different life must have seemed from those carefree days over thirty-eight years earlier when Janet, then almost sixteen, saw fit to note on the last page of her autograph album, the gathering of two friends and her at father’s home on September 17, 1883:

 “Georgianna Arcoat, Grace Perkin, Janet Fraser were together on September 17, 1885 at Wm Fraser’s”. 

One can well imagine the teenage giggles and banter went on that day.  Janet’s  life of drudgery and poor health lay ahead, a stark contrast to Janet’s future life of drudgery and poor health that lay ahead.

                                                                                                                                 David Arntfield