Sunday 13 November 2011

More fact and fiction with Mercy Coles

Image courtesy of Susan Law http://www.osgoodehall.com/

It has been really interesting for me to go back and look at Mercy Coles' diary from 1864 and do more research on the event and places at the time - there are so many more connections than those mentioned here yet and I plan on doing more - for example, the Peace Conference in Niagara Falls in July 1864 and the writings of John Wilkes Booth, more on education in Ontario and what developed from the Toronto Normal School ... just the tip of the iceberg in my notes below.

More of my notes from Mercy Coles' diary Nov 1864

And the Lawyers Hall, now Osgoode Hall, from the novel:

Wednesday, November 2nd. Toronto

In the morning Mercy rose, untired. They toured the
city, the delegates and the women shown the sights. The first
stop was the Lawyers Hall where the centre room reached all
the way to the roof and they stood and looked up at a dome
made completely of stained glass. The light from the dome
was filtered and shimmered along the walls and the floor of
mosaic. It made Mercy feel dizzy with her head back, staring
up. Her hair fell over her forehead and into her face and across
her eyes as she knew it would. Her sleepless night and waiting,
the air so still in the room and she was breathless. The room
a fall of water, the coloured light playing over their skin.
Anticipation the whole night through, wanting to see him.

But he wasn’t there.

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