Winnifred Trainor's July
18, 1917 Telephone Bill
18, 1917 Telephone Bill
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From what was previously known, if alive today, Winnifred Trainor might already have
sued the Canadian Mysteries website and Bell Canada for publishing her telephone bill
of July 18, 1917. The case would be the subject of hourly cable TV and tabloid
newspaper coverage because out of it might emerge some of the mystery's closest
guarded secrets.
That first impression would be wrong. The website says it obtained the bill from the
Library and Archives of Canada in the Tom Thomson collection, Vol. 1 File 23 but does
not explain how it came into the Library's possession or, more importantly, who thought
to request a copy from her or Bell Canada. The legal privacy questions it raises are
interesting but she died in 1962.
A Member of the research team that put the website together, Gregory Klages, says
that the papers in the archive came from the Thomson family. They, obviously, obtained
the bill from Miss Trainor herself. Likely, at their invitation, she was seeking payment
from the family for telephone charges arising out of her role in trying to arrange Tom's
burial.
A careful review of the telephone bill and related correspondence between her and
family suggests no answers to the mystery of his death or her possible pregnancy with
his child but the bill upsets earlier interpretations of this apparently cranky, enigmatic
correspondence with Thomson's family in the weeks following his drowning on July 8,
1917, in Algonquin Provincial Park Canoe Lake.
Two of her letters can be found here and here. Putting the correspondence fully into
context also requires a reading of two other pieces of correspondence between the
Canoe Lake burial undertaker, Robert H. Flavelle and Thomson's brother-in-law, Thomas
J. Harkness, who was executor of the painter's estate. They are here and here.
The handwritten $5.00 telephone bill from the Huntsville office of the Bell Telephone
Company of Canada records two calls by "Miss Traynor" from Huntsville to "Mr.
Thompson" in Owen Sound and four telephone calls to "Mr. Flavelle" in Kearney. The mis-
spelling of names is common throughout the archives. Evidently, she made no other
telephone calls during the billing period, which may suggest nothing about her social life
and something about telephone habits of 1917.
Her nephew, Globe & Mail national columnist, Roy MacGregor, suggests a reasonable
explanation for the bill. First, he insist, there was no telephone service at her home in
Huntsville, owned by the her parents, in 1917. He believes she might have been using a
telephone located at the Huntsville Post Office or Western Union. He believes that she
was simply engaged in the social convention of the day in sending the bill to the family
that ended up in the archives among their papers.
The telephone bill may confirm what I said in Algonquin Elegy: Tom Thomson's Last
Spring -- there were no telephone lines between Canoe Lake and Huntsville. Park
Superintendent George W. Bartlett had a telephone line on which he could call North Bay
or Ottawa but not Huntsville. I reached this conclusion because Chief Ranger Mark
Robinson dispatched Fire Ranger Albert Patterson to Huntsville on the evening train, July
12, 1917, "to search into matters there," according to his daily journal. The bill records no
calls to Canoe Lake.
Second, her two longer telephone calls ($2.50 and $1.10) to the Thomson family in Owen
Sound suggest to me that she knew them. Therefore, more than likely, they had earlier
contacted her when news Tom was missing reached them because there is no evidence
anyone from Canoe Lake ever notified her themselves before July 12 or 13, when she
might have been told by Patterson. If not, why would she have called them?
Moreover, she telephoned nobody else.
In summary, all of the evidence strongly suggests that sometime between July 10, when
the search for Thomson's body began and July 16, when the body was found, the
Thomson family contacted Winnie Trainor. Even If the calls on the telephone bill are in
chronological order, they, nonetheless, suggest that Winnie Trainor was asked on July
16 by the family to help arrange for an undertaker to ship the body back to Owen Sound
for burial.
All six entries of the telephone bill are dated July 18, 1917 -- which is misleading. Winnie
Trainor boarded a train for Toronto on July 17, 1917, immediately following Thomson's
burial at Canoe Lake. Moreover, her letter to Harkness on August 11, 1917 indicates that
all of these calls could only have been made before July 18. Furthermore, she was at
Canoe Lake all day on July 17 along with Flavelle. She would have had no reason to
telephone him later. So, it's evident that these are billing dates alone.
Contacted by Shannon Fraser, who operated the Canoe Lake Western Union office,
Flavelle and his embalmer, Michael R. Dixon, had arrived at Canoe Lake on, Monday, July
16. (Flavelle billed for lodging from 3:45 p.m., Monday to 6:45 p.m., Tuesday. ) Meanwhile,
Winnie told Harkness in her letter of August 11 that she departed Huntsville at 6 p.m.,July
16, for the Scotia Junction connection to Algonquin Park on Monday evening. "I’m sorry I
did not go up the day before – I suggested things at Canoe Lake, but was refused. If I see
you I can tell you all," she wrote.
Winnie added the following note to her letter between pages 1 and 2: "I acted on the
strength of the telegram of instructions which was found waiting at the train time 6.p-m. I
had quite a hard struggle to even see it. " It may be that the Thomson family tried to
telegraph Flavelle there with burial instructions because she told Harkness:
"After I got ans. to what was going on at Canoe Lake – I did all in my power to get things
righted. I was told there it could not be done, but I thought I’d have a try and I knew that
time was precious. When I got to Scotia arriving at 730p.m. the wires were down between
Hville [Huntsville] and Scotia. So then I looked up the agent & sent out message after
message to Hville all free of charge, & perfectly lovely about it all. I had to wait there till
nearly 3. am."
Flavelle's bill to the Thomson estate for undertaking services probably explains Winnie's
frantic telegraph messages to Huntsville. Flavelle billed 30 cents for "phone messages
to Canoe Lake." This is puzzling. If he could make a telephone call from Kearney to
Canoe Lake, why couldn't Canoe Lake call Kearney, connect to Huntsville and Owen
Sound? Also, who did Flavelle talk to at Canoe Lake? It may be answered easily because
I believe that Flavelle was doing by telephone what it Winnie Trainor was doing at Scotia
Junction -- actually contacting a telegraph agent in Huntsville to send a message, in his
case, to Canoe Lake.
Winnie's earlier telephone calls to him only confirm that there was a telephone line
between Huntsville and Kearney. From Scotia Junction late at night, it seems likely
Winnie was trying to relay the family's burial wishes by telegram to Flavelle, Fraser or
Robinson at Canoe Lake.
When the coroner failed to arrive at Canoe Lake on the morning train, Tuesday, July 17,
Bartlett agreed with Robinson and Fraser that the body should be immediately examined
by Dr. Goldwin W. Howland, M.D., embalmed and buried in the Mowat Cemetery. Winnie
Trainor likely arrived on that morning train, tried and failed to persuade them against
doing so. There is a clue to why she failed in her correspondence to Harkness. Flavelle
had brought to Canoe Lake a fine wooden casket and rough burial box in which the body
could not be transported by train back to Owen Sound. She wrote:
"A copper lining costs more than the casket itself. So you see he [Flavelle] is billing a
good [illegible]. I would suggest to use your own judgement as you know the contents of
the first telegram. Thought [illegible] composed – and you know the tangle now that has
to be unravelled – owing to the thoughtlessness of not having a sealed casket – which
anyone knows is needed in a case of that kind and also required by law. If you knew Mr.
Fraser I think you would use your own judgement. "
So, there is convincing evidence that Winnie's "enigmatic statements," as described by
myself, S. Bernard Shaw in his book, Canoe Lake Algonquin Park: Tom Thomson and
Other Mysteries, and others arose from no more than a bad coincidence of
circumstances and a lack of telephone lines resulting in no more than bad feelings over
the burial arrangements made by Shannon Fraser under the authority of Bartlett.
Winnie's July 18, 1917, bill from the Bell Telephone Company of Canada is a key to
sweeping aside all other speculation of sinister events surrounding the burial of Tom
Thomson at Canoe Lake.
sued the Canadian Mysteries website and Bell Canada for publishing her telephone bill
of July 18, 1917. The case would be the subject of hourly cable TV and tabloid
newspaper coverage because out of it might emerge some of the mystery's closest
guarded secrets.
That first impression would be wrong. The website says it obtained the bill from the
Library and Archives of Canada in the Tom Thomson collection, Vol. 1 File 23 but does
not explain how it came into the Library's possession or, more importantly, who thought
to request a copy from her or Bell Canada. The legal privacy questions it raises are
interesting but she died in 1962.
A Member of the research team that put the website together, Gregory Klages, says
that the papers in the archive came from the Thomson family. They, obviously, obtained
the bill from Miss Trainor herself. Likely, at their invitation, she was seeking payment
from the family for telephone charges arising out of her role in trying to arrange Tom's
burial.
A careful review of the telephone bill and related correspondence between her and
family suggests no answers to the mystery of his death or her possible pregnancy with
his child but the bill upsets earlier interpretations of this apparently cranky, enigmatic
correspondence with Thomson's family in the weeks following his drowning on July 8,
1917, in Algonquin Provincial Park Canoe Lake.
Two of her letters can be found here and here. Putting the correspondence fully into
context also requires a reading of two other pieces of correspondence between the
Canoe Lake burial undertaker, Robert H. Flavelle and Thomson's brother-in-law, Thomas
J. Harkness, who was executor of the painter's estate. They are here and here.
The handwritten $5.00 telephone bill from the Huntsville office of the Bell Telephone
Company of Canada records two calls by "Miss Traynor" from Huntsville to "Mr.
Thompson" in Owen Sound and four telephone calls to "Mr. Flavelle" in Kearney. The mis-
spelling of names is common throughout the archives. Evidently, she made no other
telephone calls during the billing period, which may suggest nothing about her social life
and something about telephone habits of 1917.
Her nephew, Globe & Mail national columnist, Roy MacGregor, suggests a reasonable
explanation for the bill. First, he insist, there was no telephone service at her home in
Huntsville, owned by the her parents, in 1917. He believes she might have been using a
telephone located at the Huntsville Post Office or Western Union. He believes that she
was simply engaged in the social convention of the day in sending the bill to the family
that ended up in the archives among their papers.
The telephone bill may confirm what I said in Algonquin Elegy: Tom Thomson's Last
Spring -- there were no telephone lines between Canoe Lake and Huntsville. Park
Superintendent George W. Bartlett had a telephone line on which he could call North Bay
or Ottawa but not Huntsville. I reached this conclusion because Chief Ranger Mark
Robinson dispatched Fire Ranger Albert Patterson to Huntsville on the evening train, July
12, 1917, "to search into matters there," according to his daily journal. The bill records no
calls to Canoe Lake.
Second, her two longer telephone calls ($2.50 and $1.10) to the Thomson family in Owen
Sound suggest to me that she knew them. Therefore, more than likely, they had earlier
contacted her when news Tom was missing reached them because there is no evidence
anyone from Canoe Lake ever notified her themselves before July 12 or 13, when she
might have been told by Patterson. If not, why would she have called them?
Moreover, she telephoned nobody else.
In summary, all of the evidence strongly suggests that sometime between July 10, when
the search for Thomson's body began and July 16, when the body was found, the
Thomson family contacted Winnie Trainor. Even If the calls on the telephone bill are in
chronological order, they, nonetheless, suggest that Winnie Trainor was asked on July
16 by the family to help arrange for an undertaker to ship the body back to Owen Sound
for burial.
All six entries of the telephone bill are dated July 18, 1917 -- which is misleading. Winnie
Trainor boarded a train for Toronto on July 17, 1917, immediately following Thomson's
burial at Canoe Lake. Moreover, her letter to Harkness on August 11, 1917 indicates that
all of these calls could only have been made before July 18. Furthermore, she was at
Canoe Lake all day on July 17 along with Flavelle. She would have had no reason to
telephone him later. So, it's evident that these are billing dates alone.
Contacted by Shannon Fraser, who operated the Canoe Lake Western Union office,
Flavelle and his embalmer, Michael R. Dixon, had arrived at Canoe Lake on, Monday, July
16. (Flavelle billed for lodging from 3:45 p.m., Monday to 6:45 p.m., Tuesday. ) Meanwhile,
Winnie told Harkness in her letter of August 11 that she departed Huntsville at 6 p.m.,July
16, for the Scotia Junction connection to Algonquin Park on Monday evening. "I’m sorry I
did not go up the day before – I suggested things at Canoe Lake, but was refused. If I see
you I can tell you all," she wrote.
Winnie added the following note to her letter between pages 1 and 2: "I acted on the
strength of the telegram of instructions which was found waiting at the train time 6.p-m. I
had quite a hard struggle to even see it. " It may be that the Thomson family tried to
telegraph Flavelle there with burial instructions because she told Harkness:
"After I got ans. to what was going on at Canoe Lake – I did all in my power to get things
righted. I was told there it could not be done, but I thought I’d have a try and I knew that
time was precious. When I got to Scotia arriving at 730p.m. the wires were down between
Hville [Huntsville] and Scotia. So then I looked up the agent & sent out message after
message to Hville all free of charge, & perfectly lovely about it all. I had to wait there till
nearly 3. am."
Flavelle's bill to the Thomson estate for undertaking services probably explains Winnie's
frantic telegraph messages to Huntsville. Flavelle billed 30 cents for "phone messages
to Canoe Lake." This is puzzling. If he could make a telephone call from Kearney to
Canoe Lake, why couldn't Canoe Lake call Kearney, connect to Huntsville and Owen
Sound? Also, who did Flavelle talk to at Canoe Lake? It may be answered easily because
I believe that Flavelle was doing by telephone what it Winnie Trainor was doing at Scotia
Junction -- actually contacting a telegraph agent in Huntsville to send a message, in his
case, to Canoe Lake.
Winnie's earlier telephone calls to him only confirm that there was a telephone line
between Huntsville and Kearney. From Scotia Junction late at night, it seems likely
Winnie was trying to relay the family's burial wishes by telegram to Flavelle, Fraser or
Robinson at Canoe Lake.
When the coroner failed to arrive at Canoe Lake on the morning train, Tuesday, July 17,
Bartlett agreed with Robinson and Fraser that the body should be immediately examined
by Dr. Goldwin W. Howland, M.D., embalmed and buried in the Mowat Cemetery. Winnie
Trainor likely arrived on that morning train, tried and failed to persuade them against
doing so. There is a clue to why she failed in her correspondence to Harkness. Flavelle
had brought to Canoe Lake a fine wooden casket and rough burial box in which the body
could not be transported by train back to Owen Sound. She wrote:
"A copper lining costs more than the casket itself. So you see he [Flavelle] is billing a
good [illegible]. I would suggest to use your own judgement as you know the contents of
the first telegram. Thought [illegible] composed – and you know the tangle now that has
to be unravelled – owing to the thoughtlessness of not having a sealed casket – which
anyone knows is needed in a case of that kind and also required by law. If you knew Mr.
Fraser I think you would use your own judgement. "
So, there is convincing evidence that Winnie's "enigmatic statements," as described by
myself, S. Bernard Shaw in his book, Canoe Lake Algonquin Park: Tom Thomson and
Other Mysteries, and others arose from no more than a bad coincidence of
circumstances and a lack of telephone lines resulting in no more than bad feelings over
the burial arrangements made by Shannon Fraser under the authority of Bartlett.
Winnie's July 18, 1917, bill from the Bell Telephone Company of Canada is a key to
sweeping aside all other speculation of sinister events surrounding the burial of Tom
Thomson at Canoe Lake.