St James the Apostle, Montreal, 1902

The interior of Montreal's St James the Apostle Anglican Church, captured in this 1902 Notman Studio photograph. Beatrice, Glassco's mother, attended this church as a child. In 1905, she walked down its aisle to marry his father, A.P.S. Glassco. John Glassco himself was married twice in the church: in 1963 to Elma Koolmer (1917-1971), and in 1974, to journalist Marion McCormick (1924-2004). Glassco's funeral took place at St James the Apostle on 2 February 1981.

The tenth of thirty posts focussing on images not found in A Gentleman of Pleasure.

The entire series can be found here.

A.P.S. Glassco, Montreal, 1920

John Glassco's father, Archibald Patrick Stinson Glassco, secretary and bursar of McGill University.

When I was very young my mother told me
That my father was the strongest of men
(Not in words at first, of course – but I knew);
Later I learned he was the best and bravest;
And during my adolescence (a difficult
Time for us all) I had her whispered word for it
He was the wisest parent in the world.

Long ago I put aside the question
Of her motive in this matter…. Perhaps
A sense of guilt for the disloyalty
Of a too-clear, too-wifely valuation
Of his man’s-worth, was expiated so...

— John Glassco, 'The Whole Hog'

The eighth of thirty posts focussing on images not found in A Gentleman of Pleasure.

The entire series can be found here.

A Month of Images

A Gentleman of Pleasure features thirty photographs, most previously unpublished. Many come from a collection of Glasscoana that I started amassing back in university. This month, some of the more interesting items and images – a post each day – beginning with this ending of sorts.

Taken three years ago, the photo above features the gravesite of Glassco's parents, Archibald Patrick Stinson (A.P.S.) Glassco and Beatrice Glassco (née Rawlings). The couple rests in Montreal's Mount Royal Cemetery, close to the grave of Sir Arthur Curry, whom the writer's father idolized. The bronze plaque features only A.P.S.'s name; cemetery records aside, there is nothing to indicate that Beatrice shares the plot.

Mount Royal Cemetery is home to Canada's first crematorium, a beautiful gothic structure completed in 1901. John Glassco was cremated there, as was his first wife, Elma. Their ashes were scattered – a decade apart – in streams that run through Quebec's Eastern Townships.