Darrell Morrisey and the Miss M. Ball School

The Montreal Daily Star, Thursday 25 April 1907:

HOW CHILDREN HELPED CHARITY

Children’s Bazaar at West End Helps Fresh Air Fund and Memorial Hospital.

The children's bazaar which took place recently at Miss Ball's school rooms, 49 Fort street, was a great success. $115 was realized; $63 to go toward the Fresh Air Fund, and $50 towards the Children's Memorial Hospital. The tables were prettily decorated in green and white, and were presided over by the following named children: 

The Fancy Work Table—The Misses Marjory Macdonell, Darrell Morrisey, Virginia Hamill, Kathleen Darling.

The Doll Table—Dorothy Smart. Eileen Hudson, Hazel Rolston, Kathleen Farrer and Ursula McCarthy.

The Kindergarten Table—Clara Macdonell, Isabel Robertson, Hortensa Douglas and Rillia Lindsay. Candy Table—Phyllis Pyke, Daintry Notman and Darrie Macdonell.

Boys’ Table—Geoffrey Notman, Nell Caughlin, George Finley, Chrystie Douglas, Graham Lewis.

The Housekeepers Table—Isabel Macdonell and Frances Porteous.

Fish Pond—Ronald Macdonell, Frederick Findley. - The magic lantern was in charge of Miss Hebert, assisted by Geo. Foster: and Kenneth Hudson. Miss Kinnean and Miss Levell had charge of the Tea Room. and a lady in gipsy costumes read fortunes.

 A week ago I came across the above article from The Montreal Star, published in 1907, that mentions where Darrell Morrisey went to grade school. I thought she had attended Miss Edgar's and Miss Cramp's School (ECS) just a few blocks from where she lived on Church Hill Avenue in Westmount; a few days ago I drove by ECS and thought of Darrell attending this school. But after reading this newspaper article I learned that ECS didn’t move to their present location until 1949, long after Darrell passed away, from 1909 to 1949 the school was located on Guy Street. I am not sure if there is evidence that Darrell ever attended ECS.

But what other private girls' schools could Darrell have attended? It wasn't The Study, Darrell was 18 years old when The Study was founded in 1915; it wasn't Trafalgar School (founded in 1887) but two other Beaver Hall artists attended Trafalgar School, they are Prudence Heward and Sarah Robertson. Lilas Torrence Newton attended ECS when it was located on Guy Street and Anne Savage attended the High School for Girls. There was also Victoria School on St. Luke Street (now Blvd de Maisonneuve) that my mother attended around 1922, and within walking distance of where Darrell was living in 1907, but it was a public school, a part of the Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal, so probably not "good enough" for the upwardly mobile Morrisey family. 

Now we know where Darrell attended grade school, it was the Miss M. Ball (Kindergarten School), located at 49 Fort Street; "Fort" refers to the historical twin towers on the grounds of Le Grand Seminaire, a seminary and private boys' school run by the Sulpicians; adjacent to Fort Street is Towers Street which refers to these towers. Fort Street runs from Sherbrooke Street West south to Dorchester Blvd (present day René-Lévesque Boulevard). This was possibly in walking distance from the Morrisey family home on Dorchester Blvd., at that time Dorchester was a residential street. In the 1920s Montreal streets were renumbered, 49 Fort Street became 1215 rue de Fort; years later what had been Miss M. Ball School was demolished to make way for an underpass, but similar buildings, on the opposite side of the street from where the school was located, might give an idea of the buildings in this area.

On Fort Street, opposite to location of Miss Ball's School

Here is the address of Miss M. Ball's school, from Lovell's Montreal Directory, 1907-1908:

Lovell's Montreal Directory, 1907

I noticed that another student at Miss M Ball School, listed at the charity event in 1907, was Miss Daintry Notman (1899-1993), granddaughter of William Notman, one of Canada`s most important photographers.  The list of students includes Daintry's brother James Geoffrey Notman (1901-1974). We don't know if Darrell and Daintry were friends, probably not as Darrell was two years older than Daintry, but they moved in similar social circles; for instance, they attended (with many other young guests) "Miss Gillet's Dance" held at her residence at 7 Weredale Park (Montreal Star, 27 January 1920); Darrell would have been 23 years old, Daintry 21 years old.

                                                                     Daintry Notman, 1906

We know that Darrell attended Miss Ball's school in 1907; if the Miss Ball School is for grade school students, where did Darrell attend high school? In 1913, when Darrell was 16 years old, Darrell left Montreal for the UK to board for one year at Tudor Hall School in Chiselhurst, Kent; school for girls was to educate them to be wives, it was finishing school. What did Darrell do from 1914 to 1917? From 1917 to 1920 Darrell Morrisey studied art at the Art Association of Montreal (the AAM became the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts), where she studied under artists Maurice Cullen and William Brymner; they must have recognized her artistic talent.

Where did the T.L. Morrisey family live? In 1907, the Morrisey family moved from 1207 Dorchester Blvd to the newly opened luxury apartment building at the Linton Apartments, located on Sherbrooke Street West near Simpson Street. The family moved to the Linton Apartments in 1907-08 when it opened and lived there for about a year. Then, the T.L. Morrisey family moved to Hazelbrae (located at 85 Church Hill Avenue in Westmount, QC) where, we know, they were living in 1912; Mrs. T.L. Morrisey gave a dance for her daughter, Darrell Morrisey, on 20 December 1912 as mentioned in the Montreal Daily Star on 19 December 1912. The family moved from their home on Church Hill Avenue in the mid-1920s following T.L. Morrisey's death.

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School, for upper class girls, was to prepare them for their social position which included organizing and hosting social events, non-paying charity events, and being married and having children, but not for employment or having a career outside of the home, and this was going to be Darrell's fate. Darrell never married and she aspired to be an artist. 

The following article is from: The Montreal Daily Star, July 22, 1924 and shows something of the life of a woman belonging to Darrell's social class:

Social notes:

Miss Darrell Morrisey, of Church Hill Avenue, who is spending the summer with her grandmother, Mrs. Sydney B. Paterson, in St. John, NB, entertained at a luncheon at the

Riverside Golf and Country Club last Friday.

Built circa 1880, Darrell's grandfather's home,
the Sidney Patterson residence, is located on Horsfield Street in the
Trinity Royal Preservation Area of the City of Saint John

The exclusive Riverside Golf and Country Club  was "Established in 1897 as the Saint John Golf Club and incorporated in 1913; the historic 18-hole course was designed by Donald Ross and hosted the 1939 Canadian Open." In St. John, NB, Darrell probably stayed with her grandmother at what is now called the Sidney Paterson Residence.

Notes:

1. The $115.00 the children raised in 1907 is equal to $3,818.00 today, a sizeable amount! The children raised $50 towards the Children’s Memorial Hospital (now the Montreal Children’s Hospital); this hospital opened its doors in 1904 on Guy Street. The first paediatric hospital in Montreal, it moved to new buildings on Cedar Avenue in 1909. The setting near Mount Royal was regarded as the perfect spot for its young patients to recuperate.

2. Of the money the children raised, $63 was donated to the Fresh Air Fund. The goal of the Fresh Air Fund was to give inner city children an experience of country life including fresh air, sunlight, and nature.