The Jalna Saga – Deluxe Edition: All Sixteen Books of the Enduring Classic Series & The Biography of Mazo de la Roche (662 page)

Like Mazo, several other Canadian-born, female artists of her generation experienced periods of depression in young adulthood. Painter and writer Emily Carr, born in 1871, had a prolonged nervous breakdown when she was in her early thirties. Writer Lucy Maud Montgomery, born 1874, suffered from low spirits in her twenties and thirties while she lived with her grandmother. Even writer Gabrielle Roy, born thirty years after Mazo in 1909, was incapacitated for several years by intense melancholy while she was in her late twenties and beginning to write.

Other possible reasons for Mazo’s prolonged depression lie within her family. Mazo undoubtedly experienced conflicting feelings about her parents. She loved her father; yet she could see that Will Roche had failed to provide a permanent home and steady income for his dependents. Mazo loved her mother; yet she could see that Bertie (Lundy) Roche had been both physically and emotionally ill, not only unable but also unwilling to fulfil her duties as a wife and mother.

In one of the Jalna novels, an artistic character, Finch Whiteoak, a young pianist and composer, suffers a breakdown. In
Whiteoaks of Jalna
Finch falls into despair after he is ridiculed by his older brothers and sister for his interest in the arts. Only after Finch attempts suicide does his family rein in their persecution of the sensitive boy. Perhaps there are parallels between the fictional Finch and the real Mazo.

Mazo watched the tree outside her window while she rested at the Reids’ house. She enjoyed the wild beauty of Georgian Bay while she vacationed beside it by herself. She absorbed the friendliness of Lake Simcoe while she vacationed beside it with her family.

Bertie, who was stronger now than in the past, carried endless trays to Mazo’s room. Caroline held Mazo closely when the sleep-deprived woman felt overwhelmed by despair. Then, when Mazo was better, Caroline went for long walks with her and shared with her their ever-evolving, imagined world. Talking with her trusted cousin helped Mazo solve her emotional problems.

By the time Mazo moved to Acton, she was feeling better. In 1905, Will Roche bought an old hotel in Acton, renovated it, and renamed it the “Acton House.” He also moved his family into a house on Acton’s Main Street.

Mazo, a dark, dashing-looking woman wearing a red coat and leopard-skin furs, strode into the hotel. The evening meal was over, and the busy hours between seven and eleven were just commencing.

She stood still for a moment and took a deep breath. A rich smell of ale and spirits filled the air. A sustained flow of men’s voices came from all sides, sometimes ebbing to a low drone, sometimes swelling to a vigorous burst of laughter.

The door of the hotel opened behind her and several men passed by her and entered the bar. The noise increased, rose to a hubbub, then suddenly fell to a murmur accented by low laughs, the clink of glasses, the drawing of corks. The smell of dyes, the smell of the tannery, mingled with the smell of the bar. A blue cloud of tobacco smoke formed before her eyes. It floated in long level shreds that moved quiveringly together till they formed one mass that hung like a magic carpet in the hall.

“I must remember this,” said Mazo. Then she hurried into the kitchen to help wash the dinner dishes. The hotel was short-staffed tonight.

For the next four or five years, Mazo and Caroline were often seen out and about Acton in a two-wheeled cart pulled by a Shetland pony. The young women’s close association with a hotel, when the temperance movement was strong, did not prevent them from close association with the local aristocracy.

Mazo and Caroline probably met the Beardsmore family, owners of the local tannery, in church. The Beardsmores owned a grand home set in beautiful gardens behind high walls. Here they lived a very English life with nannies, governesses, and pony carts.

Caroline became engaged temporarily to one of the young Beardsmore men, so Mazo had a chance to observe Acton’s high life closely.

But Mazo did not take an interest in the top-drawer people only. In Acton, she also observed ordinary working people such as the waitresses who toiled in the hotel dining room and the factory workers who boarded at the hotel for an inexpensive rate.

“There came a great rush at dinner time,” wrote Mazo in a short story called “Canadian Ida and English Nell,” published in 1911. “Nell was set to fill dishes with cabbage, stewed tomatoes, and potatoes, the three for each order. At first she was much confused between the cook’s excited face and Edith’s rushing out, calling: ‘One on beef, rare! – Two on pork! – Beef, on a side! -Soup and fish for a traveller!’”

Screams

The years were long and the future stretched endlessly, it seemed, before us. We made no plans but took for granted that all would come out well
.

“I have tried many things, but I know now that I was meant to be a farmer,” announced Will Roche one day to his family “I believe there is a great future in farming.”

In 1911 Mazo was thirty-two and her father was almost twice that age. Yet Will Roche had never been sick a day in his life. Strong and healthy, tall and handsome, Will was an optimist. Finally he had found his true vocation. Or so he thought.

Bertie, Mazo, and Caroline greeted Will’s announcement with delighted approval. The three women had enjoyed their lakeside vacations in the farming country of Innisfil Township during the summers, and now they looked forward to being close to nature all year round. Furthermore, the three women thought that Wills being a gentleman farmer would be much more prestigious than his being a hotel keeper. Oh my goodness! All those drunkards at the hotel bar! It was very difficult indeed to run a respectable establishment.

Caroline Clement at about age thirty-three with horse in Bronte.

Eagerly Mazo and Caroline joined Will in perusing advertisements for farms and going off to inspect the most promising properties. (Bertie stayed home. She trusted their judgment.) Soon they found the perfect farm about forty kilometres west of Toronto near the fishing village of Bronte on the shore of Lake Ontario.

Lake Ontario was not a “friendly” lake like Lake Simcoe. So Mazo remarked. It was “a great stretch of water – impersonal as a sea.” The huge lake was only about thirty metres from the front door of the house. Certainly the farm was picturesque.

There was not only a lake at the front but also a woods at the back. In the spring the woods would be filled with trilliums and violets. How lovely! There was also an old, wind-bent tree on the highest point of the bluff. How romantic! And there were almost thirty hectares of land. How enormous! There were fields for crops and pasturage. There were two fine orchards, one of apples and one of cherries. There were crops of all the small fruits ripening nicely.

Halton County, where Bronte was located, was a better growing area than York County, where Newmarket was located, or Simcoe County, where Innisfil Township was located. Halton County was within the eastern limits of Ontario’s Niagara fruit belt: one of the most moderate climates in Canada.

Why, Burlington, Bronte, and Oakville were renowned for their strawberries! And the farm had hectares of strawberries. An arrangement was already in place for First Nations people from nearby Brantford to spend the summer picking the crops. Wooden shacks were ready for them in the fields. The place was a paradise! Here Will Roche and his family would be happy!

On their first morning at the farm, Will appeared at breakfast in corduroy breeches, leather leggings, and an Irish tweed jacket. He looked magnificent. Bertie, Mazo, and Caroline agreed that he had created the proper atmosphere. Will appointed himself in charge of breeding pedigreed stock and enlarging the fruitgrowing fields. Bertie decided she would raise turkeys. Mazo opted for Leghorn hens. Caroline chose pigs.

The family would not, however, dirty their hands excessively or droop from fatigue. A manager, cook, and farm labourers would do the hard work; meanwhile, the owners would remain genteel. Will would occasionally float on his back in the lake and read an adventure novel. (His neighbours, the Cudmores, dubbed him “W.R. Book.”) Will would also absent himself from the farm frequently to bring in extra money by working as a travelling salesman. Bertie and Caroline would have time to read books too, and sew pretty dresses. Mazo would write.