Collection
The donor of this collection, Nora Teresa Corley Murchison (born 1929), was the daughter of John Kevin Corley (born 1890 in Swinford, Ireland; died 1969 in Montreal) and Anna Magnusdottir (née Myrnes, born in Mul, Iceland; died in 1971 in Montreal).
John Kevin Corley was president of Acme Steel. John and Anna Corley had another daughter, Margaret Anna Corley (born 1925 in Winnipeg; died 1930 in Montreal) who lost her life tragically in a toboggan accident. The document collection and several other items, including toys, were donated to the McCord in 1974 after Nora Corley Murchison had cleaned out her mother's house.
Nora Corley Murchison has a geography degree from McGill University. She worked as a librarian at the Arctic Institute of North America in Montreal from 1954 to 1972. In 2002 she was living in Ottawa.
Scope and Content
The Corley-Murchison collection consists of documents on the Second World War, recipe books, prospectuses, greetings cards and playing cards for the game called Tally.
The World War II documents include ration cards and tokens, military aircraft picture cards from boxes of Cracker Jack and Victory bond documents.
The recipe books are four Canada Food Board publications from 1918 and two other books from the first quarter of the 20th century.
The prospectuses are three advertising brochures for two cruise lines: the Cunard-White Star Line and the Donaldson Line. There is also a prospectus for Corby Distilleries Limited (Montreal), as well as the Housewife's Almanach published by Kellogg's Canada in 1938.
The programs include four leaflets for plays put on by His Majesty's Theatre and a Trafalgar School program.
A series of transitory records contains a Carte d'excellence from the Académie commerciale de Québec, a pass for Westmount skating rinks (1940-1941), a travel permit for the United States, an invitation for a reception at Lady Dawson's and some postcards.
The collection contains a large number of cards for Tally, a game that involves recording points on a tally card. There are also several greetings cards and Valentine's cards.
The collection is divided into the following series:
C340/A Second
World War Documents;
C340/B Recipe Books;
C340/C Prospectuses;
C340/D Programs;
C340/E Miscellaneous Transitory Documents;
C340/F Playing Cards (Tally);
C340/G Greetings Cards.
Information about the objects in our collection is updated to reflect new research findings. If you have any information to share regarding this object, please email reference.mccord@mccord-stewart.ca.Information about rights and reproductions is available here.
This project is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Azrieli Foundation and Canadian Heritage.