Subseries

This subseries focusses on the personal life of Katharine Mary Cuthbert Skelton, chronicling her interests, travels and activities.

The subseries is composed primarily of a scrapbook containing postcards, photographs, and various objects like dried flowers and fabric scraps. Likely put together by one of Katharine Mary Cuthbert Skelton's close friends or relatives in 1933 and 1934, the scrapbook also holds numerous newspaper clippings (a few, sometimes amusing, news articles, but mostly pictures, quotes, ads, jokes and cartoons). The scrapbook's creator has cleverly and humorously arranged these clippings into collages, adding handwritten notes to construct a vivid narrative of the events in the young woman's social and family life and offer some commentary on male-female relations, marriage and married life. For example, the author cut the sentence "I'll call you tonight" out of the newspaper and then linked it to an illustration of a smiling young woman talking on the telephone by writing, "Dick said in his letter. And he did. See her smiling." Much of the scrapbook covers the period preceding Katharine Mary Cuthbert Skelton's marriage to Dr. Richard T. Weaver. The wedding itself and the couple's honeymoon aboard the R.M.S. Aquitania are also documented with photographs and souvenirs, including a schedule of the activities offered during the trans-Atlantic crossing, a menu, a list of the first-class passengers, a promotional document from menswear company Austin Reed, which ran a store onboard ship, and a copy of the Cunard Atlantic News, the ship's newspaper. Tucked into the back of the scrapbook is a letter, in the same handwriting as the annotations, dated January 22, 1934, addressed to "Dearest Kay" and signed M. M.

The subseries also chronicles Katharine Mary Cuthbert Skelton's research on the Cuthbert family. In a letter dated January 25, 1966, addressed to Miss O'Dowd, she writes about their meeting at Montreal's Château Ramezay to discuss the bell from what she calls "my mother's chapel" (probably the Cuthbert chapel located in the municipality of Berthierville). The letter explains that the bell is preserved at the McCord Museum. In addition, there is a typewritten text sent to the attention of Mrs. Richard Weaver that discusses witchcraft traditions in the city of Inverness, Scotland, where the Cuthberts of Castlehill lived.

Finally, the subseries contains an unsigned letter dated January 22, 1933, accompanied by a picture of the Cuthbert family coat of arms, as well as a British passport issued in the name of Katharine Cuthbert Weaver in New York City on July 13, 1933.