Margaret (Blagdon) Hood (1899-1974)

Welcome to Sarah's Genalogical Photo Digitization Project. I've decided it's about time to start scanning some images and getting them online to document and share them. First, some pictures of Marguerite Cecile Blagdon, born in Sturgeon Falls on January 14, 1896. (She would later change her name to "Margaret Cecil".)

Here she is as a baby in her mother Eugenie (Sauriol) Blagdon's arms, August 8, 1896:

Here, perhaps five or six years old, perhaps about 1905, in ringlets and a pretty lace dress with a sash.

These pictures are labelled 1907, which would make her 11. I don't know who the little boy in the fourth frame is.

A very pretty shot in full Edwardian fashion, possibly just before the start of WWI.

She graduated from the University of Toronto with a B.A. from University College in 1916 and afterwards worked for two years in New York, for the Royal Bank and steno pool of Standard Oil of New Jersey. This shot seems likely to be a graduation picture, which would make her 20.

This is certainly her official graduation portrait. Very glad to have scanned this one, as it's starting to get sparkly in the way of images that are starting to disappear.

I can't guess a date for these happy, casual shots, but they looks as though it might belong to the time in her early 20s, before she got married, around 1918 to 1920.

She married Alexander Bridport Hood on August 23, 1924 in Sturgeon Falls. I believe this portrait was taken around the time of her engagement, so she would be about 26 or 27.

The couple took up residence in Toronto, but before and after her marriage, she did quite a bit of travelling, to Sturgeon Falls, to visit her husband's family in and around Shelburne, Nova Scotia, and to New York and Montreal, among other places. She lived for a little while on Centre Island in Toronto. I have more images from this period, which I hope to post later.

Meanwhile, some undated pictures from probably the early 1920s, including one with her mother. Did I mention she seems to have been a bit of a clotheshorse? look at those furs! And the many hats! My mother informs me that Margaret's sister-in-law Augusta always said she was had been envious of Margaret's lovely clothes, informed by her New York experiences, whenever she visited her in the relative backwater of Shelburne, Nova Scotia

Here she is with her parents (Eugenie and Alfred Blagdon, on the upper steps), her husband and her first child, Barbara, most probably in the summer of 1926 (because Barbara was born in August 1925). The are on the front steps of the family home at 430 Summerhill in Toronto. I like that she looks exactly like one of James Thurber's drawings of women here.

I believe this is about 1926 as well, a summer trip to the Shelburne area.

Some stylish shots from the '50s; she liked to wear fine beaded hairnets around this period. She was also never without a pack of Chiclets. |These first twoshow the same dress, but I think on different occasions. The one on the right is her son Hugh's graduation in the mid-'50s, taken at the University of Toronto with University College in the background.

Cat, book, cigarettes, tea... all's right with the world, apparently.

A four-generation picture taken around December 1961, at a 90th birthday celebration for Eugenie Blagdon. It shows Eugenie (seated), Margaret (holding baby), her daughter Barbara (right). The baby is Barbara's daughter. The dark-haired woman at left is family friend Jeanie Hersenhoren.

I believe this is the latest picture I have of her, somewhat overexposed, from a 75th birthday celebration held for her. My mother did her hair for this event. Margaret Blagdon Hood died not long after, on July 1, 1974, in Toronto, at the age of 78.