Random Access

You might think that after half-a-dozen biographies, there wouldn’t be much new to say or discover about Mazo de la Roche.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
De la Roche, who spent four summers in Clarkson at Trail Cottage starting in 1923, the year her first novel was published, is as mysterious, elusive and compelling a figure now as she was when she died in 1961, one of Canada’s most successful authors ever.
Heather Kirk, whose book Mazo de la Roche Rich and Famous Writer has recently been published by XYZ Publishing, is the latest to try to throw light on the life of a woman who created the dazzling literary world of the Whiteoaks of Jalna, the 16-book series that sold millions of copies around the world and spawned a movie and television adaptations.
What Kirk thought in 2001 would be a six-month knock-off biography for the young adult market at which the book is aimed, turned out to involve a lot more research than the Barrie writer ever imagined. “There were at least half-a-dozen astonishingly big gaps” in knowledge about de la Roche, she says, and especially about her long and close relationship with her cousin Caroline Clement.
Kirk has corrected the record admirably by proving definitively that Caroline was nine months older than Mazo, not nine years younger as her previous biographers believed.
Clement mysteriously appears almost out of nowhere in the earlier bios in the de la Roche household aged 7. Kirk was able to trace Clement’s early family history after finding records of her living as a two-year-old in the Dakotas in an American census (thanks to assistance from a Mennonite Family History Centre).
Kirk also discovered the birth name of the mother of the two children that de la Roche and Clement adopted, under mysterious circumstances, in England.
The book will be disappointing to many Mississaugaphiles in that it discounts to some degree, the importance of Benares, the Clarkson home of Captain James Harris family and now the Mississauga museum that has long been thought to be the model for Jalna. Although it fits the description of Jalna, it was undoubtedly more important to de la Roche as a catalyst, a trigger that helped her let loose the vivid memories of her own, similar childhood homes.
“Oddly, Benares reminded Mazo of the lost past of Caroline and herself,” writes Kirk at one point. Her skilful use of the creative non-fiction form has the uncanny ability to transport the reader to a past era that feels absolutely authentic. At points the author even manages to put us inside Mazo and Caroline’s heads and make that feel legitimate, which is quite a trick.
Of course, since Joan Givner’s 1989 biography Mazo de la Roche: The Hidden Life, the relationship of the cousins has been cast in a different light.
Kirk categorically rejects Givner’s contention of a long lesbian relationship. It’s possible, of course, concedes Kirk, but highly unlikely given the women’s upbringing in Victorian times. There is virtually no evidence to support the contention and at least two family members who should know have vigorously denied it. “I really think it’s a red herring issue,” she says.
Mississauga Museums Manager Annemarie Hagan, who admits to a personal fascination for de la Roche, is happy to welcome a new book to the Mazo pantheon.
“Mazo is still a strange and wonderfully mysterious character and, even after all these years, she’s managing to elude definition and understanding, which is the whole point of what she wanted to do,” said Hagan. “That sort of honours her.”
Kirk will be signing copies of her book Sunday, 1-4 p.m. at the Home for the Holidays event at Benares. The first two books in the series, Jalna and The Whiteoaks of Jalna, which have been reissued by XYZ for the first time in three decades, will also be for sale.
Tomorrow - de la Roche’s literary legacy.