Mazo de la Roche certainly wasn't the first famous person to make her autobiography a work of fiction.
But, in the wake of news that she is finally to be honoured with a memorial plaque, some 32 years after she was designated "a person of national historic importance" you have to wonder if she wasn't punished in reputation for her habit of obfuscating the facts to suit her obsession with personal privacy.
Word has come down that Mazo is to be honoured April 12 with a plaque to be unveiled at Benares, the historic home of the Harris-Sayer family, which may or may not be the home on which her 16-book Whiteoaks of Jalna was based.
There has been some behind-the-scenes fussing among various factions of those who are Mazo-fascinated about where the plaque — the first national historic marker ever erected in Mississauga and only the second in Peel — should be appropriately placed.
Ultimately it matters not, because the important thing is that she is finally being recognized.
And why not Benares? Since de la Roche loved to swirl her life story in intrigue (you can almost see her stage left cranking up the dry ice machines as she writes her biography) and controversy centres on the role of the house on Clarkson Rd. N. as the fictional model of Jalna, isn't it somehow terribly appropriate that the home should be where the federal government's official recognition is made official?
Mississauga Museums Manager Annemarie Hagan, who will speak to de la Roche's historical legacy when the speeches are made a week from Saturday, notes that in reading de la Roche's biography, the author fails to mention the date when she was born. Hmmm.
She also fails to mention that she adopted the "de la" artifice for effect; as in Mazo de la literary-sounding-don't-you-think?
The critical fact is that she did write much of the critical first novel, Jalna, at Trail Cottage which was part of the original Benares estate. She may only have spent four summers writing at the tiny cottage in Clarkson, with her beloved dog Bunty rushing hither and thither, but they are arguably the most important four literary years of her life. Those years were the genesis of the series that would capture the world's interest and make her a rich, international literary figure.
Her major sins were that she was far too commercially successful, wrote in a popular soap opera style and guarded her privacy far too zealously. For this, she has been condemned to decades of neglect by the Canadian literary and academic establishment.
She certainly has her defenders. She has won the acclaim of such heavyweights as Robertson Davies, whose famous quote about de la Roche, is prominently featured on the web page of the Mazo Society at www.mazo.ca. When Mazo died Davis noted that, "The creation of the Jalna books is the most single feat of literary invention in the brief history of Canada's literature."
Now her books are back in print, thanks to XYZ Publishing of Montreal; the National Film Board is apparently interested in making a documentary of her extraordinary life; and a plaque will rise at Benares.
When I asked Fran Goddu, president of the Mazo Society earlier today how he thought Mazo would react to these events were she still alive today, he showed his innate understanding of her character.
"She would probably say, 'Oh, you guys are being silly,'" he said. "But in her mind, she would be ecstatic."