Here She Comes Miss Eastern Ontario –Photos

Every time the end of October rolls around I think of Jeanette Gallipeau Boldt and her husband Kevin and how their lives ended way too soon when they had a tragic accident while fishing. Of course when I do research in St. James Anglican Church’s Cemetery I pay my respects too.  I will never forget her and wrote an hommage to her  in Last Night I Saw Someone I Loved at the Halloween Parade.

I stopped writing and even thinking about beauty pageants the day Jeanette Gallipeau Boldt died. For years I have carried around a yellowed newspaper picture of her in my address book and finally put it to rest in a photo album a few years ago. But today I am posting photos of Beauty Queens gone by. I am sure these women are still beauties in their own right.

As the newspaper clipping says above:

“Your memory will always last”

Clipped from The Ottawa Journal,  01 Mar 1965, Mon,  Page 17

Clipped from The Ottawa Journal,  25 Feb 1963, Mon,  Page 17

Clipped from The Ottawa Journal,  05 Mar 1973, Mon,  Page 43

Clipped from The Ottawa Journal,  18 Mar 1968, Mon,  Page 1

Clipped from The Ottawa Journal,  22 Feb 1960, Mon,  Page 30

Clipped from The Ottawa Journal,  27 Mar 1972, Mon,  Page 3

 

1977 Miss eastern Ontario

Miss Smiths Falls Delphine Graham in front of the Queen’s Hotel (Golden Nugget) late 70s

When was the first beauty pageant?

Entrepreneur Phineas Taylor Barnum staged the first modern American pageant in 1854, but his beauty contest was closed down after public protest. Beauty contests became more popular in the 1880s. In 1888, the title of ‘beauty queen’ was awarded to an 18-year-old Creole contestant at a pageant in Spa, Belgium.

Barnum’s beauty contest was protested widely, but Barnum wasn’t going to give up so easily. Instead of continuing to hold live pageants, Barnum advertised for women to submit daguerreotypes of themselves for judgement.

About 60 years after Barnum failed to have his live beauty contests take off, the modern American beauty pageant took off in earnest. The oh-so-eloquently named “Atlantic City’s Inter-City Beauty Contest” debuted in 1921 to attract more tourists to Atlantic City over the summer, and would later morph into the Miss America Pageant.

Information where you can buy all Linda Seccaspina’s books-You can also read Linda in The Townships Sun and Screamin’ Mamas (USA)

Come and visit the Lanark County Genealogical Society Facebook page– what’s there? Cool old photos–and lots of things interesting to read. Also check out The Tales of Carleton Place.

Last Night I Saw Someone I Loved at the Halloween Parade