The Prat Sisters: Free Spirits of the 1890s

Bliss Carman, soon to become one of Canada's leading poets, was introduced to the Prat sisters in the late 1880s by his cousin, Charles G.D. Roberts. Roberts's brother Goodridge was engaged to be married to Minnie Prat. Carman soon became a close friend of the Prat sisters and a frequent visitor at 'Acadia Villa,' the Prat family home in Wolfville.
Annie recalled, in a letter to William Inglis Morse in 1934, "Yes, you may, many mornings and oft, have seen a certain poet with one or other of us... It is indeed a long time since, though it seems but yesterday, that B.C. would, with some of us, go to The Ridge, or Deep Hollow, where we would sew, or paint silently, while he would sit and dream poetry; then all of a sudden, he would say, 'Tell me, do you like this?' – a lovely bit of verse... Another favourite spot with him, was on the flat roof of our home, where he would stand for hours – with his tan thatch tumbled by the breezes – watching the ever-changing face of Blomidon."
Excerpt published by Morse in The Chronicle, no. 223, June 1936 (Dalhousie University Archives and Special Collections).

Date: Published in William Inglis Morse, Bliss Carman Bibliography (Windham, Conn., 1941)

Format: Photograph (printed reproduction)

Reference: Nova Scotia Archives  PS8455 A72 Z7, opp. p. 52