Emily Carr Read Free Page A

the time of her passing only one of her works was in the provincial collection.
    Emily’s path would have brought her now to a bridge leading into the city proper, where the little girl used to walk hand in hand with her father each morning, and meet him again at the end of the day when he returned from his place of business.
    The Carr family was a respectable, Victorian colonial household of comfortable means. The parents were English born, and had lived for some years in California before settling in Victoria. Emily was the youngest of five girls. Her brother, Dick, the last child, was four years younger. When Emily was born her father was fifty-three and her mother thirty-five. There was a difference of fifteen years between Emily and her eldest sister, Edith. Emily was called Milly, to distinguish her from her mother, who had the same name. Sometimes she was also called Small, a name she would resurrect when she wrote about her childhood in The Book of Small many years later.
    Richard Carr left his home in England as a young man and travelled in Europe and then on the American continent, from Peru to northern Canada, working at a variety of occupations. He saw much of the rough side of life, but always retained his British manner and ideals. He made his money as a merchant in California and then in Victoria, with a warehouse on Wharf Street within walking distance of the house he built in James Bay.
    Little is known about Emily’s mother. She met Richard Carr in California and returned to England to marry him there, where they lived for five years. But as his daughter was to do later, Richard Carr chafed at the confines of English society, disliked the dreary weather, and longed for the openness of North America. The Carrs settled in Victoria. Like their fellow citizens, finding themselves positioned between the unruly United States and the wild North, they clung to their British heritage. They became in many respects more English than the English themselves.
    Childhood was a happy time for Emily. She was adventuresome and lively. She was very fond of animals and spent as much time outdoors as she could. Her usual companions were her sisters Lizzie and Alice, who were closest to her in age. The two older girls, Edith and Clara, were practically adults. The youngest child, Dick, was sickly, and was kept close to his mother.
    As the youngest girl Emily was indulged and pampered. She was the favourite of her father, but that ended when she entered her teenage years, when father and daughter became estranged from each other. For the remaining years of Richard Carr’s life a distance existed between them, laying the foundation for Emily’s always unresolved relations with men in later life.
    Under Richard Carr’s guidance, the household was pious, and religion played an important part in their routine. They said prayers each weekday morning and attendance at church on Sundays was obligatory. Sunday was not for leisure or picnics, but was filled with hymn singing, Bible readings, and Sunday school for the children. Emily would always have deep spiritual yearnings that would be an important element in her art and life, but they would not be satisfied in orthodox Christianity.
    We are all shaped by our beginnings. However much we strive to make our own way, the circumstances of early life are the markers setting the course of our life’s journey. For Emily, childhood ended when her mother died at the age of fifty, probably from tuberculosis. Emily was fifteen years old. Two years later her father also died. Edith, the eldest sister, aged thirty-two, became the head of the family. Edith had always occupied a position of authority and there had been strife between her and Emily, who, despite being shy, was already something of a rebel. She possessed a restless and independent spirit quite different from that of her sisters.
    The Carrs were suddenly a household of four women on their own with one small sickly