30 Mar About that tetrahedral kiss: Was it really Mabel?
Yesterday I posted a photo from National Geographic’s new Tumblr feed showing Alexander Graham Bell leaning in to kiss a woman who was holding herself inside one of his iconic tetrahedral kite frames. Both the National Geographic and I identified the women as Bell’s wife, Mabel Gardiner Hubbard.
Not so, writes Contrarian reader Donna Johnson, who works at the Bell Museum* in Baddeck:
This is one of my favourite photos. Also a favourite of the visitors, who are sometimes a bit disappointed when we point out that, contrary to popular opinion, this is actually Bell kissing his daughter Daisy, not Mabel. If you take note of the date and the age of Bell vs. the age of the woman, considering also that Mabel was never without her glasses, you’ll see why it couldn’t be her.
Still a lovely photo though and an indication of how much his girls loved their dad!
Always grateful to have Contrarian readers set me straight on matters of fact, I was about to publish a correction when I did the math on the dates. Mabel was born on November 25, 1857. She would have been six weeks shy of her 46th birthday on October 16, 1903, when the photo was taken. Marian Hubbard Bell, aka Daisy, born in 1880, would have been 22 or 23. To my eye, the woman in the photo looks closer to 46 than 23. (For what’s its worth, Bell would have been 56.)
Fortunately, Contrarian lives in sight of Beinn Bhreagh, the Bell estate outside Baddeck. I called two acquaintances who are grandchildren of Daisy’s, and great-grandchildren of the famous couple. Marian Weissman had never heard the claim that the woman in the photo might be Daisy. She thinks the woman is too old, and adds, tartly, “He wouldn’t have kissed his daughter that way!”
Marian’s cousin Hugh Mueller reports “a lot of controversy” about the identity of the woman in the photo, adding, “I think it’s Daisy.” But when I pointed out the respective ages of the two women in 1903, Mueller demurred. “I’m just not sure,” he said.
Finally, Baddeck historian Jocelyn Bethune, a rich source of Bell lore, believes it’s Daisy. “Oh how I wish it were Mabel,” she writes, “but I am pretty sure it is Daisy, and pretty sure it was taken at Beinn Bhreagh.”
I have a feeling we’ll hear more about this topic.
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* In Canadian federal officialese, the Baddeck facility dedicated to A. G. Bell is a National Historic Site, not a Museum. Museums fall under the purview of Canadian Heritage, whereas the Bell Thingamajig falls under Parks Canada, which designates it a National Historic Site. So say the bureaucrats. Any fool can see it’s a museum.