The Forest City

 

From the London Free Press, Dec. 29, 2008

  Sixteen years ago we were away for the Christmas holiday when this very large tree fell and I am sure it made a sound. The neighbour in the house, to the left of the trunk and on whose property it stood, called to tell us and said, "Don't worry, there was not much damage." I figured she was fibbing since it was a very large tree almost directly in front of our house, the one with the blue porch. I came home quickly and was quickly relieved. The damage that was done, was not major, and affected our other neighbour who lives in the house with the green roof. Had the tree fallen less diagonally, our old house could have been destroyed, even though it is a brick one. This picture from Google Street View offers a different perspective. The earliest Google view I could find was, unfortunately, the year after the falling of the big maple.

It is a good thing we weren't home because our car would have been crushed.

About the 'Forest City'
   London is often referred to as the "Forest City." The origin of the moniker is explained in the letter from Dan Brock, a local historian, found in the London Free Press on March 30, 2024:

"I'm still amused upon hearing London called the Forest City, because of its trees.
Historically, the early setters pointed to the forks of the Thames and made some disparaging remark about Lt.-Gov. John Simcoe's plans for the provincial capital to be laid out here, to be reached only on foot, by elm bark canoe, or Montgolfier's balloon.
This ridiculing of London continued after its founding in 1826, while efforts were made to rid the town plot of every tree.
By the early 1850s, however, Londoners came to take pride that they lived in "the city in the forest."
On Jan. 24, 1856, The Free Press had an oblique reference to "this city of the forest" and on Feb. 9, 1857, Forest City Lodge, No. 38, of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows was established.
By this time, the nickname the Forest City had become synonymous with London. A once-derogatory epithet had now become a source of pride."
  
In recent years, many have questioned if London is still a Forest City, although the LEDC contends that:
"No matter where you live, one thing you’ll appreciate about London is the balance it offers between city and nature. Nicknamed the Forest City for its more than seven million trees, London offers tree-lined streets, 470+ parks and open spaces, and over 330 kilometres of walking and biking trails." 
Many trees in our "Old South" area have been lost to the Emerald Ash Borer, old age, or to construction, but Elmwood Avenue was certainly canopied by trees when we moved to Wortley Village. Here is an old photograph of it:

Many of those trees are gone, but the beautiful Arthur Stringer house still stands tall. For a picture of it and the trees click the link in the sentence above. 
Many businesses in London use "Forest City" in their names as does the Japanese restaurant in Wortley Village - "Mori", which means forest in Japanese.

Arthur Stringer

Arthur Stringer (1874 - 1950)  

     The house pictured above is located about a block away from ours, just beyond the bowling green. No one is bowling right now and the lawn of that house, as I write, looks much more white than green, since the spring has yet to show up. It is on Elmwood Avenue in an area of London, known as “Old South”. It used to be the residence of Arthur Stringer.

      I knew nothing about Mr. Stringer and he is not well-known. It did not take me too long to learn, however, that he was a prolific and successful author, poet, and biographer, whose work was frequently found in publications such as The Saturday Evening Post, The Ladies Home Journal, the Atlantic and Harper’s during the first fifty years of the last century. As well, he wrote about 50 novels, several volumes of poetry and many scripts and screenplays.

     It did take me too long to get around to writing about Stringer and now there is no need to go on about him, since others have done so. For example, see “Arthur Stringer Marries a Gibson Girl,” in the recently published, London: 150 Cultural Moments by Brown and Dickson. Some other sources are provided below.

     It is, however, still not spring outside and I have been lazy about posting, so I will provide some information about Stringer that I unearthed and which is not easily uncovered.

Obituaries

     Here are two that will be useful. The first is from The New York Times and from it you will learn that he was an interesting fellow. By the way, The Times also published many of his poems.

     “Arthur Stringer, Poet, Novelist, 76: Shakespearean Scholar Who Wrote for Stage and Films Dies at Home in Jersey,” The New York Times, unsigned. Sept 15, 1950.

“Mr. Stringer was author of more than fifty novels, most of them dealing with adventures in the Canadian wilds; twelve volumes of poetry, a large number of dramatic works and a biography of Rupert Brooke, the British poet, published by Bobbs-Merrill in 1948. He also wrote the script for scores of motion-picture serials during the period of silent films.”   

Stringer went to the University of Toronto and then on to Oxford. “During this period the future poet became interested in Shakespearean scholarship and produced several volumes of criticism rejecting the thesis that Sir Francis Bacon was the real author of Shakespeare’s works.”
“Several of Mr. Stringer’s books, especially his definitive study of King Lear, are used today as reference works by Shakespearean scholars and college students.”

“Returning to Canada, he pursued his study of Gaelic poetry, begun during his years in the British Isles. He traveled frequently in the most remote sections of the Canadian Northwest, the Hudson Bay country and throughout Ireland, England and the Continent of Europe to gather material for his poems of rustic life and adventure. Lonely O’Malley, published in 1901, was Mr. Stringer’s first volume of popular poetry. Moving here [NJ] in 1923, he took up writing serial movie scripts. The poet’s first complete volume of Gaelic verse, entitled Out of Erin, was published by Bobbs-Merrill in 1930….”

“Among the profusion of romantic novels which came from his pen during this period were; The Wolf Woman (1928), Marriage by Capture (1933), Man Lost (1934), The Wife Traders (1936), Heather of the High Hand (1937), The Lamp in the Valley (1938), The Dark Wing (1939), Intruders in Eden (1942), and The Devastator (1944).”

"Mr. Stringer’s dramatic efforts included “The Cleverest Woman in the World,” a collection of nine one-act plays published in 1939, and several comedies and melodramas produced here and in New York."

Stringer had a fruit farm near Lake Erie around Cedar Springs, but later lived in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey. “Mr. Stringer founded the Mountain Lakes Theatre Guild in 1927 and was founder and first president of the town’s public library. He was a member of the Cambridge Club and the University Club in New York.”

This obituary is from The Globe and Mail:

“Arthur Stringer Dies, Wrote 60 Books, 12 Plays,” William Arthur Deacon (Literary Editor), The Globe and Mail, Sept. 15, 1950.

It begins this way: “The death of Arthur Stringer yesterday at the age of 76 at his home in Mountain Lakes, N.J. removes a genial and eminently successful writer from the Canadian literary scene.”
Stringer had been in Canada in 1946 when he received an honorary degree of Doctor of Literature from the University of Western Ontario.

“Stringer visited Toronto for the last time in October, 1949, when he came up to open Canadian Book Week with an address to the Rotary Club. “Don’t sell Canada short by selling your authors short,” he told his large audience; and went on to say the literature we need most cannot be imported. “It’s an inside job, a thing we must do for ourselves. The sustained ovation Stringer received was the high moment of his career.”

The Perils of Pauline

    It is mentioned in the obituary above that Stringer was responsible for this popular movie serial. That is not the case as one can see from this letter Stringer wrote to The Times:

Re: "The Perils of Pauline"

“To the Editor of the New York Times:
May I ask for the correction of a misstatement that appeared in your columns? Orville Prescott, in reviewing my life of Rupert Brooke, announced that I was the author of that movie masterpiece known as the Perils of Pauline, the obvious implication being that an author so immersed in sensationalism would be ill-equipped to understand a poetic genius or interpret him to the world. While I have neither the wish nor the right to dispute Mr. Prescott’s literary evaluations, it is still, I hope, my prerogative to protest against his publication of an untruth. I am not the author of the Perils of Pauline, Arthur Stringer, Mountain Lakes, NJ, Nov. 14, 1948 (published Dec, 2, 1948).

Stringer and the “Gibson Girl”

   Stringer’s first wife, Jobyna Howland, was an actress who was supposedly one of the models for Charles Dana Gibson, the well-known illustrator. For more on that subject see the Library of Congress - The Gibson Girl’s America: Drawings by Charles Dana Gibson and the short piece by Brown and Dickson in, London: 150 Cultural Moments, p.48.

Sources:

 For more details on the Springer house see this London Public Library document.
A short note and a picture are found in The Wortley Villager, July/August, 2017,p.3.
Stringer was born in Chatham and there is a good piece by Karen Robinet in Chatham This Week, April 11, 2012, “Stringer Left His Literary and Cinematic Mark”, from which this picture is taken:
See this good profile by Brian Busby who publishes a very nice blog - The Dusty Bookcase. See: Arthur Stringer from Chatham to London

Additional information is not difficult to find.
The London Public Libraries have many of his books and more are found up at Western, where additional material about Stringer is located in the Archives and Research Collections Centre (ARCC).

Post Script

There is indeed a bowling green quietly tucked away between Elmwood and Bruce streets and it was here long before the gentrifiers. Below is a picture of some action from warmer and sunnier times. Here is the site of the Elmwood Lawn Bowling Club. Call them soon for lessons.




There is a school in London named after Mr. Stringer. The students who attend are 'Stingers'.