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HomeMy WebLinkAboutHuron Expositor, 2016-12-21, Page 9Wednesday, December 21, 2016 • Huron Expositor 9 www.seaforthhuronexpositor.com Mabel McLean: Mysterious Mystery Writer Like the stories she wrote, many of the details of Mabel McLean Billett's life are a bit of a mystery. It is known that Mabel Claire McLean was born in Hensall on Decem- ber 22, 1882. She was the youngest of two daughters born to William and Eliza- beth McLean. Her father was a 'machinist agent.' By 1901, the family lived in Sea - forth where her sister Mag- gie taught school and Mabel worked as a stenographer. She moved to Manitoba before the First World War. Sometime in the 1920s, she met and married Great War veteran Frederick Broughton Billett. They moved to Merritt, British Columbia where Frederick was employed as an Impe- rial Oil transfer agent where she wrote several short sto- ries. In 1924, Billett travelled to England and Germany. She attended the first Wag- nerian Festival in Bayreuth since the end of the Great War. She was 'privileged' be at one of the performances where one of the Kaiser's sons was in attendance. She also gained an interview with composer Siegfried Wagner, the son of the great German composer, Richard Wagner. In a July 1928 interview with 'The London Free Press', Billet said that she "came suddenly to the con- clusion that a hundred short stories could be written as easily as four, if not as rap- idly as four, and if 100 short Huron History David Yates stories, why not a novel?" Billett's first novel 'Calamity House' (1927) was set in Merritt, located in the Nicola Valley of British Columbia's interior. 'Calamity House' was Billett's most successful novel. It is a fictionalized account of Dr. George Tutill who lost a wife under strange circumstances in 1923. Billett inflamed a rumour about Mrs. Tutill's death into a murder mystery. Literary critic Karyn Huenemann described the plot of Billett's 'Calamity House' as the story of the murderous Doctor Townsend who kills his vic- tims with heroin injec- tions. Among Townsend's victims were his wife and son. The scandalous plot, according to Huenemann, was largely a product of Bil- lett's "over fertile imagina- tion" which novel earned Billet some literary notoriety. The truth was far less sen- sational. Mrs. Grace Tutill died accidentally when she fainted and hit her head while suffering from the flu. According to a 2003 article published in the 'Merritt Herald', one result of the novel was that the RCMP began to look upon Dr. Tutill with suspicion. He was charged Dr. 'rutin with sell- ing morphine to an under- cover constable in 1940 but charge was dismissed due to lack of evidence. The ordeal may have accelerated Dr. Tutill's death in September 1941. The 'Merritt Herald' called Billett as "a red- headed writer of potboiler mysteries" who 'besmirched' the name of "a good, caring doctor who served his Nicola Valley and Merritt communities well." What tarnished Dr. Tutill's reputation, greatly enhanced Mabel Billett's lit- erary fame. The 'London Free Press' interview said that Billett's novel received "a generous number of most satisfactory reviews which hailed her book in the lead- ing English periodicals." Charles L. Graves, the liter- ary critic for 'Punch' maga- zine said he was impressed with "the force, freshness and drama of the Canadian woman's book." Today, the University of New Brun- swick owns the only known copy of the book in existence. In the wake of her literary success, Billett returned to England in 1927 and was honoured with a member- ship in the elite Lyceum Club for women writers and artists. Billett had intended on a lengthy stay in England imaBioy* XJ n t, lours; um -tuber 7111 9ern-3prrt eApi 9e,f4rg IT 13cerr�ber25th C]_OSLI? e, �:►+gembcr 2.61h 1 U im-3 5 Olvr' Christmas Deco' OFF Regularly Priced tuck 20% OFF Rid Tag licit s Many Final Priced Items ¶UBLIN MERCANTILE J ererm er f1xt 3rrr,. , .- New Ywrs !lay 1(karn.4 v u- w_dublittirErcantile oom i5513d 15l. Bubliii,CO 5131.345-95537 161 to hone her writing skills "but after awhile I got home- sick and had to come back to Canada" in October 1927. The Billett's moved into a "quiet, orderly, charming, orderly home" on St. James Street in London, Ontario in early 1928 where she and her husband lived with their two airedales. The 'Free Press' marvelled that the "small and vivacious lady, with a humorous mouth and silkily fine red -gold hair" was able to manage "the tasks of car- ing for a household, husband and two dogs." Billett claimed to "work on a system" that allowed her to balance her house- wifely duties with that of famous author. She called the typewriter on her desk her 'work room.' At the time of the interview, she was working on her next book 'The Palace of the Erg' which promised, "to be one of next year's outstanding novels." Unfortunately, the novel does not seem to have been published. Her next novel was 'The Shadow of the Steppe' (1930) which was set on the northwest frontier between British India and Afghanistan. With a stock of stereotypical characters, including a Russian spy; an Indian princess and stalwart British army officer, literary critic Huenemann dismissed the book as "one of the hard- est to wade through." The novel was panned or ignored by her contemporaries. Billett's next novel, 'The Robot Detective' (1930) should have been a pioneer work where science fiction meets the detective story. Yet, that novel failed as well. According to Huenemann, Billett understood little of sci- ence and her robot did little more than spit out informa- tion based on input from the police. Perhaps a more appropriate title for a modem audience might have been 'The Computer Detective.' Her last, and most contro- versial novel, 'The Smooth Silence' (1936) was a thinly veiled fictional account of the murder of a young Scot- tish servant in service to a socially prominent Vancou- ver family. The threat of legal action forced the pub- lisher to suppress the book, which was only later pub- lished in four serial instal- ments in 'The National Home Monthly' journal. The controversy over the story may have been a factor in the Billetts removal from British Columbia to San Francisco in 1936. Little is known of Mabel Billett's writing career while living in the United States. By 1946, she had divorced Frederich Billett who had returned to British Columbia where he died at Saanich in 1966. Mabel McLean had one more mystery of her own to reveal, according to her 1946 U.S. naturalization papers, she was previously married to Alexander Vincent Darrach in Chicago, Illinois in 1914. The date that the first marriage dissolved is unknown but presumably she was legally divorced by the time she mar- ried Frederick Billett. In 1949, she changed her name to Claire McLean. Mabel Claire Darrach Broughton Billett McLean died in San Fran- cisco on March 3, 1964. She was Huron County's most mysterious mystery writer. Office Hour for December Mondays — 9am-5pm Tuesdays—Closed Wednesdays — 9am-5pm Thursdays — 9am-5pm Fridays — 8am-4pm Seaforth Huron Expositor 8 Main Street, Seaforth 519-527-0240 www.seaforthhuronexpositor.com