CAPE BRETON ISLAND, N.S: When leaving Maison Fiset House in Cheticamp for dinner at All Aboard Restaurant, I mentioned to my local ‘Ambassador’, Dan Coffin, that women’s histories particularly interested me. My mother had been plagued by deafness all her life and I was sorry to leave Cape Breton without visiting the Alexander Graham Bell Museum managed by Parks Canada in Baddeck. I’d recently read that Bell’s beloved wife, Mabel, had also been deaf.
Before my last (for this trip) Atlantic lobster was devoured, Dan – thanks the magic of fibre optics envisioned by Dr. Bell – received a text from the AGBM inviting me to meet with guide Melissa Nicholson en-route to my afternoon departure from Sydney.
Thanks to Melissa, and a new exhibit dedicated to Mabel Bell’s hitherto unrecognized influence on the man who invented the telephone, here’s some of the story.
Mabel Gardiner Hubbard was born into a wealthy Boston family in 1857. In 1862, at the age of five, a near-fatal battle with scarlet fever left her totally deaf. In those years, this meant a life sentence being committed to the silent world of institutions designed to house deaf mutes. “House” would be all such sufferers could expect.
This chilling scenario echoed with my 20th century childhood. My mother’s reaction to those impatient with her faulty hearing was: “It’s my ears that are afflicted, not my brain!” This was not the popular 19th century argument ... except for Mabel’s parents, and their new acquaintance, Alexander Graham Bell.
Bell, a newly-arrived Scottish scientist, inventor, and teacher of the deaf, was fascinated by how sound travelled. Bell’s mother had been deaf. His grandfather, father, and brother’s research in the fields of speech and teaching elocution, plus his mother’s deafness, fired Bell’s determination to further investigate the phenomena of sound and the way it travelled.
Mabel’s mother was determined that the little girl should not lose what speech she had, refused to institutionalize her, and worked with tutors to increase the child’s reading and verbal vocabulary.
Eventually, the family became acquainted with Dr. Bell’s school for the deaf where she was enrolled and flourished. Although she was 10 years younger than her tutor, it was apparent by the time she turned 19 that they were deeply in love. Mabel agreed to marry him on one condition: that he understood she would never love him more than her mother. They married on July 11, 1877 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Mabel’s hearing was damaged, but her mind – like her suitor’s – was way ahead of her time. Alec, as she called him, was dedicated to solving the mysteries of hearing loss. Mabel, however, made him promise to complete his now well-advanced invention of the telephone. To please her, he did. As a wedding present in 1877 he gifted her all but 10 of his 1,497 Bell Telephone Company shares.
The young Bells lived in America and Britain in the early years, before purchasing summer holiday land in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, in 1885. Graham Bell had originally immigrated to Canada from Scotland as a young man.
Among Mabel’s many interests was her conviction that heavier-than-air vehicles could fly – a belief her husband shared. In 1907 she raised $20,000, a staggering amount at the time, through the sale of some land she owned. She gave the money to her husband to finance what became the Aerial Experimental Association for the Silver Dart which became Canada’s first controlled powered flight. It was flown off the ice on Baddeck Bay on Feb. 23, 1909. The investment also made Mrs. Bell the first woman to invest in the aviation industry.
[Photo: Mabel and Alec Bell; a love match to the end – Ursula Maxwell-Lewis]
Today the nine hectare Beinn Bhreagh (Gaelic for beautiful mountain) estate can be seen across the bay from the Parks Canada operated Alexander Graham Bell Museum in Baddeck. They both overlook Bras d’Or Lake, but the estate, still visited by the Bell family, is private. Both Alexander and Mabel, who died within six months of each other in 1992 and 1923 respectively, are buried next to each other high on the impressive headland facing the sea. The 10-hectare park, which includes the museum, has been designated a provincial heritage site.
On July 30, 2015, at a special Cape Breton University convocation held at the museum, an honorary doctorate of letters was conferred on Mabel Bell. No doubt her devoted husband would have been delighted.
I’m still reading more of Mabel Bell’s life and thoughts in Mabel Bell, Alexander’s Silent Partner by Elias M. Toward. The biography is based on Bell family letters and papers. For more of Mabel Bell’s courageous story go YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L2uh97Cupc
All Parks Canada sites, such as the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic in Baddeck, will be free to the public throughout 2017. For more information go to any Parks Canada website.
– Ursula Maxwell-Lewis is a British Columbia-based travel journalist and photographer. She’s also founding editor and publisher of the Cloverdale Reporter.