Thursday 14 January 2021

Norma (Armitage) McCormick


 

 

As my mother was interested in opera I had imagined that she might be named after someone of Italian descent, perhaps even Bellini's Norma.

However, she once explained that the name came from a star of the early age of silent cinema: Norma Shearer (1902 – 1983). As an early feminist, my mother battled daily against the idea of being a silent woman, and it was perhaps the more confident version of Shearer that her parents might have being thinking of.

Shearer was a Canadian-American actress whose film career stretched from 1919 to 1942.

She was nominated five times for an Academy Award for acting. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Divorcee (1930).

Shearer's roles were confident, perhaps even sexually liberated ingénues.

There were adaptations of Noël Coward, Eugene O'Neill, and William Shakespeare.

"the exemplar of sophisticated 1930s womanhood ... exploring love and sex with an honesty that would be considered frank by modern standards."

Shearer is celebrated as a feminist pioneer: "the first American film actress to make it chic and acceptable to be single and not a virgin on screen." (Mick LaSalle)

 


 

 

Sources

Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norma_Shearer

LaSalle, Mick. Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood. New York: St Martin's Press, 2000. 

 


 

 


Tuesday 12 January 2021

McCormick Family Tree

Notes derived from Index of UK Registers of Births, Marriages and Deaths

Surname              Given Name       District                  Volume                Page        

Births Jun 1884

Watt      Harriett                                Sunderland           10a      652

 

Births Mar 1890  

McCormick         Charles                Sunderland       10a        621        

 

Births Mar 1899  

McCormick         Charles                  Newcastle T.    10b        2

 

Births Sep 1903

Watt      Harriet Ann                        Sunderland           10a      717        

 

Births Jun 1883

Cowell Francis                                 Sunderland           10a      611        


Marriages Sep 1906  

COWELL               Francis                 Sunderland       10a        1133

     

Marriages Mar 1916

Watt      Harriet                                 McCormick         Sunderland           10a      1079      


Marriages Mar 1916

McCormick         Charles P.            Watt      Sunderland           10a      1079

     

Births Sep 1916

McCormick         Winifred             Watt      Sunderland            10a      1221


Births Dec 1918

McCormick         Ambrose C.        Watt      Sunderland           10a      1210      


        

Births Mar 1921

McCormick         John      Watt      Sunderland           10a      1471

 

Births Dec 1923

McCormick         Kathleen             Watt      Sunderland           10a      1222


        

Marriages Jun 1937

MCCORMICK     Winifred             Chapman             Sunderland           10a      1252

 


Marriages Dec 1939  

McCormick         Harriet                Cowell  Sunderland       10a        1957


Marriages Dec 1939

Cowell Francis McCormick         Sunderland           10a      1957


Marriages Mar 1940

McCormick         Ambrose C.        Parkin   Sunderland           10a      1835      

Marriages Mar 1940

Parkin   Grace B.               McCormick         Sunderland           10a      1835

 

Deaths Sep 1946

Cowell Harriett                69           Sunderland           1a        732

 

Marriages Sep 1948

McCormick         Frank S.                Williams              Sunderland           1a        3013

 

Deaths Mar 1951

COWELL               Francis 69           Sunderland           1a        1418

 

      

Deaths Dec 1969

PARKIN                Michael               15 Se 1884           Sunderland           1a        2420

 

        

Deaths Mar 1970

PARKIN                Grace Branson 2 Oct 1892             Sunderland           1a        2576

      

Deaths Mar 1972

COWELL               Margaret Harriet             30 Apr 1878          Sunderland           1a        2547

 

Ambrose and Grace McCormick were married in 1940. They had three children who attended Bewerley Street School, Hunslet, Leeds:

Anthony Charles McCormick, b. Leeds, 1941.

Brian McCormick,  b. Leeds, 1942.

Pauline McCormick, b. Leeds, 1944.

Anthony Charles McCormick (self-employed glazier, driver and ex-miner) married Norma Armitage (bank clerk) in 1962. They had two children who attended Colton Primary, Cross Gates Middle School, Temple Moor High School:

Ian David McCormick, b. 1966, Leeds.

Neil McCormick, b. 1967, Leeds.

Pauline McCormick married Raymond Schofield and they had two children:

Simon Schofield b. 1966.

Paul Schofield, b. 1970.

 

 

               


 


Norma (Armitage) McCormick

    As my mother was interested in opera I had imagined that she might be named after someone of Italian descent, perhaps even Bellini's...