CLOSET DRAMA
Unknown, UCLA Department of Special Collections, Published in the United States as "The Summit House Mystery" (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1905), Lily Dougall’s story appears to mix the Redpath case with the famous Lizzie Borden double-murder case of 1892 in Massachusetts
Amy Redpath, Ada’s daughter and Clifford’s sister, a playwright and poet, wrote plays that belong to a genre known as “closet drama”: they were performed privately or perhaps never performed at all. According to present-day family members, the Redpath family never spoke publicly about the tragedy; so, like a closet drama, their story was never recounted in public. Amy Redpath left no written trace of the deaths of her brother and mother. In a letter Amy wrote to her sister-in-law Alice two months after the tragedy, she refers to the unpleasant business of destroying letters. Did these concern the deaths of Ada and Clifford?
The richest textual sources of family reaction to the event are the letters of Grace Wood Redpath, Clifford’s aunt and the widow of Peter Redpath, Clifford’s uncle. Grace was living in England in 1901. The letters provide a detailed, emotional response to the family’s loss, as Grace reached out to her Montreal-based nieces and nephews.
But three years after the event, Amy and Clifford’s cousin, Lily Dougall, wrote a particularly compelling “fictional” account of the Redpath tragedy. Published in the United States as The Summit House Mystery, the story appears to mix the Redpath case with the famous Lizzie Borden double-murder case of 1892 in Massachusetts.
The evidence in this section suggests that the case was kept quiet, like a closet drama. If the tragedy was a murder-suicide, why is the number of suicides in Montreal for June 1901 recorded as “zero”?
Books
Letters
- Amy Redpath Roddick, Letter from Amy Redpath to Ada Maria Mills Redpath, 19 August 1897, August 19, 1897
- Grace Wood Redpath, Letter from Grace Wood Redpath to Amy and Peter Whiteford Redpath, 14 June 1901, June 14, 1901
- Lily Dougall, Letter from Lily Dougall to Amy Redpath, 15 June 1901, June 15, 1901
- Gladys Plinsoll, Letter from Gladys Plinsoll to Amy Redpath, 15 June 1901, June 15, 1901
- M. Roddick, Telegram from M. Roddick to Amy Redpath, 15 June 1901, June 15, 1901
- Grace Wood Redpath, Letter from Grace Wood Redpath to Peter Whiteford Redpath, 16 June 1901, June 16, 1901
- Grace Wood Redpath, Letter from Grace Wood Redpath to Amy Redpath, 16 June 1901, June 16, 1901
- Jane C. Cooper, Letter from Jane C. Cooper to Amy Redpath, 17 June 1901, June 17, 1901
- John Reginald Redpath, Telegram from John Reginald Redpath to Dr. Thomas George Roddick, 17 June 1901, June 17, 1901
- Grace Wood Redpath, Letter from Grace Wood Redpath to Amy Redpath, 20 June 1901, June 20, 1901
- Agnes M. Wood, Letter from Agnes M. Wood to Peter Redpath, 20 June 1901, June 20, 1901
- Annie Redpath, Letter from Aunt Annie Redpath to Amy and Peter Redpath, 26 June 1901, June 26, 1901
- Maud Redpath, Letter from Maud Redpath to Amy Redpath, 26 June 1901, June 26, 1901
- Helen Redpath, Letter from Helen Redpath to Amy Redpath, 26 June 1901, June 26, 1901
- Grace Wood Redpath, Letter from Grace Wood Redpath to Amy and Peter Whiteford Redpath, 28 June 1901, June 28, 1901
- Anna L. Harrington, Letter from Anna L. Harrington to Amy Redpath, June 29, 1901
- Grace Wood Redpath, Letter from Grace Wood Redpath to Peter Whiteford Redpath, 2 July 1901, July 2, 1901
- Aunt Lou, Letter from Aunt Lou to Amy Redpath, 9 July 1901, July 9, 1901
- Grace Wood Redpath, Letter from Grace Wood Redpath to Amy and Peter Whiteford Redpath, 16 July 1901, July 16, 1901
- Amy Redpath Roddick, Letter from Amy Redpath to Alice, 24 August 1901, August 24, 1901
Multimedia
Photographs, Paintings or Drawings
- Unknown, Chislehurst, England, 1900
- Grace Redpath, Letter from Grace Redpath to Peter and Amy Redpath (page 1), June 14, 1901
- Grace Redpath, Letter from Grace Redpath to Peter and Amy Redpath (page 2), June 14, 1901
- Grace Redpath, Letter from Grace Redpath to Peter and Amy Redpath (page 3), June 14, 1901
- Grace Redpath, Letter from Grace Redpath to Peter and Amy Redpath (page 4), June 14, 1901
- n/a, Telegram from J.R. Redpath, June 17, 1901
- Anna Harrington, Letter from Anna Harrington to Amy Redpath (page 1), June 29, 1901
- Unknown, "The Summit House Mystery" (title page), 1905