‘Dazed and daffy’ in Honeymoon Town

NIAGARA NOTES

After watching young honeymoon couples strolling handin-hand through Niagara Falls’ Queen Victoria Park, journalist Lotta Dempsey noted that they appeared to be in a “dazed and daffy coma.”

No place is more famous as a honeymoon destination than Niagara Falls — a connection that goes back well more than a century.

During the decade following the end of the Second World War, however, honeymooners came to Niagara Falls in unprecedented numbers. This was due to a combination of wide publicity promoting Niagara Falls as a honeymoon destination along with the greater than average number of marriages that took place during those years.

Interest in the honeymoon culture at Niagara Falls prompted

magazine to send Lotta Dempsey here to do an investigative report. Her subsequent article, titled “Honeymoon Town,” appeared in the May 1947 issue of the popular women’s publication.

Breaking into reporting with the during the 1920s, the flamboyant Lotta later moved to Toronto where for many years she wrote not only for but for the

and the as well. She died in 1988. Curious as to why Niagara Falls became the “romance rendezvous,” as she called it, Lotta put the question to various individuals in the hotel industry here. The response: Half of them said, “Because mother and dad came here,” while the other half answered, “Because everybody does.”

One hotel employee elaborated on the question: “Y’know why I think they come here? They’re looking for something in nature big and overwhelming enough to stack up against their own experience of falling in love for keeps and Niagara Falls is the only background that can compare with emotion on the atomic level.”

During her time here, Lotta was given an education on how to spot a honeymoon couple. Along with the hand-holding, there were other signs. A hotel