Jerry,
I will seize on your mention of Winnipeg to air my one and only beef against Barbara Branden whom I entirely admire. She described her home city as a place without culture, when even at the time she was living there, was demonstrably not so, in fact Winnipeg was historically first in installing many cultural institutions. Maybe she was just thinking of Canada in general, I have not compared, but to cities of comparable size in the 1950s, Winnipeg ranked or led in museums, theatre, symphony etc. I only looked at Wikipedia for this, and I have never been to Winterpeg as the rest of Canada fondly calls it.
Just saying.