Up the Gatineau! Article
This article was first published in Up the Gatineau! Volume 21.
The Wakefield Women's Institute, 1919-1961
Norma Geggie
In 1889, an Ontario woman, Adelaide Hoodless, lost the youngest of her four children to “the summer complaint”, a euphemism for a gastrointestinal infection prevalent before pasteurization of milk, refrigeration, and proper sanitary conditions. Mrs. Hoodless felt responsible for this tragedy, and was convinced that all women should be educated about the safe handling of food. She became involved in organizations such as the Young Women's Christian Association, and began to lecture on issues related to hygiene, sanitation and child care. She spoke at the Agricultural College in Guelph, Ontario in 1897 on the need for young women to receive domestic training in public schools, and as a result was invited to speak the following week at a Farmers' Institute meeting at Stoney Creek.
These talks aroused interest among women, who turned out in large numbers to hear her, and very quickly responded to start an organization of their own. The (first Women's Institute was thus established at Stoney Creek in that year.
The purpose of the organization was to unite women in an effort to improve their homes and thus their communities. Women's Institutes quickly spread throughout Canada and the world. Non-partisan and nonsectarian, the organization emphasized education and offered courses on a wide range of subjects, from first aid to millinery. These courses were in fact the precursors of the readily available adult education courses offered through the school system today.
During the first decade of the 20th century, the average housewife in rural Canada led a full life managing home and family. The hours that she had for herself might be spent in catering for a Church-related social activity, or socializing with friends at a quilting bee. World War I brought a demand for more of her time, and as patriotic fervour swept the country, groups of women organized knitting and sewing bees, often associated with the Red Cross, and worked diligently in every way possible to assist the War effort and particularly the individual serviceman. The pleasure of the social aspect of these gatherings was apparent.
In 1919, the Wakefield Home Makers’ Club was organized, and within six months had forty members. Through association with Macdonald College at Ste. Anne de Bellevue near Montreal, the group became the Wakefield Women's Institute a year later. The movement spread throughout the area, and a strong Gatineau County Women's Institute resulted. Dr. Harold Geggie, a strong supporter of the group, spoke in the 1950s on some of their achievements.
The end of the War brought a lessening of the demand for the articles produced, but at the same time, a broadening of the group’s outlook. At a public meeting in Earle’s Hall, in November 1920, the three local members of clergy present spoke on many topics fincluding] streetlights, sidewalks, better schools, school lunches, organized disposal of village refuse and garbage dumps instead of the too convenient river bank and its too plentiful rat population.
...At one meeting, the filthy condition of the local school was discussed. It was suggested that the Institute help in a periodic clean-up of the school. This proved so inadequate that by the 1930s, parents were completely disgusted with the school board as it then existed...whose only interest was to keep down the taxes. Members of the Institute made a concerted drive to attend all school board meetings to observe the goings on. The Board refused to do business while the women were present! However, after many repetitions of the same tactics the whole school board resigned. A new board was appointed by Quebec [provincial authorities] and consolidation was arranged with Farm Point, resulting in the planning of a new school. This was opened in March 1940. The building of the school was the first of three great projects of the Wakefield Women's Institute.
The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 spurred the Ottawa Red Cross to set up a blood donor service. The requirement for blood made a travelling donor clinic service necessary under the sponsorship of the Institute. Nine clinics were held in Wakefield school hall, at Ste. Cécile de Masham and at Poltimore. Some 1500 donations of blood were thus contributed over a period of three years. It is true that local committees gave instructed help, but the whole scheme was organized and booked by the Institute. [This entailed] recruiting donors, supplying additional nurses and other services of all kinds as well as entertainment and food for the large crowd of people concerned. In this connection the names of Mrs. Herb. Ellard of Wright, Miss Dunlop of Farm Point, Miss Rogan of Danford, Mrs. Madeline Brighton of Wakefield, Mrs. Lena (Ken) Moncrieff of Rupert, Miss Mabel Lindsay of Wakefield, all local retired trained nurses, are to be gratefully remembered. Many untrained persons gave valuable help. This was the second major effort of the Wakefield Women's Institute.
As the Second World War drew to its end. blood serum and sewing were less needed and the Institute began looking about for new fields of endeavour. I suggested a Cottage Hospital, in memory of those who would not come back, and for the use of those who would come back to live and work among us. The Institute took up the project. The name of the Gatineau Memorial Hospital was chosen by Miss Mabel Lindsay, an overseas nurse in the First War, and a long-time member of the Wakefield Institute. The members of the Institute were the first to take up the idea,... raised money for the first contribution to the funds of the hospital and...bought... war surplus blankets, sheets, pillows and an instrument cupboard in 1946.
To the Wakefield Women's Institute goes the honour of being the first public body to take seriously Dr. Harold Geggie's dream of a hospital and make it come true.
During the months leading up to the opening of the hospital, members of the Women's Institutes of the area were to be found painting cupboards, filling shelves with home-canned goods and sewing linen. Each bed was supplied with a hand-quilted spread, the basis of which was recycled sugar and flour bags. One of these quilts remains, recently donated to the Historical Society of the Gatineau's museum by Lucille Fournier, who as Nurse Lucille Gingras was one of the original staff.
In July 1952 the Women’s Institutes held a garden party on the grounds of their new hospital, an event which has continued annually under the management of the Hospital Auxiliaries, and is responsible for thousands of dollars for hospital improvements. As an offshoot of the Institute, a Hospital Women's Auxiliary was formed, with branches in Alcove, Rupert, Chelsea/South Hull and Wakefield.
The very strong involvement of the Institute with the local school, as depicted in Dr. Geggie's remarks, led to innumerable improvements. These included establishing a library in the school and serving cocoa to the students at lunch time — a service which continued for thirty years. The institute was responsible for the installation of electric lights in the school (at a cost of $35 in 1926), and also supplied proficiency prizes to school children for ten years. Finally, its interest led to the formation of a Parent- Teacher Committee in the 1950s.
Within the community, it gave assistance to needy families, with the distribution of food, and in one instance, the procurement of a disability pension. Its members took an active interest in area agricultural fairs by entering contests with their home-grown and home-made goods. On a wider scale, members canvassed the village annually for support for the Cancer Society, the Blind Institute and the Canadian Red Cross.
The outbreak of World War Il in 1939 increased and directed members’ efforts. With daily knitting and sewing bees, they produced a quantity of much-needed articles for overseas, sent clothing to air-raid victims in England, and financially supported various humanitarian efforts to relieve suffering as a result of the war, including the Red Cross, Russian Relief and the Prisoner of War Fund. Fittingly, the Gatineau County WI ‘adopted’ the destroyer, HMCS Gatineau, and Wakefield unit supplied eighty “ditty bags” (containing toiletry articles) and books to its crew.
Even after the War there was still much to do. The women continued to organize blood donor clinics. They sent clothing to flood victims in British Columbia in 1948 and the following year packed a carload of vegetables and canned goods for the drought-stricken Canadian prairies. As the push by Dr. Harold Geggie for a cottage hospital in the community continued, they took up the challenge and staged a play which raised $256.75. This type of activity was not an isolated one. With tremendous enthusiasm and a degree of talent, the Wakefield WI worked tirelessly at staging several plays over the years, involving dozens of women in the production of stage sets, costumes, and actual performances. One of the last of these was in 1953, a melodrama called Spider Island, which is still remembered with great amusement and some nostalgia.
Again into the 1950s, women attended Council meetings to demand better lighting on the streets of Wakefield. After a fire which destroyed Phil Trowsse's shop and several adjoining buildings on the south bank of the Lapéche River, they approached Council about supplying fire protection for the village. This resulted in the formation of a volunteer fire department and the construction of a fire hall with outdoor siren, fire trucks and pumpers. With the move in the area by Jessie Hyde (Waterson) to establish a Home for Children' at Farm Point, the women sent home-baking and supplied and sorted clothing for it.
In 1959 the Wakefield Women's Institute published a History of Wakefield Village. Compiled and written by Miss A. B. Rabb, it was sold for $1.00 per copy. in aid of the Gatineau Memorial Hospital. The supply of this wonderful little booklet was soon depleted, and it remains a collector’s item. For entry in the Lady Tweedsmuir Village History competition run by the National Organization of Women's Institutes, Norma and Stuart Geggie continued the work which Birdie Robb had so ably begun, added archival research and many photographs, and won, on behalf of the Institute, the award as the best village history in Quebec. This became the basis for Lapéche, a History of the Townships of Wakefield and Masham, 1792-1925, published by the Historical Society of the Gatineau in 1974.
Apart from these numerous achievements, the emphasis at the monthly meetings was on education. A speaker might be invited to demonstrate artificial respiration (in the days before cardio-pulmonary resuscitation or CPR), a convenor would present a paper on a topic such as The First Canadian Woman Doctor, or teams debate the “value of television in our homes” (in the 1950s when not every home was in possession of one).
The Wakefield Women's Institute, over a period of forty years or so, dispersed into a variety of organizations which were undertaking the work which it had begun and consequently, in about 1961, it disbanded. One cannot help but feel the impact of this vigorous organization on the quality of life in the village of Wakefield.
References:
Cheryl MacDonald, Adelaide Hoodless, Domestic Crusader, (Toronto, Dundurn Press, 1986).
Manitoba Department of Cultural Affairs and Historical Research, The Women's Institutes of Manitoba, (1983).
Mary Quayle Innis, ed., The Clear Spirit, Twenty Canadian Women and Their Times, (Toronto, publ. for the Canadian Federation of University Women by University of Toronto Press, 1966).
Historical Society of the Gatineau Archives, The Wakefield Women's Institute files.