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Laurier House, Ottawa

July 26, 1930

King entered the room, strode over to the marble statue of his mother, and firmly kissed her lips. “Well, sweetheart,” he whispered, “We’ve done our part.”

He had finished campaigning across the West and through Ontario and had just come in from Renfrew today at six o’clock. He was fatigued from speaking in arenas so large they swallowed up his words but somehow did nothing to lessen the volume of the jeers from the unemployed. The thought sustaining him was that Mother never seemed too distant, an angel guiding him from afar. He received confirmation of this in messages from a Kingston fortuneteller, Mrs. Bleaney. Her visions from the spirit world and interpretations of his dreams had helped him since the campaign of 1921. Now Bleaney prophesied victory in the 1930 election even though King worried that his speeches lacked the fire of other campaigns.

Later tonight King would give a coast-to-coast radio broadcast right from the dining room of Laurier House! He was pleased that as he addressed the nation, the paintings of all those he loved most dearly and to whom he owed the most would be about in that memorable and sacred spot in his home: Grandfather, the grandmothers, dear Father and Mother, Mr. Larkin, and Sir Wilfrid Laurier.

The leader of the Opposition would also have his turn to speak. From a political and business point of view, Westerner R.B. Bennett headed as stupid a lot of men as King had ever seen. They’d be better off remaining silent than making promises they couldn’t keep. Another of the damnable features of the Tory campaign was their attempt to injure King by making much of his connection to Rockefeller and his absence from Canada during the war. Worst, the Tories suggested that the prime minister had become calloused to labour’s cause. “Hypocritical,” King pronounced. But he also knew that he had set himself up for such criticism.

He had made one slip. Only one slip. However, the prime minister cannot make even one slip.

Upstairs, as he prepared to take a nap before the broadcast in hopes of getting rid of his splitting headache, King remembered his error.

On April 3 he delivered a speech on unemployment to the House of Commons. He had worked on the speech until 4 a.m., and it met with a standing ovation from his confreres.

Then the Tory harassment had begun, provoking him until he said something that could be totally misrepresented. Although King was clear in his mind that he had been addressing federal/provincial roles and responsibilities, it looked as if he had said the federal government would not give any money to any province headed by a Conservative government.

King recalled saying “I would not give a cent to a Tory government.”

“Shame! Shame!” the Opposition cried.

As he lay on his bed, the thudding pain behind his eyes increased. He was not unsympathetic towards the disadvantaged, but technically unemployment was a provincial, not a federal problem. And while there seemed to be increased unemployment with the temporary economic slump precipitated by the Wall Street crash, there was no statistical evidence that showed an emergent national problem. Nor had any provincial premier stepped forward to request emergency assistance. There was, in fact, no reason to open the federal treasury.

I would not give a cent to a Tory government.

Shame! Shame!

The words still rumbled like boulders over his brain.

That regrettable remark, combined with the disorganization of the party machinery and a weak stance on the issue of importation of New Zealand butter, had meant King had to work extra hard at the campaign. At an exhausting pace he had thundered to the West and back with his lieutenant, Québécois Ernest Lapointe.

One of the few moments of peace had been at dawn yesterday as the train passed through Kitchener. King remembered the town when it was called Berlin. He grew excited when, in the half dark, he thought he saw a familiar white gate. “Wake up!” he had cried to his travelling companion. “That’s Woodside! That’s where I was a boy. Such a happy boyhood,” he’d gushed as the pines and poplars whizzed by, “the basis for my present position.” Once a boy from Berlin had dreamed of being the prime minister of the Dominion of Canada. “Most of my dreams have been realized,” he had murmured.

“With the exception of my sister, Mrs. Lay, my family is gone now,” King had informed his seatmate. He had looked out the window at the shadows pierced weakly by the day’s new sun. “Only somehow,” he’d added, “it feels as though they are quite near by, guiding me.”

Now, the memory of their voices quieted the other cries in his head. “Shame! Shame!” softened into the sh-sh-sh of the wheels on the track, and for a few minutes, King fell back to dream.

East Block, Parliament Buildings, Ottawa

July 29, 1930

“I would like to extend my sincere congratulations, Mr. Bennett.”

King watched as Bennett sat down on the sofa. He looked fatter and flabbier than King had remembered.

“I am glad that the contest is over and that we remained civil,” King told his rival. “I must say, however, I regret the personal comments about the war period when I was looking after my family.”

“I wasn’t in the war either,” the new prime minister confessed. Bennett, who was also a bachelor, had different reasons for not enlisting. “I’m missing two toes. Besides, Borden said he needed me at home.”

As the conversation turned to the details of handing over the reins of power, King found himself realizing that he was glad to throw onto Bennett’s shoulders the need to find a solution for unemployment. He guessed the man would go to pieces from the strain. There were, the former prime minister sensed, more difficult times to come. His party had achieved a fine record of government. When the Tory period ended, surely the Liberals would have a long lease of power.

Looking out the window, Willie noticed two little girls on the lawn, playing. King suddenly felt unburdened. Now he would have more time for literature and gardening at Kingsmere. Finally, he would be able to devote himself more fully to his personal investigations of spiritual phenomena.

Laurier House

February 24, 1932

The third floor was totally silent. As instructed, the servants and secretaries left their employer and his two female guests to themselves. Pat lay outside the door of the book room and growled when anyone came near.

The room, an oversized closet where books and government papers were stored, was darkened with quilts until it was almost black. King, Joan Patteson, a friend named Mrs. Fulford, and the spiritualist Mrs. Etta Wriedt sat on chairs with a silver-coloured trumpet placed on the floor between them.

The small, white-haired medium in a grey silk dress requested sweetly, “Let us speak the Lord’s Prayer.”

After the four prayed devoutly, Wriedt closed her eyes and slipped into a trancelike state.

King had been very excited a few days before when he had experienced his first seance with Wriedt. Mrs. Fulford, Senator Fulford’s widow, had invited him to her Brockville home to see the Detroit medium. King had been astounded at the parade of spirits who had communicated with him through Wriedt’s tin trumpet. Grandfather, Sir Wilfrid, Bert, Father, and Mother had spoken to him and answered his questions, there was no mistaking. Just as Lady Byng, Mrs. Fulford and many others had assured him, now he had proof that he could communicate directly with those in heaven!

King had immediately invited Wriedt to come to Ottawa. Rex very badly wanted his friend, Joan, to experience the marvels he had witnessed. He was sure that there were spirits waiting to speak to her, too.

A noise from the flared end of the trumpet made the two seekers almost stop breathing. To Joan it seemed like a strange gasping sound, but very feeble. It’s as if a person is emerging from ether, Joan thought, or perhaps like a radio before it becomes quite “heated up.” Joan was too frightened to make any observations out loud.

Miraculously, a woman’s voice began to speak. It was indistinguishable at first, and then came more clearly.

This is Isabel. Both Willie and Joan felt their breath coming more quickly. Is Joan Patteson here?

“Yes, Mrs. King,” Joan squeaked, astonished.

I am happy to meet you, at last, the voice went on strongly. You have done so much for my beloved son. I have long wanted to meet you and thank you. Also, I have good news for you.

“For me?” Joan asked incredulously.

Your daughter is here. She has grown up and is a beautiful girl. She will speak to you in a minute.

“Oh my!” Joan could hardly bear the elation at hearing the voice of one who had never spoken on Earth. The daughter she missed so much. Then a worried question came to her. “Who looks after her in Heaven?”

Oh, my dear, there is a kindergarten here for little children, Isabel’s voice informed. They are well cared for. We teach them all kinds of wonderful things – and even all about the parents they left behind and who love them on earth.

Joan felt enraptured. She had always sensed that her lost child was safe and cared for, but it was so wonderful to be certain.

She’s named after you, isn’t she? Isabel asked.

Joan stiffened. This was incorrect. The child’s name was Alison Rose, but the family had called her…

But we call her Nancy, the voice quickly continued.

Joy flooded back through Joan’s body. It was her daughter!

Your father and mother will speak to you also. But my time is short. I wish to speak now to my son.

The trumpet rolled across the floor. It stopped, rapping King on the shins. He picked it up.

My dear, most devoted son. You have been so kind to me. I have felt your love, even here.

“Mother?” King asked.

Yes, Billy, it is your mother. Father is here too and Grandfather. They are very proud of you. We are all here watching you. Now here is Grandfather.

King exhaled. A shudder of relief coursed through him.

I am William Lyon Mackenzie. Mrs. Patteson, I am pleased to meet you. A man s voice with a thick Scottish accent came through the trumpet.

“I am pleased to meet you too, sir. I have studied about you in school.”

I am honoured! the voice said with surprise. I lost much in the Rebellion. As my grandson knows, one makes great sacrifices in public life. He works so hard. I worked so hard. But it was different work. These are different times. Time, the voice reflected, does not exist over here. I want my grandson to know that I love him and I will always be with him.

After the séance King took a moment to write up the events of the day. It was so marvellous, he felt, to have such contact, now, during his upsetting period. The Liberal party had been horribly affected by a terrible scandal, one that had sullied King’s personal reputation. Funds had been given to the Liberal campaign from people who had benefitted from contracts related to proposed plans to build the St. Lawrence Seaway. It was made to look as if an interested party, the Beauharnois Syndicate, had paid for King’s hotel bill during a holiday in Bermuda. Although King was eventually proven innocent, some other Liberals appeared less so. “We are in the Valley of Humiliation,” the party leader confessed before the House of Commons. He had promised that all would be set right. Then he took measures to ensure such a charge could never be brought against a Liberal candidate again. He saw that a National Liberal Foundation and office was organized to handle campaign funds and to strengthen the party unity through improved communication. Nonetheless, the taste of disgrace remained bitterly with King.

Patteson Residence

Elgin St., Ottawa

December 24, 1933

King and Joan sat across from each other at a little table. Their hands were placed on its surface palms down, fingers touching lightly. The room was heavy with the smell of Christmas roses, but darkened so that the blooms could barely be discerned. A small light glowed, just enough to illuminate a notepad beside King.

Their fingers began to tap out letters. With his pencil stub, King transcribed Mother King.

“Mother,” King breathed. “It’s Mother.”

Mother King gave her love, and then Joan’s mother sent the same message. Father King soon appeared.

Father: Happy Christmas. Go to bed early. Eat less.

“Good advice!” King said.

“Quiet, Rex!” Joan commanded.

As the knocks began again, King wrote down each letter and “translated” the jumble into the answers to their questions. Since their minds had been opened to the possibilities of communication with those in the spirit world, he and Joan found that through the little table they themselves could have direct contact without going through a medium. Willies brother spoke now.

Max: Go to bed early. Let wine alone. Exercise more.

“Should I walk more?” King asked the shadows.

Yes.

“When?”

At night.

Now it was Joan’s turn to ask the spirit of Dr. Macdougall King a medical question. “Will Godfroy’s hand soon be better?”

Yes.

“Is it cancer?”

No.

The name Laurier was tapped out next.

Learn French. Have someone teach you.

“Does it mean another war?” King queried.

Yes.

“Do you know how soon?”

The spirits thought a war might come in the reign of Edward VIII. As King George V was currently on the throne, this caused Joan to ask if they had “knowledge of the future.” The answer was: Yes.

King’s heroes, the British prime minister Gladstone and his own rebel grandfather William Lyon Mackenzie, were among those who joined in the talk and gave political advice.

Gladstone: Strive valiantly.

Mackenzie Lyon: I will help you.

Blake: Go slowly dealing with Bennett.

Message from all: Keep up your courage.

They tapped until the spirits told them to go to bed late Christmas Eve.

Making his way home to Laurier House, King felt the cold of the night. He was aware that a record number of people on relief were suffering – one million in a country of nearly ten million. Many of these hungry men, King knew, were unhappy that Bennett had not kept his election promises of ending unemployment. They were desperately looking for answers outside of traditional political means and were turning to new theories and parties.

King too, was looking for answers in new ways, but to different questions. Preparing for bed, he thought of the Christmases at Woodside – the way he or Max or Father had dressed up as Santa. Perhaps thinking about them just now meant something. Perhaps he would see his father or Max in a vision while he slept.

Beside King’s bed, Pat stirred in his little basket. “I wonder if he’s dreaming of the Irish terrier on the Christmas card that Mrs. Wriedt sent?” King stretched out comfortably, feeling warm and blessed. “I must make a note to thank…”

Soon, both were snoring contentedly while soft shadows flitted about the room.

Kingsmere, Quebec

July 1, 1936

King and Joan Patteson stood on the lawn at the edge of the forest. “I am going to call this the Arc de Triomphe!” he declared, while placing his hand on a tall column.

“To commemorate the election?” Joan asked slyly.

The Liberals had won the October 14, 1935 federal election. Their posters had proclaimed: “Canada Cannot Stand Another 5 Years of Bennett’s Broken Promises.” The slogan “It’s King or Chaos” garnered the lion’s share of the votes for the Liberals, with some for the new parties: the Social Credit and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). Bennett had been trounced.

King’s Arc de Triomphe, the doorway to the forest, had, a short time ago, held up the stone walls of the British North American Bank Note Building in Ottawa. Upon hearing that the building was scheduled for demolition, he had purchased the pillars and had them brought to Kingsmere. Over the years he had enlarged his estate to just over two hundred improved hectares and several cottages. A few years before, he had begun adding pieces of other people’s cast-off buildings, cobbling together “ruins.” He was quite pleased with the effect. Kingsmere looked as grand as any old estate in Britain. The latest addition, this portico, to a part of the forest he called Diana’s Grove, was especially inspiring.

“The Arc de Triomphe,” he wrote in his diary on July 3rd, commemorated “the place of victory and triumph of July 1, 1936, and all that has led up to that moment, and which marks it as a place of new beginning.” He was proud of the civic beautification projects begun in Ottawa. There was also the success his minister of labour had achieved in closing the relief camps after finding work for the unemployed men with the railway. And importantly, there was the work that he had accomplished in Geneva at the League of Nations to encourage cautious peace at a time when Ethiopia, the Rhineland, and Spain were feeling the effects of war.

The Official Residence

Berlin, Germany

June 29, 1937

Hitler was speaking. The prime minister of Canada, waiting for the translation, watched his face with fascination. His face is much more prepossessing than his pictures would give the impression of, he noted. It is not that of a fiery, over-strained nature, hut of a calm, passive man deeply and thoughtfully in earnest. His skin is smooth; his face does not present lines of fatigue or weariness.

Hitler rested his hands on his lap, his eyes fixed on King. Those eyes, King decided, are what is most impressive. There’s a liquid quality about them which indicates keen perception and profound sympathy.

Hitler was explaining to King how he spent most of his time at his country home. “I need quiet and nature to help me think out the problems of my country.”

“Very wise,” King agreed.

When King was in London at the Imperial Conference and the Coronation of King George VI earlier in the spring, he had been approached by Ribbentrop, the German ambassador. The Canadian prime minister had seized the opportunity for an interview. As senior statesman in the Commonwealth, he wanted to communicate to Hitler that the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, understood that Germany had an interest in some economic expansion in Eastern Europe. King also hoped to convince Hitler of the necessity of continuing peace.

The Canadian outlook, King told the German leader, would be decided by the Canadian Parliament. “Canada is as free and independent a country as Germany itself, but we feel our freedom is secured in a large part by our being a part of the British Empire.” King emphasized “that if that peace is threatened by an aggressive act of any kind on the part of any county, there is little doubt that all parts will resent it.”

When the interview concluded, Hitler took in his hands a red square box with a gold eagle on its cover. “Take this,” the translator told King, “in appreciation of your visit to Germany.”

King opened the box. Inside was a signed picture of Hitler in a beautiful silver frame. Hitler is such a nice, sweet man, he thought. He has many fine qualities, such as devotion to his mother and the ability to rise from limited opportunities through self-education. King felt sure Hitler was deeply mystical, following his star of destiny as he pursued his goal of freeing his country from tyranny. I cannot, King reminded himself, abide Nazism – the regimentation – the cruelty – the oppression of Jews, but, he prophesied mentally, Hitler, the peasant, will rank some day with Joan of Arc among the deliverers of his people.

“Thank you for the gift,” King said to his host “and for the privilege of the interview. I strongly agree with seeking to do greater good for those in humble walks of life and would like to speak more with you about the constructive side of your work. I wish you well with your efforts to help mankind.”

Hitler returned to the pressing matters of his dictatorship, while King was free to enjoy being a tourist. He was to meet with members of the youth movement and later go to the opera. But now, he wandered to the far side of the Tiergarten, until he was at the house where he had lived for one season as a student thirty-seven years ago.

The birds sang in the trees overhead, rejoicing, King thought. This is why I was born in Berlin, over sixty years ago in 1874. So that today I could deliver an important message of peace.

Addressing the Canadian troops in Britain, 1941. General McNaughton stands by.