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3

YOUTH AND MARRIAGE

Cairine Wilson once recalled that it was a quadrille which first brought Norman Wilson into her life. Whether this is correct — at the time of the interview she was not sure that her memory was all that reliable on this point — the fact remains that she met her husband at a State ball at Government House, the rambling Regency-style villa built in 1838 by a fellow member of the Clan Mackay, Rideau Canal contractor, Thomas MacKay.¹ It was May 1905, and Cairine Mackay was making her first visit to the Lauriers in Ottawa. She had come to the capital to see her father, who was then attending sessions of the Senate. In the absence of her ailing mother, she accompanied the Senator to the gala function at Rideau Hall, one of a host of “entertainments” staged annually by the newly arrived governor general, Lord Grey, and his wife, Alice. Had she tried, Cairine Mackay could not have chosen a more romantic setting in which to meet her future husband: a brilliantly lit ballroom in which massive oil portraits looked down on swirling dancers, some of whom were resplendent in gold-braided Windsor uniforms. Nor could she have hoped for a more fitting person to make the necessary introductions on that memorable May eighteenth evening: Lady Laurier.

Formidably plump Zoë Laurier, who was then emerging as a political personality in her own right, had no children of her own. However, she loved the company of young people, especially women. So, not surprisingly, she took a liking to shy Cairine Mackay and, eager to make her feel at ease, presented her to one of the capital’s most eligible bachelors, Norman Wilson. To the end of her life, Lady Laurier would claim responsibility for initiating the resulting match and would take a keen interest in the six Wilsons who were born before her death.²

Norman Wilson c 1925.

At the time of the introduction, Cairine was twenty years old, five feet, six inches in height, slender, and, although reserved and serious, not without a quiet sense of humour and a sparkle in her deep blue eyes. No doubt it was this sparkle and her warm smile that attracted her to Norman Frank Wilson, who, at age twenty-nine, was the second youngest member of the House of Commons (George Parent, a friend and fellow Liberal in the House, was three years his junior.)³ A newspaper photograph of the time reveals a youthful-looking, clean-shaven Norman, with dark hair parted in the middle and a rather handsome face. Like Cairine’s father, he had high cheekbones and a deep forehead, but unlike the gruff, intimidating senator, he was sunny and cheerful. To add to his appeal, he was a Liberal and a Presbyterian, who came from an exemplary bourgeois family that had been headed by a dynamic entrepreneur of Scottish origin, William Wilson.

Norman’s father, who died in 1891, was a native of Edinburgh, who had emigrated to Montreal with his parents as a young boy. He launched his working career by serving as a Crown Timber agent in Buckingham, Quebec (known as Canada East in those days). Then he settled in nearby Cumberland where he had purchased a property in 1845. Once established in this small eastern Ontario community, he proceeded to forge a leading role for himself as a farmer, storekeeper, sawmill operator, flour mill owner, township reeve and justice of the peace. With his wife, Mary McElroy, he also raised a large family.

The first child, Catherine Margaret, was born in 1859, the youngest, Norman Frank, in 1876. Of thirteen children born to William and Mary Wilson, nine survived to adulthood, among whom was Catherine or Kate, as she was called.⁴ In 1885, she married William Cameron Edwards, an Ottawa Valley lumber tycoon, who became Liberal MP for Russell in 1887 and, then, in 1903, a Senator. As a member of the Upper House he became a good friend of Cairine’s father because not only did the two millionaires occupy adjoining seats in the Senate for a time, they also joined forces to bankroll the Liberal Party when it was in a chronic state of bankruptcy. Another sister of Norman’s, Ida Francis, also married a prominent Ottawa lumberman: John A. Cameron, son of the late John A. Cameron, who had been a partner with W. C. Edwards in the lumber business which eventually became the W. C. Edwards and Company.

Norman Wilson, in other words, was well-connected and he was able to benefit from his connections. After attending public school in Cumberland, he continued his studies at the elite Toronto boys’ school, Upper Canada College, thanks to the generosity of his brother-in-law and guardian, W. C. Edwards, who also assisted in the education of Norman’s brother, Reginald (Reggie), born in 1875. From Upper Canada College, Norman went to the Ontario College of Agriculture at Guelph, where he obtained a bachelor of science in agriculture. Equipped with his degree, he returned to Cumberland to work the family farm and to become a vicepresident of the Russell County Agricultural Society and president of Cumberland Township Agricultural Society.

However, Norman was not content to be just a working farmer and a self-described member of that “class of toilers who are the greatest wealth-producers of Canada.” As befitted a protégé of W. C. Edwards and the son of a township reeve, he entertained political ambitions. In 1904, thanks in large part to Edwards’s influence and the prominence of the Wilson family, the young farmer became the unanimous choice of Russell County Liberals for their standard-bearer in that year’s general election. Having won the nomination by acclamation, he then went on to defeat his Conservative opponent, J. E. Askwith, in the election, by nearly a thousand votes. When Cairine Mackay first met him, he had served one year in Parliament and would have another three to go, after which he would become manager of the W. C. Edwards and Company mills at Rockland, Ontario.

If young Cairine had any plans for her future when she first met Norman Wilson, they were those of most starry-eyed girls of her generation and circumstances: a handsome lover, a blissful courtship and marriage, and the raising of children in a happy home.⁵ At this point in her life, she could not conceive of playing a role of any consequence outside the home and a traditional marriage. Still, she did not rush into matrimony. Not until some three years later, in 1908, did she become engaged to Norman, who then swept her off to Quebec to participate in that city’s tercentennial celebrations and to meet the stocky bachelor who shared a desk with him in the House of Commons in 1908, William Lyon Mackenzie King.⁶

The W.C. Edwards’ sawmill, Rockland, Ontario c 1908.

The marriage took place the following year, on 23 February, Cairine Mackay’s birthday month and later the month of her elevation to the Senate. It was held at nine in the evening at gloomy Kildonan, transformed for the occasion into a bower of spring flowers, palms and laurel. The ceremony, reported the Montreal Herald, was performed under a large white floral bell in the inner drawing room by the Reverend Dr R. W. Dickie, the tall, striking minister of Crescent Street Church. Cairine appeared in an Empire gown of ivory duchess satin with a panel skirt embroidered in silk and pearls. Her veil, which had been worn by her mother at her marriage thirty-seven years earlier, was of silk embroidered net. For a bouquet she carried lilies of the valley and white orchids. Orchids, in fact, would figure in Cairine’s later social life because whenever they dined out or entertained, Norman would present her with an orchid corsage.⁷

Members of the bridal party included Cairine’s sister, Anna Loring, as matron of honour, Isett Baptist, a cousin from Trois Rivières, and friends Elsie Macfarlane and Mabel Murray-Smith. The groom was attended by best man, Senator Edwards, and the ushers were George Parent, Harry Christie of Ottawa, and Edward Mackay, Cairine’s youngest brother.

The ceremony was followed by a supper served in the large dining room that overlooked the back garden and the slopes of Mount Royal. Later, Cairine and Norman left for Montreal’s Place Viger Hotel, the bride muffled in ermine furs and wearing a dark blue broadcloth dress, trimmed with a collar and cuffs of white embroidered silk. After a short stay at the Place Viger Hotel, the couple journeyed to New York, where they had first class accommodation on the S S “Baltic,” a “twin screw steamer” that sailed for Liverpool on 27 February.⁸ Their wedding trip would take them to London and the Continent before their return to Canada and a radical change in life-style for the new Mrs Wilson.

Twenty-two years after her mother’s death, Janet Burns would observe that her father was “a most devoted husband” and that her parents enjoyed a good relationship. It is a sentiment echoed by other close observers of the couple, but at the time of their marriage there must have been those who wondered if the match could be a durable, happy one. Cairine, after all, was quiet and introverted with an interest in reading and stimulating conversation. Her husband, although basically shy, was outgoing and gregarious with family and friends, not given to deep reflection, and, certainly not by any stretch of the imagination, intellectually inclined. Norman, however, had the best of dispositions and a strong sense of his own identity and self-worth. These qualities, plus the couple’s mutual devotion would make for a rewarding relationship and eventually allow Cairine to pursue a career of her own outside the home, something almost unheard of in the conservative, upper class circles from which she came.

The first decade or so of married life, however, epitomized the lifestyle decreed for a woman of her circumstances: raising children and acting as chatelaine of a large home. Only the setting struck an incongruous note because after her marriage to Norman, the physical contours of Cairine Wilson’s world changed dramatically. Leaving behind the enchanting city of Montreal with its busy harbour, glinting church spires and Mount Royal, she went to live in a small eastern Ontario mill town, situated some twenty miles east of Ottawa, in gently rolling country beside the Ottawa River. No longer would one of the most elegant avenues in North America—mansion-lined Sherbrooke Street—be the centre of her physical universe. For the next nine years it would be replaced by a three-storey, red-brick house and its immediate surroundings in Rockland.

When Cairine Wilson arrived in Rockland, in April 1909, it was a town of almost four thousand, the overwhelming majority of whom were French Canadians, many descendants of settlers who had left overpopulated Quebec parishes in the last quarter of the nineteenth century to work in the W. C. Edwards and Company lumber mills. In a recital of bald facts, the 1908 edition of Lovell’s Gazetteer of the Dominion of Canada reveals that the town boasted three churches, twenty stores, three hotels, one flour mill, one sash and door factory, two lumber mills, one mica factory, a bank and telegraph and express offices.

The English-speaking population numbered only three or four hundred people in the years that the Wilsons made Rockland their home. Nevertheless, this small minority held a commanding influence in the town’s affairs, occupying the top positions in the W. C. Edwards and Company and in the civic administration. A tightly knit community, they developed their own institutions—two Protestant churches, a public and a secondary school — and indulged a passion for such organized sports as hockey and curling. Curling was especially favoured by company officials, who built their own curling hall and mounted a winning team against rivals from Ottawa, Thurso, Cumberland and Buckingham.⁹ One of the company skips was Norman Wilson, who, after the family’s move to Ottawa, became a leading force in the Rideau Curling Club, serving as its president from 1928 until 1942.¹⁰

For her part, Cairine Wilson would have little time for recreational activities, organized or unorganized, during this period in her life. On the rare occasions when she did, she would drive the pair of Roan ponies that she had received from the Edwards for a wedding present or help the family gardener to tend the large vegetable and flower gardens on the Rockland property.

Work, of course, dominated the lives of all the townspeople in these years for most worked long hours six days a week. The largest employer was the W. C. Edwards and Company whose two lumber mills at Rockland were managed by Norman Wilson. The largest of these was built in 1875 to replace an earlier and more modest mill constructed in 1868. That was the year when W. C. Edwards, then a young man of twenty-four, embarked at Thurso, Quebec on the steamer “Caroline” of the Ottawa Forwarding Company, his former employer, and disembarked at what is now Rockland to dig and prepare the foundation for the first of many sawmills in what would become a lumbering empire. With forwarding merchant, James Wood, Edwards formed the firm of W. C. Edwards and Company and then proceeded to work side by side with his employees in all departments of the mill’s operations, from the cutting and hauling of logs to the driving of the steam engines and the shipping of the lumber. A man of great zeal and energy, who routinely worked fourteen to sixteen hours a day, Edwards built the business into a flourishing enterprise that spawned a second mill in Rockland and then expanded to Ottawa. Here, the lumber magnate acquired several industrial properties on both sides of the Rideau Falls, which he proceeded to convert into an impressive wood manufacturing complex consisting of a planing mill, a sash and door factory, and a mill for shaping hardwood lumber. When these buildings were destroyed by a spectacular fire in 1907, the Senator took the insurance money, added to it, and built one of the most modern fireproof sawmills in Canada.

The W. C. Edwards and Company, therefore, was one of the largest and most prosperous lumbering manufacturing firms in the country when Norman Wilson stepped down from Parliament in 1908 and became manager of the large mill on Edwards Street and the smaller one on Woods Street. The town that became his second home and to which he brought his bride in 1909 owed its existence and prosperity largely to these sawmills. From six in the morning to six at night, six days a week, they screeched away, relentlessly cutting Ottawa Valley lumber into lengths that were sorted and then pulled by horse-drawn trolleys on rails to vast lumberyards for storage. Most of this lumber, along with such secondary products as boards, slats and shingles, was shipped across Canada and out of the country. Some, however, was sold at nominal cost to company employees to encourage them to build their own homes. Still more wood was used in the construction of company houses that were rented for three to four dollars a month to employees. Rockland was nothing if not the quintessential company town. W. C. Edwards even served as the town’s mayor from the time of its incorporation in 1908 until the next year when he and his wife Catherine moved to Ottawa and into the large, picturesque stone house, which in 1949 would be designated the official residence of the prime minister of Canada.

The large red-brick residence with the impressive facade and circular driveway that became Cairine Wilson’s new home and that was occupied rent-free by the family belonged to Senator Edwards. Three storeys high, with a verandah that opened off the second floor and a palpable air of prosperity, it stood beside a clump of pine trees on a hill that overlooked the sprawling white mills and huge piles of drying white and red pine and spruce that stretched as far as the eye could see. Nearby on the grassy slope were the homes of other members of the Edwards’ entourage and their families — the Binks, the Murrays and the Reeces.

In keeping with the estate of a lumber king, there were stables, where Cairine could keep her pair of Roan ponies, a garage for the family’s Franklin car, and large vegetable and flower gardens. But, apart from these features and a contingent of servants, there was little to remind her of the life-style that she had left behind her in Montreal, except perhaps the visits of family members and Montreal friends. Among the first arrivals was sister Anna who visited her sister and brother-in-law in August 1909. Then that autumn Cairine’s parents came to pay their respects and find out how their daughter was faring. Brother Edward arrived in May 1910 as did a close childhood friend of Cairine’s, Mildred Forbes. Mildred would pay several visits to the Wilsons when they lived in Rockland, and when she served overseas as a nurse during the First World War Cairine would arrange for numerous food parcels to be dispatched to her.¹¹

Family members and old Montreal friends were not the only visitors to find their way to Rockland from larger, more sophisticated urban centres. During their years in this out-of -the-way town the Wilsons also drew visitors from New York, Liverpool, Washington, D.C., Tokyo, The Hague, Glasgow, London, San Francisco, Kansas City, Chicago and Montevideo.¹²

No sooner had she settled into her new home than Cairine found herself pregnant. On 16 January of the following year, the first of the Wilsons’ five daughters, Olive Mackay, was born at Kildonan where Cairine had returned for the birth, for in those days a baby invariably entered the world in the family home rather than in a sterilized hospital maternity ward. Less than a year later, on 13 November, Janet Mary was born at the Rockland home¹³ Then, the following September, an event occurred which was to sadden Mrs Wilson and alter the tenor of life at Rockland. Her gentle mother died at St Andrews, New Brunswick following an “attack of paralysis.” The end came suddenly during an xillness that occurred when Cairine was at Clibrig. News of the death was emblazoned across the front page of the 21 September issue of the Montreal Star, which noted that the late Mrs Mackay had always been interested in “private benefactions” and had been associated with several charitable institutions, including the Mackay Institute for the Protestant Deaf-Mutes and the Women’s National Emigration Society. At the age of sixty-two, Jane Mackay’s not too robust constitution had finally caught up with her. At her death, though, she was still a handsome woman with the golden hair of her youth.

Cairine Wilson with Rebecca and Rowena c 1909-1910.

After her mother’s death, life became more complicated and taxing for the young Mrs Wilson because now that her father was a widower she felt obliged to make frequent trips to Montreal to supervise Kildonan. In fact, her strong sense of duty goaded her into spending the next four winters at the old family home, overseeing the servants and attending to the needs of her aging father and her taciturn brother, Edward. Her daughter, Janet Burns, who was only a toddler when her grandmother died, recalls with affection the sleigh ride across the Ottawa River to catch the train for Montreal, a journey that was not without its diversions because one horse loved to lie down in the snow! For her mother, though, the memories would have been less rosy because she was attempting to juggle two very different lifestyles, run three large households (at Rockland, Montreal and St Andrews, New Brunswick), and raise a growing family, often with inexperienced help. Life at Rockland was further complicated by Senator Edwards’ predilection for looming up, unannounced, for lunch with his business associates. When the small, dapper figure in the dark suit appeared on the front steps about mid-day he was not always a cause for rejoicing, especially after a particularly hectic morning. Fortunately Cairine Wilson was genuinely fond of the endearing senator. “Uncle Willie,” as he was called, also had a warm affection for his young sister-in-law whose energy and vitality made a deep impression on him. Later he would be one of the small coterie of male admirers who encouraged her to become involved with politics.

However, if life was difficult in these years, it was not without its bright spots. One was the birth of an eagerly awaited son, Ralph, on 15 March 1915 at Kildonan. From England, where the Lorings then lived, sister Anna wrote in her large, bold hand:

I was simply delighted at the news contained in the cable which came today, and I hasten to offer you our heartiest congratulations on the arrival of a son. I have not dared mention Norman jr all these months in case it might have a bad effect, but now I rejoice with you in the glad tidings. May your boy grow up to be a great comfort and blessing to you. I do hope everything went well and that you did not have too hard a time. How thankful I am that it is over! I have been thinking of you so much lately, especially after receiving yr. letter of the 2nd for things seemed to be made so difficult for you.¹⁴

As married women, Cairine Wilson and Anna Loring became very close, so it was a matter of no small regret that her older sister lived so far away when Cairine desperately needed her understanding and support. For female companionship she had to turn to Rockland’s English-speaking community, where she found her confidantes among the wives of company officials, Julia Binks being one who became a lifelong friend. It was almost as if Cairine Wilson had left one insular society for another, but with this difference: Rockland’s English-speaking elite, unlike the residents of Montreal’s Square Mile, made a practice of learning and speaking French. This increased opportunity to practise her French would pay big dividends when Mrs Wilson entered the political arena.

In Rockland, however, politics had to take second place to other considerations. With the birth of her namesake, Cairine Reay, on 18 October 1913, followed by that of Ralph in 1915, and her long sojourns in Montreal, Cairine Wilson had little opportunity to pursue outside interests. Part of what little time she did have was devoted to working for the small Presbyterian church (now St Andrew’s United Church) erected on Marston Road (now la rue St-Jean) near the corner of Rockland’s principal artery, Laurier. Further opportunities to broaden her horizons arose in World War 1 when she set about recruiting and organizing neighbourhood women for a knitting war. Under her direction, countless socks and sweaters were produced for the local Red Cross Society, which then distributed them to the Armed Forces. Her Red Cross work and the administration of the Rockland, Clibrig and Kildonan households absorbed most of the organizing ability that she had demonstrated as a young girl and that she would later put to such remarkable use in politics.

* * * *

As 1916 drew to a close, Cairine Wilson watched the life ebb away in her father, the quiet, intimidating figure who had played such a formidable role in her early development. On 19 December, following a brief illness, the Senator died at Kildonan. He was seventy-six. In an obituary the next day, the Montreal Star informed its readers:

On June 14 last, Senator Mackay had a narrow escape from death when an electric car crashed into and ditched his motor car. He suffered serious injuries and for a time his life hung in the balance. He recovered, however, and had apparently regained his old-time health and vigor. Less than a week ago he was taken ill and did not again leave the house.

The funeral cortege, as had so many before it, wound its way from Kildonan to Crescent Street Church, where a service was conducted on the afternoon of 21 December. Afterwards, family members and a large number of friends and dignitaries assembled on the frozen slopes of Mount Royal to participate in a graveside ceremony at the Mackay family plot. Here, sixty-one years after leaving his beloved Caithness, the Senator was buried beside his wife, Jane, and his “friendly” uncles, Joseph and Edward.

Robert Mackay left an estate valued at $8,200,180.07, a sum that translates roughly into $80 million in today’s dollars. After legacies had been made to a wide variety of institutions and to old family retainers like the coachman, John Scott, a residue of $7,753,542.84 remained. It was left to the Senator’s six surviving children: Cairine, Anna, lawyer Hugh, Edward, an engineer with the Bell Telephone Company in Montreal, George, a hardware merchant in Lethbridge, Alberta, and the second engineer in the family, Angus, who lived in Wickenburg, Arizona.

According to the will, which became a model of its kind, the residue was divided into two equal parts:

One part which was divided into equal shares among the surviving children;

The second part which, in the words of the will, “shall be held, administered and managed by my Executors who shall hold it in trust for such of my children as may be alive at my death and the issue of any deceased child as representing their parent so that each living child shall have no share and the issue of a deceased child collectively one share.

“My executors shall administer the whole of this half of my Estate or whatever may remain of it in their hands as one mass, dividing the net income therefrom among the beneficiaries entitled thereto according to their respective rights.

My executors shall pay to each child of mine who may survive me, during his or her lifetime, his or her share of the net income corresponding with his or her share of the principal.”¹⁵

So that each heir would have a share equal in value to the shares held by each sibling, the will provided that every child, in rotation, would choose the household effects that he or she desired. Those who selected more than they were entitled to were to be charged for the excess value of their shares. It all sounds straightforward enough, but because of the size of the estate and the number and personalities of the beneficiaries, it took years to wind up the proceedings. Hugh Mackay was even writing to his sister, Cairine, about the distribution of effects at Kildonan as late as 1922. All the haggling aside, the chief significance of the estate settlement is that it left Cairine Wilson a wealthy woman, who could well afford to make generous contributions to causes of her choice, the Liberal Party being one of these.

While the estate was being settled, a family crisis erupted. Although potentially very serious, it was not without its amusing and ironic overtones, although Cairine Wilson would probably have failed to recognize these at the time. As the years progressed, however, she would develop a worldly wise sense of humour that allowed her to laugh gently at the world’s flaws and people’s imperfections while at the same time maintaining an awareness of her own weaknesses and strengths. The crisis involved Angus, the revered older brother who, in her eyes, could do no wrong. Aimiable, paunchy Angus, who had a penchant for alcohol, went on a bender during a stopover in Buffalo while en route from Montreal to Arizona in January 1918. Picked up by the police, he was taken to their headquarters, where he was searched and found to have a valuable diamond brooch and diamond studs on his person. When questioned about this, he told a disconnected story about being a man of influence in Montreal and heir to a large estate. Not surprisingly, this disclosure was received with skepticism, if not incredulity, by his interrogators, who then wired the police in Montreal for information about their subject. On learning of Angus’s plight, his brother, Hugh, contacted a Colonel E.R. Carrington, in Ottawa, who instructed a Toronto detective agency to dispatch two “operatives” to Buffalo to locate Angus and report on his condition. The men left immediately for the border city where they learned that five husky policemen had been required to handle the inebriated engineer.¹⁶ Cairine Wilson, Hugh, Edward, George and Anna also paid a hurried visit to Buffalo where they saw their brother in the General Receiving Hospital and learned for the first time of the existence of his commmon-law wife, Grace. After leaving hospital, Angus appeared before a magistrate and was formally discharged. Five months later, in June, he died in Oakland, California.

Cairine received the devastating news of Angus’s death when she was pregnant with her sixth child, Anna Margaret, who would be born on 9 December 1918, following the family’s move to Ottawa. This took place in the fall of 1918 hard on the heels of the purchase of the Rockland mills by the Riordan Paper Company and the formation of a new lumber merchants’ partnership comprising Norman Wilson, Gordon C. Edwards, W. Humphry, John Cameron and E. Bremner.

The five partners carried on a wholesale lumber operation in Ottawa which, before being sold to another Ottawa lumberman Edgar Boyle, carried on the W.C. Edwards name. Although a part-owner, Norman never devoted much time to the business. On weekdays he customarily spent an hour or so at his office in the Victoria Chambers on Wellington Street and then devoted the rest of the day to other pursuits. After lunch at the nearby Rideau Club, for instance, he often spent the afternoon curling or golfing, depending on the season. Two or three times a week he drove to Cumberland to oversee operations on the Wilson family farm, which was run by a manager before it was turned over to Angus Wilson, Cairine and Norman Wilson’s son. Norman, in other words, effectively retired from active business at age forty-two.

Less than three years after the Wilsons’ move to Ottawa, their kindly benefactor and friend, W.C. Edwards died. With his death, on 17 September 1921, a central figure passed from their lives, leaving a fund of cherished memories that included frequent visits to the Wilson home with birthday and other anniversary gifts for the children. As evidence of his respect and fondness for Norman Wilson, the Senator had made Cairine Wilson’s husband an executor and beneficiary of his large estate.¹⁷ The following year his wife, Norman’s sister, Aunt Kate, died, without leaving a cent to her brother. Catherine’s will had originally provided for a legacy of five thousand dollars to her brother, but before her death, this entry was crossed out and initialled by the three executors.¹⁸ To add further insult to injury, Catherine had ensured that Norman and Cairine Wilson would never own the Edwards’ beautiful family home at 80 Sussex Street, now known as 24 Sussex Drive. In line with Catherine’s will’s instructions, Edith Wilson, her sister, was given possession of the house for one year, after which it was deeded to Catherine’s nephew, Gordon Cameron Edwards, the son of her husband’s older brother, John.

Cairine and Norman Wilson had been led to believe that they would eventually inherit the stone mansion that stands on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Ottawa River and the Gatineau hills. However, because Senator Edwards had transferred ownership of the house to his wife in 1916, the Wilsons would never occupy this celebrated landmark. Always very jealous of her energetic, able sister-in-law, Catherine had seen to it that neither Norman nor Cairine would be among her beneficiaries. Anna Loring wrote immediately to her sister when she learned of the will’s contents.

I was just sick when I read about Mrs Edwards’ will, for although I was not altogether surprised at its contents, I am naturally terribly disappointed for Norman & you. Of course, I really blame the Senator, for knowing the feelings of his wife, he ought to have guarded against this contingency. You have both been fed on promises all your lives, & it does tend to shatter your faith in human nature. I don’t wonder that Norman feels hurt & the hardest part is to keep up a bold front & face the world as if nothing had happened...¹⁹

When Anna Loring wrote this letter she was still reeling from the death of her beloved husband, Rob, who had died in Asheville, North Carolina in April. Shortly after Cairine had visited her there, Anna wrote a moving testimony of the sisters’ love for each other.

How kind everyone has been to me in this sad time, and you especially my dear sister. I can never forget it — your coming to me without a moment’s notice, & leaving all those little children behind. I did not say much but you must know how deeply I appreciated your attention. I feel too that there is a perfect understanding existing between us and that there never will be any change. Rob was so fond of you and so disappointed that you were not able to come to Asheville this winter...²⁰

* * * *

When the Wilsons took up residence in Ottawa, it was a small, parochial capital with a population of approximately 110,000. Long gone were the days when it was a lusty, brawling lumbertown. All too visible, however, were such reminders of its lumbering heritage as the screeching sawmills and giant piles of wood that dotted the LeBreton Flats area, just west of Parliament Hill, and the hodgepodge of mills that straggled across nearby Victoria Island and the bank of the Ottawa River. Further east, the skyline was dominated by the copper-sheaved towers and turrets of the East Block and the famous Chateau Laurier Hotel, which had opened for business in 1912. Parliament Hill, far from being a scene of order and beauty, was strewn with men, building materials and equipment as work proceeded on the rebuilding of the Centre Block, razed by fire on the night of 3 February 1916.

Nineteen-eighteen was a noteworthy year not only for Cairine Wilson but also for her fellow Ottawans. That autumn the worldwide influenza epidemic swept through the city, forcing the closure of schools, churches, theatres, pool halls and laundries. At the height of the outbreak — the last week of September and the first half of October — 520 residents died of influenza and pneumonia. No sooner had the epidemic abated than news of Kaiser Wilhelm’s abdication reached the city. As soon as the power companies conveyed the glad tidings to the local citizenry by a prearranged signal, people rushed into the streets, clutching flags and noise-makers. Two days later, on the 11 November, the capital became the first city in Canada to learn of the Armistice and once again joyful crowds poured into the streets, this time to form into parades where they blew horns and surged around gaily decorated cars.²¹

Notwithstanding these developments, Ottawa was normally a quiet, sedate capital with the feel and atmosphere of an Ontario town. Although the Great War had resulted in an expansion of the civil service, the business of government had yet to engulf the community’s basic forest industry. Lumber magnates and their descendants were well represented in the tiny Ottawa establishment, where everybody knew everybody else and much time was devoted to the assiduous study of relationships among the top members. What counted most in this hothouse society was not money but family pedigree and occupation. Like Montreal’s English-speaking establishment, Ottawa society was highly stratified, with a social pecking order that ranked doctors above dentists and placed retail merchants and men engaged in trade—unless they were well educated and wealthy — on the lower rungs of the social ladder. For the Wilsons and other members of this aristocracy, life was gracious living par excellence with a surfeit of thé dansants, intimate dinner parties in private homes, dances at the exclusive Country Club and the Royal Ottawa Golf Glub, afternoon teas and receptions and functions at Government House. For debutantes, there was also the opportunity to be presented to the viceregal couple of the day at one of the Drawing Rooms, held in the ornate red and gold Senate Chamber.²² Such was the “Old Ottawa” that the Wilsons came to know well after they left Rockland.

Before moving into the Manor House in 1930, the family lived in Ottawa’s Sandy Hill, then a prestigious residential district, noted for its large stately houses, many of which had adjoining stables and generous gardens. One of the most impressive of these was the home that Cairine and Norman Wilson rented in 1918 from Sir Charles Fitzpatrick, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada before he was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Quebec in the autumn of 1918. A handsome, two-storey building with graceful lines and a gothic roof, it stood at 240 Daly, near the corner of Friel and just a few blocks east of Laurier House.

The family lived at 240 Daly for two years, during which time not only was Anna Margaret born, but also Angus Mackay named after Cairine Wilson’s favourite brother (16 March 1920). Children continued to arrive after the family’s move to 192 Daly, which the Wilsons bought in 1920. On 11 November 1922, Robert Loring was born, followed by Norma Francis on 1 August 1925. With Norma’s arrival, at Clibrig, the family was at last complete. Cairine Wilson’s cherished dream of having several children had been amply fufilled. In an ironic twist of fate, however, she would spend less time with her offspring, particularly the “second family,” as she called it (the four youngest children) than her warm, fun-loving husband. Indeed, because of their mother’s increasing involvement with the community, the younger Wilsons saw very little of her when they were growing up. Because of this and her great reserve, they never came to know her well, at least not until they were adults, and in some cases parents. As a result, this thoughtful, compassionate, but undemonstrative, woman sometimes elicited feelings of intimidation rather than love. Norma Davies, for example, recalls that when she was twelve she was “terrified” by the prospect of having to converse at length with her mother on a long train trip to St Andrews-by-the-Sea.²³

However, if she intimidated some of her children, such as Norma and Olive, she earned only respect and affection from four long-serving family retainers. These appeared on the scene in the 1920s when the Wilsons lived in the large red-brick house at 192 Daly. Central to the household was Martha Hemsley, the cook, who arrived in Canada with the Governor-General and Viscountess Willingdon. Except for a seven-year absence, she served Mrs Wilson until the Senator’s death in 1962. Another key figure was George Betts, the butler, who arrived in 1922 from the United Kingdom where he had been trained as a footman. Amusing and loyal, he had a reputation for being the best diplomat in Ottawa. Before Cairine Wilson went out to a luncheon one day, Betts intoned, “Nobody else will have the courage to tell you, but you have a run in your stocking, Ma’am.”²⁴ Equally indispensable was the chauffeur, Clifford Daz6, noted for his good humour and accommodating ways. There was also the English nanny, Eva Baker, who raised Norma. She entered the household in 1924 and died in 1971 while still serving the family.

* * * *

When the Wilsons moved to Ottawa in 1918, Cairine Wilson was in her thirties, for many people a significant period of passage and redefinition of goals. These years were no less decisive for Mrs Wilson, who, at some point in her early thirties, was jolted into the jarring realization that, for her, at any rate, life should involve more than marriage and raising children. She alluded to this when she wrote in the Canadian Home Journal in 1931:

To many modern women who claim the right of selfexpression and desire to lead their own lives, my early experiences would not appeal. Almost last of a large family, I was accustomed to being suppressed through my childhood and young womanhood which did not help to overcome a great natural timidity.

My marriage brought great happiness, but deprived me of practically all outside companionship and for ten years I devoted myself so exclusively to the management of three houses and the care of my children that a blunt doctor finally brought me up with a start. Never had he seen a person deteriorate mentally as I had, he told me, and from an intelligent girl I had become a most uninteresting individual. I have been grateful since that date for his frank words, for it caused me to realize that the work which I had always considered was my duty was not sufficient. At once I made a determined effort not to merit such a consideration and have endeavoured to keep alert.²⁵

Since no clues are given to the doctor’s identity, we can only speculate that he might have been the family doctor in Montreal, Dr. Evans, or his Rockland counterpart, Dr Tweedie. But that is not important. What is significant is that Cairine Wilson was so stung by the physician’s remarks that she began seriously to question her role in life and the conventional wisdom about that role. Was she content to be merely a jewel in her husband’s crown, a gracious, well-dressed chatelaine, who directed the running of a large household, raised her children, and discharged the prescribed social obligations? Or did she want something more — something that she could not yet define but which was beginning to create a gnawing sense of restlessness? Apparently she answered yes to the second question because when the family lived at 240 Daly Avenue, she enrolled in a mind and memory course offered by the Canadian Correspondence College in Toronto.²⁶ With this conscious decision to hone her mental skills and broaden her horizons, Cairine Wilson set out to become something more than just a society matron. That something turned out to be a conscientious worker for a large number of community and national organizations and a zealous Liberal whose organizing genius and quiet air of authority inspired hundreds of women and led to the founding of two key Liberal Party associations: The National Federation of Liberal Women of Canada and the Twentieth Century Liberal Association.

Given her family’s involvement and her own longstanding interest in politics, it was almost inevitable that Cairine Wilson would choose this field in which to carve out a special niche for herself. She took the plunge during the federal election campaign of 1921 when she suddenly found herself called upon to speak in public, something that she had hitherto considered quite beyond her powers.²⁷ It is not known who asked her to give that address, but it is possible that it was that charming neighbour from across the street, Henry Herbert Horsey. A dedicated Liberal, who had been defeated at the polls in 1917, he was very active in the Eastern Ontario Liberal Association, where he became a good friend and political mentor of Mrs Wilson. Such was Cairine Wilson’s gratitude to Horsey that she made a pitch to Mackenzie King, in December 1927, to have her mentor, who had been defeated in two more elections by then, summoned to the Senate. With characteristic diffidence, she wrote, “My small entry into political life was brought about by Mr H. H. Horsey and naturally we should be pleased to see him appointed to the Senate.”²⁸ On 14 December 1928 Henry Herbert Horsey was called to the Red Chamber where he became one of its most popular members. Whether or not his good friend’s lobbying was instrumental in getting him appointed is open to conjecture, however.

With Horsey’s and Uncle Willie’s support and encouragement, Cairine Wilson ventured into politics, taking on the sort of jobs that had hitherto been the preserve of men. Unlike most other women of her time and class, she was not content merely to adorn political banquets and pour tea at election gatherings. Shunning the role of dilettante, for which she had little but contempt, she waded right into the arena of political combat, tackling the routine of organization and rubbing shoulders with other workers. The first political office that she took on was that of joint president of the Eastern Ontario Liberal Association (The other president was Gordon C. Edwards, lumber merchant nephew of Senator Edwards), which supervised organization in twenty-three constituencies adjacent to Ottawa. She accepted the post in June 1921, at a time when the newly formed Progressive party, under Thomas Crerar, the Conservatives, led by Arthur Meighen, and the Liberals, headed by Mackenzie King, were gearing up for an election campaign that would culminate in the return of the Liberals to power.

Wily Mackenzie King, who would lead the Liberals to victory on 6 December 1921, was a good friend of Norman Wilson and a party chief who attracted the unflagging loyalty and friendship of Mrs Wilson, no matter how much he disappointed her by the stand that he took on some of the issues closest to her heart. This consummate political strategist and tactician was born in Berlin (Kitchener), Ontario in 1874, the son of John King, a lawyer, and Isabel Grace Mackenzie, the daughter of William Lyon Mackenzie, pre-Confederation Canada’s most colourful radical. Raised on tales of his grandfather’s exploits, King early felt himself destined for a great career, in which thinking he was constantly encouraged by his possessive mother whom he worshipped.

When the future prime minister was still a child, his debt-ridden father moved his young family to Toronto, where the shy, introverted son later attended the University of Toronto. Following graduation, Mackenzie King spent a year doing social work at the University of Chicago. He then completed his studies at Harvard University and returned to Canada in 1900 to become the first deputy minister of the fledgling federal Department of Labour. In 1908, he entered the House of Commons as a Liberal and the following year he became the Minister of Labour in Laurier’s government.

After this dazzling beginning, King lost his seat in the election of 1911 that routed Laurier and the Liberals from office and brought Robert Borden and the Conservatives to power. For the next few years the plump bachelor with three university degrees and an ingratiating personality divided his time between serving as a labour negotiator for the Rockefeller family in the United States and working for the Liberal Party and the furtherance of his own political ambitions. Engaged by the Rockefeller Foundation in 1914 to undertake a study of capital-labour relations, he wrote Industry and Humanity: A study in the Principles Underlying Reconstruction which earned him an enviable reputation as a progressive authority on labour-management relations. His political future, however, was always uppermost in his mind, so when Borden called an election in 1917 King returned to Canada to participate in the bitterly fought campaign, a contest which was enlivened and embittered by that most contentious of issues, compulsory military service. Two years later, in 1919, he won the leadership of the Liberal Party when four-fifths of the convention delegates from Quebec voted for him instead of W.S. Fielding, who had deserted Laurier over conscription.

Convinced that the hand of destiny was upon him, the new leader set out to transform a faction-ridden party that had been reduced to eighty-two seats in Parliament in the 1917 election into an harmonious political alliance. Fortunately for the party’s survival and well-being, King had the single-minded vision and political shrewdness to realize this goal, but the task would take many years to achieve. Along the way he would receive generous assistance from Cairine Wilson, who realized full well the invaluable contribution that educated women could make to Liberalism and the Liberal Party, both of which she identified with the good of Canada.

It is significant that Mrs Wilson took on her first political office in 1921 because that year marked the first time that all Canadian women were eligible to vote in a federal election. However, although she was to play a significant role in the campaign preceding this election, Cairine Wilson could not claim that she had made any contribution to the women’s suffrage movement and the breakthrough developments that finally culminated in 1918 in voting equality at the federal level. As a shy housewife she had been far removed from the struggle. Nevertheless, in the years ahead she would devote enormous amounts of time and energy to organizing women into an effective political force, albeit one designed to advance the interests of an established party.

She took an important step in this direction when, as chairwoman of a fifty-member committee, she played the leading role in founding the Ottawa Women’s Liberal Club, of which she served as president for three years. Shortly after its launching with seventy members in February 1922, Cairine Wilson wrote to Mackenzie King:

In a reckless moment you once suggested that we might take the stump together. I have no intention of inflicting such an ordeal upon you, but it would give me and all the other members of the newly formed Ottawa Women’s Liberal Club immense gratification if you could consent to speak at our inaugural luncheon on March 11th.

Our corresponding Secretary has already written to you officially, but I wish to add a personal appeal. In some way I seem to have attained undue prominence for I do not feel gratified to act as chairwoman upon such an occasion.²⁹

Certainly the last thing that she felt was gratified because Cairine Wilson dreaded public appearances. Even after she had chalked up an impressive record of them, she felt unsure of herself when it came to presiding in a public capacity. This point is driven home in a letter to Mackenzie King in which she noted poignantly, “Your endorsation means much for I am afraid there are times when, without the never failing interest and encouragement of our late legal adviser and constant friend, I am inclined to hesitate and seriously doubt my own ablility to proceed.”³⁰

The phrase “our late legal adviser and constant friend” is a reference to the noted Ontario Liberal Party organizer, Alex Smith. Smith was one of those rare male political workers: a man who never aspired to political office, but who gave unselfishly of his energy and talents to the cause of his party. At a time when Liberal fortunes were dismal, he worked tirelessly to perfect the machinery of the Eastern Ontario Liberal Association and to recruit new members for it. The association’s female members owed him a special debt of gratitude because it was his advice and encouragement that persuaded many of them to enter politics. Cairine Wilson was obviously one of his devoted admirers. In fact, one wonders whether she would have taken on her first political jobs without the encouragement of men like Horsey and Smith, raised as she had been in circles where women were expected to defer to men’s opinions and look to male figures for support and wisdom. It is indeed fortunate that these two political mentors recognized her organizing genius and capacity for hard work and were prepared to provide her with continuing injections of self-confidence.

In the new role that she was forging for herself Cairine Wilson would never become one of those radical feminists, who often attacked the churches, capitalism and bourgeois society in general. From time to time she would take unpopular positions on controversial questions and even oppose stances adopted by the Liberal Party, her “dear chief' and friend, Mackenzie King, and members of the establishment. But strident militancy was quite foreign to her nature. Throughout her life in politics she would become an exponent of what has been called “maternal feminism” — the belief that women have special qualities, virtues and interests that they should employ in making the world a better place in which to live. Some of this thinking is hinted at in the following selection that she wrote in 1922 for apreface to a booklet on Liberal clubs. In all likelihood she was asked to compose this introduction by Alex Smith.

Until recently the great mass of women have been regarded as children whose activities must be limited. We women wish to develop the political strength that comes from organized association and discussion and the spirit that arises from activity.

For generations men have had wide political opportunities and are therefore more experienced to speak upon a great many subjects, but there are topics to which women bring a more intimate personal knowledge as well as a greater degree of interest.

As women we wish to use our powers to redress existing evils and in every respect to promote legislation which will benefit the greatest number. With the mothers and children we are primarily concerned and we hope that no mother will in the future be forced through poverty to be separated from her children. These little ones are the Nation’s greatest asset and if we are able to teach the boys and girls a love of country and to take a sane, responsible interest in public affairs, we may leave Canada in safe hands.

There are also the older people to be considered and those who have laboured and sacrificed must not be forgotten when their period of active work is past...³¹

While she was at the helm of the Ottawa Women’s Liberal Club, Cairine Wilson assisted Norman in his campaign to get reelected to the House of Commons. After seventeen years out of active politics, he ran in Ottawa’s Capital Ward in the federal election of 29 October 1925. The timing was not fortuitous. On the morrow of the nation-wide Conservative landslide, the Wilsons discovered that Norman had polled fourth among four contestants and that two Conservatives had been elected in the two-member constituency. This would be Norman Wilson’s last attempt to get reelected. In the future he would confine his politicking to trying to influence Liberal Party nominations and to aiding the campaigns of friends such as George Mcllraith.

Having led the movement to found the Ottawa Women’s Liberal Club, Cairine Wilson became the driving force behind the establishment of a district federation of women’s Liberal clubs and the National Federation of Liberal Women of Canada, a country-wide federation of women’s Liberal clubs. Thanks to the intervention of two federal elections — in 1925 and 1926 — the nationwide federation took five years to organize and place on a permanent footing. Cairine Wilson embarked on this most ambitious of undertakings in the spring of 1923 when she convened a meeting of the wives and daughters of Liberal MPs to discuss plans for a national organization of Liberal women. At this gathering, it was decided to establish a nationwide federation and Mrs Wilson, as chairman of a provisional committee, began spearheading arrangements for a mammoth meeting of Liberal women to be staged at the Chateau Laurier Hotel on 17 and 18 April 1928.³²

When the inaugural assembly was held it was Mrs Charles H. Thorburn, an Ottawa Liberal powerhouse, rather than the Federation’s founder-organizer, who chaired the proceedings. From the first day of that momentous gathering, Mrs Thorburn had her work cut out for her as she attempted to bring order to oftentimes heated discussions. Once the meeting almost broke down when the number of speeches forced her to try to cut off discussion. Among the most controversial issues dealt with that day was the advisability of segregating men and women in different political organizations. Mrs Mary MacCallum, a Saskatchewan delegate, anticipated arguments that led to the Federation’s dissolution in 1947 when she opined, “Personally I do not think it is the best thing for men and women to be segregated into political organizations for the different sexes. If there is one place where men and women should work together it is in politics. Politics that are for the benefit of men are without exception for the benefit of women and vice-versa.” Her views were echoed by other western delegates, who urged cooperation between the sexes, especially in local committees.³³

Overshadowing this issue, however, was the design that the organization’s constitution should take. It proved so contentious that each item in the document had to be voted on clause by clause. As finally defined, the objects of the federation were: To encourage the organization of Liberal women throughout Canada; to uphold the cause of Liberalism; to raise the status and advance the political education of women; to aid in securing and maintaining good government and to encourage a broad spirit of Canadian nationality within the British Empire.³⁴

After the close of official business, Cairine Wilson, in her capacity as banquet chairwoman, introduced Mackenzie King at a sell-out dinner at the Chateau Laurier. Nearly one thousand women greeted the Prime Minister with repeated cheers and the singing of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow” before order could be restored and Mrs Wilson could make the necessary introductions. In her remarks she said in part:

We are gathered here not to seek high places, but to create a healthy interest in the study of political affairs and in the Liberal policy, which we think is the best for Canada. The man-made civilization of the East has failed and we hope in this newer land to build a better one in which we may all work together. We do not expect to dictate, but we wish to learn and to make the best use of the powers which God has given to us and there are some problems to which women bring a more intimate knowledge than men.³⁵

“Eloquent” is the last word that can be used to describe this excerpt. Indeed, rarely, if ever, did Mrs Wilson rise to heights of oratorical brilliance, for public speaking was not one of her strong points. Scintillating oratory, distinguished by originality of thought and ease of delivery, was the last thing that was expected of her. Even when she became a seasoned political figure and competent speaker, she had to fight to overcome her nervousness when speaking in public. Nevertheless, this excerpt is significant because it encapsulates Cairine Wilson’s approach to politics. The ideas it expresses helped to motivate her entry into politics and provided the philosophical underpinning for much of her political action. In all likelihood, though, these thoughts were far from her mind as she listened to King’s high-pitched, southern Ontario voice ramble on about his party’s faith. With the conference fast drawing to a close, she probably snatched moments to reflect on its evident success. Although only Ontario and Nova Scotia boasted women’s Liberal organizations when it convened, well over five hundred women from across Canada had attended. Delegates from the other provinces had organized into committees so that additional provincial associations could be established at a later date. A constitution had been approved and a name for the new federation had been selected. A president had also been chosen, Mary Ellen Smith, a member of the British Columbia cabinet since 1921. Wanting to remain in the background, Cairine Wilson had allowed herself to be made only an honorary president. But that was as it should be because now she wanted to get another project off the ground.

With the National Federation of Liberal Women of Canada off and running, Mrs Wilson turned her attention to another cherished interest of hers: the political education of Canada’s young people. She had just led the way in establishing an organization that would inform women about the issues of the day and, it was hoped, pave the way for their smooth entry into political careers. Now she proposed to mastermind the setting up of an association that would attract young Canadians and introduce them to the world of politics.

The first steps along this road were taken at the inaugural assembly of the women’s federation when a committee was formed under Cairine Wilson’s leadership to establish a “League of Youth.”³⁶ Two years later, in the winter of 1930, just before her appointment to the Senate, the Twentieth Century Liberal Association of Canada came into being. To mark its launching, seven hundred young people from across Canada assembled at the Chateau Laurier for a memorable banquet featuring an address by Mackenzie King and the presentation of a draft constitution for individual Twentieth Century Liberal clubs. Young people’s Liberal clubs were not, of course, a new phenomenon; they had been active across the country for years. What made this association so different was that it represented an attempt to coordinate the activities of the clubs already in existence, to establish new ones where none operated, and to bring all clubs together under one organizational roof. It also had an imaginative and evocative name, one clearly designed to appeal to its potential membership — Liberals born in the twentieth century.

In any event, the idea certainly fired the imagination of young people. Watching the spectacle of new Twentieth Century Liberal clubs blossom across the Canadian landscape, one enthusiastic witness rhapsodized:

One of the greatest innovations of the twentieth century, a century full of wonders and innovations is the organization of the Twentieth Century Liberal Clubs. In Ontario the Provincial Association covers a vast territory extending from Kenora to Ottawa, and along the border to Windsor. From a small beginning and in a very short time, the Twentieth Century Liberal clubs are springing up apparently overnight and are composed of the younger set, every member having been born in the twentieth century.³⁷

The first club was established in Ottawa by Odette Lapointe Ouimet, daughter of Ernest Lapointe, a good friend of Cairine Wilson’s and at the time Mackenzie King’s minister of justice. George Higgerty, reporting to the association’s first national convention, in June 1933, observed, “To Miss Odette Lapointe we should all pay homage for having started the Twentieth Century movement.”³⁸ In the sense that Odette Lapointe called together a group of young women in the winter of 1929 and launched the first club, then homage is due her. But both she and lawyer Sadie Lieff, another early member, have insisted that the idea for the movement originated with Cairine Wilson.

Mrs Wilson paid the rent for the association’s headquarters, a suite of two rooms on the seventh floor of Hope Chambers on Sparks Street. Here it shared space with the National Federation of Liberal Women of Canada, whose dedicated executive secretary, Helen Doherty, ran what has been described as “a national propaganda office.” Her assistant was Helen Campbell, who handled correspondence for the Twentieth Century Liberal Association and newsletters for the women’s federation. One of the most useful tools for this purpose was a Gestetner machine, which churned out thousands of newsletters for distribution across the country. “We became familiar with names in every hamlet across the country,” recalled Mrs Campbell. She also had vivid memories of Mrs Wilson’s organizing genius. “She was very persuasive. If she told you to stand on your head in the corner, you’d do it.”³⁹ Another association member who could vouch for this was Ida Low. When Mrs Low was eight months pregnant, Cairine Wilson asked her to give a paper at the Chateau. The mother-to-be protested, whereupon Mrs Wilson replied, “Sure you can, just wear a cape.” Mrs Low wore a cape and gave the paper.

In Ottawa, members of the local Twentieth Century Liberal Club met four or five times a year wherever they could scrounge space, sometimes in a senator’s office. This meant that young men and women might find themselves sitting on the floor and leaning against a wall.⁴⁰ Kathleen Ryan recalled that outside of national conventions, men and women in Toronto met separately. Unless there was an election, each group convened seven times a year to hear a speaker, discuss issues of the day and take care of business matters. During election campaigns the members addressed envelopes, answered phones and canvassed for candidates by phone. “Because of Cairine Wilson, the association had members with some standing in the community. In Toronto, for example, sixty percent of the women’s branch were Junior Leaguers,” reported Mrs Ryan. According to the one-time journalist, there was nobody to give young women leadership and direction before Cairine Wilson came to Toronto on Twentieth Century Liberal Association business. Mrs Wilson provided that inspiration. “We had such confidence in her. Here was a woman who didn’t need to do this, but she did. She took everything in her stride,” observed Mrs Ryan.⁴¹.

With the founding of the young Liberals’ association, Cairine Wilson could look back on a decade of outstanding achievement. Her eldest child, shy Olive, was now twenty and a leading light in that organization. The other children, with the exception of four-year-old Norma, were all enrolled in school, the girls at exclusive Elmwood School for girls, the boys at Ashbury College. Life had been, indeed, full. Little did she know, though, just how eventful it would become in the months ahead.