22
THE ADVANCE
| YOUR SOUTHWEST COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
|
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2015
OUR PEOPLE | OUR HERITAGE
Unknown First Nations women and baby at Maple Creek. Photographer unknown. Courtesy of Donny White.
Unknown female employees at the Maple Leaf Hotel in Maple Creek. Photograph attributed to Geraldine Moodie. Photo courtesy of Donny White.
International
Rural
Women’s Day October 25, 2015
BY D O N N Y W H I T E
donnywhite@sasktel.net
R
ural Women’s Day was celebrated in Maple Creek on Sunday, October 25 with a programme honouring the 10th Anniversary of the publication, “A Voice of Her Own”. The five editors/writers from Alberta and Saskatchewan were present. A very supportive audience listened as each author shared her perspective on how times have changed in the ten years since the publication of the book. Several women who were featured in the book also spoke of change, including Joan Lawrence who celebrates her 100th birthday in six weeks. The inspiration for this programme belongs to Dr. Jean McKendry, Rural Branch Manager, Chinook Regional Library and her insight into the cultural significance of this publication to people of the southwest. As a lead-in to the programme, I was asked to give a presentation regarding my research and writing on pioneer women of the southwest, some of which I will share. I first became interested with women’s history in the southwest in the early 1980s, while researching and writing a book on the life and works of pioneer photographer, Geraldine Moodie. Due to the lack of information, the project took me over ten years to complete as it necessitated visiting archival holdings across Canada and into England. Throughout my travels I was stunned with the lack of information/details surrounding women in general, but particularly during the frontier/early settlement period. I thought if someone of Geraldine’s stature could “fall beneath the
cracks” and become lost to history, what hope was there for the average woman. I wanted to read/hear history from a woman’s perspective, as without her voice we have only part of the story. Hoping to rectify this to some degree, I undertook to interview and document pioneer women in Medicine Hat and Maple Creek. As this was a sidebar to my regular work and research, my methodology was random and hardly scientific. The individuals chosen, tended to come from the earliest families of the area, as my hope was to document stories while there was still first or second generation offspring alive. To my surprise, I discovered the women I interviewed were far less interested and forthcoming about their mothers/grandmothers than they were with their fathers/grandfathers stories. In most cases, the role of the woman was dismissed as being of secondary importance to the man. Two common responses to my questions were often, “yes, my mother was involved with the church and lodge but my father….” or “my mother didn’t really do anything of importance, but let me tell you about my father?” This pattern was also repeated with the early interviews of the Moodie project. The first interview with a granddaughter in 1980 was quite different than the final one with her in 1997, once the project had received national/international attention. Frustrated, I drafted a detailed questionnaire to hand out following each interview, hoping that given more time the respondent would provide additional information/details. The majority of questionnaires were not returned and with those that were, the answers were often one-word or one-line responses. I
Cowgirls at the Z-X Ranch at present day Eastend – all unknown. Photographer unknown, courtesy of Donny White
value the few that were completed with some thought and attention. However, since the social revolution of the 60s/70s, interest in women’s history has increased exponentially, resulting in women’s studies programmes, numerous publications and an appreciation/ understanding by succeeding generations regarding the important role their mothers/grandmothers played in shaping our communities. The wonderful book, “A Voice of Her Own” is testament to this appreciation and understanding. The compilation of local history books, especially during the 1980s/90s also contributed to the documentation of women’s stories and has increased awareness and appreciation. These books however, tend to be self-censored, sometimes focused more on genealogy then actual history and are still heavy on the male contribution versus the female. However without these books, virtually nothing would have survived regarding the average woman in the southwest and overall the editors of the various books and their teams of volunteers deserve credit for a job well done. Unfortunately, these books were written too late (in most cases) to record anything other than a name/date of the first women from the frontier/early settlement period. The women of the frontier/early settlement period were and still are the focus of my interest, albeit I have included women from more contemporary decades when the stories intrigue me and I feel justice has not been done in documenting their story. In all cases, regardless of time period, information on the First Nations, Chinese and to a lesser degree Metis women is sadly lacking and lost to time. Although it took years
of travel and time, I was able to piece together the story of Geraldine Moodie, as there was a paper trail through her prominent Eastern/British family as well as her husband (NWMP), however the paper trail of most First Nations, Chinese and Metis women is non-existent. The male members of these groups have not fared much better, albeit some information can be gleaned depending upon their role and relationship within the dominant community. As a student of historic photography, I have collected hundreds of historic images of this area and in most instances, the same argument holds true with photography – most captions of First Nations women in this area simply read “unknown”. Finding a historic or even pre-Second World War image of a Chinese woman is even more difficult, unless it is in a group photograph or from more recent years - stringent immigration laws are to blame for much of this, as well as prejudicial attitudes. In closing, I’d like to encourage readers in the southwest to share with me the stories and images of their mothers/ grandmothers/great grandmothers, as I attempt to document a wider swath of women than I have to date. I also applaud Dr. McKendry’s efforts in pulling together the authors of “A Voice of Her Own” – their perspectives on the past, present and future provided for a fascinating afternoon. I would like to thank Melvin Moorhead for providing additional information on last month’s story in respect to Catherine Claustre’s husband, Ben Blacklaw. It is most appreciated.