Women's Institutes
If the Women's Institutes of Canada have done nothing else tojustify their existence than compiling the Tweedsmuir Histories, they haveearned a place of honour, in this country. To mind, the real history of therural areas of Canada is noted down in these works.
History, as written by the professional historians, can bedeadly stuffy and full of dates and places, that never bring out the humaninterest.
And what is history, really, other than a great number of human experiences by the people who were actually in the scene and experienced them? The contributions to the history of Canada by the Tweedsmuir histories has been acknowledged in a tangible form. I hope some day some official recognition of them will be given.
The 1967 Centennial celebrations proved a great inspiration for noting down history in the form of family stories. Women's Institutes all over the country and these stories compiled and bound into book form I have had a chance to read a goodly number, of these local histories, and they had added to my knowledge of rural areas. It is essential to know the pioneer antecedents of people before you really get right down to understand them. The Tweedsmuir books written by the local Women's Institute branches have done this remarkably well.
It is at the risk of being charged with discrimination andPrejudice, that I single out one of these histories. It was prepared by theCereal Women's Institute in Alberta. Cereal is a small hamlet of only about 150 souls, 180 miles east ofCalgary, but it still has a dynamic Women's Institute there. Its Tweedsmuir history book was a top-notcheffort, with large legible type, illustrated and containing many well written and edited stories of theorigins and the progress of agriculture in the community.
Once again this book demonstrated quite clearly that all human endeavours have their genesis in the rural areas – and it has been left to the women to record, or the rural areas lead the way. There have been many suggestions of how the people in the rural areas suffer, at the hand of our education system. But I am going to tell you that efforts like the publication of Down Memory's Trails, by the Cereal Women's Institute has been put together by educated people and will be read and re-read by educators, historians, scholars, sociologists, researchers and economists 100 years from now. As a reference book on the history of the area, it is without doubt the best there is. The efforts of the Cereal WI have been repeated hundreds of times over throughout the nation.
As an amateur historian who has made a study of certainaspects of history in Southern Alberta and the Canadian North, I reallyappreciate being able to find reference material like this in the libraries andother places where research is carried on.
It is works like these that keep the Women's Institutestogether. Over the years we have seem many of the smaller communities in Canadawither and die. Canada is poorer for the ones who have gone out of existence.As long as there are community-spirited groups like the Women's Institutes inCereal which exert a unifying force on the community, the community is giventhe hope of remaining visible in the Canadian fabric.
John Schmidt, Calgary Herald
The above article was transcribed from the Federated News,Spring 1971 issue, page 6, August 8, 2018
The Federated Newsis the Newsletter of WI Canada aka Federated Women's Institutes of Canada
