Canadian Heroines, Part 3: Adelaide Hunter Hoodless

I’m a firm believer in a prayer that goes, “God, if I must go through this pain anyway, please use it for good somehow. Don’t waste it.” I wonder if Adelaide Hoodless prayed something similar as she grieved the loss of her fourteen-month-old son, John.

Adelaide Hunter was born in St. George, Brant County (now part of Ontario) in 1857, the youngest of thirteen children. Shortly after her birth, her father died. Adelaide grew up experiencing first-hand the challenges of poverty and farm life. At 23, she married John Hoodless and enjoyed a more prosperous life with this successful furniture manufacturer. Four children joined the family. When baby John died in 1889, Adelaide felt appalled to learn the cause of his death was from drinking contaminated milk. Although pasteurization was understood at the time, it was not mandatory. Adelaide fought for this mandate with Hamilton area dairies. She won.

The tragedy drove Adelaide to become involved in helping other women understand nutrition and sanitation. She convinced her local school board to send students to the YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association) to take cooking classes. Wanting to ensure that mothers knew how to prevent deaths like John’s, she devoted herself to the education of women. She established and taught classes in domestic science through the Hamilton YWCA where she served as president. In 1895, she founded the Canadian National YWCA.

Driven by her passion, Adelaide went on to write a textbook on the importance of hygiene. Public School Domestic Science became known as the “Little Red Book.” Since teachers would be needed for the course, she established a normal school specifically for this purpose.  

At the time, Canadian society did not consider it proper for a woman to speak from a platform. However, when her friend Lady Aberdeen, wife of the Governor-General, gave a public address, the door opened for Adelaide. The pair created the Victorian Order of Nurses in 1897 and co-founded the first Women’s Institute in Stoney Creek, Ontario. The intense need for this type of organization became so evident that by 1907, five hundred branches of the Women’s Institute existed across Canada. The largest organization of Canadian women, its movement spread. In 1933 the Associated Country Women of the World was formed in Stockholm. Her involvement took Adelaide to international conferences where she spoke, promoting quality of life for women and their families through household and public sanitation improvements. This led to social opportunities and continuing education for women as well. She even met Queen Victoria in London.

What Adelaide fought for most passionately is summarized in her own words. “The management of the home has more to do in the molding of character than any other influence, owing to the large place it fills in the early life of the individual during the most plastic state of development. We are, therefore, justified in an effort to secure a place for home economics or domestic science in the educational institutions of this country.”

One day before her fifty-second birthday in 1910, Adelaide Hunter Hoodless was addressing members of the Federation of Women’s Clubs in Toronto when she collapsed and died of heart failure. For one so young, she accomplished much—all sprung from the deepest pain a mother can experience.

The Federated Women’s Institutes of Canada purchased Adelaide’s childhood home. The homestead was designated a national historic site in 1995. You can visit the museum in St. George, Ontario or take a virtual tour HERE.

Salute to Canadian Heroines, Part 2: Asayo Murakami

 So much can be buried in silence.

Imagine, at the age of 26, setting sail for a foreign land whose language and customs you did not know in order to meet for the first time the spouse you married by proxy. Imagine arriving and having to search the docks for the face you’d seen only in a picture. Imagine realizing right away the person is not your type. Imagine calling off the marriage and having to work for three years to repay the $250 he paid for your voyage. Imagine doing all this while carrying a heartbreaking secret that would not be revealed for another 75 years.

Such was the case for Asayo Murakami, one of 6,000 “picture brides” who came to Canada from Japan between 1908 and 1924 seeking a better life. Though many men had already made the trip, they now sought partners from home through these arranged marriages.

Having rejected her match, returning to Japan was not an option for Asayo. She worked in strawberry fields and salmon canneries in B.C. until she’d paid her debt. Once free, she married a widower, Otokichi Murakami, and became stepmother to his two children.

Eight more children joined the family over the next 18 years. While Otokichi built boats and fished, Asayo grew massive flower gardens at their home in Steveston while she continued to work in the produce and canneries industry. I doubt she found much time to play one of the only possessions she brought with her from Japan, her cherished violin.

Asayo and Otokichi Murakami

Life changed abruptly on December 7, 1941, when Japan dropped bombs on Hawaii. By February of 1942, all Japanese Canadians within 100 miles of Canada’s west coast were under strict curfews, their radios, cars, fishing boats, and cameras confiscated. By March, they were moved to the interior of BC to work in road camps or internment camps for what they believed would last “a couple of months.” Some came to the prairies to work on farms.

The Murakami family spent the remainder of the war working on a sugar beet farm near Letellier, Manitoba. Having lost their coastal home, they moved to Alberta after the war and worked on a potato farm until they retired in 1967. Two years later, Otokichi died.

Asayo lived on her own for another 27 years, then lived out her days in a Calgary nursing home. Not until after her hundredth birthday did she reveal the deepest secrets about her life in Japan. Asayo had been married before. Her husband came from the prominent Ishibashi family. After the births of two healthy daughters, Asayo birthed a boy in 1921. Sadly, he died shortly after. Because of this perceived inability to bear a healthy heir, her in-laws dissolved the marriage. Asayo’s young daughters were sent to live with their paternal grandmother. When she died in 1926, the girls went to separate families where they were told their parents died in the Kanto earthquake in 1923. By this time, the heartbroken Asayo lived in Canada and knew nothing of their whereabouts. She carried pictures of the girls, Fumiko and Chieko, who were six and four the last time she saw them.

Upon hearing this story, Asayo’s Canadian children wondered whether to believe her. A lengthy pursuit of these long-lost daughters involved several trips to Japan for Asayo’s daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter. Eventually, they learned Fumiko died in 1996. In 1999, they found Chieko, who had never heard the true story of her birth mother.

In 2001, Asayo’s granddaughter Linda Ohama released a poignant and heartbreaking documentary about her “Obachan” (grandmother). This 90-minute film, Obachan’s Garden, includes the emotional reunion. You can view it for free on the National Film Board of Canada’s website, HERE.

Salute to Canadian Heroines, Part 1: Edith Monture

 Since International Women’s Day falls in March, I thought I’d write a blog post on a few Canadian Heroines I’ve read about recently. When I began to learn how many worthy heroines we claim, I knew I’d need to write an entire series—possibly every March for years to come! I had not heard of these women before, but I certainly should have. Do you know about the remarkable Charlotte Edith Anderson Monture? How about just Edith Monture?

On April 10, 1890, Edith was born to Mohawk parents on Six Nations reserve near Brantford, Ontario. The youngest of eight children and considered a gifted student, Edith broke boundaries for females—Indigenous or otherwise—by graduating from high school. She then began applying to Ontario nursing schools, only to discover most Canadian nursing programs excluded Indigenous women. The determined young woman began applying to schools in the United States. The New Rochelle Nursing School in New York accepted her and she graduated in 1914, first in her class. Boy, I bet those other schools regretted rejecting her.

At the age of 27, Edith and 14 other Canadians volunteered with the U.S. Army Nurse Corps. One of the few Indigenous women to serve overseas with this Corps during WWI, Edith returned to her reserve before leaving for France. With many dying in the war, her community didn’t expect her to return. They gifted her with ceremonial Mohawk burial wear.

Edith worked as a nurse in Vittel, France, treating soldiers injured in gas attacks and trench warfare. At times, she walked across battlegrounds looking for wounded. One of her diary entries describes a 14-hour shift during which a 20-year-old patient to whom she’d grown attached as a big sister, died.

“My heart was broken. Cried most of the day and could not sleep.”

Edith returned to her reserve after the war and married Claybran Monture. They had four children and a fifth who died in infancy. Edith became an advocate for better Indigenous health care, working as a nurse and midwife on the reserve until she turned 65.

Although Indigenous women as a whole could not legally vote in federal elections until 1960, the Military Service Act of 1917 gave Edith voting rights because of her status as a wartime nurse. She became the first female Status Indian and registered band member to gain the right to vote.

Edith’s local newspaper, The Grand River Sachem, interviewed her at age 93. Her mind proved crystal clear as she described her war memories. “We would walk right over where there had been fighting. It was an awful sight — buildings in rubble, trees burnt, spent shells all over the place, whole towns blown up.”

Edith died a week before her 106th birthday and is buried in St. John’s Anglican Cemetery on the Six Nations reserve. Shortly before she passed, her granddaughter, Terri L. Monture, transcribed Edith’s diary from her year in France into digital form for the sake of her 14 grandchildren, numerous great-grandchildren, and other young Indigenous people. In her introductory remarks, Terri wrote of her grandmother, “That the events of one year should be the defining experience of her long, long life is telling in how incredibly significant it really was, and how powerful the memory of that hellish year.”

Edith’s grandson, John Moses, said, “It’s a tremendous source of pride because I know that for many years she was seen as a role model by a number of other nurses.” His mother, Edith’s daughter Helen, also became a nurse and one of the founding members of the Canadian Indigenous Nurses Association. Today, Brantford has both a street and a park named for Edith Monture.

 

Slip Sliding Away

I had every intention of grabbing a snow shovel to keep in the car before I left home that Sunday morning. You know what they say about good intentions. In this case, the road to church was paved with mine.

Driving happily west on Lorne Avenue, my car suddenly began doing its own thing, as though my steering wheel and brakes both forgot their life’s purpose at once. In what felt like slow motion, my vehicle slid into the left lane, then performed a complete one-eighty. It may have kept twirling like one of those Olympic figure skaters if it hadn’t skidded so far into the snowbank that my tires wouldn’t budge. Why, oh why, had I forgotten my shovel? That’s when it dawned on me that I had also—probably—forgotten to engage my ABS traction control. The nice lady behind me, whom I’ll call Good Samaritan Number One, saw the whole thing. She stopped and rolled down her window.

“You’re just going to keep spinning, honey,” she said.

“Got a shovel?” I asked.

“No, but my friend lives just around the corner. I’ll go get him. Hang on.”

While I waited, I called Hubby who was still home but leaving for work any minute. “Help is on the way and I’ll call you when I get out,” I said. “Then I’ll just come home. I don’t want to go anywhere without a shovel.”

A fellow in a truck came along and stopped. I’ll call him Good Samaritan Number Two. He dug around in the back of his truck. “My shovel’s buried in snow. I’ll run home and get another one.”

Pretty soon Samaritan Number One returned, but with no shovel. She’d found her friend still in his pajamas and not particularly enthused about joining our snow party. “But he’s coming,” she said.

Then Samaritan Number Two returned, with a teenager whom I’ll call Good Samaritan Number Three. Shovel in hand, he followed his dad’s instructions about where to pick away at the hard-packed snow behind my front tire. About that time, I realized someone was also shoveling near the back tires. Samaritan Number One’s friend had shown up with the shovel. I’ll call him Good Samaritan Number Four. He advised me to place my floor mats behind my wheels for traction. That was a new one to me, but I did it.

Samaritans Number Two, Three, and Four then lined up along the front of my hood and pushed while I put the car in reverse and stepped on the gas. Voila. I was free of the snowbank and back on the street.

Thanking everyone profusely, I gathered my floor mats and threw them in the car. Back in my seat, I took a deep breath and looked at the clock on the dash. It was only 10:58. Maybe I should carry on to church. I’d only be a couple of minutes late. Or would have been, except for a long train. While waiting for that to pass, it hit me. Not the train. A thought. I hadn’t called Hubby. Maybe I was more rattled than I thought. I put the car in park and sent him a quick text.

Arrived at church, found a seat, joined the singing. Congratulated myself for being there and not wimping out when my normal response would have been to go home shaken and crying. Maybe what isn’t killing me really is making me stronger.

Wait. What if Hubby didn’t check his text messages? I pulled my phone from my purse. Sure enough, he’d tried to call once and texted once. I stepped into the lobby and called home. He had not received my text. Huh. Oh well. All’s good.

It wasn’t until that evening I realized I had “texted” to our landline.

Lessons learned:

-Carry a shovel in the car.

-Don’t forget to turn on the ABS.

-Never text to your landline.

- Floor mats can be used to gain traction when placed up against your tires.

-Thank God for Good Samaritans!

 

Sing 'Til It Stops Hurting

If you’ve ever lived with chronic pain, you know how quickly it can rob you of the energy required to complete tasks, the ability to concentrate, and even the will to live. Yet, like a seriously spoiled child, the more attention you give pain, the louder it screams.

Have you noticed how pain tends to escalate when you’re trying to sleep? That’s because, with your eyes closed and your body mostly unoccupied, pain is pushed right into your brain’s spotlight. If you can distract yourself with a movie, a conversation, or a meaningful project, the pain seems to diminish because the spotlight is aimed elsewhere. The trick, then, is to keep that spotlight focused on other things.

Knowing this, I was intrigued to hear about some scientific studies done on the health benefits of singing. An article on Healthline.com, written by Rebecca Joy Stanborough, MFA, and medically reviewed by Debra Rose Wilson, Ph.D., MSN, R.N., IBCLC, AHN-BC, CHT, lists the top ten benefits of singing for your physical, emotional, and mental health. Here are only some of them.

Singing can relieve stress—provided it’s not in a situation that makes you uncomfortable. If you’re belting out a tune in the privacy of your home or car or singing with a group of people you know and love, Cortisol samples from your saliva taken before and after the activity will most likely reveal a drop. This is a clear indicator of less stress.

Singing may boost your immune system. Don’t we all need that these days? A 2004 study showed singing raises your levels of Immunoglobulin A, an antibody your body secretes to help you fend off infections.

Another benefit is where the pain relief comes in. When you sing in a group, your body releases endorphins. Endorphins can help promote positive feelings and change your perception of pain. Singing with a group may not be an option for you right now, but if you crank up your favorite recordings and sing along, maybe your brain won’t know the difference.

Singing can even help decrease snoring. In a 2008 study, researchers interviewed the spouses of choir members and the spouses of people who don’t sing. Guess what? Significantly fewer choir members snored.

Another good reason to take up serious crooning is to improve your lung function. Because singing involves the controlled use of muscles in the respiratory system, it can help people living with lung issues like asthma, COPD, and more.

I’m sure you know singing in a group contributes to feelings of well-being and belonging. I’ve found this true at church. When I view the live-streamed service from home, I can sing along with the worship leaders, sure. But it’s not the same as being present with others—masks and all! Could it be because one of the neurochemicals released when people feel bonded together is oxytocin, also known as the love hormone? Worship singing, in private or in groups, is all about giving God glory. But in his irrepressible love for us, he also makes our worship beneficial to us.

Did you know singing can soothe your grief? A 2019 study conducted among grieving people, revealed those who sang in a choir saw their sense of well-being remain stable. Over twelve weeks, the singers felt a gradual improvement in self-esteem, causing researchers to conclude group singing can provide wonderful support during times of grief.

Most of us instinctively know singing makes us feel better mentally and emotionally. Now Science reveals our bodies respond as well—which makes perfect sense when you begin to understand how our minds, bodies, and spirits all work together.

So, how do you sing when you’re in pain? It may mean opening a hymn book and forcing yourself to start. Push through. Stay focused. Don’t worry about how good or bad you sound. Just sing. Then try again tomorrow. See what happens.

At the very least, it can’t hurt.

Where did it all begin?

Nothing says romance like a trip to Rome…to view the flower-crowned skull of Saint Valentine himself, exhibited in the Basilica of Santa Maria.

Let me back up a bit. Okay, more than a bit. To AD 496, when the Feast of Saint Valentine was established by Pope Gelasius I. According to Wikipedia, the pope chose February 14 to honor Saint Valentine of Rome, who died by beheading on that date in AD 269. Legend has it the man was imprisoned for ministering to Christians persecuted under the Roman Empire. One tradition claims Valentine performed weddings for soldiers forbidden to marry. Could this be where the romantic angle started? Another legend says he restored sight to the blind daughter of his jailer and wrote her a letter signed “Your Valentine” as a farewell before his execution.

But he wasn’t the only Valentine to be sainted.

Valentine of Terni was a bishop in central Italy, martyred in AD 273, and buried on the Via Flaminia. A third saint named Valentine was martyred in Africa.

Some say that by establishing this Christian holiday, the pope was attempting to reverse a pagan celebration called Lupercalia. I won’t go into the fine details of the rituals involved, but if you were a Roman woman and it was mid-February, you could expect to have your backside slapped with a strip of goat hide to ensure fertility. You might also place your name in a big urn. (This reminds me of the Valentine boxes from my elementary school years.) Rome’s bachelors drew names from the urn and the resulting couples paired up for a year. At the end of the year, they could either marry or part ways.

That’s one way to do it. 

Ancient customs aside, our modern world spares no effort in taking advantage of Valentine’s Day in the name of profit. For your sweetheart, you can purchase everything from expensive perfume to cheap chocolate. Flowers are always popular. Dinner and a movie? Don’t forget your vaccine card.

Less traditional gifts include clothing, travel, or a box of conversation starters to deepen your relationship. Who doesn’t adore a good love letter?

If money’s no object, you can express your love in any number of elaborate ways. A week in the Mexican Riviera? Fresh flowers all year? A new wardrobe? Diamond bracelet? Yes, please.

Those for whom money is a factor (most of us) need to be more creative. If you ask me, gifts of your time and talents always mean the most. Can you cook, draw, repair, write, sing, or play something? Of course, these gifts require planning, which is precisely what makes them more valuable. Don’t make the mistake of grabbing the last card left on the rack for the person you claim to hold in high regard.

A glance at any store’s greeting card aisle this time of year will leave you convinced you’re supposed to also buy cards for your kids, your parents, your grandchildren, your co-workers, and your paper carrier. Let’s not forget the family pet. One website I looked at featured everything from heart-covered sweaters and hoodies for your dog to chocolate-covered strawberry toys filled with catnip for your feline. Imagine how loved your pet will feel with a monogrammed pillow or a red bow tie.

However you celebrate, I hope you spread a little love around on Valentine’s Day and every day.

 

What a Writer Reads

If I could time-travel, I’d return to high school where every morning my homeroom teacher subjected my classmates and me to a fifteen-minute speed-reading session. I would march over to my sixteen-year-old self and say, “Pay attention! Learn how to read faster! You’re going to want this skill. Your future will go much better for you. Trust me!”

Would I have listened? I’d have wanted more details, for sure.

Instead of applying myself, I surrendered too easily. When the speed-reading projector sped up to where I could no longer follow the story, I chose to simply focus my gaze elsewhere, probably on some cute boy. Or close my eyes and rest. Not only that, I proudly told myself I didn’t want to read fast. I’d rather savor every word and enjoy my reading. When the time came for the multiple-choice quiz, guessing correctly often enough to pass proved easy.

I now know those details I’d have asked my future self to reveal. I know that I became a writer. Writers need to spend a great deal of time reading for research. I need to read books on the craft of writing. I need to read novels in the genre to which I aspire. I need to read other genres to expand my world. Now that I’m published, I receive requests from other authors to read and endorse their books. Saying yes is always good, knowing they will return the favor when my books need endorsement. I also spend time reading my Bible every day.

How on earth can I ever get to the myriads of wonderful books I want to read simply for pleasure?

For fun, I took a reading speed test provided HERE. I scored 193 words per minute (WPM) with a comprehension of 82%. If that sounds good to you, it’s not. According to the site, the average speed is 200 WPM with 60% comprehension. To improve my score, I tried THIS WEBSITE and chose a short, simple story. That brought me up to 313 WPM with 100% comprehension. This site claims that for success in college, you should be able to read 350 to 450 WPM. Speeds above 575 WPM are typical. Yikes.

Is it too late for me to become a faster reader? Probably not, but I’d need to really want it and discipline myself to break old habits. How about you?

The notebook where I keep track of such things tells me I read 38 books in 2021. My favorite research book was The Absurd and the Brave by Michael Fathney, which helped me finish my novel about the British Guest Children who came to Canada as evacuees during WWII. A Guest Child himself, Fathney explains how the evacuation program worked, how absurd it was in many ways, and how brave were the children, their parents, their escorts across submarine-infested oceans, and their foster parents. To track this book down, our local library used the inter-library loan service. They found a copy in the Maritimes and had it shipped here just for me. How great is that?

The best personal growth book I read? What If It’s True? A Storyteller’s Journey with Jesus, by Charles Martin. He poses the question, “What if every single word of Scripture is absolutely true and I can trust it? How do I respond? Something in me should change, but what? How?” I’ll re-read this one, highlighter in hand.

In the can’t-put-down department, I chose Anthony Doerr’s
All the Light We Cannot See. It’s a WWII story about a blind French girl whose world collides with that of a German boy forced to become a Nazi soldier.

Going forward, I hope to read more from authors Kristin Hannah, Carrie Turansky, Genevieve Graham, and Cynthia Ruchti because of other great books I read last year. Let’s see if I can do better than 35 in 2022. Happy “I Love to Read” month!