all the others. This was the ball at Government House at which Cairine met her future husband.
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
