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
