did not know his plant’s deep roots were dead.101
True’s friend, Emily Smith, suspected that True liked the C.C.F. because “the odd parties had an appeal for her...they were not strong the way old political parties were...they didn’t have the cohesiveness... she would have liked stepping in and getting it going...but if you get into a party thats already established [you can’t do that] ...” While True’s support for the C.C.F. slowly waned over the years as many of the social welfare issues she supported were implemented by the other parties and as she became increasingly uncomfortable with the growing importance of labour unions within the party, she remained an active supporter until shortly before the C.C.F. joined with the Canadian Labour Congress to form the New Democratic Party.
4
WORKING FOR PERKINS BULL
1931–1938
In late 1931, True was hired by William Perkins Bull to collect a library of Canadiana which he wished to give as a wedding present to his son whose home was going to be in England. About 400 first editions were desired, together with the autographs of the authors, of the illustrators, of the editors and of the subjects of biographies.1 True’s work on this project must have impressed Bull because he then appointed her his Chief of Staff, in charge of all the personnel, male and female, engaged in researching and producing his histories of Peel County. Bull’s original intention had been to produce one 50-60 page book on the subject, but the project soon grew into an obsession. He hired scores of researchers and interviewers and began production of a remarkable series of books that Augustus Bridle of The Toronto Daily Star described as “a delightful hodgepodge of history and biography written with the guile of an ancient mariner.” Topics ranged from the history of sports to military undertakings to the Orange Order to the life of Sitting Bull. He hired some of the best artists in the country to illustrate them.2 True was quoted as assuring the reporter that “if it sounds as though we were going far afield, let me assure you that is only because of ramifications made by early Peel settlers and their affairs.”3 In another article she was quoted as asserting that she “considers Mr. Bull’s undertaking the most important piece of historical research ever undertaken in Canada, and...only a wealthy and extremely public-spirited man could do it.”4
It was certainly a big project. The same article stated that “Miss Davidson is in charge of practically all details of the work. Her staff consists normally of 20 but has run up to 70. A tremendous amount of research work has to be done: looking thro [sic] private files, letters, newspapers, libraries and by personal interview. Everything is traced to prove its authenticity.”5 The books were produced in limited quantities and most were given to libraries and museums. In 1938, True told a Regina reporter that “three out of the 20 central staff members are working on old family histories of Peel people. These sketches occupy 32 large steel files and include the complete record of every 25 acres in Peel from the original crown grant. Four of the staff members are stenographers; two are filing clerks, and three are artists. Indexing, proof reading, summarizing newspaper articles of ancient date, all this is part of the undertaking.”6 Several sources have cast doubt on how much of the writing of these books was actually done by Bull, or whether he acted more as an editor, using the very comprehensive writings of his research staff and of True Davidson. None of the books credits anyone other than Bull by name, a decision for which many criticized him later. True, however, knew that her work would not be acknowledged by anything other than a paycheque. As an article written at the time noted “...while Miss Davidson’s name will not appear in these works, and will be forgotten when the books are remembered and prized, there is no doubt but that her work, in them, will remain.”7 The same article noted that “Miss Davidson is largely responsible for the compilation of the material, and naturally, while Mr. Bull himself is the authority, he must depend on someone who has a background of historical research, knows something of apt illustration, of binding, and all the other details which follow the gathering of the material itself.”8 True was realist enough to recognize that the employment opportunities for writers, researchers and illustrators during the Depression were too few for any of them to be able to insist upon written acknowledgment as well.
True began working for William Perkins Bull in 1931 and rose to be second-in-command of his extensive staff of researchers, writers and illustrators. True later said of him that he was “a robber baron in the wrong age...but I grew very fond of him.” Courtesy the Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library
The paycheque had to suffice, but there is also some doubt about how regularly it arrived. Doris Tucker remembers True telling her about a time when she had to march into a large dinner party that Bull was having and demand that he pay “the girls” so they could go home for Christmas. “She never said an awful lot about how he behaved, just about him not paying the girls and I just wondered if at the time whether she got paid.” Harry Evans, who came to know True while she lived in Streetsville, remembered his mother saying that “ [True] hated Perkins Bull because he didn’t pay her ...”9 His older brother, Garfield Evans, wrote to me that:
“I can remember one of the men talking about being questioned by this woman. Quite a discussion followed. It seems a lot of them had been questioned. ... [Many years later while staying with his brother] he handed me a book and I nearly fell over. “Peel’s Fighting Men” by some big wheel that had a master farm and piles of money named “Bull.” It was True Davidson that did all the work. She did the whole thing, interviews, pictures, before and after and it must have been a hell of a job. Now get this. He never paid her! The big stuffed shirt got away with it.10
However, in later interviews, True always spoke well of Perkins Bull. “He was a very shrewd man, a good businessman. He paid me a proper screw [a good salary] and this was during the Depression when people were working for nominal sums.”11 She was likely all the more grateful for being given a position of such responsibility at a time when there was considerable public pressure to force women to return to the home and leave the jobs for the unemployed men. True described Bull as “a robber baron in the wrong age...but I grew very fond of him.”12 I doubt that she would have been so generous in her comments if he had cheated her consistently. The book mentioned by Garfield Evans came out after True had left Bull’s employ, while he was under newspaper attack and gossip prompted by the death of his guest, an American heiress, Mabelle Horlick Sidley. Mrs. Sidley had been a major financial contributor to Bull’s historical projects. One newspaper interview of the time quoted Bull defending the money (estimated at $1-1.5 million) Mrs. Sidley had spent by saying that “it was spent among friends and in works in which she was enormously interested...She followed this work closely and took great delight in its progress....It was spent in harmony with the way in which her father and her mother and her brother...lavished their cash and gifts...on things in which they were interested and which appealed to them as being worthy.”13
Perkins Bull is another name about which there have been rumours of a romantic attachment on True’s part. Charlotte Maher told me that “... if you wanted to be romantic you might almost think there was something going on there [with Bull], you might almost have thought there was.” Clara Thomas doubted this, however. “True wasn’t that interested....I pity the man who made a real pass at her including Perkins Bull. He would have met his match.” Certainly Bull respected her abilities. In a letter sent to a friend in Regina he called her “my right hand man” and asked that “Should it be convenient to give her a friendly handshake on my account, I will appreciate it. Such of the folk of Regina who happen to meet her will, I think, find her a young lady of parts and attainments.”14
True doubtless enjoyed working with yet another strong, dominant man, one who had experienced an exciting life and who was devoting himself to a project which she highly valued. She said of him “Mind
