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Patteson Residence, Elgin St., Ottawa
December 2, 1944
Sir Wilfrid: The victory has been complete. You have outflanked your enemies at every turn.
King: Have I done the right thing?
Sir Wilfrid: Absolutely. It was the only thing to do. God directed your course. God guided your steps from day to day. God will guide you to the end.
Gladstone: Laurier is right. God is your strength and guide.
Father: Your Mother and Grandfather Mackenzie and my father are all here together. We are proud of you. You have saved Canada from civil war.
Sir Wilfrid: King, you have done for Canada, the greatest service of any man in her history. You have beaten the forces of corruption and high finance. You have dumbfounded your brutal opponents. You have made your place in history for all time. Let your mother speak.
Mother: Dear Joan, don’t you think Billy has done well?
Mackenzie: William I am proud of you.
Joan: I thought he was here.
Mackenzie: I am right here beside you, Mistress Patteson. Long ago I led a rebellion. William has prevented one. He has saved many lives and much bloodshed.
Lapointe: I have been there to guide and direct your actions. You have done the right thing. Quebec has faith in you.
Skelton: You have saved civil war. You have ensured the troops being reinforced. You have saved the break up of the government and of the country. You have saved anarchy in Canada.
San Francisco, United States
May 7, 1945
“The War in Europe is Ended! Surrender is Unconditional!” triumphed the headlines of the New York Times.
Reading the news gave King a thrill, although he’d known for some time before it was printed. Nichol, his personal valet, had come into his hotel room at seven o’clock to waken King. “I have an important message, sir,” Nichol said joyously. “The war in Europe is over.”
“Thank God,” King breathed. He turned on his side and uttered a prayer of thanksgiving and of rededication to his fellow human beings. Now life could get back to normal. A federal election was scheduled to be held at the end of next month, and readjusting the world to life after years of war had already begun. King was in San Francisco to work on the draft charter of the United Nations. As a senior world statesman he was needed to guide Canada and the world in their next steps.
Approximately 13,000 conscripted men had gone overseas. They accounted for sixty-nine out of the 42,000 Canadian deaths.
The price of peace had been great.
9
Shadows Nearer, The Promise of New Dreams
Laurier House, Ottawa
December 23, 1947
My dear Marilyn:
Nothing, in many years has touched my heart more deeply than the word that came in your letter. I am, indeed, pained to know just how sad you must feel,… and I feel for you all more deeply than my words can begin to express.
King paused in his dictation and directed his secretary, Handy, to enclose a cheque for twenty dollars. He hoped the amount would make a real difference to the impoverished eight-year-old recipient. He took comfort from the fact that the girl’s poor widowed mother, Mrs. Kilbasco, must be receiving the newly created family allowance benefits.
King visits Woodside, his boyhood home. Now, in September 1947, Woodside is the home of little Marilyn Kilbasco.
King had met young Marilyn and her family in Kitchener in September. The Kilbascos were one of the last families to live in Woodside, the home the Kings had once rented. Louis Breithaupt and a committee of Liberals had heard that Kings old boyhood home had fallen into terrible disrepair and was to be demolished. They thought that a visit might inspire The Chief to support their plans for saving the property as a memorial.
The old man felt great loneliness and sadness at seeing the place where he had felt warm family love now with almost every window broken. However, the little girl who had greeted him and offered him a flower melted his heart.
Upon hearing that Marily’n s father had died, King felt compelled to offer solace – and to hint at the great life he was sure Mr. Kilbasco was experiencing since he had crossed over.
You must try, notwithstanding your great loss, to make Christmas at Woodside just as bright and cheerful as you can… While we cannot see God, we have the story of the life of the little Christmas child to let us know what He is like. So I am perfectly sure that your dear father, while taken away from you, has been taken to Heaven where God Himself is and that, though you cannot see your dear father, he can see you, and that his spirit will be watching over you…
When I was a little boy at Woodside, I found all this very difficult to comprehend, but as I have grown older I have come to believe it more strongly every year, and I might say, almost every day.
So don’t think of your father as gone. When you say your prayers, ask him, as well as God, to watch over you, and you will see, by and by, how, in some remarkable way, some way you now can never think of, your prayers will be and have been answered.
Your Christmas card is a lovely one, and I thank you warmly for it. I am sure you selected that particular card because the little picture looked like Woodside in the winter time… I shall keep it and your little letter always.
I am sending you, with this letter, as a little Christmas gift from me to you, a real photograph of you and me, taken on the day of my visit to Kitchener. I had mine framed and took it with me to France, and Belgium, and Holland, and England, and always had it on my desk, on the boat across the ocean both ways as well as in the hotels… It will help you to remember the happy time we had at Woodside and I hope will add to your happiness at this Christmas and always.
It brings with it lots of love from me to you.
Your very true friend,
Mackenzie King
Woodside had hardly left his mind. Often the spirits of Bella, Father, Mother, and Max recalled with him the good times they had there, the beautiful golden days safe in the nest from which he had flown to begin his career. Mother pointed out that although he was still the hoy she knew at Woodside, so much had happened. In a seance on July 7, 1946, she had told Joan glowingly how Willie began by trying to help children in the hospital and then became a young man living in the slums, trying to help the poor He then tried to fight for Labour’s
