They've been around for over 100 years, yet but for those who are members few others know very much about them, and they are worth knowing.
Hunched over the keyboard, Renée Palmer looks like any other 13 year old as she surfs the web. Springing from her desk and heading outside to grab her bicycle her movements are quick and powerful for such a small stature. With her slanting blue eyes and impish face capped with short blond hair she looks, moves and acts like a large version of Tinker Bell. Renée is a fetal alcohol syndrome baby and a poster child for the cause at the Phillipsville Women’s Institute (WI). Adopted seven years ago by her foster mother Marg Palmer, it was inevitable that the Phillipsville WI would take up her cause.
“I did a presentation a couple of years ago, so we’re going to put forward a motion at the regional level to raise awareness of the dangers of alcohol during pregnancy,” said Palmer, president of the Phillipsville WI.
Involving her institute in a cause that is near and dear to her heart is typical fare for most WIs – and has, unwittingly, turned this one—formed in 1919—into a social advocacy group among other things.
“We do all kinds of different things because our members have different interests,” explains Betty Davison, Phillipsville member.
The Origins
WIs started as a way to give isolated rural women access to crucial nutritional information more than a 100 years ago.
“My mother was an institute member,” recalls 81 year-old Marion Stone, Phillipsville. “At that time, we were connected with the Farmers Institutes so we were sponsored by the provincial Department of Agriculture, and they would send someone down to run courses on safe food practices.”
Today’s WIs are not funded, but they’re still deeply involved in communities—and they all share the same origin.
Every WI—there are 1,257 branches across the country—traces its origin to the legend of Adelaide Hoodless. In 1889, John Harold Hoodless, just 14 months-old died of food poisoning attributed to drinking tainted milk. Consumed with grief and shocked at her own ignorance of domestic hygiene, Hoodless vowed to tackle that gap in women’s education. With the help of members of the Farmer’s Institute, Hoodless co-founded the first Women’s Institute in 1897 at Stoney Creek, Ont. At a time when scientific methods were being lavished on farm practices Hoodless’ mission was to elevate the job of homemaking to the same level as farming.
The Role of the WI
Though rural needs have changed some WIs have carried on that original mission.
“Our institute is basically educational,” says Jean Seguin a career woman with 2nd line Drummond WI, “we always have a speaker at our meetings. We’ve had speakers on nutrition, diabetes, the history of the Tay River system, antiques and more.”
This WI, which meets in the evenings, has also been able to attract younger women—mid 30s and 40s.
“It keeps me connected with the community,” explains Seguin, a 40 year-old mother of two, who works in Ottawa.
In Bishops Mills, where one institute closed in the mid-1930s a new one opened in 1985.
“What I get from being involved is the community building, it’s not just social it’s about building support and good neighbourhood relations—so community with a small ‘c’,” says Jean Lambert, Bishops Mills WI member and co-founder.
In ’85, Bishops Mills first action was lobbying their municipality to set up a recycling program—successfully. Since then they’ve lobbied for road improvements, midwifery among other things.
Tweedsmuir Histories
These ordinary women are also the keepers of a treasure trove of local histories. At Bishops Mills Mavis Elstone has the job of compiling and preserving the hamlet’s and district’s histories for posterity in a series of scrapbooks, continuing a WI tradition that began in the 1920s. Known today as the Tweedsmuir Histories, they are a priceless repositories of local lore – chronicling farm, family, business and village histories—some dating back as far as the First World War, others covering the events of the past 25 years—all lovingly maintained.
The WI’s motto was and still is ‘For Home and Country,” a very general, open-ended statement that leaves tremendous room for change and growth.
