This fascinating book traces the both ordinary and extraordinary
life story of Victorian matriarch, Mary Baker McQuesten (1849-1934).
It is part of the life writing series published by Wilfred Laurier
University Press, which is intended to “promote autobiographical
accounts, diaries, letters and testimonials written and/or told
by women and men whose political, literary, or philosophical purposes
are central to their lives” (ii).
Editor, Mary J. Anderson
has divided the book into four parts. Pa5rt One is a biography of
Mary Baker McQuesten. Part Two describes her work with the Presbyterian
Missionary Societies and includes selections from her Missionary
Society Addresses. Part Three situates this family story within
a broader narrative of Victorian middle-class urban life in Canada.
The final section, which is the most lengthy by far, is a collection
of primary source materials: selections from the collection of 1000
letters extant in Mary Baker McQuesten’s hand, her eulogy, and excerpts
from her will. There are also extensive and scholarly footnotes.
The written text is accompanied by a charming collection of family
photographs, including several of Whitehern, the family home in
Hamilton, Ontario.
The editor deliberately
sets out to make her task transparent, describing her discovery
of the source materials and decisions she made as she used them
to construct her account. The letters in this collection are unusual
in that they seem to have been consciously written with posterity
in mind. After they circulated among family members, they were collected
and carefully stored. The letters and other papers, as well as the
family home, were bequeathed to the city of Hamilton in 1968 by
Mary’s last surviving child, Calvin, so that everyone “may
enjoy…the beautiful rooms of Whitehern and eat their lunches
in its pleasant garden” (67). The home is now a museum and
archives. The editor notes that it is a virtual time capsule because
little beyond the essentials was changed after the family became
impoverished in 1888. Even the garden has been maintained in its
1930s state, when Mary’s son Tom undertook a major landscaping project.
Whitehern was the family
home for 116 years. The stately home was purchased by Dr. Calvin
McQuesten, a wealthy industrialist, in 1852. The following year,
Mary Baker married Calvin McQuesten’s son, Isaac. Isaac was a successful
lawyer and received a large inheritance, which included Whitehern,
at his father’s death in 1885. However, at the time of Isaac’s own
death three years later, of an apparent suicide, he was bankrupt.
At his death, thirty-eight year old Mary and their six living children,
who were between the ages of fourteen and three, went abruptly from
wealth and ease to genteel poverty. Fortunately, the house had been
placed in trust for Mary and she and the children were able to remain
living in it. The family state of genteel poverty continued for
twenty years.
As the editor points
out, “the most vital recurring themes in her writings are those
of family finances, health, education, the Presbyterian missionary
societies, and Victorian society and culture“ (52). She adds
“they also reveal the gradual development of the character
of Mary Baker McQuesten from a privileged young matron into a powerful
matriarch and a forceful social activist” (52). Mary was very
active in the public sphere, assuming executive positions in Women’s
Missionary Societies and traveling throughout Ontario and the western
provinces to establish auxiliaries or to inspect missions. She was
also a member of the National Council of Women and was instrumental
in the establishment of a local chapter of the Young Women’s Christian
Association (YWCA).
Mary’s six children
did not marry. The two eldest daughters, Mary and Hilda, lived out
their days caring for home and family. Older son, Calvin, spent
most of his working life as a semi-volunteer chaplain at the Hamilton
Mountain Sanatorium for the treatment of tuberculosis. He suffered
from what seems to have been an inherited family tendency toward
mental depression. Daughter, Ruby, worked as a teacher long enough
for her brother, Tom, to complete school with her financial assistance.
She then succumbed to tuberculosis and spent much of her time in
sanatoriums until her death at age thirty-two. Edna had several
mental breakdowns, eventually receiving shock treatments and a partial
lobotomy. Second son, Tom, blessed with energy and good health,
became a successful lawyer and well respected politician, honoured
for his active participation in the “city beautiful” movement.
Among his lasting accomplishments are his substantial involvement
in the relocation of McMaster University to Hamilton, the building
of the Niagara Parkway and Parks system, and the rebuilding of several
forts in the Niagara peninsula.
As a reader, I confess
that I was unable to arouse as much sympathy toward Mary Baker McQuesten
as the editor seemed to have. There is no doubt that she was a loving
mother and an intelligent woman with indomitable courage. She contributed
both within her own family circle and to the larger society. However,
as I read, I puzzled about her children, who, with the possible
exception of her younger son, Tom, led curiously thwarted lives.
There is no doubt that only the cruel hand of fate can be blamed
for a part of this outcome. However, it is intriguing to contemplate
the role that Mary played in their lives. For example, given the
archival information with which Anderson acquaints us, there can
be no question that she intervened in the romances of daughters,
Hilda and Ruby, and son, Tom. I also could not help think about
her two eldest daughters and how they spent their lives running
the household. In fact, it was their support in the domestic sphere
that allowed their mother to engage so enthusiastically in the public
domain. She apparently made a deliberate decision, upon her husband’s
untimely death, that this was the way it was going to be, and so
it was. She ran her adult children’s lives down to the most minute
details; even advising her adult son, Calvin to “rub the [toilet]
seat as hard as possible with paper” (170) when forced to use
public washrooms. On one occasion, she wrote to her son, Tom, “…we
pray God that he will mercifully spare you as long as my life lasts”
adding as an afterthought, “That sounds selfish does it not?”
(202). Perhaps it does, just a little.
Mary J. Anderson might
have been bolder in her interpretations of the wealth of sources
available to her. For example, she comments that “the mystery
of why none of the children were married must be left to the readers’
judgment” (51-52). Since she is the one who has spent time
with the primary sources, it seems reasonable to expect that she
could be more insightful on this question than her readers.
The book is complemented
by a website, the “Whitehern Museum Archives” (www.whitehern.ca).
At this time, the website contains a searchable database of nearly
2000 letters (and will eventually have 3000), 200 photographs, essays,
newspaper articles, and sermons; detailed timelines; analysis and
commentary based on Mary J. Anderson’s doctoral thesis; and
information about Whitehern itself.
The book, the website,
and the home are treasure troves of primary source material for
teachers and students interested in women’s or family history, upper
middle-class urban life in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, Presbyterian
Missionary Societies, or even medical history, in Canada. Because
the editor makes her work so transparent, the book offers a helpful
glimpse of how one can go about working with primary source materials
to weave a coherent and well supported narrative.