QUARANTINE BLOG # 520

September 1, 2021

This story, with apologies, was delayed because of QB’s regular month ending feature.  Here is the story of Canada’s “Famous Five.”

The Famous Five were five prominent Canadian suffragists who advocated for women and children: Nellie McClung, Henrietta Edwards, Louise McKinney, Emily Murphy and Irene Parlby.

In 1916, Emily Murphy became the first female magistrate in Canada and the British Empire.  Not long after taking her seat on the bench Murphy encountered resistance from a male lawyer who believed she was unable to preside over the case.  He didn’t take issue with her qualifications, rather, he believed Murphy was unfit to sit on the bench because she wasn’t a person.  Using the strictest interpretation of the British North America Act, he argued women were not persons in a legal sense because the pronoun “she” was not explicitly used in Canada’s constitutional document.

Murphy found a loophole in the Supreme Court of Canada Act, that noted five people, acting as a unit, could bring constitutional matters to Canada’s highest court.  With this discovery, Murphy, along with Edwards, Parlby, McClung and McKinney formed what would become known as the “Famous Five” and took their case to the Supreme Court of Canada in April 1928. 

The question the federal government posed to the Supreme Court was: “Does the word ‘Persons’ in Section 24 of the British North America Act, 1867, include female persons?”  In 1928, the Supreme Court unanimously held that women were not “qualified persons” within the meaning of S. 24 of the British North America Act, 1867.  The court sided with the constitution, ruling that if the term “person” was meant to include women, it would have been spelled out explicitly in the constitution. 

The five women appealed that ruling to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, at that time the highest court of appeal in the British Empire.  On October 18, 1929, the Judicial Committee overruled the Supreme Court and held that women were “qualified persons” and eligible to be appointed to the Senate.

In 2009, the Senate named them as Canada’s first honorary senators.  The statue,  unveiled in 2000, is the first monument on Parliament Hill to commemorate Canadian women.  

The artist, Barbara Paterson, chose to portray the women as average folk: Wearing plain period dress and placing them on the ground, rather than on pedestals, as with most other national politicians and monarchs.  They toast their victory over a cup of tea.

Here is a video by Canadian Heritage with great views of their monument, and a narration of their story.

👉  Some more unfinished business – this from our series “Gold Mines, Glaciers, and Ghost Towns.”

Robert Service was a British-Canadian poet and writer, often called “the Bard of the Yukon.”  A bank clerk by trade, he spent long periods traveling in the Western United States and Canada.  When his bank sent him to the Yukon, he was inspired by tales of the Klondike Gold Rush, and wrote two poems “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” and “The Cremation of Sam McGee.”  

Service’s poems were published in 1907 in Canada as, Songs of a Sourdough, and as The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses in the United States.  The book went through 7 printings before its official release date, and a total of 36 by 1917.

Sam McGee, an imaginary figure,  was an unlikely prospector from Plumtree, Tennessee.  He always minded the Yukon cold, and when his luck, and his health ran out, he asked his partner to cremate him.  The funeral pyre was raised on Lake Lebarge, one of the gold rush sites.  Here is Johnny Cash reading “The Cremation of Sam McGee.”

👉  And a follow-up on the wedding of Doug and Dedra Simmons.  Doug says he never mailed the $240 invoices to couples who failed to show up at their wedding’s reception dinner, but just posted it on Facebook.  He has received a couple of apologies, he says.  

Well, that was a big kerfuffle.  Or as Shakespeare might have said, “Much ado about nothing.”

👉  Here are some more “Black Outs.”

👉  And two more from Forrest Gump’s collection of “Stupid Is As Stupid Does”:

👉  And a salute (or an anguished groan) to changing technology:

👉  The 2021 Quarantine Blog Index, updated for August, is available at this link.

👉  Today’s close, “God Promises Gladness,” is by Max Lucado.

God promises gladness. Nine times he promises it. And he promises it to an unlikely crowd:

• “The poor in spirit.”  Beggars in God’s soup kitchen.

• “Those who mourn.”  Sinners Anonymous bound together by the truth of their introduction: “Hi, I am me. I’m a sinner.”

• “ The meek.”  Pawnshop pianos played by Van Cliburn.  He’s so good no one notices the missing keys.

• “Those who hunger and thirst.”  Famished orphans who know the difference between a TV dinner and a Thanksgiving feast.

• “The merciful.”  Winners of the million-dollar lottery who share the prize with their enemies.

• “The pure in heart.”  Physicians who love lepers and escape infection.

• “The peacemakers.”  Architects who build bridges with wood from a Roman cross.

• “The persecuted.”  Those who manage to keep an eye on heaven while walking through hell on earth.

It is to this band of pilgrims that God promises a special blessing.  A heavenly joy.  A sacred delight.

But this joy is not cheap.  What Jesus promises is not a gimmick to give you goose bumps nor a mental attitude that has to be pumped up at pep rallies.  No, Matthew 5 describes God’s radical reconstruction of the heart.

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