100 More Canadian Heroines

by Merna Forster

  Once settled in her new home, Hilwie played a prominent role in the establishment of the Muslim community in Alberta. When the Arabian Muslim Association was registered in Edmonton on January 4, 1938, she was one of six women among the thirty-two charter members. She also organized the Ladies Muslim Society and served as president a number of times. The Hamdons were often the first to welcome new Lebanese immigrants into their home. But building Canada’s first mosque was Hilwie’s crowning achievement.

  Hilwie motivated Edmonton’s Muslim community to build the mosque and energized the campaign to raise the necessary money.[2] Hilwie and other Muslims convinced the city’s mayor, John Fry, to provide land. Lila Fahlman, who was a teenager at the time and went on to found the Canadian Council of Muslim Women in 1982, remembered that Hilwie’s vibrant personality could win over anyone.

  The women managed to get contributions from many city merchants on Jasper Avenue — including Christians and Jews, as well as Muslims — and other donors from as far away as Saskatchewan. After years of perseverance, Hilwie and her team raised the money and contracted a Ukrainian man named Mike Dreworth to start construction. Though the building had a curious resemblance to a Russian Orthodox church, the Muslim community was thrilled when its mosque opened on December 12, 1938.

  “This could not have happened in some lands,” said Mayor Fry at the opening ceremonies. “It is significant that people of many faiths are sitting friendly together.”[3] At Hilwie’s insistence, the master of ceremonies had to be fluent in both English and Arabic. So a Christian Arab, I.F. Shaker, presided over the dedication, which was conducted by Allamah Abdallah Yusef Ali, Pakistani translator of the Qur’an.

  When the Al Rashid Mosque was completed, it served the needs of about twenty Muslim families, most from Lebanon’s Baka’a Valley. The mosque was a focal point for Edmonton Muslims and Arabs of all faiths for decades, as a community centre as well as a place of worship. With a growing number of Muslims in Edmonton (nearly 16,000 by 1980), it was replaced by a larger mosque in 1981. A few years later the original crumbling red brick building faced demolition. Members of the Canadian Council of Women, including Hilwie’s granddaughter, Karen Hamdon, and grand-niece, Evelyn, set out to save the old Al Rashid Mosque.

  Thanks to this new generation of Muslim women, the first Al Rashid Mosque was transported to a new home in Fort Edmonton in 1991, despite opponents saying it would be a historical intruder in the heritage park. As Karen Hamdon reflected, “it’s important to our history and our future to acknowledge that it has a place in this living history museum.”[4]

  The old Al Rashid Mosque was restored and now stands as a lasting tribute to Hilwie Hamdon and the other Muslim women who built it. Their story is told in the Alberta Online Encyclopedia. Hilwie was also recognized in the CBC documentary 100 Years in Alberta, which celebrates the history of the Hamdon family since they became pioneers on the prairie.

  Quote:

  “[I] entered with zest into this rugged pioneering life.”[5]

  Hattie Rhue Hatchett.

  Buxton National Historic Site Museum

  The Soldiers’ Song

  Harriet Rhue Hatchett

  1863–1958

  A daughter of escaped slaves, she penned the official marching song of Canadian soldiers in the First World War.

  While the upbeat song “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary” was popular during the First World War, Canadian soldiers marching along muddy roads to the front often sang another tune, “That Sacred Spot.” Written by Canadian Harriet (Hattie) Rhue Hatchett, the poignant hymn referred to the sacred spot where fallen Canadian soldiers were buried when they died on the battlefields. The song “applies to the feeling of a mother and her hope that if her son was killed, it would be a sacred spot and God would be looking over it.”[1] None of Hattie’s relatives fought in the First World War, but she wanted to write a song to ease the soldiers’ pain.

  Hattie was born in Canada during the American Civil War. Her father, escaped slave William Isaac Rhue, met his future wife, Jane Serena Lewis, another fugitive slave from Kentucky, while travelling the Underground Railroad. The couple moved to the growing settlement at Buxton in southern Ontario established by Reverend William King as a haven for black refugees. The Rhues raised sixteen children.

  Hattie’s family life revolved around religion and music. She attended a one-room school beside the Rhue farm, before graduating from nearby Chatham Collegiate Institute at seventeen. Always musically talented, she played a second-hand melodeon, then took piano lessons (and learned needlework) from Reverend King’s wife, Jemima.

  After graduation, Hattie taught school in the Chatham area. At eighteen, encouraged by Reverend King and her mother to help meet the urgent need for teachers in the southern United States, Hattie headed to Kentucky to teach former slaves and their children. There she met her future husband, Millard Hatchett, who she taught to read and write. They married in 1892, and Hattie continued teaching as they began a family. After a number of moves, the Hatchetts, with their three daughters and one son, moved permanently to North Buxton in 1904.

  Tragically, all three girls became ill and died. The grief-stricken Hattie poured her heart and soul into music and her faith. Despite obtaining a music-teaching certificate, Hattie couldn’t find a job as a music teacher;[2] racism and sexism may have limited her opportunities. Teaching jobs weren’t open to married women, and churches with white congregations may not have wanted to hire a black organist.[3]

  An active community leader, Hattie organized a choir for white churches in the area. She also welcomed local children into her home to share her love of music, teach them to play instruments, and prepare them for concerts and competitions. As one neighbour remembered, “she was willing to teach anybody anything that she knew without charging them.”[4]

  The extraordinary pianist was a popular performer; she frequently sang and played at church, conferences, and meetings. In addition to playing classical and popular songs and hymns, Hattie composed the words and music for many hymns, spirituals, and children’s songs. Unfortunately, most copies that existed were lost in fires.

  Hattie copyrighted three of her most popular compositions and sold sheet music for them: “Jesus, Tender Shepherd Lead Us” (more than 1,000 copies purchased around the world), “That Land Beyond The Sky,” and “That Sacred Spot.” Canon Frederick G. Scott, a poet and senior chaplain of the 1st Canadian Division during the First World War, selected “That Sacred Spot” as the official marching song for Canadian troops.[5] He felt its images and religious tone made it a fitting choice for soldiers marching to war. As former War Amps president, Lieutenant-Colonel Sidney Lambert remembered, “it made the soldiers think of home; it had a good beat which enlivened marching in-step; it was a tribute to those who had gone before, and an ever-present thought that if they were killed, their grave site would be remembered.”[6]

  Hattie Rhue Hatchett died in 1958 at ninety-four, outliving her husband and children. She is remembered as a gifted musician, a smart lady with a lively sense of humour and a positive attitude, and a composer whose identity was probably unknown to the many Canadian soldiers who marched along to “That Sacred Spot.”

  Quote:

  “In foreign fields apart or in a row

  There lies a soldier’s lonely grave so low.

  Tremendous cost wherever it may be

  Keep that Sacred Spot in living memory.”[7]

  Sindi Hawkins, after being appointed as deputy speaker for the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia in 2005.

  ©Photography West

  Trailblazer

  Satinder Hawkins

  1958–2010

  The first Indo-Canadian woman to hold a cabinet post in a provincial government, Sindi was an inspirational nurse, lawyer, and politician.

  Satinder Kaur Ahluwalia was born in New Delhi, India, in 1958 to a Punjabi Sikh family. Her father, Manohar Singh Ahluwalia, taught at the University of Delhi and served as a communica
tions officer under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. When Sindi was just five, she immigrated with her family to Canada.

  The Ahluwalias settled in the small town of Sturgis, Saskatchewan, where her father taught high-school social studies and English. The family was involved in many community activities. Sindi was active in ice hockey, curling, choir, the student council, badminton, the 4-H Club, and the debating society. She was chosen as queen of the Winter Ice Carnival in 1974. After graduating from high school, Sindi moved to Saskatoon with her family. Here she met and married Dr. Ralph Hawkins; the couple divorced in the 1990s.

  Sindi began her professional life as a registered nurse, earning her degree in Calgary, where she worked in intensive care, management, education, and consulting. For more than a decade she treated cancer patients as head nurse at Calgary’s Baker Cancer Centre. One of the first nurses to be certified in neuroscience nursing, Sindi became the head nurse of neurosurgery at Calgary’s Foothills Hospital. Sindi also earned a law degree from the University of Calgary in 1994; she set up her own private practice specializing in legal issues related to medicine.

  After settling in Kelowna, Sindi decided to enter provincial politics, winning her first election with a huge margin of 7,000 votes in 1996. In her inaugural speech the onetime immigrant remarked, “It gives me a great sense of pride, as well, that the voters have given me the opportunity to be the first Punjabi woman to be elected to a legislature in Canada.”[1] She was re-elected in 2001 and 2005.

  Sindi was a high-profile Liberal member of the legislative assembly under Premier Gordon Campbell. She rapidly rose in the ranks, serving as deputy speaker, minister of state for intergovernmental relations, and minister of health planning. She was a workaholic with a 1,000-watt smile, a kind and caring woman with a promising political career that was tragically cut short.

  She worked on an anti-racism committee and assisted a non-profit society for visible minority and immigrant women. She focused on following the path of “sewa” or service, as encouraged by her Sikh faith.[2] In 1997, on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of Sikhs in Canada, she said, “Sikhs have contributed a lot to this province and to this country. I’m proud of my heritage.”[3]

  A longtime crusader in the fight again cancer, Sindi initiated the annual Sindi Hawkins and Friends Charity Golf Classic for Cancer Care in 1996. In January 2004, she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, eventually receiving two bone-marrow transplants from her younger sister, Seema. During Sindi’s courageous battle, she urged others to donate blood and to register as bone-marrow donors, particularly Asian Canadians. Despite her illness, she continued to raise money for cancer research and was proud to bring Lance Armstrong to Vancouver in 2007 for the Tour of Courage. She helped raise more than $20 million and inspired other cancer sufferers.

  Sindi died in her eldest sister’s home, surrounded by family, in 2010. She was fifty-two. Hours before her death, longtime colleague Gordon Campell announced that a cancer facility in Kelowna would be renamed the Sindi Hawkins Cancer Centre — “a lasting legacy of her kindness, her passion for helping others and her generosity of spirit.”[4] She is remembered as a humanitarian who served her community as a nurse, lawyer, cancer crusader, and MLA.

  Quote:

  “I lived the Canadian dream.”[5]

  Prudence Heward.

  The Maverick Painter

  Prudence Heward

  1896–1947

  She was an original, presenting new images of women to Canadian art: “powerful, confident, even heroic figures.”[1]

  “In my opinion, [Prudence Heward] was the very best painter we ever had in Canada and she never got the recognition she richly deserved in her lifetime. I wanted her to join the Group of Seven, but like the Twelve Apostles, no women were included,”[2] A.Y. Jackson said.

  While artist Prudence Heward was not invited to join the boys’ club, she was offered the rare privilege of exhibiting in several of their shows. Though Prudence didn’t join A.Y. Jackson’s co-ed Beaver Hall Group when it formed in 1920, she became a member of the informal network of women that continued to exist afterward. Prudence was among the ten most prominent women in the group, whose existence helped them find exhibit space and provided support and comraderie in the male-dominated art world.

  Prudence was born in Montreal to respected members of the English establishment.[3] Due to her severe asthma, she was educated at home and began art lessons at twelve. Her comfortable world was shattered in 1912 when her father and two sisters died and her mother struggled to support eight children. During the First World War, Prudence volunteered with the Red Cross in England with her mother. She returned to Montreal in 1918, determined to pursue an artistic career despite her ill health.

  Prudence studied at the Art Association of Montreal, then the Académie Colarossi, École des Beaux Arts, and the Scandinavian Academy in Paris. She set up a studio in the family’s Montreal home where she did most of her work, but she also went to the countryside to paint. Though Prudence produced many impressive still-life and landscape paintings, her most powerful works were figures (a term she preferred over “portraits”).

  Using bold colours, angular lines, and expressive brushstrokes, Prudence portrayed strong and serious women. She painted real women and children with a remarkable depth of feeling, conveying the misfortunes and sorrows of life. Her painting Girl Under a Tree (a nude female figure) is considered one of her most compelling works, a masterpiece.[4]

  Prudence was at the height of her career in the 1920s and 1930s. She earned significant recognition for her 1928 exhibit with the Group of Seven as well as for her win the next year of the National Gallery’s Willingdon Prize, which brought national attention. In 1930, a Toronto critic singled out her paintings At the Theatre and Rollande as noteworthy works that “resemble no one else in their individual form of expression.”[5] The National Gallery purchased Rollande for $600, a considerable price at the time. Her works were selected for numerous international expositions (including the Tate Gallery in London).

  In addition to developing her own artistic expression, Prudence devoted herself to redefining the role of women in art and developing new opportunities for showcasing their works. In addition to being an active member of the Beaver Hall Group, she was a founding member of the Canadian Group of Painters and the Contemporary Arts Society. She hosted meetings at her Montreal home and painted picnics in the country, which were often attended by her friend and mentor A.Y. Jackson.

  Though male art critics often considered female painters as society hobbyists, Prudence was a professional artist. She was a quiet, witty, and fashionable woman known for her elegant attire and flashy cars: the first one yellow and the second a blue Hudson. Unfortunately, the gifted artist’s flare for life was no match for her lifelong battle with asthma.

  Rollande, oil on canvas painted by Prudence Heward in 1929.

  In the late 1930s, she was hospitalized for asthma, injured in a car accident, and traumatized by the deaths of both a close friend and her sister. As her health deteriorated, she had less energy to paint. In 1947, Prudence died in Los Angeles while seeking treatment. She was just fifty. Following her death, the National Gallery of Canada put on a memorial exhibition of her work. In the Saturday Night review of the exhibit, Paul Duval wrote that Prudence was “one of the most sensitive painters this country has ever known.”[6]

  Prudence Heward was a great Canadian painter. Perhaps the growing number of publications and exhibitions focusing on Canadian women artists will bring more appreciation of her contribution to Canadian art. In 2010, Canada Post paid tribute to Prudence by issuing commemorative stamps featuring two of her paintings.

  Quote:

  “I think that of all the arts in Canada painting shows more vitality and has a stronger Canadian feeling ….”[7]

  Esther Hill at her graduation from the University of Toronto, 1920.

  UTA, James Sons Photographers B1986-0106/005P

  The Invasion of Ar
chitecture

  Esther Hill

  1895–1985

  Trained to design great buildings, she ended up weaving and making gloves.

  “The Canadian woman has invaded one more profession and Miss Esther Marjorie Hill is blazing the trail.”[1] It turned out this particular invasion, reported by the Globe and Mail in June 1920, was more difficult than the determined Miss Hill had ever imagined.

  Born in Guelph, Esther Hill was raised in Edmonton by progressive-minded parents. Her father, a teacher and chief librarian for the Edmonton Public Library, staunchly supported his daughter’s ambitions; Esther’s mother was one of the first women to study at the University of Toronto and a member of the National Council of Women. Esther began studying architecture at the University of Alberta, but transferred to the University of Toronto after the program was cancelled.

  When Esther graduated in 1920, she became the first woman in Canada to receive a university degree in architecture. While the convocation audience applauded and the Globe and Mail gushed, some of her male colleagues weren’t as supportive. The university’s chairman of architecture, C.H.C. Wright, boycotted the convocation ceremony in protest.

  The enthusiastic grad soon discovered that it wouldn’t be easy to start her career, and accepted the only job she could find: interior decorating for Eaton’s. Esther returned to Edmonton to find more challenging employment. She tried to register with the Alberta Association of Architects, but the organization quickly changed its requirements to make her ineligible by demanding one year of full-time experience in an architecture firm.