The Story of the Alberta Women's Institute

              THE

STORY

OF

THE

ALBERTA

WOMEK'S

INSTITUTES

MRS. WilLIAM

H. FLEMING

l\/IRS, WILLIAM H. FLEMING was born Anna Amelia Odell in LonJfJ. don, Ontario on June 19, 1867. She received her education at Pond J\Iills and graduated from Strathroy Normal School. She taught school at Dorchester until her marriage to Wm. Fleming in 1887. She was the first secretary of the Wilton Grove Women's Institute. .:\Iiddlesex County, and a director of the first East Middlesex District Women's Institute in 1910 and bought a farm at Argyle in the Flagstaff district where they lived until 1922. In March 1913, when the Argyle Women's Institute was organized she became the first president She was also president of the Argyle Red Cross Society and the Patriotic Society during the Great War. At the first provincial convention of Women's Institutes in Alberta. held at Olds in 1915, Mrs. Fleming was elected first vice-president, an office she filled for seven years and during that time she travelled many miles visiting and speaking to Institute gatherings. In 1922 when the family moved to Duncan, B.C., and later to Summerland. B.C., she became active in Institute work there. They returned to the Argyle district in 1928. Mrs. Fleming served as a trustee on the local school board, was an Elder of the church, a superintendent and Sunday School teacher and President of the Ladies' Aid. In the early pioneer days in Alberta when doctors were few, she answered many a call for help in cases of sickness or accident. She \vas a kindly gentlewoman with a genius for making friends Her patient understanding and quiet sympathy enshrined her in the hearts of all who knew her. Mrs. Fleming passed on to he:' :'ewarci February 20, 1951. MRS. D. R. MciVOR 1\/ifES D. H. MdVOH.. before coming west in 1906, was a charter ld member and an oiIicer of the Lion's Head Women's Institute. Bruce County, Ontario. She became the first president of the Cowley WomcE':; institute when it was oganized in 1913 and occuDied that office for a number' of years. After that she filled many offices in the Alberta 'Nomen' s Institutes. She was the first convener of the Pincher Creek and Rocb' Mountain constituencies and later of the Stettler constituency. Sh~ organized a number of new branches in all three localities. She was first chairman of the A.W.I. standing committee on child welfare and public health. She was vice-president of the A.W.I. in 1923 and 1924. and secretary-treasurer during 1927 and 1928. Her name is associatetl with the very beginning of the provincial organization. It !,vas she who made the suggestion in 1915, to the Minister of Agricultun.>. that -60-