1937 - Convention Report

              TWENTIETH PROVINCIAL CONVENTION 49
REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON HOUSEHOLD ECONOMICS
Mrs. R, E. Wood, Stony Plain, Convener.
It gives me great pleasure to submit my first report on the work done in
Household Economics by our Alberta Women's Institute Branches. It is my
first experience in Standing Committee work, and I have found it very interesting
and helpful to myself, and I trust that during the two years I have been of some
assistance to our Branches.
A story goes that a little boy, hearing his father say that he was going to a
committee meeting, asked: " Daddy, what is a committee?" The father, only a
lowly miner, but most wise, replied: " A committee, my son, is a number of
persons who make minutes and try not to waste hours." Our Household
Economics Committee strives to do that very thing, it seems to me.
Household Economics is a study of the home and its needs; a study of the
family we live with; the food we eat; the houses we live in; the clothes we wear,
and our relationships each to the other in our homes and in our committees. In
short— HOME- MAKING.
Home- making is more than housekeeping; more than clothing, feeding and
housing the family. It includes making the family happy; earning, spending
and saving of the family income; keeping the family well by proper diet; caring
for the sick; entertaining our friends; taking a vital interest in community affairs,
and keeping in touch with the world's progress.
Home- making is a joyous adventure— an adventure that challenges the best
efforts of the finest womanhood of today. Home- making is an art, a science, a
vocation, a profession. More people are engaged in home- making than in any
other occupation. Every other occupation demands training. Why should any­one
question the need for training for such a complicated occupation as home-making?
Outside of Universities and Agricultural Schools, where can home- makers
receive this training easier than in our Women's Institute Branches? I like to think
of our Institutes as " Schools for Grown- ups" or " Home- makers' Universities."
Today we have in Canada some 3,000 of these study centres with about 75,000
students. If we would make our studies uniform, the possibilities for real
advancement in Household Economics are many.
In 1897, when the first Women's Institute was formed at Stony Creek, they
called it " The Woman's Department of the Farmers' Institute of South Went-worth."
The first regular meeting was held Thursday, February 25th, when
the name of the society was discussed and changed to " The Women's Institute
of Saltfleet." The constitution and by- laws were drafted and adopted. The
constitution read, " The object of this Institute shall be to promote that knowledge
of Household Science which shall lead to the improvement in Household
Economics and architecture, with special attention to sanitation; to a better
understanding of the economic and hygienic value of goods and fuels, and to a
more scientific care of children, with a view to raising the general health of our
people."
In 1902 the motto, " For Home and Country," submitted by Mrs. Laura Rose
Stephen, was chosen for the organization. So, of all our Standing Committees,
that of Household Economics is the one that Mrs. Hoodless had uppermost in
her mind when she advanced the idea of organization for study. It is the one
committee that permits, most easily, of individual study, as well as organized
study; is the one mentioned first in the constitution; is the one that bears most
closely on our motto, for our homes affect our community, and what the com­munity
is affects the nation, and what the nation is affects the world. So let
each Women's Institute member keep up- to- date in her knowledge of the various
phases of Household Economics and make our homes more than houses, and
make home- making more than feeding, clothing and housing the family.