Farewell To a Good Citizen
It was with great regret that we
heard the news of the death of
Mrs. E. E. Morton of Vegreville,
Alberta. How many Alberta women
must feel a sense of loss at her
passing, and not only women in Alberta,
but in many provinces of
Canada For some of us, our last
glimpse of Mrs. Morton was at the
recent conference of the Associated
Country Women of the World in
Toronto. Ill she was and blind, but
her mind was clear and her spirit
strong. She had clung to life that
she might attend one more international
meeting of the movement
to which she had given many years
of service.
Thirty years had passed between
the time when Mrs. Morton became
a member of the local Women's
Institute in Vegreville and September,
1950, when she headed the Canadian
delegation to the A. C. W. W.
triennial in Copenhagen.
After serving as secretary and
president of her own Institute, she
became a district director, then
provincial vice- president and convener
of war work. The Alberta
Women's Institutes had then chosen
as their particular project assistance
to the boys of the Merchant
Marine. Mrs. Morton worked
Unceasingly. It was said that in
three months she lined and put
together 46 jerkins: Other Vegreville
members bound them and
put on the tape.
As she worked she thought. She
wrote to the A. W. I, members: " It
is not enough to make quilts, jerkins
and knit; we must, by observing
uncomplainingly the ration
laws, see that they have ample
supplies. We must read and study
world conditions, so that we will
be prepared for the supreme
struggle against selfish nationalism
when the peace comes: All
this is part of our war effort."
With the end of the war in sight,
she asked Alberta women to turn
their thoughts to reconstruction
problems and the return of young
people from the forces. She asked
them to consider the employment
possibilities, the opportunities for
study and recreation, in their own
districts.
Clothing for war victims came to
her from all across Alberta and
how many parcels she packed to go
overseas. " Welcome the families
from the old lands," she wrote.
" The displaced persons need special
kindness for they have suffered
much. Try to make your
goodwill practical and see they are
given a chance to learn English.
Get a pocket book on Basic English
and it will help you as teachers
and them as scholars."
By this time she had become
president of the A. W. I. and vice-president
of the Federated Women's
Institutes of Canada. In 1947
she went to the A. C. W. W. conference
at Amsterdam as Alberta representative
and three years later
as F. W. I. C president, she headed
the Canadian delegation to Copenhagen.
I heard her speak to the Manitoba
Women's Institutes when she
returned to Canada that fall. She
pointed out that the individual was
the foundation of that great organization,
the Associated Country
Women of the World. She put
searching questions: " Are you free
from racial prejudice in your community?"
" How many women in
your community have never been
asked to join the Institute?"
She reminded her audience that
two- thirds of the people in the
world never went to bed with full
stomachs. You can't talk peace and
co- operation to hungry people, she
warned. So she asked them to
study conservation and the problems
of food.
Then she was thinking of basic
English, not only as a help to newcomers
coming to this country, but
as a way of bridging the gap of
language differences. She asked Institutes
to send textbooks to other
countries.
It saddens one to think that this
woman who valued books so highly
and worked so hard, for libraries in
Alberta should have lost her sight
during the last years of her life.
MRS. E. E. MORTON.
Mrs. Morton believed that regional j
libraries were a very necessary
service for rural people but while
waiting and working for them she
turned her home into a distribution
centre for sending out secondhand
books to W. I. rural libraries.
" When I realized I was going
blind I felt as if I was facing an
abyss," she said. " I became completely
depressed. Then one day
just before Christmas a man came
to the door. He had driven all the
way from Edmonton, 70 miles over
glare ice, to see me. He came from
the Canadian Institute for the
Blind and he made me realize that
what I had thought a tragedy was
only a handicap."
She told of discovering talking
books and of the Chinese lads
whom she had taught English and
who now came to read to her.
When she was in Toronto at the
A. C. W. W. she spoke to delegates
attending the meeting of the Canadian
Council for the Blind and
urged them to spread the good
news about services for the blind.
She was still trying to serve.
Surely those last dark, difficult
months must have been brightened
by many happy memories of a
busy, useful life.— R. D.
