From the Archives – A Western Legacy

Joy Newman, Bill McLean, Keith Newman, Elaine GordonAs part of data collection for the development of the IofC Canada archives, I spent two weeks in May in Alberta and B.C. My time there was greatly facilitated by John and Jennifer Bocock, Keith and Joy Newman, and Chris and Anne Hartnell, and I met many of their friends in six different cities and conducted live interviews with several pioneers of MRA/IofC.

Alberta – A Family Affair

IofC’s early publications reported on families who became associated with the Oxford Group in the 1930s and who participated in expanding its work. In Edmonton, I gathered oral history from Wilma Bayley and Lily Robertson, daughters of the Muir family. I also heard fascinating accounts of MRA’s development from Jack and Mary Jean Freebury, son and daughter of the Freebury and Carlisle families of Grande Prairie.

In St Albert, I talked with the Bocock family whose continuity in IofC’s mission is evidenced by the Bocock Chair at the University of Alberta.

In Calgary, Eleanor Byers, daughter of Horace King of the Tea Kettle Inn, donated her father’s scrapbook, dating from 1933, to IofC’s archives. A visit to the Nakoda First Nation, en route to Banff, was a dream fulfilled, and here again I got another family perspective from Bill McLean, son of the legendary Chief Walking Buffalo.

Meeting up with Vancouver Islander Allison Holt, the first to provide the archives project with written accounts of MRA friends across Canada, was a particular pleasure.

Inspired by Chris Hartnell’s well-managed visual media archive dating from the 1930s, I returned to Ottawa greatly enriched by my encounter with this western legacy.

Elaine Gordon, Ottawa