To Founding of WI

A Motheris Tragedy Led. To Founding of WI. PBOGBAMME’. Adelaide Hoodless was a to be portrayed in the histori OF THE woman with a vision who ctal pageant, Portraits From in‘e turned a personal tragedy the Past, to be presented SIDNEY SOUTH into a crusade to raise the B01 and VS auditorium out: ' standards of homemaking March 6' at 8.30 p.m. Mrs. Hoodless was a wo- BRANCH W. I. ’4qu throughout Canada. Little did culture and great she realize that her viSion man of HASTINGS WEST personal charm with a know- would grow to a mighty or- gained during an im-i ganization, the Associated ledge, poverished childhood, of the \ Country Women of‘the World, problems of farm women. ‘ comprising Women's Institut- Born near Brantford in 1857, es and similar organizations youngest of a family of 12, of country women in 108 in 1881 and mov- countries. she married Creek, near Adelaide Hoodless She is one of the characters ed to Stoney, Hamilton. There her four ‘3 children were born, and there SEASON 1967 - 1968 her youngest, a .son born in 1888, died in anfancy as the W e | c o m e I result of a disease transmitt- ‘ ed through contaminated MEETING FIRST WEDNESDAY NIGHT I milk. AT 8:15 O'CLOCK It was her remorse at her ,4 lack of knowledge of child care that stirred Mrs. Hood- OPENING ODE less to a crusade to save A goodly thing it is to meet other mothers and babies In friendships circle bright, 3A,, 3 from the same fate. She Where nothing stains the pleasure sweet argued that women needed an Or dims the radiant light. organization for training in No unkind words our lips shall pass matted-W“. flJe/aicle flunfer floaolgzdo l homemuking, similar to the Nor envy sour the mind, aw: But each shall seek the common weal, .A then-popular Farmers’ Insti- The good of all mankind. tutes organized for the study dare... flomealeacl of crop raising and animal husbandry. Indeed, she de- mid-meme. cleared, women’s work, home- . craft and motherhood, was much more important than uxx-azmq the work of men. In Febru- hyx:e ary, 1897, at Stoney Creek, .— _ ,1 the first Women’s Institute _ .__ was organized with Mrs. l , Hoodless as honorary president. She chose the motto, For Home and Country, used by thousands of Institutes in many countries today. Mrs. Hoodless’ next problem was to provide trained home economists for schools need- ing teachers and for Insti- tutes asking for extension ser- vice. With a donation from THE BIRTHPLACE OF THE FOUNDER OF Lord Strathcona, she had ,. opened the .School of Domes- WOMENS’ INSTITUTES tic Science and Art in con- we“. nection with the Hamilton my YWCA, of which she was president. She wanted to a“, . ST. GEORGE, ONTARIO BRANT COUNTY move this school to a perm- anent location at the Ontario Agricultural College and per- suaded Sir William MacDon- ald of Montreal to provide the building for MacDonald In- stitute at Guelph. Finally, she launched a campaign in 1910 for a school at university level in Toronto. *lf—‘Iu4N While making the keynote speech that began the campaign, she suffered a heart attack and died a few min- utes later. But her pioneer work led to the founding of the Department of Household Science at the University of Toronto. In a life devoted to further- ing the interests of women, Mrs. Hoodless had a part in founding the YWCA in Can- ada, the National Council of Women and the Victorian Order of Nurses. But her most enduring contribution was the Women’s Institute, devoted to the continuing edu- cation of women “in the im- provement of the home from the physical, intellectual and standpoints”. cultural .

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