Our foremothers, on Mother's Day

I was in North Ontario last week at a memorial service for my Aunt Babe, who died of pneumonia this winter, at the age of 90.  Aunt Babe was very active in the local Presbyterian church  - the same one her father, a stonemason from Scotland, had cut the stone for when he first came to Canada - throughout her life. Although she did not force her views on anyone, I had always assumed that she was quietly conservative.  That is, I assumed she believed in traditional gender roles, as I would expect a Presbyterian lady of her generation to do.

It turns out I should have talked to her more.  At the memorial service I learned that she had trained as a nurse at Western, worked as a hospital and public health nurse until my cousin was born, and later ran volunteer services at the hospital in North Bay for many years.  She was one of the two women first elected to the Board of Elders at her church, and eventually served for years as the Clerk of Sessions.  While on the Board and running volunteer services she worked tirelessly to promote women to positions of influence and authority, and believed that women ought to be taking more of a leadership role in the church and the community.  She was quiet because she was a doer, not a talker, and thought she could do more by arranging to find positions for women than she could by arguing about it.

But she was ferociously Christian too.  And I realise as I write this that I am the one that is assuming, still, that she should have felt tension between her Christianity and her work to promote women's efforts in the church and the professions.  She doesn't seem to have done so.  She seems, judging from her actions, to have believed that the Holy Spirit animates us all, male and female, and that all our contributions are of value to God.

Of course I believe that too; but I thought that was my generation that believed it.  Now, once again, I realise that all the advances my generation has made in the position of women in church and society have been made because the women who came before us quietly did their best to promote women's causes, sometimes by argument, but more often, like my Aunt Babe, by influence, example, and the occasional word to a niece that should have been listening harder.

So on Mother's Day, I want to salute all of our mothers, and grandmothers, and aunts, all the women who went before us and worked so hard to make the world a better place for all their daughters.  You succeeded, and we will carry on your work.  Thanks, Aunt Babe.  And thank you, all of you.