An author, retired minister and lifelong volunteer with family roots here has received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal.
Dr. Donna Mann received the medal at a ceremony recently at the military base near Meaford.
The medal recognizes the work done by Mann to promote the life of Agnes Macphail the first woman elected to Canada’s Parliament in 1921. The work has resulted in the renaming of Highway 9 between Highway 6 and Highway 10 in Southgate in Grey County to Agnes Macphail Road.
Mann was also instrumental in the creation of a cairn marking the original homestead of the Macphail family before they moved to Ceylon near Flesherton.
As a federal Member of Parliament, Macphail served until she was defeated in the election in 1940. She was again elected to the Ontario legislature in 1943 until she lost her seat in 1945.
She was also the first woman appointed a member of a Canadian delegation to the League of Nations, the forerunner to the United Nations, where she served on the Disarmament Committee.
Macphail began as a country school teacher and was active in the Ontario agricultural co-operative movements and the United Farmers of Ontario. She entered politics to represent farmers in her area.
As an MP she first sat as a member of the Progressive Party with which the UFO was affiliated. She later sat as an independent and finally as a representative of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). As an MPP she represented the CCF.
Macphail supported issues like prison reform, disarmament, international cooperation and old age pensions, and she founded the Elizabeth Fry Society of Canada, a group working with and for women in the justice system.
Mann set a goal of 10 years to accomplish work related to bringing Macphail’s life to the forefront. The work also included two books published about her life. A third book has been completed and is expected to by published soon.
Dr. Mann said she was honoured to receive the medal along with 20 other recipients, both military and civilian at the Aug. 28 ceremony.
“I wanted to heighten the awareness of her,” Mann said. “Agnes Macphail was huge in giving people a voice or speaking for them. She wouldn’t take them for granted.”
Since receiving her medal, she has been getting email inquiries about Macphail’s life and accomplishments.
“It’s been overwhelming. For the first week my inbox was just full,” Dr. Mann said of her continuing effort to spread the word about Macphail.
“This was the kind of outcome I was hoping for.”
The ceremony and presentation of the medal, certificate and a pin to be worn out in public left her “speechless.”
“I was just in tears, I could not have spoken.”
Mann has served as a minister in Durham and Mount Forest before retiring in 2004. She and her husband Doug moved to Elora about two years ago, purchasing a house beside the home her grandparents once owned.
She was raised on a farm near Elora and attended school in the community.
The doctor said she is considering writing another book on a local, well-known female, but declined to say who the subject of the book will be.
