Donna Mann is an author on a mission.
With the recent release of her second book about Agnes Macphail, Aggie’s Dream, the first woman elected to Canada’s House of Commons, Mann gives readers the second installment in a trilogy capturing Macphail’s early life in rural Grey County and experiences that shaped Macphail’s character and her famed, no-nonsense approach to politics and important issues of the day.
Mann has crafted Aggie’s Storm and now Aggie’s Dream in a way that puts the reader squarely in touch with the times in the first decade of the last century.
It was a labour of love for Mann, who was raised on a farm near Elora and experienced rural life much like Macphail, who was raised on a farm in Proton Township.
The book follows Macphail, in her mid-teens, from the family farm near Ceylon via train to city life in Owen Sound, attending Owen Sound Collegiate. It describes the trepidation Macphail felt about leaving her rural life for the city and her fears and concerns about what life in Owen Sound would be like.
But it also shows a growing determination that was the hallmark of Macphail’s life to push ahead to new goals and objectives.
“I think she realized she had a dream and she wanted to realize that dream. She wanted to make it happen,” Mann, a retired minister, said in a recent interview at a Mount Forest coffee shop.
In Owen Sound, Macphail experienced city life with its good and bad. She saw how Japanese and other immigrants from far-off lands were treated as they attempted to make a home for themselves and their families in Canada. She noticed the different attitudes of life of those raised in urban settings and those from agricultural roots. As Mann described it, it was the way of life in the early 1900s.
The story of Aggie’s Dream takes readers along the trials and tribulations of what a young woman experienced at a time when women did not have official standing in society and were not yet allowed to vote.
Having the opportunity to attend high school in Owen Sound, Macphail took advantage of what the school had to offer, joining the literary and debate club, working tenaciously at her studies, playing Sports, and making friends with city and farm folk.
Mann has managed to compile her first two books on Macphail through extensive research and by stories handed down by people over the years. She credits the closest living relative of Macphail, Jean Clunes, a niece, for imparting stories that have woven their way into both books.
Mann’s purpose with the books was to show how Macphail learned and grew from her early experiences, which would eventually take her into politics – first at the federal level and later in the Ontario legislature. As a politician, Macphail was well known for championing agricultural causes, women’s rights, equality, peace, and prison reform.
Mann was also instrumental in the renaming of Grey County Road 9, near where the original Macphail farm was, to the Agnes Macphail Road.
Mann believes it is essential to preserve the history of Macphail’s accomplishments and to pass it along to new generations.
“She was the only woman in the House of Commons for 13 years,” Mann said of the woman she describes as being fair, truthful in her convictions, and taking up causes with integrity.
Mann is working hard on the third book, which will consider Macphail’s graduating from teacher’s college and teaching.
She has no plans for a book about Macphail’s political career, which has already been well documented.
Aggie’s Dream is a must read for whatever age group.
Ask the local bookstore for Aggie’s Storm and Aggie’s Dream, published by Brucedale Press, or contact www.donnamann.org/books.html.
