Dossier f74 - Powell, Mabel

File consists of a recording of Mabel Powell. Topics of the conversation include residence in family home buiIt by grandfather (1860s). Early widowhood of mother, grandmother; educated mother's successful efforts to further children's education. Father's amiable position as CPR conductor (Prescott to Ottawa) in heyday of travel by rail; strong political appetite, whetted by acquaintance with political passengers. Teaching career adopted by subject, subject's sisters. Moderns and History BA programme (Queen's); outstanding professors Campbell, MacGillivray, Morrison, McNeill. Ambition to attend Queen's Faculty of Education programme, barred by age (under 19); acceptance of mysterious offer from Congregational nuns, Ottawa, to pass time by tutoring final year students, while undertaking personal study of painting, music. Attendance Faculty of Ed.; desire to enrol in BA programme, prompted by envy of student environment. Enrolment with elder sister, supported by mother despite financial drain; living-in, boarding-out arrangements (Brock St.); financial impossibility of post-graduate study. Participation of Queen's students in WWI: enlistment of all eligible men; employment of women knitting, rolling bandages,etc.; feeling that campus women's efforts exceeded those of civilian counterparts. Pressure on men to enIist; sympathy of women for fighting men; shock of death reports, often seemingly immediate. Lack of resentment felt towards WWII; local concern to aid Britain as part of the Empire: absence of pacifism, political objection. Teaching career, 1917-23; enjoyment of Stirling, dislike of Trenton; Trenton as a railway town, breeding children without academic ambition. Application to Goderich Collegiate, employment 1923-53; decision to specialise in French, prompted by principal's abolition of German Dept. preceding WWII; year in Paris, 1936-37, to upgrade qualifications. Conversational French classes (Alliance Française) with cultural outings, Paris: year's study, Sorbonne. Premonitions of war in France; anxiety in both Queen's and Sorbonne situations lest programme be halted because of war. Cultured aspect of Paris boarding house: tapestried living-room, leather-bound library (alice blue with silver embroidery), grand piano played by wife in style of dress attuned to music. Paris trip as subject's first venture abroad, despite frequent travel in Canada; elegant ship travel New York to Paris. Premature retirement to Prescott (1953) to keep company with sister. Affection during school years for classmate Charlotte Whitton; Whitton's assurance of her own intelligence, expectation of tribute to it, as her final undoing; portrait as a strong, aggressive student, resented by some as overbearing.//Whitton's poor behaviour at 50th class reunion, 1967 (previous statement to class committee that as most outstanding graduate, she should lead festivities; defeat in favour of class President; petty annoyance displayed throughout evening); reel of supposedly humorous after-dinner anecdotes, venomously aimed at class members; subject's hurt as victim of 'Catholic' barbs (religious division in Whitton family as perhaps bearing on behaviour), feeling that Charlotte had changed, that this was beneath her. Development of Charlotte's interest in social problems as secretary to local Cabinet member; role as delegate (often chairman) to international committee meetings on children's status, held in Switzerland. Subject's encounter with Greek embassy official in Paris, previously acquainted with Whitton as UN delegate in Switzerland; fascinated assessment of Whitton as 'without doubt the cleverest person I have ever met' regarding constitutional arrangements for children's benefits. Whitton's justified sense of pride, change for the worse in social behaviour: experience as Ottawa mayor, lack of caring domestic relationships, falling-off in close friendships as possible reasons why. Whitton's close friendship (unindentified) with similar personality at Queen's. Subject's fortunate scholarly bent towards teaching; teaching as sole career option at time of graduation.