File f100 - Wallbridge, Ruth C.

File consists of a recording of Ruth Wallbridge. Topics of the conversation include subject as Queen's student c.1910. Family background: Wallbridge home, farm, tenant houses; raising hops. Parents' early deaths; adoption of subject by aunt, uncle. Education of mother, aunt (Albert College, Belleville); mother's desire for daughter's education. Influence of strong-willed grandmother. Carpenter uncle's farm inheritance, separation from wife unwilling to do farm-wife's work. Accident in family home causing fire: subject rescued by grandmother, goods saved by quick-witted schoolmaster's student rescue­team. Residence in Kingston YWCA. Uncle's offer to pay subject if she would stay home; working fruit business at home for 10 years, finishing degree with extramural courses. Uncle's death; farm rental, division of house with tenants; tenant problems. Subject's poems, literary interests; poem addressed to Flora MacDonald, 'an ideal person that I would certainly like to see as leader of our country'. Elderly people's reading difficulties. Subject's opinion of women's lib movement; personal happiness sharing single life with a female friend; importance of independent role choice; admiration for grandmother as dominant, fulfilled wife and homemaker. Pressure on women to attract men; desirability of bridal state, inability of many women to see farther. Happy inclusion of subject and friend Marie in brother's extended family. Interest in Christian Children's Fund of Canada. Dislike of urban standard-of-living pressures; sympathy for Margaret Trudeau. Interviewer's account of Flora MacDonald. Identification with rural life, rejected option of marrying city lawyer. Opinion that money should be spent on something more meaningful than attractive clothes or furniture.