Roxborough Apartments, Ottawa
December 19, 1917
Grumpily, King paid the driver, arranged his baggage, and entered the Roxborough. He willed himself to change his disgruntled look to one of joyful homecoming. The Laurier Liberals had lost the election. The Liberal Party had split on the conscription issue. King had stayed with Laurier, stayed with the Liberals and the anti-conscription stance that ensured their loss. Borden and the Conservatives had used the Wartime Elections Act to pump up the pro-conscription vote and entered the House to form a coalition government with the Union Liberals.
December 17, 1917 – Election Day. King would never forget it. What a way to spend his birthday!
The day after, he’d telephoned to let Mother, and Jennie, who was looking after her in Ottawa, hear the news from his own lips. He’d wished he had something more cheerful to tell them – Mother deserved to hear only good news.
Resolved to show his best face, he turned the door handle.
“Hello! Mother! I’m home!” he boomed.
Jennie came to the door. King immediately noticed the dark circles under her eyes.
He saw Nurse Petrie scuttling quickly away, carrying what appeared to be a box. Something was wrong.
King smelled the air. The heavy sickroom smell was still about – but it had changed. There was a melancholy note missing and a curiously, unidentifiably upsetting one in its place.
Something was very wrong. King charged towards his mother’s bedroom, but Jennie stopped him.
“Mother?”
“She’s… gone.”
“When, Jennie, when?”
“The day after the election.”
King crumpled with grief. Bella, Father, Mother One man can suffer immeasurably.
5
Nothing Will Be Impossible Unto You
Liberal Convention
Landsdowne Park, Ottawa
August 7, 1919
“I would like to borrow some poetic words of Tennyson to pay some slight tribute to the memory of our great and dearly beloved leader, Sir Wilfrid Laurier.”
Excitement coursed through King like electricity. His face was shining like the sun. On the podium King was perfectly placed. In a large photograph on the wall behind him, Laurier, the recently deceased party leader, smiled with benevolent serenity. King’s future was in the hands of the Liberal convention-goers before him. He was close to capturing the finest feather yet for his cap: leadership of a national party and the distinction of being the first leader to be elected at a national convention rather than selected by an elite group of peers.
“This is a great favourite of mine,” King wrote of this photo of himself taken during the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation celebration, July 1, 1927. “Hands and expression, position, uniform and all. Beautiful!”
King addressed the delegates as a strong man, only forty-four and eager to rebuild the party and bring the Liberal platform to the nation. He tried to convince the delegates that he could meld together the old and new to bring the party to triumph. Although a faithful Laurier Liberal, he was nonetheless prepared to welcome the Union Liberals back to the party and heal the deep schisms caused by wartime conscription. He would even extend the hand of friendship to members of the new parties – the Progressives and the United Farmers who could be persuaded to support the Liberal cause. His words of peace soothed the ears of the postwar audience.
King promised to seek harmony across the Dominion by finding commonality in the tariff, freight rates, and other problems now separating the agricultural west and industrial east. And who better than King the Conciliator to invite labour, community, and industry to the table to frame the future? Problems that had surfaced in the Winnipeg General Strike could not be ignored. King was ready to consider new solutions, even those being spoken about by a growing Left – solutions such as old age pensions.
Under his leadership the Liberal party would stand tall in the world. King had developed important American bonds, which could help develop Canadian interests south of the border. His experience overseas and in Britain left him eager to see Canada counted in the international community. At the last words of his speech, a tumultuous demonstration erupted. The throng of Liberal convention goers was on its feet, applauding madly.
King took his seat, feeling so near his goal that he fairly trembled. He remembered his morning reading in the inspirational book Bella had given him. Emerson’s words had prophesied, “Nothing will be impossible unto you. So nigh is grandeur to our dust. So near is God to man. When Duty whispers low, Thou must,’ Youth replies, ‘I can.’”
He dared to breathe more calmly, feeling that somehow all the others gone on before – Father, Mother, dear Bella, and even Grandfather – were close at hand. Soon the call of God would be answered and the struggle of the common people would be his fight as never before. When the votes were tallied, Laurier’s mantle would fall on him.
Laurier House, Ottawa
December 6, 1921
“Oh Rex, you shouldn’t have!” Joan Patteson exclaimed. Older than her friend by four years, Joan was fifty-something and wore a stylish yet matronly coiffure. Her brown eyes glowed as she read aloud the inscription on the delicate bracelet.
“To M.J.P. from W.L.M.K
A strength was in us from the vision
The Campaign of 1921.”
“I hardly deserve this,” Patteson protested, handing the bracelet over for her husband, Godfroy, to inspect.
“Oh my yes,” King disagreed gently. He had met Joan and her bank-manager husband several years before, when they were neighbours in the Roxborough Apartments. Their friendship had deepened over literary discussions, hymn sings, rambles at Kingsmere, and quiet evenings like this one. The Pattesons always welcomed him, Joan in particular. Her warm smile, fine mind, and lovely Christian character were much like Mothers, King had discovered. She knew how much he had suffered from the loss of Mother and how Max’s latest illness tormented him with worry. Joan had lost a young daughter, Nancy, and knew more about her friend’s pain than what he could express.
Over the last few weeks of campaigning, the Pattesons’ support had been uplifting. Yesterday’s flowers, which had greeted him cheerfully when he arrived home, were only one of Joan’s thoughtful gestures.
“After we hear the results on the radio, what is the first thing you will do as prime minister, Rex?” Godfroy queried.
“If I should be prime minister the course of my actions will be decided by Parliament and the people,” King answered gravely. “But I know what I shall do when this campaign is over.”
“Go to Colorado?” Joan guessed softly.
“Yes,” King replied. No more was said. Everyone in the room knew that Max now had muscular dystrophy and it was choking the life out of him. Their next visit, King knew, could be their last. Bella, Father, Mother, and perhaps Max. King’s dreams of being prime minister might soon be met, but who was to share his worries about his strains and stresses? Sister Jennie had trials of her own. Who was to help him measure up to the task of being the most important person in the Dominion of Canada?
The radio crackled alive. The news it would bring