IN INTRODUCING MISS PLAYFAIR to Hartney through the pages of his paper,
Walpole Murdoch spoke of her was a college trained woman, and a close
observer of human nature who was fond of books, music, art and
religion. He stated that she as an accomplished Bible teacher and that
she was one of the fortunate few who had found work that she loved in
the editing of a weekly newspaper.
Miss Playfair’s own account of her reaction to her new home in an
editorial of August 1911 stated: “We like to show visitors about the
town and listen to the exclamation of pleasure which the sight of trees
and houses calls forth. We point to beautiful residences with pride; we
praise the well-kept lawns and the flowers around the more humble
dwellings. We lead the way to the southern edge of the park to show
them the live hundred trees already planted and tell them that the
profusion of flowers, the cinder paths and the new green of the grass
plots are but the beginning of things.
Miss Playfair, a grey-eyed woman of five feet seven inches, was to be
seen in her office or on the street in a strictly tailored suit, a
stiff-collared white shirtwaist and black tie that gave her the
masculine appearance that she thought necessary for a woman who had to
meet businessmen on their own ground. Her hat was a plain straw or
felt, although frequently when on the ordinary business of collecting
news or soliciting advertising, she wore none. Her dark brown hair,
plainly arranged, was inclined to escape from confining pins in soft
tendrils about her face, but this she tried to prevent as giving
her a less than business-like appearance. Her voice of low-pitched
timbre had been trained for public speaking and had a depth of tone
that the Hartney people at first found peculiar, but to which they
became accustomed. Her tailored appearance and deep voice, as well as
her business ability, aroused disquiet among those who disliked the
unusual.
Miss Playfair had a strong character and decided opinions, especially
on questions of education, morality and religion, and expressed them
forcefully through her newspaper.
The time is past,” she said, “for the idea that unless a youth aspires
to professional status a good education in not necessary. Today it is
an essential for good citizenship and business life, and it is the duty
of all to see that no child of average intelligence and strength shall
leave school without matriculation standing. With a good general
education a youth can afford to let the future decide whether he shall
be a farmer, a tradesman or a professional man, guided by his own taste
and ability. These is a feeling that advanced learning is of no benefit
to a farmer, that it may even train him away from the farm, but in
reality educational influences are doing much to make farm life
attractive.”
As a strict Methodist, Miss Playfair was opposed to dancing, card
playing and all games of chance and held rigid standard of decorous
behaviour.
Miss Playfair had rooms in the Lewis building and took her meals at
Miss Hopkins’ boarding-house. In her rooms she had well-stocked
bookcases and a splendid collection of
phonograph records and she was generous in sharing the joys of both
with her friends
When a Home Economics Society was formed in Hartney in 1913, Miss
Playfair was its first secretary, was active on its board of directors
and spoke on various themes at its meetings. By March 1914 there were
55 women on the membership list, 30 who lived in the town and 25 from
the various surrounding farming districts. The motto of the society,
“For Home and Country,” found expression in a variety of projects. The
Home Economics Society persuaded the town council to give more
attention to beautifying the cemetery and urged it to provide a
rest-room for visitors to the town. It arranged for experts from the
Department of Agriculture to conduct classes in cooking, canning,
sewing, in the convenient and attractive arrangement of kitchens and
living rooms and, in later years, to give instruction in the fashioning
of purses, belts and other leather goods. The women of the Home
Economics Society used their influence in the struggle to obtain the
franchise for their sex in the years before 1917, when women were for
the first time allowed to vote.
She left in 1923 and accepted an assignment for the CNR to visit
England and encourage immigrants to Canada under their colonization
scheme.
She had left also in 1921 to attend Northwestern Bible School in
Minneapolis for several years of study and made her home in Winnipeg
and undertook preparation of a textbook of Bible study in the writing
of which she was engaged when she died in 1947.
Adapted from The Mere Living
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