Transcript

File: chappellella06-oh-womensinsitute_M.mp3

Speakers:

EC – Ella Thomson Chappell

KP – Curator Ken Perlman

EC: There was the Women's Institute. Well you see, the men had to take them in the winter time.

KP: Tell me a little bit about the women’s Institute.

EC: They made money for the community, and doin’ things – And for the school, they used to do a lot of things for the school, and they'd have their meetings at night. And then the men would have to go, and the men would sit out in the kitchen, and they just had a great time out in the kitchen talking, and then the ladies made lunch for them all. So the men enjoyed goin' to the Institute.

KP: So the Institute would be held in one person’s house?

EC: Yes, one person would have it one month; it was once a month. And then another house…

KP: So the women would be in room talking about the institute, and the men would be in the other laughing and joking?

EC: And they called it the parlor. The women were in the front in the parlor, but the men enjoyed themselves out ‘cause they had just a great evening at talkin'. They'd be talking about their farms, and talkin' about their cattle. But they had no trouble to keep up a conversation.

KP: And the women would be planning various activities?

EC: Yes, what they could do. And then they'd always have a program, a book of something, that they'd learn perhaps something about gardening or something about different things like that. They'd read a paper on it and it would come out from the Head Office, which was always good. And then it would tell about the Woman's Institute. And where it started first it was in Stoney Creek, Ontario, That’s where the Women’s Institute [started], and now it's world over.