Woman of the World: Mary McGeachy and International Cooperation 9781442683532

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue: 1940
1. Sarnia
2. Student Days
3. Geneva
4. Visitor from Geneva
5. Economic Warfare
6. Erwin Schuller
7. UNRRA
8. Family Affairs
9. The International Council of Women
10. Religion and Recognition
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Illustration Credits
Index

Citation preview

WOMAN OF THE WORLD

Mary McGeachy and International Cooperation

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WOMAN OF THE WORLD Mary McGeachy and International Cooperation

Mary Kinnear

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

www.utppublishing.com University of Toronto Press Incorporated 2004 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 0-8020-8988-7

Printed on acid-free paper

National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Kinnear, Mary, 1942Woman of the world : Mary McGeachy and international cooperation / Mary Kinnear. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8020-8988-7 i. McGeachy, Mary, 1901—1991. 2. United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration - Biography. 3. International Council of Women - Biography. I. Title. Fc6o1.M235k56 2004

361.2'6'o92

C2003-907030-1

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP). This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Contents

Acknowledgments

vii

Prologue: 1940

3

1 Sarnia

i2

2 Student Days 3 Geneva

27

50

4 Visitor from Geneva

78

5 Economic Warfare

101

6 Erwin Schuller 7 UNRRA

126

147

8 Family Affairs

178

9 The International Council of Women 10 Religion and Recognition Epilogue Notes

251

261

Bibliography

305

Illustration Credits Index

319

317

234

209

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Acknowledgments

I am happy to thank the people who have helped me with Woman of the World: Mary McGeachy and International Cooperation. I first saw a reference to McGeachy in the late 1980s, in an article on peace-making women in Canada, 1919-39. The next time I came across her name was in 1996. I was planning a research project on inter-war feminism as a comparative study of English-speaking feminists in Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. Curious about suffragists' activities after the vote was won, I found my attention, like theirs, drawn to peace and the international arena. In a journal footnote, I discovered a 1992 Oxford D.Phil, thesis, Carol Miller's 'Lobbying the League.' Miller's vivid analysis of women's international organizations at the League of Nations in the 19305 introduced a fascinating subject and arresting characters, among whom was a League employee, a Canadian woman named Mary Craig McGeachy. Inter-war feminists disagreed on many issues, but on peace they were united. Not all were in favour of the League of Nations, but even the doubters were reluctant to jettison the single hope for international collective security. I started to focus more on the League and its meaning for feminists. I had the good fortune to meet scholars who shared their knowledge with great generosity. Carol Miller told me what she knew about the sources for McGeachy's League career and drew my attention to an archive of personal papers then in the care of McGeachy's daughter, Janet Holmes. It was when Janet let me see the papers and shared with me memories about her mother, that I was encouraged to prepare a biography. Cheering from the sidelines was the Australian novelist Frank Moorhouse, who had met McGeachy towards the end of her life. With-

viii Acknowledgments

out help and encouragement from Carol Miller, Frank Moorhouse, and, above all, Janet Holmes, I could not have written this book. I am grateful to Janet and her husband for insights into McGeachy's character and for their help in putting me in touch with family members, friends, and acquaintances. My thanks to the McGeachy relatives: Peter and Margaret Macleod, Wendy and Jim McDonald, Bill McGeachy, Don McGeachy, John and Barbara McGeachy, Neil and Jane McGeachy, Sandy and Peachy McGeachy, and David and Anne-Marie Warburton. Thanks also to the relatives of McGeachy's husband, Erwin Schuller, especially Erwin's nephew Andrew Schuller. He smoothed the way for me with Marjorie Perloff, George Schueller, Gillian Schuller, Herbert and Edith Schueller, and Tom Schuller. I thank McGeachy's acquaintances who shared memories and mementos: John Adams, Simon Bowes Lyon, Catharine Brett Smith, William Childs, Helen Hamilton, Pat Lincoln, Anne Macdonald, Ian McDonald, Iverach McDonald, Gretta Riddell-Dixon, David Stokes, Orley Swartzentruber, Doris Tazelaar, Helen Walker, and Alice Westlake. Archivists, librarians, and scholars in Europe, North America, and South Africa went out of their way to provide assistance, both in person and by e-mail. At the University of Manitoba, Richard Ellis, St John's College Library, Carol Budnick, Elizabeth Dafoe Library, Barbara Bennell and Mary Ann McCuaig of Document Delivery, and Michael Mooseberger and Shelley Sweeney of the University of Manitoba Archives were very helpful. I particularly want to thank Judi Gumming, National Archives of Canada, for her patience and timely help with the McGeachy collection after it was transferred to the National Archives; David Doughan, Fawcett Library, for his help and advice over the years; Els Flour, Women's History Archives in Brussels, for her long-standing help with the International Council of Women archives; and Dominique Marshall, Carleton University, for her advice on the League archives in Geneva and for suggestions regarding Charlotte Whitton. For early chapters on McGeachy's family and education, I thank Jeffrey Beeler, Sarnia Public Library; Donald Carroll and Colin McGugan, West Elgin Genealogical and Historical Society; Marnee Campbell, Lagring Ulanday, and Garron Wells, University of Toronto Archives; Marie Cruickshank, Collingwood Public Library; Michael Davis, Argyll and Bute Council Archives; David Dobson, St Andrew's, Scotland; Catherine Gidney, Queen's University; Gavin Hall, Sarnia Collegiate Institute; Karyn Hogan, Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board; Kathy Imrie and Alison Prentice, Ontario Institute for Studies in Educa-

Acknowledgments

ix

tion; Donald Page, Trinity Western University; Johanne Pelletier, McGill University Archives; Ian Rennie, Ontario Theological Seminary; John Stackhouse, Regent College, Vancouver; Veronica Strong-Boag, University of British Columbia; and Alex Thomson, United Church of Canada Archives, Victoria University in the University of Toronto. For help with material relating to McGeachy's years in Geneva, I thank: S. Bird, National Museum of Labour History, Manchester; Ruth Brouwer, King's College, University of Western Ontario; Suzanne Budeau, York University Archives; Martin Dubin, Northern Illinois University; Jean-Claude Frachebourg, Institut Universitaire de Hautes Etudes Internationales, Geneva; Kenneth Millen-Penn, Fairmont State College, West Virginia; B. Pejovic and Ursula Ruser, United Nations Archives, Geneva; Archie Potts, Newcastle on Tyne; Elizabeth Riddell-Dixon, University of Western Ontario; Martha Smalley, Yale Divinity School; Richard Veatch, University of Winnipeg; and Josette Wenger, University of Geneva Archives. Advice regarding McGeachy's war years in London and Washington came from Norma Aubertin-Potter, All Souls College, Oxford; Rita Bangle, Business and Professional Women's Club, London; Katharine Bligh, House of Lords Record Office; Mary Bone, Royal Institute for International Affairs, Chatham House, London; G.M.C. Bott, University of Reading Archives; Ms Brendon, Churchill College, Cambridge; Victoria Child and Eleanor Vallis, Nuffield College, Oxford; Sue Donnelly, London School of Economics; Katharine Erdmenger, St Antony's College, Oxford; David Francis, University of Portsmouth Archives; Marilla Guptil, United Nations Archives, New York; Henry Hardy, Isaiah Berlin Archives, Wolfson College, Oxford; Svetlanajannett, CARE organization; Helen Langley, Bodleian Library, Oxford; Eleanor Linwood, Public Record Office, London; Duncan McLaren, St Edmund's Hall, Oxford; Geoff Pick, London Metropolitan Archives; Mark Ridley, Oxfordshire County Council Archives; and Raymond Techman, Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York. I am grateful to archivists and scholars of South Africa who gave unstinting help: Carol Archibald, University of the Witwatersrand Archives; Cynthia Botha, Anglican Church of South Africa; Verne Harris, National Archives of South Africa; Sue Krige, University of the Witwatersrand; Jackie Loffell, Johannesburg Child Welfare Society; Shula Marks, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; Germaine Richer, Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa; and Yvonne Thome, National Council of Women of South Africa.

x

Acknowledgments

For help with McGeachy's life in New York and Princeton, I thank Mimi Bowling, New York Public Library; Sara Chilton, Brookings Institution; Don Lundquist, Order of St John Priory in the United States of America; Alexander Magoun, Sarnoff Corporation; and Sophie Tellier, National Archives of Canada. I attempted to discover more about an Irish artist, Gill Lyall, who shared an apartment with McGeachy in Geneva for a while in the 19305, but despite widespread efforts I was unsuccessful. Many thanks to the following who responded with clues: Sighle Breatnach-Lynch, National Gallery, Dublin; Sharon Flescher, International Foundation for Art Research, New York; Althea Greenan, Women's Art Library, London; Janice Helland, Queen's University; Brian Kennedy, Ulster Museum, Belfast; Gifford Lewis of Oxford; Richard Loveday, Victoria and Albert Museum; Jeremy Rex-Parkes, Christie's; and Maime Winters, Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin. I thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the University of Manitoba for research grants, and the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences. I am grateful to the President and Fellows of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, for their hospitality to me as a Life Member in providing study space during a sabbatical leave during 2000-1. Margaret Conrad, Carol Miller, and Michael Kinnear read earlier drafts of the manuscript and provided a multitude of suggestions for improvement. I am grateful to Laura Macleod for her patient and constructive recommendations regarding the text and her help regarding publication. I thank anonymous reviewers for their suggestions. I thank Frances Mundy and Ken Lewis at University of Toronto Press for the copy-editing, and I am delighted that Len Husband so efficiently guided the manuscript to its present form. Many thanks to my colleagues and friends for their encouragement and continuing enthusiasm for McGeachy. I thank particularly Tina Chen, Roisin Cossar, Julie Guard, Brian Harrison, John Kendle, David Macdonald, Karen Ogden, Adele Perry, Anthony Waterman, and Kathryn Young. My most heartfelt appreciation goes to my husband, Michael, who sustained me with help, support, and advice from beginning to end.

WOMAN OF THE WORLD Mary McGeachy and International Cooperation

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Prologue: 1940

In 1940 thousands of people in Europe were on the move. Britain and France were at war with Germany. In May, Hitler defeated the British Army. At the end of the month, over three hundred thousand British and French troops were evacuated from Dunkirk. On 12 June, Italy joined the war on the German side. On 14 June, the Germans occupied Paris. On 22 June the French Third Republic signed an armistice with the Germans. On lojuly, Marshal Petain was installed as head of state, centred on Vichy. The Germans occupied directly the northern half of the country, and the new Vichy government broke off relations with Britain. Refugees from occupied Europe were finding whatever transport they could to avoid the German soldiers. The people of France were making their own arrangements to resist, join British forces and fight, to collaborate with the occupying forces, or to defer taking any decisions at all. Among the vehicles wending their way in and out of German army units as they systematically secured towns and villages on their way south were convoys of private cars and an occasional bus from Geneva. The Geneva passengers were League of Nations workers and their families. They were nationals of Britain and sympathizers who feared being trapped in Switzerland. They were making a dash for Portugal in a bid to get out of the war zone and travel home by sea or air. One of the drivers and guides was a thirty-eight-year-old Canadian woman who worked in the Information Section of the League, Mary Craig McGeachy. In June and July, McGeachy repeatedly packed the families of League officials into her own car and made the journey from Geneva to Bordeaux or Lisbon. At the Atlantic coast, she would put them on a ship for Britain or America, and would then drive back for another load.

4 Woman of the World

Her route carried her between the German and Italian armies. Eventually gasoline got so scarce no more trips could be made.1 Her last journey was on transport organized by the League. Since no trains were running, the League had chartered a bus, which finally set out with all the necessary documents and some hope of getting safely to Lisbon. It was not entirely straightforward for the passengers. Permits for her party of British and American women to cross France had expired, but McGeachy had exit-permits and had booked passage on American ships from Lisbon, and so she was determined to go through.* From one village to the next, as her party passed through a France in disarray, McGeachy could not be sure whether the bus in her charge might be seized by the Nazis. The American women might have been all right, as the United States was not in the war, but the British might have been interned - to say the least. So they followed one country road after another, bounced and jostled their way into Spain, then on to Lisbon. Now and then the bus was stopped by French officers who looked a little dubiously at the expired permits but always let them go on. In Canada, McGeachy's home-town newspaper told the story. 'She doesn't admit to a special talent for diplomacy but she is an attractive and persuasive woman - and there's proof of it.'3 According to a League colleague, McGeachy was 'magnificent,' and her charges were 'the first group of people after the collapse of France to reach Lisbon more alive than dead.'4 These employees of the League of Nations had waited until the last minute to leave Geneva. Hundreds more had left earlier. Just as the political situation in France was fraught with confusion, so was the internal administration at the Palais des Nations, headquarters of the League in Geneva. After the war started, the chief of the Financial Section and Economic Intelligence Service, an Englishman called Alexander Loveday, observed with disgust and concern the increasingly anti-British behaviour of the secretary-general, the Frenchman Joseph Avenol. Loveday feared that Switzerland could be drawn into the war, but even if neutrality was maintained, communications across enemy territory from landlocked Switzerland, surrounded by countries directly or indirectly ruled by Hitler, might be cut. He wanted the League to continue to operate its financial and economic technical services during the war, and thought it was important for staff to be transferred to safety somewhere across the Atlantic/' In April 1939, Loveday had addressed questions to Avenol regarding the League's survival. When no response was forthcoming, Loveday put

Prologue: 1940

5

questions to the deputy secretary-general, the Irishman Sean Lester. In an organization which employed people of different nationalities, many of whose home countries would likely soon be at war, there would inevitably be serious practical problems for the employees, such as how to dispose of property, how to travel out of Switzerland, and how to get new jobs. How would the personal security of members be ensured? How would any evacuation be arranged, and by whom?" After the German advance in the spring of 1940, the secretary-general finally issued a note to the staff. The headquarters of the Secretariat, he said on 10 May, would remain in Geneva. Members of staff were free to 'ask for the suspension of their contracts' or resign. The difference between suspension and resignation was not made clear. As for travel arrangements, the administration would provide travel expenses for families of officials remaining in Geneva and, as well, would pay for officials and families who were quitting the League to travel to their home countries or 'other approved destination.' But the League would not take any responsibility for organizing travel.7 Five days later, Avenol changed his mind. He 'electrified the directors' meeting by saying that the Secretariat should move at once to Vichy,' in accordance with a prior plan in the event of invasion - although his abrupt announcement took everyone by surprise.8 He accompanied this decision with a plan concerning the continued operation of the League. Within two days, Avenol changed his mind again. He reversed the planned move to France. Firmly opposed to a transfer to the United States, he started to insist that the League move nowhere. His close colleagues were alarmed at the unreliability of his fluctuating decisions and moods, and his increasingly vocal hostility to Britain. When the Germans were approaching Paris, Avenol thought the war was about over, and the League should 'work hand in hand with Hitler in order to achieve the unity of Europe and expel England' from Europe. 'The British stink in the nostrils of the world,' he said.9 He asked a small committee at the League to take stock of the situation and propose measures of reorganization for carrying on whatever work was possible. By this time, more employees had quit and the Secretariat staff was dramatically reduced to one-third of its 1928 numbers."' The committee reported on 31 May. The committee, chaired by Sean Lester, reasonably concluded that it would be unwise, if not indeed impossible, to make any plans for more than a month ahead. Most of the League's services were completely disorganized. Some departments had lost well over half of their officials and frequently go per cent of their clerical staff. The committee went

6 Woman of the World

through all the remaining staff, person by person, recommending what their responsibilities would be for the coming month. In McGeachy's department, the Information Section had been reduced to five officials from a more normal complement of forty-eight. 'The best solution for the moment would be to charge Miss McGeachy with such current work as can be performed in the present circumstances.' She was placed 'temporarily in charge of Section.'" McGeachy had remained in Geneva while hundreds of League staff had found other work, especially during the previous couple of years. By 1940 the League of Nations could not be described as an organization which lived up to its original ideal: to require disputes between any two nations to be settled by the arbitration, mediation, or conference of others. Successive crises of international relations led to much questioning about the value of maintaining the League at Geneva at all. During the 19305 the League was helpless to stop aggression in Manchuria and Ethiopia and had no success in bringing about disarmament. Increasingly the League had trouble with its budget. Many member states did not keep up their contributions, and as a result positions were frequently cut for financial reasons. The Munich agreement of 1938 produced a crisis of further demoralization. Many League officials believed Hitler had to be stopped, not accommodated, in his moves to dominate Europe. Yet the secretarygeneral of the League was doing his best to position the League as an ally of Germany and other fascist leaders. In disagreement with this appeasement policy, Avenol's assistant quit in October 1938." Others left for employment with their own home governments. After war was declared, many League staff volunteered for war service. Nevertheless, hundreds remained in Geneva, continuing to perform their jobs in the newly opened buildings of the Palais des Nations. Mary McGeachy wrote to Cairine Wilson, first woman appointed to the Canadian Senate, about the difficulties. Staff departures meant emotional as well as material hardship. 'There is something rather special about this service in which people had worked together away from their own countries and for ends not material nor immediate of realization. It has made partings very hard indeed.' 13 The atmosphere was jumpy. Nervous letters passed from residents to their friends. A woman in the network of women's international organizations who worked in Geneva wrote to a colleague in London in the spring of 1940: 'We British and French have been notified to hold

Prologue: 1940 7

ourselves ready to evacuate at a moment's notice. The Americans have been asked by their authorities to leave Europe as soon as possible. There is no panic in Geneva, but there is of course much uneasiness and rumours are as always on these occasions very prevalent... We have our haversacks and handbags ready and so can move out when we receive word to do so.'14 Amid the practical problems of evacuating League staff from Geneva, McGeachy had to apply herself to the day-to-day difficulties of getting rid of her personal property. She had to deal with the League bureaucracy and ensure she received all the benefits she had earned as an official with eleven years seniority. She had to negotiate for a new job, even when she could not always be sure of a contact address. The events of June and July 1940 provided a sad end for those drawn to the adventure and idealism of a League of Nations which would substitute civilized negotiation for the barbarism of war. Travelling like a refugee or an escaped prisoner across what was rapidly becoming enemy territory, McGeachy had to acknowledge that the League ideal appeared dead. But war offered prospects for another sort of public service, and she was quick to make her own opportunities. On 25 July the sharp political polarity in Geneva was brought to a head when Joseph Avenol resigned as secretary-general. Sean Lester was appointed the new secretary-general. While Lester was to remain in Geneva during the war, Loveday's hope of a transfer to the United States materialized. His Economic Intelligence Service arranged to move to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Along with many others, McGeachy hoped that the League would be reborn after the war, and she wanted to be involved again. 'What would be nicest,' she wrote to Lester on 26 July, 'would be to be needed in the new League set up.'' 5 McGeachy was always receptive to ideals of international cooperation. It was the organizing theme of her life. The summer of 1940 was not the best time to pursue that vision; or, rather, McGeachy considered that if there was any prospect for international cooperation in the future, Hitler must first be defeated. She wished to be part of the war effort. While she was ferrying families across France, she was simultaneously negotiating for a position in Britain's new Ministry of Economic Warfare. At the Hotel Sintra outside Lisbon, telegrams went back and forth. 'Can offer you immediately a post in parliamentary and press section,

8

Woman of the World

Ministry of Economic Warfare, with salary 480 pounds,' read one addressed to McGeachy before she left Geneva. It was signed D. Bowes Lyon. Added was the name by which she knew him, 'Whiskers.'"' (David Bowes Lyon, brother of the Queen of England, had a moustache.) A month later, the director of the Ministry of Economic Warfare, Sir Frederick Leith Ross, confirmed the offer to McGeachy in Lisbon. McGeachy was wanting to work for the British, but in North America. 'In view of your American contacts I think it would be most useful if you could come here for a few months to acquire fuller knowledge of our position and policies and then go to America for our publicity work but this should not be arranged without consultation with our Embassy Washington to whom I am cabling. Would you prefer to wait till we hear their reaction or would you risk it and come along at once. 1 ' 7 She wrote to Lester that her less attractive alternative was to 'direct my path towards home.'18 But Canada in the summer of 1940 could not exert the same appeal as the centre of the war effort. McGeachy's journey to London was almost as complicated, if not as dangerous, as the journey from Geneva to Portugal. She arrived in Lisbon on 8 July and went to stay in Sintra, the historical summer capital of the Portuguese royal family. As far as the League's personnel department was concerned, she was planning to return on leave to Canada. While negotiating with the British, she also made enquiries about sailing across the Atlantic. American shipping companies were accepting only customers with U.S. passports. She turned therefore to smaller companies and was able to make a provisional reservation for 8 August.'9 Obliged to wait in Sintra, she was able to sort out the British offer of a job. Then matters moved quickly. She was given 'a priority on the aeroplane' and was flown to London on 4 August.20 From 1940 to January 1944, McGeachy worked for the British Ministry of Economic Warfare. She was sent first to work in public relations in the United States, where Americans were reluctant to be drawn into what many saw as a European conflict with little bearing on U.S. interests. After the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor precipitated the United States into the war, McGeachy became mainly involved with post-war planning. Her abilities were recognized by her appointment, in 1942, as first secretary in the British Embassy in Washington, the first woman to be given official British diplomatic rank. In 1944 the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration was established as an emergency organization to relieve suffering and begin reconstruction in the anticipated peace. Part of its mandate was to provide staff with the training to deal with the hundreds of thousands

Prologue: 1940

9

of uprooted and desperate people involved in the massive dislocations which occurred on a much greater scale than in the summer of 1940. Between 1944 and 1946, McGeachy was director of welfare for UNRRA, where she was the only woman at the top executive level. She had responsibility for displaced persons, the brutalized prisoners, forced labourers, and refugees liberated by the ending of the war. Later they were described as people who 'pushed, screamed, clawed for food, smelled bad, who couldn't and didn't want to obey orders, who sat with dull faces and vacant staring eyes in a cellar, or concentration camp barrack, or within a primitive cave, and refused to come out' when commanded by soldiers.21 McGeachy's job stretched her administrative and technical skills, and again she contributed to the kind of practical international cooperation which she saw as part of the League of Nations ideal. UNRRA handed over its social and economic work to the new United Nations in 1946, and McGeachy did not work for pay again. She married in her mid-forties and turned to volunteer work. As president of the International Council of Women for three consecutive terms, she again found a vehicle for her commitment to international cooperation. McGeachy's career took her a long way from the household of an evangelist preacher in a small city in Ontario, Canada. In the League of Nations, she ended up as the head of her section. But it was the war which offered her more scope, a wider field, and greater opportunities. War also brought her a partner whose background was quite different from her own. Erwin Schuller was born a Jew in an Austrian banking family. As a banker himself during the 19308, working in the capitals of Europe, he became financially well off, although he never made a fortune. He, too, was inspired by ideals of international cooperation, and they shared this commitment during their life together. The administrative competence, the bright confidence, assurance, and sheer appetite for life which McGeachy displayed during the summer of 1940 were emblematic of her career. External political disturbances and internal office politics did not faze her - indeed, they provided relish and she was always glad to be near the centre of political action of one sort or another. Few women could match McGeachy's experience in the first half of the twentieth century. And few managed to maintain an active interest in the ideals of their youth throughout a life which lasted almost as long as the century: born in 1901, McGeachy died in 1991. Who was she? What made her rise to these various challenges? Was she successful? What was life like for an adventurous and ambitious

io Woman of the World

woman, without family connections, who had to make her way on her own, in a man's world? How did she manage to become the first British woman diplomat? The only woman executive in UNRRA? McGeachy enjoyed power and control over her life. Modestly in Geneva, but increasingly during the war, and then as president for three terms of the International Council of Women, she exercised a considerable influence. Yet, for much of the twentieth century, it was considered unwomanly for any woman to take charge of her own destiny, still less have authority over others, outside the family. How did McGeachy confront the conventions of gender? This book is organized around McGeachy's life. Her experiences are its spine, her achievements its organizing principle, her character its moral force. She lived for nine decades, and her cosmopolitan curiosity brought her in contact with major political events and trends. She reached away from the Western democracies to the Southern Hemisphere and to the east. Through the League, she came to know about issues beyond the boundaries of North America and Europe. Through her husband's work, she faced the problems of apartheid in South Africa. Through the International Council of Women, she consciously worked to extend its umbrella over newer developing countries. McGeachy had personal experience with the century's most ambitious regimes of social engineering: German expansion and the Holocaust; the worldwide theatre of the Second World War; apartheid in South Africa; the Cold War in the West; and the end of imperialism. Her own life can be explained only in the context of the international events which demanded her attention. Early in her life, she was fascinated by what progressive Canadians called 'world-mindedness' as they emerged from the Great War. She entirely agreed that international cooperation was the key to future peace. Within fifteen years, that dream was severely tested, but McGeachy continued to hope, and work, for a way that would have results. Her faith was transferred after the Second World War to the United Nations, and throughout her life she maintained a deep interest and involvement in international affairs. McGeachy's achievements as a single woman fascinated the media of the war years. Her celebrity was largely a matter of gender. Many men had achieved fame as a result of efforts which paralleled hers. McGeachy was remarkable because she was female. Few other women came close to matching her. Always distancing herself from a career woman stereotype, she warmed to the limelight and used it to further her own politi-

Prologue: 1940

11

cal ideas. She was in a position to use, defy, and accommodate the powerful gendered expectations of her time. But was she always in control? To what extent did she fall victim to the conventions of gender, particularly after her marriage? This book seeks to discover the circumstances of McGeachy's life and the challenges she faced. The narrative proceeds in chronological order, and each major period of her life is analysed around a theme. Chapter i relates her family life in Sarnia. Chapter 2 examines the University of Toronto in the early 19205 and pays particular attention to the Student Christian Movement, an organization whose ideas consolidated the idealism for international cooperation which sustained the rest of her life. Chapter 3 looks at the League of Nations in Geneva while McGeachy worked for the Information Section, and chapter 4 shows her shrewd assessments of Canadian society in the 19305. Chapter 5 describes McGeachy's tenure, 1940-4, at the new Ministry for Economic Warfare and shows how she became the first British woman diplomat. Chapter 6 introduces her partner, Erwin Schuller. Like many couples during wartime, they conducted a courtship at a distance before marrying in 1944. Chapter 7 describes McGeachy's work as director of welfare in UNRRA. Chapter 8, 'Family Affairs,' follows the post-war Schullers to South Africa at a time when the Nationalist government was strengthening the institutions of apartheid. The year 1952 was a watershed: the Schullers adopted two children. Family life, though, was not happy; indeed, it ended in tragedy. Why did Erwin take his own life in 1967? Was McGeachy really a victim of mental disorder, as her son thought? Chapter 9 examines McGeachy's career as a volunteer with the International Council of Women and examines how she expanded its influence with the United Nations, and with women in Third World countries. Chapter 10 looks at the place of religion throughout McGeachy's life and assesses the recognition which came to her. The Epilogue establishes gender as a way of explaining McGeachy's successes and failures. How the world saw women, and how one woman gave meaning to the world, together show the opportunities and the barriers which twentieth-century Western women had to negotiate on their way to living a public life.

1 Sarnia

Mary Agnes McGeachy was Ontario-Scottish on both sides of her family. 'Her sense of her Scottish heritage was very strong indeed,' said Iverach McDonald, managing editor of the London Times. 'We spoke a lot about Highland history. She was proud to be part of the clan Ranald Macdonald - we had that as a common background.'1 Both McGeachy's parents were part of the Scottish-Canadian community which populated the southwestern part of Ontario. Inhabitants of the region were oriented as much to the United States as to Canada, and actually lived nearer to the big American cities of Detroit and Buffalo than to Toronto. Two of the Great Lakes bordered the region, Lake Huron and Lake Erie. One distinction of the Canadian side at the beginning of the twentieth century was considerable ethnic uniformity. In many southwestern Ontario villages and towns, nearly everyone was Scottish, and Gaelic was a common language/ McGeachy's mother's side of the family was second-generation Canadian. David Craig was born in 1813 in Islay, Argyllshire, Scotland, and was an engineer by profession.s Like many Scots who lived near the busy port of Glasgow, he became involved in the transatlantic sugar business, which in the eighteenth century was bound up with the highly profitable slave trade. He had constructed six large engines for sugar processing on plantations in Cuba before turning his attention to pioneering in Canada. In 1835, David Craig bought land near a small port-settlement on Lake Huron named Goderich. The land northwest of London in what became the province of Ontario was opening up for settlement. After 1858 the Grand Trunk Railway was built between Toronto and Sarnia and passed through the Craig land. Craig surveyed and sold lots and

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became a wealthy man. He named the new settlement Ailsa Craig in memory of the tiny rocky island in the North Sea near his Scottish childhood home. Eventually Ailsa Craig was incorporated as a village in 1874.4 Mary McGeachy's maternal grandmother was the daughter of David Craig. The family assets were depleted by her brother, a gambler,5 and the Craig daughters were not as well endowed as they had hoped. Mary's grandmother married a blacksmith named Jamieson who lived in Watford, about thirty miles away to the southwest. 'I think this may have been considered socially quite a comedown. These are just little things a kid hears,' said Mary McGeachy's nephew.6 The new Jamieson couple had a daughter, Anna Jenet, born in 1867, who eventually married Donald McGeachy. Anna Jenet had two surviving brothers, Billy and Dave, and two others who died quite young from tuberculosis. Mary McGeachy's father, Donald McGeachy, was born in 1868 in Scotland within sight, on a clear day, of David Craig's Islay. Donald lived in Campbeltown on the Mull of Kintyre, where McGeachys had lived for generations. There the economy was diversified but poor. The population of the town was about ten thousand in the mid-nineteenth century, and the people were farmers, manufacturers, miners, fishermen, and whisky distillers. Donald's father, Duncan, was a cartwright. 'We were all good simple people."7 Still, cartwrights joined with blacksmiths, colliers, and joiners in having the highest local weekly wages: fourteen shillings, compared with regular labourers, who earned only six shillings.8 Duncan was 'a bit of a ripper': he was not particularly religious and he was not teetotal.9 When Donald was aged four, in 1872, the McGeachy family left Campbeltown in Scotland and moved to Dutton, Ontario, in Dunwich Township just north of Lake Erie. The vast majority of settlers in the area came originally from the Campbeltown area, attracted by the prospect of cheap land and the experiences of earlier settlers from the Kintyre peninsula. The Duncan McGeachy family went to live with relations. For about a year, fourteen people were living together in a small three-room log cabin. In the Dutton area, Duncan worked as a cabinetmaker and carpenter, and was also employed in a blacksmith's shop where wagons and carriages were manufactured. 10 At about the same time, more railways arrived along the north shore of Lake Erie. The southwestern part of Ontario jutted into the United States, and the short way between the industrial manufacturing towns of Buffalo, at the eastern extremity of Lake Erie, and Detroit, at the

14 Woman of the World

western, lay in a straight line across the Ontario peninsula. American businessmen just ignored the geographical inconvenience of the intervening Canadian territory. The Harvard economist J.K. Galbraith, who was born in Button, remarked that the trains simply ran out of the United States, through Canada, and back in again. People in southwestern Ontario tended to look west of the border for their most exciting metropolitan centre. 'Detroit in our community had an aura far outshining that of Toronto, Montreal, New York, Washington, London, or Rome.'" With the railways came more immigrants, including many English people. Duncan McGeachy, like many of his compatriots, was not particularly fond of the English. More than that, the advent of the railways threatened his livelihood. The trains very quickly provided a more economic alternative to the horse carriages for which he made wooden wheels. Greater pressure of population, together with the challenge of the new railway technology, provided the occasion for the McGeachys to move again in the early i88os, across into the United States, to the 'thumb' of Michigan, adjacent to the southwestern shore of Lake Huron. The eldest child in Duncan McGeachy's family was called Mary, at this time a young woman only eighteen years old. Duncan McGeachy sent the teenage girl ahead of the family to find a home and to pave the way. She was 'a crackerjack,' and no wonder. 'She was something else,' says her great-nephew. Here was a girl who shouldered the responsibility of establishing her family in a foreign country at a time when Victoria was still the ruler of Canada. According to conventional culture, women were supposed to be angels of the hearth and sheltered from public life. It would be good to have more information about this namesake of the younger Mary McGeachy. According to those who knew her, she was strong, capable, unintimidated by prevailing expectations of appropriate female behaviour, and able to retain the full confidence of her family. The McGeachy family soon found a home in Grindstone City, Michigan, where the father worked in the quarry, and with his wife raised the other children. Besides Mary there were four boys. Donald was the youngest. Family lore rarely provides a continuous narrative. Rather, it jumps from one dramatic episode to another. In the story of Mary McGeachy's father, two important events happened in his youth. Donald McGeachy, now a resident of the United States, went to join the U.S. Cavalry. Before this could be finalized, he found himself wak-

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ing up in a hospital in St Louis, Missouri, suffering from typhoid. The illness put paid to military ambitions, and so he made his way back towards Grindstone City. About a day or so away, he found himself on a street corner in Saginaw, Michigan. There, said his grandson, he was 'overcome with the glory of the Lord.' Donald's daughter Jessie, a medical doctor, later observed that the religious experience may have derived from the effects of typhoid. Regardless, it was an instant conversion. Donald McGeachy never looked back. He remembered the emotions of his conversion even when he was very old. Converted to the Christian life, Donald began learning about religion and preaching the word of God. He met another young man also committed to evangelism and they travelled around together. The young man, whose last name was Jamieson, became very sick, then died. Donald nursed him through his final illness. Donald got to know his sister, Anna Jenet, who lived in Watford, Ontario. Soon he returned to Canada to marry her. Donald and Anna Jenet were the parents of Mary Agnes McGeachy. As a married couple the McGeachys went on the road, living Donald's life of an itinerant preacher. Sometimes on his own, Donald went into rough country, preaching to miners and visiting lumber camps. In 1899 when they were staying in Collingwood, a lumber town on the shore of Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, Anna Jenet gave birth to their first child, Robert. The following year, the family went south to Sarnia, not far from Anna's home town. There they settled down. Henceforward Anna Jenet stayed put when Donald was invited from all over Canada and the United States to preach to various communities. In 1901 a daughter was born in Sarnia and christened Mary Agnes McGeachy." Mary McGeachy's Scottish heritage was more than a matter of genealogy. The Scots who comprised the bulk of southwestern Ontario's population had a particular mentality recognizable to contemporaries. They were egalitarian in the sense of being relatively free from class consciousness. 'While some were poor, none was rich.' Although there was a degree of social stratification, in J.K. Galbraith's observation, it was based not so much on wealth, or birth, as on character.' H The Scottish culture was imbued with a respect for learning, and inseparable from this was the tendency to be 'Godfearing but unfrightened.' The desire for intellectual and technical training was widespread.' 4 The home was the basis for children's education, and early education began with the foundation of Presbyterianism, the Westminster Shorter Catechism. The first question and answer were:

i6 Woman of the World

'What is man's chief end? Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.' There was no single Presbyterian Church in the nineteenth century, either in Scotland or in Canada. Indeed, the Kirk - meaning the Scottish church, or people in Scotland who identified themselves as Christian - was riven with schism. In settled communities, the majority of Ontario Scots belonged to the Presbyterian Church of Canada, an organization formed in 1875 as an amalgam of groups which during the previous hundred years had split away from the mother church through disputes over doctrine, property, and patronage. As well there were Baptists, like Galbraith's family, and others who might find the local minister bland or uninspiring. Some people of a more evangelical inclination, like Donald McGeachy, turned towards the Plymouth Brethren, a denomination most frequently associated with travelling evangelists.'5 Mary McGeachy was proud to be Scottish. When she became newsworthy in the 19405, she always emphasized her ethnic background in interviews. Maclean's in 1942 noted: 'Her background is like that of so many other Scottish-Canadian families - families which have been rooted in the land but counted it an honour to give at least one son to the church. The pattern has been varied now by the daughter who has become a diplomat.'"' The Canadian women's magazine Chatelaine noted that McGeachy's Scottish ancestry could be guessed from her personality. 'Doubtless it gave her that capacity for hard work, that diligence and determination to succeed. There's a quality of shrewd judgment about her, too, and she has not made the mistake of ignoring the value of publicity in this competitive modern world where an able woman still gets the occasional hard knock and doesn't easily obtain recognition of her knowledge and skill.'' 7 Working for the British in the United States, McGeachy emphasized her Scottish heritage. It served to deflect American suspicion of the aristocratic, effete, and imperialistic English image, which was very widespread when the United States entered the war in December 1941 after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The New York Times in April 1943 described her as a 'quiet Celt with copper-blond hair and fair skin.' What she had to say she said easily and volubly in a soft Scots voice.'8 McGeachy always promoted a certain image of herself in the press. She used the opportunity to make out that she was younger than her real age, and she also laid claim to a more eminent social background. When journalists mentioned a birthdate at all, it tended most often to be 1904, and this was the date she herself used on her marriage certifi-

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cate.'9 Members of her family knew she was being coy and in fact thought she was a bigger fibber than she was. Her brother's children knew McGeachy was in the same grade as their mother all the way through school, and believed the two women were born in the same year. They were mistaken. Olive, Robert McGeachy's wife, was born in 1899. The registration of Mary McGeachy's birth is clear. She was born in Sarnia on 7 November 1901. McGeachy's appearance and energy were able to sustain the credibility of shaving three years off her year of birth. She was hardly the first woman to lie about her age. She was also not the first to imply her ancestors were more socially respectable than they were. Maclean's in 1942 wrote that there were behind her three generations of preachers on her father's side. 'Her great-grandfather and her grandfather carried the word of God to the country north of Sudbury in Ontario.' Actually, her paternal greatgrandfather did not set foot in Canada, and her grandfather was considered 'not religious' by other members of the family. In Canada he worked as a cabinetmaker and carpenter. All this was in the future when Donald and Anna Jenet McGeachy started to raise Mary along with her brother Robert in Sarnia, Ontario, in the winter of 1901. Donald McGeachy continued to preach in remote communities and could find himself in rough company. After his death, when his family were going through his belongings, in a drawer they found some brass knuckles. In far away mining towns in northern Ontario, a preacher had to be prepared to defend himself.*" Sarnia, too, could give him opportunities among hard-living workers. Located strategically at the southernmost tip of Lake Huron, where the St Clair River flowed south to the smaller Lake St Clair, in turn drained by the Detroit River into Lake Erie, Sarnia was on the U.S. border. On the opposite bank of the river was Port Huron in the state of Michigan. Near to the flat farmland settled by Scottish immigrants, the town of Sarnia had a mixed population. Originally home to Chippewa, the earliest English-speakers were Methodists from Lanark County. By the middle of the nineteenth century there was a flourishing port, along with a lumber trade, fishing, iron foundries, and service industries for the surrounding agricultural hinterland. In the 18505 two developments of considerable economic significance occurred in Sarnia at more or less the same time. The American Railway Company built its line to allow goods to be shipped further west, into Michigan. Secondly, in the countryside around Sarnia, oil was discovered. Along with the older lumber trade and industry, now ship-

18 Woman of the World

ping and shipbuilding boomed along the St Glair River. In the 18905 the Imperial Oil Company moved to Sarnia from its base in Petrolia twenty-five miles away, and in the same year a railway tunnel was built underneath the St Glair River. At the time, this was a world famous engineering wonder: the world's largest submarine tunnel of over six thousand feet. Later in the twentieth century, the town would extend its industrial base, particularly during the Second World War. At that time, the Japanese had captured the areas supplying rubber to the Western powers, and the Allies needed to develop synthetic rubber manufacture. They did so in Sarnia. But in 1900, when the McGeachy family settled down, the petrochemical industry was still to come. Soon after their arrival, the McGeachys bought a house, purchased with the help of Annajenet's family. The family did not have much money and had to be very careful. They grew their own vegetables. 'It was pretty austere.' There was no drinking. 'Grandma didn't like to have vanilla extract in the house because she knew a baker who used to get drunk on vanilla.' 21 Fifty years later, Mary's sister Jessie remarked she was glad their childhood family life was simple. 'It is better to start simple and become elaborate rather than vice versa.'22 McGeachy frugality was based on necessity. Donald McGeachy's conversion after his suffering from typhoid, together with his friendship with Annajenet Jamieson's preacher brother, drew him into the ambit of the Plymouth Brethren, sometimes known as the Christian Brethren. The Plymouth Brethren had originated in the early nineteenth century in England in reaction against many of the organizational features of the mainstream churches, including their professionally trained and ordained clergy. In the early years, the Brethren were intensely apocalyptic. They believed that the Second Coming was imminent, and consequently they thought organizational structures were unimportant. What was central was the present activity of the Holy Spirit in the Church. One had to be ready to recognize the Spirit, and one must not rely unduly on material diversions. A special respect was accorded to itinerant preachers, whose life was dedicated to bringing Jesus Christ's message to all, both to professed Christians and to others. This was to be achieved primarily through Bible readings. The minister became the Bible teacher and his sermon was the scripture, intelligently drawn out."3 In Ontario the most influential advocate of this group was an Englishman, John Nelson Darby, who visited Canada frequently between

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1862 and 1877. The Brethren had stemmed from the evangelical wing of the Anglican Church and tended to infiltrate existing churches, including the Presbyterians, as well as setting up their own congregations or assemblies. One of their distinctions was an emphasis on premillennialism: the idea that the faithful would be delivered into salvation by direct divine intervention. Pre-millennialism therefore emphasized personal salvation, in the life to come. Brethren were less interested in the notion that one could by human agency build the city of God in the life of this world here and now."4 Preachers urged individuals to take heed of the Bible, and themselves took inspiration from regular Bible and prophecy conferences. In the late nineteenth century, conferences held at Guelph and then at Niagara-on-the-Lake attracted pre-millennialists from all over North America.25 Subsequently, annual preaching conferences at Easter were held in Massey Hall, Toronto, and Donald McGeachy became well known throughout the pre-millennial community as a frequent preacher there. Donald McGeachy was described by his daughter Mary as an 'Evangelist.' He took as his mission the work of bringing the gospel to nonChristians as well as teaching the Bible, basic theology, and pre-millennial beliefs to professing Christians. He was based in a Sarnia Gospel Hall congregation, whose elders provided him with a letter of commendation. This signified he had the authorization of the Sarnia Assembly, which undertook to help support him and his family. Other assemblies would contribute money, and when he preached, financial offerings would be taken. Without a regular salary or income, such a life was materially insecure. But Donald McGeachy lived by its rules. Once when he was downcast by financial worries, his daughter Jessie saw him sitting at the table, saying, 'Oh dear, oh dear.' 'Don't worry, father,' said Jessie. 'The Lord will provide.' 'Now there's faith,' responded Donald.2t) Anyone who lived like Donald McGeachy by the power of persuasion had to be a good speaker. He was helped by a promising appearance. 'He was very very good looking,' said his grandson. His youngest daughter, Donalda, once got in trouble with her mother for saying, 'Father flirts people into heaven.'' 7 Brian Cunnington, a man brought up in the Plymouth Brethren in southwestern Ontario, remembers stories from his relatives, who said Donald McGeachy's preaching had converted members of the Cunnington family early in the century. Donald McGeachy was well known as a 'rough and ready' preacher. Cunnington's Uncle Jack re-

2O

Woman of the World

membered one occasion at the Massey Hall Easter Conference when it was McGeachy's turn to preach. He found that the previous preacher had left the water glass half full. Starting anew, McGeachy threw the water on the floor and demanded fresh water."8 Mary McGeachy grew up in a household where her father put food on the family table because of his fluency, his integrity, his wits, and his familiarity with the Bible. Her sister Jessie later said she was quite old before she realized that God had not literally provided the food they ate. She also remembered her father as a dominating strong-willed minister of his own church, who directed everything in the family. Anna Jenet, Donald's wife, was more acquiescent, quiet, and meek, but 'very sweet.'29 Naturally the children were raised to know their Bible inside out. At the beginning and end of a meal, 'when you said grace there you knelt beside the chair. Then, they had a little box of cards.' On the cards were quotations from the Bible. 'People identified the source and commented on them. Then there was a little discussion on the salvation of souls.'3" Education was important. Here the Scottish legacy shone through and trumped a tendency present in some Plymouth Brethren to confine females only to domestic duties. All the McGeachy children, girls as well as boys, benefited from education. Robert, the eldest, became an engineer. Jessie first qualified as a nurse and then was one of the few women in Canada at the time to study medicine, and she qualified as a physician. Donalda, the youngest, worked for many years as a nurse for a cardiologist but during the war worked in New York as an actress. Later she became a speech therapist, establishing a program at the University of Toronto. None of the girls ended up in a stereotypically female occupation. In their partnerships, they also did not follow a pattern. None of the McGeachy daughters bore children of her own. Jessie and Mary married later than normal and adopted children. Donalda expected to marry, but when her partner decided to wait longer than she wanted, she set up house with a cousin, a female physician largely responsible for the development of hospices in palliative care in Canada. In no way could the female McGeachys be considered prisoners of normal early twentieth-century gender roles. Their childhood life and their education equipped them with the resources for living adult lives independent of conventional routines.

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If Donald McGeachy was severe, he was sometimes absent and his wife was capable of managing the household well. 'Grandma McGeachy was very quiet and calm and got her own way if she wanted to. Mary had a lot of her qualities.>3' Nor was Anna Jenet fazed by her older daughter's later fame. In 1942 she read a piece in which Mary was described as a lady of ideas. 'Don't you think you had better come home for a rest, dear?' she wrote to her daughter.S2 Jessie's husband, Wendell MacLeod, thought that the McGeachy household was very stern and that the children resisted their religious indoctrination.:" However, when Mary McGeachy later mentioned she had not seen a movie until she left home to go to university, this was said more as a source of pride than regret. She embraced Christianity for her entire life. Religion entered into the core of her being. It is true she did not remain within a congregation of Plymouth Brethren. As a university student, she found interests under the umbrella of the new Student Christian Movement which led to her life's work as a committed internationalist. In terms of worship, McGeachy journeyed towards a more mainstream and traditional expression of faith. In 1952 she became confirmed in the Anglican Church. Even though she might consider that a Plymouth Brethren evangelist did not have the tone of a Presbyterian minister, McGeachy never distanced herself from the religious grounding that her family provided. The McGeachy children earned their own way through higher education, but family lore credits Jamieson money in providing extra help. This came primarily from Anna Jenet's eldest brother, known to the children as Uncle Billy. Uncle Billy, who never married, had a candy store in Gait, now part of the city of Cambridge, Ontario, nearer to Toronto than Sarnia. 'Uncle Billy was a little on the raffish side. He liked to go to the races, he talked out of the side of his mouth and he smoked cigars. No one else was allowed to smoke in Grandma's house. Aunt Jessie told us Uncle Billy had a mistress. They called her Aunt Dolly.' He would take the family out to the Greenwood track in Toronto, and afterwards out to dinner. 'They used to say, "Why don't you marry Aunt Dolly? She's so nice." Uncle Billy used to say, "There's too many people in this family, married, that haven't got any money."' 34 McGeachy's own family was an extraordinarily diverse unit. Gospel Hall followers were known for their frugality and social puritanism as well as religious fundamentalism. Her father, however, provided the

2 2 Woman of the World

children with an education which broadened their vision beyond any literal interpretation of scripture, and McGeachy always spoke with admiration and respect of her father. 'He had all the characteristics of the Scottish highlander,' she told Iverach McDonald, who said 'she really revered him.'35 Her parish priest in the 19805 said she was extremely proud of her father. 'The few times she elaborated to me about her relationship with her father, I always wondered if she wasn't somehow driven to prove herself to him, although I was too polite to ask,' said David Stokes, an Anglican priest in Princeton.3" Donald McGeachy served as a role model for his oldest daughter. Mary inherited his tendency to dominate. As a child, she could see and hear first-hand how a good preacher chose his words and spoke of selfless, altruistic, and noble topics. Later her own fluency was noted by commentators. 'As a public speaker ... she is somewhat unusual because she just gets up and speaks quietly and casually as if to a couple of friends.' Even if she prepared public speeches and had every word typed out, her delivery gave the impression of spontaneity and sincerity. She discounted nerves, saying she was more likely to get 'nervous indigestion' if she had to give a party for someone else than at the prospect of having to speak in public herself.37 For all its strict morality, McGeachy family life could incorporate an uncle who gambled and had a mistress. The bonds of family affection and duty were robust enough to cope with nonconformity. Doubtless this was at least partly due to prudence, since Uncle Billy helped out with finances. But perhaps it was also due to a sense of humility, a comprehension on Donald McGeachy's part that he should not judge lest he be judged. Like her brother and sisters, Mary McGeachy went for six years to public schools and then for another six years to Sarnia Collegiate. There her schooling was thorough. She studied French and Latin for six years and German for one. Her highest mark on graduating from the collegiate was in English literature: 89 per cent. She also did well in history, ancient as well as British and Canadian.s8 Later she credited her successes to exceptional teachers: Mr Grant in classics and Miss Storey in history.39 At school McGeachy took opportunities to participate in drama, sport, and athletics. In 1918, for instance, the school performed part of Henry IVPart i as well as a three-act farce called The Garroters.' Every Literary Society meeting had its entertainment provided by individual stu-

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dents who would sing, recite, or play instruments. The Debating Society topics brought the students into the mainstream of political discourse. In 1919, for instance, they debated the issue of allied intervention in Russia and in a second debate concluded that Bolshevism would be beneficial for the common man. They also resolved that reading was more educational than travel.4" In McGeachy's last year, she was one of fifteen students in the Upper School, and her extracurricular activities were the most impressive of the lot: 'Editor of "The Collegiate" [yearbook], Upper School representative on the Literary Executive, Convener of the Constitution Committee for the Lit., Convener of the permanent Literary Program Committee, Secretary of the Tennis Club, Member of Refreshment Committees every time we have eats, and of Decoration Committee whenever we decorate.' 4 ' As for academic work, her marks were enough to earn her the topranking Carter Scholarship. This, for the amount of $100, was awarded to the candidate obtaining the highest aggregate marks in the Upper School papers within the county: every county in Ontario had its three Carter Scholarships. McGeachy won the first scholarship for the 1919 year, and in the following year won the second, worth $60.4* Her successive awards flouted the original terms of the Carter Scholarships: 'No candidate who has been awarded one of these Scholarships shall be eligible to compete at any subsequent examination.'43 This was not the last occasion when McGeachy's behaviour stretched the rules. At Sarnia Collegiate Institute, McGeachy displayed the interests she was later to carry over into university and beyond. Her commitment to international cooperation was already apparent at the time of the First World War. Many strong internationalists of the period became committed to the idea of a League of Nations through a belief in pacifism. Not McGeachy. She was no warmonger, but neither was she in favour of peace at any price. For the yearbook published in Christmas, 1917, she wrote a short story entitled 'A "Win the War" Story' about a sleepy little country town in the United States called Four Corners. McGeachy described how the town came to life as the population 'rejoiced to learn of the entry of their country into the war.' Business boomed: 'Four Corners bank found its business increasing from the sale of bonds. The small children saved their pennies; the girls in business positions banked their surplus earnings; the business men invested their profits in Liberty bonds and the

24 Woman of the World

housewives economized in their own homes, all for the good of the young men who made the greatest sacrifice in giving their all to the colours.'44 McGeachy as a teenage writer supported the war effort and chose to emphasize economic implications surrounding mobilization. Twenty or so years later, this same understanding informed her own paid work for the British Ministry of Economic Warfare. The next yearbook was published at Easter, 1919, and McGeachy was co-editor. She wrote an editorial noting the worldwide significance of the events of 1918. She also referred to post-war political instability. 'Troubled rumours and anxious doubts drifted through the air. The peace was not all peace. The red flag was being hoisted in the place of the imperial banners which had been so ruthlessly torn down.' She immediately recognized the significance of the League: 'The League of Nations became more and more the ideal in the face of sordid reality.'45 McGeachy continued to be sensitive to economic ramifications and in a foreword to her last yearbook, produced in 1920, wrote that the editors deliberately set out 'to develop a spirit of Canadianism among the younger generation.' She was prepared to withstand mainstream public opinion and show independence of thought. In a signed article, writing against the trend of opinion which deplored the adverse exchange rate experienced by the Canadian dollar as against the American, she pointed out benefits. She could see advantages for a new Canadian nationalism in which exporters would have to seek outlets other than the United States, and Canada would work free 'from the state of Commercial dependency upon the United States which has existed so long to our great disadvantage. '4'' The combination of Canadian economic and cultural nationalism, together with a commitment to international cooperation through the new League, was the cornerstone of liberal to left-wing political opinion in Canada after the First World War. McGeachy had already situated herself in that spectrum before leaving high school. Her criticism of the United States extended to its aloof policy regarding the new League. She listed the League's purposes: 'It provides a means of reducing national armaments, a mutual guarantee of peace to the members, and a channel through which differences between nations may be settled peaceably by the united efforts of their brother nations.' She scathingly condemned the United States' failure to join. Their 'unworthy attitude of accepting the benefits while declining to assume the responsibilities of the League can scarcely be justified.'

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In school, McGeachy nailed her colours to the mast of democracy, which in the international community was a fresh new politics in 1920. Intrinsic to a democratic nation was the maintenance of individual liberty, 'used but not abused, the key to a nation's greatness which shall imply moral nobility in every phase of the nation's life.'47 Sarnia schools gave McGeachy an opportunity to use her talents for debate, literary analysis, political discussion, and organization. She emerged from her experience there with analytical skills, an appetite for politics, and a desire to contribute to the formation of a new nationalist Canada within a new internationalist world. Her family gave her a moral base and role models of remarkable and dominant women as well as masterful men. However forceful were the lessons of the Bible, as mediated by the Plymouth Brethren, she had not learned to be meek, mild, obedient, and passive. If she had any sense of gender limitations imposed on women of the time, they are not evident in the material she left behind. In September 1920, McGeachy left Sarnia to attend the University of Toronto to study English and history with the expectation of becoming a teacher. Infused with love of country, love of peace, respect for democracy, and love of international cooperation, she was aware that it was sometimes necessary to fight for beliefs and to criticize the powerful. She was prepared to put her considerable energy at the service of her own ideals. What could hold her back? Only Time. She wrote a poem on this topic before she left school in 1920: The Miser I am a miser, I; I seek with eager eye, With covetous and grasping hand, Each golden grain of precious sand Of Time that fleets me by. Each moment offers free Bright opportunity, I strive to stay its hurried pace And strain to catch its hours of grace Gems for my Treasury!

26 Woman of the World Unfolding to my sight I scan those hours of light That would fulfill my nobler aim; But those reject that would defame The pure ideal and right. No place within my hoard Hath chance which doth afford Development of low ideal, Of selfish lust the heart may feel Such moments are ignored. The Opportunity Which, Time, I seek from thee To nobler, loftier action leads, Love baser motives supersedes In my pure Treasury.18

2

Student Days

Mary McGeachy came to the University of Toronto as a young woman of nineteen. She was a member of the post-war generation for whom the end of the Great War conferred a legacy of promise to do better.' She believed that with the League of Nations as part of the peace settlement there was an opportunity for the world to live in peace. Education for international cooperation was critical. Canada was still part of the British Empire, although largely independent. Within the empire, new political and constitutional ideas had been under debate since the beginning of the century. In many of the new African colonies, enmities of black versus white were involved, as well as in the south, of white versus white. While a fragile peace followed the Boer War, tensions remained high. In that southern edge of Africa, attempts to avoid further bloodshed gave rise to a remarkable discourse. When McGeachy was still a child, a group of intelligent, privileged, and committed young men in Britain were urged to think anew about empire. Known as 'Lord Milner's Kindergarten,' they were Oxford graduates temporarily transplanted to South Africa, where Milner was governor. Forming a group of intellectuals concerned about practical politics, convening themselves as one of the world's first research policy think-tanks, they accepted the Kindergarten label as a matter of pride. Fifteen years later, during the First World War, men who had started off with Milner returned north to the hub of empire, and many found themselves drawn into a different form of public service. Some became advisers to the new British prime minister, David Lloyd George. Providing advice both on the home front and on the war, collectively they were known as Lloyd George's 'garden suburb.' As in South Africa, they held informal, unelected office: power without formal responsibility.

28 Woman of the World

In the post-war generation, they kept up a loose collective identity through work on a journal, the Round Table. In London they established the Royal Institute of International Affairs, located in Chatham House, to educate public opinion on the relationships between Britain and the rest of the world." They also frequented the same upper-class social and intellectual circles which hinged on the country house, Cliveden, belonging to the Astors, who were rich, politically ambitious transplanted Americans. Milner's former young men were making their living in business and academic life as well as government service. Their preoccupation remained: how should the world be organized? The League of Nations attracted much of their attention. Men and women associated with these circles touched the lives of Mary McGeachy and the man who married her at critical points of their careers. People intimately involved with the Round Table set included Nancy Astor, her brother-in-law Robert Brand, Brand's colleagues at All Souls College, Oxford, such as Lord Halifax and George Adams, Thomas Jones, secretary to Lloyd George, and Philip Kerr, Marquis of Lothian. In Canada discussion about international cooperation was paradoxically complicated by a growing nationalism. Constitutionally, Canada, like South Africa, had dominion status within the British Empire. After the British North America Act of 1867, Canada had autonomy with respect to domestic politics, including trade and commerce, but in its relations with other countries it was still a colony. Conduct of external affairs was in the hands of the British Foreign Office. In the generation before the First World War, Canada had sought to develop a less subordinate and more equal partnership within the empire. In the inter-war years, the civil servant primarily responsible for external affairs, O.D. Skelton, used his department as an instrument in developing national autonomy. Canada wanted control over its own international relations. The 1931 Statute of Westminster brought about legislative equality between the United Kingdom and the so-called 'white Dominions' and confirmed Canada's independent conduct of external relations.3 Growing nationalism within Canada was a double-edged sword. Always there was latent tension between French- and English-speaking parts of Canada. There was considerable, if not uniform, popular sentiment in favour of the empire among English Canadians, but in French Canada there was widespread diffidence verging on hostility. Francophone Canadians could not forget the deaths of five civilians protesting

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involvement in the imperial war during anti-conscription riots in Quebec City in early 1918.4 No prime minister, particularly any who owed a parliamentary majority to Quebec votes, could ignore domestic divisions about foreign relations. As well as a linguistic divide between French and English, by the time of the First World War there were additional ethnic interests for Canadian politicians to consider. In the twenty years before 1914, large-scale immigration from areas neither French nor British had complicated the sentimental ties of Canadians. Moreover, many politicians were reluctant to devote resources to defence expenditures. Without a minimal army and navy establishment, it was hard to imagine Canada playing any substantial role in world affairs. Public opinion veered between isolationists and those eager to take up a position which might contribute to the regulation of world peace. After the war, world peace was not yet secure. The Treaty of Versailles had labelled Germany as the main instigator of war and imposed a humiliating peace settlement. At the same time, the League was set up to be the forum where the civilized countries of the world would thrash out their disagreements in debate rather than in military action. Through the implementation of disarmament clauses, war would eventually be rendered impossible. Some way, however imperfect, had to be found to avoid a repeat of the colossal destruction of life experienced during the war. Many people were hopeful that they lived in the dawn of a new era. Others were sceptical that the hopes and intentions surrounding the League would be achieved, especially in light of the unrealistic and punitive clauses which Germany was forced to sign. A year after the Treaty of Versailles, Mary McGeachy left Sarnia and went as a student to University College in the University of Toronto. Four years later, she earned her Bachelor of Arts, graduating in English and history with first-class honours. Encapsulating her interests, the student year book, Torontonensis, reflected McGeachy's Sarnia poem about Time. Beneath her picture the slogan was: 'Time is nothing - The road's the thing!' She had broken the world's record for fitting things 'into a day - and a night - and for putting a maximum of pep into each; but in spite of English and History, S.C.M., Presidency of the Lit., "The Varsity," Convocation Choir and what not, is always ready for a rambling hike or a leisurely chat at tea.'5 Of these occupations, the one which proved to be most significant in contributing to McGeachy's intellectual formation was the Student Christian Movement.

30 Woman of the World In 1970, Donald Page, a doctoral student who was completing his thesis for the University of Toronto, on the subject of Canadians and the League of Nations, by chance happened to learn about the interwar career of Mary McGeachy. Page's family had a cottage at Beaverton, on Lake Simcoe north of Toronto. They were neighbours of two women closely related to McGeachy - her youngest sister, Donalda, who was living at the Beaverton cottage, and her cousin companion, Dorothy Lay. 'You must meet my cousin,' was the comment of Dr Lay, and an interview was set up at a time when McGeachy, then president of the International Council of Women, was planning to be in Canada. Page has a vivid memory of a colourful and engaging lady. McGeachy was bright, lively, and sharp in mind and appearance. She spoke to him about her experience in Geneva and also her somewhat frustrating efforts while on leave in Canada when she gave talks and lectures about the League across the country. Page asked her how she became so committed to thinking in an international context. Her answer was clear. The University of Toronto curriculum in history did not include international relations, but Professor George Wrong encouraged her to read on her own. Above all, an extra-curricular group, the Student Christian Movement, broadened her horizon to see the world and to see it from a Christian perspective." McGeachy credited the Student Christian Movement with inspiring her to be a social activist. McGeachy attended the University of Toronto at the very time the Student Christian Movement was established. Ever since the founding of Canadian universities in the nineteenth century there had been active religious student organizations on campuses. Besides denominational chaplaincies, most universities had student chapters of the Young Men's Christian Association and the Young Women's Christian Association, international organizations active in evangelical and social welfare issues. Another interdenominational organization with close links to campuses was the Student Volunteer Movement, whose objective was primarily to encourage students to become missionaries overseas. These organizations joined together in 1918 to publish the journal Canadian Student. As soldiers returned from fighting in the war, they began to criticize both the churches and the Ys for being insufficiently political. The existing religious establishment was too evangelical, they said, uninterested in modern social and economic problems. Many new students, veterans who had recently fought in the trenches, were impatient with an organizational structure which did not allow the student member-

Student Days 31

ship to control proceedings.7 At conferences at Des Moines, Iowa, and then Guelph, Ontario, there was talk of a new organization altogether and over the New Year's holiday of 1921 the Student Christian Movement was born. The formation of the SCM arose out of more than a desire for democracy in local chapters, or an urgent imperative to consider and act on current political and social problems. The students were convinced that Christians had an important contribution to make to the problems of this world, and that part of their faith imposed an obligation towards what was increasingly understood as a 'social gospel.'8 The commandment to love thy neighbour meant getting involved in political activism, as well as social welfare work to help individuals. Central to this public work was the sincerity of belief and personal conviction. Mary McGeachy found in the SCM a Christianity which did not foresake the passion and sentiment of her father's religion. The difference between the Gospel Hall and the SCM was in the social imperative. True religion was more than a matter of personal belief and individual behaviour. For the SCM, it was also concerned with social organization and politics. The political views she found articulated in the Canadian Student and at SCM meetings and summer camps were those which stayed with McGeachy for the rest of her life. A dozen years later, they were largely espoused by left-wing liberals and members of the new Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, precursor of the Canadian New Democratic Party, but in the early 19205 no Canadian political party offered a secure home for the SCM interrogations of the status quo in international relations and economic, political, and social issues. Of all the strands of SCM opinion, its enthusiastic support for international cooperation had the most direct impact on McGeachy. This was a dominant theme of the early 19205, and can be seen in the organization of the SCM's first Canadian National Student Conference over the New Year holiday, 1922-3. The meeting was ambitiously announced as the first of its kind. Not only was it the first nationwide conference to attract Christian students, men and women, from across Canada: it was the first Canadian student conference. Here was a manifestation of the new Canadian nationalism. Its aims were to unite members 'to face the conditions and problems of Canada with a view to discovering the way of Jesus for our national and international life,' and to hear experts on these subjects.9 This combination stayed with McGeachy through her student years and beyond. 10

32 Woman of the World

Mainstream public opinion was less ready to be persuaded. The continuing context of the SCM enthusiasm for international cooperation was a decided scepticism on the part of inter-war Canadian governments and Canadian public opinion. In 1921 an Alberta MP declared in the House of Commons: 'My own feeling is that this country and the world have had all the foreign policy they want for a number of years.'" The young SCM recognized this. One of the hopes of the SCM 1922-3 conference was 'to soften Canadian insularity of thought.'" At the same time, politicians and civil servants were also concerned to identify a distinct role for Canada within the British Empire and the world. Canadian ministers had signed the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 as members of the British Empire delegation. Canada had a separate and distinct membership in the new League of Nations, but from the start the League did not attract universal support either within Canada or internationally. Germany, the United States, and the Soviet Union were not members, and during the first few years of its existence several disruptive international events were not even referred to the League for consideration. Canada was still constitutionally enmeshed in empire politics and participated in the regular Imperial Conferences, where Britain interpreted an imperial foreign policy as dominion support for British intentions. Foreign policy was not in the forefront of newspaper coverage. One exception was the Winnipeg Free Press, edited byJ.W. Dafoe. During the 19205 some associations, such as the Canadian Institute of International Affairs, founded in 1926, and the League of Nations Association, established in 1921, deliberately set out to educate public opinion. Even in the latter, opinion was divided over the appropriate extent of international cooperation. Four strands of opinion in Canada could be discerned. Imperialists believed Canada should offer virtually unconditional help to the British Empire. A second group believed in collective security, by which they meant the ideals of the League. Unilateral aggression should be referred to the League, which should impose sanctions on transgressors. Third, isolationists wished Canada to become independent of the empire and also of foreign entanglements generally. Finally, there were pacifists, some of whom could also be found among supporters of the League. For most of the inter-war period, Canadians interested in international affairs were in a distinct minority, and supporters of the League were fewer still.'3

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33

During the inter-war years, successive Canadian governments maintained a tiny number of officials at the Department of External Affairs, supported the armed forces with minute funds, and generally tried to avoid international involvement. In 1922, Mackenzie King had remarked that 'if a great and clear call of duty comes, Canada will respond.' Despite the continuing scepticism of his officials, when he was prime minister again in the late 19305, he judged that the fascist aggressions of Hitler did eventually constitute such a call of duty. McGeachy herself was to try to make a dent in the international indifference of Canadian public opinion during her career. As a university student, she took not only inspiration from the ideas of the SCM but also encouragement and support from the company of its members. She heard speakers who swiftly rose to become the elite of Canadian public servants and politicians, many of whom had finished their education at Oxford and returned as leading Canadian nationalists.'4 At the university meetings and in the conferences and summer camps, she met people her own age who later filled positions of influence and power. McGeachy came to know Larry Mackenzie, afterwards president of the University of British Columbia and later a member of the Canadian Senate, who in the 19205 was attached to the International Labour Office in Geneva before he returned to the University of Toronto to teach international law. From McGill she met Wendell Macleod, a medical student closely connected with Montreal progressive politics and with Norman Bethune, later famous for his transfusion work in the Spanish Civil War and with the Chinese communists. In 1944, Macleod became McGeachy's brother-in-law when he married her sister Jessie. Contacts such as these were of use to her during the 19305 when as a visitor from Geneva, she went from city to city to educate public opinion about the League. Much more, they became her friends. The SCM was an appealing organization because McGeachy could talk about topics which interested her, with like-minded people who wished to translate their Christianity into social action. Beyond that, there was another highly significant aspect to the way the new organization was constructed. It was woman-friendly. Students at the University of Toronto in 1920 had grown up during the dramatic years of woman suffrage campaigns. The inter-war period became an era of female 'firsts' and their novelty was news. Mass culture brought accounts of them before the public in newsreels, radio,

34 Woman of the World

and film as well as print media, and movies offered opportunities for dramatic versions of the lives of the new women. Fictional females took on roles as working women, secretaries, journalists, and other protagonists whose independence and autonomy brought a refreshing change from women characters whose identity had always been determined by men. Film stars and sportswomen took the limelight, and attention was paid to women in the arts. Aviatrix Amelia Earhart, who in 1928 became the first woman to cross the Atlantic by plane, was one celebrity.'5 In the 19305, Eleanor Roosevelt's public presence as the wife of the U.S. president, and as a political activist on her own, made her instantly recognizable.1" A woman who became the voice of a new generation was Edna St Vincent Millay. Millay was a poet, hugely successful and delighted to be famous. The first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1923, she led a bohemian life in New York's Greenwich Village. Only nine years older than McGeachy, her poetry was simple but lyrical and explored dilemmas experienced by modern women. One of her most celebrated verses was published in 1918: My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends It gives a lovely light.' 7

McGeachy admired Millay as a contemporary woman, vibrant and attractive, who lived a life independently of the old traditional female stereotypes.'8 Biographical profiles carried by English-language magazines of the time were fascinating for readers because they showed how real women, warts and all, lived their new lives. The career of a female high flyer was part of escapist reading, or a movie plot. Few women could realistically expect ever to be a film star or pilot or a famous poet. The vast majority of women would marry and become domestic homebodies in their midtwenties. But for the first time, stories suggested that independence of some sort was after all possible for women, and the public was eager to see how the trendsetters coped with the ordinary problems of daily life. From the beginning, women had a strong role in the formation of the SCM. At conferences almost half the delegates were women. In its new constitution, half the members of the general committee, the prime policy-making and administrative organ, were to be women.' 9

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35

The professed aim of the SCM declared it was a 'fellowship of students based on the conviction that in Jesus Christ are found the supreme revelation of God and the means to a full realization of life.' In the igsos participants experienced intellectual as well as spiritual excitement through Bible study. Dr Burton Sharman was a theologian who urged members of the SCM to engage with the Bible in an atmosphere of intellectual freedom with democratic methods.2" At summer camps, Sharman led interested students who subsequently returned to the university to teach insights to others.21 Glowing testimonies came from students who felt their eyes were opened. In this co-educational organization, women felt fully included. One of the practical ways in which the SCM manifested its commitment to an international way of thinking was through the European Student Relief Program begun by the World Student Christian Federation. The program began by soliciting money and goods for the relief of European students suffering the effects of the Great War: money and 'good second-hand clothing including boots. Large quantities of woollen yarn can be utilized.'" Issues of the Canadian Student commented on the campaign and also reported on conferences held in various places in Europe where the reconstruction of universities was under discussion. The University of Toronto student newspaper, Varsity, regularly reported visitors who spoke on the need for relief.2'1 International brotherhood - there was no reluctance to use a masculine word - could be demonstrated through work for the cause, which combined the glamour of the exotic for students who had not been outside Canada with the satisfaction of charity targeted towards people like themselves temporarily on hard times. On a regular basis the SCM organized events for students addressing social as well as intellectual and theological interests.24 Varsity supported the SCM on the grounds that it aired 'the complex problems which confront our generation ... The formation of discussion groups where it is possible to say frankly the things we feel and think without being crushed from the heights of superior wisdom by flinging in our faces some authority as final renders a great service to the free exchange of ideas and the development of real thinking ... The SCM is the students' organization. It depends on them for its life.''5 Men and women met on an equal basis. Besides talking about politics and religion, they also spoke about gender relationships. The place of marriage in women's lives was constantly considered. An anonymous woman wrote on this topic in the Canadian Student. Exasperated with

36 Woman of the World

the common assumption that marriage was the goal of every woman, the writer did not believe it would serve as a panacea for all difficulties and ambitions. While she had the utmost admiration for the ideal of marriage, she recognized there would be many women of her own class and education who would not marry: If a girl is taken at a comparatively early age and is introduced to the fact that she has an alleged mind, if she is encouraged in an independent attitude, if she is allowed to be distinctly opinionated, if she is trained to be economically independent and if she is given intellectual contact with thoroughly alert and masculine minds, do not be surprised if she has grown somewhat exacting in her tastes when she comes to consider matrimony ... Many men will regard her as quite too obnoxious, [and] ... she will regard many men as quite too dull. She does not prattle of her 'duty to the race' or decorously refer to a 'woman's place' ... she does not demand perfection in a man, but she does want the chance to develop a well-rounded relationship. She would like some fairly compatible man with whom, given mutual love and respect, she may try the experiment of the multifarious readjustments and satisfactions found in forming what is technically known as a home ... She is quite sure that any condescension or the development of a possessive attitude on the part of either [spouse] would ruin the whole picture.

The writer did not flinch from considering the topic of sex in a new order of relationships. 'She will have to find some interest large and permanent enough to hold her energies and to give her scope for creative work ... The whole matter of the authenticity of current moral standards, of what right she may have to non-marital relations - and a satisfactory lover might prove even more difficult to find than a satisfactory husband.' It would not be surprising if women would very soon 'astonish the conventions, tamper with the professional and business worlds, and radically change some well-established codes.'2'' With the wisdom of hindsight, this could be a description of McGeachy herself between the wars. Was she the anonymous author? Perhaps. She was certainly involved with the magazine during her Toronto years. She contributed a signed piece during her last undergraduate year and served on the board.27 Women felt welcome in the context of the SCM. What a contrast with other student organizations of the time! There was a History Club, with a select membership of twenty-five senior undergraduates, which met

Student Days 37

once a month to consider different aspects of one central question: the study of history as a means to bring about democratic citizenship. Only men could belong.28 McGeachy's Torontonensis entry noted her involvement with the 'Lit.' But this was not the well-known Literary and Scientific Society of the university, whose formal meetings were reported in detail on the front page of Varsity. Women were not allowed in. During McGeachy's first term there was a proposal to open the society to women, but it was defeated. Instead, McGeachy belonged to the women-only University College Literary Women's Society. Early in her third year, she was elected secretary, and in her last year served as president.2'1 As well, she organized various college activities, such as the annual Autumn Tea held by University College, and choral singing as entertainment for the University College women's annual Christmas party.30 She was also known as a troubleshooter. In January 1924 she convened a committee to sort out difficulties arising from structural problems in the Women's Undergraduate Association.'Al During her last year as an undergraduate, McGeachy could participate in a regular discussion program on current events launched by the college women. 'Is the political and economic situation in the world today conducive to human freedom and progress?' stated the theme. The women organized themselves into groups 'to keep in touch with the detail of events in special areas of friction such as the Ruhr, the centre of the Fascist! movement in Italy, Bavaria, Russia and Germany.' They interrogated political dimensions of religion. Ts religion an international irritant?' they asked. They were concerned with ethical aspects of politics: 'Should a state seek its material advantage first and foremost or what moral issues are involved in national and international life?' They came back to the same agenda as the SCM. 'Finally the ultimate answer to the quest for a solution will be sought in the relation of Christianity to the world situation.' Echoing the Sharman Bible study groups, they asked: 'Does Jesus' way of dealing with the problems of life offer any help in solving the problems which exist in modern international relations?'^ 2 University of Toronto women were not deprived of intellectual and social stimulation, but the clear expectation was that this would be found primarily in single sex structures. The war had taken its toll of men, including some who would have expected to attend university in 1920. In McGeachy's year there were more women than men studying history and English at University College.y* Among them were three other women called 'Mary.' McGeachy

38 Woman of the World

consciously invented another persona to distinguish herself. She started to call herself 'Craig,' the family name of her maternal grandmother. From this time forth, she allowed intimates to call her 'Mary,' while to the world at large she was Craig McGeachy. A benefit of this self-baptism was that her new name did not instantly signal her gender, and as McGeachy was constantly aware, a woman did not have the same options as a man.M In her last two years as an undergraduate, McGeachy worked on the staff of the Varsity. The group pictures show that women had been able to participate in considerable numbers: in 1922-3 there were thirty-five men and twenty-two women. Yet when the women reporters had to check the proofs of their work, they did so in a room separately from the men. Towards the end of her last year, 1923-4, after the Varsity had moved from a thrice-weekly publication schedule to a daily appearance, McGeachy was the women's news editor. The culture surrounding the production of the newspaper was male. The editor's room was described as 'a little room within a room inside the celibate portals of Hart House.'85 Membership of Hart House, the newly opened student union, included 'all undergraduate men in the University, who pay a compulsory fee.'s'' Women could not be members but had their own union. The women on the Varsity staff put the men on their mettle. The staff has not been without its internal dissension - and, on the question of whether or not the women's staff should be abolished, was divided into three camps: the absolute misogynists, the co-educationalists, and the suffragists. The women's staff... has done good work this year, and has, unassisted, taken out several issues of The Varsity, so that the cause of the misogynists, being now settled in the negative, will have to await the arrival of a new force of male Bolsheviks.>37 In universities across Canada in 1920, women were in a beleaguered minority, with only one woman enrolled for every five men. With respect to subjects of study, few women studied law, medicine, business, or engineering, but instead gravitated towards the humanities. McGeachy's subjects, history and English, carried intellectual prestige within the universities. The study of English was considered to have a political utility, by encouraging cultural renewal in a new era of mass democracy. Students would read the 'great books' and therefore be in contact with the great minds of English literature. Similarly the history curriculum provided an unabashed apologia for the achievements of the British Empire and of Canada's place within it, but some professors

Student Days 39

were beginning to fuel a sense of Canadian identity which saw Canada as an autonomous actor on the world stage. McGeachy's nationalism was nurtured in the SCM, but as well she could find confirmation in her formal studies.^8 Professor George Wrong, head of the History Department, was largely responsible for the inclusion of the recent past in the curriculum. He sympathized strongly with the Round Table movement and preferred to employ Oxford graduates as his instructors. The style and content of a student's formal education reinforced the notion that 'Canada in the 1920$ was becoming a nation in its own right, while maintaining many (but not all) of its ties to the British Empire.'39 A new instructor in the department was Lester B. Pearson, later Liberal prime minister, who had recently graduated from Oxford and returned to Toronto with opinions that were 'a curious blend of Canadian nationalism, traditional British imperialism, and nascent internationalism.' Like Wrong, Pearson was well acquainted with the ideas and the personalities supporting a new imperial commonwealth.40 McGeachy, excluded as a woman from the mainstream male elite, nevertheless absorbed its lessons well. Graduating in 1924, McGeachy continued on the path she had declared on admission in 1920. She intended, she said, to teach. So she registered at the Ontario College of Education, situated at the edge of the University of Toronto campus, for a one year teaching certificate.4' Near the end of her course, in March 1925, she had second thoughts about being a high school teacher. She wrote to Professor Wrong to see if she could do graduate work in history. This would qualify her to teach at the university level. But gender again got in the way. Wrong advised her to apply for a fellowship at Radcliffe College in the United States rather than at Toronto. 'If you did well at Radcliffe ... they would back you for an appointment.' Maybe she could return to Canada later. 'In Canada there are very few colleges for women, and in co-educational institutions it is very hard to secure the appointment of a woman to the staff. I know this very well, for over and over again I have backed women for appointments in Canada and hitherto the authorities, especially in the West, have preferred to appoint a man.' 42 This was realistic advice. Few women anywhere in Canada taught at the university level, even though women had been admitted to universities for over a generation, since 1884 at the University of Toronto. As undergraduates they were integrated into the formal academic life of the university, if not completely into the extra-curricular activities.

40 Woman of the World

Women enjoyed academic opportunities as undergraduates, but at graduation they met an almost impermeable barrier. Graduate work was overwhelmingly for men, and Professor Wrong was right: the faculty was almost solidly male.43 During her College of Education year, McGeachy maintained the SCM link. At its Elgin House summer camp in 1924, she heard accounts from members who had attended a meeting of the World Student Christian Federation. McGeachy learned about Russian refugees, student relief in Bulgaria, a student worker in Ceylon, and a forthcoming pan-Pacific conference in the Philippines. Through the WSCF there were opportunities for travel and adventure beyond the borders of North America. McGeachy had another reason to attend the SCM 1924 annual meeting. On the agenda was the appointment of officials for the Canadian Student, the newspaper which called itself 'A Venturer in Opinion.' McGeachy found herself elected to the board. She was one of eleven members, five of diem women, serving under the male editor.44 McGeachy's writing for the magazine testified to her continuing religious commitment. Earlier in 1924 she had written a statement of her faith, 'Enamoured of Jesus' Way,' which identified spiritual benefits for a person who could 'harmonize with the divine plan.'4"' In October she echoed the theme. 'I am secure in my unreason. The people who worshipped together on the rocks at sunrise and found themselves in the strong current of fellowship throughout the long, quiet days at Glen Island will see the point in the paradox.'4'' By the summer of 1925, McGeachy had to come to terms with the end of her student days. A couple of months after Professor Wrong advised against graduate work at Toronto, she was hired to teach at the Collegiate Institute of the city of Hamilton.47 She found there a life full of concern for social issues. Hamilton in 1925 was a manufacturing city west of Toronto. With a population of about a hundred thousand, it was twice as large as Sarnia, but just as McGeachy's home town was economically dependent on a single industry, oil, Hamilton's economy was based on steel. Many of its inhabitants in the mid-i92os were new immigrants from Europe, and the whole area was still suffering from a post-war depression which left 15 per cent of the workforce unemployed. In the 19205 women provided half of the secondary teachers in Ontario.48 This proportion had grown rapidly since the 17 per cent figure of 1900. Far from welcoming a 'feminization' of the high schools,

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education officials were alarmed. The minister of education in 1905 thought women were not suitable teachers for older boys. 'It is unreasonable to think that for large boys a woman is as competent as a man ... If proper discipline is to be exercised, that force of character which a well trained male teacher should possess is essential.' The problem was expressed in terms of the shortage of male teachers. Teachers were paid less than men in other professions such as engineering, law, and medicine. In some provinces, male teachers enjoyed higher salaries than their female colleagues: unequal pay for equal work. In 1918 a commentator noted: 'Let us get the main point clear: if women receive the same pay as men, men will not go into the profession. Moreover, many men will leave it and the feminization of the schools, as someone has called it, will be rapidly completed.'49 When McGeachy worked in the early 19205 in Hamilton there were separate salary schedules for women and men. Assistant male teachers had no minimum salary and their maximum was $3,050. For assistant female teachers, the minimum was $2,000 and their maximum was $2,500, with annual advances limited to $100.r'0 Few women earned the higher salaries of principals and inspectors as few were appointed into managerial positions. At marriage, a woman teacher was obliged to retire. When McGeachy was appointed in 1925 with a salary of $2,000 to the Hamilton Collegiate Institute staff, she was one of ten new appointments. Three were men. All the seven women, and one man, were allocated a salary of $2,ooo.r>l The other two men were paid more, perhaps because they had more experience, or perhaps because the board felt that they had to support a family, now or in the future, and therefore needed more. This convention infuriated women teachers, who lobbied to undermine it, without success, for many years. Two years later, when McGeachy left Hamilton, there were twentyeight men on staff at the Collegiate Institute and twelve women.5'" The more men on staff, the higher the status of the school, and the Institute women had the best working conditions of all the female Hamilton teachers. In 1925 in the entire Hamilton school division, there were altogether 477 female teachers and 58 men, the latter concentrated in the high schools. The average male salary was $2,346, and the average female salary was $1,321 J>'A Students who attended the Collegiate Institute came predominantly from the better off sections of the community. Hamilton was home to Ellen Fairclough, first woman in Canada to become a federal cabinet

42

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minister.54 Fairclough as a schoolgirl had not been able to go to the Collegiate Institute in 1918 at the age of thirteen because her family could not afford the fees - despite the fact that her father was regularly employed in construction, and her mother took in boarders.55 So the students were on the whole from middle-class and economically comfortable families. The teachers were a mixture of specialists, teaching specific subjects, and some, like McGeachy, who had to teach more than one. All except one had a university degree.56 McGeachy taught all the history to the younger students as well as three classes of English. She looked to resources in the community to supplement school work. 'My only real achievement has been to enroll every child in the [Hamilton Public] Library and make them despise their text books because they tell none of the thrilling stories in history!' she wrote to her SCM friend Wendell Macleod.57 During McGeachy's two years at the Collegiate Institute, in her spare time she conducted tutorial classes in industrial history and labour problems with women workers through the Young Women's Christian Association.58 During the summer of 1926, she supervised discussions and workshops for industrial workers and for the YWCA staff members at the national camp at Camperdown on Georgian Bay, a resort area of the Ontario wilderness on the Great Lakes. McGeachy liked the factory workers. 'I find so much that is utterly true in them.'59 When she was not teaching during the 1926—7 academic year, she lectured, or, as she put it, 'really [held] talk-fests with two groups of mill-girls.' She encouraged the groups' foray into self-help: 'one of the groups has begun a co-operative store in their clubhouse - $1.00 share.'"0 The Hamilton years provided McGeachy with an opportunity to learn from working-class women. She was so inspired by the integrity of 'millgirls' that she resolved to change careers and train for personnel work in industry.6' She also shifted her religious views. She began to challenge the SCM assumption that young educated Christians could impose their own views on Canadian society. To Wendell she mentioned her 'particular heresies' and doubted the 'value of the Lady Bountiful attitude to a girl who works in a mill.' Young working women did not want to spend their leisure in 'well-censored, innocuous ways,' but rather they wanted to 'find an adequate expression for the life that has been dammed back by the weight and roar of a machine all day.'62 McGeachy's correspondence with Wendell displays an introspection which was only occasionally shown later in life. She found herself impatient with the idea of accepting the second best. 'I am not able to

Student Days 43

accept the seconds - so far at least."'8 She did not want to pretend. 'I am finding it more and more impossible to do anything with my tongue in my cheek.' She did not want to waste time equivocating. 'It is perhaps a rather terrible thing to discover that you are the sort of person who must face the truth and to whom people must tell all their truth because it puts you forever beyond the comfort of Christian groups.' It was impossible, she wrote, 'to do things without sincerity."'4 McGeachy added a little picture, entitled 'A Community,' to her letter of May 1927 to Wendell. It showed the anchors of her life there. In the middle, she placed an abbreviated schoolhouse, 'the rest being too difficult' to draw. A prominent feature was its tennis court. Arrows emanated from the school. One connected with the public library, and along the arrow was a stick figure in search of 'an experiment in intellectual co-operation and requisition.' Linked to the library were the Labour Temple and the Central Bureau of Social Agencies, which also housed sports facilities. There she might see a parent with whom she could also play badminton. Another focal point was the Industrial Girls YWCA. That, in turn, led to the personnel department of the Cotton Mill, and a notation that 'you may even know an employer or two.' In the opposite direction, an arrow from the Y led back to the University of Toronto, 'on odd weekends for one's own mental improvement.' Another arrow went to some trees in the countryside depicting a Saturday morning hike 'in which you prove the humanity of learning.' This was McGeachy's Hamilton community: teaching, extra-curricular work with students and mill-girls, maintenance of a link with intellectual peers, and recreation in the form of tennis, badminton, and hiking. Significantly, by 1927, no church figured in her regular routine. McGeachy was involved in Hamilton life, but not to such an extent that she was permanently committed to this sort of community."5 By early 1927 she had saved enough money to go to Europe, where friends and acquaintances in the SCM had already ventured, and she applied for leave from the Hamilton school board. She was granted one year's leave of absence 'to continue postgraduate work."'6 Her intention was to enrol at the London School of Economics. Before that, she would take a holiday. For three summers, she said, she had resisted the persuasions of friends to go touring in Europe because she had felt she was doing useful work with the YWCA and her mill-girls. But in 1927 'there isn't ajob in the country that excites me.' Ironically, 'when there is not a soul I know going to Europe I suddenly must go."i?

44 Woman of the World

As a member of the Canadian Teachers' Federation, she got herself appointed its representative to the International Conference on New Education, which met in Switzerland at Locarno in August igay. 1 ' 8 From there she went as the Canadian delegate to a conference nearby in Schiers sponsored by the International Student Service, part of the World Student Christian Federation. Schiers in the summer of 1927 was to be her career's jumping-off point. McGeachy, a veteran of student conferences, experienced in student journalism, and well honed in the expression of religious and political commitment, had spent the last two years teaching high school students and industrial factory workers. She was ready for something new. She was twenty-six years old with funds to support herself for a year and thrilled finally to be in Switzerland, home to the headquarters of the new international political order which she had heralded since 1919. Her delight as well as her ability were manifest to others. At Schiers, 150 students from some thirty countries met to consider themes of international cooperation.69 McGeachy allowed her credentials and experience to become known to the organizers. Two days after the conference, the International Student Service executive met in Geneva, and among their business was the matter of the ISS paper, known as Vox Studentium (voice of students). The editor, Dr Walter Kotschnig, was being transferred to other ISS work, and finding 'some one who would temporarily be able to take over the main responsibility for Vox appeared of extreme importance.' An ideal candidate presented herself. 'All those who knew her felt that if she could be persuaded to accept the position Miss McGeachy would be able to relieve [the editor] from this responsibility.' She would be willing to work for at least a year 'only for expenses.'7" McGeachy's plans for personnel management assumed a lower priority. McGeachy spent more time travelling that summer. She visited Munich, Vienna, Budapest, Prague, and Paris. The whole trip was 'a simply thrilling expedition,' in the company of other ISS delegates, and 'we came in contact not only with tourists, but people who lived in each of the capital cities and who knew its intriguing spots very intimately.'7' She returned to Geneva to a new occupation as editor of Vox Studentium. McGeachy arranged to rent an apartment near the university, right in the old town. Her building on the rue du Soleil Levant looked down on the twelfth-century cathedral. In 1535-6 the Protestant reformers took over, and henceforward the cathedral was the base for John Calvin in his consolidation of the Reformation. The beautiful old building was

Student Days

45

transformed inside. Liturgical furnishings were removed, and the visual focus was transferred from the altar to the pulpit. Donald McGeachy could not object to the dominance of the Word. By the early twentieth century, some softening of the fabric of the church had taken place. Echoes of the pre-Reformation cathedral were restored. A chapel, the Maccabean chapel, had been completed in 1426 and sumptuously decorated with wall paintings of angels with musical instruments. The next century, the building had been summarily used as a warehouse. In the seventeenth century, it was treated with a little more respect and turned into an auditorium for the university. By 1888 it was restored and the wall paintings were returned to their glory. The multicoloured pictures of androgynous angels playing flutes, harps, triangles, and other instruments suggest a lighter tone for the strictly serious cathedral. McGeachy's exhilaration and good spirits in 1928 were reflected in the entry placed in the Canadian Student 'LADY THISTLEDOWN' (Mary Mc-Toronto '24) has floated far in search of new adventures; coming, if not to rest, at least to ground for the moment at Geneva, Switzerland. There she will be attached to the staff of I.S.S., with a particular interest in editing the 'Vox Studentium."7"

Names were always important to McGeachy, and the characterization as Lady Thistledown echoed her correspondence with Wendell Macleod. To him in 1926 she commented, 'Life is good, n'est-ce pas, old thistle,' and at the end of a letter she drew a little picture of a thistle.73 The thistle was more than a national symbol of a shared Scottish heritage. Student Christian Movement comrades reading the Canadian Student would be aware of biblical overtones. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus cautioned his hearers to beware of false prophets who appeared in sheep's clothing but were inwardly 'ravenous wolves.' Were figs gathered from thistles, he asked? A reputation, he went on to say, was based not on appearances but on behaviour.74 SCM members considered that they belonged to a Thistle Club,' as one of them reminded her when appealing for funds for its twenty-first anniversary.75 For McGeachy the thistle reference also resonated with the poetry of Edna St Vincent Millay, whose 1923 Pulitzer Prize was awarded partly for a collection entitled A Few Figs from Thistles.7* The name 'Lady Thistledown' simultaneously evoked images of female authority, Celtic culture, biblical metaphor, student fellowship, and jazz age immediacy.

46 Woman of the World

These pictures were overlaid by a private intimacy understood by McGeachy and Wendell, which at this distance in time is not to be deciphered. Was he a wolf in sheep's clothing? Was she? Was sex an issue? We cannot know, but clearly McGeachy's mood was buoyant. The magazine's playfulness served to underscore her thrill at the opportunity to stay in Geneva. McGeachy was able to revert to a student experience of enquiry, discussion, and activism. Vox Studentium in three languages described itself as 'An Open Forum for Students.' It was an expression of continuing loyalty to the international idea. Writers were drawn from India, the Far East, and Arab countries as well as from North America and Europe. 'International' in the 19205 meant a secure anchor in the eurocentric concepts of Western civilization. The three languages were English, French, and German. Underlying all the free debate was a commitment to Christianity. Volume five of Vox Studentium came out in October 1927, and McGeachy was closely engaged with its editorial work for the next eight issues. In her first signed article, she wrote a commentary on Canada. Wearing the mantle of Canadian nationalism lightly but firmly, she humorously noted that a Canadian student abroad was expected not only to describe her home country's scenery, enumerate its industries, expound the point of view of its people, but also to 'deliver apologias for the foreign policy of her government.' This was a new idea for many Canadian students, she said, but she rose to the occasion. She asked, 'Are Canadian students politically minded?' and described one instance in which students had taken an active part in recent politics, when groups of University of Toronto students supported the maintenance of prohibition in Ontario in the spring of 1927. She used the example as an illustration of the way students had placed their 'books and brains at the service of the community in a practical issue.'77 Volunteer service to the community was a good thing, in McGeachy's lexicon. So was international understanding. She pressed for greater exactitude in expression. The work of an artist was frequently described as the expression of an ideal. But an artist, she said, used art to express an experience that he had felt. Internationalism was not an experience. It was 'the ideal of a considerable number of people in the world. It is the experience of almost no one.' Art required local roots in place, culture, and tradition. Intellectually, McGeachy understood that an artist's sense of belonging - or not - was critical in the creation of art. She denied that interna-

Student Days 47

tional understanding meant a blurring of local characteristics. That would mean 'we would be infinitely poorer artistically.'78 Her view was that people in one culture should learn and appreciate the culture of others. It did not mean that differences were eradicated or reduced to the lowest common denominator. The first issue of Vox for which she had responsibility as editor was in January 1928. Its theme was sport. As editorial, McGeachy wrote about the benefits of sport. In the creation and enjoyment of art, she had referred to ecstasy. In the exercise of sport, it was something similar: a sense of poise, of 'oneness of [the athlete] in the activity that is achieved not alone by physical effort, but by the mental effort toward concentration, discrimination and control.' Sport demanded conscious effort from the whole self, in active, reflective, and critical faculties.79 In the same issue, McGeachy broached a topic which was to become one of the most problematic of her generation. She reviewed a pamphlet on the 'numerus clausus,' or quota system, for Jewish students in the universities of Eastern Europe. She deplored the system on pragmatic grounds. 'To drive [the Jewish student] from the pursuit in which he excels is to force him to leave the country, often to throw him on the mercy of charity abroad for a time at least, and to impoverish the community to which he might have contributed.'80 She returned to the topic of anti-Semitism with greater force the following month and extended her argument to issues of social justice and human rights. She quoted President Masaryk of Czechoslovakia. There was a simple necessity to provide for the just treatment of each individual citizen of the state, regardless of his race, nationality, religion, or other individual distinction. McGeachy pointed out as well the practical losses which followed from persecution. The new countries of Eastern Europe needed all the educated leadership they could find. Their own communities would lose if they denied intellectual training to able candidates on the grounds of race or religion. She announced that the publishers of Vox, the International Federation of Students, were going to place the discussion of minority problems on the agenda for a student congress.8' McGeachy was placing herself on the tolerant, left-leaning, liberal side of the political spectrum. She distinguished herself from a committed socialist. Reviewing a book about Russian economic development, she recalled Lenin's 'constant doubt' about Russia as suitable ground for revolution. She appeared sceptical about the capacity of the industrial minority 'to win over the mass of agriculturists from an individual-

48 Woman of the World

istic conception of possession and social structure.'8'" But she was passionate about equal worth and equal opportunities. Education was crucial in allowing individuals, whatever their social status, the opportunity for personal, as well as economic, fulfilment. Education 'is as big as life and it is for everybody ... Its purpose is to help the individual to become creative and appreciative, so that making a life and not merely making a living will become of transcendent importance.>8;< In the last Vox which she edited, on the theme of students and labour, McGeachy wrote an enthusiastic article entitled 'The University in Overalls.' It was an account of Frontier College in Canada, which she described as 'one of the most virile educational movements on the American continent.' The college was an outgrowth of the settlement movement of Britain and the United States, where educated, middle-class youth would work side by side with immigrants and the poor, and show them practical ways to improve their lives. She used the personal testimony of two men to describe the inspirational tale of education brought to the loggers and lumberjacks of northern Canada. She could remember, too, her father's work as a minister in remote camps and her own experience of adult education. She told the story of Alfred Fitzpatrick, a missionary worker in frontier regions, seeking to enrich the mental and spiritual lives of men toiling through the long winter months 'on the edge of the wilderness.' A great gulf separated him from his subjects and inhibited his goal to be of service. So he discarded clerical garb and set about sharing in the same manual labour during the day. In the evenings, he introduced the men to books and ideas. Since he began his work in 1900, two thousand such camps had brought enlightenment. 'Workers of many nationalities have been welded into corporate groups by the force of a common search.' In the Frontier College experience, an instructor often found his own assumptions challenged and changed. The workers took a keen interest in labour problems and relationships with women. Religious people were regarded as 'hypocrites, for "were not the churches in league with the capitalists"? But there was keen interest in many things academic - the evolution theory, physiology, elementary astronomy, physics, chemistry and languages.' It was in these informal discussions that the instructor himself was educated, as McGeachy herself had learned from the Hamilton mill-girls. There he receives a course in the study of human problems that cannot be equalled by any text book or college lecture.'84

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The May issue turned out to be McGeachy's last. For financial reasons, Vox's board decided to suspend the publication for a year.85 Editing an international magazine had been a wonderful opportunity for McGeachy. She incidentally displayed qualities which, in hindsight, are important for understanding her character. McGeachy showed a suspicion of sensationalism and sentimentality. Most of her writing was balanced and sober, but at the same time it was not turgid. The article on Frontier College, for instance, was eminently readable, illustrated by two photographs and written in animated style. Always her opinions were supported by reasons and references to events and facts. She made a point of appealing to journalists to do more than record occurrences. Interpretation, not just reporting, was the important thing.8" She had an eye for the practical and the pragmatic, but was aware too of principles and sought to make sense of what she observed. A liberal, she was inclined to meritocracy. An egalitarian with respect to the value of individuals and the importance of individual intelligence, she was no respecter of ancient elites. She resisted the condescension of experts and was sensitive to the idea that the teacher could learn from others. She was reluctant to endorse revolution. The final issue of the magazine carried the news that 'Miss McGeachy ceased to be the Editor of Vox Studentium on May ist, 1928. Unhappily the difficult financial situation of Vox made it necessary for her to give in her resignation.'87 The magazine's revenue could not cover its expenses. Within a month, McGeachy had an offer of employment from the organization which she had admired so greatly throughout her youth: the League of Nations. McGeachy liked Europe so much that she did not want to leave. The League, the international idea, beckoned, and in the summer of 1928 she decided to immerse herself in the culture of her new world order. Lady Thistledown was ready to put down roots.

3

Geneva

In the summer of 1928, Mary McGeachy received a handwritten note from a member of the League of Nations Secretariat. 'Dear Miss McGeachy,' he wrote. There is the possibility of offering you a post in the Information Section, but before proceeding with the matter I should like to know if you are still available and if so whether you would be good enough to call to see me at your earliest convenience.'1 McGeachy had actively gone out to find a place at the League. Vox Studentium had no more funds. In March she had applied for a position advertised by the Intellectual Co-operation Section of the League of Nations. After summarizing her academic credentials, stating her facility with French and German, and emphasizing that she belonged to the Canadian Teachers' Federation, 'the largest and most active organization of intellectual workers in Canada,' she made the most of her editing experience. Vox was published in three languages, circulated among university students of some thirty-five countries, and provided a cosmopolitan experience. Through this work one gains considerable knowledge of conditions and customs in university centres in many parts of the world.' Moreover, the magazine had contacts with the Intellectual Co-operation Sections in both the League of Nations and the International Labour Organization.* Unfortunately, her letter had been received after the closing date for applications and hers could not be considered.3 McGeachy had then gone to the League herself and tried to see a Miss Williams in Personnel. She wrote a note on her card, 'May I trouble you for only a very few minutes?' but Miss Williams was unavailable. McGeachy therefore left a note asking to be considered for any likely position and added: 'I should really be quite glad to take something of a temporary nature for the moment if nothing permanent offers.'

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Williams forwarded McGeachy's application form to the Information Section. The head of the section, Pierre Comert, was impressed. He and H.R. Cummings, in charge of the British newspaper desk, brought McGeachy in for an interview. She had 'excellent personal qualifications,' was living in Geneva, had a 'certain amount of journalistic experience,' and was generally well equipped educationally. Moreover, the section liked to keep the position 'for people from one or other of the British Dominions.' 4 McGeachy was offered a job as an assistant at the salary of SF 8,700 per annum. This was equivalent to Canadian $1705 and slightly less than she had earned as a high school teacher. But McGeachy was thrilled. 'Every serious young person wanted to work for the League in those days.'5 Within three weeks of reading the note, McGeachy was on board. As of 2 July 1928, she was appointed to a temporary position as an assistant in the Information Section, and six months later she had the permanent position as senior assistant. She had used her year's leave from the Hamilton school board well - if not as the board had anticipated. Here was McGeachy's chance to integrate her political hopes and ambitions, her academic training, her rhetorical experience as a teacher, and her religious conviction and goodwill towards humanity, in service to the one organization which embodied the hopes of the civilized world. For the next twelve years, 'everything in my life was connected. There was no separation of work and life. Every waking moment went to the League. We were conscious of making the image of the League but the secretariat wasn't staid. Some of the young men were wild enough. It was an experiment. There were no precedents. Who wouldn't have been inspired!'" McGeachy had made her own opportunities. In 1927 Vox Studentium provided her with the chance to live in Geneva. She liked what she found, and used the resources available to her to secure a livelihood in the Swiss centre for the near future. With no institutional supports, and with no mentor to guide her, she was able to turn an absence of supports into an advantage. There was no family to divert her energy. She could give herself to the League entirely. Her only resources were her ability and her charm, both in the service of her ambition and conviction. 'There were no precedents.' McGeachy was a young single woman, an unknown on the international scene. She forged her own way. McGeachy owed no professional loyalty to the Canadian government: she was an employee of the League. However, she quickly learned that her career in the League was sensitive to national sway. It helped if Canadian officials in Geneva and at home in Ottawa could put in a

52 Woman of the World

word for her with superior staff at the League. She was destined to disappointment, since Canada wielded little influence in Geneva. Canadian membership in the League had more symbolic value than diplomatic pull. When, as part of the Treaty of Versailles, the League was established, Canada was accepted as a separate and independent member. This swelled the nationalist pride of McGeachy's generation of students. 'One of the best publicity jobs Canada ever did was to sign her own name to the Covenant.'7 However, official Canadian government policy towards the League was to maintain the lowest commitment compatible with a newly found quasi-independent status. First, the country opposed any League activity which might be interpreted as infringing on Canada's domestic affairs. Beyond that, Canada wanted a low profile and opposed attempts which might give strength to collective security commitments. It supported the idea of international machinery for the peaceful settlement of disputes and for disarmament, but it was reluctant to become involved in attempts to settle specific disputes between other powers. It insisted on maintaining an independent foreign policy role.8 From the beginning, Canada was regularly represented at the annual League Assemblies and after January 1925 had a permanent advisory officer, Walter Riddell, resident in Geneva. Riddell's mandate was to represent Canada in its relations with the League and the International Labour Organization, and he served in this capacity until 1937. His office was small, with only a half dozen staff in total. Over the years, his main function was to serve as liaison officer for the people appointed by Canada to attend as delegates to League meetings. Such delegates were sometimes career politicians, but more often than not they were patronage appointees enjoying vacations in Europe at the taxpayers' expense.9 Ottawa rarely committed resources or even much attention to Riddell and the League.10 In the 19205, Ottawa, under the Liberal prime minister Mackenzie King, wished to avoid international responsibilities; and after 1930, under the Conservative prime minister R.B. Bennett, the Canadian government continued to play down international commitments. Mackenzie King returned to office as prime minister in 1935 and considered that the paramount need to preserve national unity would be threatened by public controversy over foreign policy. He maintained the reluctance to have Canada assume an active role either in the empire or the League." McGeachy's own attitude towards the League was neither negative nor passive. Steeped in the internationalism of the Student Christian

Geneva 53

Movement, she admired the views of J.W. Dafoe, editor of the Winnipeg Free Press. He was well known inside and outside Canada for his independence and liberal views. Iverach McDonald of the London Times remembered his reputation as a 'very fine, forward-looking, broadminded man.' 12 In Geneva, inside the Information Section, Dafoe was known as 'one of the principal Canadian journalists and even, one could say, one of the principal journalists of the British Empire.'13 McGeachy recognized 'the Canada in which I believe' in his writing, and for ten years she carried on a correspondence with him.' 4 McGeachy's commitment to the League was strong and reasoned. She did not believe that the League was the 'modern act of God whose mere appearance in a stiff grey town in Switzerland had transformed the hearts of men,' but she considered that the world's powers, both great and small, had an interest in supporting international cooperation. Moreover, aggression should be punished. At the time of the 1932 Disarmament Conference, she considered sanctions were necessary to enforce general disarmament. She felt frustration at what she saw as the obtuseness of great powers that failed to uphold the principles of the League. She could not understand why the British Foreign Office did not see that 'defence of the Covenant is the only practical politics for Britain to play.'15 While the League was important for maintaining peace, McGeachy considered it could be instrumental as well in international trade. 'I really cannot see the point of noble ideals about international co-operation if these will not work with regard to economic problems.'"' Her correspondent Dafoe was not as firm in support as she might have hoped. He regularly suspected that individual countries were manipulating the League for their own ends. In 1933 he wrote to her: 'I have often said that the danger to its existence would lie in one of the big nations [whose support was essential to the League] denying [the League's] authority in order to carry out selfish nationalistic policies, and that this would reveal the fact that the other powers were not really concerned to support the League. This is what happened in the case of Japan. It may happen again any day with respect to Germany.'' 7 Dafoe was sceptical about 'projects of international planning and control ... All projects of planning are like projects for disarmament: they are disguises for schemes and intrigues looking to the advantage of the most skilful or least scrupulous planner.'' 8 McGeachy was angry that in 1931 at the time of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, the League neglected to act. She was convinced the failure of the League then led directly to the crisis over the Italian

54 Woman of the World

invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. 'Is it not clear that we were bound after the establishment of the League sometime or other to have a decisive test case of its principles? The Manchurian affair was damaging enough; it is probably true that, but for it, we should not now be faced with this one ... Neutrality is without meaning either for the present emergency, or much more important, for future policy.'19 She was indignant in 1935 that even League officials did not seem to take seriously the issue of the enforcement of League disapproval.20 The following year, in 1936, she was virtually agreeing with commentators from small powers who pointed out that 'a League which makes no serious effort at restraining the aggressor is worse than useless for them.' 21 With respect to the rise of Hitler, German rearmament, and the whole principle of international aggression, McGeachy throughout the 19305 can be described as an anti-appeaser. From her student days, she remained committed to the ideal of international cooperation, and, although she recognized flaws within the League structure, she thought the international community ought to support the League. She came to believe German aggression should be stopped. War might be necessary. 'War is a great calamity but an even more dreadful disaster must be that described in the Old Testament: "They made it a desert and they call it peace."'22 Even in 1940 when war was raging around Switzerland, McGeachy did not lose her conviction in an international ideal. In the early part of 1940, she participated in a group established to consider post-war politics: 'a very interesting inter-organization group set up to discuss problems of a durable peace,' funded by the American Carnegie Foundation. Its agenda turned out to be exactly the kind of post-war planning she found herself doing two years later.23 The question is what is the post-war settlement to be, what kind of world, what sort of values will people have and will these be ones which may be served by any international action whatever ... We are doing studies and collecting information which will not be published for a long day.'24 McGeachy's personal commitment towards the League inspired the more mundane tasks she was called upon to perform as a member of the Information Section. In her daily routine, she met frustration in her career progress but was able to experience a measure of satisfaction. The League was the world's first equal opportunity employer. In striking contrast to employment policies in every member country of the League, Article 7 of the Covenant of the League of Nations stated that all posts in connection with the League would be open to men and

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55

women. This included people appointed to national delegations to the League of Nations Assembly, and to the League's advisory committees. It also included the personnel hired as the League's international civil servants, members of the Secretariat. As well as equality of access, in the League there was to be equal pay for equal work - no more separate pay schedules of the sort in operation in Canadian schools. Furthermore, there was no marriage bar, and maternity leave with full pay was available for six weeks before and after the birth of a child.25 On paper, the League offered equality. The hopes of new, modern, working women were high. They saw the Covenant of the League as a leaping-off point. They hoped that staff at all levels, managerial and executive as well as clerical, would include the sort of women who had come to public attention during the war in positions previously dominated by men. Female doctors had joined the Red Cross nurses in military hospitals around Europe. Women had been appointed in social welfare positions. There were more women in higher ranks in education and government services, and there were some women politicians. Now the League could offer opportunities for women in international politics, and women's affinity with peace rather than war would find its appropriate vehicle. That was the theory. In practice, despite continued advocacy from women's international organizations, 'by the late 19308 the situation had worsened rather than improved for women in the Secretariat.'2" Recruitment of qualified women was difficult. Most of the League's staff were hired from the ranks of experienced civil servants of the member states. Although in the 19208 there were women who had attended university and had achieved academic qualifications, few national bureaucracies admitted women to the executive and managerial positions which would provide the administrative experience desirable for the new international Secretariat. Then, in the 19305 in many parts of Europe, a growing authoritarianism and dominance of fascist governments and ideologies further reduced opportunities for women in the public sphere. The few women whose qualifications and experience provided credentials for their ability and ambition had also to meet implicit quotas relating to nationality. Grand internationalist claims were made for the Secretariat: 'Taken as a whole, its members, drawn from over thirty countries, differing in language, religion, and training, worked together in a spirit of friendship and devotion. They developed a corporate sense, a pride in the record and reputation of their service, not inferior to any that can be

56 Woman of the World

found in the best of national institutions.'27 Of the women in the Secretariat, the vast majority were taken from two countries: Britain and France. The desire of member states to have their nationals strongly represented in the higher ranks of the Secretariat led to a virtual exclusion of women, and indeed men, who did not have powerful political friends to protect their interests. As Carol Miller has noted, senior appointments were made in consultation with the governments of member states. Consequently, even if there were women who possessed the normal educational qualifications, 'few had obtained the experience or the reputation which served as pre-requisites for the appointment to top-ranking posts.'28 McGeachy quickly recognized this reality when she found herself up against a thick glass ceiling. Admission into the Secretariat was not a problem for women, provided they were prepared to accept a low rank. In 1921 women represented 57 per cent of the 347 Secretariat members. Ten years later in 1931, 47 per cent of the larger total of 718 members were women. The vast majority of women were typists, clerks, and telephone operators classified at the lower levels. The two highest grades, first division and second division, comprised half the staff, but women were few in the first division: only 6 per cent in 1921 and 8 per cent in 1930. Women predominated in the second division but held only a small fraction of the top-ranking positions. This was partly due to what the secretary-general called nationality quotas. In addition, some women's lobbyists bluntly charged that there was prejudice against women.29 The Secretariat was organized into several sections covering the work of the League, including an economic and financial section, a section for social problems, including drug trafficking and the traffic in women, a political section, and a legal section. For most of the League's life, there were eleven sections, and of these the Information Section was always the largest or the second largest. Its mission was to disseminate information around the world on League activities, and to supply the press and other organs of public opinion with documentary and analytical material. Secondly, the section kept the secretary-general and the Secretariat informed of the movements of public opinion in member and non-member states. Because publicity was 'an inseparable element of the League,' the Information Section enjoyed more importance than public relations departments of most governments.30 McGeachy was not favoured by career advancement. She never managed to get into the first or second divisions, known as section A or

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section B. Her entire League career was spent as a senior assistant, which in terms of precedence came after the members of sections, and after members of the intermediate class A and the intermediate class B; that is, until the tumult of 1940 when she ended up as acting head of section. McGeachy did not blame her lack of promotion on gender. She was readier to explain her difficulties by reference to nationality. She thought there was prejudice against her because she was Canadian. Throughout the 19308, she mobilized the assistance of J.W. Dafoe on her behalf. SI In 1940 she told the London Evening Standard she had recently served as acting director of the League's Information Section.^2 Because of the disruptions and commotion of the first year of the war, as one of the few staff remaining in Geneva, she did indeed work in that capacity. While there is no question she performed the work, she never had the official title. What was her job? In 1940, Sean Lester, the Irishman who became secretary-general in the summer of 1940, wrote McGeachy a letter of appreciation in which he summarized her responsibilities. 'Your duties ... included the work of liaison with Canada and with feminine international organizations. Furthermore, in collaboration with other members of the Section, you drafted communiques, correspondence and pamphlets, and delivered lectures, especially to summer schools in Geneva. On several occasions you have been entrusted with missions in Canada, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere.':" The missions had a double effect. League staff would speak of the League in public and privately, carrying the authority of the League with them. They were instruments of propaganda, and at the same time they brought back information about public reaction towards the League.34 McGeachy undertook several at her own initiative, and she was in charge of what she said and did. Her work in Geneva was more at the behest of her superiors. McGeachy's first work in July 1928 was under the Englishman H.R. Cummings, helping him develop relations with Canada and the Dominions. She was entirely responsible for reading the press of Great Britain and the Dominions for the press review which she developed on her own. Some of her time was spent in translating editorial articles from French and German for the press and communiques into English. Cummings and Comert were pleased with her work and in November proposed that she be given a three-year contract as senior assistant with

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a starting salary of SF 8,95O.:ir> This represented an increase, after only six months, of what was normally an annual increment. The Personnel Office agreed to her promotion, but not to the raise. It was, from McGeachy's point of view, to be the first of a series of shabby dealings but at this point she was not complaining. Six months later, she reached the end of her probationary period. Comert again expressed his satisfaction and noted that her work for the section's press review involved reading about forty papers from the British and Dominion press daily. Liaison work with Britain and the Dominions and some translation work occupied most of her time. Comert made some headway with respect to an increase in salary. 'Her work entails a good deal of responsibility; she is keen and intelligent.' Her immediate supervisor was very satisfied with her help for his liaison work. He thought it was inappropriate that her salary was 'a good deal less than many of the shorthand-typists are receiving.'^ 6 He wanted her to be paid SF 9,450 but was only partly successful. He managed to get her one special increment, so that as of 2 July 1929 she was making SF 9,200 per annum. This was the first, and the last, of any extraordinary treatment McGeachy received. From then on, she received a normal increment of SF 250 each year until she got to the maximum of her scale. In 1930, McGeachy was still hopeful about progress through the ranks. 'Early in 1931 there are to be a number of important changes in our section and Mr Cummings is putting me up for a B membership which is falling free. It would be great to have it because it would mean Canadian liaison being dignified as one of the full jobs in the section quite on a par with Jugoslavia and Chile and other great spots on the earth. But I'm sure I do not know what will happen since there is now no strong senior Canadian in the secretariat to give the little extra impetus which might mean a good deal for a young person before the appointments committee.'37 It seems clear that McGeachy hoped that a result of her successful lecture tour across Canada in 1930 would be that powerful people would put in a word on her behalf with Sir Eric Drummond, the League's secretary-general. At the end of the three years, Comert recommended that McGeachy be offered a life contract, which gave her security until retirement at the age of sixty. By 1931, McGeachy had shown she was useful to the section. In addition to her continuing Dominion and British liaison, and her editing and translating, she was also working with Princess

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Radziwill, who was in charge of contacts with the many women's organizations which kept a presence in Geneva. Princess Gabrielle Radziwill was a Lithuanian who before entering the League in 1920 had spent two years during the First World War working with the Russian Red Cross, in charge of hospitals on the Russian-Persian front. Twenty-three years older than McGeachy, she had built up the liaison between the women's organizations and the League, and proved a sympathetic and helpful guide.s8 In 1930 the Information Section, always one of the larger sections, had a staff of forty-eight. McGeachy was ranked twenty-seventh. By the time of the 1940 Staff List, in the much depleted section of eighteen staff members, she was number twelve. But then in March 1940, Alexander Loveday recommended she be number one.39 McGeachy's work with the women's organizations, or, as the League idiom frequently described them, the 'feminine organizations,' became an important part of her job for the 19305 and later. The links she first made in Geneva were to last for the rest of her life. What were these organizations and what was their appeal for a woman who had not publicly identified herself up to this point as a feminist? The women's international organizations grew out of the same internationalism which pervaded the Student Christian Movement. Some feminists had the conviction that a new notion of citizenship, with a strong commitment to international peace and cooperation, might be centred on enfranchised women. Instead of war, there should be machinery for the promotion of non-combatant means for resolving political differences between nations.4" Maternalism was a dominant theme of the largest women's international organization, the International Council of Women, founded in i888. 4 ' Women's authority was based on their position as mothers, and their concern for children's rights and welfare was continually emphasized. As mothers, they were concerned for the lives and security of their children. Officers of the Council however frequently used equal rights arguments when appropriate. Peace and international arbitration were a prime concern, and by 1904 the Council's objectives included equal pay for equal work, the appointment of female factory inspectors, participation of women in trade unions, legislation to protect women as workers, and laws to safeguard the moral purity of actual or future mothers. Still controversial, though, were political rights. Women who made suffrage a priority

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were impatient and seceded in 1904 to form a second international organization for women, the International Alliance for Women's Suffrage.4" Thirty years later, the concerns of the Council and the Alliance together provided much of McGeachy's work in Geneva. The objectives of the Alliance evoked images of women as individual persons with inalienable human rights. Women were citizens and sisters, rather than mothers.43 Yet the Alliance and the Council were frequently in accord. In the summer of 1914, the Alliance called on governments 'to avert the threatened unparalleled disaster' of war, using the same maternalist language of the Council to recall their 'responsibilities as mothers of the race.' The outbreak of war in September 1914 led to considerable soul-searching on the part of members of both the Council and the Alliance who were strongly committed to peace. Staunch pacifists established a third international organization, a committee which resulted in the formation, in 1919, of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.44 After the war, women's suffrage was introduced in many countries, yet the Alliance still saw a purpose to fulfil. Its first post-war congress, held at Geneva in 1920, declared its objective was 'such other reforms as are necessary to establish a real equality of liberties, status and opportunities between men and women.' A new charter was agreed, delineating rights which were explicitly egalitarian. All educational and training opportunities should be open to both sexes; there should be equal pay for equal work; the right to work of both married and unmarried women should be recognized; and 'no special regulations for women's work, different from regulations for men, should be imposed contrary to the wishes of the women themselves.'45 This turned out to be the explosive issue for the women's organizations for the inter-war years. Protective legislation was the divisive touchstone between maternalists and egalitarians, and McGeachy worked hard to avoid outright confrontation. Besides ideology, tensions concerning turf were inevitably present among the international women's organizations. The new Women's International League for Peace and Freedom was interested in more than peace; the Alliance under its new constitution was concerned about equality of all sorts for women; and the Council saw itself as the allencompassing organ for women of the world. Nevertheless, the Council and the Alliance were able to agree over certain issues and occasionally took pains to present a single united front. By the time McGeachy joined the League of Nations Secretariat, a committee linking the ma-

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jor international women's organizations, with the rather cumbersome tide of Liaison Committee of the Women's International Organizations, was already in existence. The Council, the Alliance, and the Women's International League agreed on the issue of married women's nationality. In most countries, the nationality of a married woman was dependent on that of her husband. This was a scandal to women who prized citizenship, and what was particularly relevant among members of international organizations - the right to travel to international conferences. Throughout the 19305, the Women's Consultative Committee on Nationality, a committee established by the League of Nations, comprising delegates from nine women's international organizations, continued to lobby national governments to effect reform.4'1 A second joint action of the Liaison Committee was to influence the Disarmament Conference planned by the League of Nations to take place at Geneva in 1Q32. 47 The new Liaison Committee coordinated the presentation of a petition for peace bearing eight million women's signatures.48 Women wearing white ribbons across their shoulders, each with a white armband with the golden word 'pax,' delivered the petition and were then followed by representatives from other worldwide organizations. This spectacular display, however, had no power to secure the success of the Disarmament Conference, which disbanded in 1935-49 A third area was more contentious, and McGeachy was directly involved in the diffusion of tension. This was the proposal for an equal rights treaty. Neither the Council nor the Alliance initiated the plan, which was put forward in 1928 by two strong egalitarians: Margaret Rhondda and Alice Paul. Rhondda was the British publisher of Time and Tide, who had formed the Six Point Group to focus attention on a strictly equal rights agenda. Paul was leader of the National Woman's Party in the United States, the major organization behind the equal rights constitutional amendment there. Rhondda and Paul wanted equal rights to be proclaimed in an international treaty. They had a vision of the League of Nations serving as a legislator of human rights on a world scale. Signatories would have the obligation to implement equal rights within their countries. Rhondda and Paul founded organizations specifically to coordinate a campaign, the Open Door International in 1929 and Equal Rights International in 1930. Their view of equal rights was straightforward: in law and opportunities, they wished women to be treated as identical with men.5"

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Neither Rhondda nor Paul made much headway with the major women's organizations in the United States or Britain. However, Paul was more politically successful in lobbying support within the Pan-American Union, an organization of American states. At the Union's 1933 Montevideo conference, she gained approval for a treaty which stated: The contracting states agree that upon the ratification of this treaty men and women shall have equal rights throughout the territory subject to their respective jurisdictions.' To the egalitarian feminists, an equal rights treaty was the knife which would cut out discrimination against women around the world. Its simplicity made for easy understanding. More pragmatic feminists could see problems, both of policy and implementation. Many feminists did not agree that men and women were, or should be considered, identical. Maternalists believed that women's claim to political attention rested on their function as mothers, a claim which emphasized their difference from men. Feminists interested in improving women's working conditions through labour laws, commonly known as protective legislation, wanted to protect women from exploitative employers and from unmediated market forces. Since the turn of the century, legislatures had passed protective legislation which was generally gender-specific, applying to women only. These laws would be jeopardized, it was feared, by an equal rights treaty. Apart from disagreement over policy, many members of the Council, the Alliance, and the Women's International League were concerned about the implementation of an equal rights treaty. Member states of the League of Nations were reluctant to consider issues which were viewed as subject to domestic jurisdiction. The general issue of the status of women was regarded in the early 19305 by many League officials and most member states to be outside the terms of reference of the League. International law was anyway a vague concept, and progress could be made only tentatively. Pragmatic feminists favoured international action on women's specific needs as workers or mothers and had conventions establishing international standards. While egalitarian feminists were impatient with such a piecemeal approach, many other feminists and international bureaucrats at the League resisted the doctrinaire force of leaders such as Alice Paul/1' She did not help her cause by being personally abrasive. Even though Paul succeeded in getting an equal rights treaty accepted at Montevideo, the victory was more apparent than real. Five years later, none of the adhering nations had ratified the treaty.52 Pragmatists were understand-

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ably sceptical with regard to the utility of an equal rights treaty to be put before the League. In the mid-i 9305, Latin American delegates to the League of Nations managed to place a general equal rights treaty on the League's agenda for 1935." League officials found themselves caught up in the dilemma of whether or not an equal rights treaty was desirable or practicable. There was a search for a way to avert a public confrontation between maternalists and egalitarians. Princess Radziwill, who carried the chief responsibility for liaison with women's organizations, argued that the League might have a useful role to play with respect to the general issue of the status of women. McKinnon Wood of the Legal Section disagreed. He suggested the League should resolve only that governments be recommended to establish equality between men and women so far as circumstances in each country permitted.54 McGeachy's work of liaison was relatively low profile. She was responsible for many administrative details, such as administering the distribution of tickets and passes to meetings of committees and the League Assembly and Council. She organized receptions and social events, and often provided the bureaucratic support at meetings of the various committees where women's issues were considered. Overall she was able to develop considerable insight into the issues and personalities involved. In 1935 she prepared for Adrianus Pelt, her section head, a cool summary of the attitudes of various organizations to the equal rights issue, which helped reduce the emotional temperature. For tempers were running high. Among the women's organizations there was very uneasy collaboration between the egalitarian Equal Rights International group, on the one hand, and the more conventional maternalists, on the other, and even within the Equal Rights International, divisions emerged between a confrontational wing and women more inclined to work with allies.55 Within the Secretariat, McKinnon Wood continually expressed scepticism over the value of even discussing issues connected with the status of women, and Radziwill continued to champion the League as an appropriate forum.5" McGeachy's terse, objective minute identified players and their points of view without recourse to McKinnon Wood's vainly repeated observation that the Assembly ought simply to disclaim competence over issues relating to women.57 McGeachy pointed out that the strongest support came from the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and the Equal

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Rights International. The position of other organizations was not entirely clear. The position of the International Federation of University Women was 'rather doubtful at the moment.' The Alliance was 'in a rather embarrassing position' because one of its strongest national branches, the League of Women Voters in the United States, was strongly opposed to a treaty. The president of the Alliance, Margery Corbett Ashby, was reluctant to have the Alliance support a treaty, but her organization was on record as supporting it. The biggest international women's organization, the International Council of Women, was prepared to support a treaty, but only if it were preceded by a preamble insisting that the treaty must not be seen as affecting special provisions made for women under international labour conventions. McGeachy reported the Council's view without comment, but went on to say that at least two other organizations, the Young Women's Christian Association and the International Federation of Business and Professional Women, were opposed to a treaty because they understood it would necessarily sweep away all special labour legislation for women. She added that organizations of industrial women - those speaking for the majority of women, working-class women in waged work - were in opposition to a treaty.58 By this time the women's international organizations themselves, the Liaison Committee, and members of the Secretariat were on the road to a public display of disunity. Disagreement over protective legislation, over the usefulness of a League of Nations resolution concerning women's rights, and over the personalities involved, meant that even the International Council of Women and the International Alliance of Women lacked internal unity over an equal rights treaty.59 McGeachy resurrected a suggestion which had been made a few years earlier/'0 In 1931 the Council of the League was asked to 'consider the possibility of studying means of associating feminine action and feminine feeling with the work of the League of Nations by effective and direct collaboration.' Consequently the secretary-general made a report the following year and identified issues which the Assembly had to decide, including 'whether it wishes the Secretariat to make a survey of the economic and political rights of women.' Now in 1935, said McGeachy, the organizations were wondering what constructive suggestion they might usefully make. 'A good many of them are wondering whether they could not ask for a thorough-going enquiry into the position of women in the various countries.' This might eventually provide enough comparative information as 'the only basis for a final Assembly resolution

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on the subject.' Moreover, the vexed question of protective legislation could be diverted to the International Labour Organization. 01 McGeachy was able to coordinate the various women's international organizations in joint statements prepared for the 1935 Assembly. Avoiding the matter of an equal rights treaty, they instead expressed unanimity in voicing concern over the growing tendency for governments to override clauses of constitutions and laws establishing equality between the sexes and to restrict the employment of women."a McGeachy's backroom work foreshadowed her later diplomacy as the president of the International Council of Women in the igGos. In 1935 the League Assembly invited members states to submit information regarding the political and civil rights of women in their countries. McKinnon Wood's reaction was dismissive: the result would be 'an ill-digested encyclopedic mass of information ... unlikely to provide anything approaching a policy.' His warning was ignored. The invitation became formalized over the next two years into a plea for a comprehensive and scientific enquiry into 'the legal status enjoyed by women in the various countries of the world,' announced at the 1937 Assembly.1'^ A League of Nations committee of experts was appointed in 1938, the first League committee to have more women than men. The committee decided to study laws concerning women in stages, initially confining their enquiry to European systems of law and the systems derived from them. Laws concerning women's work were to be studied by the International Labour Organization. Questionnaires were drawn up to elicit information on laws affecting women, and the ways in which the laws were administered and rendered effective or not. The due date for the information was i January ig4o."4 A comprehensive outcome of the status of women study had to await the end of the Second World War, but the International Labour Organization was able to publish a report in 1939 entitled The Law and Women's Work: A Contribution to the Study of the Status of Women."* McGeachy served as a backroom fixer, concerned about the shortand long-term effects of discussions at Geneva on opportunities for women in member states. She tended to look for common denominators which could be played up, and to find ways of minimizing the differences to be played down. She deliberately tried to maintain good personal relations with all the organizations regardless of their approach to protective legislation or an equal rights treaty. When the International Council of Women held its fiftieth anniversary conference in Edinburgh in 1938, she arranged to attend as an official League of

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Nations delegate. It was also important to be on good terms with the more radical Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and with the International Alliance. It was she who attended the Alliance's Zurich conference in February 1937, and as well travelled to London in May of that year for another women's group where Corbett Ashby presided, the British Commonwealth League. Throughout the 19305, McGeachy had more to do than to arrange a feminist agenda and smooth over differences. In her work of liaison with Canada and the other Dominions, she maintained wide contacts with press representatives from Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa who were resident in Geneva and with the special correspondents who visited to attend particular League meetings. She corresponded with many freelance journalists who wanted to write articles on the League, and for all these professional writers, she would furnish both official and unofficial League documentation. In a book, Geneva Scene, a journalist singled out McGeachy as one of only two British women 'well known in League circles.' She was known, he said, for keeping a check on the world's press so far as the League was concerned, and for preparing documents on activities of direct interest to women.ht) When McGeachy was in Geneva during the summer, she took part in summer schools and gave lectures to groups such as students, secondary school and university teachers, social workers, industrial workers, and women."7 She helped provide information for people visiting Geneva from Canada and other Dominions either in official delegations for Assemblies or at other times of the year. She made it her business to make female visitors comfortable: if ushers at the League of Nations building saw a lone woman wandering around looking as if she needed a friend, they would tell her that Miss McGeachy was expecting her.68 McGeachy was regularly involved with producing the annual World Economic Survey published by the League/'9 and she broadcast on Radio Nations, the League's station. In the morning, before arriving at her office, she would speak on the radio programs targeted towards the Dominions.7" From time to time, she found herself attached to several standing committees and served as their press agent, writing daily communiques for the press on sessions of the commissions on the protection of children and on the opium trade, as well as for the prolonged commission concerning the eventually aborted equal rights treaty for women.7' She was in constant communication in liaison work with other League sec-

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tions: the Social Section, the Section on Hygiene, and with the Mandates Section, for issues concerning slavery.7" She provided services for the League committee on nutrition and wrote a pamphlet which was distributed to conferences held by the women's international organizations.73 Scarcely a year went by thereafter when she was not commissioned to be an official representative at an international conference, but McGeachy's involvement always went much further than reading a prepared speech, as she demonstrated in the reports submitted on her return. 74 In all her work, McGeachy earned full approval from her supervisors. Konni Zilliacus, whom she assisted in liaison with the British press, called her work 'absolutely first class.'75 The head of section, Pierre Comert, told her in 1931 at the outset of her life contract that he intended to seek a reclassification for her, and almost every year thereafter he, or his successors, remarked at the time of McGeachy's increment recommendation that her standard of work, and responsibilities, were superior to her category.7" Finally in 1938 the current head, Adrianus Pelt, noted he had made a fresh request that McGeachy be promoted and that the Regrading Committee had accepted his request in principle. 77 Yet she remained unpromoted. In 1935 she applied for another job, still in the Information Section: the position of member of section for the British Dominions. In her support, Dafoe wrote her a golden testimonial. He could not imagine anyone who would have better claims or higher qualifications. She had the 'widest connections in Canada - with the public men of all parties; with the press; with national women's organizations ... By all these Miss McGeachy is regarded as a young woman of exceptional knowledge, ability and charm.' Speaking for his own chain of newspapers, he said: 'I should have to employ what might be regarded as extravagant language to convey our opinion of her talents and character.'78 But his letter arrived after the decision was taken to appoint Duncan Hall, a man from the Opium Section. McGeachy's disappointment led her to some bitter remarks to Dafoe about a series of bosses and senior officials who did not deliver: I appreciate more than I can say your troubling to write to Mr. Cummings on my behalf ... Of course Canadians as such are in a poor way to get much in the Secretariat. There are no Canadians in posts of influence to look after the smaller fishes. Walters the British Under-Secretary has an antideluvian view of the Empire and that sort of person always likes his

68 Woman of the World Dominions to be servile. Loveday who told everybody else that it was a 'damned shame' etc (and who had lobbied the Australian High Commissioner on my behalf) felt that he could do nothing directly because he is not on the Appointments Committee here. Riddell did go to see the SG and did tell me that I was very useful to him, but one can never know how far this goes.79

McGeachy bristled at the condescension of people like P.P. Walters, who became under-secretary-general. As for the official who was Canada's permanent representative to the League, Walter Riddell, she had little confidence in him. She thought he did not keep the Canadian government sufficiently informed about its own loss of status if it refrained from supporting her own claims: There are no Canadians in any of the general 'policy' sections of the Secretariat excepting myself. If my post is not advanced in keeping with its work, it merely means that the senior Dominion is not given ranking equal to Australia and New Zealand in the general policy of the Secretariat. Heaven knows I have been able to get away with murder in terms of securing things for Canada - missions, Canadian temporary collaborators, etc - but this making of bricks without straw cannot go on forever.

In a rare display of contempt, McGeachy allowed her feelings to show with Dafoe. 'These people are all such rabbits that they would scuttle at the faintest sign; but they are such rabbits that they will not do anything that they think they can creep through without doing.'80 Two months later she was still thwarted.8' By 1939 her salary was the top of her classification, and she could not even be awarded an increment. The League was experiencing budget problems and asked its employees to take voluntary cuts in salary. McGeachy tartly pointed out that she was not 'in a position to receive the usual annual increments,' and asked that this could be taken into account when estimating the deduction to be made from her salary; but to no avail.82 In Geneva, McGeachy made a deliberate attempt to live like the Swiss, rather than confine herself to an international, or expatriate, community. When working for Vox Studentium, she lived in an apartment beside the Reformed Cathedral on the rue du Soleil Levant in the old town. After getting the League job, she moved to an apartment block nearer to League headquarters, the Palais Wilson, the hotel which

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housed the League before its imposing new buildings were opened in 1936. She lived on the rue de Madame de Stael, described on its street sign as 'a woman of letters.' Like Madame de Stael, McGeachy too was a writer, a critical thinker, someone who believed in progress. But the old town, with its steep and narrow streets, its old and shuttered buildings, with shade in the summer provided by big old trees, beckoned again. In the spring of 1930, she moved into an apartment, 'my funny new house' at 30 Place du Bourg-du-Four, an irregularly shaped square at the centre of the old town.8s Sixty years later, she recalled it in loving detail. 'It was a lovely apartment, on the top floor, three rooms, curving windows, looking out on the Place. Under the apartment there was a shop, a chaudronnerie, where they sold pots and pans.'84 For a time, she shared it with a younger woman, an Irish painter called Gill Lyall, whose pictures still hang on the walls of the house where McGeachy's daughter now resides. The building on the Bourgdu-Four now has a restaurant in place of the hardware store, and you can eat outside on the terrace in the shadow of the same buildings and trees which sheltered McGeachy. Later in the 19305 she bought a 'little chalet on the edge of Geneva,' in the village of Valavran.8r> She continued her lease on the Bourg-duFour apartment, allowing herself the delight of a country retreat - a delight which she was to repeat in America at the end of the war. She bought her first car, and a story she frequently told concerned driving lessons. When learning to drive, she had to reverse by going backwards up a steep slope. After that, she said, she could drive anywhere.80 McGeachy contributed to her local community with volunteer work. After 1936 she was one of three non-Swiss members of the board of the Student House attached to the University of Geneva, the Maison Internationale des Etudiants. This gave her a chance to be connected with students and academics and an auxiliary committee of American honorary helpers.87 Never one to miss an opportunity to forge links, McGeachy found such friendships gratifying. She went so far as to do hands-on chores herself: 'I have lived in that house and taken charge for three months at a stretch in the absence of the resident director.'88 Visitors were impressed by the Maison Internationale. Margaret Bondfield, first woman cabinet minister in Britain at the time of the Labour government of 1929, visited Geneva just before the Second World War. She had hope for the future, even during the 'troublesome and restless summer' of 1939. She was optimistic because of the international education she saw there. At the Maison young people were

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learning to live internationally, she thought, using 'the gift of racial differences to enrich their common culture.'89 Knowing the value of extra-curricular student activity from her own experience in Toronto and Hamilton, in 1938 McGeachy organized a residence and club for graduate students attending the Geneva Hautes Etudes Internationales and visiting scholars. In early 1940, she wrote, it still existed and had 'an interesting household; several officers of institutes which have set up in Geneva to study problems of a post-war settlement, two Red Cross officers who travel to and from the Baltic, the Balkans, Poland and Germany and bring us interesting news. It is now my winter residence when the roads are too full of snow or mud to bicycle to my little chalet on the edge of Geneva.>tj" In 1936, McGeachy registered for four courses at the Hautes Etudes Internationales, an organization affiliated with the University of Geneva but independent in its finances and administration. Completion of the courses would entitle her to a certificate, and it is possible she contemplated taking further courses in the future which might eventually have led to completion of a degree. The courses were in the history of imperialism, international politics, contemporary international economics, and fundamentals of international law.9' University work appealed to McGeachy. In the tumultuous events of early 1940, she was considering applying for a university job in Montreal. The warden of Royal Victoria College was leaving the position and asked McGeachy if she was interested. McGeachy consulted Dafoe. She considered herself qualified to teach at the university level, based on her practical experience with the Secretariat. 'I would hope that they would be looking for the sort of person who, as well as being Warden, would also wish to lecture and whose chief interest would be in the training of intellectual interest among undergraduates. I would offer lectures in the history of international institutions or modern commonwealth history which might supplement courses in history, law or political science.'92 After war was declared, McGeachy's volunteer work increased. 'I am busy with the student hostels and with various projects for helping refugees,' she wrote to Senator Cairine Wilson in Montreal. She was involved with the international women's organizations which made opportunities for educated women exiles to continue their training. She recognized that the Red Cross and the Save the Children Fund had looked after domestic needs, 'but professional women need more than shoes and cocoa.'-"

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Although McGeachy said 'every waking moment went to the League,' she had recreation time away from the office, as well. Geneva was home to several separate social circles. There were the local Swiss people; there were the diplomats accredited to the League, and officials from international organizations who maintained headquarters in the city; there were League officials; and there were journalists. Gretta RiddellDixon, daughter of Walter Riddell, Canadian representative at the League, remembers her family moving in the diplomatic circle, which overlapped with people connected with non-governmental organizations like the Red Cross and the Young Men's Christian Association. Additionally, since she as a young girl attended the local Swiss school, she felt drawn into the local community. Only rarely was McGeachy included in diplomatic events. In that circle, McGeachy was 'an oddball.' Most women were married, and although some did volunteer work, the women's function was to host receptions and parties, where a lot of gossip was exchanged and backroom politicking went on. Now and then McGeachy was invited to a dinner party or social event by the Riddells. Gretta Riddell-Dixon, who was a young teenager at the time, remembered her not as an impressive functionary but as the woman who did not like to have other people see her eat in public.94 McGeachy herself preferred the company of journalists. 'They were more fun than the secretariat,' she told the Australian novelist Frank Moorhouse - and perhaps she found them more interesting than the diplomats. She would see the reporters at the Bar de la Presse, near the Information Section offices, and she would also go to the Bavaria, the cafe-bar used for after-work socializing by delegates, the press, and the Secretariat. 'A young lady wouldn't go unescorted,' she said to Moorhouse. 'And you received plenty of invitations?' he asked. She smiled. 'Oh yes.'95 Music was an interest. She belonged to Le Carillon, a Geneva music club which specialized in new music. She learned to ski in winter and enjoyed tennis in the summer. Also during the summers, she lectured at summer schools organized for visiting students on politics.9'' She enjoyed the company of women, as well. In Hamilton she had liked hiking in the countryside, and in Europe she continued this pleasure, walking around Geneva and in the Jura.97 One new friend first went to Geneva as a substitute delegate for the British government to the League Assembly in September of 1929. Mary Agnes Hamilton, known as Molly, was a Cambridge graduate, a Labour member of Par-

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liament, and a novelist. Hamilton used to go out with McGeachy for 'great talks and walks.' An intelligent and shrewd judge of character, Hamilton's impression of McGeachy was favourable. She was 'then a very youthful, very eager, very intelligent junior in the Information Section. Picturesque in appearance, with her exquisite white skin, palegold hair, and almost fragile slightness, even then the quality of her mind struck me more than the charm of her personality, and her absorbed interest in the substance of the job of a member of the International Secretariat.'-'8 Molly Hamilton was a link with other Labour politicians, including Philip Noel-Baker, Robert Cecil, and Hugh Dalton, her colleagues in the British delegation. During the 19305, McGeachy continued to enjoy their acquaintance, and later in the war her connections with them brought her further professional opportunities. She had holidays, as well as working trips, to other parts of Europe. In 1933 'I had a heavenly seven days respite in the first week of January. I went off to St. Anton - a very good Austrian skiing place in the hope of finding snow. Instead the sun was shining brightly in a clear blue sky and the green grass was growing all around. So we took a train to Vienna and had the opening week of the concert season - the Vienna Philharmonic in concert three times. The Meistersinger at the Opera, Backhaus playing the piano and the town utterly charming. It is really the loveliest place in the world for the joy of living. Only now it is pitifully poor. But still the streets are vivacious and colourful and the coffee houses are full - not as in the old days with people in full evening attire having elaborate suppers, but with people sitting before their coffee and whipped cream and talking as charmingly and wittily as before champagne.' McGeachy warmed to the Austrian capital. 'In Vienna Geneva seems unreal and meaningless as a spot in the middle of an arid desert. In Geneva Vienna seems the source of all freshness and naturalness and song.'(J2( ' Dafoe went so far as to question the continued existence of the League,

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'what with Japan on the warpath in Asia and the wholesale outbreak of lunacy in Germany.'"7 With gloom, he anticipated 'a silent consent' to the rearmament of Germany.'28 At both her 1933 conferences, McGeachy accentuated the positive. She emphasized the League's technical programs as well as its function as a forum for negotiation and discussion. The first meeting was in midjuly, in Chicago, at the International Congress of Women. This was sponsored by two American women's organizations: the National Council of Women, and the Federation of Business and Professional Clubs. The theme of the conference was the sociological aspects of the economic crisis. Its international aspect came, as McGeachy described, 'because of its foreign guests.' Although the program reflected concern with international developments, it was the Depression which largely animated the speakers. The conference's objective was to inspire American women to examine and propose a new social order in society. Reflecting the urgency and energy of President Roosevelt's New Deal (and the Canadian League for Social Reconstruction and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation), they discussed a new social order which would provide security and opportunity for all, on a democratic foundation. The audience quickly found that discussing national issues of such seriousness inevitably led to consideration of world order, as well. Peace and disarmament were included in the discussion, but attention was focused on economic issues.'2'' McGeachy's report was circulated widely on her return to Geneva. The director of the Disarmament Section thought it was worthwhile to have had a League representative there, and her chief in the Information Section was glad to see contacts being made with influential women in the United States. One of the most appreciative comments came from the director of the International Labour Organization. Harold Butler wrote that 'we were very fortunate in securing you to represent the Office on that occasion ... and hope that we may be fortunate enough to have you to represent us on a future occasion.'s° Eight years later, McGeachy was to benefit directly from Butler's good opinion of her work, when she joined his staff at the British Embassy in Washington during the war. At the Chicago meeting, McGeachy met a Chinese delegate who, like her, was continuing to the Banff Conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations. Informal conversations with Dr Hu Shih led her to take particular care in preparing her presentation of League policy and infor-

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mation at Banff. Given that this conference allowed both Chinese and Japanese to meet on neutral ground after the occupation of Manchuria, and that many of the delegates were ministers in their home governments, it afforded a real opportunity for international cooperation. In her report, McGeachy described the interchanges frankly and at length for Joseph Avenol, the new secretary-general. She described how forthcoming she had been with respect to informing the conference of League programs. She went to Banff early in order to help Dr Hu Shih prepare a document describing the action taken by the League at the request of China for technical assistance, and at round tables McGeachy 'made a rather lengthy statement mentioning the earlier examples of League co-operation with national schemes of reconstruction in Poland, Greece, Bulgaria, Bolivia etc.' She found that many at the conference were surprised that the League included this sort of activity in its mandate. Sir Herbert Samuel, a British delegate, publicly said 'he had not realized the value of the machinery set up under the League for international co-operation.'3' In a confidential part of her report, McGeachy passed on to Avenol some severe criticisms of the way the League had handled both the Manchurian issue and technical assistance to China. She also noted that the Chinese delegates at Banff were anticipating an eventual resolution to the Japanese occupation, which by the summer of 1933 was expected to remain for the time being, through either or both of two political developments. As it turned out, their expectations were in the long run generally correct. 'Time will play into the Chinese hand' by one of two events: i) A revolution in China resulting from the inability of the present Government to hold to its course of modified co-operation with the West against, on the one hand, the criticism of the younger group ... and, on the other, the growing opposition of communist forces. Should such a revolution occur the whole face of China would be greatly altered and, in the upheaval, Japanese influence would disappear from Manchuria; 2) The second possibility which the Chinese feel should be taken into consideration is that of a world conflict which would have its beginning in the Pacific area between the forces and ideals represented by Soviet Russia, Japan and the United States of America, but which would involve every great power and would, of course, alter all present attitudes and policies with regard to the far east. This event, too, they believe could only result in the ultimate unity of a population so vast as China's.**

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In the general part of her report, McGeachy recommended the League step up its public relations - which from a member of the Information Section was hardly a surprising conclusion. She made a gesture herself while in Canada, broadcasting about the Banff conference in French on Canadian radio. McGeachy's report, like the report on the Chicago meeting, brought appreciation from superiors in the League. H.R. Cummings told the secretary-general he had received three testimonials from conference organizers and delegates. 'She succeeded, amongst other things, in modifying considerably the attitude of some of the hard-headed Westerners in the English and American group who were inclined to resent the League's work in China.' About to leave for a League job based in London, he recommended McGeachy to fill his own position.33 His confidence was repeated in a letter from J.B. Condliffe, of the Financial Section and Economic Intelligence Service. He, too, thought Cummings's mandate should be made 'a definite responsibility of Miss McGeachy's.'34 Far from giving her material recognition, the League showed no formal appreciation to her during the next couple of years. In 1935, when she applied for a member position in her section, someone else was successful. McGeachy was due for her biennial leave in 1936, and she proposed at the same time to combine it with a mission to Canada. Pushing the limits, she wanted the mission to be for six weeks rather than the normal three. Her head of section, Adrianus Pelt, supported this as a sort of compensation prize. McGeachy was 'one of our most serious functionaries, and given all the guarantees that missions accorded her have been well filled, I propose to you that we charge her with a six week mission with the program she has submitted.' 35 The international situation in late 1935 was unstable, and the League remained under fire. In March 1935, Germany had announced the reestablishment of military conscription and rearmament, both in defiance of the Treaty of Versailles. No penalty was forthcoming from the League. In the summer of 1935, the League set up a committee to propose measures to render its Covenant more effective in the organization of collective security. The committee could produce no recommendations. In September 1935 when the League Assembly met, Mussolini was about to invade Ethiopia, and despite strong statements of support voiced in the Assembly in favour of sanctions against acts of aggression, the Ethiopia invasion went ahead in early October. The Assembly set up a committee to consider the use of economic sanctions, and the Canadian official resident in Geneva, Walter Riddell,

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was made a member. He personally favoured the use of sanctions, and in an uncharacteristically outspoken speech defied government instructions to make no commitment either way. The Canadian government in short order disavowed Riddell's statements.3ti Members of the League could not agree on the imposition of sanctions, and by the spring of 1936, Mussolini's conquest of Ethiopia was successfully completed. By then, too, Hitler had reoccupied the Rhineland - again in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. In mid-October, McGeachy found herself in a heightened, frenzied atmosphere at Geneva. 'We have had a number of "crises" in Geneva; it is odd to be living in what will probably be the final one,' she wrote to Dafoe. She was indignant that the League had not been more businesslike. The League has existed for 15 years presumably to be on the spot and to apply sanctions in just this case. And all the Committees sound as they might if they were meeting in 1921. That is, there were no "draft plans" drawn up by either the political or economic organs of the League as suggestions for use in such a case. No business house would leave so much to chance or the inspiration of the moment; should an international organization of even democratic Governments?' She thought 'the extra-European countries should have made all this much more their business. Dear knows if there will be another chance now; but if there is even the barest one we shall have very strong ground for insisting upon more preparation of the means of peace.'37 McGeachy was scheduled to take her leave in December and January, begin the mission in February 1936, and return to Geneva at the end of March. The international background was dynamic. So was the Canadian situation. Conservative prime minister Bennett had dissolved Parliament in August 1935 and called a general election for 14 October. The Liberals won a sweeping victory. With a keener interest in both internal and external politics, Canadians in early 1936 furnished McGeachy with material for her most interesting report to date. Previous missions had taught her the value of emphasizing the League's 'technical' rather than 'political' achievements. In her remarks during the trip, McGeachy took as her theme 'Experiments in International Co-operation,' dealing exclusively with the work of the technical organizations and the social committees. As in 1930 and 1932, she met executives of women's organizations and gave confidential presentations to the CIIA. She organized scores of interviews, which included the governor-general and the new prime minister, and many journal-

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ists. She arranged invitations from the Department of External Affairs, meeting members of the federal civil service in private conferences.^8 A new departure for her was a series of university lectures she gave to fourth-year students in history and political science. She went to the major universities of central and eastern Canada and the Maritimes: the University of Toronto, Queen's, McGill, Western, Manitoba, and Dalhousie. Her lectures dealt with the organization of the League and with present political problems, interpreting 'political' very broadly.™ So she was continuing her personal quest of educating the leaders of public opinion, both in the present and the future generation. She was also laying groundwork for a possible entry into university work as an academic herself, both in making contacts and in preparing material which could be the foundation for teaching. Keeping an observant eye and ear on what was to be learned about Canadian public opinion, her observations extended to two main subjects: what Canadians were thinking about the League, and what the general election result really meant. On the first topic, which was of most interest to people in Geneva, she was probably more blunt, showing more realism, than she had before. 'Canada's membership in the League has in the past been a matter of academic interest or of philanthropic regard. Now, because of the Sanctions Policy ... and reports from Europe of threats to peace, the League has become a question of common concern. Every election candidate [was] asked whether he would support Canada's entering into a European war.' Isolationism in foreign policy was gaining ground, particularly with regard to European problems. 'For the North American, isolationism implies that only the conflicts or aspirations of Europe or Asia are likely to lead to war - that the American countries entertain no ambitions and pursue no quarrels which could be resolved only by the use of armed force.' McGeachy personally considered such isolationism naive. She identified one of the major commonalities across a variety of opinions on foreign policy: that people 'would tend in the final analysis to establish policy upon British policy and their judgment of the proper Canadian attitude to this, rather than directly upon their reading of Canadian obligations under the League of Nations.' She discovered that longtime League supporters were becoming divided in their views of the League. Yet Dafoe stood out. Despite his serious misgivings, he had declared in November 1935 'that Canada was "as dependent upon

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collective security as Czechoslovakia" and must be willing to contemplate the fact that economic sanctions might lead to military sanctions.'40 Although she did not mention this in her report, Dafoe in March 1936 reaffirmed the value of the League ideal. 'Impotent as the League has been, flouted and repudiated as it has been it has yet succeeded in putting into the minds of the people of the western nations the idea that national power should not be applied to the furthering of particular ends on national initiative but that it should be devoted, in conjunction with other nations, to keeping the peace.'4' A pressing question for anyone interested in international affairs was, what would Canada do in the event of a serious escalation of conflict into war? McGeachy took the question seriously. She posed five questions in her report: How far would Canada cooperate in collective action under the League against an aggressor? To what extent would Canada identify Canadian and British interests in the event of the latter becoming involved in military measures? If military commitments under the Covenant were to be limited to regional interests, in what region would Canadian interests chiefly lie? Could Canada remain apart from military action in which Britain was involved? What was the meaning of Canada in isolation, particularly in economic terms? Implicit in her questions was the expectation of large numbers of people that in a real crunch Canada would follow a British lead. Loosely termed 'imperialists,' they were generally contrasted to the 'isolationists.' In order to answer, she first analysed the results of the general election in an attempt to understand the different pressures experienced by the new Liberal government. She pointed out that the new Liberal majority came from all provinces except one, Alberta; but the superiority in seats was not a result of a uniform change in the popular vote. The considerable losses which the [Liberal] party sustained in Englishspeaking Western Canada were made up by an increase in strength in the French part of Eastern Canada ... There was a falling away from the Liberal party in the West and an increase in its strength in the French sections of the East.' Some observers feared that foreign policy would find the country divided on racial lines: French and English. McGeachy thought that was too simplistic but could not foresee predictable answers to the questions she had set out. It would be 'almost impossible for the Prime Minister to carry out anything but the policy of delay and compromise in foreign policy without creating a split in his unwieldy party. '4* And there, in 1936, McGeachy left her analysis.

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McGeachy returned to Geneva to find the atmosphere in the Secretariat still frantic. 'We have just gone through the week which was to have ended the League of Nations,' she wrote in May 1936. The crisis has been postponed until the middle of next month. Perhaps historians will find that this capacity for postponing issues has been the chief genius of this organization.'43 Her work in 1936 became more involved with technical committees, including those concerned with the protection of children, narcotics, and a possible equal rights treaty. Towards the end of the summer, she registered for courses at the Hautes Etudes Internationales. She was drawn onto the board of the residence for international students more signs, after her university lectures in Canada, of a turn towards academic involvement? As she was still intricately involved with women's organizations, she was an obvious person for the League to send in February 1937 to the International Study Conference organized in Zurich by the International Alliance of Women. The conference had a twofold purpose. First, the Alliance wished to support the campaign for Swiss women's suffrage, and to survey some of the civil responsibilities which fell upon women in countries where they exercised suffrage and the right to hold public office. Their second objective was to discuss, in round tables, current problems of collective security, the maintenance of peace and disarmament, and issues related to the Depression and women's work. McGeachy herself was asked to speak as representative of the secretary-general on the topic 'A Practical Policy for Peace.' Because the peacekeeping mandate of the League had so dismally failed, she 'thought it best to confine my remarks in the main to practical projects of work being undertaken by the League.' Her audience was doubtless a little taken aback to hear her read the substance of a broadcast she had written a fortnight before on the Conference on Raw Materials and delivered over Radio Nations. By this time, McGeachy found the technical projects of the League a more positive topic of conversation than the use of sanctions and the demonstrated structural weakness of the League. The solution of the problem of maintaining an adequate supply of raw materials to every country was not to be found in the field of colonial policy. Rather, there was a need to examine trade policies and restrictions on currency. She quoted Sir Samuel Hoare's remark that 'the problem of raw materials is economic rather than political or territorial.'44 Her own assessment was that the conference organizers thought her approach added 'something constructive to the agenda.'

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The Alliance president, Margery Corbett Ashby, wrote to the secretary-general that McGeachy's presence had been very valuable. Corbett Ashby was so impressed that she arranged for McGeachy to speak at the annual conference of the British Commonwealth League in London later that spring. The League's aim was 'to secure equality of liberties, status and opportunities between men and women in the British Commonwealth of Nations.' The 1937 conference theme was the dudes and rights of women under democracy. McGeachy used the opportunity to speak about nutrition. She placed the issue in a broad context. Not only was there widespread ignorance, even among educated people, about diet and bad food habits. It was important to disseminate new scientific research about the place of vitamins and minerals in healthy bodily development. Protective foods could build up resistance to disease. McGeachy linked together the topics of individual consumption and large-scale agricultural production with worldwide patterns of trade and distribution. McGeachy's involvement with the League's new Nutrition Committee was a telling example of practical international cooperation. She brought home to her audience of educated social activists from around the British Commonwealth, men as well as women, her confidence in the local application of international standards. She had a clear message. Think globally, act locally: apply to your own circumstances the information resources made available by the League.45 The following year, the International Council of Women celebrated its fiftieth anniversary at a conference in Edinburgh and invited a League representative to attend. Pelt noted that many items of interest to the League would be on the agenda and thought he 'could manage to release Miss McGeachy, who is perfectly au courant with the majority of the questions under consideration.'4'' Political events in 1938 made it even more desirable for McGeachy to concentrate any remarks on technical work. In March, Hitler had occupied Austria; European governments continued to engage in appeasement; and Hitler was planning the invasion of Czechoslovakia. It was unrealistic to expect any opposition to come from Geneva. At the League, a deliberate initiative to restructure the organization, with greater emphasis on its economic and financial functions, was under way, under the chairmanship of Australia's high commissioner in London, S.M. Bruce.47 McGeachy let the International Council of Women know beforehand that she was interested in speaking, not on League diplomatic

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politics, but on public health and nutrition, refugees, and standards of living.48 Undoubtedly, in 1938, McGeachy's major effort went into her fourth mission to Canada. She found the country discussing war. The international crisis, wide discussion of the Munich agreement and the policy of appeasement generally made less academic than usual the perennial question of the degree to which Canadians should consider themselves liable for the defence of the Commonwealth.' Her lengthy report, delivered in May 1939, took many pages to offer a constitutional analysis of the circumstances under which Canada was likely to declare war. Her concluding observations were that in considering such a serious step, no political party was likely to pay attention to obligations under the League. Rather, Canada was likely to follow British leadership. The major interest of her report lay in its second part: 'Suggestions for Our Liaison Work with Canada.' She had absorbed the lesson in Geneva that if the League were to survive, it would do so by developing its technical work. From the outset of her employment in Geneva, she had been impressed with the existence of the 'practical idealism' demonstrated in the non-political work. Knowing of the Bruce Commission, it was in her own interest as a continuing League employee to emphasize this aspect of an organization which in its peacekeeping mandate was widely seen as a dead duck. McGeachy avoided public statements and instead carried out her mission through private meetings and interviews. Travelling in central and Maritime Canada, she met members of the Institute for International Affairs and the League of Nations Society, university women, secondary school teachers, social workers, nurses, and businessmen. As before, she had many individual interviews with people in positions of influence: Interest [in League affairs] was certainly much keener than in 1936 ... Upon 'isolationists' and 'imperialists' alike was being borne the conviction that Canada could not escape concern with the final resolution of the present crisis. I found it easier than in 1936 to arouse interest in the technical work of the League ... Three years ago, people were inclined to consider that if successes in the political field could not be claimed for the League, there was little more to be said: today they tended to be more realistic about the possibilities of quick success in this regard and to value more highly work of international co-operation in any field. 19

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McGeachy explained that the League's technical committees had much to offer the public authorities concerned with the improvement of the standard of living.50 By this time, McGeachy was genuinely impressed by the League's technical work. Her enthusiasm, at this juncture in the League's history, was also highly expedient. In 1935 she had written to Dafoe of her aversion to working in any of the technical divisions, but four years later her views had changed.5' The report of the Bruce Commission was issued in August 1939 and was to be considered at the next League Assembly, scheduled for December, later than usual because of Hitler's invasion of Poland and the outbreak of war. While McGeachy, of course, could not foresee international developments later in the year, she knew the Bruce proposals were in the offing, and she wanted to lay claim herself to a stake in a reconstituted League, which was set to be reinvented as a sort of highly skilled economic consultant for its members. The League would be a centre for the study of national socio-economic concerns, a clearing house for national experiences, and a sponsor of programs of technical assistance.5* In the event, the war sidelined the recommendations of the Bruce Report. But they were not irrelevant. A few commentators recognized their significance, even in the context of Hitler's expansion of Germany and the need to galvanize the war effort. Vernon Bartlett, a British journalist McGeachy knew in Geneva - and with whom she was to remain acquainted - thought that the Bruce Report 'may become as important as the League Covenant itself. It may be the first step towards a new League to fight the battles of all human beings who are "struggling for their humble share of health, wealth and happiness.">5S The years immediately after the Second World War drew deeply on the philosophy and the findings of the Bruce Report, many of whose ideas were manifest in both the new United Nations and in individual blueprints of national social insurance schemes. McGeachy recognized the potential and, on a personal level, wanted to keep open the option of remaining to work in Geneva during the war. Like everyone else, she was 'awfully busy all autumn. We have had stringent cuts in the office and so those who remain are busy. Then there are a lot of extra things - relief for the families of mobilized men, refugees from Poland, etc.' She positioned herself with the Bruce supporters to attend 'a very interesting inter-organizational group set up to discuss problems of a durable peace. The Carnegie Endowment has offered funds for publication eventually and the work is being done in co-operation with the League's economic intelligence service. So every-

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body is piling up statistics and information and other people piling up arms, and everybody is waiting.'54 McGeachy saw that the League's future was bound up with its technical work. She knew the structural problems of a League which did not include major powers, and in which members were unwilling to come to grips with the issue of sovereignty over the enforcement of penalties on transgressors. She remained hopeful that at some time, such problems could be overcome. In her missions to Canada, she and Dafoe between them probably did more than anyone else to present the League, in its many manifestations, in a favourable light. From the beginning, her own agenda was not only to contribute to developing support for the League as a peace broker and research resource for social policy. She also believed in the prevalent desire of her student years at the University of Toronto, to see Canada developing its own foreign policy independent of empire, the United States, and Britain. Such a policy would not necessarily be in opposition to any of those entities, but it would be formulated with a clear-headed analysis of the interests of Canada first. In such a desire, she was out of step with Canadian public opinion. It is true that all major political parties shared her interest in promoting a fully independent status for Canada at the international level. There was also a general agreement that the League should not become involved in questions - such as tariff and immigration policy - which the Canadian government wished to treat as purely domestic matters. Where she differed from both governments and public opinion was over an interpretation of the Covenant with regard to collective security. Except for a few exceptional occasions, for most of the inter-war years, the majority of Canadians wished to minimize as much as possible Canada's commitments on the issue of collective security.55 It was ironical that even though Canada had gone to considerable lengths to avoid binding security commitments which might drag the country into a war, in September 1939 the country did not hesitate to support Britain as one of the initial participants in a war against Hitler, over issues which were seen as European rather than North American. McGeachy's brother Bob was among the first to volunteer for the army. At Christmas, 1939, McGeachy travelled to London to see him. While she was there, she met friends who urged her to join the Ministry of Economic Warfare.5*' Those first contacts bore fruit in the summer of 1940. She had the chance of participating in the European war effort.

While she was in Lisbon with the League families who had fled Geneva, people from the Ministry of Economic Warfare arranged a place for her on the plane to London. In August 1940, her new career began.

5 Economic Warfare

In the summer of 1940, McGeachy was busy driving groups of women and children from the families of League staff through newly occupied France towards safety in neutral Portugal. At the end of one of her trips, she received a telegram in Lisbon. She was invited to London to help in the war effort. There was a job in a new ministry equipped with new tools to disable and defeat the enemy. As a teenager, she had written in her school yearbook about the economic implications surrounding mobilization.1 Twenty-three years later, she became immersed in real economic warfare. Economic warfare was a new term for an idea with a long pedigree. In 1806, Napoleon instituted the Continental System, by which his allies had to cease commerce and communication with Britain. Britain, in turn, instituted countermeasures, and virtually all major trading nations were affected. Warfare, waged on land and sea by military weapons, was now augmented by economic prohibitions and pressure. A century later, during the First World War, each side tried to starve the other of food and supplies by a policy of blockade. Blockade was essentially a negative notion, of preventing essential items reaching the enemy. Economic warfare carried a more positive conception. When war was declared in September 1939, the British government established a new department, the Ministry of Economic Warfare, with its own minister. The new ministry had three sorts of weapons at its disposal: legislative, diplomatic, and military. In July 1939 the Committee of Imperial Defence described its aim as 'so to disorganize the enemy's economy as to prevent him from carrying on the war.'2 This was to be achieved by interfering with essential economic resources. The idea was to destroy, or at any rate to reduce, the enemy's ability to secure supplies from neighbouring countries.

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As for supplies which had to be transported across sea routes, or from German territories abroad, the British wanted to stop the trade altogether. Confident in the new power of bombardment by air, the British wanted to attack centres of storage, production, manufacture, and distribution behind the enemy lines. True believers in economic warfare had faith in a knockout blow which would strangle the enemy's lifelines. In the years immediately before the war, detailed planning took place. Rules and procedures were devised for negotiating with neutral countries on all blockade questions, and draft treaties were prepared. A Prize Department was established to take care of would-be enemy imports and exports. A 'navicert' system was planned whereby any neutral ship and cargo not issued with a British certificate was liable to seizure. A complex machinery was supposed to regulate the trade and supplies of the enemy at source, backed up with powers of inspection given to the Royal Navy. Shipping lines which disobeyed ministry rules would not be allowed to use shipping or financial facilities in Britain. Lists of essential German imports were drawn up, and the British prepared to pre-empt, or buy up, strategically important items to prevent the Germans acquiring them. Strategic bombing was envisaged in order to attack centres important to the war effort. A far-reaching Intelligence Department was set up in order to identify actual and likely contraband evasion and in order to estimate the economic situation in Germany.3 The new ministry was staffed with diversified and necessarily inexperienced talent. There was a mixture of career civil servants, mainly from the traditional and conservative Foreign Office, and less deferential economists, often more used to the academic freedom they enjoyed at universities. The minister, at first Sir Ronald Cross, was a member of Parliament with experience as a merchant banker in the City. For daily operations, the director-general was Frederick Leith-Ross from the Treasury, who during the inter-war years had been closely involved with negotiating reparations agreements with Germany consequent on the Treaty of Versailles. His deputy was Earl of Drogheda, who had left the Foreign Office to practise law but returned to public service with the war. In Intelligence was the economist Hugh Gaitskell, later leader of the Labour party. The Queen's brother, David Bowes-Lyon, whom McGeachy already knew in Geneva, was in charge of public relations. When in May 1940 Cham-

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berlain stepped down and Winston Churchill became prime minister in a new coalition government, the Labour MP Hugh Dalton became the new minister of economic warfare. In the Labour government of 192931, Dalton had served as a junior minister at the Foreign Office. He was also an academic at the London School of Economics. He was, said Leith-Ross, 'a strange mixture.'4 Son of an Anglican clergyman, Dalton had grown up in Windsor with strong connections to the royal family - his father had for several years been tutor to two of Queen Victoria's sons. Educated at Eton, Dalton had the mannerisms of the aristocrats and professional upper middle class, who more or less monopolized the ruling classes, but his university experience at Cambridge led him to embrace a vision of social equality attainable through the Labour party.5 Egotistic, he was not a personally popular man, but he had 'buoyancy, originality, and courage.''1 When Churchill was constructing the new government, Dalton made it clear to the Labour leader, Clement Attlee, what he wanted. 'I should not be interested now in any job which had not got a very close relation to the waging of the war. I should prefer the Ministry of Economic Warfare. That is on the borderline of economics and foreign policy. Those are the two fields I know best.'7 Dalton's interpretation of economic warfare was aggressive and belligerent. It should have a political arm, he thought. Political insurgency in partnership with all-out economic warfare could provide guerilla tactics which would defeat the enemy from within. In the early spring of 1940, this was not such a far-fetched idea, if the blockade was implemented. By summertime, however, the military situation had substantially changed. Norway, Denmark, Holland, and Belgium, and shortly France, were occupied or controlled by Germany. Trading routes normally accessible to Britain now reverted to Hitler for his war.8 Nevertheless, Dalton continued to believe in the basic premise of economic warfare. The policy of blockade, and the reduction of the enemy's resources, were to be pursued as stringently as possible. At the same time, the government turned increasingly to a plan to augment British supplies from additional sources. The link with the United States was crucial. The most powerful economic force in the world must be aligned on the side of Britain. It would be ideal if the United States could be brought into the war as a full military partner. But because a large body of American public opinion was reluctant to get drawn into foreign entanglements, in 1940 a

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military alliance could not be taken for granted. However, the United States had still much to offer in terms of financial support and supplies. This was the situation in the midsummer of 1940 when McGeachy found herself in receipt of Leith-Ross's invitation to join the ministry. From the start, he intended her to work on an American agenda.9 However, plans for people in wartime did not always work out. At exactly the time McGeachy was travelling to London, the intellectual historian Isaiah Berlin, later her colleague in Washington, embarked by boat for Montreal, en route, he thought, for Moscow. As it turned out, he remained in North America. Rather than working in the Soviet Union, he went to work for the British embassy, first in New York and then after the spring of 1942 in Washington.10 McGeachy's journey to her anticipated destination was more straightforward. By 4 November, the London Evening Standard reported that an attractive blonde woman from Geneva was assisting the Queen's brother. She had already suffered from the Blitz: the house she originally lived in on Curzon Street in Mayfair was destroyed by a bomb." A month later, the New York Times noted that Britain had named a woman as an attache at the Washington embassy. Her job was 'to explain to the American people the requirements of the British blockade and to explain that the relief of populations of countries occupied by Germany is primarily Germany's responsibility.'12 Behind this comment were two important developments. First was the campaign of a former U.S. president, Herbert Hoover, to bring humanitarian relief to Europe. Second was the hardline policy of economic warfare expressed by Hugh Dalton and heartily endorsed by Prime Minister Winston Churchill. The blockade policy of the Ministry of Economic Warfare cut off the populations of Germany and the occupied countries from supplies, including food, that they normally received by trade. This necessarily subjected civilians as well as soldiers to the risk of food shortages. During the First World War, with the consent of the Allies, Herbert Hoover had organized humanitarian relief for Belgium. At the outset of the Second World War, he arranged for small amounts of food relief to go to Finland and Poland, and in the early summer of 1940 he proposed to extend his relief activities to the civilian populations of the newly defeated and occupied countries of Western Europe.'3 Hoover was a Quaker and attracted religious and humanitarian groups concerned about the hardships of women and children, but, in addition, his cam-

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paign gathered support from groups in the United States who were more politically motivated. Isolationist sentiment in the United States was strong. While President Roosevelt was sympathetic towards the British, he was fighting a presidential election and unwilling publicly to declare unreserved support. His Republican opponent, Wendell Willkie, lent support to Hoover by charging that Roosevelt was pandering to nations fighting a conflict irrelevant to the interests of their own country.' 4 Ethnic communities in the United States, tied by language and culture as well as close family connections to people now suffering under Hitler, were naturally concerned about relatives and were inclined to support a relief initiative. While Hoover was seen as an isolationist who launched a direct attack on British policy with a campaign for the feeding of occupied Europe, even Roosevelt was prepared to support the waiving of blockade in order to allow in food which could not obviously be seen as aiding the enemy.' 5 Hoover's campaign was gaining momentum when the British government was handed over from Chamberlain, responsible for appeasement, to his critic, Winston Churchill. The Foreign Office, still staffed by many supporters of appeasement, was interested in compromising with Hoover's relief agitation. Churchill had different ideas. He embraced economic warfare and gave support to his new minister. Dalton saw a principle at stake. He thought it was imperative to create shortages in German-dominated territory which would lower morale and stimulate opposition to the ruling power. He believed that in France, at any rate, no real hunger would result: the French would merely have a more monotonous diet. If food were allowed through the blockade, that would mean that the Germans would in effect have more resources for waging war. 'Food equals manpower' was the British justification. It would be false humanity to lengthen the war by allowing the enemy to be assisted by a relaxation of the blockade.1'' Dalton then drafted a speech which the prime minister delivered on 20 August 1940. It carried the utmost authority and contained the germ of another very important policy. Britain would buy up surplus food now in order to create a stock to be 'held in trust for the Free Europe of tomorrow.''7 Producers in Britain, the empire, and its allies would therefore not suffer from the closure of some of their normal markets during the war - wheat, for instance, would continue to be purchased:

io6 Woman of the World Let Hitler bear his responsibilities to the full, and let the people of Europe who groan beneath his yoke aid in every way the coming of the day when that yoke will be broken (Cheers). Meanwhile, we can, and we will, arrange in advance for the speedy entry of food into any part of the enslaved area when this part has been wholly cleared of German forces and has genuinely regained its freedom (Cheers). We shall do our best to encourage the building up of reserves of food all over the world so that there will always be held up before the eyes of the peoples of Europe, including - I say it deliberately - the German and Austrian peoples, the certainty that the shattering of the Nazi power will bring to them all immediate food, freedom, and peace (Cheers).1*

McGeachy's job was cut out for her. She was to go to the United States and explain the blockade policy. 'It was hoped that the appointment of Miss McGeachy would enable her to put the position in its true light.'1-' She had to defuse an overriding sympathy for the innocent women and children, victims whose plight Hoover proposed to alleviate with his shipments of food, medicines, and milk. According to friends of Eleanor Roosevelt, the original idea was for David Bowes-Lyon to go to the United States for this purpose. However, the British ambassador, the Marquis of Lothian, objected on the ground that the Queen's brother would not be a suitable emissary. 'Miss McGeachy was sent instead, partly because of her wide knowledge of Americans.'20 She was a part of one of the 'most diverse, extensive, and yet subtle propaganda campaigns ever directed by one sovereign state at another. '" Her mission was made more difficult by the sudden death of Lothian in December 1940. Philip Kerr, Marquis of Lothian, had been one of the Milner Kindergarten in South Africa in the early years of the century and served during the First World War as secretary to the prime minister, Lloyd George. A close friend of Nancy Astor, first woman to serve in the British House of Commons, he was influenced by her to become a Christian Scientist. He eschewed mainstream medicine, and when in 1940 he suffered bouts of drowsiness, instead of seeking advice for his condition, he hired a Christian Science nurse. It turned out he had uraemia, a kidney disorder, which would probably have been relatively simple to cure.'" McGeachy was anticipating that Lothian would ease her into the position at the embassy. As it was, she later wrote to Lady Astor, a member of the cross-party parliamentary committee which promoted

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women's interests during the war, she arrived in Washington 'quite alone, without any of the advice or help that I expected. While this does not present insurmountable obstacles to one's work, it is certainly much more agreeable to be introduced by friends and colleagues. '*s The new ambassador, Lord Halifax, was an aristocrat of the old school, closely associated with Chamberlain and appeasement. In America he was regarded with suspicion. Socially he was seen as a laughing stock, and he did not help matters by insisting on riding to hounds with Virginia foxhunts. He seemed to be a caricature of the elitist, distant, privileged Englishman, out of touch with the common man, inimical to republican sentiments and to American pride in equality.24 When McGeachy arrived in Washington, she was on the staff of Harold Butler, in charge of public relations, who had been director of the International Labour Organization. McGeachy had worked with Butler and after 1937 had served on the board of the Maison Internationale at the University of Geneva with his wife. Another colleague was the ambassador's personal assistant, John Wheeler-Bennett, who before the war had been involved in the British League of Nations Union and the Royal Institute of International Affairs - outgrowths from the original Milner Kindergarten/ 5 McGeachy was given space in the 'familiar wartime mushroom growth,' in a 'spic and span unit in a typical Washington temporary office building hinged on behind the massive bulk of the British Embassy.'"' Spending long hours on the job, she had little time for her 'picturesque' house 'on a quaint little street in Washington's Georgetown,' where a guest room was much in demand from visitors.27 Before the United States entered the war in December 1941, McGeachy's expense accounts show that she visited New York City usually every month. As well, she travelled all over America. McGeachy's own origins were in a provincial Ontario city. While she appreciated metropolitan centres, and still more the international flavour of Geneva and European capitals, she never turned her back on more provincial centres. Her destinations in 1941 and 1942 were not just the attractive cities of the Northeast or West Coast. She spoke as well to the many audiences in the Midwestern and Southern states. Her Canadian accent made her seem not at all foreign.28 It was helpful for Britain to have a public relations campaign which could intelligently make the most of friends of Britain in the United States and undermine the credibility of isolationists. By the summer of 1941, 'relations with the press were generally excellent,' and McGeachy

io8 Woman of the World

was credited with looking after these in connection with relief, blockade, and economic warfare matters.29 McGeachy had a clear method of operation. She would guide proBritish Americans to make the declarations of support and essentially let them think it was their idea. It was a subtle game of manipulation, but a clever one, and could not have worked were it not for the genuine support of a large number of leaders of opinion. 'From about the end of May until the attack on Pearl Harbor, we had a great many people in the U.S.A. who were really behaving like allies to us, and I have always felt that we should try to conduct our publicity by using the people who themselves wanted information which we [at the embassy] were anxious to give, and there were a great many people who came into that category.'H!t

McGeachy's appointment was with local diplomatic rank. The major privilege this bestowed was an immunity from local law. She was not supposed to be arrested or have her luggage searched. She was now part of a group of about sixteen women who were serving in the foreign service as first, second, and third secretaries, vice-consuls, and press attaches/'4 When Anthony Eden belatedly conceded that McGeachy's appointment would carry diplomatic rank, it was in the full knowledge that the Foreign Office itself - indeed, the entire British civil service was not exactly hastening to welcome or validate women at all. An observer might think that British government administrative positions were open to women. In 1919, after the granting of suffrage to women over the age of thirty, the government had passed the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act. This provided that 'a person shall not be disqualified by sex or marriage from the exercise of any public function, or from being appointed to or holding any civil or judicial office or post, or from entering or assuming or carrying on any civil profession or vocation or from admission to any incorporated society.' However, with respect to the government's own employees, the Act simultaneously provided a loophole. It was possible for the Treasury to evade the Act and to authorize regulations outside the legislation by an Order in Council governing the method of admission and conditions of service of women in the civil service. By 1927, the 1919 legislation was 'a dead letter. ")r> After the First World War, with respect to staffing both the civil service and the foreign service, the Treasury worked diligently to maintain pre-war practice, which during the war had been slightly relaxed with respect to the employment of women. Mechanical jobs in the lower clerical ranges and jobs based on new technology, such as typing and shorthand, were openly available to women. Resignation at marriage was still mandatory. All women employees therefore were single.

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It was assumed they lived in a parental home and had no dependants and therefore did not need the same salary as men.(iti Few positions at higher levels were available to women. At the supervisory stage, women were required to oversee the female clerical staff. An old division between 'clerical' and 'administrative' positions necessitated separate entry categories and payment at differential rates for men and women. Few women were even permitted to take the qualifying examination for the administrative grades except under highly restrictive conditions. Fewer were promoted. Their pay was set at a maximum of 80 per cent of men's pay for the same work. The women paid less than men into the state unemployment insurance scheme and received a disproportionately lower rate of benefit. All this led to severe frustration. The women's professional organization, the Federation of Women Civil Servants, described by the Treasury as the 'amazon cavalry,' prepared brief after brief arguing for fairer treatment of women in both the civil service and the foreign and diplomatic Service as well.0? When during the Second World War there was an increased labour force demand, several women's groups saw an opportunity to improve women's working conditions across the board. The 'amazon cavalry,' together with professional women's groups such as the British Federation of Business and Professional Women, worked with a cross-party coalition of women members of Parliament to secure an increase in the employment of women and to erase the pre-war demarcation between men's and women's work with its corresponding unequal pay structure. A limited agreement to this effect between employers and trade unions in the engineering industries was brought about in 1940. A coalition of women members of Parliament, including Lady Astor, then formed the Woman Power Committee to keep a watching brief, maintain the pressure, and extend principles of equal access and equal working conditions further.''8 In the committee's early days, a split developed between Labour and Conservative women. Labour women were uncomfortable with the committee's support for the idea that supervisory work in factories should go to educated women parachuted into the workplace rather than to women recruited from the ranks of workers. Moreover, Labour women were more inclined to look to the trade unions to represent the interests of working women than to government legislation. Ernest Bevin, minister of labour in the new national government, bypassed the com-

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mittee when he established a separate Women's Consultative Committee at the Ministry of Labour in ig4i. 0!)S Its general mandate was for individual social workers and administrators to study or work in another country.9" However, McGeachy soon had other priorities, and it was left to others to take over the exchange. As a practitioner of public relations in the Washington embassy, McGeachy was effective. Insiders in the Ministry of Economic Warfare considered that she handled her staff 'with a good deal of consideration and success.' She was 'skilful in managing others.' Americans liked her. She had done a good job with publicity for the ministry, where she showed 'a good deal of firmness and persistence in maintaining in the United States our thankless line in strictly enforcing the blockade.' Through her work in post-war planning, she made valuable links with British welfare societies and had 'intelligent ideas' about their work.97 Throughout 1942 and 1943, McGeachy kept up a frenetic pace of living on both sides of the Atlantic and tried to maximize the opportunities opened up to her by the war to learn more about the world. Her dynamism became the object of a private lampoon in Isaiah Berlin's correspondence. Berlin wrote weekly despatches, which were sent, under the ambassador's name, from Washington to the Foreign Office in London. Some speculation and information unfit for the official correspondence found their way into private letters between Berlin and H.G. Nicholas, his counterpart in London at the Ministry of Information. What with the involvement of the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Economic Warfare, the Board of Trade, and the Ministry of Information, in both London and Washington, no communications were immune from confusion and misdirection. The Ministry of Economic Warfare had a reputation as 'Ministry of Wishful Thinking,' and departments in all parts of the government indulged in rivalry and backbiting. In one exchange during autumn 1943, Berlin and Nicholas had a little fun. It shows how bemused men could be by a woman in a man's world. They didn't know quite what to make of McGeachy. Their joke

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incidentally pays a tribute to McGeachy's refusal to be inhibited by the men in her department and by the regular routines of British officialdom: Personal and Confidential Dear Isaiah, Miss Craig McGeachy, who alleges that she is a representative of yours, has asked this Ministry's assistance to enable her to visit Sweden. She explains that a tripartite conference, sitting in continual session at Washington, and consisting of yourself, Mr John Wheeler-Bennett and Miss McGeachy, is seeking to devise methods and techniques of combating a prevalent American misconception, namely that a soft peace with Germany is practicable and desirable ... Miss McGeachy states that a visit by her to Sweden would promote this purpose which you have in mind, though since Sweden is not an occupied territory, and your emissary has brought no credentials testifying to this project, we have found some slight difficulty in believing that it has your full and authoritative support. Our doubt is somewhat enhanced by the fact that, as you may not be aware, Miss McGeachy is not a member of this Ministry but of the Ministry of Economic Warfare, and that the more normal mechanism for a visit such as she contemplates would be through her own Ministry rather than through ours ... We should be grateful for any light which you can throw on these developments, either by way of confirmation, expansion, or refutation. Yours ever, Herbert. Robin said I was to make a formal demarche and smoke you out of your latent and most sinister secret covenant. By the time you receive I don't doubt that Miss McG. will have added to the gaiety of neutrals, so you needn't bother to do any more with this elaborate joke than - for God's sake - to destroy it.5'8

Berlin did not take his friend's advice. He could not resist a reply: Personal and Confidential My Dear Herbert, So Miss McGeachy has been at it again! Dear me, dear me, I suppose the minx will never cease from fulfilling her peculiar nature ... our barefaced equestrienne needs fresh fields over which to gallop, and I suppose the Swedish scheme is the result of that. I was not consulted; nobody tells me things any more; nobody wants to know what I think or where I am ...

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But perhaps a little background may not be altogether amiss. Among the many interdepartmental committees burgeoning and sprouting and dying in this Embassy is one enormous one ... dedicated to reports on 'soft peace' tendencies in this country ... Between that and our beautiful trapeze artist's story, there is evidently a wide gap which you can fill in as well as I. The Committee is under the aegis of the Chancery, and has only met twice. What its future is no man can tell. The rest is opaque, but quite frankly I do not understand how even Miss McGeachy could assault the American Division with her plans. Is M.E.W. grown so impotent then? Has the F.O. no heart or gallantry? Strange indeed is an age when even a femme fatale can no longer weave our diplomats around her little finger. But Butler owns to sponsoring her. I do not. ... Dear me, dear me, that Miss McGeachy! What a woman! I still cannot recover. I must say I hand it to her ... Yours, Isaiah.9"

Nicholas and Berlin mocked McGeachy as a 'bare-faced equestrienne,' a 'beautiful trapeze artist,' a 'femme fatale,' who could add to the gaiety of neutrals. Breezily dismissing time-hallowed routines, she flouted plodding convention. Their verbal portrait was not for public consumption and doubtless contained considerable invention: '... you needn't bother to do any more with this elaborate joke than - for God's sake — to destroy it.' One implication of the exchange was that she was an ambitious climber whose tools included flirtation to get her own way. It reveals, too, that McGeachy was not intimidated by all the stuffy and clever men. Twelve years at the League, where she had come to know many of her present colleagues, and men like them, had taught her what she could get away with. This portrait of 1943 is not so much different from the strong, independent, and lively schoolgirl of 1920 or the guide across enemy lines when France fell in 1940. McGeachy still defied convention. She was stretching the boundaries of acceptable behaviour. After Dalton's departure to the Board of Trade, accompanied by the director-general of the Ministry of Economic Warfare, unsurprisingly the ministry's daily activities became more routine. Indeed, they were beginning to peter out by the end of 1943.'°° McGeachy concentrated more on post-war planning. She also found her gaze increasingly upon one particular person. By the time Berlin and Nicholas were making fun of her in November 1943, one of her professional contacts was about to transform her life with romance.

6

Erwin Schuller

In the summer of 1942, Erwin Schuller became smitten with Mary McGeachy. McGeachy was in London, where she convened a meeting of British voluntary organizations concerned with the planning of general post-war relief work. Erwin Schuller attended on behalf of the National Council of Social Service. He was included in an invitation to her home one evening, and afterwards he wrote her a letter: Dear Miss MacGeachy, I feel we owe you an apology for having stayed so late yesterday evening in spite of our knowledge that you were not feeling well and should have gone to bed early. I am afraid it was very selfish of us. But it would be a fib to say that I regret that we did stay so long. May I say that you did a most effective bit of relief work for at least one Central European yesterday? You can hardly realize the encouragement which it gives me to see some one capable and willing both to work in the administration and to face up to the broad issues which will after this war determine the chances of avoiding another war in our lifetime. There is much good thinking and talking or writing on these problems and much able administrative work is being done. But as far as I am aware there are very few people who can relate their general ideas to the administrative problems of relief. To hear you facing up to both these aspects of the same issue was a real treat for which I wanted to thank you. Not for a moment have I been afraid as to the outcome of this war. But I must admit that I have again and again been terrified during these last 2 or 3 years when I have watched things which seemed to me to prepare the ground for the next war. And there you find yourself with the alternative of turning either to the cynical administrator or to the administratively unskilled idealist!

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It was a pity that we did not find more time to discuss things during your stay this time. I should have loved to talk more with you, both about the difficult possible contingencies at the critical moment on the Continent for which different administrative measures and a different approach will be necessary, and also about the first immediate practical steps which might be taken here to give some integration and direction to the rather diffuse and hesitating thinking which is at present going on here. - But we shall have to leave that to your next visit which I hope will be very soon. Your strawberries were delightful. I feel that your friends would have substituted flowers if they had known your taste and I venture to provide this 'ersatz' on their behalf. Bon voyage and best wishes, Yours sincerely, Erwin Schuller'

Who was Erwin Schuller and what was his importance in McGeachy's life? By his own description, he was a central European who appreciated her 'relief work.' Witty, intelligent, charming, fluent in English, he had an accent reflecting his Viennese birth. He was an attractive man and throughout his life widely acknowledged to be good-looking. Children are not always quick to recognize beauty in parents, but both the Schuller children praised Erwin's looks. 'He was a very handsome man. During the war, he was considered one of the most eligible young men in London society. He was a catch,' said his son.2 His photographs show a tall, six-foot-one-inch man with even features, a straight gaze, good grooming, and a friendly expression. Behind the pleasing appearance, Schuller had a background, and current interests, which immensely interested McGeachy. From the safety of Geneva, McGeachy witnessed the political developments in Austria and Germany which had such an impact on families like the Schullers. The Schullers had suffered first-hand the hardship of living under a fascist regime imposing increasing hardships on anyone defined as a Jew. Erwin's experiences were part of the authentic tragedy of European politics of the 19308. Born in 1909, Erwin's father was Dr Ludwig Schueller, a senior official in the Austrian Treasury, partner in one bank, Auspitz Lieben, and director of another, the Kreditanstalt.3 Ludwig had two brothers: Hugo, a doctor, and Richard, at one time permanent under-secretary of the Austrian Board of Trade in Vienna and economic adviser to the Austrian government.

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Ludwig's wife was Gertrude, daughter of a leading figure in the European financial world, Dr Theodore Ritter von Taussig, a Jew who raised his daughter as a Roman Catholic. By the time Erwin got to know McGeachy, Gertrude Schueller had had quite a remarkable life. Leaving Austria just before the war, she lived in New York, where she enrolled as a doctoral student in comparative literature. She had a small apartment near Columbia University and persisted with her studies through considerable adversity: she was essentially a refugee, in her sixties, living and working in English, separated from her children and most of her family, and beset by illness.4 Ludwig Schueller was Jewish, but he and Gertrude brought up Erwin and his brother, Theodore, as Protestants.15 Erwin was in the care of an English nanny, and English was the first language he spoke. He attended the Theresanische Akademie in Vienna, a secondary school founded in the eighteenth century by the Empress Maria Theresa to educate her diplomats. Graduating in 1927, he studied law at the University of Vienna. Although he passed some preliminary examinations, he did not take a degree. Between 1929 and 1931, Erwin continued his practical education in finance, working in London and Paris for different banking firms. After the financial crisis of 1929-31, and the collapse of the Kreditanstalt, his father, Ludwig, committed suicide in May 1931.'"' Erwin returned to Vienna and joined the Central Bank of Austria as a new employee. Erwin then travelled to Hamburg and Berlin with a new company formed to provide expert advice on questions of foreign exchange restrictions and barter. This was exactly the time of the rise of National Socialism, culminating in Hitler's appointment as chancellor in January 1933 and president of Germany in August 1934. Anti-Semitism from the start was official policy, and Jews were purged from government employment in April 1933. Hitler's policies led Erwin to consider his future. 'Being non-Aryan it had become increasingly clear to me that a continuation of my work under the nazi Regime would be impossible, not only for racial reasons, but more important perhaps because my own personal views as a Conservative and a Democrat would have caused me to leave nazi Germany, even had racial difficulties not existed for me.'7 In 1934 he joined the French bank Lazard Freres. Working from Paris, he assisted in the liquidation of their German assets. During this European banking apprenticeship, Erwin 'acquired an extensive and detailed knowledge of the whole German economic system and in particular of the more important of its industries working

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under ever-increasing restrictions and difficulties.'8 In 1935 he joined the staff of the London-based bank Lazard Brothers and stayed with them for the rest of the iQ3Os.9 His salary was impressive for the 19305. Between 1934 and 1937, Erwin was paid at an annual rate of over £4,000. In 1938 and 1939, Lazard's was doing little business in Europe, and Erwin's salary plus bonus was less: £2,500. The U.S. dollar equivalent of Erwin's remuneration in 1935 was $20,500, and in 1940, $7,500. Even the 1940 salary was high for those days, but not huge wealth. Living now in London, Erwin worked closely at Lazard's with Robert Brand, a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford - and formerly one of Lord Milner's Kindergarten in South Africa. Once, in 1937, while Erwin and Brand were on a working visit to Berlin, they went to a concert directed by the famous German conductor Furchtwangler. Brand described the scene. 'When we got in, to my surprise I saw within 20 feet of us in a box only just raised above floor level, Hitler, Goering and his wife, Goebbels and his wife, Blomberg and one or two more. I said to my young friend, "If I had a hand grenade I could get them all." He was terrified. He said "For God's sake don't say that here.'"10 Erwin had reason to be fearful of Nazi power. Erwin's brother, Theodore, left Germany and moved permanently to England in 1933, becoming a naturalized British subject. Theodore worked in publishing and was responsible for a series of pamphlets on world affairs. After Hitler's takeover of Austria in 1938, Erwin's mother and uncles Richard and Hugo Schueller moved with their families first to England and subsequently to the United States. Richard Schueller taught at the New School of Research in New York until he was over eighty years old.'' At the London Lazard's, Erwin Schuller (he dropped the umlaut) had a lot to do with Scandinavian interests, particularly shipping. Again he used his experience to assist many of the firm's clients in liquidating and managing their German assets at a time when Hitler's National Socialist Party created considerable hardship and confusion with its peremptory treatment of Jewish owners and customers.112 In London, Erwin wished to do what he could to distance himself from the Nazi regime, and also to contribute to its demise. He wanted to set up a group for social and political research: Together with English friends I believed, particularly after Munich, that an organization should be set up in this country consisting of Englishmen having a special knowledge of Central European affairs and persons of

130 Woman of the World Central European origin whose object it would be to explore the possibilities of gathering inside Germany those forces who were opposed to the present German Government giving them at the same time from outside the most active and powerful support, and to investigate the principles guiding a peaceful European settlement after the nazi menace had been removed. After prolonged endeavours on my part to create such an organization, I was able to enlist the support of Mr T. Jones, of the Pilgrim Trust.1-' Tom Jones was a senior civil servant who had come into political life with Lloyd George, prime minister at the time of the Versailles peace settlement. Linked with members of the so-called Cliveden Set, in the 19305 Jones became involved with the National Council of Social Service, the voluntary organization committed to softening the effects of economic depression.'4 The National Council received subsidies from public funds to undertake recreational and rehabilitational work in depressed areas.1"' Attempting to establish a think-tank with the assistance of Jones, 'we succeeded in securing the collaboration of a number of people interested in international affairs.'"' Erwin Schuller raised funds, and the organization was named the Europe Study Group, with Jones as chairman. Its members indicate the level of Erwin's acquaintance after a few years in England. Along with Lord Astor and his son David, who lived at Cliveden, they included George Adams, warden of All Souls College, Oxford, and other prominent public figures: Ernest Bevin, Sir William Beveridge, Geoffrey Crowther, Lionel Curtis, Stephen King-Hall, MP, Sir Arthur Salter, and Professor Arnold Toynbee. The first meeting of the Group took place at the house of the Marquis of Lothian, who then took an active interest, which ceased on his appointment as Ambassador to Washington.''7 The objective was to build up a small but highly qualified Anglocentral European team for research into political and economic problems in connection with the future of Europe. Unfortunately Jones became ill, and then in 1939 war broke out. The Group fell apart before it could get off the ground. Most of the members found more urgent calls on their time. In September 1940, Erwin noted, 'its activities have been temporarily suspended until a more opportune moment arrives.''8 When Britain declared war, Erwin Schuller had not succeeded in becoming naturalized, as he had not fulfilled the residence require-

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ments. In October 1939, he was classified as an alien and refugee from Nazi oppression. All Austrian citizens were made Germans after Hitler occupied Austria in 1938, so that technically Erwin was a German citizen. Along with thirty thousand designated 'enemy aliens' in Britain, he was interned in June 1940.M) His powerful friends wrote letters on his behalf, but he was not released from the Huyton internment camp near Liverpool for several months. Then, in the spring of 1941, he was hired by Tom Jones's organization, the National Council of Social Service. The secretary of the National Council was George Haynes, who remained a good friend of Erwin for many years to come. In 1941 he described the sort of work Erwin Schuller did. He was a 'senior administrative officer' on the staff. The National Council was the principal coordinating body for voluntary effort in Britain. All the major national organizations were associated with it. In 1941 it had four main areas of operation. After heavy air raids, the Council organized teams of workers to help after a blitz and assist local authorities. In each Civil Defence region, the Council had a regional officer to serve as liaison with departments at all levels of government. The Council worked with the War Damage Commission, with the Board of Trade on clothes rationing, and with the Ministry of Labour on industrial welfare. It helped maintain public morale through organizing clubs and hostels. Also, the Council took a leading part in advising the government about social workers. One of its major and most successful initiatives was in the countrywide network of Citizens' Advice Bureaux.20 During his first year with the Council, Erwin facilitated all aspects of the Council's work. He helped with the Citizens' Advice Bureaux; he helped organize work after heavy air raids; and he became involved in all aspects of its mandate as the principal coordinating body for volunteer effort and various national voluntary organizations. In 1942 he was drawn more into post-war planning, through which he met McGeachy.21 In 1943 he provided support to the National Council's International Committee, which was anticipating the role of voluntary organizations in post-war relief abroad.22 His interest in the training of social workers developed in London as well as in his correspondence with McGeachy, and she arranged for an invitation for him to go to Washington.^ When Agnes Meyer from the Washington Post visited Britain in the autumn of 1942 to see how ordinary people were faring under pressure of war, she thought the Citizens' Advice Bureaux were 'one of the most useful by-products of the British war effort.' There were twelve hundred

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Bureaux in 1942. Organized as information centres to save people from running around aimlessly after a blitz, they helped civilians find food, clothes, new radon cards, and other necessities when suffering from the trauma of brutal and violent loss. A feature of the Bureaux was that only one-third of the employees were paid. The rest were volunteers. Moreover, most Bureaux could also call on advisory boards of social work experts, again divided between paid and volunteer people.24 The Citizens' Advice Bureaux provided the friendly human interface between the state, voluntary-provided services, and clients. During wartime, the experience of the Bureaux provided a pragmatic example of the value of a partnership between paid and volunteer groups in society. It was through the help of the warden of All Souls, George Adams, that Erwin was offered a staff position with the National Council of Social Service. Because of his relative wealth, he was able to take only a token salary. In March 1941 he was paid a salary of £400 per annum, but at the end of May he was feeling uncomfortable at accepting this amount. He wrote to the warden when he discovered that the Council was experiencing financial difficulties. 'Whatever value my work may one day possibly have for the Council, I feel that there might be some ill-feeling if old and loyal servants of the Council have to leave now, while I, who have only joined so recently and do not play an essential part in any particular service, continue to draw any salary. I want to avoid even the slightest risk of any ill feeling on these grounds. In the circumstances, I have proposed to Haynes [the Council's secretary] that the salary which I receive from the National Council should be reduced from £400 a year to £100 a year, and furthermore that this reduction should take place retrospectively.'25 The warden accepted the proposal, for the time being, and noted Erwin's offer was 'characteristic in its consideration and helpfulness.'20 Within the year, however, the secretary was informing Erwin that his salary would be £450 per annum as of i April 1942.2? By August 1941, Erwin was 'one of our key officers,' said the Council.28 His work as an employee brought him into contact with Mary McGeachy, but what of his private life? A good-looking single man, aged thirty-three in 1942 - why was he not already married? Erwin Schuller did not lack for female company. As a teenager in Vienna, he had fallen in love with Vera, a young woman his own age from a wealthy family. She was expected to marry a rich older man who could provide her with the same level of comfort as her father had. So the families

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closed ranks. Erwin was sent off to learn banking in Germany and Paris, and Vera was sent off to the Austrian countryside before marrying the man her family chose. The story does not end on that rueful note. As with countless central European families, there was a post-war sequel. Vera's husband died in the war. She made her way to Hungary, where she married again. Having escaped the Germans, she now found herself in an area occupied by Russian soldiers. With small children, walking over mountains at night-time, the family escaped home to Austria. Shortly after the war, they emigrated to Canada, where for many years they lived in a small town in Ontario and operated a chicken farm. About ten years after the war, by which time the Schullers were living in Toronto, Erwin went to Argentina on business. There he paid his respects to the Austrian ambassador, whom he discovered to be an old friend of Vera's. Erwin asked where she was, these days. 'She's living in Ontario,' was the answer. So Erwin and Vera became reacquainted, and in the next generation Vera became a good friend of the Schullers' son and, after he married, his own young family. The Schullers' son remembers Erwin as intensely romantic. His favourite reading was the story of Heloise and Abelard. 'He was impassioned about it. It was the centrepiece of his intellectual life.'29 The story, combining passion, intellect, calculation, reason, ecstasy, penitence, and discipline has many parts and can yield multiple interpretations. The legendary love between Peter Abelard and Heloise took place in the twelfth century. Letters supposedly written to each other speak of carnal love, illicit sex, spiritual longing, and the difficulties of leading a righteous life. One of the most respected historians of medieval France, Georges Duby, considered the correspondence inauthentic. Rather, he argued, the correspondence was a rhetorical device to show readers and hearers how to argue and draw out lessons of spiritual edification.3" There are interesting parallels between Erwin's view of idealized love and the vision of that other friend of Mary McGeachy, Konni Zilliacus. Zilly's idea of romance was a 'vision of twin souls discovering a deep and exciting affinity, and consummating it to a fanfare worthy of Valhalla.':4' At the heart of Erwin's medieval tale was a reverence for a fiercely romantic and reciprocated passion between a man and a woman. If, as Erwin's son describes, the story was very important to him, it helps us understand Erwin's fascination with an attractive, well-educated, intellectually and socially adept woman who had long lived in a man's

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world and knew how to get her own way. People thought Erwin was a catch for Mary. Vice versa, she was a prize for him. After Erwin's release from internment, he was able to pursue again his theoretical interests. He indulged his enthusiasm for social planning, the pivotal role of voluntary organizations, and a growing sense of the importance of 'those methods of self-help, self-government, selfreliance and self-discipline which are the basis of most things which are worth while in this country.'3' Erwin and McGeachy managed to find each other in a confluence of mutual interest and admiration when they were both single, mature, and available. Their meeting was not entirely accidental. The warden of All Souls set it up. Adams and his wife knew McGeachy from her links with voluntary societies, and when she visited Britain in the spring of 1942, they occasionally had her to stay in Oxford. At the end of May, he wrote to McGeachy: 'Erwin Schuller is with us this weekend. I would like you to have a good talk with him ... He has very considerable economic experience and insight.'33 Adams's hunch that the two would get on well was correct. Erwin wrote his 'relief work' note to McGeachy in July 1942. Then he had second thoughts. He never sent it. It was torn in half, placed in its envelope, and guarded as a keepsake. The note remained to be discovered in his papers, years after his death, by his daughter. Erwin's charm, ability to be wryly self-deprecating, worldliness, idealism, and sensitivity to others were all evident in this note. He recognized in McGeachy an important combination. She believed, he thought, that with proper political structures, war might be avoided in the long term, and at the same time she had a realistic appraisal of practical problems to be dealt with in the near future. She was at the same time an idealist and a pragmatist. 'To hear you facing up to both these aspects of the same issue was a real treat.' Later that year, in December 1942, Erwin took the opportunity to keep McGeachy informed about the post-war planning work she had started in the summer. By this time, she was lionized as the first woman with British diplomatic rank. Erwin had progressed from the formal address of July and had learned that 'MacGeachy' was the wrong way to spell her last name. He was now admitted to the circle of her intimate friends, and she allowed him to call her 'Mary.' She aroused in him a mixture of personal and professional admiration. 'Dear Mary,' he wrote in December, in a letter which his secretary typed for him. As well as keeping her informed, he wanted to show her

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how balanced, judicious, and sensible he was. He wanted her to hear some of his own ideas about the place of voluntary societies in the provision of post-war relief. He even tried to pave the way for a job for himself and ended on a note which was a direct appeal for a response from her. He was trying to impress her, with intellectual and political arguments. Erwin thought that public opinion in the United States should be informed about achievements of British voluntary work during the war. 'If properly presented, this story would help British propaganda in USA ... showing that Britain is neither moving towards a socialism which suppresses private initiative, etc., nor remaining reactionary, class-ridden, imperialist etc.' A public relations campaign would require more than a few brilliant speakers. It would require the careful organization of a constant flow of information and material. 'Couldn't you try to get permission to employ one such person for a couple of months as your assistant to establish such a service?'34 Erwin's fertile mind was concerned with more philosophical questions too. He was instrumental in getting the National Council of Social Service involved in research. Hoping to enlist her help in getting funds for social research from agencies such as the Rockefeller Foundation, he described his appreciation of 'Community Development' in the British context: Putting it briefly, Community Development aims at social peace in a community. For this purpose it provides a machinery by which different groups with different, and frequently conflicting, outlook and different hopes or fears are brought together to do a particular job jointly ... The social integration ... which results from the special machinery which is used for doing the job is rarely mentioned explicitly. It is a byproduct which is taken for granted. Yet, in terms of national fitness and survival, it is probably far more valuable than any special service can be.-v>

Erwin felt he had more than a sympathetic listener in McGeachy. He thought she could help him, and he could help her. He was right. In October 1943, McGeachy was again in Britain. In a presentation she gave to the National Council of Social Service entitled The Background of Relief in Liberated Europe,' McGeachy incorporated some of Erwin's ideas to telling effect.3" McGeachy's two months in Britain towards the end of 1943 celebrated more than an intellectual cooperation with Erwin. It merged into seri-

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ous emotional intimacy as well. There were signs she intended to purchase property in Sussex large enough to establish a household for two.37 Back in Washington, she sent Erwin a cable of the news of her arrival. For the next three months, she was constantly in his thoughts. His side of an intense correspondence survives to reveal the embryonic dynamics of a relationship which continued over the next twenty-four years. In December 1943, Erwin was thirty-four years old, a man-about-town who had his own place in Westminster and was looked after by a housekeeper. He was thoughtful, sensitive, and offered European charm to women more used, perhaps, to British awkwardness from men reared in single-sex schools and working within the culture of the old boys' network. Erwin was a highly eligible bachelor, and in the heightened atmosphere of wartime London it was to be expected that he was not deprived of female company. Erwin had a wide circle of women friends, some of whom were already known to McGeachy. Molly Hamilton, who had admired McGeachy in Geneva, served on the International Committee of the National Council of Social Service, and Erwin developed a friendship with her too.s8 'I had dinner with Molly on Friday,' he wrote and went on: 'Molly had just received a parcel from you so that I spent the evening eating the raisins which you had sent her.'S!) This was typical. When McGeachy knew people who were close to Erwin, she would establish a direct contact with them. She would pay a visit, or telephone, or send a present. In this way, they would speak fondly of her with Erwin, and good feelings would be cemented all round. In this instance, McGeachy's action was a highly effective way of letting Molly Hamilton, and others, know of her own arrival on the scene of his affections. Similarly, three days later, Erwin had dinner with a woman who 'was full of praise about a very great friend of mine, a certain Craig whom she had met in Geneva when she still had her hair wound round her head. I am just longing to see that girl and to persuade her to try once again to wind her hair round her head and not to allow economical hairdressers to cut her hair.'4" This was Zoe Puxley, who had come to know McGeachy in Geneva. A third instance occurred during the next month. McGeachy had visited Erwin's mother in New York. 'Good of you to get in touch with my mother,' he wrote. 'Everything you note about her made me very happy!'4' Gertrude Schueller thought McGeachy was a very charming person, with a lot of humour and common sense. Mrs Schueller was the only person in the Schuller or McGeachy families ever to describe

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McGeachy as 'a very good housewife.'4* As Erwin's mother was not really in a position to observe McGeachy's housekeeping skills, the comment can only be interpreted as a desire to say something pleasant. It is revealing of the prevalent gender expectations that one of the nicest things that could be said about a woman friend of her son's was that she was a good housewife.4a Conducting a love affair over a vast distance is always challenging. Erwin and McGeachy had their problems. First, from Erwin's point of view, was the issue of an end to their separation. He wanted them both to live in the same place, which he wanted to be London, and he had understood that she shared his wishes and intended to do what she could to bring them about. Yet on 31 December 1943 he heard news which challenged this understanding. The Allies were in the process of establishing a new agency, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. A friend of Erwin's had said that 'Craig McGeachy will probably be asked to assume charge of the relations between UNRRA and the voluntary welfare organizations and to do this in Washington. '44 During January some of her own remarks fuelled his confusion and unhappiness. Responding to her letter of 6 January, he wrote: You mention in your letter that I might join UNRRA ... my first reaction is that it would not be the right thing for me to do. First, I would not want to have my headquarters in Washington after the war if I can help it even if I could spend a lot of my time in Europe. (This, if I understand it properly, was also your idea when we discussed this, but I may have misunderstood you or things may look very different now.)

The suggestion, however, had given him another idea. 'It occurs to me that perhaps the idea which I mentioned in one of my last letters was after all not so foolish viz that UNRRA might ask the NCSS to lend me to them as their consultant or whatever you might call it for say a month or 6 weeks early in spring (e.g. to discuss matters which cut across problems of welfare and of industrial rehabilitation; or the application of British methods of community development in Continental terms - or what not). If that would bring me to the USA early this spring it would be grand, for many reasons.'45 Erwin became very keen on the notion of making a temporary visit to the United States, while feeling unhappy at the idea that she was putting down deeper roots in Washington. 'I hope that you will find it easy to arrange things in a way which makes it possible to rid yourself during the very next month of the many commitments which tie you to your

138 Woman of the World job and to residence away from London, and that you can do this without having to be disloyal to any cause or person.'4'5 He was serious about their relationship. 'In your letter of the thirtieth December you say that you hope that 1944 will bring the fulfillment of my dearest wish - you do know - don't you - that nobody but you can bring that about?'47 Nine days later, his frustration was evident: It is tantalizing to hear all the rumours here which say that you have made up your mind to accept the directorship of the welfare section of Unrra and to remain in Washington. I feel that it is very nearly as bad as hearing that you are getting engaged to marry a chap over there. You will think of your - of our? - private life in taking your decision won't you - it all sounds so foolish to write about these things and to feel that by the time you read this you may have taken a decision - yet to cable you is even less likely to convey to you the state in which I am - very very tired and therefore at every turn inclined to fall for a moment the prey of fears and anxieties lest you might be yielding to some pressure which would separate us - but every time when that happens I recover very rapidly and remember one of the moments we spent together and then I feel full of joy and faith and it all seems so easy and so natural and so promising, and I feel so confident that we shall manage.''8 A couple of days later, he was asking her to make sure she had work which would bring her to London for good, and he associated this with his demand for an answer to a question he had asked when she was with him in December: All the hopes follow from my one big wish. - I told you when you were here that I should ask you three more times whether you would marry me - in Washington the next time. Will you take this letter as the proposal which was to reach you in Washington? Will you write and tell me how you feel about it? If you say yes, do also start thinking how you could best settle here in London during the spring and how you could do some work which gives you a satisfactory exit without committing you to a new job for too long a period. I am sure that you could find something that would do this and at the same time give you scope to make your contribution.411 Rumours at Erwin's office travelled much more quickly than direct news from McGeachy. McGeachy was under pressure at this time from

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many directions. She was negotiating for a much more important job in the new UNRRA than the coordination of voluntary societies: director of welfare. Secondly, her sister Jessie was about to get married to Wendell Macleod, McGeachy's old Student Christian Movement friend. McGeachy was not altogether sure that Jessie's marriage was a good thing. She confessed her concern to Erwin. 'If he is making Jay as happy and loyal to him as you suggest, I suppose you are after all very happy for her sake,' wrote Erwin. 'Or is there any snag apart from your original misgivings? Somehow you do not seem as happy about it all as it seems on the face of it that you should.'5" A third anxiety for her concerned her mother, who was very ill. Added to these professional and personal problems, Erwin wanted continual reassurance. At the same time that he was pressing her to say she would marry him, he also wanted her opinion concerning his ideas about training social workers and Citizens' Advice Bureaux. While offering some support about her mother - 'I do hope that whatever happens to your mother she and your father will not suffer' - he also pressed her to confide their relationship to her mother. 'If she is alright when you are home the next time and if you are alone with her for a while will you tell her about our plans? I should love to hear that you have done so.' 5 ' Erwin continually fretted at not receiving enough letters from her. More than once, he dryly imagined 'the mad whirlwind in which you are at the moment and I can understand that to sit down for five minutes and write to me would mean changing gear when you are driving at full speed - and is just more than you can manage.'5" Yet he was not so badly done by. McGeachy sent him letters and cables and presents. Rare treats for wartime London, such as shirts and chocolates, arrived at intervals. And family matters necessarily engaged her attention. Anna Jenet McGeachy died on the day her daughter was appointed to the UNRRA position, and Mary travelled to Sarnia for the funeral. On 14 February, Jessie and Wendell had their wedding. All the time, McGeachy was immersed in the planning for her new position in Washington and for developing relations with the European Regional Office in London. Continually, Erwin demanded attention. She found time to arrange a visit for Erwin to Washington to discuss exactly what he wanted, the provision of training for UNRRA officers. Erwin's bitter disappointment when he learned she had indeed accepted the position of director of welfare showed in a letter at the end of January. 'If only I could be in the USA for 6 or 8 weeks and talk things over with you and get you to answer to my cable of last week,

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which I sent when you asked what my dearest wish was. I had expected a cable from you in reply and have only realized now that your question was academic.' Even then he was able to retain some sense of perspective. 'I shall just have to come over and fetch a reply.'53 If he was depressed by thwarted hopes of living together in London or Sussex later in the summer, he rallied soon. Never once did he revise his intention to marry her. 'Have you ever thought that it might be a good idea to marry during my visit and for you to come back with me?' he asked on the first of February. Always he was buoyed up by ideas about training, and always he wanted to share these ideas with her. 'I think that with you in the Welfare Organization and me in charge of the training, or rather of one part of it, as an independent officer of the NCSS, we could do a most amusing job.'54 Erwin wrote long business letters to her from the office. He advised on possible names for a standing technical committee on welfare to sit in London.55 He drafted a philosophical statement on welfare in the hope that even the pragmatic British could benefit from paying attention to an identification of general principles,5'' and he drew up a proposal for an international conference on social work.57 In his handwritten personal letters, he interspersed affectionate remarks and accounts of his social life with observations on the importance of training. And although he tried to get her to reply to some specific suggestions he had made, he did so in a way which was not too imperative. Listing some issues on which he wanted her to cable the answers, he said, 'I can imagine countless reasons why you find it impossible to cable at this juncture and I shall not feel upset if you don't.'5" Erwin's personal drama was evolving against the deprivations of war. He rarely complained, but he did note some bothersome details. The strain and diminishing degree of comfort are beginning to tell with a growing number of people. Fortunately British people hardly seem to know what it is to be nervous.'59 When he travelled to Yorkshire to give a talk to a boys' grammar school and to a luncheon group, 'the train was 3 hours late Saturday night in getting there and 3 and a half hours late on Monday returning' - a problem not unique to wartime.6" Working so hard on his training plans, Erwin was unhappy at the lack of services. 'Work up to i or 2 am in the office with inadequate clerical staff, writing paper, telephone service in the office and no hot water, and darned stockings at home is no fun. It is the accumulated effect of dozens of casual things, each so insignificant that one is ashamed to think of them let alone to mention them which is so tiring and people

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are beginning to feel it. But it will not mean any weakening of the total effort, on the contrary.' He marvelled at the resilience and determination of the British."1 Occasionally he came nearer to danger. 'We had a rather strenuous conference during the weekend. There was an air raid on Saturday and a rather noisy one at that so we were sent down into the cellar. There the conference went on discussing the future of clubs for poor housewives after the war - with the gunning and all the rest of it going on outside. You would have enjoyed the dramatic contrast - though not the chill of the cellar nor the cold I have caught there."'" Erwin did voluntary work as a fire warden. 'We are firewatching tonight and I have stepped away to write to you - If there is an alarm I can be down and join the others in a few seconds ... Firewatching has become a trial for other reasons than air-raids: the laundry does not work and you have dirty pillow slips, the light is bad as it is difficult to get repairs done ... One is rather ashamed to be bothered by anything so far removed from real suffering these days but it is these small things which represent the stress and strain of the war for most people - and it is interesting under that aspect.>(>s The strains of a separation, at this evolution of their relationship, were occasionally all too apparent. Letters sometimes took longer than expected. McGeachy had many more things to think about than Erwin's peace of mind, and her own. A couple of weeks before Erwin was due to sail to the United States, he was plunged into a depression when he learned that she was recommending 'no action' on some of his policy ideas. Writing from the heart, he implored her sympathy. 'I have never felt happier and never more creative in my work than when you were here and we were working together. But I have never felt so unhappy and so frustrated than I do at present constantly afraid as I am that I may be building up something which will obstruct your efforts or missing an opportunity to assist your efforts.' Erwin was experienced enough, and confident enough of McGeachy, to know there was still hope for their relationship. 'All that will be easy once we have had half an hours talk.' (i 4 On one point Erwin was correct. Mutual misunderstandings were resolved soon enough. His delight when the American invitation arrived was genuine, and it sustained him through the tough times. 'What a wizzard [sic] you are - the terms of reference under which the invitation has come make it quite sure that I shall be able to come. I cannot tell you how happy I am - on many accounts and yet they all account so

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little compared with the thought of soon being able to tease you once again, a thing I so love doing but can not do if I have to wait a fortnight for a reply. Darling, what a grand time we shall have.'1"'5 In early March: 'I shall be with you before the end of the month if all goes well. It will be such fun, fun, fun!' fifi Erwin spent two periods in the United States during 1944. Visiting between 31 March and 10 July, he was invited with McGeachy to a social work conference at Princeton: they were publicly accepted as a couple.1'7 In the United States, Erwin was seconded to UNRRA and was essentially training the instructors for welfare work. The training was 'useful to people who had returned to do relief work, particularly when they were in touch with groups of so-called resistance movements and were trying to provide rapid training for constructive work under present circumstances."'8 The involvement with resistance movements was a commitment of UNRRA. Even in 1943, McGeachy had declared it was 'very important that the positive nature of the resistance movement should be recognized by all who [were] preparing plans for postwar relief abroad."'" Erwin was in the United States again for the months of September and October 1944. Personal plans were finalized. A month later, McGeachy travelled to Britain, and this time they got married. The wedding took place in a small Church of England ceremony in Oxford. St Peter-in-the-East was in a lane minutes away from All Souls College, where Erwin and McGeachy were staying with the warden and his wife. Erwin's brother, Theodore (Teddy), and his wife were present. After the ceremony, the couple went on a honeymoon to Tenby in Pembrokeshire, South Wales. McGeachy made good use of the custom of mailing out pieces of wedding cake to a long list of friends and acquaintances. Altogether, she sent out 182 pieces of cake or reprints of the wedding service to people in Britain and a few in Switzerland. On the list were colleagues in UNRRA, the National Council of Social Service, the Foreign Office, and the Ministry of Economic Warfare, old friends from Geneva days, members of women's international and national organizations, and colleagues from Lazard's.7" Among the letters of congratulation was one from Lester Pearson, whose friendship with McGeachy went back to university days. Writing from the Canadian embassy in Washington, he said he had been at a mutual friend's in Toronto before Christmas. She 'horrified me by telling the assembled multitude that you were to be married shortly - that was a previous secret which I had been nursing

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carefully - so I also began to spread the news. It is such a relief to be able to talk about important things after you have been carefully guarding them for weeks.'7' For the rest of his life, Erwin displayed the character traits which were evident during the correspondence of 1943-4. He was eager for McGeachy's approval and support. He needed her opinions and agreement with the intellectual matters which continued to concern them both: the interconnection of voluntary groups, international cooperation, and the features of a civil society. He respected her brainpower and judgment, and he admired her ability to balance the large picture with the details. He was also susceptible to occasional depression. Erwin recognized McGeachy's practical efficiency and her ability to get things done. If he resented at times her refusal to surrender her own interests to his, he acknowledged the importance of what she was doing and came to accept that her appeal to him lay partly in her independence. He did not lack for sympathy from his mother. Gertrude Schueller was impressed by McGeachy's diplomatic credentials, and she herself, a graduate student in New York in the mid-ig4os, was not exactly a conventional woman. Nevertheless, after the Schullers were married, she expressed the general view of a married woman working when she wrote to Erwin: 'It must be wonderful for both of you to look forward to the time when Mary won't have to work.'72 But Erwin's affection was not wholly intellectual. Unafraid to be vulnerable, he could express his happiness openly. The autumn months of 1943 'went by at top speed but they brought me so much happiness and joy that I can sometimes hardly believe that it was only two months.'73 He liked the idea of being part of her family. He liked hearing 'a few sweet words' from her, and he just wanted to be with her, both alone and with friends. Volatile in his emotions, he expressed both happy jubilation and serious depression. Erwin did not draw on a stereotype of machismo masculinity in his dealings with women. Not every man in the 19405 would have asked his lover to 'write soon and about your plans - and where I fit into them.' He was not overly possessive, although he could show jealousy of the things which diverted her attention away from him. He anticipated there would be some problems ahead but trusted in the future: I hope that our love will be a sufficient support to you to make you not feel, or at least not suffer from, the many minor and major difficulties which will inevitably accompany the great change that it will mean to both

144 Woman of the World of us to live as wife and husband. And I hope you will look after yourself, your health, your nerves, your timetable a bit while I am not with you, because if you don't you really are not giving a chance au bon Dieu to let our love grow and blossom.74

Erwin was dazzled by Mary. His relatives, on the whole, were less impressed. They liked Erwin and appreciated his family loyalties. His uncles left Austria in 1938, and, said a cousin, Erwin sent money, 'a sizeable amount - to the boat which brought me and my family from Europe in 1938 as refugees.' Three years later, Erwin supported his uncle financially for a while. However, the Schueller family did not think much of Mary. 'Erwin was not a womanizer and was not interested in beautiful women which is more or less proven by the fact that he married Mary, who, as intelligent and interesting as she might have been was certainly not good looking but rather plain and physically unattractive.'75 Another cousin said, 'When Erwin married Mary the family was amazed. In our family, she didn't seem particularly notable because it was a very intellectual family and so her work for UNRRA etc didn't seem that special, especially since my Grandfather had been one of the most noted diplomats in Austria, the Economic Minister, etc. Also Mary was about ten years older than Erwin, and not at all attractive so that it seemed a strange union.'7" Actually, Mary was seven years older than Erwin, but his family did not know that for sure. Cousins' recollections were influenced by their acquaintance in subsequent years when their general consensus was that she was 'conscious of her talents and position, a bit haughty, not a likeable person.'77 Following the Schueller relatives, Isaiah Berlin, McGeachy's colleague at the Washington embassy, did not succumb to her charm. Like Robert Brand of Lazard's, Berlin was a fellow of All Souls and he already had a reputation as an outstanding intellectual. His private correspondence roamed freely over the behaviour and foibles of his acquaintances. To his parents, Berlin wrote in acerbic style: As for Miss McGeachy's marriage, I cannot but think it comical. Her husband is a very smooth opportunist, an Austrian Jew or half-Jew, with a passion for English bankers, too great in one so young to be entirely disinterested. Together they will make a very flourishing firm; the rate of progress up the ladder ought to be doubled now that there is so much combined energy there, and yet I am told that they are madly in love with

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each other. Everything is possible. Certainly the Warden of All Souls has been completely taken in by both. Without any dislike for either of them, I do not really want them in my life much, nor, I feel, do they.78

Zoe Puxley expressed an arch opinion of the marriage. Puxley held responsible positions in the Home Office during the war, looking after the welfare of women munition workers and health services for billeted workers. She was involved with Erwin's National Council of Social Service. While one can imagine accompanying knowing looks, raised eyebrows, and nudging elbows, Puxley's letter to Charlotte Whitton retains a mysterious meaning. She wrote to Whitton in January 1945: 'I guess you were "intrigued" as they say over Craig's marriage. Do you know Erwin? Really a very exceptional young man. Even so, - I wonder? - I am so fond of them both that I took a day off (only my 4th in the whole year) to go to Oxford for the wedding and I gave them a little dinner party on their return last week. Well, well, I wish you and I could have a real good gossip.'79 It sounds as though Puxley and her circle knew enough of McGeachy's behaviour, and character, to make them wonder about the marriage. Did they know something about McGeachy and another man - Zilliacus, for example? Were they aware of her fear 'of the big human beast, the animal inside the man,' which the Rorschach report referred to? They probably knew her well enough to know that she liked to get her own way. Exactly why a 'real good gossip' would be in order is anyone's guess. A regular married life together did not begin right away, but only after the UNRRAjob came to an end in 1946. The transition marked a sea-change in McGeachy's behaviour regarding the dominant gender expectations of her time. Single women were expected to keep themselves. Married women were supposed to let their husbands do it. McGeachy's marriage eventually led to a huge alteration in her way of living. By giving up paid work, she had to forego the sense of achievement, the intrinsic satisfaction with a job well done, her basic autonomy, and the aura of celebrity which she had enjoyed for several years. Why, then, did McGeachy marry, a decision which would almost unavoidably require her independent, satisfying life to be set aside? Her side of the 1943-4 correspondence with Erwin has not survived. One can only guess at her feelings. In the Schuller marriage, Isaiah Berlin discerned the behaviour of social climbers, but he also pointed out: 'I am told that they are madly in love with each other.' He was probably right. The letters show that McGeachy had the upper hand in

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the relationship. She ended up with both the job and the man she wanted. Even after her marriage in 1944, she continued to function as a single woman. Her name remained Miss McGeachy. She lived in Washington and travelled widely on business. But the war, which had opened so many doors for her, would come to an end, and anyway it was likely that her opportunities would contract as she grew older. Marriage would be an insurance policy. She was fortunate to find a partner who had good economic prospects, was an intellectually stimulating companion, was affectionate and loving towards her, and shared her interests. When McGeachy's own effort to carve out a new diplomatic position for herself came to nothing, she bowed to what she saw as the inevitable. Henceforward she would be Mrs Erwin Schuller, supported by her husband, and she would play the role of the educated and politically aware middle-class married ladies whom she had observed in Canada, the United States, and Britain. For the next twenty-three years, she tried to do so.

7

UNRRA

In January 1944, Mary Craig McGeachy was appointed director of welfare for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. Her responsibility was the well-being of millions of persons displaced by war. The main purpose of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration was to relieve victims of war. As this war had mobilized whole nations, and had affected entire civilian populations as well as armies, there were millions of victims. They were from all walks of life, of different nationalities, and of all age groups, and many were hugely traumatized by battle and brutality. The dimensions of the problem were colossal. The human face of the problem was the refugee. Refugees were to be housed in camps. 'Everything happened in the camps. We had murders with the bodies disappearing. Murders were more often than not alleged to be of collaborators; the displaced persons took justice into their own hands, and one did not see much more of them or of the body. Thieving, raping, looting, hand-fighting - everything went on.' 1 UNRRA was supposed to bring immediate order and long-term calm out of the war's unprecedented confusion. 'It is strange,' wrote Gitta Sereny, 'that so little was ever written about UNRRA.' Sereny's work as a child welfare officer for the Administration led her later to two major life projects: a philosophical exploration of evil and the effect of evil on children. Over fifty years after the war, she wondered why the achievements of UNRRA were not more widely known: 'Perhaps it was because television was still in its beginnings; perhaps because of that well-known resistance in all medias to so-called "goodiegoodie" stories; perhaps also however because UNRRA's structure and

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the political problems between its [United Nations] members were too complex and its task too large for easy descriptions.'2 In setting up the new agency in November 1943, forty-four states agreed on a mandate and on general terms for financing goods and services. The position of the United States was pivotal. Its financial contributions were the greatest, and the overall command of UNRRA would be held by an American citizen owing responsibility to a Council composed of representatives of all the Allies, known in 1943 as the United Nations. Beneath a director-general were six deputy directorsgeneral in charge of administrative sections, and three directors of the functional divisions of Health, Welfare, and Displaced Persons. McGeachy was the only woman in an executive level. The following two and a half years were highly charged, with personal and professional moment for McGeachy. Her mother died the same day the press carried the announcement of 'Woman Appointed As Chief.'3 In 1945 her sister Donalda suffered an illness and during convalescence decided to make a career change.4 McGeachy's father was causing considerable grief. When the European war came to an end on VE Day in 1945, McGeachy was visiting her family in Sarnia. Donald 'celebrated his approach to his y8th birthday by climbing a peach tree and falling out of it.'5 He grew increasingly demented before his death in 1946.° At the same time, she was experiencing romantic upheaval. At the end of 1943, Erwin Schuller asked her to marry him, and she had to make her mind up about her future life.7 During an intense and extended correspondence in the spring of 1944, Erwin demanded her intellectual as well as emotional attention. Professionally, McGeachy had to establish and administer a department split between two main head offices on two continents and take responsibility for hundreds of welfare workers around the world. The origins of UNRRA were to be found in the 'food and freedom' speech drafted by Hugh Dalton and delivered by Winston Churchill to the House of Commons in August 1940. No goods were to be traded with the enemy. Churchill was honest about the implications of an economic blockade. Food and medicines for humanitarian relief were part of the ban. 'Let Hitler bear his responsibilities to the full, and let the people of Europe who groan beneath his yoke aid in every way the coming of the day when that yoke will be broken,' he said. Meanwhile, Britain would encourage the building up of reserves of food and other necessities. When Hitler had surrendered, all would be well. 'The shat-

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tering of the Nazi power will bring ... all immediate food, freedom, and peace.' 8 Churchill established a governmental committee under the chairmanship of Sir Frederick Leith-Ross, chief economic adviser to the government and director-general of the Ministry of Economic Warfare. Leith-Ross's committee made sure that governments in exile took steps to accumulate supplies for use after liberation. On the other side of the Atlantic, in November 1942, President Roosevelt appointed Herbert Lehman, governor of New York, as Director of the Office of Foreign Relief and Rehabilitation Operations (OFRRO), to 'undertake the work of organizing American participation in the activities of the United Nations in furnishing relief and other assistance to victims of war in areas re-occupied by the forces of the United Nations.' OFRRO staff moved with Lehman directly into positions of the new UNRRA organization when it was established.9 In November 1943, UNRRA was formally constituted.10 The governing body was a Council, consisting of one representative of each member government. As director-general, President Roosevelt nominated Lehman, an appointment confirmed by the UNRRA Council. His deputy was Leith-Ross. Since the bulk of supplies would be found and transported in and through the United States, UNRRA headquarters were located in Washington." A European Regional Office located in London administered and supervised offices, missions, and displaced persons operations in Europe and the Middle East. In size and authority, it functioned almost as a parallel headquarters, and the relations between the Washington and London offices were marked by confusion and misunderstanding.12 UNRRA would provide relief supplies, defined as essential consumer goods to meet immediate needs, such as food, clothing, and medical supplies; relief services, such as health and welfare; rehabilitation supplies, goods needed to enable a recipient country to produce and transport relief supplies and to restore public utilities; and rehabilitation services of a short-term sort. It was a temporary organization, and since the Allies were still engaged in military action, the effective prosecution of the war took priority.'3 Advice on policy was generated by standing technical advisory committees, and at the meeting in Atlantic City there was a struggle to establish welfare as a service requiring its own committee. The difficulty reflected real divisions over the meaning of the terms relief and welfare, how welfare services should be delivered, and by whom.

150 Woman of the World To many people on both sides of the Atlantic, the two terms were synonymous. They meant material assistance such as food, shelter, clothing, fuel, medicines, and other necessities of life, made available for people unable to provide for themselves. Charities had dispensed relief for centuries, and the Hoover relief campaign after the First World War subscribed to this interpretation. In the new UNRRA there were many who considered this to be the raison d'etre of the entire organization. There were others, mainly but not exclusively located in the United States, who had learned from new professional social workers of the twentieth century that proper welfare services should stimulate self-help among recipients. At Atlantic City this view was energetically promoted by advisers to the American delegation, who succeeded in persuading Lehman, a long-time philanthropist, to establish a separate Welfare Division with its own standing technical committee within UNRRA.'4 The new international civil service was appointed by the directorgeneral with advice from his Council. Staff were to be remunerated at a 'sufficiently high level' to attract the best people available. The Council appealed to member governments to release staff for temporary duty with the Administration. People of all nationalities were eligible, and theoretically staff could be recruited on as wide a geographical basis as possible. No nationality quotas interfered with the director-general's freedom to appoint.'5 Like the League of Nations, there was to be no discrimination on the grounds of sex, nationality, or creed. As it turned out, the majority of managerial and executive employees were from the United States or the British Commonwealth.1'3 McGeachy was a protegee of the new deputy director-general, Frederick Leith-Ross.'7 She had been instrumental in creating the Council of British Societies for Relief Abroad (COBSRA) in the summer of 1942. The British agreed to release McGeachy from the Washington embassy, and two former colleagues clearly saw her as an important British presence in an organization which to their eyes was predominantly American. She was '"the international civil servant" who must now emerge and serve the new age and create the new values ... it would be best for you and the world to take the post you had been offered.' They thought it would be 'good to have you as an ally planked into the upper reaches of UNRRA.'18 To her mainly American subordinates in Washington, many of them with training as professional social workers and with working experience in public and private agencies, McGeachy personified the image of an English, noblesse oblige approach to the old-fashioned kind of relief

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which they were at pains to dispel. Throughout her tenure as director, she was subjected to severe criticism, much of it based on a caricature both of her own approach and of the British voluntary societies. She was up to the challenge. She proved to be remarkably long-lived and outlasted most of her critics. As the Berlin-Nicholas joke of November 1943 showed, McGeachy did not enjoy universal popularity on the British side, but she had the reputation of being a dynamic and energetic person. She had taken up the slack from the dwindling responsibility of blockade justification and turned her attention to post-war planning during 1943. She had steadily developed links with voluntary organizations and their British coordinating committee, the National Council of Social Service, and she had made herself noticed and useful within Leith-Ross's orbit. McGeachy reaped more than status from her UNRRA appointment. Her salary of $10,000 per annum was more than three times as much as she earned at the embassy.'9 True to the declaration of non-discrimination, McGeachy's salary was the same as the male directors of the other two operational divisions (Health and Displaced Persons). Only the director-general and the deputy directors-general made more.20 Additionally, at the end of her stint with UNRRA, she received a lump sum which was enough for her to purchase a vacation home in the Adirondack Mountains. 21 Many of the UNRRA appointments were for very brief periods of a couple of months or so. The average length of service for Washington senior officials was 15.5 months. McGeachy served double that time, 30 months, for as long as her section was in operation. Outside Washington, there were thirty-four senior administrators in the European Regional Office and eighty-four in the relief, liaison, and supply missions around the world. Only a handful of women were among them." That McGeachy remained as welfare director despite widespread backbiting was a tribute to her tenacity, her powerful friends, and her great skill in rising above mundane details to see the wider picture of the need to bring emergency help to victims of war. The UNRRA historians who prepared monographs of various units in preparation for the official history wrote of McGeachy's 'immunity,' which protected her position until the spring of 1946. Deriving their evidence from interviews with UNRRA staff, they put it down to 'her close relationship to the British Government and her personal friendship with the Churchill family.'2!i No doubt McGeachy let people know about both.

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Her friendship with Leith-Ross was a crucial connection. As long as he was deputy director-general of UNRRA, McGeachy survived as director of welfare. She also enjoyed the confidence of the director-general himself. 'When Lehman employed McGeachy,' said Conrad Van Hyning, McGeachy's deputy director in Washington from September 1944 to July 1945, 'he did it without advice of anybody. The immediate reaction was in strong opposition and he didn't like to admit his mistake and back down.'24 Lehman defended McGeachy against three of her strongest opponents in his own office: Roy Hendrickson, Hugh Jackson, and Commander R.G.A. Jackson. Born in the United States of Norwegian stock, Roy Hendrickson had not visited Europe before 1944. Two years younger than McGeachy, he had been a journalist before entering government service in 1933. Rapidly rising to positions of authority in the Department of Agriculture, during the war he was in charge of food distribution and was involved in the plans for stockpiling supplies for post-war relief. Hugh Jackson was special assistant to the director-general. Eleven years younger than McGeachy, he had previously been director of public assistance in the New York City Department of Welfare.2"5 Commander R.G.A. Jackson was Australian and had served with the British forces in the Middle East before his appointment in 1945 as the senior deputy directorgeneral. He enjoyed the confidence of Herbert Lehman enough to be made his personal representative in the London office for six months in i945.2f) These three men turned out to be McGeachy's enemies, but their boss, the director-general, was sympathetic towards her. Lehman was Roosevelt's successor as governor of the State of New York. His father was a poor German immigrant who built a fortune in cotton and founded the New York banking firm of Lehman Brothers. A liberal in politics, he had a long-standing interest in philanthropy. His conceptualization of international relief as helping people to help themselves was the hallmark of UNRRA's philosophy, and was exactly congruent with McGeachy's views.27 More tolerant of her British sympathies than was his staff, Lehman's support was crucial for McGeachy. Inside the Welfare Division, many staff severely criticized her. 'Her intimacy with Clementine Churchill and certain members of the imperialist group makes her a power to be feared and probably explains why she has not been asked to resign,' said one member of the Washington staff in 1946, and the story was echoed by others.28 This was a gross exaggeration. Clementine Churchill was hardly in a position to do much for McGeachy, especially after the 1945 election when Winston Churchill

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was defeated. A staff member, Madeline Berry, identified McGeachy as ferociously anti-American. 'Her anti-US sentiment is tremendous. There is no limit to her ways of expressing her hostility.'29 However, McGeachy had support, especially from colleagues whose friendship went back to Geneva days. Her mentor Leith-Ross was now deputy director-general, Department of Finance and Administration in the European Region Office of UNRRA, and Chair of the Committee of the Council for Europe. Sir Arthur Salter, who had been director of the League of Nation's Economic and Financial Section in the early 19305, was now the senior deputy director-general of UNRRA. At a lower level, her old League boss, H.R. Cummings, became director of the Public Information Division in the European Regional Office. The fundamental responsibility of McGeachy's Welfare Division was to plan programs for special classes of dependent persons. These were identified primarily as children, pregnant women and nursing mothers, the destitute, the disabled, and the aged. The division was also required to enlist the cooperation of voluntary relief organizations, and it necessarily had to work closely with other divisions, notably with the Displaced Persons Division (as displaced persons were the Welfare Division's main clients).s" From the start, McGeachy's approach belied her critics, who later charged that she preferred the non-professional, amateur, untheoretical approach to welfare. On the contrary, she considered it imperative for the Welfare Division to proceed on the basis of well-researched information. First task of the division had to be planning. She also put a premium on appropriate training for welfare personnel in the field. On neither issue was she a proponent of the 'muddling through' approach associated in the popular mind with British voluntary societies. It was important, she wrote, 'to make a realistic picture of the problem before us arising from the effects of enemy occupation on institutions and resources for welfare services in the Liberated countries ... We have here a long handicap to overcome in comparison with other function divisions. The Health people, for example, can almost draw a map of the incidence of malaria in Europe. No such precise study has been made in our field. >H ' Between 1944 and 1945, Welfare Division staff produced reports on the existing welfare services of occupied countries and on problems likely to be experienced by particular population groups. The idea was that Washington staff would produce a practical guide for welfare workers in the field, and London staff would work on the studies organized

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by country, describing likely problems and local resources. In the event there was some inevitable overlapping.** The Allies tried to create two categories of people who needed help. Displaced persons were the people found in slave labour camps and concentration camps. The term was applied also to non-Germans who had fled from the Soviet advance during the last year of the war and ended up in Germany. The term refugee was first used for Germans who left their homes in eastern Europe after August 1945. It was hard to maintain the distinction: all were uprooted; all needed care. The numbers of dislocated people on the move swelled into the millions after the German military defeats in 1945. The vast majority found their own way home. They were not the concern of the UNRRA Welfare Division. But many were unable, or did not want, to return to their homes. The numbers of people who resisted repatriation were not initially anticipated by the planners. The UNRRA reports provide a glimpse, in understated prose, of what the Allies expected. They show the raw dimensions of a sensational and terrible drama. They are a reminder of the havoc wrought by the Second World War on millions of lives. The planning documents were intended to show what welfare services were in place before the war, what changes had taken place since 1939, and the welfare problems to be expected. Their unemotional tone tends paradoxically to intensify the impression of hardship and horror. The reports were manifestations of dreadful and hugely widespread suffering for vast numbers of men, women, and children. While many countries shared common features, there were also significant differences, especially between western and eastern Europe. The first report, on France, was produced in October ig44.33 From the outbreak of war until November 1942, economic chaos developed out of the division of France between the north and south, the loss of 1.8 million French people as prisoners of war, the recruitment of labour for Germany, and wholesale requisitioning by the occupying Germans. From the winter of 1942 until the spring of 1944, further disruption resulted from the German occupation of southern France, an increase in the German labour drive for French men and women to work in Germany and on French fortifications, and the evacuation of strategic areas. While the report was being written, further economic chaos ensued as a result of the dislocation of communications by bombing, the activities of the Free French Army, and subsequent attempts at increased political repression on the part of the German and Vichy administrations.

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The general effect on the French population was a rising degree and widening field of poverty and distress, largely the result of a great increase in the cost of living. Children, adolescents, and old people suffered more than adults, townspeople more than country dwellers, and poorer people more than those with assets. Crime increased, 'much of it in a spirit of patriotism,' particularly in connection with the forgery of official documents, radon cards, and identity papers, and above all with the growth of a black market, which became a 'national institution.' A majority in the population looked to the black market to maintain food supplies above starvation level. Food prices were high in urban areas, but even in the countryside they were beyond the means of the majority of the population. Using official government figures of December 1942, it was estimated that in the previous three years a family's average income had risen 19 per cent, but the prices of rationed staple foodstuffs had risen by 122 per cent. Barter became an intrinsic part of the black market, which meant the difference between 'half a loaf and no bread.'34 While official government agencies attempted to cope with the distress, much unofficial and clandestine help found its way to victims.35 If poverty, hunger, physical dislocation, and the break-up of families and livelihoods were problems for countries in western Europe, they were even more so in the east. They were exacerbated by racially based policies which lay particularly hard on the population. After the Polish campaign of 1939, the Germans divided Polish territory.36 Western areas, which included the richest agricultural and industrial areas of Poland, were incorporated into the Reich. Central Poland was made a separate administrative unit, the General Government. Official German policy varied between repression and conciliation. Poland was to provide space for German settlers and food and labour for Germany. Poles were to work as slaves. All elements of the population unsuitable for slave labour were to be eliminated. Community leaders and intelligentsia were to be killed or removed to concentration camps. With respect to education, only elementary or trade schools were to be allowed for Poles.37 German overarching racism towards Poland was reinforced by the fostering and exploitation of racial and ethnic tensions which already existed. This was particularly vicious with respect to Jews. In Poland, a general policy of divide and rule, largely on the basis of race, was implemented. The UNNRA Polish report, printed in April 1945, had been prepared before the Allied liberation of concentration camps confirmed

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the existence of the death camps. UNRRA already knew enough to say: 'So little data is available that estimates regarding the extermination of Polish Jews are often conflicting and can only be regarded as rough indications. It seems likely, however, that out of the 1939 total of nearly three and a half million Polish citizens of Jewish faith about a million have perished of starvation or disease and nearly two million have perished by various methods of mass extermination.'38 In eastern parts of Poland, German authority was secure only in the towns and along the major lines of communication. The rest of the country was in the hands of such various groups as members of organized resistance, bands of peasants who had fled to the woods to escape deportation, Jews escaped from the ghettoes, and roving bandits.39 Peasants were subject to depradations from all these various groups as well as from the German authorities. The effect of occupation on social conditions was similar to that in western Europe, only more so. Everybody's major preoccupation was finding food. Official rations for Poles in the Incorporated Territories in 1943 amounted to 1,442 calories per head per day, estimated by UNRRA to be only 53 per cent of normal daily requirements. In the General Government the ration was less: 1,181 calories per head per day. Rations for Jews were less still. When supplies were low, as during a poor potato harvest of 1943, allocations were cut and always Germans received food first. The black market became even more of a necessity, and a patriotic institution, than in western Europe. Food was most in demand, but clothing, housing, and fuel were also almost impossible to come by. Data suggested that the birth rate fell sharply and the death rate rose severely.40 A higher proportion of the population was displaced than in France and other countries of western Europe. By the end of 1944, four million Poles had been deported, over two million to Germany either as prisoners of war or, the majority, as civilian workers. About four hundred thousand were taken into the German army. Others escaped to join Allied armies. Within Poland, over five million people were estimated to have been moved around as a result of military operations or to make room for German settlers. All this created severe family dislocation. Children were particularly at risk. Their official food allocations were low: in the General Government area, Polish children over ten years of age received only 756 calories per day. The shortage of clothing, inadequate housing, and the

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shocks attendant on deportation made for poor physical and emotional health. Thousands of children became vagabonds, and many were sent to concentration camps.4' UNRRA resources were primarily aimed at the supply of material goods. The agency included the provision of welfare services as important - low on its scale of priorities, perhaps, but nevertheless significant. McGeachy used what opportunities she had to explain to the public the need to provide welfare services as well as the practical aids of food, clothing, and cash, and reached millions through both print and radio media. She was careful not to demonize 'the enemy' as a group. Rather, she emphasized the common features of politics and humanity among varying nationalities. If she used one overreaching theme, it was that of reciprocal gain: in the donation of goods and services, givers could benefit as much as receivers. She drew on her commitment both to democracy and Christianity. An early radio talk was in February 1944, when she spoke for fifteen minutes on the 'American World Day of Prayer Program.' Here she personalized the difficulties of occupied Europe in a way immediately understandable to ordinary listeners. Although she used religious connotation, she also discounted dogmatic certainties: '... so many of the phrases we were brought up with have lost the sharp edge of meaning.' She told her listeners about people in Europe who would take strength from their solidarity with people in the free world. 'Think for a moment of the women who have had to walk past soldiers in enemy uniform on their way to church this morning.' Among practical difficulties, even harder was the task of giving hope to their children. To avoid conscription into convict labour in Germany, many young boys had taken to the woods. 'Mothers wake at night thinking of their sons living hunted lives in the forests and hills beyond their village.' She denounced Hitler's racially based policies, organized on the principle that different races or religions would not help each other. She reminded people that in Norway and France the Christian churches had protested against injustice and indignity done to Jews. Hitler had 'absolute superiority of arms in the Occupied Countries, but he has not been able to prevent people helping each other ... He has not been able by the use offeree to defeat the spirit of man.' Then, for the first time, she stated what was to become a theme of her speeches. 'We from the free world' would be contributing food, clothing, and grain, and helping people to rebuild their lives. 'It takes

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great grace to give acceptably. Perhaps it takes even greater grace to receive.' The givers, however, will be 'on the receiving side of the transaction ... This is the gift the Occupied Countries hold for us.' 42 A month later, McGeachy used an opportunity offered her by a women's group to address them, and the press generally, with a preview of post-war relief. The Business and Professional Women's Association had a joint meeting with the Chicago Chamber of Commerce. McGeachy again put UNRRA's task in easily understandable human terms. She knew she was speaking not only to professionals, and businessmen and -women, but to the tens of thousands who would read accounts in the newspapers. The need for UNRRA arose because of a new development: total war. The enemy had destroyed 'the food, livestock, clothing, tools and factories which he has not turned to the use of his war machine ... Some 20 millions of men, women and children have been driven from their homes by the war ... Unless the cessation of hostilities is followed immediately by emergency relief measures, disease, want and economic ruin on a scale hitherto unimagined will sweep across the face of the earth.' UNRRA's mandate was emergency-related. It was to 'blunt the sharp edge of need,' to allow people in occupied countries, in the Far East as well as in Europe, to catch their breath before themselves beginning their own reconstruction. She refused to call such aid charity. American prosperity and self-interest depended on reciprocal trade and the movement of goods. The world was interdependent. 'The quicker we restore the seed, the sooner will come the harvest.' We help them to help themselves, was her message, and they can then help us to greater prosperity and peace. McGeachy's critics were quite wrong to identify her as a personification of the charity-dispensing approach to welfare. She explained a key point of the UNRRA program. Aid and relief must be decided, distributed, and administered in partnership with the receiving populations. It was not true that social chaos already existed in occupied countries. The contrary was the case. There was plentiful evidence of continuing social cohesion behind enemy lines. Resistance movements which helped Allied soldiers and which engaged in sabotage were 'not the passive victims of ill-fortune, waiting to become dependent upon our bounty.'43 Subsequent speeches added little new. McGeachy became concerned with the practical problems of putting into effect the UNRRA mandate and used her news-worthiness as a woman executive. When journalists wanted to interview her, she used the occasion to reframe in accessible

McGeachy's parents, Anna Jenet and Donald McGeachy, 1895.

The McGeachy children, ca. 1910. From left to right, Jessie, Donalda, Robert, and Mary.

Mary McGeachy and her sister Jessie.

Mary McGeachy with her father, Donald, and sister Jessie, ca. 1920.

Donalda McGeachy, youngest sister of Mary.

Group including McGeachy, second from right, ca. 1920s.

A Community, sketch by McGeachy of Hamilton, Ontario, 1927.

McGeachy, Vancouver, ca. 1930.

Frederick Leith-Ross, ca. 1939.

David Bowes-Lyon, ca. 1940.

Mary McGeachy with her brother, Robert, left, ca. 1940.

Portrait of Eleanor Roosevelt dedicated to McGeachy, 1941.

Independent Woman portrait of McGeachy, 1942.

Mary McGeachy with her mother, Anna Jenet, ca. 1943.

McGeachy with Wendell Macleod, ca. 1943.

Harper's Bazaar portrait of McGeachy, 1944.

Erwin Schuller, ca. 1930s.

Wedding group. From left to right, Gillian and Theodore Schuller, Erwin Schuller, Mary McGeachy, W.S.G. Adams, and Muriel Adams, 1944.

Group in Egypt, including McGeachy and Erwin Schuller, right, and Frederick Leith-Ross, left, 1951.

Vale Cottage, Johannesburg, residence of the Schullers in South Africa, ca. 1951.

McGeachy with Erwin Schuller at their residence, ca. 1951.

McGeachy with children, South Africa, ca. 1952.

Group including McGeachy in Yaounde, Cameroon, 1972.

McGeachy with Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, Tehran, Iran, 1966.

Group including McGeachy in Lima, Peru, 1972.

Knights of Malta scroll, 1985.

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and appealing terms important issues relating to UNRRA. An outstanding example of this was an item in the Toronto Star Weekly of August 1944. 'Europe's No.i Foster Mother,' said the headline. 'Blonde, blueeyed Mary Craig McGeachy' was a 'level-headed Scots-Canadian' imminently about to assume responsibility for the support of between 150 and 160 million people by the end of 1944. McGeachy used the opportunity to appeal for recruits. UNRRA was having great difficulty in staffing its positions, and in the absence of experienced and skilful social workers it was imperative to attract interest from intelligent young people. She described the jobs in terms of adventure and challenge, with maximum opportunities for leaders with character and personality. 'Mercy squads' had to learn the languages and culture of refugees. They were 'fighters without guns,' almost as tough as commandos. Others had to learn and practise mothering skills for 'lost little Europeans.' 44 McGeachy always declared that local Europeans must take a full share in relief programs. After the summer of 1944, she tended to stress this point even more, doubtless since UNRRA would have fewer staff of its own.45 In Washington in September, she announced that in France 'the "Social Action" of the resistance movement has been looking after the children who were orphaned.' She went so far as to picture UNRRA in a 'stand-by role' in some situations, although there would be many local variations.4" Some of her critics interpreted her pro-European stance as anti-American. It is true that she had a broader view than most of the Americans on her staff and that she was sceptical of the value of some American practices. For instance, she did not appreciate the need for a preconceived line budget for all staff in a new organization, which, she thought, should be constructed with more fluidity. 'The establishment people in UNRRA, coming as they do from an experience of administration in this country [United States] are rather wedded to the idea of a "line" budget - a conception which, it seems to me, is not particularly well suited to an emergency operation.' 47 Aside from bureaucratic organization, she had reservations about Americans riding roughshod over local sensitivities in war-torn Europe. In March 1944 she expressed concern over the 'difference of approach to the whole question of welfare services among people whose experience has laid [sic] in this country [the United States] and those who have gone through the war-time experience in Britain respectively.' She considered UNRRA's policy should be 'to increase local participation and responsibility and to emphasize the return to normal organiza-

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tion.'48 She knew that not all American UNRRA officials shared her point of view. Indeed, she noted, 'they are extremely anxious that UNRRA shall convey American experience and standards abroad!'49 It is hardly surprising that some Americans, in their turn, resented her. At the time, McGeachy pushed for more money and professional staff. The recruitment task for all UNRRA departments was exacerbated during the summer of 1944 by the appearance in Britain of new unmanned bomb-laden planes. 'Buzz-bombs' heralded their explosions by a new terrifying noise in municipal centres. Civil defence became a clear priority for local authorities, which needed to retain their own social workers. The war was still going on, and the military could spare few men or women. The Allies were also beginning their post-war planning, and needed manpower and womanpower for that. McGeachy was not always able to get her way with appointments in her own office.5" One personnel battle had to do with the appointment of her deputy in the European Regional Office (ERO), a fight which reveals some of the ingrained prejudices of UNRRA staff and shows how McGeachy had an uphill task to get herself, her division, and her approach taken seriously at all levels of the organization. McGeachy had already appointed an acting deputy, John Fulton, but he was also an official of the Council of British Societies for Relief Abroad and could do little to forward the UNRRA Welfare agenda of recruitment and training. Her second choice, a Miss Maxse, turned out to be unavailable.r>1 Staff in the UNRRA director-general's office preferred to see an American in the position. Also, they wanted a man. They thought no woman could do the job in hand. Lithgow Osborne, an American deputy director-general in London, wrote to Hugh Jackson in Washington opposing the appointment of an Englishman. The idea that we should have a Britisher largely rests on the theory that the British voluntary societies are the most important factor in the UNRRA welfare picture here.' On the contrary, the most important factor was the military. Referring to the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Forces, Osborne wrote: It is essential to have someone at a high level in Welfare who can deal with SHAEF to the greatest possible extent. Of course we want someone who can also get on with the Voluntary Societies. But they will be a comparatively easy nut to crack compared to the military ... I don't think Fulton can get far with the SHAEF boys, most of whom are Americans. Miss Maxse of course couldn't. No woman could, including Miss McGeachy ...

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If we tried that, I believe we would confirm their worst suspicions of us as a bunch of starry-eyed do-gooders.r'2

McGeachy agreed to recruit an American of an 'extremely practical and realistic type' to go to London to establish good relations with SHAEF. However, she made no appointment until September 1944, when she acquiesced in a man, but not an American.fi3 The Welfare Division prided itself on its high standards for personnel and standardized recruitment procedures. Social workers were in great demand, though. She offered Isaiah Berlin a job and could not have been surprised when he declined. 'I am sure she will be popping up in various parts of Europe and the east with soup kitchens and warm bedding,' he wrote to his parents. 'She has gaily offered me a job under her - I cannot conceive of anything less suitable to my particular genius, I must confess. If you can conceive of me in the company of, say, a Dutchman, a Croat and a Siamese, tucking up some Polish nationalist refugees in Teheran, that is the sort of image which the offer provokes. Not quite my sort of thing I feel.'54 McGeachy had to think of other ways of getting staff. She made a virtue out of necessity. 'We were obliged to invent new means.'"'5 The voluntary societies had international connections, and 'all were eager to renew contacts and to bring help and encouragement to their colleagues for the long process of rebuilding.' McGeachy brought about an arrangement 'quite original and certainly quite novel for military authorities.' She essentially contracted out the recruitment function to voluntary organizations. Representatives of voluntary organizations were granted recognition for civilian service in the liberated countries. Their service representatives carried UNRRA insignia, were clothed in UNRRA uniforms issued by Army Headquarters, travelled under army orders in trains or buses controlled by military forces, and distributed supplies drawn from UNRRA stores. They worked under the authority of a UNRRA welfare officer, of whom there were never more than half a dozen in any country of operation.5" McGeachy's championing of the voluntary societies made Americans raised in the new professionalism uneasy. McGeachy herself never wished to give the voluntary organizations as much authority as they were looking for. 57 She wanted them firmly under the supervision of UNRRA staff, but as well she did not want to undermine their morale. She initially permitted them to wear a shoulder flash which said 'Relief

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rather than 'UNRRA.' She did not carry the day. In September 1944, Hugh Jackson from the director-general's office virtually dictated to her that voluntary workers would wear the UNRRA insignia/'8 One UNRRA value which she eloquently defended was the emphasis on rehabilitation. In public she maintained the arguments of early 1944. To the Foreign Policy Association in New York City in October 1944, she described UNRRA's job as 'UNRRA: Channel for Mutual Aid.' Always she tried to complicate the popular view of a simple one-way traffic, from the supplying to the recipient countries. She insisted on the principle of self-help in the distribution of relief. Individuals should be helped to be both self-supporting and also concerned about the needs of others and how they might contribute to a civil society.59 By early 1945, McGeachy was able to draw on practical experience as well as the plans drawn up by committees: she could read reports drawn up by administrators and workers in the field; she could speak to people who had served in the camps; and she visited some herself. The term 'camp' was associated with the indoctrination of dictators, and its negative meaning was intensified as Allied troops liberated concentration camps and slave labour camps in 1945. UNRRA preferred the term 'assembly centre.' But the term 'carnp' stuck. Over nine hundred displaced persons camps were set up in Europe and North Africa, the majority in Germany. All sorts of buildings were pressed into service: barracks, warehouses, schools, and farm buildings as well as hotels. Their prime purpose, as a preliminary to new post-war lives, was to begin to bring some kind of order to the lives of people who had experienced gross disorder. Priorities were to provide food, clothing, housing, and basic medical help. Camp administration in Europe was never simple or easy. Camps varied in size and in their composition in terms of age, sex, nationality, and the previous experience of inmates. UNRRA took over the administration of earlier camps run by the military, and the first priority was to institute hygienic facilities. Frequently some refugees were housed outside the camp's boundaries, coming inside for food or other services. An average centre with three thousand displaced persons would be run by an UNRRA team consisting of a director and deputy, a secretary, a supply officer, mess officer, warehouse officer, medical officer, nurse, team cook, two welfare officers, and two drivers. Refugees, supplies, staff, and visitors were always coming and going. The whole operation was bound up in the 'red tape of more than forty nations."'0 Upon arrival a refugee was registered, and then basic health procedures took priority. Delousing took place to get rid of the lice which

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spread typhus and other diseases, and by the end of their stay displaced persons were sick of the smell of DDT. There was a medical inspection, a meal, and the distribution of soap, blankets, and cooking and eating equipment. The doctors and nurses took medical preventive measures for the common diseases such as dysentery, tuberculosis, diphtheria, typhus, smallpox, syphilis, and skin complaints. Most refugees were anxious to know about their families. Welfare officers tried to help with enquiries, generally liaising with voluntary organizations such as the Red Cross. Welfare officers were involved in educational and occupational activities within the camp, as well as serving as general facilitators and counsellors. They found a particular challenge in children."1 McGeachy held to UNRRA's terms of reference as an emergency organization. However, problems came to light which were so substantial that there was no prospect of their being solved in a couple of years. In April 1945 she produced a memorandum identifying the priorities for a more permanent agency. First, McGeachy identified the rehabilitation of the physically handicapped. Relevant equipment was extremely scarce in 1945. Second, the personal rehabilitation of repatriated prisoners of war and other displaced persons was an international problem of great magnitude, requiring more resources than UNRRA had, and attention had to be paid to psychological as well as physical relief. Third was the issue of prostitution. Thousands of women and girls had been forced into prostitution by poverty as well as through physical force. Fourth, she described the issue of 'unaccompanied' or 'unidentified' children. Many children were separated from families, abandoned by parents, or rendered orphans. What was to be done with them? And fifth, McGeachy identified a need for qualified auxiliary personnel to assist professionals in the various fields of social welfare.*'2 Long-term international machinery was needed. Although the UNRRA reports of 1944-5 described the general problems awaiting an emergency organization, it was not until military victon/ liberated the occupied countries that the details became apparent. In the space of two and a half years, McGeachy had to ensure that the specific problems were correctly described, diagnosed, and then dealt with. For half of that time, war was still being fought. She had to identify the most effective sort of services and deliver them, even while her budget suffered reductions during 1944.'^ Simultaneously with this project, McGeachy had to design and administer internal bureaucratic machinery shared between several national sites. She also had to liaise between UNRRA and outside groups

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frequently suspicious of the jurisdiction of an international agency. It was an undertaking to challenge anyone without confidence, vision, experience, and toughness. McGeachy amazingly hung in for the duration of her term as UNRRA's one and only director of welfare.('4 From the beginning, UNRRA came under external criticism, especially from groups which considered it was administratively top-heavy or not acting with sufficient urgency. Zoe Puxley, her old British friend from Geneva, voiced a London commonplace when she referred in correspondence to 'the UNRRA racket.'05 Within the ranks of UNRRA staff there was internal frustration. The British public is on the whole strongly pro-UNRRA but very puzzled and rather resentful because that body appears to have been inactive in the face of much distress,' wrote Arthur Rucker, seconded in London to UNRRA from the British Ministry of Health. 'However unfair it is it is a fact that their prestige is suffering because they are not helping to relieve the grave distress which is known to exist [in France] ... I hope you will be able to convince people in the U.S.A. that we here are not just interfering busy-bodies but that we are eagerly desirous to do all we can to help UNRRA. I know that American methods of administration differ from ours and that we are thought to be too fond of committees. But surely it is a pity to look too much askance at the work we have been trying to do?"'6 UNRRA recognized that one of the greatest problems at war's end would be the material and emotional issues surrounding displaced persons, a group which included concentration camp prisoners. In August 1944 the Welfare Division commissioned an international committee of psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers to prepare a report on the psychological problems to be confronted. Submitted in June 1945, it identified, with a careful sympathy, general characteristics of displaced persons.r>7 Displaced children could be expected to be unhappy, anxious, afraid, possibly apathetic and backward, and troublesome, defiant, and maybe delinquent. In addition, many would have suffered shocking experiences. Hunger, lack of shelter, violence, battle conditions, rape - all would contribute to the formation of stress- and traumarelated traits that needed great care, patience, and attention. Success would depend on children recovering in a stable environment where they could feel welcome, loved, and protected, with opportunity for working out their difficulties for themselves. Women forced into prostitution, either by poverty or through deliberate policy on the part of the Germans, were also given realistic and

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sympathetic coverage in the report. So serious was the fear of war prostitutes being rejected by their own families and friends, that the report recommended, upon return to their country, they should keep away from their home communities in order to achieve some self-respect before 'facing the inevitable tensions of meeting their own families.' The report was also wary of religious condemnation of prostitution. 'In view of the harsh ethical views in relation to sexual affairs ... attributed to Churches in general,' contact with clergy should be avoided. The same month, UNRRA prepared a report on the special needs of women and girls during repatriation and rehabilitation. It estimated that from Germany there were about one and a half million women and girls to be repatriated. Besides difficulties associated with prostitution, the report anticipated particular problems with the fate of children born to women while in Germany. 'Food is probably the most important factor influencing the welfare of distressed people from the point of view of both morale and nutrition.' As for women with babies, 'it is hoped that they will be allowed to decide for themselves whether they wish to keep the children.' Either the women should be given all necessary help, or the camp should make adequate arrangements for the children's care.''8 In either case, this was not easy. In an attempt to reduce the stigma of illegitimacy for both the mother and the child, McGeachy established in March 1945 that a child could be given citizenship in the mother's country.'"1 UNRRA policies were enlightened, based on progressive professional opinion, and consistent with McGeachy's own values. How well they could be implemented was a separate issue. Meanwhile there were problems of administration. Who was responsible for what? How should jurisdiction between the several UNRRA headquarters be shared - as well as between those at head office and officers on the ground? The German army formally capitulated on 7 May 1945. Although hostilities in the Pacific continued, this was the end of the war in Europe and time for the full implementation of all the post-war planning. McGeachy noted the shift in rhythm in her area in a memorandum to the deputy director-general for finance and administration in mid-May. Hitherto the emphasis of the Welfare Division had been on the preparation of background studies. Now the division was in the operating stage. McGeachy insisted on two of her own continuing priorities. She made a special point of highlighting the division's liaison with voluntary agencies, and of its responsibility with respect to the training of staff. The division must represent UNRRA with respect to the mobilization of

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voluntary agency services, and the division was responsible for providing the teachers at the Maryland training school who prepared staff for overseas service.7" Her comments on all topics served to clarify recruitment practices and policies which had been under formation since her appointment fifteen months earlier. McGeachy shared Erwin Schuller's preference that training should be more than an intensive practical course. She wanted recruits to consider the theoretical assumptions, and implications, of what they would be doing. Ideally her welfare workers should already be highly skilled, and in April 1944 she set out minimum requirements. A welfare worker should have a university degree in a field of social welfare and at least two years of practical experience in some social work organization; must be able to work 'under strain'; must be able to work with others; and, of course, must be able to pass a stiff medical test. At that time, McGeachy considered the age of those selected was 'likely to be forty-ish.' Recruits were to be given physical training, a kind of boot camp for an intensive toughening up under simulated field conditions, and 'some rudiments of the local language.'7' The following year, she was still insisting that 'we cannot have training on the European Continent conducted on a narrow basis. We must make provision ... for conveying to our personnel the meaning of the service into which they are entering.'72 McGeachy's standards had to be relaxed over time. Tension between the headquarters in Washington and the European Regional Office in London surfaced frequently. McGeachy, based at first in Washington, continually had to remind UNRRA officials in London that cooperation was a good idea. She agreed that 'British and European experience must be brought to bear upon any contribution from American experience.' But at the same time, 'we ought to try to arrange a little more than a one way traffic.' She was frustrated by American practice in setting up an international organization, which, she said, was rather different from doing something similar in London or Geneva.™ More than once, McGeachy expressed the hope that the two sorts of experience could be combined. As a Canadian, she personified mediation between the two cultures. She wished to draw 'the best of the training and experience of both sides of the Atlantic,' she wrote.74 The Americans in her office could see only the ways in which she favoured the British. Struggles over jurisdiction were inevitable. McGeachy made sure that the UNRRA Council supported her interpretation of the division of responsibility between Washington and London.7-> She made full use of her personal contacts. Writing to Sir Frederick Leith-Ross, she, as many

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of his colleagues did, addressed him with familiarity, 'Dear Leithers.' He, in turn, was less casual: 'My dear Craig.' He was not in that small group of intimates allowed to use 'Mary.'7'1 McGeachy had to tread several tightropes. Besides the persistent tension between the American and British views of professional social work, other divisions went deep. Administratively, Washington was responsible for bulk supplies going to Europe; London was responsible for emergency welfare services. The distinction was not easy to maintain in practice. There was a blurring of function between her own Division of Welfare and the Division of Displaced Persons, which was responsible for the organization of camps and services provided in them. 77 UNRRA staff were themselves not always clear about the division of labour. Nor were European government bodies who were requesting aid. Another trap was in communications. In connection with the planning reports of 1945, some of McGeachy's staff were careless concerning acknowledgments to organizations and personnel who had helped in their production, and even in keeping McGeachy informed.78 McGeachy always tried to bear in mind her division's two major mandates: to provide specific services of a welfare nature in UNRRA operations; and, secondly, to ensure that in the UNRRA process generally methods were employed which furthered the broad social welfare concepts articulated by the UNRRA Council.79 She had to maintain some sort of quality control over services in the field. McGeachy sent delegates on missions and occasionally went herself to see what was happening in the field. UNRRA's first field operation was its Balkan mission. Refugee camps had already been established and administered by the British military in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. They were there to care for the many thousands of Balkan residents driven from their homes by German and Italian invasions in 1942 and 1943, Poles who arrived in 1942, and Yugoslavs who came in early 1944. After an agreement was signed, UNRRA staff were to administer these camps. Negotiations were protracted, confused, and antagonistic; supplies were at first slow to be delivered; and the operations were overstaffed. The missions were bitterly criticized.8" McGeachy sent Frederick Daniels, her Washington deputy, to report on the camps, and he wrote her from Cairo in January 1945. He cheerfully began: 'I seem to have arrived in this Cairo setting at a time when numerous things seem to be reaching something of a crescendo if not a crisis,' and continued in the same vein. There was great confusion on matters of jurisdiction and distribution. There was a clear gap between

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what welfare workers had expected to do and what they were doing. 'Welfare is being injected on a pretty broad generalized basis ... Camp needs are so primitive and basic that ... the program ... has been confined essentially to group welfare matters such as clothing, distribution, vocational activities, recreational facilities and activities, etc.' Some staff were being recruited by other divisions but charged to the Welfare Division. There was 'utter lack of supplies and equipment of a fundamental nature, such as carpenter's tools, sawing tools, findings, etc.' Plans were being made for a displaced persons program which included no welfare personnel. The entire welfare division was operating with a 'wholly inadequate staff,' despite many welfare workers cooling their heels waiting for clear orders. Workers had received neither material nor guidance from either Washington or London.8' McGeachy's reaction was to try to get more staff. She requested, vainly, an increase in her budget in order to place more welfare officers in camps to be established in France as the war was drawing to a close. Welfare work remained a low priority in UNRRA budgets.82 In a major UNRRA-wide restructuring during the spring of 1945, the Welfare Division in ERO was merged with the Displaced Persons Division, but in Washington the Welfare Division retained its separate identity for another year. In the summer of 1945, McGeachy was planning visits by herself and her new deputy, Conrad Van Hyning, to missions throughout central and western Europe.83 She believed she had able managers whom she could leave in the office, but they in turn considered she left them without proper leadership.84 McGeachy was spending more time both in public relations work for UNRRA generally and in visiting the camps to see for herself what was happening. As a senior executive in UNRRA, determining how plans were working out on the ground constituted a reasonable use of her time. Her deputies had authority to manage the operation, including budget, and 'Deputy Directors saw to it that the views of the Division were presented to top levels of the Administration. '*•> However, Charles Anspach, her Washington deputy after October 1945, said she 'tended to clip the functions of her subordinates but offered no leadership herself.'86 McGeachy was always prone to delegate. Van Hyning was less negative and noted that 'she always made arrangements for someone to do the administrative work in Headquarters.'87 With respect to her camp visits, Van Hyning hinted at another barrier that McGeachy faced. Fred Hoehler was in charge of the Displaced Persons Division, one of the three functional UNRRA divisions.

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McGeachy 'was bitter about Hoehler's travelling about when she wasn't allowed to.' In the fall of 1945, she eventually arranged to travel herself. Van Hyning thought she considered herself as 'the World Director of Welfare who was free to go to missions and represent welfare concepts rather than to do administration of the Division.'88 After attending the London UNRRA Council meeting in August 1945, she did not return to Washington and made trips first to France and then in early 1946 to Czechoslovakia and Austria. These trips allowed McGeachy and Erwin to be together. During 1945, Erwin had visited the United States, this time in an appointment as commercial counsellor to the UNRRA Bureau of Supply. In the autumn of 1945, he returned to the National Council of Social Service in London.8'1 Soon he was again away from London, this time visiting Czechoslovakia and Austria.9" An outcome of his visit was that the National Council agreed to second him to work with the Austrian government for 1946.''' In November 1945, McGeachy visited some camps and was able to compare her experience in France with the previous January. Typically she looked on the bright side. 'Transport has greatly improved.' Distribution was still a problem. 'More housing and clothing are the chief needs ... There will be a little more coal than last winter and heaven has sent a beautiful warm autumn ... activities to assist the most needy are making their work felt.' There was a new, more positive mood among the French. UNRRA should take advantage of this to enlist more active French participation in its work. Her initial concern was to make sure the inhabitants of camps had activities to do. 'Camp Directors were better able to house, to feed and to clothe than to provide any sort of occupation ... in the best camps there is an almost total lack of books, paper, pencils, playthings, sewing materials, or tools. One does not know whether to feel sorrier for the adults or for the children.' 92 Most camps in France were operated by French agencies, with UNRRA providing some supplies and advice. On this winter 1945-6 visit, McGeachy found opportunities to confirm her view of the importance of social cohesion developed among resistance workers. She described a school where the students were producing a monthly paper. McGeachy asked the headmistress how she had managed to get hold of a printing machine. 'Oh, I had one during the "clandestinite" and I brought it to the school,' was the reply. In Austria lack of supplies - fuel, food, and clothes - was the overriding problem. Even here McGeachy found a story to raise her spirits. UNRRA staff from their own personal resources 'provided the food for

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a party for children whose parents had just come out of concentration camps.' She found symbolic value in bringing back to Vienna the famous Vienna Boys' Choir. 'Now the boys sing like angels every Sunday morning for a congregation that dare not remove a coat, glove or scarf in the icy church.' As in France, the population found ways to deliver social services. 'All the parishes suffered greatly the lack of priests and curates. There were three thousand Austrian priests in Dachau alone. The women in vocations often found their work restricted too, and so lay women began to assist in parish work in a way they had not done before - teaching the children, visiting, and helping prepare the churches for services.' She noted the commitment of voluntary societies which had sprung to life, 'full-armed and ready.' McGeachy came up against the issue of displaced persons who did not wish to be repatriated. The Yalta Agreement of February 1945 between Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin had made repatriation a key concept for the basis for a post-war peace. But repatriation was certainly not the preference of a great number of displaced persons.93 They feared returning to land now under Soviet control for both ideological and ethnic reasons. Also, McGeachy found that many Jews wished to emigrate to Palestine. Other groups were reluctant to go home 'because of dissatisfaction with political developments in their countries.'94 Some refugees had returned, only to seek refuge in the British or American zones of Germany or Austria, frequently accompanied with relatives. 'We were terrified of repatriation,' wrote Modris Eksteins of his family's state of mind at the time - and he expressed the views of millions.9r> McGeachy displayed an ignorance of the ingrained ethnic hatred in central and eastern Europe, which had been intensified by bitter experience during the war. She commented in a dismissive way: '... one felt that this [political] explanation was being over-emphasized ... I was inclined to agree with those who considered that the chief causes of this secondary displacement were to be found in the bitter hardships of life in eastern European countries in a cold winter.'9" She was not alone in her attitude. The official UNRRA policy towards displaced persons was repatriation, and in 1946, at all levels, UNRRA officials were taking a stern line: people had to be returned to where they lived before the war. A third country McGeachy visited was Czechoslovakia in mid-December. The drive from Vienna to Jyhavala speaks volumes. On the Austrian side of the frontier one passes women carrying twigs and branches

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in a shawl on their backs. On the Czech side trucks emerge from the woods laden with logs. Geese cluster about farm houses and gardens on the outskirts of the villages in Czechoslovakia; there is little danger of running over a chicken in Austria.'97 Personal stories from UNRRA staff multiplied the anecdotes of hardship, difficulty, and grim times. C.J. Taylor was a British team leader, in charge of thirteen persons of mixed nationality, who went to Europe in March 1945. He worked in various camps and encountered most of the common problems. Accommodation was cramped: one camp, set up in a former German army barracks, was built to handle two thousand troops but was in fact occupied by seven thousand displaced persons. Another camp had all nationalities, but predominantly Russians and Poles, and Taylor's biggest problem was having to serve meals prepared by Poles in equal shares to Slavs and Italians. UNRRA personnel could find themselves in physical danger. Even before the war was over, staff wearing UNRRA uniform were unarmed, and Allied soldiers could make things difficult for them. Provisions were not always easy to come by, and a common sight was to see DPs herding cattle or sheep back to the camp and slaughtering them there. Living conditions could be 'indescribably filthy.' 'We had an outbreak of typhus in an Italian labour camp which was very quickly controlled. Every person was inoculated, dusted with D.D.T. and put in isolation.' Taylor found that tuberculosis and venereal disease were the principal infectious diseases in the camps. 'Yet, believe me, it was astonishing how much respect for law and order the Displaced Person had; if he had not, I do not know what would have happened in this area at that time.'-'8 Even as the main operational stage of UNRRA was moving into gear, its sections had to consider how to downsize and bring the work to an end. Conceived to meet an emergency, and financed by member governments which had huge expenditures to contemplate in the work of rebuilding war-damaged economies, UNRRA activities were not to last beyond a brief period. But it was equally obvious that some of the immediate post-war problems would not go away. Moreover, many were international in scope, and international solutions were demanded. As early as January 1946, the UNRRA director-general issued a background paper prepared by McGeachy describing the administration's emergency welfare services and 'problems requiring long-term international action.' The body to whom these would be handed over would be a division of the new United Nations Organization established at San Francisco in the summer of 1945."

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As long as Lehman was director-general, and his London deputy was Leith-Ross, McGeachy managed to survive in her position. In the spring of 1946, Lehman resigned because of ill health, and almost immediately Leith-Ross as well resigned in order to take up a new position as chairman of the National Bank of Egypt. McGeachy's fall followed. In April 1946 the Welfare Division was finally merged altogether with the newly named Displaced Persons and Repatriation Division, and McGeachy no longer had a job as a director. McGeachy had withstood several efforts to remove her, notably in the spring of 1945 and again in early 1946. In March 1945, Hendrickson and Commander Jackson made a whirlwind tour of UNRRA operations in the Middle East, the Balkans mission, and the ERO. In an effort to speed up relief deliveries, their aim was to decentralize more of the UNRRA operations and to transfer to the ERO direct supervision of European missions. Neither was impressed by the need to include welfare officers in the staff assigned to camps. Commander Jackson had made disparaging remarks. McGeachy boldly challenged his statements: 'I wonder if you would care to enlarge upon the remarks you made this afternoon with regard to UNRRA welfare personnel in the field. I am particularly concerned with your observation that the governments were deciding that they did not wish to have welfare personnel form a part of UNRRA missions. Would you be good enough to let us have the basis for this statement?'100 Jackson backed down.101 'No specific charges were ever made.'102 Welfare workers continued to be sent to camps, and McGeachy remained as director of the Welfare Division in Washington. In January 1946 her critics again tried to dislodge her. Sir Humfrey Gale, formerly the chief administrative officer under Eisenhower at SHAEF, and recently appointed the personal representative of the UNRRA director-general at ERO, discovered (according to McGeachy's deputy, Van Hyning) that McGeachy was in London on UNRRA salary but doing nothing ... He asked her what right she had to be there; what she did in Czechoslovakia, and whether she had made a report; to whom did she report. She kept her temper but when he found she was planning to return to Czechoslovakia to speak to a woman's club, he hit the ceiling. He ordered her to make a report and to return to Washington at once ... Gale then phoned [Commander] Jackson and reported the episode and Jackson refused to support him, saying that if she were to be ordered back it would be solely on Gale's responsibility ... V[an] H[yning] felt that no Britisher would touch the situation or recommend to Lehman that she should go."'H

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During the spring of 1946, people everywhere were manoeuvring to find more permanent positions for post-war employment. The turnover in UNRRA increased. After Lehman's resignation, the new director general was Fiorello LaGuardia, mayor of New York. Few had good words to say about him. Capricious, ignorant, and jealous of his own authority and image, he undermined the Administration's precarious morale and 'almost succeeded in ruining the organization.'"'4 One of his betes noires was anything to do with welfare. 'From almost his first day in office ... he decided war on the Welfare Division and undertook to destroy it root and branch. On 2 April he ordered that all welfare workers be eliminated from the UNRRA program and no more such were employed.' Although welfare work continued to be performed, workers did not have the word 'welfare' in their description.10"' It was LaGuardia who was 'primarily responsible' for McGeachy's demise as director, for he terminated the Welfare Division and therefore her position.""' Still she survived in the employment of UNRRA. On i May, McGeachy's position changed, and she was given the responsibility of liaison with the voluntary international organizations."'7 She attended the new Economic and Social Commission of the new United Nations as UNRRA representative. Finally she resigned from UNRRA, with her termination date set at 23 August 1946. Personally, McGeachy had outlasted her chief mentors and most of her critics. Given her vulnerable position as a woman in charge of a division with no long-standing professional or political associations to give powerful support, her longevity was an achievement in itself. It is true that she never managed to weld together the disparate streams of American and British thinking concerning views of administration, of welfare, and of the place of voluntary societies in relief work. Could anyone have done that under the circumstances? UNRRA was an emergency organization whose term was strictly limited, and it never grappled with these inbuilt tensions, which were not unique to the Welfare Division. McGeachy conceived of her role to be not just that of an administrator. Perhaps Van Hyning was mocking when he characterized her as 'the World Director of Welfare who was free to go to missions and represent welfare concepts,' but she always retained a firm intellectual and imaginative grasp of the lofty objectives UNRRA was trying to achieve.108 McGeachy saw post-war relief as process. Its greatest value was in mobilizing cooperation on the part of recipients. Paid professional social workers were, ideally, facilitators. She wanted to contribute to the professionalization of welfare work. 'One of Miss McG's [sic]

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reasons for coming to UNRRA was because she believed there was much to be done in building up studies on Welfare, there having been little done in recording and evaluating the methods and experience of Welfare organizations in European countries. She believes the studies made in the UNRRA Division are one of UNRRA's most valuable contributions.'109 McGeachy's vision of relief could not adequately be measured in terms of the budgets and personnel of UNRRA's Division of Welfare. If her workers managed to empower individuals and voluntary societies to bring aid and services to those in need, then that was success. She justified the utilization of volunteers, not on grounds of saving money, but because of the social and spiritual benefit brought to them and the communities they were serving. Thus, when she was preparing for the handover of her division in 1946, McGeachy did not need to consider this in negative terms of absence and anticlimax."" On the contrary, she could take satisfaction in having witnessed the practical effect of ideas which she held dear. As for the overall mandate of UNRRA, under immense difficulties it managed to restore sufficient transport in war-torn countries to permit distribution of essential commodities. It provided enough food to prevent starvation and further deterioration of health; enough clothing to give protection against cold; medical supplies to prevent the spread of epidemic diseases; sufficient supplies and equipment in the form of seeds, fertilizer, animals, and machines to restart agriculture; and enough materials to help restore public utilities and resumption of industrial activity."1 It had been 'the greatest undertaking in international cooperation ever yet experienced.'112 With respect to the more focused work of welfare workers, thousands of exiles were helped to return home, and after 1946, when many countries began expediting immigration procedures for displaced persons unwilling to be repatriated, thousands more refugees were helped in moving to countries such as Canada, Australia, and Argentina."^ The official history of the Administration concluded that supplies were obtained and delivered at a relatively small administrative cost, and that 'by any fair appraisal UNRRA - UNRRA the work, UNRRA the international organization, UNRRA the operating agency - did not fail.' It had sustained a program of united action through the period of greatest emergency, and no unbearable burden of foreign debt was placed upon the war-ravaged nations."4

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On a personal level, despite the best efforts of her enemies to trash her as a woman, McGeachy did not lose. On the contrary, she earned the highest salary of her life, which was exempt from tax. Almost immediately after the appointment, she moved to a larger apartment."5 Besides the move to a bigger home, two sets of purchases in particular display McGeachy's delight in the possession of more money. The first was to share her good fortune with a large number of other people. She ordered food parcels to be sent to a long list of forty-seven friends and acquaintances in Britain."" Opening an account at Eaton's, the Canadian department store, she ordered parcels to be sent far and wide. The second object of her personal desire, now that she had means, gives some indication of how McGeachy anticipated the rest of her life. It reflects the self-image of a mature woman who has already made a life for herself and who has a certain vision of a future, come what may. In the summer of 1946, McGeachy visited upstate New York. In Keene Valley she bought a i Go-acre farm together with a dwelling and other buildings for a total purchase price of $3,500, a sum almost exactly corresponding to her UNRRA lump-sum settlement." 7 In Washington, McGeachy had among her friends several with country cottages. One of the grandest properties she visited was Mount Kisco, the country residence owned by the Washington Post's Eugene and Agnes Meyer. On a smaller scale was the setting offered by her friends Henry and Agnes Leach. Agnes Leach was a pacifist, a member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and both she and her husband were closely attached to Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor." 8 The Leaches were members of the Ausable Club in Keene, a village situated near Lake Placid in the Adirondacks. The club was founded by the members of the Adirondack Mountain Reserve at the turn of the nineteenth century to save the land from lumbering operations and to preserve 'masterpieces of nature' in an act of philanthropy."9 Members could build cabins on club land, and they had access to the services of a clubhouse. While visiting with the Leaches, McGeachy grew to love the area, with its mountains, rivers, streams, chasms, and peace. She already knew about the Adirondacks because many people who lived in Montreal, including Wendell Macleod's physician friend Norman Bethune, had spent time there not only for holidays, but also in pursuit of a cure for tuberculosis. The whole region had been tastefully developed in the

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nineteenth century as a holiday area for wealthy New York families who wanted country hiking and camping in alpine scenery. No wonder McGeachy found it congenial: remembering her walks and ski trips near Geneva, she could feel at home. An added coincidence was in the name of the river Ausable. There was a river Ausable, too, near Ailsa Craig, where her great-grandfather David Craig had settled in Ontario. McGeachy resisted the Leaches' suggestion that she purchase a retreat around the Ausable Club. That end of the valley, she thought, was too dark, too much in the shadow of the high surrounding peaks. She preferred the land on the lower slopes of Mount Hurricane, with views of distant mountain tops and rolling meadows immediately near the old farmhouse, which could be used as a weekend retreat. Accordingly, on 17 June 1946, she made a down payment on the property. When the transaction was complete, the deeds were in her own name. That in itself was a clear statement for a married woman. The property was her place, paid for with her own money. Her signature, always a political statement with McGeachy, was down as 'Mary Schuller-McGeachy,' and her name alone was on the title deed. This was the action of a woman who looked to the future with financial confidence. No need to use her lump-sum payment for a rainy-day investment. She was anticipating a regular income - from Erwin - which would look after the necessities. McGeachy sent news of the purchase to Vienna, where Erwin was looking for a post-war job. 'When I begin to think of our house in Keene I don't mind any of the worries and difficulties here,' he wrote.120 He finally returned to employment with the banker Lazard brothers, but not before arranging a short contract with CARE in Vienna for his wife from December 1946 to January 1947. CARE was a voluntary organization started at the end of the war in the United States to allow individual donors the opportunity to help people in Europe on the brink of starvation. For ten dollars, an American bought a package of food to help a family eat for a couple of months. McGeachy's contract turned out to be her last paid work. In 1945, McGeachy had made feelers about rejoining the British diplomatic service but met no encouragement from Halifax.1" The ambassador was expecting internal Foreign Office recruiting to revert to normal practice. Wartime emergencies had excused the hiring of a person who in the normal routine was doubly disqualified as a Canadian and a woman. In peacetime there was no reason to bypass the regular routines. Moreover, in 1946, McGeachy had become triply ineligible. She was now married. The marriage bar within the Foreign

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Office remained in place until as late as 1972.'" Towards the end of the war, her American critics within UNRRA did not fail to notice that McGeachy's marriage to 'an Austrian and an ex-enemy alien had somewhat weakened her position by making impossible her official re-employment in the service of the British Government.'123 McGeachy emerged from her UNRRA years with considerable achievements to her credit. She had survived the knives of an infighting bureaucracy. She had the satisfaction of seeing what she later termed 'the voluntary principle' do good. And by 1947 she was ready to accept her fate as a married woman.

8

Family Affairs

Mary McGeachy began her life as a 'normal' married woman at the end of 1947, an energetic hostess partner for her financier husband. Soon the Schullers rounded out their family by the addition of two young adopted children. Concealed from public view, however, was a dark side to McGeachy, and her family life eventually erupted in disarray and tragedy. But in 1947 the future seemed bright. The Schullers set out for a new life in South Africa, where McGeachy knew of Prime Minister Smuts and no one else. General Smuts had helped set up the League of Nations in 1919 and in South Africa had served in senior political positions in the inter-war period. During the Second World War, as leader of the United party, he had been prime minister of South Africa and continued to have a presence in international affairs. In San Francisco, when the United Nations was established, he helped draft its charter of human rights, proclaiming equality for all. Just as the Schullers arrived in the country there was a general election with dramatic ramifications. Smuts was defeated by the National party led by Dr Malan. Because of the weighting given to votes in rural constituencies, Malan had a small overall majority of seats in Parliament, despite winning only a minority of the popular vote. His campaign watchword was 'the native menace.' The beginning of the Schullers' life in South Africa coincided with a new direction in South African politics.1 South Africa in 1948 was a land of immense natural wealth, most notably of gold and diamond deposits. There was a population of over eleven million people, of whom 80 per cent were non-white. Beneath the orderly exterior of the rich white families whom the Schullers got

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to know in Johannesburg was the deep disequilibrium of a society rent by fault lines of division. English speakers belonged to a cultural background different from the biblical fundamentalism of the Afrikaansspeaking Boers. Conflict between the two groups of white inhabitants had resulted in civil war only fifty years before. Continuing political disputes were reflected in economic battles to control the country's mineral resources. Overshadowing the jousting between the Anglo-Saxons and the Afrikaners were the huge numbers of the disenfranchised black population. Black workers mined the precious gems and minerals, and black servants cared for the children, cooked the meals, and cleaned the houses of the white managers, supervisors, and professionals. Some whites, mainly Afrikaans-speakers, wished to secure their hegemony by institutionalizing oppression in the system known as apartheid. Others, mainly of English background, sought to share power through a longterm devolution of authority in a bid to avoid an inevitable clash between the many and the few. In 1948 almost 70 per cent of the population was black African, 8 per cent was coloured, 2.6 per cent was of Asian origin, and the rest were white European.' The small minority of whites controlled almost all economic and political power. At the 1948 election, the National party made a clear appeal to its supporters 'in the name of preserving white civilization and of preserving the master and servant relationship. ' 3 After winning, the Nationalists proceeded to impose their particular defence of white civilization on the country. In the name of white supremacy, Malan moved to separate the whites from all others. The only home for natives and their families should be in the reserves or in special cases on European farms; the urban native should be a sojourner only, brought in without his family and sent back to the reserves when his job is finished.'4 Over the next few years, the Nationalist government passed legislation to safeguard its apartheid vision of the country. Like previous governments, they wished to encourage the immigration of skilled labour, but, unlike Smuts's United party, the Nationalists weakened dependence on the Commonwealth relationship by giving preference to Germans displaced by war. The 1949 South African Citizenship Bill made it harder for immigrants to acquire citizenship and narrowed the advantage previously enjoyed by British subjects over others. Encountering resistance in the form of strikes, riots, and civil disobedience, the government moved to suppress opposition. The Unlawful

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Organizations Bill of 1950, replaced later that year by a more draconian Suppression of Communism Bill, gave the minister of justice wide powers to deal with dissent. The Communist party was declared unlawful, and the minister had the power to outlaw kindred organizations. He could restrict the movements of named persons and prohibit any gatherings likely in his view to further the ends of communism. Communism was defined to mean Marxism-Leninism, plus 'any related form of that doctrine' which sought to establish dictatorship of the proletariat or to bring about any political, industrial, social, or economic change within the Union by the promotion of disturbances or disorder."' In social policy, the Nationalists promoted a policy of 'separate development.' Education for non-Europeans had a separate syllabus, taught in separate schools. Non-whites were supposed to live quite separately from Europeans, and a new pass law restricted the movements of nonEuropeans.6 In 1953 another general election increased the majority for the Nationalists. Apartheid was clearly there to stay for some time. In London J.D. Rheinallt Jones described some of the social tension in South Africa which explained a policy that to outsiders appeared bound for disaster. Rheinallt Jones, founder of the South African Institute for Race Relations, was a liberal and had been a senator representing blacks between 1937 and 1942. In 1947 he accepted an appointment with the AngloAmerican Corporation of South Africa, Erwin Schuller's employer, as an adviser on affairs in connection with blacks.7 Rheinallt Jones pointed out that European workers very much feared the intrusion of nonEuropeans into semi-skilled and skilled work. The trade unions had closed ranks to protect the interest of their white members.8 The consolidation of apartheid was under way in South Africa when the Schullers arrived, but in 1947, when the Schullers first moved there, life looked promising for Mary McGeachy. She was a respectable married lady moving in upper-class circles of white South Africa. Married to a man with considerable resources, she enjoyed comfortable personal circumstances. Her husband's employer paid for a house with a swimming pool and servants, including a chauffeur, and an annual transatlantic trip for his wife and himself to the United States. Erwin had returned to his old employers, Lazard's, this time to the New York branch. With the facilitation of Robert Brand, who had helped him considerably during the 19305, Erwin was placed in a responsible position as Lazard's agent with the big mining company American AngloTransvaal in South Africa. As well, wrote the directors of Lazard's, he

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was 'to advise us generally on the future organization and policy of our work in South Africa.'9 The remuneration was higher than what he had received during the 19305. Part of his contract was directly relevant to his wife's interest. The clause which showed McGeachy's personal bargaining power stated: 'Reimbursement of all your travelling expenses, including a trip for your wife to the United States.' McGeachy was putting her League experience to good effect. The considerable costs of regular transatlantic travel - voyages and flights, land transportation, accommodation and food - were to be borne by the employer. The Schullers could contemplate residence in South Africa with greater gusto if they knew that they could plan for an annual trip together to Europe, the United States, and to Keene. Europe was special for both of them. 'We both need to touch the source from time to time,' McGeachy wrote.1" The trips, in effect, were to be reward for her contributions to Erwin's business entertaining. The Schullers' income and lifestyle made any ethical misery over apartheid easier to bear. Besides an attractive home in Sandown, one of the smartest parts of Johannesburg, they also had a country cottage at Lala Pangi in the Drakenburg Mountains in Kruger National Park. There they would spend long weekends or sometimes ten days at a time, entertaining guests. When McGeachy's sister Donalda visited South Africa in 1949, New Year's Day was spent in Lala Pangi, where 'native women danced.'" Donalda's diary of her four-month visit was a testament to their lifestyle. 'The longer I am in this country the more I like it. Could have very good life here,' wrote Donalda.12 For their day-to-day existence, McGeachy took responsibility. One of the tasks of a corporate wife was to oversee entertaining. This the Schullers did at home. Guests were drawn from the business world and from the voluntary organizations to which the Schullers contributed time and service. They, in turn, were regularly invited to dinners and dances hosted by members of the diplomatic corps, including the high commissioners for Canada and the United Kingdom.'3 The Schullers slept for the first time at Vale Cottage, Sandown, on Friday 29 October 1948.'4 The following week there was a Saturday luncheon for eight. Between November 1948 and the end of August 1949, when the Schullers left for their joint trip to Keene, New York City, Washington, and London, McGeachy noted in her parties diary an average of one event per week which the Schullers hosted. A few occasions were held at restaurants in Cape Town in mid-August, but the vast

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Woman of the World

majority were luncheon and dinner parties at Vale Cottage. During Donalda's visit in early 1949, scarcely a day passed without at least one social event, and frequently there were several. McGeachy was happy to be recognized among the ladies who played bridge while their husbands played polo. She was featured in the society pages of the Johannesburg Star or the Rand Daily Mail. But McGeachy, the former British diplomat, wanted more than a high-octane social life. For years she had been making speeches about the important contribution of women's volunteer work to the infrastructure of civil society. Now she could translate the theory into practice. McGeachy joined the organizations which would absorb so much of her energy: the Institute of Race Relations, the South African Institute of International Affairs, the National Council of Women of South Africa, and the Child Welfare Society. During the war, McGeachy had constantly lauded the voluntary principle. Now she had the opportunity to be a volunteer herself. She gave her attention also to religion. She and Erwin had been married in the Anglican Church, and it was the Anglican Church which drew her into its orbit more firmly. Being so far from her family and friends, visits and letters provided a nourishing link. One regular correspondent was Laura Dreyfus-Barney, a friend from the International Council of Women. Born in the mid18705, Laura and her sister, Natalie, came from a rich and privileged American family. Their childhood was spent in Cincinnati and Washington, and from an early age they enjoyed European holidays and for a while attended a French school. Their mother, Alice, studied to be a professional artist in Paris and after her husband died in 1902 became openly bohemian. The Barney sisters inherited four million dollars each from their parents. Natalie established a literary and artistic salon in Paris, was herself a writer, and was the centre of an openly lesbian circle. Laura, like her mother, was a peace activist and from 1925 served the International Council of Women as liaison officer to the Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, an agency of the League of Nations in Paris. During the inter-war period, she was often in Geneva, lobbying the League, and after the war was appointed the ICW's liaison officer to the new United Nations.' 5 She was fond of McGeachy and worked hard to associate her with the Council. To Laura Dreyfus-Barney, McGeachy remarked that the position of women in South Africa reminded her of the nineteenth century. The Dutch Roman law still governs the legal position of the wife - e.g. she

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may not operate a bank account without specific permission of her husband! Women vote but there are only two women members in parliament.' She put this down to 'the fact that mining and related business have been the chief occupations of the country and these have been the preserve of a certain type of man. Of course this is changing but one can see that this has helped to create a pattern. The other influence - and an even more fundamental one - is the Dutch farmer God-fearing, basing his thought and outlook upon the Old Testament, living in solitude on a great farm surrounded by family and native servants.'"' From the beginning of her residence in South Africa, McGeachy continued to develop her interests in international affairs. At the same time, she used her new contacts to help her travel back to North America. In the autumn of 1949, a Commonwealth conference of the Institute of International Affairs was to be held in the Muskoka area of Ontario the wilderness area of lakes, pine trees, and trails where members of the Student Christian Movement had spent summers in her student days. McGeachy got herself appointed, along with a female South African member of Parliament, Bertha Solomon, to go to Canada. McGeachy's appointment as a conference delegate was doubtless linked to the fact that her travel expenses were no charge on the organization. Her departure for North America in 1949 was the occasion for some personal publicity in the Johannesburg newspaper. Mrs Erwin Schuller was 'one of the most eminent women that South Africa has ever numbered among her population, temporary or permanent,' declared the Johannesburg Star. After living in the city for a year, 'her home in Sandown has already become a centre of gracious hospitality.' The journalist asked a direct question of the former woman diplomat, whose career was outlined in the column. Did she not feel isolated from the important world of international affairs with which she was so closely connected for a long time? No, said McGeachy. 'I can get all the specialist reading I want or need from the Public Library or the University Library. I have met people here quite as interesting and as well informed as I have met anywhere; and with air travel and airmail my husband and I have no feeling of isolation. We are very happy indeed to be here/' 7 Their acquaintances were drawn from the world of English-speaking business and academic life. Both Schullers belonged to the Institute of Race Relations, which was opposed to the hardline apartheid policy of the National party. They regularly attended meetings of the Institute

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for International Affairs held on the campus of Witwatersrand University. Professor MacCrone, principal of the university, and Quintin Whyte and Rheinallt Jones of the Institute of Race Relations were all visitors to their home. While neither McGeachy nor Erwin set out to establish a high political profile, they did not hesitate to identify themselves as critics of apartheid. During the last year of their residence in South Africa, Erwin was involved with a conference of religious leaders held outside the country.'8 However, apartheid went from strength to strength. In 1952, McGeachy entertained a British journalist she had known in Geneva, Vernon Bartlett, of the Neius Chronicle. He intended to write a book. 'Would you be kind enough to skim through the South African portion and let me know whether you notice any errors of fact or points on which I seem to have lost my sense of proportion?' Bartlett was straightforward about the content. 'I should, of course, like to acknowledge your help in the Foreword, but possibly you would prefer me not to do so as it might be embarrassing to be connected with a volume which has to contain so much criticism.'"' McGeachy was unabashed. When Struggle for Africa was published in 1953, Bartlett credited Mrs Erwin Schuller, 'who kindly corrected some of my grosser errors.'2" The book described apartheid as a cruel policy which defied political realities. Bartlett believed that the continent 'belong[ed] to the black men' and that the days of apartheid were numbered." Although in the long run he was right, apartheid as South African government policy outlasted Vernon Bartlett. McGeachy joined the National Council of Women of South Africa and in 1948 became Chair of its International Relations and Peace Committee. When she took her European holidays, she used the occasion to keep up with her friends in women's organizations. In 1951 she travelled to Athens for the International Council of Women's triennial meeting.'" There she was elected to her first ICW position as non-voting member of its Board of Officers/ 3 Back in South Africa, she kept members of the National Council informed on ICW business, especially on peace and international relations, for she became a member of the ICW standing committee.'4 She also spoke on matters of international interest to branches of the South African National Council.25 McGeachy's major voluntary activity in South Africa concentrated, as it happened, her current personal interests. She found a voluntary society with a multiracial mandate, became its president, and then turned the information she learned to her own advantage. Joining the board of the Child Welfare Society of Johannesburg, she served as its vice-

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Chair and forged a close relationship with the paid workers of the Society, particularly its director, Margery Clarke-Powell. Clarke-Powell was in charge of the Society's fostering program. In 1950, 94 European children and 32 non-European were fostered under the protection of the Society. The Society had a wider mandate. It managed day nurseries, or creches, looking after children whose mothers worked during the day. In 1950, for example, it looked after 183 children in two European (white) creches and 843 children in five Bantu creches located in the black townships. As well, the Society provided emergency care for children neglected or ill-treated by their family, or who had been stranded through illness or death. The Society's professional workers totalled an average of 2,100 visits per month, following up cases of desertion, ill-treatment and neglect, family crises, and deviant behaviour in children.2'' The Society participated in the formation of social policy by contributing to conferences and cooperating with other public and private social work agencies.27 McGeachy's main contribution to this work was to expand the number of volunteer helpers and fund-raisers. She formed committees in different suburbs of Johannesburg, and each targeted their help towards specific beneficiaries. As the Rand Daily Mail rather condescendingly reported, she 'passed on her enthusiasm to several of Johannesburg's giddy-hatted matrons by convening committees in the suburbs for the society.'28 Women drawn into this volunteer work enriched their own lives and helped provide treats to the children institutionalized under the overall care of the Society.29 McGeachy formed a Voluntary Escort Corps of women who developed a rota to drive children to various appointments.^0 McGeachy was convinced that women as volunteers were preparing themselves to be 'intelligent and helpful citizens.'3' In 1951, McGeachy became Chair of the board. This was the 'participation in world citizenship' which she thought was the role for educated women in contemporary society.32 Nevertheless, something was absent from the model corporate wife existence. The Schullers had no family of their own. Every letter which arrived in Johannesburg from McGeachy's sister Jessie served as a reminder of what she was missing: Jessie had children; Mary did not. When Jessie married Wendell Macleod in February 1944, she became stepmother to his two children, Wendy, aged five, and Peter, aged three. Perhaps Jessie exaggerated the benefits of motherhood to give herself a rare advantage in the competitive McGeachy

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sibling relationship. In November 1947, for instance, Jessie invited the Schullers to stay in Canada over Christmas and wrote: 'Peter is at the hockey and bleeding noses stage now. Wendy is a great clubwoman "Pigtails" and "Brownies" each i night a week, and 2 music lessons a week ... They are quickly growing out of the little children stage and it would be nice for you and Erwin to see them before they are flamboyant adolescents.'33 McGeachy's volunteer work could seem pale in comparison with this account of family life. She was used to having the upper hand in any relationship, but here she found herself on the losing end of that dynamic. As for her husband, Erwin believed that Mary was forty when they married. Parenthood would not be out of the question. Erwin's mother believed 'that in a marriage without children something seems to be lacking.'34 Such a view was conventional. But McGeachy did not like to be at a social disadvantage, and she had a second cause for unease. McGeachy could see that other women were attracted to Erwin. Children would render the marriage more secure. From whatever motive, the only realistic way for her to become a parent would be by adoption, and in 1952, when she was fifty years old, the Schullers adopted two children. Motherhood did not bring happiness. The next twenty-five years of McGeachy's life revealed a dark side to her character. In the 19505, cultural attitudes towards adoption were ambiguous. Adoption was seen as 'substitutive, second-best.' Parents who were involuntarily childless were objects of pity. A survey conducted in the 19505 listed the terms used by wives in that situation. They felt despair, bitterness, and disappointment and experienced feelings of hopelessness and inferiority, frustration and uselessness. Husbands, too, tended to have a desolate fear they might not be parents.35 No evidence reveals that McGeachy experienced such emotions herself. Confident, assured, in charge of her fate, McGeachy was used to being admired and respected, not pitied. There was one way to avoid a situation in which others would be sorry for her. If she were to adopt older children, they could look to strangers as though they might be the Schullers' natural family. Such an opportunity presented itself in early 1952.36 Margery Clarke-Powell was godmother to the daughter of a friend, June Warburton, whose husband, Mark, was head of the British Special Forces in Swaziland. June died young in 1951, leaving two children: Gillian, aged seven, and her brother, David, aged four. After Christmas,

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Mark Warburton felt unable to care for the children and approached Clarke-Powell for help. She arranged for David, who was then a sickly child, to be cared for by a relative in Swaziland. And she asked McGeachy if the Schullers would like to foster Gillian. McGeachy agreed. For two days beforehand, Gillian stayed with Clarke-Powell, who admonished her to behave well with the new people. Then she took her to the Schuller house. Erwin was away. Mary prepared the guest house for Gillian, and had housekeeper Laura Judd look after her as a nanny. Gillian was enrolled in a day school, Kingsmead, and driven there and back every day by James, the chauffeur. McGeachy found Gillian's presence in the household an 'excitement.' 'What with teaching her to swim and talking I was exhausted at the end of her first week's stay but have rallied since,' she wrote to a friend in Toronto/" There was a problem. The little girl was consumed with anxiety about David. She was missing her brother and very worried about him. Gillian's routine was that she would take a nap on return from school. One day she came back to the house to be told by McGeachy: 'Today you have a surprise. You must take your nap, but you must sleep in Nanny Judd's room. Then you will have your surprise.' The seven-yearold emerged at the appropriate time from the nanny's room wondering what the surprise would be. McGeachy, the nanny, and Gillian went down the hallway and there on Gillian's bed was her brother David. He was there to stay. Years later, Erwin drafted a letter explaining why the Schullers had reared the children the way they did. He included a comment on the adoption. 'We adopted you not because we wanted "a" child but because we liked you. We were particularly moved when you insisted that you wanted to bring your little brother to us. Mummy especially thought that most endearing of you and fell for you.'s8 Erwin returned from his business trip and met his new family. One day the Schullers and the two children were together, and McGeachy made an important announcement. Henceforth, she would be 'Mummy,' and Erwin 'Daddy.' The new names were not limited to the adults. Gillian would be 'Janet,' and David would be John.' McGeachy was setting up the terms of their new life. In the process, she was attempting to erase any identity inherited from outside her own sphere. She only succeeded in setting up trouble for herself, and them, later on. Rather than continue to foster, the Schullers decided to adopt. By the beginning of March, McGeachy could announce that 'all of Janet's

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papers are now in order. I have the revised birth certificate and the certificate with her Christian names altered. John's papers will be coming through any day now.'39 From the point of view of the Schullers, the legal documentation came not a moment too soon. There were some serious irregularities in the whole process. At no time did the children's father give his consent. Clarke-Powell had used her experience of the normal adoption process, together with her personal knowledge of Mark Warburton's incapacity after the death of his wife, to bypass normal procedures. She was alarmed at the end of March when Warburton suddenly appeared at her flat and stayed two days. 'He wanted to talk it all over with her. >4° McGeachy reassured her husband that Warburton had 'quite decided to give Johnny up,' but the Schullers did not test this intention by seeking his consent, which by law should have been obtained.4' McGeachy announced the adoptions to members of the Schuller and McGeachy families, who responded to the happy event. Erwin's nephew had 'written to Janet welcoming his first "girl-cousin."'4' After John's papers had come through, McGeachy wrote to Erwin: 'So there is an operation accomplished.'43 She wrote of her pleasure. 'Darling, what fun we will have.'44 Every letter she sent to him contained news of the children and sometimes their own pictures or writing. 'You will find the children a delight, darling. They have grown prodigiously and have settled down and taken possession of us and ours in the most satisfactory way. '45 The Schullers were now parents. In her Christmas cards of 1952, McGeachy wrote a happy note: 'I have not left South Africa this year largely because we now have two adopted children, who lost their parents (friends of ours) a year ago.'4'' Her statement suggested that both parents were dead, but in 1952 the father was still very much alive. Beneath a surface of openness there were currents of secrecy which served to confuse and confound the children. The children as adults remembered a childhood which was unusual and unhappy, and for this they blamed their adoptive mother. From the beginning, McGeachy wished to maintain her regular routines without missing a beat. Although she had considered resigning as Chair of the Child Welfare Society, in fact she did not give up the position until leaving the country two years later. She retained her involvement in the National Council of Women and indeed took on more volunteer work in the Anglican Church.

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From her early days as a mother, she also kept up her entertaining responsibilities. Erwin was away on several business trips during 1952, and she told him of the almost daily dinners, cocktail parties, and visits she undertook. In October when he was away, she put on a dinner party 'to see whether I could have a dinner with the children.' No problem: '... it went on wheels. We gave the children their meals on the verandah which they, poor dears, regarded as a great treat. They swam at 3, raced round the garden for an hour, had supper at 5 and were in bed at 6.30 and deep asleep when the first guests wanted to look in at them. They really are sweet.' This was a sort of experiment, which worked. 'So now I know that we can have parties even if I should have to bathe and attend at their suppers.'47 McGeachy left the care of the children to a nanny. Laura Judd had worked as Erwin's housekeeper in London during the war, and came out to South Africa to help in the house. As she lived with the children in the guest house, the Schullers experienced no change in their own living arrangements in the main house. Every evening, the nanny would take the children to visit their parents, who would sometimes read to them. For the most part, they led separate lives. Already by October 1952 the routine was set. At first McGeachy had more contact, but this fell away. 'Actually I do less and less attending at baths - not at all for Janet, and Johnny has become very proud and manly over his dressing.'48 Laura Judd was not the best nanny from McGeachy's point of view. McGeachy disliked her 'tempers and insolence.' She complained to Erwin that Judd had 'stormed about leaving for the second time,' and remarked, There are lots of other ways of arranging for Janet and John.' 49 Soon a more complaisant nanny was found, Aunt Mabel, and the scene was set. McGeachy wanted the children to be sweet and obedient and to display a happy and non-intrusive presence to herself, Erwin, and their friends. As in aristocratic and upper-middle-class families of Europe, the children's physical needs were met by servants and schools. Shortly after the adoption, McGeachy looked into the possibility of sending the children to schools in Canada. The Schullers were considering moving back to North America, and Erwin's trips during that year were devoted partly to exploring that option. McGeachy wrote to her friend Marjorie Counsell in Toronto asking about possible schools. Counsell was convinced that a Canadian school would be preferable to one in the United States, and she was fearful of

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the 'tragic political problems that are harassing South Africa and the world.'50 At the same time, Counsell queried whether boarding school was the best idea for two children who had experienced so much upheaval. Her husband, John, suggested that the children 'would benefit more for the next 3 or 4 years by home-life with you and Erwin - that you would be well advised to keep them in Keene at day schools.'15' McGeachy's war work had brought the problems of childhood insecurity to her attention. She knew firsthand, from observation in the field and from the reports she commissioned as director of welfare, the acute distress of displaced children and their need for love, care, and acceptance. Yet she was inclined to underestimate the needs of her own displaced children. 'They love making houses,' she wrote to Erwin in May 1952. 'I found one set up beside the fireplace under a little table! This the psychologists say is a search for security. But nearly every little girl on earth does it so it cannot be more serious in them than in others.'52 In the event, the Schullers remained in Johannesburg another two years, until May 1954, when they moved to Toronto. Lazard's was Erwin's employer still. In Canada he was president between 1954 and 1956 of Canadera, a Lazard-sponsored investment company.53 In Toronto, the Schullers lived in Forrest Hill, one of the city's exclusive neighbourhoods for prosperous families. Dwellings there were substantial three-storey houses, mainly built in the early twentieth century, with lots and streets planted with mature trees, and the city's major private schools within walking distance. Janet was enrolled in Bishop Strachan Girls' School, and John in Upper Canada College. While McGeachy lived the life of the leisured upper-income lady, deliberately making herself available for the children on a regular basis, Erwin was appointed to the board of directors of the newly developing Stratford Festival. The Ontario town of Stratford was to be a showcase of the Canadian theatre, showing the world how Canada could interpret world-class English-speaking drama in theatres built to the latest architectural standards. With a river named Avon flowing through the town, it consciously echoed the English Stratford Shakespeare festival. Some artists had argued that Stratford should be the centre of an indigenous Canadian culture but lost out to those who wanted to see Shakespeare, one of the mainstays of English-speaking civilization, acted out in a Canadian context. McGeachy was resuming her youthful commitment to Canadian nationalism and Canadian art.

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One of Erwin's relatives referred to Lazard's director, Charles Meyer, as 'the feared Meyer.'54 Erwin and Lazard's had enjoyed a satisfactory relationship through the South African years, but after two years in Toronto, Erwin was ready to try something different. By 1957 he had changed jobs to become a consultant to the Radio Corporation of America, under the direction of the legendary David Sarnoff. Shortly he was made a vice-president, international finance, at a salary of approximately U.S. $66,000 p.a.55 For the five years when the Schullers lived in Canada, McGeachy 'gave up those years in Toronto' for the children, as she put it.5'' The family all lived together under the same roof, and McGeachy was home more. Those five years were the most 'normal' of their lives. They often had dinner together, and when guests came to the house, Janet and John would peek down at them from the top of the stairs. At the same time, the pattern which McGeachy established in South Africa, of the children's subordination to the parents' way of life, continued. When Jessie's stepdaughter Wendy visited the Schuller family in Toronto, she could see that mealtimes were not relaxed occasions. They provided the opportunity for lessons in manners. Wendy thought McGeachy seemed to regard the children as her little puppets. Once Wendy was invited to stay a couple of weeks during the Schullers' summer visit in Keene. John was ten years old, and McGeachy had set him a summer project, to learn Latin. While the two girls spent time hiking and playing in the countryside, John was supposed to stay indoors studying his Latin. Wendy felt sorry for him. To her eyes, McGeachy considered her children as possessions to be proud of: it was a challenge to raise them properly, and she was going to do it. Wendy observed McGeachy was 'very controlling.' 57 That was an understatement, from the point of view of Janet and John. 'We didn't have individuality. It was kind of like we were other arms and legs. If we disobeyed her - she would cut it off. We were her appendages.'58 They remembered times when their mother's determination to have her way crossed the line into abuse. One of Janet's earliest memories in South Africa was when she dropped a glass on the bathroom floor. McGeachy hit her so hard Janet's nose was bleeding. Erwin saw her and asked what had happened. McGeachy replied, 'She fell out of a tree.'Janet did not dare contradict her mother. 5 ' 1 In Toronto, Janet one day felt very sick, but her mother thought she was just faking and insisted she go to school. By mid-morning, the

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teachers sent her home. McGeachy refused to revise her opinion. She sent Janet up to her room: she was being punished for being sick. In the evening, Erwin returned and Janet called to him from her bedroom. Erwin told Mary he thought Janet really was ill and called a neighbour, who was a doctor, to come and see her. The next thing Janet knew, she was rushed to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy.''0 McGeachy's stern behaviour had a negative effect on Janet and John. They were continually apprehensive of their mother, and they did not dare to defy her until they were older. For Janet, the breaking point came when she was seventeen, and for John, after he left school. One day after the Schullers had moved to New York and Janet was in her last year at school, she put make-up on her face, including mascara. McGeachy, holding a coffeepot, demanded she wash off the make-up. McGeachy moved to strike her, but Janet caught her mother's arm and interrupted the blow. The coffeepot broke. From then on, every time McGeachy tried again to strike her, Janet defended herself by taking hold of McGeachy's arm. The hitting eventually stopped. McGeachy wanted Janet to 'come out' in New York society, and Janet flatly refused. McGeachy was furious, but to no avail. Janet found herself keeping away from the New York home, and indeed was admonished on the rare occasions she turned up unexpectedly. The children resented the fact that their family seemed so different from other people's families. 'We didn't bring friends home ... [into] this incredibly isolated, insular family.' The few occasions when they experienced the benefits of visiting with aunts and uncles stand out like oases in their memories. After the Schullers moved to New York, John remained in Canada as a boarder at Upper Canada College. He remembers visiting McGeachy relatives in Sarnia for occasional weekends. 'Mary's brother Bob was a wonderful gentle man. I stayed with him and his wife, Marion, and really enjoyed my time there.' Mary's sister Donalda had a significant impact on both of them. Donalda lived with her cousin Dorothy, and early in the Toronto life 'they would come and pick us up, driving a convertible.' The two aunts would take the children to movies, and 'do things that you would hope an aunt would do.' Donalda, who had been an actress, was very theatrical. She smoke and drank 'like a fish,' and to the children she represented both affection and fun. But, said John, 'she was cowed ... At some point Mary sent us upstairs and took Donalda curtly aside and closed the door to the room and said, "I forbid you to see my children again, you're trying to take them from me." And that was the end of the

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relationship with her for quite an extended period until I was at [boarding] school and then I used to go to her. She was really a friend."" The children were unhappy over being transported from one environment, in one country, into another context in a different continent. 'When I came to Toronto I was confused. It was a strange country, people spoke differently, and there were no natives.'6'2 And Mary was jealous of people who might attract the children's affections. With respect to Donalda and Dorothy, the Schuller children's enjoyable times together were suddenly and inexplicably cut off. The aunts went out of their lives and did not even write. Years later, when Dorothy was dying at her cottage at Beaverton, the two adult children visited her and asked what had happened. Dorothy told them of McGeachy's prohibition. One of her greatest regrets in life was that she and Donalda had complied. 'Looking back, I realize there was love involved: we loved you and you loved us."'3 McGeachy did provide them with a nanny. Aunt Mabel accompanied the family to North America. A nanny could take material care of her charges, but however much nurturing she provided, it was no substitute for a mother's love. McGeachy's surviving letters to Erwin contain no references to affection for the children. From the beginning, she would relate the children's achievements and demeanour, but she did not write of love for anyone other than Erwin himself. In 1952 she told her husband how she was giving friends the adoption news through a message on the Christmas cards. In a revealing phrase, she added: 'Darling, what a very furnished life we lead."'4 She wanted absolute possession of her 'furniture.' In her new role as mother there was little to divert her will to dominate. By changing the children's Christian names, she cut off their previous history in an effort to concentrate all identity on the Schullers alone. When relatives threatened to become important in the children's emotional life, she forbade them to visit. Because she could not depend on Janet to behave as her imagined ideal child, McGeachy did not take her to McGeachy family reunions. Once, when Janet was older, she was included in a wedding invitation, but McGeachy refused to take her because of Janet's appearance, topped off by hair dyed red. 'She never showed me any affection,' said Janet.'"5 Her brother considered that Janet suffered more than he. Janet 'was older when she was adopted. She was more formed. She put up a fight and was unacceptable,'6'1 whereas he was younger and McGeachy shaped him into the character she desired (or thought she did).

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In 1959 the Schullers moved to New York. Erwin continued to provide a very good living for the family. They bought an apartment in Gramercy Park, a highly desirable part of Manhattan. The 1958 purchase price was $27,000, for a whole floor of the building, and two apartments were refurbished into one. They spent almost as much again on improvements for a total cost of $53,866/'7 The Schullers' life in New York differed a litde from their days in Johannesburg. One distinction was in the way Erwin entertained. Although home dinner parties did not cease, in New York the Schullers made more use of clubs: the Rockefeller and Canadian Clubs in New York and the Sulgrave Club in Washington. They employed a resident housekeeper, as in Toronto. After Aunt Mabel went back to South Africa, a substitute was found. Erwin's major responsibility in RCA was in developing subsidiary systems in South America. In the early i g6os, he was visiting Latin America usually twice a year. He developed a difference of opinion with the top managers concerning construction. He believed that RCA should offer employment opportunities to local workers under the supervision of foremen brought in from the United States. David Sarnoff disagreed and by the spring of 1965 Erwin was anticipating a complete break with RCA.68 Erwin's income of 1964 shows that already he was putting his eggs in more than one basket. Besides a sizeable income from RCA he earned fees from United Merchants and Manufacturers and from the InterAmerican Development Bank. Including a modest investment income, Erwin reported a total 1964 income of $64,000. The following year, 1965, the RCA income came to an end.'"' The Schullers sold the Gramercy Park property for $70,000. They bought a smaller apartment at 250 East 65th Street, which included an office where Erwin employed a private secretary, for it was henceforth to be his business address. Erwin was having to become more entrepreneurial. Erwin was concerned with more than money. His ideas on social policy in Latin American development were wide ranging. In February 1965 he found an opportunity to work out his ideas about democracy and development through an arrangement with one of the foremost think-tanks, the Brookings Institution. Brookings appointed him to serve as consultant 'on matters having to do with political development.' The initial association was to terminate in June 1965, within their current fiscal year, 'as is our custom in such matters,' but in the event, the appointment was renewed until the end of June 1967.7" The appointment, significantly, was without compensation. Erwin was sufficiently engaged with his ideas and, at the same time, sufficiently optimistic

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about income from other sources, to allow himself to devote considerable time to this unpaid project. Even though Erwin was managing to put together a satisfactory income as a self-employed consultant, he was undoubtedly experiencing stress in his life. Intimate letters to his wife give allusive expression to considerable turmoil. Looking back on the winter of 1964-5, he referred to 'all this upset,' the termination with RCA and the shift to a fee-based income. Once, when he was staying overnight in Washington, he wrote a love letter to his wife, but as it disappeared before mailing, he wrote down his feelings again: I tried to tell you how much I love you and how much more I love you every year ... Even when that little devil is there he feeds on my love for you, because I would not be so upset and 'angry' if by saying hurtful things I was not maddened that I was doing this to you - but I believe I now have the measure of that devil and can cope with him. I hope so much, dearilie, that all this upset will mean that we shall have more time to be together - to talk or to be silent, to walk or just sit together - these really are the moments I love and enjoy and fall back on. They are my PEACE and my JOY; even if I enjoy so many of the frills parties and so forth - I know that they are frills ... I should now be a more satisfactory companion than I have at times been. 7 '

While he was negotiating for a consulting contract, he said it would be 'a great comfort' and 'a great help financially and otherwise.'7" He noted: 'It gives me work and a status and a tool for looking for other jobs beyond the end of the year when the RCA job is likely to come to an end. - It is a very helpful step forward and I feel greatly relieved and encouraged.'™ At the same time, Erwin was seriously considering a move to Europe even though his sympathies lay with Latin American development. In May he wrote: 'I should consider a move to London or Geneva or Zurich only if I can not find a job here that assumes a reasonable livelihood ... the choices are beginning to look brighter that I shall succeed.' He asked his wife's opinion. 'Do you think that I am too rigid by putting Europe into a "last resort" category? And if you had the choice between London or Switzerland which of the two would you prefer?' 74 She responded that 'New York was certainly easier than London, Geneva, or Zurich,' but in October a move to Europe was again on the cards.7"1 There was 'a fair chance of moving into London early in 1967,'

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and he reported he was having a satisfactory time 'and attaining a better balance and even serenity.'7'' The possible move did not materialize. He was more successful in cultivating the Latin American contacts. A year later, in November 1966, when McGeachy was away on International Council of Women business in Tehran, he again expressed contrition and determination to contribute to their personal relationship. 'I am beginning to sleep much better. I think of you a lot, dearily, and of our love and am again catching a bit of the dream about US - I do want to be a comfort to you as you have been to me so much.' 77 Anxiety was immanent in Erwin's life during 1965 and 1966, but there were as well many signs of satisfaction and hope. In February 1965 he wrote: 'I feel that for some years I have been swimming across a wide stream - from Europe to the New World, from 1914 to 1964. At times I felt like turning back; at times I at least looked back nostalgically - I can imagine how stupid some of the things may have sounded that I uttered in those moments. But I believe that during the months that I reached the decision to apply for naturalization I have finally reached this side of the stream and am now on land again.'78 Erwin's earlier attempts to become British had not been brought to a conclusion. After several years as a resident of the United States, he decided to make the symbolic act of commitment to the New World, and in 1966 his naturalization was completed. His first passport as a U.S. citizen was issued in February 1966. Other worries came to both Schullers from their children, but by the summer of 1965 Janet had decided to pursue nursing training, and her decision about a future occupation came as a relief. Erwin was expressing more positive views about John: 'He really is a nice fellow,' said Erwin in November ig65.79 And Erwin was flattered by the possibility of being made a senior fellow of the new Massey College, a graduate college modelled on All Souls, Oxford, in the University of Toronto. 'I would really like that - it could be fun.'8" On paper, at least, Erwin kept his troubles in perspective, and he had a positive frame of mind when writing to his wife. When the Schullers moved to New York, McGeachy made an attempt to relieve herself of direct childcare. David remained at Upper Canada College, and though Janet moved with them, McGeachy asked one of Erwin's cousins and his wife if they would accept Janet as a boarder in their home. She would attend day school, but instead of living with her parents, she would live with the relatives. The Herbert Schuellers considered the offer seriously. 'Mary had difficulties with the education

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and bringing up of her adopted children and wondered whether my wife could relieve her from this task for a couple of years.' Their income would have benefited from the financial arrangement, but they believed it was wrong for McGeachy to foist such a responsibility on them, and they declined.8' One of McGeachy's most puzzling pieces of behaviour was her inconsistency towards the adoption. It was all right for intimates to know about the adoption, but when the children were teenagers, McGeachy preferred the rest of the world to believe that she was a biological mother. Once, when they lived in Toronto, Janet's headmistress asked McGeachy for a meeting. She told her that Janet had been telling everyone she was adopted. Mary glared at Janet and turned to the headmistress. 'Well, you know, Janet tends to be a frightful liar,' she said.8' This was highly confusing for the children concerned. Current theorists of adoption write of the need for adoptive parents and their children to recognize and come to terms with the reality of their difference from biological families. Parents must try to create an atmosphere of emotional security, of 'shared ground' or 'shared fate,'-common to all members of the newly formed family. Consistency and kindness are crucial.8^ McGeachy above all was aware of the emotional problems besetting children displaced from their families. She had seen the children of the displaced persons camps of wartime Europe. She had caused special reports on the psychological problems of displaced persons and children to be prepared for UNRRA workers. She was acquainted with the experts and specialists in social work who were familiar with the most recent theories of disturbance. She had been 'Europe's Number One Foster Mother' in ig44.84 But as a mother herself the story was different. A recognition of her own difficulties helps to explain a curious occurrence in 1963-4. The book-length history of the International Council of Women, Women in a Changing World, was almost complete. McGeachy, from the start of the project, had been on the advisory committee. There was a section containing biographies of all the presidents, and she was asked to draft her own. Yet an account of her life became a difficult text to write. In her first draft, McGeachy alluded to time she had spent in Paris during the 19205, 'a time when the Shakespeare Bookshop was a centre for young people interested in literature, music and the theatre.'8"1 McGeachy was suggesting a sympathy with her friend Laura Dreyfus-Barney and her bohemian circles; but in the final text, the reference was omitted.

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What is more intriguing is that in her original text, McGeachy mentioned her marriage to Erwin and removal to South Africa, but made no reference to any children. The editor asked her: 'In the paragraph on your years in South Africa, do you wish to mention the children? The children of other Presidents have been mentioned.' Prompted by this direct request, McGeachy belatedly added the slightly misleading clause: 'taking with them their family, the daughter and son of friends who had died and whom they had adopted.'8" Beneath an imperturbable facade, McGeachy was insecure. Some of the explanation for McGeachy's child-rearing style can be found in an episode which dragged on over four years in the ig6os. The Schullers were still living in Gramercy Park when one day in 1964 Erwin spoke to Janet. 'By the way,' he said, 'an old aunt of your father's has died and has left a small inheritance to each of your father's three children.' This was a thunderbolt to Janet. Three?' she queried. Erwin explained that Janet's father had remarried and had another child. Janet asked where her father was. 'He's dead,' said Erwin. The conversation rehearsed yet again Janet's long-time pain and resentment which had accompanied her throughout her childhood. Whenever Janet had asked McGeachy where her real father was, McGeachy's response was to say, 'He didn't want you so he gave you to us.' When the Schuller family moved to Toronto, the aunts whose company she had enjoyed, all of a sudden disappeared from her life. Janet had found that whenever she had become attached to anyone, they would leave, often brusquely and without explanation. Now out of the blue came the information that her father had remarried and formed a new family, yet had not sought out his existing children to reunite with them.87 There were two important consequences of Erwin's news. One resulted in the eventual rediscovery of Janet and John's African family. The other was to highlight the clandestine nature of the original adoption and, in the process, to paint the behaviour of the children's natural father in a more favourable light. The legacy arose from the death of an aunt of the children's mother. Janet's mother's name was June Lawson, and her maternal aunt was called Miss Spotswood. Spotswood died in 1953, and the estate was bequeathed subject to the life interest of a sister. The sister died in 1963, and the estate then had to be divided among the residual heirs. The trustee had to locate them and verify their identity before the legacy, of unidentified amount, could be disbursed.

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Not until after McGeachy's death did Janet inspect the correspondence concerning the inheritance. In a letter of June 1964 from the Schullers' lawyer to the trustee of the Spotswood estate, she read: The two children were legally adopted by our clients some twelve years ago under a "Non Disclosure Clause" - that is, the identity of our clients was not disclosed at the time of the adoption and was not to be disclosed at any time in the future. This provision has been scrupulously and strictly adhered to and our clients are extremely anxious that this continue.'88 Erwin had to deal with this correspondence on his own. McGeachy at the time was away on ICW business. Erwin wrote to his lawyer: 'We do not think that there is any absolute necessity for non-disclosure.' McGeachy had a different view. When, in Erwin's absence, she had made the arrangements in 1952, the non-disclosure clause at that time meant there was no way for Mark Warburton to discover where his children were. The Schullers' daughter believes that McGeachy deliberately kept Erwin in the dark about the lack of Warburton's consent to the adoption. After Warburton died in 1954, the Schuller adoption was more secure. Yet there remained a grey area over its original legitimacy. To what extent had Clarke-Powell acted precipitously and even improperly in rapidly expediting the transfer of guardianship to the Schullers? This was a legal and moral problem which, from McGeachy's perspective, would be better left buried, and the only way to ensure that would be to retain non-disclosure. When Erwin revealed he was more relaxed about disclosure, he was speaking for himself and in ignorance of his wife's sailing close to the wind. Clarke-Powell was in panic. During a three week period in May and June 1964, she sent urgent communications to New York. 'An embarrassing situation has arisen but fortunately it came direct to me,' she began. She explained that the Spotswood trustees had tried to locate the heirs, but she had requested the trustees 'not to refer the matter to the CWS [Child Welfare Society] and to regard his contact with me as strictly confidential.' She told McGeachy that one option was to tell the trustee that 'I have ascertained that Mark signed a non-disclosure clause for the adoption and that it is therefore impossible to trace the children.' That would hold up the distribution of the legacy to the third heir and might mean the Schuller children would forego their share. She wanted to avoid any formal enquiry. 'Should this happen and I were questioned I would naturally deny any knowledge of the affair ...

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This is a most unfortunate unforeseen complication.'8'1 Two days later, Clarke-Powell wrote to tell McGeachy that in a new letter the trustees referred to the children, 'now aged about 6 and 8 years of age.' She noted, The mistakes in ages and dates in the letter are most fortunate.'9" Clarke-Powell asked McGeachy for direction.9' Erwin told her to contact the lawyer who had arranged the original adoption.9* The lawyers advised that the Schuller children should wait until attaining the age of majority before moving to receive their legacy. Two years later, after Janet had become twenty-one, her share was transferred to her. In 1968, John received his money, amounting to approximately C$2,ooo. The money was the least of the benefits received. The unhappiness of the children did not disperse upon reaching adulthood. Janet married and established her own family, but continued to find the relationship with her mother difficult. As for John, the information gleaned from the inheritance episode performed a healing function many years later. John made it his mission to find the third child, a daughter. In 1985, Janet and John arranged for their half-sister, Glenda, and her family to visit Janet's home in New Jersey. By developing a link with a blood relative, the Schuller children were eventually able to begin to feel a sense of belonging. McGeachy saw the newly discovered relatives as a threat. By the mid19805 she was in communication with both Schuller children and they were able, mainly, to get along. She spent Christmas Day with all three siblings and their families. Janet later asked her, 'What do you think of Glenda?' McGeachy's retort was querulous. 'Her mother wasn't British, was she?' Janet explained that Mark's second wife had been born in South Africa. 'Well,' said McGeachy, 'she certainly doesn't speak the Queen's English.'93 Establishing contact with their half-sister allowed Janet and John to see the adoption through the lens of Warburton family history. They discovered that Mark Warburton recovered his health and remarried in 1952. He and his new wife had the one daughter, who later heard the story from Mark's point of view. Mark had wanted temporary foster parents, but the fostering plan was thwarted by Clarke-Powell. She expedited the adoption first of Janet, then of John. McGeachy then insisted on the non-disclosure clause, which threw up a brick wall whenever any member of the Warburton family tried to get in touch. After McGeachy's death in 1991, Janet began the task of going through many boxes of papers. At this time, she read the correspondence relat-

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ing to the inheritance and eventually established contact with more members of her birth family. Meanwhile John, too, managed to find some emotional peace. For him, as for his sister, Donalda was the favourite aunt. One time she was visiting Keene and said to Janet, 'Did you realize that your mother is a textbook psychopath?' Exactly what Donalda understood by the term is not clear. As an objective scientific description, 'psychopath,' linked to the term 'personality disorder,' was ambiguous. One recent historian of psychiatry calls both notions 'scientifically rather murky.' They represent, he says, a 'pathologizing of essentially normal if irksome behaviour.'94 Two British psychiatrists note that the concept of psychopathic disorder 'has had a troubled history' and point out that a common meaning is as 'a pejorative label.'9"' Janet related Donalda's comment to John, who did not know what a psychopath was. He read widely, notably in the work of Canadian psychologist Dr Robert Hare, 'a world-renowned expert on psychopaths.'9" According to Hare, psychopathy was a personality disorder defined by a distinctive cluster of behaviours and personality traits. Psychopaths, writes Hare, are self-centred, callous, and remorseless, lacking in empathy and the ability to form warm emotional relationships with others. A combination of psychological, biological, and genetic factors contribute to the syndrome, which literally means 'mental illness,' from the Greek words psyche, meaning mind, and pathos, meaning disease.97 The information brought David insight into his mother's character. 'I'm satisfied that's what she was. So a lot of my peace with her whole situation comes from understanding that that was so ... After what Aunt Donalda had to say, I was able to let go. It made sense.'"8 One result of John's long reflection on his childhood was a reassessment of his own identity. He resumed the name - David Warburton which the Schullers had wiped out at the time of adoption. He resurrected his own - and Janet's - genealogy. To use the language of the adoption scholar David Kirk, he discovered the elements of the matrix of belongingness on which human development is founded. 99 David and Janet came to believe that with the help of Clarke-Powell, McGeachy had 'stolen' the Warburton children. She had wanted children, older children, and having found a satisfactory ready-made family, determined to hang on to it by hook or by crook. It appeared she had broken the law in order to get the children. From the children's point of view, since her determination could not be explained by affec-

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tion for them, they looked for other explanations as to why she wanted to adopt in the first place. With respect to Erwin, their adoptive father, the children did not find him so harsh. Erwin maintained a solid front with McGeachy, but both children considered him a kind, gentle man under the domination of his wife. During adolescence, Janet questioned her adoptive parents about the emotional distance they had maintained. In 1964, when she was twenty, Erwin drafted a lengthy response to her charge. Janet asked him why, as parents, they had not provided affection for two children who were already traumatized by their mother's death and their father's dysfunction. The letter was a justification of his responsibility in their child rearing. Erwin explained his approach as European. 'You are right that our way of life does or rather did create a wider gulf between parents and children than is usual nowadays especially outside of Europe. It means that parents can, in addition to their jobs, have a more adult life themselves.' He thought this had advantages for the children as well as the parents. If there was an appropriate nannie, or carer, the children 'have somebody around who is always there and whose primary responsibility are the children without any of the major distractions which are inevitable when parents look after their children the whole time. I believe that both you and Johnny owe much more of your stability and balance to the presence of Nannie Judd and Aunt Mabel than you are willing to admit and able to recognize.' The price to be paid, apart from financial, was a distance between parents and children: Yet I believe, generally speaking that, when material conditions permit this, it is better for both children and parents not to be too close to each other as long as the children are small. I believe that children all their life benefit from the calmer atmosphere and the regular routine a Nannie can give them but which their parents can as a rule not give to the same extent. I believe it helps children to grow up, if when they are young they live under a different pattern and recognize that adults have a different life - and then gradually move into the adult pattern.

Erwin thought that as adults, parents and children would then become better friends. 'Of course no parents are perfect or can find the perfect pattern for either their own lives or for their children.' But whatever he and McGeachy had done, 'we have done because we love both you and John."00

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Janet was unable to let him know her response. It was Erwin's habit, before sending a letter to Janet or John, to pass it to his wife to look over. In this instance, the letter remained unposted. So Janet did not even know he had written to her. The letter was not destroyed: it was discovered over thirty years later when Janet was sorting through papers after her mother's death. It is significant that Erwin maintained solidarity with his wife. The letter implied that they were of one mind in their 'European' attitude towards child rearing. The delegation of responsibility to nannies and schools suited McGeachy, who had sought to delegate also to Erwin's cousin, who was having none of it. Although Janet resented the lack of affection, perhaps the alternative might have been worse. Had McGeachy been more involved directly in their upbringing, who knows? Maybe she would have felt more frustrated, and the children might have suffered more. Erwin was not the first parent ever to think, or say, 'Of course no parents are perfect or can find the perfect pattern for either their own lives or for their children.' There are two further significant points about the letter. First, it was not sent. Janet received no benefit when she was twenty years old. The fact that Erwin had not mailed the letter served to reinforce with Janet the view of McGeachy as unwilling to acknowledge an error or vulnerability on her own part. Secondly, the letter survived. After Erwin's death, McGeachy destroyed many personal papers. The fact that this letter remained, with the likelihood that the children would at some time read it, suggests that McGeachy belatedly thought it might be good for the Schuller children to know Erwin's theory of child rearing. Both children liked their father, even though he kept a solid front with his wife in any matter in which discipline was involved. During the 19605, Janet came to enjoy a happier relationship with Erwin. He told her jokes and behaved in a roguish manner towards her, and they experienced a growing intimacy. McGeachy's reaction was to criticize. Once after Erwin had made Janet laugh, McGeachy walked after her and seized Janet's arm. 'Erwin and I were perfectly happy before you came to live with us,' she said. 'Don't think you can break up this marriage.''"' Her jealousy was manifest again at a time of tragedy and heightened stress for all concerned. In 1967 the Schullers' nephew Andrew, son of Erwin's brother Teddy, was visiting New York, and Erwin was introducing him to the world of financial consultancy. Andrew was a young Englishman, a recent Oxford graduate. In July 1967 a crisis occurred in the Schuller household,

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and he telephoned Janet, who was continuing her education in Montreal, leaving a message: 'Please ask her to phone Mr Schuller.' The message was put under the door of Janet's room. Janet thought 'Mr Schuller' meant her father, Erwin. She telephoned home, where the Jamaican maid answered, and Janet naturally asked for her father. She received a great shock. 'No more jokes, Miss Janet,' said Daphne. 'What do you mean?' asked Janet. 'No more jokes, Miss Janet. Your father is dead.' Janet later asked to speak to her mother. Was it true? Yes, it was, said McGeachy. 'And there's nothing in this house for you any more.'102 Erwin had taken his own life. In the pain and shock of Erwin's death, McGeachy was unable to conceal a hostility towards the daughter who had not turned out the way she had hoped. In July 1967, Erwin was under treatment by his physician for depression and was taking the drug lithium.1"3 Depression, which he called 'that little devil,' had stalked him before.'"4 At this time, he was planning to join his wife at Keene for the weekend, intending to travel on Friday, 7 July. Early that morning, he had a doctor's appointment, which he was not looking forward to, as he expected the doctor would press him to see a psychiatrist. There was another meeting arranged for Friday morning with his nephew Andrew, who was bringing some documents for Erwin to sign. Andrew arrived at the apartment, as agreed, at 9:30 A.M. and found himself dealing with a terrible situation. 'A man followed by a policeman came in to say that someone had jumped out of the window.' Andrew looked out of the apartment and saw his uncle lying on the street. 'Although I can well see Uncle Erwin fumbling and losing his balance in his nervous slightly clumsy way at that window, I don't think one can fall out of it.' Erwin was dead on arrival at the hospital. No note was left in his study, and his suitcase was half packed for going to Keene. He had not kept his appointment with the doctor. The police considered no foul play was involved. From the hospital, Andrew phoned his aunt and told her Erwin had jumped out of the window. 'You can't say that,' responded McGeachy. 'He had an accident.' McGeachy arrived back in New York later on Friday and from then on told everyone that Erwin had collapsed and died. With her nephew's help, she arranged for cremation, which took place 10 July, and two religious services, one for 11 July at the church the Schullers attended in New York, Calvary Episcopal Church in Gramercy Park, and a memorial service at the Congregational Church in Keene for the following Saturday, 15 July. McGeachy arranged for notifications in the newspa-

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pers. The New York Times, on Monday lojuly, noted that Erwin 'died on Friday after collapsing in his office.'"' 5 The London Times printed that he 'died on Friday at his office in New York.'1"'' 'The trouble is,' wrote Andrew to his father, 'that everyone in the building knows that he fell from his window so that for instance the doorman told the maid that he had jumped - and the maid told Janet when she rang. Uncle Richard knows, Uncle Hugo knows, ... [and so do] Herbert who came in today with his wife and George from Washington and his wife.' The general opinion in the family was that financial worries had led to Erwin's death. McGeachy's reaction was not so simple to explain. Erwin's cousin Herbert Schueller had his own explanations. He believed Erwin's death was the result of hurt pride. Erwin, he thought, had recently heard that a Latin American project was not going ahead. So much of Erwin's amour propre was wrapped up in his community development ideas that this failure led him to despair. Herbert explained McGeachy's denial as a religious concern. She wanted Erwin to have a full Anglican service and that might have been withheld from someone who committed suicide.'"7 Some circumstantial evidence supports Herbert's view. Erwin had taken the initiative to organize a conference in February 1967 for a British think-tank, the Ditchley Foundation, on the theme 'Co-operation with Beneficiaries in Aid Projects,' in partnership with another agency, the Overseas Development Institute. The Ditchley Foundation organized meetings where policy-makers and intellectuals from around the world could exchange views. In late December 1966, Erwin had to abort the conference, a failure for which he admitted responsibility. In a letter to the Foundation's provost, Erwin acknowledged, 'I probably allowed myself to be too impatient at times and too "autocratic" as some of my friends have told me meanwhile - and, no doubt, some of those who are not my friends have said even more emphatically.'"'8 The provost reported, more blandly, that 'personal and organizational difficulties caused the cancellation of the guest conference.'""' Erwin's investigation of development ideas in Latin America for Brookings Institution resulted in a paper written in May 1967."" McGeachy discovered that Brookings was not as committed to him as he was to them; perhaps Erwin knew, and was upset about that. As well, Herbert thought that at the beginning of July 1967 Erwin received news of a failed project in South America. 'It was hurt pride and disillusion which carried Erwin to suicide.'"'

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No indisputable corroboration survives of this theory. A few days after Erwin's death, Erwin's secretary telephoned the Schuller house in distress. 'He killed himself because of me,' she said. Immediately her voice was replaced on the phone by that of her son. 'Disregard what she said, she's upset,' he said, and cut the line."2 Could it be that she opened the mail and presented him with bad news? Herbert and his wife were mindful of Erwin's family history. At the age of fifty-eight, Erwin's father, Ludwig, had drowned himself in the Danube."3 Erwin was known to be inclined towards depression. The constant problems with this occupation [as a financier] and the worries which he could not hide at home. And the wife being conscious of Erwin's father's suicide which must always have hovered in the background of her mind when Erwin was dejected and unhappy ... If it is not difficult for a wife to live with a man with this career I do not know what difficult is.'"4 Certainly, Erwin was under pressure regarding his livelihood, and had been since he left the relative security of a large corporation to become a self-employed consultant two years earlier. Letters to his wife during the igGos showed some evidence of generalized emotional distress, and the fact that he was receiving medical attention indicated that he knew he needed help. No evidence survives to show he resented his wife's work with the International Council of Women. On the contrary, he was proud of her and expressed respect for her work. When McGeachy insisted that Erwin 'collapsed,' or 'died in his office,' this was not necessarily a lie. Jumping out of the window implied a deliberate act, and intention, for which there was only circumstantial evidence. It is understandable that she wished to avoid the religious and social slur surrounding suicide, and her interpretation can be seen as a desire to give Erwin the benefit of the doubt. But she went overboard. As Erwin's cousin Herbert noted, 'When we came on a condolence visit and my wife said, "Is it not terrible that Erwin, exactly the same as his father, died by suicide?" Mary angrily shot back, "Erwin died by a heart attack."' Herbert and Lorle Schueller were 'dumbfounded.'" 5 One close friend of Erwin's wrote frankly to her and with sympathy. Werner von Simson was a business friend in Luxemburg, who said, 'Erwin was to me as only a brother can be.' Von Simson had experienced depression himself and empathized with both Erwin and Mary: I went with him, last year and this, through his sudden bewilderment and loss of confidence. Long ago memories of his Father seemed to rise in him

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- but having had a similar experience myself last autumn, I knew and told him that such visions can pass, that you can only wait till they do. I can assure you from this experience that no reasoning, no act of kindness or understanding, can do anything in such a crisis, one knows perfectly well that one has no canon of despair, but that does not help. It is just a loss of confidence, and you cannot live without confidence ... What I can say is that nothing, absolutely nothing you could have done would have been able to help - I know how deep was his love and respect for you, and how much also he knew that you paid a very high price for the happiness you gave him.""

What of David's assertion in his maturity that McGeachy had a personality disorder? For a biographer this is a complicated issue. The people who lived at close quarters with McGeachy knew her intimately, and their experience must be considered the prime evidence for how she behaved in a close relationship. It is undeniable that the Schuller children had an unhappy childhood. Erwin's death must be understood in the context of his own family history and the financial pressures he experienced in the igGos. His letters to his wife during the 19605 include no accusations of neglect, or resentment. On the contrary, there are many tributes of appreciation and love. Was McGeachy really as unpleasant as her children thought? Things could have been worse. The Schuller children had many material benefits. At the outset, McGeachy reunited the siblings and arranged for John's medical care. They lived in comparative ease. They were provided with a good education. At a politically critical time, when the United States was engaged in the Vietnam War, McGeachy resurrected her Canadian citizenship, even though she continued to travel on a British passport, in order for her son also to have Canadian citizenship." 7 McGeachy's life away from the children cannot be characterized as 'psychopathic' in Hare's definition. McGeachy had had to be tough to survive, as a woman, in large, bureaucratic, overwhelmingly male organizations. She had a wide circle of friends and acquaintances and an active social life, and if she seemed at times self-centred, that could be understood in the context of her having to look out for her own selfinterest. Her public relations work for the Ministry of Economic Warfare and as director of welfare for UNRRA displayed her ability for empathy with ordinary people. She had formed close relationships with her siblings and her husband. As for being callous and remorseless, surviving evidence does not support such a judgment.

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With respect to her family life, it would probably have been difficult for any woman, at the age of fifty, to start a new career as a satisfactory mother to two small children who had been seriously traumatized by their own mother's death and their father's absence. As for her husband, Erwin had his own demons. The Schuller tragedies - the children's unhappiness and Erwin's death - were serious misfortunes. Perhaps McGeachy's nature contributed to the difficulties. So did the twentiethcentury gender conventions which required a woman to develop such formidable armour for survival in public life. McGeachy had to live with her failures and her shortcomings. She and Erwin had almost twenty-three years of married life. She lived another twenty-four years as a widow, years filled with activity and achievement. Towards the end of her life, she was fortunate in the kindness which her daughter was able to show towards her. When McGeachy came to the end of her life, it was in her daughter's care. Above all, that was an indication of her daughter's ability to forgive. The fact that McGeachy could accept her daughter's care was a sign also that the older woman was finally able, in some measure, to realign her own expectations of a child's behaviour. She had learned to value her daughter for what she did, rather than for what McGeachy had wanted her to be. During the war, McGeachy had spoken frequently of grace. 'It takes great grace to give acceptably. Perhaps it takes even greater grace to receive.'118

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The International Council of Women

The International Council of Women provided Mary McGeachy with an ideal vehicle for her energy and interests. Joining in South Africa, she rose in the organization and in 1963 was elected president. When Erwin died, she was halfway through her second term. A terse notice was sent to members of the Council: All the friends of our President will be deeply grieved to learn of the sudden loss of her husband, Mr Erwin SCHULLER, in New York on 7'"' July 1967. The President will be attending the meeting of the Executive Committee in London in September, but does not plan to undertake any further travel for the present.1

Hundreds of condolences flowed in. McGeachy thanked them all with a printed appreciation and a copy of Erwin's memorial service in Keene. By the following spring, McGeachy was back into full swing. She obviously found the work congenial. Even though the constitution permitted a maximum of two terms for a president, in 1970 she agreed to a third. At mid-century the International Council of Women could look back on an impressive reputation. Founded in 1888, by 1950 its membership was worldwide, and its mandate was international collaboration for peace and human welfare. During the inter-war years, three distinguished statesmen, General Smuts of South Africa, Prime Minister Benes of Czechoslovakia, and British foreign minister Sir John Simon, each went so far as to salute it as the precursor and mother of the League of Nations."

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The ICW was one of many international women's organizations which over the years had competed and cooperated for attention from governments, associations, and individuals. During the inter-war years, the 'high tide of internationalism,' the ICW had been able to sink its differences with the two other major women's international organizations, the International Alliance of Women and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, to come together in frequent displays of unity before the League of Nations.3 The three survived the war and occasionally cooperated together still; for example, in the Liaison Committee of Women's International Organizations, which had been founded, under another name, in 1925.4 The ICW was an umbrella organization whose members were national Councils of Women. After the creation of the United Nations in 1945, the ICW was accorded consultative status as a non-governmental organization and closely monitored UN policies and actions relevant to women.5 Considered the most conservative of the women's international organizations, it deliberately attempted to be inclusive and nonpolitical. Like most international organizations of the early twentieth century, in its first sixty years its officers were primarily white, middleor upper-class, and Christian, and came from North America or Europe. One of McGeachy's achievements was to hasten the transformation into a more multicultural institution. On a personal level, McGeachy in a sense owed her position in the League to the Council. It was because of the Council's advocacy during the Paris peace talks in 1919 that the Covenant of the League included a sexual equality clause.0 At the League, McGeachy became intimately acquainted with the Council's continuing concerns for women, and she made friends with many of its officers. In 1938 she attended the ICW's fiftieth anniversary conference in Edinburgh as the official representative of the League, and during the war in Britain, McGeachy maintained her personal contacts. After joining the South Africa National Council, McGeachy wrote to her friend Laura Dreyfus-Barney that its members were 'working valiantly in the midst of many handicaps for all their developments, social, hygienic and educational which this country needs. They have a struggle."7 McGeachy gravitated towards the Council's international committee. Within a couple of years, she was appointed as the South African representative to the International Council of Women's Peace and International Relations Committee. Representing the South African National Council, she attended the 1951 ICW triennial meeting in Athens.

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At that meeting, the honorary president, the Belgian Baroness Poel, was impressed by McGeachy's intelligence and charm. She proposed the addition of four non-voting members to the board. One of these first four 'junior' board members, until the next triennial meeting, was McGeachy.8 McGeachy was now a protegee of powerful friends at the top of the organization. Who better than a veteran of the League of Nations, the Ministry of Economic Warfare, and UNRRA to acknowledge the importance of a mentor? After returning from the Athens triennial, McGeachy gave addresses to South African Council members on world events in general.9 In her speeches, two themes were paramount. One was the importance of understanding people of different cultures. That did not mean being soft on communism. In late 1951, when the Cold War was polarizing world politics, she approvingly described the 'creative forces' which Western powers were using in attempts to curtail the influence of communism and to avoid its spread. But she was not closed-minded. It was important to understand Muslim countries. 'We see the Muslim World as a band of anti-Western ideology, stretched from Morocco to Pakistan.' That was a mistake, she said. 'South Africa has many Muslims. We should study this eastern ethical and religious "set-up."'10 McGeachy took pride in her ecumenical friends and colleagues. A second theme was the link between the ICW and the United Nations, heir to the League. In March 1947 the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations had established a tripartite list of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) eligible for consultative status. The ICW was immediately admitted into category B. In category A were organizations which had a basic interest in most of ECOSOC's activities, and were closely linked with the economic or social life of the areas which they represented. Category B contained organizations which had a 'special competence but were concerned specifically with only a few of the fields of activity covered by the Council.' In 1947 there were thirty-two such organizations. The ICW shared this status with its old partner of the 19305, the International Alliance of Women, and with a new rival, the communist Women's International Democratic Federation (WIDF). The following year, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom also attained category B status." The contact turned out to be advantageous to both parties. The UN requested non-governmental organizations such as the ICW to provide information which was not readily available from official sources, and encouraged them to inform public opinion on issues when ratification by governments of UN resolutions was under consideration. The ICW,

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in turn, could present issues and views to the Economic and Social Council and other UN agencies.12 McGeachy did what she could to raise the profile of international affairs in South Africa. 'I have been engaged in forming an international relations study group to be attached to the Johannesburg Local Council ... it is such a pity that there has never been such a group in this city, particularly as it is not really difficult to find a really charming group of younger women who are very keen.1'3 On her annual trips back to North America and Europe, McGeachy cultivated ICW contacts. She met the ICW president, Dr Jeanne Eder, several times after the Athens meeting and showed off her social usefulness as well as her committee manner. 'She came to lunch with me today to meet Mrs Roosevelt and a number of friends.'' 4 As Eleanor Roosevelt was much respected by activist women everywhere in the West, for her achievements, courage, and progressive social views, this could only serve to enhance McGeachy in the eyes of the ICW president. The position of liaison between the ICW and the UN was so attractive to McGeachy that when she moved to Canada in 1954 and joined the National Council of Women of Canada (NCWC), she persuaded the organization to create its own new national liaison position for her.' 5 Her routine could be organized around United Nations conferences. Far from having sacrificed herself completely to her children during the five years in Toronto, McGeachy had in fact carved out a prominent niche in both the national and the international Councils. 'I do hope the group of representatives of ICW there may also make use of you?' asked the ICW president."3 McGeachy turned the new responsibility into a mission to educate Canadian women, and by extension the Canadian public, on international affairs. She wrote accounts of the meetings she attended, and the topics they considered, for the Canadian Council's newsletter. She gave speeches at the organization's executive meetings. At the request of the NCWC's president, she prepared a report on the use of atomic energy.'7 With each report and talk, she could inform her audience, as well as inspire them with thoughts of their own contributions to civil society.'8 As the NCWC's UN liaison officer, McGeachy travelled to New York and attended sessions of the UN Assembly, duly reporting back home in written and spoken reports."' She was becoming known to other countries' liaison officers and their delegates to ICW board meetings, and to staff in the UN. In New York, she formed a close partnership

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with the two American women who served as liaison between the U.S. National Council of Women and the United Nations, Rose Parsons and Alice DeWitt Stetten. Parsons and DeWitt Stetten were impressed by her and along with Dreyfus-Barney became her strongest backers within the ICW. They encouraged McGeachy to consider going on to the ICW board - her junior position had expired in 1954. Parsons had higher hopes for McGeachy, who wrote to Dreyfus-Barney: 'In January last Rose Parsons asked me to stand for nomination for the Presidency to succeed Dr Eder.' In 1956, McGeachy was taken aback to receive another suggestion from the ICW president. 'Dr Eder suggests that I should stand for nomination for Hon. Treasurer ... Whatever gifts I might have that could be of use in an international organization, that of leadership of a financial policy seems to me the most remote."2" Dreyfus-Barney replied that Erwin would be 'amused to see how his reputation radiates on you.' She had a better idea for McGeachy's talents: to inherit her own office as liaison officer of the ICW with the UN, a post in the gift of the board. 'I would remain at your side until you became well acquainted with the ways and requirements of what I have found to be a stimulating and rewarding task.' 21 McGeachy was 'touched' and accepted." At the board meeting held in Montreal in June 1957, the appointment came forward, but not without an interesting comment from Dr Eder. In material she circulated to board members prior to the meeting, she made a personal comment on the nomination. She feared McGeachy might be 'too governmental and diplomatic in her approach to UN and not stand sufficiently for the independence and right of initiative and criticism of NGOs. But this is a matter for our new Board.'a;i The board took the side of Dreyfus-Barney and confirmed the appointment. Leaving Toronto with her family to live in New York in 1959, McGeachy smoothly moved to become an ICW delegate from the U.S. National Council of Women, and a member of the U.S. Council's own executive. Her effectiveness, charm, and efficiency sufficiently marked her out. Again in 1959 she was being considered for nomination as president of the ICW, this time by the British National Council of Women. In the event, the woman first elected in 1957, Marie-Helene Lefaucheux, was confirmed for a second term. 24 McGeachy attended the 1960 ICW triennial meeting in Istanbul. Now on the executive, the following spring she attended a board meeting in Paris, and used the opportunity to travel to Athens, Cairo, London, and

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Brussels as well. In each country, she visited members of the National Council of Women - she was becoming known in wider circles."5 In May 1962 she represented the ICW in Tokyo at a United Nations seminar on the status of women in family law. There was also an ICW board meeting in Rome, where she served as a member of the board executive. Again she used the chance for a larger tour, this time travelling to Hong Kong and Hamburg, as well as London and Paris."" Two signs that McGeachy was increasingly committed to the ICW as an institution, and prepared to put money as well as effort and time at its service, were evident after 1960. Attending ICW meetings was becoming the organizing principle of her year. Her husband's tax returns of 1961 and later show that the Schullers took this for granted. With supporting documentation from the president of the U.S. National Council, the Schullers paid for McGeachy's travelling costs and claimed them as an expense.27 Secondly, at Istanbul in 1960 she became one of seven members of the ICW board to serve on a committee established to prepare a formal history of the organization. It was worth her while to devote considerable energy to the enterprise."8 By 1962 she was clearly in the running for the presidency, but the nomination did not go quite as smoothly as she hoped. In June 1962 the International Council of Women standing committee of the British National Council discussed the nomination of a new international president. 'Mrs Craig-Schuller' was willing to accept nomination, said those present. British committee members thought she would be a suitable candidate for Great Britain to propose 'as she held a British passport and was of Scottish descent.'"'' In August the British president wrote to the Canadian Council to see if it would agree to second.3° McGeachy agreed to let her name stand.^' The Canadians agreed, without notable enthusiasm. 'I rather think that we shall have to support Mrs Schuller,' wrote their president privately to a colleague.32 McGeachy had only recently lived in Canada as a mature woman for four years in the 19505, and the Canadians would probably have preferred to support one of their own long-standing National Council members. A previous Canadian president was more judicious. 'I believe she has the knowledge because her life has taken her to many countries, a clear mind and has the good judgment to make the necessary changes at the right time without creating antagonisms - a good personality.'** A stalwart American supporter of McGeachy was Rose Parsons. Parsons had contemplated running for the presidency herself in 1957 but

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decided against for family reasons, although she continued to be a vicepresident.34 In 1962 she wrote to Dreyfus-Barney, 'Craig, as you know, is one of most able Board members. She has had great experience in all manner of different ways, in Councils and in government work. She realizes the importance of UN throughout our work - and yet is very well aware of the importance of other effective voluntary agencies.' Another presidential candidate, Flavia Gherardesca, was 'a charming hostess' but had little experience with women's organizations and had 'no idea of work in the developing countries.' She would not have the 'constructive, imaginative ideas' of McGeachy.3r> In November, Parsons wrote to Dreyfus-Barney again. 'I have felt personally that nine years is too long for any president to hold office and many people agree with that.' The incumbent president would therefore have to step down. Marie-Helene Lefaucheux was enthusiastic for McGeachy and 'even called up Craig from the airport on her way back to Paris and told her how happy she was.' But then Parsons was appalled to discover that Lefaucheux went back on her word and tried to nominate a candidate from the Philippines. 'We are really disgusted!! - can you blame us. It is what we in the US call "dirty ball" and we are bewildered': Poor Craig is terribly distressed, she is a peace loving person as you well know and is terribly bothered that she should be in the center of all this as she of course has not raised a finger to push her own cause. She feels badly that some of her friends believe that she is at the bottom of the trouble, cooked up with the US Council, when as a matter of fact all the cooking has been done by the British Council.*''

McGeachy had been lobbying for this position for years, obviously with discretion. At the election at the 1963 ICW Washington triennial meeting, McGeachy defeated Gherardesca, an Italian vice-president of ICW, 'by a large majority.'" She was all set for three years of international leadership. She turned out to be an ideas person, as Parsons had hoped, but she also was able to show her mettle as a tough political campaigner. Instead of the maximum six years which was expected, she actually lasted for ten, not by default, but through careful preparation of the ground. All the lessons she had observed and learned as a professional woman in Geneva, London, and Washington, and as a volunteer in national councils and the ICW, were to be tested.

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In 1963 the challenge for anyone involved in world politics, at any level, was the Cold War, the struggle between the United States and Soviet Russia as the two major powers to emerge victorious after the Second World War. Its first theatre of contest was Europe. Russia took over eastern Europe and formed a chain of satellite states, including Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia. After the creation of a Western military alliance in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949 and the division of Germany into a Soviet-dominated East and an independent West there was a rough acceptance of a division of Europe into Russian and American spheres of influence. The next areas of conflict were in the Far East and the Middle East. China was ruled by a Communist party after 1949, and after the Korean War the United States accepted a temporary stalemate in the Far East. By the early 19605, however, the United States became drawn into the defence of South Vietnam from the Communists, and in 1963 the Vietnam War between the United States and North Vietnam was under way. In the Middle East, Britain, after the Suez crisis in 1956, withdrew from its sphere of influence, and a stand-off between Israel and its Arab neighbours rendered peace highly precarious. In Asia, royal and tribal leaders of the Persian Gulf area attempted to maintain a Western alliance against both communist ideas and internal Muslim forces. A third major geopolitical struggle was based in what was loosely termed the Third World: the Caribbean and Latin America, on the one hand, and Africa, on the other. Cuba became communist and its leader, Fidel Castro, permitted the Soviet government to install missiles capable of attacking the United States. After a showdown between Presidents Kennedy of the United States and Kruschev of the Soviet Union the Bay of Pigs incident happened in 1962, only shortly before McGeachy was installed as ICW president - the missiles were withdrawn. In South America, communist movements linked to Soviet Russia gained in credibility. In Africa, the withdrawal of the old European imperialist powers led to internal political struggles in the former colonies and provided an opportunity for the expanding influence of communist parties from both Russia and China. Added tension came when the major powers added atomic weapons to their military capacity. Hopes of peaceful resolution to international conflict focused on the United Nations, but inevitably national delegations to the UN reflected their own Cold War interests. UN staff and some members still harboured the hope that there was another way besides war to arrive at international stability. As official liaison for the

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ICW with the UN, McGeachy never gave up hope in its promise of international understanding. McGeachy was the new president of an organization which claimed to represent women around the world, but it was an organization firmly based in the West. Its triennial meeting in 1963 took place in the capital of the United States. McGeachy was herself a Western personification of the ICW in Cold War terms. Would she reinforce it as an organization representing Western values? Or would she moderate its image and attract new members who wanted to avoid the hardline choices of the Cold War era? During her presidency, McGeachy worked hard to bring in new national Councils of Women from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. By programming regional seminars, she wanted to show that the ICW was relevant for them. At the same time, she cautiously moved towards forging alliances with socialist women represented in the Women's International Democratic Federation. This warily pragmatic approach to the WIDF represented an advance in the thinking of her mentors. Rose Parsons, for instance, had a long history of fighting left-wing women's organizations. 'For several years [1950-1952] I received and read "Soviet Women" and many leaflets distributed very widely by the WIDF from East Berlin. The propaganda in these magazines and leaflets was very clever and appealing to the uninitiated and as usual the free world, especially the U.S., was under constant attack through vituperation.'38 Parsons had organized several women's groups, both within the U.S. National Council of Women and independently, to counteract the WIDF influence. She was able to persuade Eleanor Roosevelt to voice suspicion of the WIDF. In 1960, in her syndicated newspaper column, 'My Day,' Roosevelt wrote of invitations received for an international women's meeting in Copenhagen. 'It will bring together representative Communists from many countries and, almost certainly, some well-intentioned women from non-Communist countries who do not recognize ... that these Communist-dominated groups always end such sessions by advocating certain methods that are wholly distasteful to the democratic areas of the world.'39 In the early 19605, McGeachy herself had been persuaded to avoid a meeting of women with communist links. The Voice of Women, a Canadian women's peace organization, had invited representatives of both the Canadian and U.S. National Councils to attend a conference. Parsons and McGeachy were intending to be present as individuals but were dissuaded by members of the Canadian Council who were con-

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cerned that the meeting would be used 'as a propaganda forum for the Soviet women.'40 Parsons insisted that she did not see a communist under every rug and distanced herself from McCarthyism.4' She considered herself a sincere internationalist and peace lover who did not want to be used by communist propaganda. At the height of the Cold War, it was very difficult to forge a middle way between the two world power blocs. Parsons used her resources of energy and money to try to persuade uncommitted women that their best interests lay in associating with women in the West rather than in the communist countries. McGeachy shared a suspicion of women's organizations supported by communists, but she had less of Parsons's polarized outlook. It is important to be aware of the underlying persistent presence of Cold War realities during the period of McGeachy's presidency. With the collapse of communism in eastern Europe thirty years later, it is easy in hindsight to misunderstand the attitudes of people who were both contemptuous and afraid of the political authoritarianism of communist powers and who thought communism should be resisted. McGeachy's way of dealing with the communist bogey was to show women in unaligned countries that the one of the West's voluntary societies, the International Council of Women, could be valuable and useful for them. She moved to soften the ICW attitude towards socialist women, and she also wished to simplify the internal workings of the organization. McGeachy's presidency is also remarkable for what it did not attempt. In the United States, the women's liberation movement was in its first, exciting years. Educated middle-class women found Betty Friedan's 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique, an exhilarating expression of a widespread unease with the social roles available to them. McGeachy herself had found personal fulfilment within voluntary work, but for the new feminists this was insufficient. They wanted more access to the public roles monopolized by men.42 McGeachy did not try to attract the energy of the women's liberation supporters into the ICW. In the long run, her inability to position the organization within the currents of the new feminism only served to sideline the ICW. In the short run, however, it was not entirely obvious that the new feminists would succeed in their dreams of social and sexual revolution. McGeachy announced her own approach as newly elected president. She would follow the newly emerging idea that politics were not just about wars and boundaries and spheres of influence. In addition, 'the personal is political.' McGeachy was able to harness many of the basic

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ideas of the women's liberation movement, if not its rhetoric. She combined awareness of the value of women with an insistence on her old commitment to community action. 'I believe that the International Council of Women and its National Councils are necessary to wholesome social life and growth today. I believe that the "advancement" which is everywhere being planned and hoped for cannot be achieved by Government action alone, but requires the action of freely organized voluntary bodies.>4S An inaugural speech is not the forum for an original dissertation. McGeachy introduced, very gracefully for her audience of middle-class women, who were mainly but not exclusively educated in the West, her own interpretations of the particular contributions the ICW could make. First was the wide-ranging experience of many traditions and cultures on which the Council could draw. A less commonplace observation was that both the international and the national Councils possessed 'a structure and a method of work which has within it the seed of life and the power of growth.' She meant that each Council was an umbrella organization which contained many different groups and which directed much effort towards seeking points of agreement where the broadest combined effort could be brought to bear. This required individuals to work together. By learning how to work with various interest groups, they could show others how to create synergy. It was the method of working together, as much as specific solutions to problems, which was so valuable. The rhythm of McGeachy's presidency followed existing ICW practice. Every three years there was a plenary conference at which elections for all officers of the ICW board took place, and reports were heard from ICW officers, the ICW standing committees, and the national Councils which were members of the ICW. The plenary conference could admit new national Councils into membership, and delegates would elect a president. At the Washington meeting, the term of the ICW president was clarified - or so people thought. McGeachy's predecessor had served six years. The constitution, most recently amended at Helsinki in 1954, gave a maximum of two triennial periods for the presidency. At Washington this clause was confirmed.44 Triennials were large-scale affairs, organized by the national Council of the host country and attended by hundreds of women. The agenda was organized around a theme, developed by speakers drawn from the membership and outside experts. The latter tended to be ministers of national governments or UN agencies, or internationally recognized

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academics. Open discussion followed the presentations and resulted in conference recommendations to the national councils. Between the triennial meetings, every eighteen months or so, a meeting of the ICW executive was held at different places, and like a triennial it was hosted by a national Council. The executive comprised the ICW board, all the presidents of the national Councils, the convenors of the thirteen ICW standing committees, and permanent representatives of the ICW to the UN and its specialized agencies. In addition, two other categories of people were eligible to attend an executive meeting. There were sixteen members of the ICW Committee of Honour, former officers of the ICW who had been elected to that position; and there were also life members of the ICW. These were individual women who had contributed a large life membership fee. The regular membership of the ICW was organizational, limited to individual countries' national Councils, but the ICW was able to bring in an extra source of income for itself by selling these life memberships. A third committee, the board, met at least once a year and usually more frequently between triennials. Of the sixteen board meetings McGeachy held as president, eight were held at the new permanent headquarters in Paris. The board comprised over thirty officers, drawn from twenty-two countries. Normally about two-thirds to three-quarters of the officers attended the board meetings. Altogether over sixty national Councils comprised the ICW, so that the majority did not have representation on the board. Meetings were livelier than the more formal set-pieces of triennials and executives, and differences of opinion surfaced often. An interesting feature of her 1963 report is a parallel McGeachy drew between the needs of developing countries, and of their women, on the one hand, and the needs of war-torn countries after the Second World War, on the other. The priorities of UNRRA in 1944 and the priorities of the UN and its partners in 1963 were, she wrote, similar. Describing the 19605, designated the 'Decade of Development' by the UN, she brought down to earth what should be involved. 'The first target is the alleviation of hunger.' A second consideration was the opening up of new occupations. Women would have it in their power to create 'new enhancement for the traditional ways of life in agriculture, mining, fishing, forestry; many will be concerned with cherishing traditional values in the midst of radical change in ways and circumstances of living.' McGeachy was impressed by the new ecological environmentalism of writers such as Ester

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Boserup and Rachel Carson. Carson, who had recently published Silent Spring, gave a keynote address to the 1963 ICW Washington conference. Women would also have the opportunity to learn new ways, techniques, skills, and languages. Here the ICW could help developing communities 'to discover and cherish the essence of their own tradition and to seek how ancient values and manners may best serve new opportunities and needs.' Secondary education had to be expanded. Firmly McGeachy declared: 'Fathers, mothers, brothers, uncles and grandparents must be persuaded that, at whatever strain upon family resources and social custom, girls must be given secondary education.'45 McGeachy saw that one function of the ICW was its role as a resource for its members, and for the United Nations itself. The UN Status of Women Commission had long been examining the situation of women in modern society. It was the voluntary organizations which could provide wide-ranging information on how women actually lived. Within the ICW, in 'free association women meet and communicate constantly, not as teacher and pupil, not as missionary and disciple, but as colleagues and friends all bringing their contribution to an ever-growing movement of thought and action ... No Council of Women is so youthful in its organized life that it has not some light to throw upon the problems of humanity with which we are all concerned.'4'' McGeachy saw the ICW's link with the UN as central to its function in the modern world. Six months into her presidency, an ICW position paper described how the Council assisted women in developing countries. In three ways the organization was active, intensely concerned for the practicalities of improving women's way of living. A later generation of philosophers and economists began to address similar problems in a more abstract way in their analysis of civil society.47 First, the ICW took international action at its meetings and seminars. For example, in January 1964 the ICW would meet in Bangkok, in collaboration with UNICEF, to discuss the role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in planning for children and youth in national development. As an ongoing program, the ICW participated in the UNESCO study-tour scheme for women adult education leaders. UNESCO provided bursary and travel costs, while the ICW prepared programs of study for participating women and covered the costs of their maintenance. Secondly, national Councils in industrialized countries undertook development projects. Denmark, for instance, had established a training centre in community development for women from developing coun-

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tries, at which they studied such topics as home economics, hygiene, child-care, and local leadership. The Swiss national Council was fundraising for a women's college in India. The U.S. national Council had established scholarships for secondary school education of girls in Nigeria and Uganda. Thirdly, in developing countries, national Councils contributed to their own development. They organized courses on literacy, home economics, cottage industries, and traditional arts and crafts. They had discussions on topics such as bride-price, marriage, and widowhood. The agenda, of what women wanted and needed, was identified by the countries themselves.48 McGeachy admired her predecessor's success in recruiting over twenty new Councils from developing countries,49 and so she followed suit. After three years there were eight new memberships, all save one from Central and South America, the Middle East, and Asia. In 1970 there were four new African Councils and one from Asia, making the total number of national Councils sixty-five.5" A further two from Asia and one fro m^ Africa joined at her final Council meeting in 1973."'' Every time McGeachy travelled to ICW meetings or to meetings connected with the United Nations and its agencies, where she frequently represented ICW, she made a point of visiting the local national Councils of Women or similar organizations. Wishing to encourage the newly joined Councils, she tried to ensure representation for them in ICW positions but found herself thwarted by long-standing ICW officers. For instance, in 1969 she wanted the board to nominate a woman from the relatively new Council of Colombia to the Committee of Honour. The treasurer objected. Membership of that committee was to honour women who had served on the board. 'Madame de Mendoza has been on the Board only a short time as co-opted member and has never been at a meeting of the Board in Paris.'5" Partly in order to make ICW meetings more accessible to women from Latin America, McGeachy was happy to receive the application of the National Council of Women of Peru to host the 1973 triennial meeting. When her board voted in favour of Vienna instead, she did not hesitate to say it was 'a strategic error.' There would be 'inevitable repercussions of this choice in Latin America as a whole, where without doubt the national Councils would feel left out, isolated, and disappointed.'53 She later wrote a letter expressing her personal disapproval of the board's decision. Some board members said they were 'shocked' at the letter. She, in turn, responded by a coded reference to some of

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the opposition she had been meeting within the organization. 'Her only wish was that Board members should remain true and loyal friends.' 54 One point of contention in the later 19605 was McGeachy's attitude towards the Women's International Democratic Federation. The WIDF was founded in 1945 as 'an expression of the desire of women all over the world to join forces against war and oppression and misery and to build a world of freedom, justice and peace.' Its cause was to win and defend women's rights as 'citizens, mothers and workers for the protection of children, the preservation of peace, democracy and national independence.' r ' 5 Its ostensible aims were congruent with those of the ICW, but, as Rose Parsons had noted, it was a communist organization with funding from Moscow and was able to subsidize the work and travel of delegates to its meetings. The outgoing 1963 president firmly stated that the WIDF was a political organization, whereas the ICW was a non-governmental organization, not permitted by its constitution to be 'political.'5" During the 19605, however, the term was under review. McGeachy wanted to be carefully conciliatory. At McGeachy's first board meeting as president, the issue came up. After hearing reports from seven board members of 'experiences with communist and leftist women's organizations and individual communist women,' the board decided to let national Councils accept or decline invitations as they pleased." McGeachy took a decidedly new direction when two years later she attended a meeting of women's non-governmental organizations in Geneva. McGeachy agreed to preside but was not reassured by what she learned. The WIDF or its new sister organization the Liaison Bureau whose name deliberately evoked the long-standing Liaison Committee of women's international organizations dating back to the 19205 - 'revealed themselves as being really rootless, that is representing no broad affiliation, as being interested in the most general remarks about the position of women, and as relying upon methods of general publicity to deal with these problems. All of our organizations have advanced far beyond this conception of the role of an NGO.'r'8 However, the thaw continued. In September 1967 the board, referring to the consultative status enjoyed by the WIDF with the UN, agreed that ICW could accept future invitations from the WIDF.59 But in 1968 a sharper tone was heard. Some board members considered that the ice should melt faster. Frangoise Dissard was a French civil servant and law professor, a vice-president of the French National Council of Women.

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She was unimpressed by the standard distinction between the ICW as an NGO and the WIDF as a political organization. At the Paris board meeting of April 1968, she suggested the time had come to consider ICW relations with associations of women working directly with their governments, 'such as those in certain countries of Eastern Europe. She pointed out that there was little difference between the status of those associations and that of several ICW affiliates.' McGeachy pressed the board to define criteria for appropriate organizations. They came up with two general tests: independence of action and the right to refuse to participate in activities; and a freely elected executive body which controlled the funds of the association even when the money was received from government sources. McGeachy encouraged the board to consider the subject with 'prudence but goodwill."'0 The board agreed to send an ICW representative to a WIDF world congress of women scheduled for Helsinki in 1969, provided that the representative would read a prepared text, which could not be misquoted.6' By the time of the next board, in March 1969 in Paris, a rapprochement with left-wing women was displaced by open rivalry. In the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the UN a thoroughgoing enquiry was under way. All NGOs were being examined. The previous tripartite division of categories A, B, and C was retained but renamed as I, II, and III."2 The ICW had been confirmed in the new category II. To ICW alarm, it looked as though the WIDF might be awarded category I. The board unanimously agreed that ICW should apply for category I.1'3 McGeachy embarked on an intensive campaign to save the honour of ICW. The ICW's link with the UN was, she considered, central to its function in the modern world. It was also the place where a struggle for the commitment of women's organizations to either the Western-centred ICW or the Soviet-influenced WIDF was most apparent. The ICW applied to ECOSOC for a change in status to category I, but 'the representative of the USSR exerted every effort to keep our letter off the Agenda of the Committee.'64 Individual committee members were kept ignorant of the ICW request. With the support of Soviet allies Bulgaria and Tanzania, the USSR ensured that all mention of the ICW application was kept out of the report on membership prepared for ECOSOC. McGeachy had to find alternative means of drawing the attention of ECOSOC to ICW's request. During a two-week period, she personally lobbied directly almost all members of ECOSOC - ambassadors for the

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most part. She telephoned them individually and arranged for them to receive publicity about ICW work. As a consequence, the French representative proposed the change in status for ICW and gained enough support to extract a statement from the USSR that they would not object. Her back-room work had paid dividends. It was an improvement in status for the ICW. As of the end of December 1969, only sixteen international organizations had category I rank, of which only two were women's organizations: the same status was also confirmed for the Women's International Democratic Federation.1'5 McGeachy remained cautious in developing ties with groups which she thought could not be described as 'non-governmental.' Her personal opinion was that government-sponsored and government-financed groups in communist countries were not to be compared with organizations such as the ICW. She resented their achieving standing as NGOs with the United Nations. After she had ceased to be president, she commented in a speech on voluntary organizations at the UN: 'As for the Communist representatives, not only did they not understand the meaning and thrust of non-governmental organization work; they regarded an NGO Statement as an unfair way of adding force to the position taken by delegations of capitalist states.'1'" The new category I was a personal victory for McGeachy, and she used it in the ICW to good effect. Dissard was on a committee looking to revise the constitution, and McGeachy was able to finesse the review committee. In contention was the length of the president's term. Before the triennial period 1954-7, all officers of the board and the president could have a maximum of three terms of three years each.1'7 At the 1957 triennial meeting at Montreal, Jeanne Eder retired as president after nine years. Her successor, Lefaucheux, was not universally popular: British members were trying to find a replacement nomination after only two years."8 Lefaucheux was re-elected at Istanbul in 1960, but a committee to review the ICW constitution was also appointed. At Rome in May 1962, the executive agreed to shorten the president's term formally to two terms, subject to Council approval at the next triennial."9 That was scheduled for Washington, where McGeachy was elected president, but discussion on a possible revised constitution was postponed.7" In 1965, the British National Council of Women nominated McGeachy for a second term, and at Tehran in 1966 she was reelected president without opposition.7' The next attempt to clarify the issue, in 1967, led to a direct challenge to McGeachy.

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At the April 1967 board meeting, Astri Rynning, a judge, president of the National Council of Women of Norway, and an ICW vice-president, suggested the establishment of a committee to review the constitution in order to avoid partial and constant revisions and 'enable overall reflection.' There would be three members: herself, Frenchwoman Franchise Dissard, and a British woman, Nora Deane. At the same meeting, Rynning nominated as non-voting member of the board an eminent Finnish lawyer, the current president of the UN Status of Women Commission, Helva Sipila.72 ICW staff immediately recognized Sipila as a woman who wanted to be ICW president. When she could not attend the April 1968 board meeting, the ICW general secretary wrote to McGeachy: 'What a pity Mrs Sipila will not be coming to the Board meeting. Is she not in the running for President any longer?"™ Sipila made clear that she thought the ICW could do with a new broom. Not without reason, she was appalled at its budget, which in March 1969 showed estimated income met less than half estimated expenditures.74 She castigated the ICW's structure and methods of work as 'complicated and old-fashioned. >7r > In 1969 she declared herself a candidate for the presidency.7" Meanwhile, the constitution review committee agreed to a two-term limit for a president. The Paris board meeting of March 1969 voted in favour.77 It was unclear whether the restriction would operate for McGeachy, the incumbent. She had been elected at a time when there was talk of restricting the presidential term, but no firm decision had been taken. Moreover, in 1969 she was receiving expressions of support for a third term as president. The National Council of Women of France was not about to support Dissard's view. The Council sent a letter dated March 1969 to the ICW asking McGeachy to prolong her mandate.78 In September 1969, Nora Deane's British Council was, she reported, 'preparing to pull the draft Constitution to pieces.'79 The following month, the British president wrote to McGeachy expressing regret at an extensive revision of the constitution.80 The issue of presidential terms was interpreted as a vote of confidence in McGeachy as president. The attitude one will take to revision of this article of the constitution will depend on one's wish to keep our present president or not.'8' Sipila and another candidate were up for president, but McGeachy had made herself look very good by her promotion of the category I status for the ICW at the ECOSOC in the summer of 1969.

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At the triennial Council meeting in Bangkok, the board met to consider the draft constitution again before it would be put before the executive on i February. On Friday, 30 January, McGeachy, chairing the meeting, heard an expression of opinion that 'there was a strong recommendation that a President, holding such an important office and with time and experience in contacting national Councils, increasing her importance to ICW, should not have her term of office limited.' Refusing to acknowledge that the matter had already been settled by the Paris board meeting of March 1969, she put a question to the vote. 'Did the Board want provision made in the Constitution for the President to have three successive terms of office?' Seven voted in favour, one against, and there were two abstentions. Seeing that the weight of opinion was shifting in favour of McGeachy and her third term, over the weekend the two presidential candidates withdrew. The board met again in the evening of 2 February. A vicepresident, Dr Dolatshahi of Iran, was in the chair. The board recommended to the executive that McGeachy be invited to remain in office until such time as a new president could be elected.8" McGeachy had got her way. From one of the ICW vice-presidents, Ketty Stassinopoulou of the National Council of Women of Greece, McGeachy received congratulations. Now, in May, Stassinopoulou could say, '... none of the two candidates - on my humble opinion - had the synthesis of qualifications required for the ICW President: General Education, International experience, personality, initiative, and a certain decorum. Something was always missing.'8^ Eventually the constitution included a restriction to a maximum of six years - but not until after McGeachy had enjoyed her third term. McGeachy's continuing tenure was not without its difficulties. Sipila and her friends raised important and bothersome issues, primarily on the topic of finance and also with respect to relations between ICW and other women's organizations. McGeachy did not let their opposition cramp her style. McGeachy loved to travel. Ever since her League days, she had discovered that she enjoyed speaking in public, both impromptu and to a text, and she was good at preparing appropriate speeches of intelligence and good judgment. She was the official representative of an important organization at meetings and seminars arranged by the United Nations and its agencies. She was treated with courtesy and respect, and came in contact with people who had the confidence of governments and NGOs like her own. She could meet officials of national Councils

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of Women everywhere she went, and they often entertained her in their homes. This was the life she found most pleasant, and for which she valued the presidency. Only someone who positively relished travelling would undertake her schedule. In 1964, for instance, she was at a board meeting in Paris in January and in May attended a United Nations seminar on human rights in developing countries in Kabul, Afghanistan, visiting Beirut on the way. In June she was back in Paris attending a UNESCO meeting and then went to Geneva for meetings of the International Labour Organization and the World Council of Churches. These were followed by ICW board and executive meetings at Interlaken. McGeachy liked to keep July and August free for Keene. There she caught up on correspondence and the writing of reports, and was in continual contact with the ICW secretaries in Paris. In 1967, before July, she spent more time away from New York than at home. Erwin was himself taking business trips, generally about one a year to Europe and one to South America, each lasting two or three weeks. Towards the end of January, McGeachy left for a four-week tour of South America. When she came back, Erwin had left for his business trip to Europe. After his return, they had about a month together in New York before McGeachy went to a board meeting in Paris; then she visited Belgium, Tunisia, and Malta before giving a speech at a meeting room in the British House of Commons in late April. In June she spent a short time in Canada and was in Montreal for a meeting of the National Council of Women of Canada. The Schullers planned a joint visit to Keene in early July, but that did not materialize. Erwin died. From then on, McGeachy was on her own. Much of the internal criticism McGeachy received after 1970 concerned the ICW budget. The president's travel expenses were not under attack. Helva Sipila was McGeachy's sharpest critic but also interested in office herself. She stressed that the ICW should finance the journeys of its president.84 The haphazard accounts of the ICW did not allow too close a scrutiny of individual items of expenditure or income. The operating budget was financed by contributions from national Councils of Women. In addition, the ICW had assets which provided income from investments. In 1964 the capital in the various funds was augmented by a legacy from the estate of Renee Girod, a former nurse who had qualified as a medical doctor in her native Geneva. She was acting president of the ICW during the Second World War. Inheriting money from her family, at her death in 1962 she left the bulk of her fortune to the ICW.8r>

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When McGeachy became president, the ICW embarked on a significant capital project.8'" The headquarters was to be located permanently in Paris, rather than move to the city where the president resided. Money was provided by two benefactors: DeWitt Stetten and DreyfusBarney, both of whom were known to the board but who preferred to remain anonymous to others in the ICW.87 After two years, when the Paris office was found to be too small, it was sold and a larger property purchased. Again, much of the cost was defrayed by Dreyfus-Barney.88 Meanwhile, the operating costs of the ICW were increasing, and its income from national Councils was not keeping pace. The problem was exacerbated throughout the 19608 by the admission of new national Councils who frequently could not afford the ICW levy. Members from the contributing Councils were resentful but reluctant to appear unwelcoming to the new Councils. 'We from Canada were concerned to learn that several Councils have not paid their fees for some years and yet they enjoy all the privileges of full membership, including voting and electing their members to the executive ... there are still 17 Councils in arrears. We thought this was a situation that should not be allowed to continue but we did not make our views known.'89 In New York the National Council of the United States allocated a small amount of office space to McGeachy in their own office, where she employed a part-time secretary to do ICW paper work. Expenses were met by another anonymous donor.9" Whenever the ICW experienced a deficit - every year during McGeachy's terms - money was taken from the various capital endowments, and individual benefactors came through with gifts. Of these the most generous and dependable was Dreyfus-Barney. In 1969, when Sipila was a declared candidate for the presidency, she identified the budget as a big problem. When a 1969 budget was presented to the board, with an estimated expenditure of 122,000 Swiss francs and estimated income of less than half that amount, of SF 54,650, she called it 'unrealistic.' 9 ' Not for the first time, suggestions were made how to increase income. Even with individual acts of generosity, the ICW had run up an accumulated deficit of SF 92,000 by 1970, and cash flow to meet office expenses was becoming a recurrent problem.9'" It was hard for the old-timers on the board to share Sipila's sense of urgency. At the 1970 Paris board meeting, discussion of the budget continued over several days. Before the end of the meeting, 'Mrs DeWitt Stetten reported that she had that morning discussed finance with Mrs Dreyfus-Barney, who had then authorized the Treasurer to determine the sum necessary to cover the 1970 deficit and to borrow this, without

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interest, from the Barney ICW Capital Fund.'93 A fairy godmother again saved the day. The issue of the budget showed how important was the support of experienced, rich, and elderly ladies for McGeachy as president. Without their money, as well as their help, she would have been much more vulnerable to the searching questions of Sipila. When DeWitt Stetten died in 1972, McGeachy lost one of these loyal friends. Dreyfus-Barney could not be expected to bankroll the ICW for much longer; but there was doubtless hope of a legacy too. On the board, serious concern about the budget spread beyond Sipila. Mehrangiz Dolatshahi, a former civil servant and current politician in Iran, a frequent Iranian delegate to United Nations commissions and meetings, and ICW vice-president since 1966, was planning to run as ICW president in 1973. She began to ask searching questions about income, expenses, and accounting methods.94 Little substantial improvement occurred before McGeachy ceased to be president, but the topic was aired extensively. Two other issues predominated during McGeachy's last term. McGeachy arranged for regional seminars in Africa and South America. The ICW and the National Council of Women of Cameroon jointly sponsored a regional seminar in January 1972 in Yaounde, Cameroon, on the theme 'Planning for Better Family Living,' and women from all parts of Africa attended, their costs defrayed by funds made available by the government of Cameroon. Later that year, partly to compensate for the refusal of the ICW board to agree to Peru rather than Vienna for the Councils triennial meeting, McGeachy arranged another international conference at Lima, on the theme 'Human Resources for Development.' McGeachy received grants for both conferences from the United Nations Fund for Population Activities.95 The other issue was left over from Sipila's insistent attempts to render the ICW more relevant. McGeachy's attitude was that relevance was shown in the context of the United Nations consultative status and Third World development. Sipila wished to find points of contact between the ICW and two other European women's organizations: ICW's old rival, the International Alliance of Women, and its newer one, the WIDF. Sipila thought that the ICW and the LAW could be more dynamic if they acted together, and there should be cooperation even with the WIDF. To this end, she suggested a radical simplification of the ICW constitution to be presented to the Vienna triennial.9''

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In the event, a more moderate constitutional revision was presented at Vienna. Sipila's efforts to increase the pace of cooperation with the WIDF bore little fruit. Just before leaving office, McGeachy was reporting that WIDF had invited the ICW to send representatives to one of its meetings, but that the invitation had been received 'too late' for ICW to attend.'*7 As in the League Secretariat, the Ministry of Economic Warfare, and UNRRA, as president of the ICW, McGeachy could never take success and support for granted. Her longevity is a tribute to the lessons she had learned. She had some real achievements with the ICW. A vicepresident wrote good wishes in 1966. 'It was you who led the ICW into the modern time and thus into the burning problems of women. I admire you for this and I am happy to know that others share this admiration and devotion.' ()8 McGeachy's steady emphasis on development and on the link with the United Nations was completely right: what other use 'in the modern time' would there be for an international body which neglected either issue? It remained for subsequent presidents to achieve a more sensible and smooth institutional structure and procedure, but McGeachy always believed that the office was there to serve the policy, not the other way around. Anyway, while she was president a financial benefactor in the form of Laura Dreyfus-Barney was always there as a providential figure. If it was right for the ICW to broaden its vision to include other cultures, it was also appropriate for the organization to fulfil its original inclusive vision of an international united womanhood with respect to the discontented and newly articulate middle-class women who were flocking to the banners of women's liberation. The ICW lost a chance to offer these women an organizational home. McGeachy was offended by the new feminists' vulgar confrontational tactics and unladylike demeanour. She was of a different generation. 'I was a women's libber before these women were even born and I didn't have to burn my bra,' she would say to her daughter." The ICW lost an opportunity to rejuvenate its membership at a key point in its history. At the end of her presidential term, McGeachy was able to reflect on her lifetime involvement with the concept of a civil society.100 Giving the Bertha Solomon Memorial Lecture in South Africa in 1973, McGeachy noted that people created voluntary societies because they had a shared aspiration for a way of life in their communities. 'Implicit

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in their action is the idea that society needs for its wholesome development more than the government of elected or appointed authority, more than assured legal process, more than a competent civil service. It needs the vigilance of the citizen, his enthusiasm, his concern for the quality of everyday life, his disposition to inquire into meanings, to try new methods, to bring the judgments of morality to bear upon traditional behaviour.' The boundaries of the majority of volunteer organizations were local or, at most, national. But in the twentieth century, many shared a vision of international peace, and pursuit of peace required individuals and groups to look beyond national boundaries. McGeachy was aware that the concept of a non-governmental organization was not always well understood, especially by people who lived in totalitarian states. She thought it was imperative that international NGOs in consultative status with United Nations bodies should be freely organized bodies. 'They would lose their essence if they failed to maintain this freedom.'"" A model NGO was Amnesty International, 'devoted to rescuing victims of injustice, "prisoners of conscience," in every part of the world. Understandably, this action is applauded when directed toward Portugal, South Africa, Rhodesia (as, indeed, it should be). It receives quite different comment, however, when it is directed toward a socialist country of Europe or some West African countries.' Here she was echoing her indignation over the issue of consultative status of 1969. McGeachy recognized the injustice of apartheid but at the same time acknowledged the difficulties of people who lived in South Africa or elsewhere under a tyrannical regime. They were in a dilemma. They could leave, as she had, or they could try and work to change from within. McGeachy gave support to those who tried to change from within.102 McGeachy's ultimate justification for voluntary organizations was that they engendered and developed the skills of 'an enlightened citizenry,' something which was necessary for democracy to flourish. Voluntary organizations helped make democracy healthy, and allowed democracy to work. McGeachy's last year of service to the ICW was not 1973. Keeping a position on the ICW board, she reverted to her former position as liaison officer to the UN. She faithfully attended UN meetings in New York and elsewhere well into the igSos. McGeachy's immediate agenda after Vienna was full. In October 1973 there was another regional conference to attend, this time in Sydney,

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Australia. Before then, at the age of seventy-one, she moved house. In Princeton, New Jersey, within easy travelling distance from New York, she had friends and acquaintances who had settled there with part of the League Secretariat in 1940. McGeachy's new regime began in Princeton in September 1973. It still included many of the perks she so enjoyed - travelling, and mingling with United Nations delegates and staff. 'There was always a flavour of the diplomat about her as President of the International Council of Women,' noted the son of 'Whiskers,' her wartime boss, David Bowes-Lyon.'°s McGeachy continued to identify with the diplomatic role until her death.

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'I was aware she was a deep Christian believer,' said McGeachy's old friend Iverach McDonald. 'She always needed a larger vision of humankind. That's what interested her. One can't understand her unless you realize that ... She was always seeking a wider view and a meaning in life." After McGeachy retired from the presidency of the International Council of Women and moved to Princeton, she had more time for herself. She kept responsibility for ICW liaison with the United Nations and continued to attend meetings in New York. At the same time, she turned her attention to her local parish community and to a lay women's order in the Anglican Church. Religious faith had always held her imagination. McGeachy's brother-in-law Wendell Macleod knew that the McGeachy family was raised by members of the Plymouth Brethren, and in his opinion the children were rebels. He considered they were happy to escape the social puritanism of their household in Sarnia.2 That may have been true with regard to his wife, Jessie, but Mary McGeachy never expressed resentment at her upbringing. She did not remain a Gospel Hall worshipper. She and Erwin were married in the Church of England, and during the years in South Africa, McGeachy was confirmed in the Anglican Church. When visiting Keene, she attended the little Episcopalian church of St Hubert, open only during the summer, and for the rest of the year she attended services at the bigger Congregationalist church where Erwin's memorial service was held and where eventually her own funeral took place. Iverach McDonald considered her journey towards Anglicanism another manifestation of her search for a larger and more accommodating view of the meaning of life.

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The most open confession of McGeachy's youthful faith was written for the Canadian Student at the end of her undergraduate years at the University of Toronto. As a typical member of the Student Christian Movement, she asked what was the appropriate relationship between political action and personal faith? She thought there was a necessary relationship between faith and social action, expressed in a philosophy of optimism and acceptance. She admired the social and political activist J.S. Woodsworth, a pioneer in establishing settlements for immigrants in Western Canada and later founder of a left-wing political party, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. To him, faith had to be carried out in work among the poor and disadvantaged - otherwise it was hypocrisy. Woodsworth became alienated from institutional religion and quit his Methodist Church in exasperation at its reluctance to embrace the poor, and pacifism, at the time of the Great War. During the 1919 labour unrest widespread throughout North America, many Christians questioned their membership in mainstream churches which appeared to cater more for the capitalists and the rich than for labourers and the poor. In her religious thinking, McGeachy identified the personal relationship between a believer and God as the central issue. In this, she drew on the Bible study benefits of her Student Christian Movement mentor, Dr Sharman. She was also echoing youthful lessons from her evangelist father. Every student involved in the fledgling SCM must at some time have asked McGeachy's 1924 question. 'How is a person living a private life with no political connection or influence to affect labour strikes, racial antagonism or war? How is one amid the crowding details of everyday life ... to play any definite part in the establishment of Jesus' way of life among men?' Like many of her generation, McGeachy shared the conviction of the SCM, and Woodsworth, that the kingdom of God could and should be established on earth. She was no doctrinaire in how this would be accomplished. 'The Kingdom of God does not require organizations or programmes. It needs people.' McGeachy understood that her contemporaries had little patience for self-denial or obedience to authority for its own sake. But, she asserted, 'consecration of self to God, and living Jesus' way of life does not mean the limiting of one's development.' All was not simple or easy. 'Choices must still be made ... But you walk over the stones and through the briars hand in hand with one who bore a cross.' Each person must discover Jesus 'as an intimate friend, an unfailing compan-

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ion.' Emotional commitment was necessary. 'All intellectual appreciation of Jesus' way, all smooth theories of the loving fatherhood of God, can never touch our lives in any vital way until they are given meaning by personal contact with this man, Jesus.' Committed as McGeachy was to democracy, international cooperation, and a just society, she believed that 'world issues ... are in reality lesser considerations in the programme for the establishment of the Kingdom of God.'3 Nothing in McGeachy's profession of faith at that time would represent a rebellion against Donald McGeachy's preaching. She soon lost these certainties. During her Hamilton years, McGeachy's religious ideas abandoned a confident embrace of Jesus' way of life.' In November 1926, she told Wendell Macleod she was convinced the SCM watchwords such as 'social gospel,' 'evangelization of the World,' and 'unselfish service' were 'utterly untrue, intellectually and certainly morally.' For her, 'these things have never touched one inner note.' She even turned against the SCM conferences with their group prayers which 'hold no context for a rational mind.' 4 She became disaffected by SCM committees and the conceit she saw in some of the members. 'Imagine the soul that gets more out of a committee to which he is named chairman ... than reaching out to know the thing that lies behind the eyes of the "unfortunate" whom he is going to re-form to his own mechanical idea of living.'r> McGeachy's two years in Hamilton led to some religious alienation. In the little sketch she drew for Wendell to show her major interests there was, to her surprise, no church. 'That has just occurred to me,' she wrote in 1927. 'I have no such permanent connection.'6 After the mid-ig2os, she left evangelical enthusiasm behind her. But she continued to find solace in Christianity. During the Second World War, McGeachy used the resources of her religion to inspire and comfort others. In the first month as director of welfare at UNRRA, on 25 February 1944, she made a radio address on the 'World Day of Prayer' program, which was broadcast by CBS throughout the United States at a peak hour between 5:30 and 5:45 P.M. Deliberately generalizing away from any sectarianism, she used language resonant of the New Testament without sounding too biblical or pious. McGeachy reminded her listeners that 'many thousands of people are pausing to think of themselves in relation to something higher, to measure their work by a standard stricter than man's measure, to aspire to the eternal hope for the dawn of the Kingdom in the hearts of men.' She was reminded of her experience during the previous year. She had

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met many people in territory occupied by the enemy. She knew how many held on to their own 'secret strength' against the harshness and sorrow of wartime. It was important for them to know that others remembered them, so that 'we are all knit together.' She expressed her own optimism. 'The occupation has in a real sense been defeated; for it has not succeeded in destroying love, faith and hope in the hearts of the people.' She recognized and dignified the kindness of ordinary people. Hitler 'has not been able to prevent [people] from helping our fliers when they come down there, giving them food from their own spare rations, risking life to secrete them out of the country.' She avoided the trap of righteousness. 'I know that whatever we may give to the people who have resisted and kept whole their integrity, their faith and their charity under occupation, we shall, on balance, be on the receiving side of the transaction ... This is the gift the Occupied Countries hold for us.' 7 McGeachy had the ability to translate gospel lessons into simple language and to evoke images of daily life which thousands could understand. She could personalize and generalize the difficulties of war for American people who did not know first-hand the terrors of occupation. The Anglican Church had a broad accommodation for a great variety of theological nuances. McGeachy felt at home in the Anglican Church, and when she and Erwin decided to get married, they chose the little church of St Peter-in-the-East, Oxford. An old building surrounded by graveyard, trees, and flowers, located in a narrow, winding backstreet of Oxford, St Peter's no longer functions as a church. Brasenose College iii the University of Oxford has taken it over as a library, and nowadays students enter the gothic entrance by a security card key. During the war, however, it was still a parish church. McGeachy and Erwin were staying nearby, in the warden's lodgings of All Souls College. The warden, George Adams, was one of the witnesses to the marriage. The order of service was out of the Book of Common Prayer. They sang a hymn, a psalm, and an anthem: 'God be in my head, And in my understanding; God be in mine eyes And in my looking; God be in my mouth And in my speaking; God be in my heart And in my thinking; God be at mine end, And at my departing.'8 The Schullers remained naturally attached to the place where they were married. They decided that when they died, they would be buried there, and McGeachy was worried about this understanding after Erwin's death in New York in 1967. His body was cremated, and she kept his ashes, intending at some time to take them over to Oxford. When she

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moved to Princeton in 1973, the ashes moved with her. She told the Reverend Orley Swartzentruber, her new parish priest in Princeton, of her quandary, and he suggested she bury the ashes in the cemetery at Princeton. 'Craig, you haven't finished grieving for him as long as you have his ashes,' he told her. Erwin was buried in Princeton.9 St Peter-in-the-East continues to remember generations of Schullers. Near to the church, Erwin and his brother erected a memorial in the name of their mother, who died in 1946, and their father, deceased in 1931. An additional stone commemorates Erwin himself and then his brother, who died in 1997. After moving to Johannesburg in 1947, McGeachy, the evangelist's daughter, was drawn more into the Anglican Church. Politics as well as religion influenced her decision. Officials in the Anglican Church of South Africa protested against the policy of apartheid introduced after the Nationalist Party came to power in 1948. In that same year, the bishop of Johannesburg, Geoffrey Clayton, was elected as archbishop of Cape Town, and before he left Johannesburg he spoke out against the new policies. He reminded his listeners that the Anglican Church believed that people should hold certain rights secured to them by the state. 'Among such rights are security of life and person, the right to work, to bring up a family, and to possess personal property; the right to freedom of speech, of discussion and association, and to accurate information; and to full freedom of religious life and practice, and that these rights belong to all men irrespective of race or colour.' 10 After 1948 the Anglican Church, through its Episcopal Synod, found itself 'opposing, not only actions, but the fundamental philosophy of the rulers of South Africa.''' By the time the Schullers were preparing to leave South Africa, the Anglican Church had declared its belief that apartheid was morally wrong and politically impracticable.12 Throughout the early 19505, the actual practice of individual Church leaders and the behaviour of congregations in parishes was not always consistent with the official policy. Members of the government and people who belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church, which supported apartheid, could and did accuse the Anglicans of hypocrisy and inconsistency. ' 3 Trevor Huddleston, who arrived in South Africa in 1943 to look after Anglican missions in black parts of Johannesburg, pointed out that within the Anglican Church in South Africa there was 'enough colour prejudice, enough uncharitableness and enough sheer blindness to lose its influence over the African people in the next generation or less ...

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That fearful barrier of respectability which so often grows up around even the most devout and devoted churchgoer is even more evident, and more difficult to penetrate, in South Africa, where it rests not only upon class but on colour.'' 4 Like the Institute of Race Relations, to which the Schullers belonged, the Anglican Church was in the perplexing position of any liberals caught between doctrinaire and totalitarian options. The Church and the Institute felt obliged to do what they could to register disapproval of the policies of white supremacy and work against them. Consequently there was discomfort for people who wanted to continue to live in South Africa under a regime which compromised them at every turn. McGeachy's volunteer energies spread to the Anglican Church in Johannesburg. Among her Anglican friends were members of the diplomatic and business communities belonging to the highest social circles. She found herself asked to do traditional female jobs: to raise money for Anglican missions located in black areas of the city and to organize bazaars. During the busy year of 1952, when the Schullers adopted the two children, McGeachy agreed to serve on the governing body of a hospital with an Anglican connection, the Jane Furse Hospital. She had a continuing interest in theology and liked the moral and intellectual leadership of Trevor Huddleston, who was prepared to draw more radical conclusions than most other South African Anglicans of the time. 'Next year Father Huddleston is going to give a series of noon hour Lenten lectures' in St Alban's Church. That will, I think, bring new life,' she wrote to Erwin.' r > Huddleston later excoriated his fellow Anglicans for their failure 'to live by the faith which they profess.'"' McGeachy tried. Her confirmation as an Anglican was a public declaration of both political and religious solidarity. Her friend Charlotte Parker, wife of the retired bishop of Pretoria, wrote: 'I do know this step will give you even greater happiness than you have had so far in your life.' 17 While McGeachy lived in Johannesburg, she formed a friendship with a French Roman Catholic nun, Sister Marie-Andre du Sacre-Coeur, a member of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa, and maintained a correspondence with her for the next thirty years. Sister MarieAndre was no cloistered religious. In 1924 she had earned a doctorate in law from the University of Lille, and she spent twenty-five years as a social worker, nurse, and researcher in Africa. She later taught sociology at the Centre for Asian and African Studies in Paris and repre-

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sented the World Union of Catholic Women's Organizations in seminars organized by the United Nations.'8 She wrote extensively on family law in West Africa and produced a history of the martyrs of Uganda for the Vatican.'9 Sister Marie-Andre and McGeachy exchanged pleasantries, wrote about mutual friends in the International Council of Women, and wished each other seasonal greetings at Christmas time. Sister Marie-Andre always included observations about religion in her letters, and recommended religious writings to McGeachy. Towards the end of her life (Sister Marie-Andre died in 1988), she asked McGeachy to pray for her that she would be 'ready and happy to answer to the call of Our Lord.'20 Only two years younger than the nun, McGeachy could recognize this hard-working, educated, and intelligent woman as a kindred Christian spirit. In 1978, Sister Marie-Andre referred to McGeachy's 'work as a deacon. '*' A deacon is a lower order of the Church. When priests are ordained, they must first be ordained deacon. In the 19705, the Episcopalian (Anglican) Church in the United States, as elsewhere in the world, was in the throes of a debate over the admission of women to the priesthood. In her Princeton parish, McGeachy became the instrument for a reconciliation of opposing views on an issue which raised strong emotion. Princeton in the nineteenth century was an old Calvinist town dominated by Presbyterians and members of the Dutch Reform church. The Episcopalians arrived by the middle of the century and established a church, named Trinity. Rebuilt several times, by the twentieth century the congregation worshipped in a low stone building resembling an old English church. McGeachy originally attended Trinity after her move to Princeton in 1973 but did not feel comfortable. She migrated to All Saints Church, where the families were younger and many tended to be commuters to New York. She preferred this church, she told its priest, because there were so many young children: it seemed to have more life." McGeachy rapidly augmented the life that was there. She joined a women's Bible study group and became in effect its leader. 'It didn't take any group long to discover she was the superior person present,' said her rector. 'She was a spiritual leader, and she was also a social leader.' At the time, the controversy over women's ordination was in full swing. There was a vocal group of conservatives, and another of

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progressives, and an 'angry and sullen middle group who wished the others would go away. People said I had a bias against women,' said the rector. He had voted against admitting women to the priesthood, but, he said, he was not one of the hardliners.2^ Father Swartzentruber sought to defuse the disagreements. He and the parishioners knew McGeachy as Craig Schuller. 'I had this idea that Craig would be a wonderful chalice bearer.' So in 1977, as rector, he placed McGeachy, fully vested in ceremonial clothing, serving by the altar, for all the world looking like a priest, so that supporters of women's ordination could gain some satisfaction. At the same time, so dignified, well respected, elderly, and tactful was she that the conservatives could not be offended either. 'You have the authority of a sub-deacon, I told her.' 24 The garments and the liturgical ritual invested McGeachy with an air of authority, which, in Father Swartzentruber's mind, took the edge off arguments for giving equal clerical opportunities to women. Her aura was enhanced as an active lay reader. The parish secretary has a vivid remembrance of McGeachy's way with words. When Pat Lincoln first came to the church, she heard McGeachy read the gospel at a service. Later when McGeachy had to go into hospital, Lincoln went to visit and mentioned how much she had enjoyed hearing her read in church. Whereupon McGeachy, on her sickbed, and at the age of eighty-seven, recited the entire gospel reading which started: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men.' 2 " 1 Father Swartzentruber preferred not to say directly whether or not McGeachy was in favour of women priests. 'Her attitude was that gentlefolk don't care about those heresies. She just took everything in her stride. While she was orthodox in belief and practice she was not stuck in the mud. On the whole, I would say she was too old and aristocratic to trouble herself with the debate. ' 2() The rector's assistant, the Reverend David Stokes, became a close friend of McGeachy, who entertained him and his family often in Princeton and in Keene. 'My wife maintains,' he wrote, 'and I think she's probably right, Craig was very much a cryptofeminist who probably found the rhetoric of late twentieth century feminism, well, in poor taste even if ideologically correct. Craig was an iron fist to be sure,

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but always in a velvet glove. The few times she and I came near to certain topics - i.e. abortion - I had the good sense to draw back!''7 McGeachy always championed a woman's right to abortion.'8 McGeachy found many outlets for her physical and spiritual energy in the church and beyond the border of the parish. In 1981 Helen Walker, a member of her All Saints Bible study group, proposed her for admission to a lay women's order, the Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross. Walker noted McGeachy was extremely well read in spiritual classics both new and old, and had 'an obvious concern for social justice.' McGeachy had attended a retreat and several chapter meetings and was already familiar with the history and aims of the Society.29 The Society of the Companions of the Holy Cross is an American voluntary organization which comprises about eight hundred women members of the Episcopal Church who live in the world - that is, they are not cloistered. They live under a rule of intercessory prayer, thanksgiving, and simplicity of life, with special concern for Christian unity, mission, and social justice. Unlike nuns, they take no vows. The Society was formed in 1884 by seven women under the leadership of Emily Morgan, to offer prayers for a wider circle of people and to enjoy spiritual companionship. Chapters were formed in New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. They were closely connected with the burgeoning settlements in Boston, encouraged by the example of Jane Addams at her Hull House settlement located among poor immigrant families in Chicago. Besides their intercessionary prayer, many chapters of the Society were also involved in establishing vacation houses for working women. In the early years of the twentieth century, the Companions acquired a farmhouse and a chapel, where they lived a corporate life together. In 1914 a retreat house was built and named Adelynrood. The name refers to Adelyn Howard, an invalid who had served as Emily Morgan's initial inspiration. The word rood means 'cross.' Since then Adelynrood in Byfield, Massachusetts, has stood as a conference and retreat centre between May and September every year. Hundreds of women, through their experience at Adelynrood, took seriously the concerns of church unity, what they called 'the Way of the Cross,' and simplicity of life. Membership in the Society is by invitation. A novice serves a one to two year probationary period of reading, study, and personal preparation. When the probationer is ready, she undergoes admission in a ceremony conducted by an Episcopal priest. The Society now stands as 'a community of women, Christ's disciples, called by God to a life of prayer, transformation, and reconciliation, within

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ourselves, within our Companionship, within our faith communities, and within the whole creation. '*" During her probationary period, McGeachy worked through the reading list and with thoroughness prepared her own 'Notes.' At an age when many of her contemporaries were dead, ailing, or, at the very least, taking life easy, she was producing documents of spiritual analysis. If the Canadian Student article showed how she understood her faith at the age of twenty-three, her Society 'Notes' represented a mature assessment of her faith almost sixty years later. First requirement of the Society was intercession, praying for others. McGeachy considered that a Christian should not, and could not, withdraw from 'the world.' Responsive to the poetry of the sixteenthcentury prayer book, she found inspiration for prayer in its language. 'For guidance and refreshment, I turn to the Prayer Book (particularly in the old form!)' A second concern was social justice. For McGeachy, it included the concerns she had promoted for the International Council of Women at the United Nations. 'It would surely be difficult to arrive at a workable formula for social action without reference to the traditional beliefs and customs that have nourished human society throughout uncounted generations.' Nevertheless, it was possible to apply some basic beliefs to many different societies. 'Social Justice includes equality under law and in access to law; equality of opportunity, hence access to education and training; equality of right to expression, including in religious and political terms; access to office, hence even chances to train for and to practise responsibility and leadership in society.' Christian unity was a challenge. Her father's Protestant suspicion of Roman Catholicism provoked 'difficulties,' as she put it. Coming from Protestant Ontario, she knew how ingrained could be prejudice against Roman Catholics, and she did not underestimate the Protestant aversion to saints, the doctrine of papal infallibility, and the issue of authority in the Church. 'To my mind, the hardest of these is the question of authority and government, and hence obedience.' Simplicity of life, around the world a relative concept, was disputable for any woman who had come to enjoy a comfortable standard of living. She thought this the most difficult of the challenges of the Society's rules. 'There have been circumstances when to the observer one's way of life seems far from simplicity. Public office, a standard of living created by inherited or acquired surroundings, may threaten simplicity of manner.'

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The topic of Christian mission reminded McGeachy of her respect for her many non-Christian colleagues and acquaintances throughout her life. She had worked with colleagues who were Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Maronite, Coptic, and Parsee as well as Jewish, Buddhist, Moslem, Hindu, Bahai, and even animist. Her approach was not to be a missionary. By spiritual companionship she understood 'that mutual trust that makes possible the most searching enquiry together and brings people together to pray.' As ever, she resisted sentimentality. Her sort of Christianity 'plunges one into the reality of its pain, loneliness, fatigue, hard obedience, despair. And also lifts one into its triumph.' 3 ' This document reveals McGeachy's character and habits in her eightyfirst year. She resisted the didacticism of people who felt they had the answers. She enjoyed the stately and poetic language of the sixteenth-century Book of Common Prayer. She took seriously the notion that a force outside herself might know better than she what was good for her. She was aware of the relativity of social justice depending on different societies, but was prepared to provide a minimal definition, stressing legal and political equality and educational opportunity. She recognized it was not easy to think about others before herself. She rejected a self-consciously do-good frame of mind: '... one's impact... is quite involuntary.' Disliking sentimentality, she could be suspicious of spontaneity. She thought that a just society must include freedom of religion. Her fundamentalist father probably believed he knew the one and only version of the truth, and she was able to smile about that: 'I feel sure that my approach is far from evangelism!' Her greatest difficulty with the Society's rules was with 'simplicity of life.' She did not cite Jesus' admonition to sell material possessions and follow him. The furthest she would go was to agree that one should be aware of ethical investments. As an organization of mainly college-educated, economically comfortable middle-class women, the Society was not likely to require excessive sacrifice on the part of its members.** McGeachy found intellectual as well as emotional sustenance in her intensified spiritual life. For her Bible study groups, she prepared thoughtful talks on the applicability of Old and New Testament readings to contemporary life. In the mid-igSos, the Society asked her to lead a retreat held at a convent in New Jersey. For this, McGeachy chose the theme of 'The Metaphor of Water in Our Faith' and prepared notes for the participants. She described 'our meditation on the

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way Water has been used as a metaphor to define the nature of our relationship to God and to his creation.' McGeachy's language was never pompous or stilted, but was simple and immediately understandable. At the retreat, she provided interest for her listeners by interspersing an occasional personal anecdote. They would surely remember the story of her meeting Alfred North Whitehead, the 'scientist whose delighted speculations have meant the most to me.' Early in 1941, she was posted to Washington, she said, leaving a London suffering from the Blitz, with all the 'stress, danger, sorrow that that circumstance implied ... It was eleven months before Pearl Harbor.' For a long weekend, McGeachy went to Cambridge, Massachusetts, for a visit with a friend at Radcliffe College who invited the Whiteheads to meet her. Whitehead was a mathematician and eminent philosopher who had collaborated with Bertrand Russell earlier in the century. He was also a metaphysician and Christian. 'You can imagine the balm and the uplifting of spirit that it brought to talk to this man, who ... held firmly to the conviction that what we are discovering are just bits and edges of what has always been in creation.'33 Given McGeachy's earlier difficulty in translating the commandment 'Love thy neighbour' into practice with respect to her children, was she, like Trevor Huddleston's South African Anglicans, guilty of failing to live by the faith she professed? Perhaps in her old age she regretted her behaviour as a parent and did what she could to make amends. Most likely she found it easier to apply her religion to abstractions than to individual people. Religion was not the only link for McGeachy with Princeton friends. An event of 1985 served to make McGeachy herself more interesting to her fellow parishioners. In the mail one morning, she later told her daughter-in-law, quite out of the blue, came a letter to say she had been chosen to receive an honour. She was to be made a Dame of the Order of St John. The Order could not divulge how she had been chosen. If she were to accept, there would be a knighting ceremony in New York, and she would henceforth be entitled to put the letters D.S.J. after her name.34 McGeachy accepted. Friends from All Saints accompanied her first to St Bartholomew's Church at 5Oth Street and Park Avenue in downtown Manhattan, and then to a 'Midnight Grand Ball' in the Starlight Roof of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. The men were wearing tuxedos, and the ladies smart evening dresses. McGeachy wore a long green gown, with chiffon sleeves and a low back. A Maltese cross on a red ribbon was

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placed around her neck by the Grand Master of the Order. She knelt before him, and he dubbed her on the shoulder. She was given an elaborately illuminated scroll, which noted that the Order 'does create and entitle you, Dame Mary A.C. Schuller-McGeachy, O.SJ. Dame of Honour and Merit to our most ancient and illustrious Order of Chivalry.' The honour was awarded 'for distinguished achievement and noble deeds.'sr> The occasion was reported in the Princeton community newspaper of January 1986. 'She earned the Maltese Cross' was the headline above a large head and shoulders photograph of McGeachy wearing a lapel pin in a miniature version of the cross given her at the investiture. She told the reporter 'a very great honor' had come her way. She acknowledged that 'being named a member of the international order "pleases me very much."' The article went on to summarize her career. For most of her Princeton friends, who had known only an occasional anecdote that she had told them, the biography was a revelation.s" McGeachy now signed herself with the letters D.S.J., for Dame of Saint John, after her name. Here was a formal recognition which had hitherto escaped her. So many of her colleagues and acquaintances during the war had been honoured with awards, letters they could put after their name. Some of her own family had been decorated. Her brother, Robert, was made Member of the British Empire, MBE, for his engineering work laying the telephone cable across the English Channel in 1940. Brother-in-law Wendell Macleod received the Order of the British Empire, OBE, for his work as administrator of the military hospital in Halifax, Nova Scotia, during the war. Erwin's friend George Haynes at the Council of Social Service was made a Commander of the British Empire, CBE, and later received a knighthood. George Adams, the warden of All Souls College, friend and mentor to Erwin and McGeachy, was made Companion of Honour, CH. Kathleen Courtenay, one of the activists with the women's international organizations in Geneva, who subsequently trained the Allied women social workers in 1944, was made CBE in 1946 and promoted to a Dame of the British Empire, DBE, in 1952. Gertrude Bell, who had worked in Palestine in the Arab Bureau during the First World War, was made CBE in 1917. McGeachy, announced in 1942 as the first woman to be given British diplomatic rank, had no comparative award. Technically she had nothing to complain about. A counsellor, the rank above hers at the embassy, was frequently in the running for a CMG (Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George), but a first secretary was not nor-

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mally eligible for an honour and she had left the service after only three years. Now, at the age of eighty-four, she was receiving from an ancient and well-respected voluntary organization some recognition for a lifetime of service. She could wear the regalia at diplomatic or royal events, and she would be universally recognized as a member of the Order of St John. Such opportunities to attend court or diplomatic functions along with royalty and ambassadors might not come her way now that she was long retired, but her friends were entertained by the prospect. The sign of appreciation was not entirely what it seemed. A clue lay in the wording of the scroll. The Order is described as The Sovereign Military and Hospitaler Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, Knights of Malta. Smaller writing explains: 'The Foundation of The Sovereign Military and Hospitaler Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, Knights of Malta (Ecumenical) and the United States Priory of the Order of Saint John, Knights of Malta. Founded in The Hague The Kingdom of the Netherlands, according to Regulations laid down by Royal Decree.' The scroll is signed by the Grand Master, His Imperial Highness Prince Robert von B. Khimchiachvili. There is more than one Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, Knights of Malta. The origin of them all is the medieval chivalric Order raised in the eleventh century to provide hospitality in the Holy Land for Christians fighting in the Crusades. In the twentieth century, the Roman Catholic Sovereign Military Order of Malta continues to acknowledge the Pope as its protector. On a ceremonial level, it exchanges diplomatic relations with several countries and makes honorific awards to eligible people. Its major humanitarian achievement is to maintain clinics and hospitals throughout the world, such as an eye hospital in Jerusalem. There are also non-Catholic Orders. The largest is the British, The Most Venerable Order of St John, which enjoys thousands of volunteer helpers in the St John Ambulance Brigade. This has a highly visible presence at almost every public sporting and entertainment event in Britain. As well, the Order dispenses honours and raises funds for healthrelated charities.37 People who belong to Orders with such long-established and accredited pedigrees are eager to distance themselves from other Orders of St John whose officers have not received the same vetting as those in the regular Hospitaller Orders of St John of Jerusalem.^ The Order which bestowed on McGeachy the title of Dame is considered by the regular Orders of St John to belong to a group 'whose principle priority is

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arranging exotic ceremonies when the participants can dress up in uniforms and medals.'89 It has been described as 'probably the wealthiest of all independent orders,' recruiting members for 'a passage fee of $io,ooo.'4° The various Orders bestow honours, and recipients take pride in such a ceremony and recognition. The 'regular' Orders have no record of McGeachy's investiture and do not recognize her name. The program she kept of the ceremony listed knights and dames and included the names of a few show-business celebrities. It also announced that the Order had named President Ronald Reagan as recipient of the 'International Peace-Keeper Award.' He was regretfully unable to be present on the occasion. My own attempts to discover information about the Khimchiachvili organization have met with no success. Perhaps a friend, eager to please McGeachy, arranged for the award to be made. Perhaps she arranged it herself. Her circle at Princeton was enlivened by an elderly lady, always well turned out, who was fun to be with. She had energy and intelligence and liked to get her own way. But even her closest friends were aware of her power: '... you had to stop yourself from being a little bit manipulated,' said Helen Walker.4' However, her friends at All Saints and in the Companionship of the Holy Cross appreciated her. 'To know Mary Craig Schuller was to experience a Christian life "lived from within" - her own phrase,' said Catharine Brett Smith at a memorial service in iggi. 4 * Eulogies are rarely the occasion for a balanced character assessment. In the igSos, McGeachy had occasional ill health. She had a bone disease, osteomyelitis, and her feet in particular suffered. When she attended her investiture, she could not wear smart shoes to go with her elegant outfit, but had to wear flat orthopaedic support shoes. Another time, when visiting Paris, she felt ill, and her companions managed to get her onto a plane returning to New York. It turned out she had a strangulated hernia. Despite the pain, she managed the journey and recovered from the operation.43 She was still travelling. In 1988 she went to Britain to stay with Rachel Bowes-Lyon, widow of her old boss, 'Whiskers,' and during the visit fell and broke her leg on the back step. McGeachy then spent some time in the local hospital and was infuriated to find she was classified as an 'Overseas Visitor.' 'This does not define my status in the U.K.,' she wrote to the hospital administrator. The note shows just how sensitive she was to her status in the United Kingdom. She headed it with her

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full ceremonial title: Dame Mary Craig Schuller (nee McGeachy) D.SJ. She denied that she was merely an 'overseas visitor.' 'I should like to be assured that the following is brought to the attention, in writing, of the Treasurer and any other authorities involved before a judgment is made.' She followed her indignation with a curriculum vitae. 'I am a British subject, the holder of a British passport.' Then in a factual narrative she described her career. At the British embassy in Washington, 'I was appointed First Secretary, the first woman to be given ranking in the British Diplomatic Service.' She referred to her position as director of welfare for UNRRA. She ended her account with her nomination 'by the British National Council of Women' to be president of the International Council, 'where I served 1963-1973.'44 The fact that McGeachy took so much trouble to enlighten strangers in a hospital shows how very much she cared about status towards the end of her life. Religion was able to go so far in giving her a larger vision of humankind. It could not wipe out a sensitivity and bitterness that for most of her life she kept firmly out of sight. She was eighty-six at the time of the accident near Stevenage. After her return to Princeton, it became clear that she could no longer look after herself. She moved to Keene and lived on, with her daughter, for another three years. She would take her meals in the inn run by Janet and her husband, David, having a cocktail every evening and conversing with other guests. 'She smoked fancy Balkan cigarettes.'45 After two years, she had a hip operation and was less able to get between her house and the inn. Janet noted that after each bout of ill health, McGeachy's memory tended to dwindle. At Easter 1991, McGeachy's younger sister Donalda died. After that, remarked Janet, it looked as though she 'gave up.' She spent most of her time in her room.4'' But she was still able to entertain an admirer. The Australian novelist Frank Moorhouse was writing a novel about the League of Nations. Quite accidentally he heard that someone who had worked for the League was still alive. He was 'intellectually dazed' by the prospect of a meeting. He visited McGeachy in the summer of 1991, and in a series of meetings Moorhouse found himself 'pulled back through the mirror of history ... There was an intermingling of the real, the ghostly and the fictional.' He found that her memory was sharp enough to recall many features of her life in Geneva.47 Mary McGeachy is the name of a character in his novel Grand Days.48 Here was recognition in fiction! The novel is about the League during the igsos, and Moorhouse anticipates McGeachy's arrival in Geneva by

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several years. She is a minor but memorable character. Some female employees tell an admiring story about a McGeachy mission to Canada during which she is 'reported in the papers as Acting Secretary-General,' but back in Geneva her Cinderella carriage has changed into a pumpkin and she needs to argue over her expenses claims. In his acknowledgments, Moorhouse describes how he came to know about her through archival material and how she became 'a guiding spirit for the book.'49 In Dark Palace, published in London in 2002 as a companion novel, the character named McGeachy is still a lively presence, and Moorhouse notes that the book is intended to honour her.50 It was all the more gratifying for Moorhouse to see McGeachy before her death. McGeachy died a few months after their meeting. Two of McGeachy's Canadian nephews drove down for the funeral during an ice storm, which made travel extraordinarily difficult. Roads were slippery, like mirrors of glass, and centimetres of ice weighed down trees, so that many were doubled over with the weight. Snapped boughs and tree trunks were strewn across the roads in the countryside. Bill McGeachy said the event was 'like a play.'5' The funeral was 'the niftiest thing,' said John McGeachy. 'Bill picked up Wendell in Montreal and went down and there was an ice storm. We were in Keene valley there in the tavern and it was like an Agatha Christie or something ... We walked down the street to the church and had to be very careful': Some people were kind of old. And, of course, there were local people too. Because, you see, Aunt Mary, used to come down and have supper at the inn. And she would sit at the table there and, of course, her frontal memory was a bit frayed, but she was very bright and paying attention to everything, urbane, charming. She had extremely good health. They had a housekeeper during the day with her. Janet was very good to her. And I think Mary was a lot of trouble. "''•'

The Reverend Orley Swartzentruber from Princeton was to give an address. As so often happened at funerals, beforehand he asked the Schuller children if they had any anecdotes he could use. Anne-Marie Warburton remembered the priest pressing her husband for stories. Eventually David told the truth as he saw it: she had been a bad mother. The priest was 'furious at David and Janet for saying what kind of a woman she was.'-™ What was the truth?

Epilogue

Most biographies are about people who are already famous, and for centuries the standard style was, 'Let us now praise famous men.' Eighty years ago, Lytton Strachey and Freud changed all that. Strachey's Eminent Victorians set the fashion for debunking the people set on a pedestal.' More recently, biography has benefited from a more measured treatment of a person's whole life, into which the biographer brings a private life of emotion, family, friends, and lovers to understand more about public achievements. The founder of the modern genre of biography, Dr Samuel Johnson, was at pains to insist that a biographer's subject need not be well known. He believed a reader could enjoy the great men and great events, but also 'domestic privacies.'" Moreover, 'there has rarely passed a life of which a judicious and faithful narrative would not be useful. 's Johnson believed that biography could teach ordinary human beings how to live better. 4 My aim in this book is different. Mary McGeachy's life can tell us more about the twentieth century, and, in particular, it can illuminate ingrained attitudes towards women and gender. McGeachy was a woman in a man's world, but she never stepped completely out of her woman's world either. We can see how far she was able to go and gain some insight into the barriers she faced, the commitment she had to sustain, and the limits she met. Such analysis can help us to understand more than one human being. It can also help us comprehend what other twentieth-century women experienced in their navigation of gender structures in professional work, international organizations, and public service. Through a biography which seeks to explain her achievements, we can see a multifaceted individual and the conventions that served both to nourish and imprison her.5

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Along the way, we become acquainted with an individual tale of ambition which intersected with so many of the century's prominent political trends of international hope, war, persecution, and social engineering. Any biographer has to ground a life story in available evidence. Much of the basic material for McGeachy's life has been, to a large extent, posthumously under her control. A major source is her own collection of documents. She selected the papers which would survive and destroyed others. In 1968 she wrote to Iverach McDonald that she had been sorting through papers. His son happened to be visiting her in Keene that summer and witnessed how she had been destroying considerable numbers of documents.6 Which papers were culled? Did they show a picture at odds with the image she wished to project? In writing this historical biography, I have examined official papers as well as her private collection. Organizational archives of the League, the Ministry of Economic Warfare, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, and the International Council of Women bring information which adds considerable complexity to the accomplishments recorded in McGeachy's personal papers. The historical records add detail and shading, as well as a good deal of human emotion to the triumphs of the first woman diplomat, the UNRRA director of welfare, and the ten-year president of the ICW. Conversations and correspondence with people who knew her, especially with members of her family, add more layers to the emerging portrait. The additional sources do not detract from McGeachy's accomplishments, but render her more human, with failings as well as triumphs. A biography cannot be a literal reconstruction of a life, still less of a character. There are events and experiences for which the information is incomplete or lacking. Surviving documents and memories can document only a fraction of what happened. A biography has to be an interpretation, demanding a selection from data which are themselves pre-selected both by design and by chance. And any identity is unstable, depending on who sees it. 'Identities are mobile, contested, multiple constructions of the self ... that depend as much on context as any defining traits of character,' writes an American scholar.7 McGeachy herself deliberately wore different identities every day. To some friends, she was Mary; to others, Craig. In some situations, she was Mrs Schuller; in others, Mrs Schuller-McGeachy. She presented one image to her children, and other faces to colleagues, friends, and acquaintances.

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McGeachy was not born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Her endowment was her intelligence, her determination, her perspicacity, and her wits, and she used these qualities to create a life with meaning for her in the service of an ideal. Few people could say as much. The prospect of international peace and cooperation was one of the shining ideals of the twentieth century. McGeachy forwarded that goal by her work and example. In serving an ideal which could benefit others, she gained a satisfying life for herself. Her life was not always smooth, but she had the grit to hang in through rough times and persist in her vision and in her ambition. It was not easy for a woman who had to make her own way. A man with her ability and aspirations could have entered his country's foreign service or served at the higher ranks of an international organization. Moreover, he could have had a wife to take care of domestic responsibilities and look after children. McGeachy had fewer options, but those which she found or made for herself were transmuted into an international career of distinction. Her achievements are on the record. Under the influence of feminist scholarship, historians and biographers are now more curious to cover the achievements of women. McGeachy's accomplishments were unusual because she was Canadian, not rich or well connected, and female. What she managed to achieve in her professional career was in spite of gender. Her unpaid career after 1946 flourished because of gender: she was a leader of tens of thousands of educated middle-class women around the world engaged in voluntary activity for social causes, particularly on behalf of women and children. In McGeachy's personal papers before they were transferred to the National Archives of Canada, I found a newspaper clipping. The story showed how gender could capture people's attention during the Second World War. The clipping carried a date, but not a source. Internal clues suggested the article was published for a U.S. audience, but there were indications that the publication might be Canadian. On both sides of the U.S.-Canadian border, researchers helped me in a quest to track down the source. This piece of evidence eluded identification. However, the point of the article was clear: the news value of a woman doing man's work.8 Under the heading 'Man of the Week' in the newspaper published on 31 October 1942 was a second title, 'First Secretary.' Centred beneath that was a picture of a youthful, well-groomed, and attractive

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woman dressed in a suit with a large floppy, feminine bow at her neck: Mary Craig McGeachy. The text continued to play with the unexpected juxtaposition of a woman in a man's job. Correspondents in Washington 'thought there had been some mistake in the cabled information.' The British ambassador commented on the fact that no other woman had held the position of first secretary with diplomatic status. '"I think she is a very good person to start with. Don't you?"' The subtext of the article was how professional efficiency need not require any sacrifice of femininity. 'It is usual to hear men say "That Craig McGeachy is one smart woman. Attractive, too."' She was 'a tiny blonde with a soft voice and pretty brown eyes ... She is feminine plus.' 'When she gets up to talk her voice may be soft and her manner gentle, but what she says is straight economics mixed with human understanding and a keen Scotch perception.'9 The piece captured the essence of McGeachy on her own terms. She wished to be seen as a woman. She did not want to be defined foremost as a feminist, which in her view was a label to be treated with caution. She was impatient when people asked her if she was stepping out of gender stereotypes. 'It irritates her to have that girl or woman angle mentioned.' 10 The New York Times noted McGeachy was 'totally non-competitive and objective in her attitude toward men and work' and if there was 'any modern phrase Miss McGeachy dislikes it is the term "career woman."' In April 1943, McGeachy went out of her way to affirm that women were not stepping out of line during the war. They were working, not out of personal ambition, but out of patriotism. The enemy had forced women from their homes 'and as a result there has never been such an appreciation of women by men, and of course, vice versa ... The sexes are closer together instead of farther apart, and there is no rivalry or antipathy.' She was hopeful that if people could cooperate on intricate subjects during wartime, 'we can co-operate on anything.'" Protocols of gender demanded altruism in a woman, and McGeachy wanted people to accept and value women's work in wartime. If she really believed that no trace of ambition coloured women's actions, McGeachy was being disingenuous. Through her work with the women's international organizations in Geneva and her friends there, she was in a position to know of their struggles to bring more equality of opportunity to women. She personally had experienced a glass ceiling at the League. Significantly, she blamed her lack of promotion, not

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on being a woman, but on being Canadian. Her reluctance to embrace a feminist label must be seen as a reflection of the culture of her time. The literary scholar Carolyn Heilbrun has pointed out how before the late twentieth century it was impossible for women to admit the claim of achievement or ambition, nor were they allowed to recognize that 'accomplishment was neither luck nor the result of the efforts or generosity of others.''* McGeachy was prey to the sneering comments of Isaiah Berlin of being 'bare-faced,' ambitious, and an opportunist.'3 What was admirable in a man was shocking in a woman. McGeachy did not have the language to explain and justify a woman's ambition to rise in an international organization. So she sidestepped the issue and instead explained her failure to progress for most of her time in the League by reference to the low profile of Canada and the lack of support she got from feeble 'rabbits' in the bureaucracy. She did not want to be seen only as a champion of her sex. In the International Council of Women, that was exactly her work as president. But it was done in a ladylike way among women who had titles, wealth, and connections to masculine elites. This was so important to her that she could not see any advantage in seizing an opportunity, in the 19605, to associate the ICW with the women identified in the new women's liberation movement after the publication of Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique.'* Their disrespect for traditional trappings of feminine behaviour prevented her from welcoming their radical feminism as the wave of the future. In 1970 she was still telling reporters there was nothing she disliked more than the term 'career woman.'"5 In attitude, she shared so much with these women - liberating themselves through consciousness-raising groups, and pushing to be in occupations monopolized by men. McGeachy had already been there, done that, but as a single woman. As a married woman, McGeachy valued her hats and gloves and the muted maternalism of the ICW, but she never had the interests of a typical middle-class married woman. She had no sympathy for domestic routine. She and her sister Jessie expressed their frustrations by correspondence. When Jessie moved with her husband to Saskatoon in the early 19505, she wrote, 'I am doing no Medicine yet, which is my greatest woe of course.'Jessie registered for art classes, to 'relieve the domestic boredom.' She hated housework. 'Of all work manual domestic labour is the most devitalizing to any creative or intellectual viability.'"' A couple of years later, when McGeachy herself moved to North America from South Africa, her first months were 'pretty

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emphatically "domestic" for me." She felt very 'out of touch with things but I hope that this will not always be the case.''7 McGeachy was saved from Jessie's trials by Erwin's income. McGeachy always had household help, and she could occupy herself in volunteer work. She was relieved from menial labour and justified her volunteer work as a contribution to civil society. In press interviews, she did not indulge in false modesty. A London Times interviewer in 1970 pointed out that the ICW included Israelis, Arabs, Turks, Greeks, Indians, and Pakistanis on its 'non-political' board. McGeachy did the job of 'a female U Thant,' then the director-general of the United Nations.' 8 McGeachy was comfortable with exercising authority, but uneasy over the public discourse surrounding women and power. Like so many women and men of her generation, she was prisoner of the gendered categories which demanded that a breadwinner in a family must be male; that a woman in the public eye should appear stereotypically feminine; and that ambition in a woman was inadmissible. She inherited a common bias among successful women of the late 19205 that it was not useful to call attention to gender.'9 Her feminism therefore shared more with the old-fashioned maternalism of the ICW than with later manifestations. A paradox in her case was that the ideological underpinning of maternalism located women's power with their function as mothers, and if there was anything that turned out really badly for McGeachy, it was her experience of parenthood. Motherhood brought out the worst in her. There was no way that she could have glorified her own maternity. Nor did she try. Indeed, in the early 19605 when she had to write her biography for the ICW history, in her first draft she erased motherhood from the record and only included reference to her children at the urging of staff. She appeared to have little in common with post-19605 feminism. She fell into a trap of confusing style with substance. With the objectives of late twentieth-century feminism she was in agreement. She believed a woman should control her own destiny and should have the tools of education and employment to pursue her desires. She agreed that women should have reproductive control, including access to abortion. But confrontational directness bothered her. Other women of her generation shared her unease. For instance, Ellen Fairclough, the first woman cabinet minister in the Canadian government, had no truck with a feminist label.20

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McGeachy had no patience for a female stereotype of passivity, subordination, and deference. She had a desire to dominate. In her various careers, this eventually paid off. In her private life, it brought pain to others. McGeachy's son has his own interpretation of her will to power. Her character, he believes, might be understood by diagnosis with a mental disorder. His theory was that her imperviousness to normal conventions led at the same time both to professional success and to her unkindness as a mother. He saw McGeachy as a frustrated woman who took out her discontent as a mother on her children. My perspective is different. I would not discount the first-hand testimony of the people who lived with her day by day. But few women can be perfect mothers, especially when they begin late in life, with children who have already suffered considerable sadness. I see her as a highly complicated person who enjoyed a close and apparently harmonious relationship with at least one other person, her husband, Erwin. There is little remaining evidence of intense emotional intimacy with others. She had passion, but in her case it was mainly for political abstractions: peace, international cooperation, and the place of voluntarism in civil society. Women companions were always important. Growing up in Sarnia, she had her sisters. Despite disagreements, they continued to be a presence in her life. In Geneva she knew a network of English-speaking women, delegates to League-related meetings. With them she explored the surrounding countryside and enjoyed conversations on all sorts of topics. During the war, she received scores of congratulations on her diplomatic status, mainly from women. Her friendships with the journalist Agnes Meyer, and with Eleanor Roosevelt's friend Agnes Leach, lasted for years. Similarly, friendships made in South Africa persisted through correspondence way beyond 1954. With Sister Marie-Andre and Charlotte Parker, she exchanged letters on religion as well as family news and gardening. In the International Council of Women, all her companions were women, and at least two - Alice DeWitt Stetten and Laura DreyfusBarney - were loyal with financial as well as emotional support. In the last stage of her life, she developed friendships with Episcopalian women in Princeton, who in turn brought her the broader dimensions of membership in a lay women's order. Such relationships may not always have been close, but they show she retained her social energy until the last.

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McGeachy's personality was not bland. There were flaws in her character. A steely strength powered her toughness and her refusal to cave in to opposition; it also allowed her to weather hostility and, as often as not, to get her own way. A sense of self-importance was mostly kept under control and was only rarely revealed in a bitterness that she had not been properly rewarded. She liked moving in the circle of international politics and organizations, but in her old age she relished the more peaceful precincts of Princeton, where her energy allowed her to shine in a small and select circle. The satisfaction of being alone, noted by McGeachy's Rorschach report of 1935, was a sign of a self-possession which was afraid of challenge from an emotion she could not control. She accorded a high priority to controlling others and controlling her environment. Here was her greatest vulnerability. Courageous in many things, she could not bear not to be in charge, to risk power being exercised by another person, or by an emotion she could not dominate. She would not - or could not - devote herself to another human being, husband or child. Selflessness was not part of her nature. Had she been male, these characteristics would not have been considered so extraordinary as to be labelled a mental disorder. Religious love was easier to accommodate. Her Anglican God was more predictable, more mindful of tradition, more respectful of reason, than her father's Holy Spirit. It was not too difficult to love one's neighbour when they were the appreciative members of the All Saints congregation and the ladies of Adelynrood and the Companions of the Holy Cross. Moreover, she was not alone in drawing inspiration as well as comfort from her Christianity. Other women of her age who went into public life found that religion not only was a guide for individual spiritual development but also served as a call to political action. Like early Student Christian Movement members, Canadian women such as Charlotte Whitton and Cairine Wilson wished to improve society here and now.21 The assistant priest in her Princeton parish appreciated McGeachy's complexity: She was one of the most colorful figures we've ever known. Conversationally, knowing Craig was like brushing against a British Empire and Europe long gone ... With hindsight it seems to me that the Craig we knew, even in her eighties, worked on several different and very complex levels. She certainly played the aged hostess with rare grace; she had the ability of

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putting anyone at his or her ease socially and drawing out the most taciturn. But she was also, beneath this social level, extremely self-sufficient in her routine. I always felt that Craig was whispering to herself, I'll be damned if I'm going to turn into an old person ... But there was a third level which I suspect was the 'real' Craig. First, the few times she elaborated to me about her relationship with her father, I always wondered if she wasn't somehow driven to prove herself to him ... Second, beneath an Edwardian graciousness, Craig had strong views, especially about the role of women, which, although she kept these views reined in, occasionally surfaced with a wonderful asperity ... this is the Craig I wish I had known better."

McGeachy embraced the tensions between several dichotomies. She maintained a smart, trim, pretty appearance along with her hard-nosed analytical thinking: her 'capacity for linear and abstract thought... that one rarely finds among women,' according to the Rorschach test. She was simultaneously a Canadian nationalist and a grateful British subject. While she resisted the description of career woman, she was never happy with domesticity. Erwin had been attracted by her combination of idealism and pragmatism. This was an important part of her nature. Ultra-pragmatic, she would not throw out the baby with the bathwater if it was useful to her. She rejected the Gospel Hall denomination of her youth, but retained the strong Christianity she first knew in her evangelist father. A problem for McGeachy was that she suffered from a lack of role models for public women. So few were in the limelight that the media, the public, and McGeachy herself had recourse to impoverished exemplars. One exception was the poet Edna St Vincent Millay, but it was unrealistic for other women to recreate the 'saucy insolence' of Millay's well-publicized sexual escapades.'2* Subsequent generations found more room for a variety of flesh and blood women who could be smart both in appearance and accomplishment and whose ambition could be acknowledged and assessed like men's. If there is any single key to be discerned in McGeachy's character throughout her life, it is self-sufficiency. It was her strength and her failing. It sustained her through the frustrations of her League years, when she failed to get the recognition she felt she deserved. It gave her the confidence to promote a politically unpopular policy in the United States with considerable success. It allowed her to complete her contract as director of welfare for UNRRA during two and a half years of exceptionally demanding work, helping to save the world from post-war

260 Woman of the World

chaos and, at the same time, triumphing over institutional enemies. It allowed her to preside over a hugely diversified worldwide organization and bring it into a post-imperialist age. The same self-sufficiency also kept other people at a distance. McGeachy was proud of being Canadian, especially during her Geneva years, and she deserves to be more widely known. In the 19305, she had a vision of Canada as a fully independent nation playing a facilitating diplomatic role among world powers. Thirty years later, her old friend Lester Pearson, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his championing of the United Nations and his diplomacy during the Suez crisis of the late 19505, echoed her conviction - a belief which he helped instil as one of her history professors at the University of Toronto. Pearson set out the ideal position of Canada in the world. Canada's foreign policy should be based on 'a national interest which expresses itself in co-operation with others; in the building of international institutions and the development of international policies and agreements, leading to a world order which promotes freedom, well-being and security for all.' 24 McGeachy personified such an approach. In the League of Nations, UNRRA, and the ICW, she took on the role of diplomat, searching for the common interests, reinforcing international institutions, without chauvinist regard for an aggressive nationalism. Pearson took the fast track of an able, ambitious man in the public service. He had a life as university professor, officer in Canada's Ministry of External Affairs, and diplomat, and went on to become prime minister. Those options were closed to McGeachy because she was a woman. She was obliged to operate in a less visible and more informal dimension. But her intelligence, her imagination, her vision, and her administrative capacity in governmental and institutional organizations were parallel to Pearson's. Twentieth-century conventions of gender and politics shaped McGeachy. She made her own contribution to the ideal of a civil society in which women as well as men could share a public mission. Her family life cannot be described as successful, but her achievement in public life was to show that a woman could make a dent in the monopoly of men. During her lifetime, no discourse was available to blend together her various identities: daughter, sister, wife, mother, friend, colleague, official, and the public representative of a voluntary organization. Her life is a manifestation of the clash of ambition and gender in the twentieth century. McGeachy lived as a Canadian woman of the world, showing the opportunities, and the limitations, that the ideal of international cooperation could offer to a woman.

Notes

Author's note: I examined McGeachy's personal papers before they were transferred to the National Archives of Canada. In the notes, I have used the NAC citations (McG/ES) where possible. References not found in McG/ES are to photocopies in my possession of documents seen before the transfer, with the notation McG.

Abbreviations AS AVG BLEPS CM FM FO ICW LMA LONA McG McG/ES NAC NCSS NCWC NCWGB NCWSA

Andrew Schuller Archiefcentrum voor Vrouwengeschiedenis / Centre d'Archives pour 1'Histoire des Femmes British Library of Economic and Political Science Carol Miller Frank Moorhouse Foreign Office International Council of Women London Metropolitan Archives League of Nations Archives Photocopies in the author's possession of McGeachy's papers not transferred to the NAC Mary Agnes Craig McGeachy and Erwin Schuller fonds National Archives of Canada National Council of Social Service National Council of Women of Canada National Council of Women of Great Britain National Council of Women of South Africa

262

Notes to pages 4-6

NCWUSA NYPL PAM PM PRO RIIA SCM SHAEF UMA UN UNA UNRRA UTA VUA

National Council of Women of the United States of America New York Public Library Provincial Archives of Manitoba Peter Macleod Public Record Office Royal Institute of International Affairs Student Christian Movement Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces University of Manitoba Archives United Nations United Nations Archives, New York United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration University of Toronto Archives Victoria University Archives, University of Toronto

Prologue 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10

11

12 13

Sarnia Observer, 6 December 1941. Alexander Loveday, Diary, 1940, p. 16, Nuffield College, Oxford. Maclean's, 15 November 1942. Loveday, Diary, 1940, p. 16. Ibid., p. 6. Loveday to Avenol, 20 April 1939, and Loveday to Lester, 28 April 1939, Nuffield College, Oxford. League of Nations Internal Circular 41.1940, 10 May 1940, Loveday papers, Nuffield College, Oxford. Loveday, Diary, 1940, p. 9. James Barros, Betrayal from Within: Joseph Avenol, Secretary-General of the League of Nations, 1933-1940 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969), 219, 217. Egon F. Ranshofen-Wertheimer, The International Secretariat: A Great Experiment in International Administration (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1945), 375. League of Nations report to the secretary-general from the Special Committee on the Reorganization of Work and Redistribution of Staff, 31 May 1940, pp. 10, 17, Loveday papers, Nuffield College, Oxford. Barros, Betrayal from Within, 171-86. McGeachy to Cairine Wilson, 8 February 1940, National Archives of Canada (hereafter NAC), Cairine Wilson Papers, MG 27 III 56. I thank Dominique Marshall for this reference.

Notes to pages 7-13

263

14 Dorothy M. Arnold to Kathleen Courtney, 17 May 1940, Carol Miller collection (hereafter CM), Peace and Disarmament Committee of the Women's International Organizations. 15 Sean Lester, Diary, 1940, p. 521, CM, League of Nations. 16 David Bowes Lyon to McGeachy, n.d. [June 1940], NAG, Mary Agnes Craig McGeachy and Erwin Schuller fonds (hereafter McG/ES), R 9369, Vol. 12, file 317 Frederick Leith Ross to McGeachy, 27 July 1940, NAC, McG/ES, R 9369, Vol. 10, file 2 i. 18 Lester, Diary, 1940, p. 521. 19 McGeachy to Violate, lojuly 1940, League of Nations Archives (hereafter LONA), McGeachy personnel file. 20 Sean Lester to Stencek, 9 August 1940, and telegram, Watterson to Jacklin, 5 August 1940, LONA, McGeachy personnel file. 21 U.S. War Department publication, Army Talk, quoted in Leonard Dinnerstein, America and the Survivors of the Holocaust (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 52.

i. Sarnia 1 Interview with Iverach McDonald, 2gjuly 1999, Oxford. 2 Donald Carroll, West Elgin Genealogical and Historical Society, to Mary Kinnear, 17 August 1999. I thank Donald Carroll for his help. 3 Nairn Cemetery, East Williams Township, Middlesex County, 1972, 1983, 1996, London Room, London, Ontario, Public Library, Ontario Genealogical Society, Cemetery Records. 4 Memory Wanders: Ailsa Craig, Ontario, Canada, iS'j^-ic/j^ (n.d. [1974]), 1-3. This publication is available from the municipal office, Ailsa Craig, Ontario. 5 Ibid., p. 4. 6 Interview with John McGeachy, 14 May 1999, Kingston. 7 Donalda McGeachy to Mary McGeachy, 18 November 1974, National Archives of Canada (hereafter NAC), Mary Agnes Craig McGeachy and Erwin Schuller fonds (hereafter McG/ES), R 9369, Vol. 8, file 9; copies of McGeachy papers in author's possession (hereafter McG). 8 The New Statistical Account of Scotland, vol. 7 (1845), 4^39 Interview with John McGeachy, 14 May 1999, Kingston. 10 West Elgin Genealogical and Historical Society, 17 August 1999; David Dobson, genealogical research consultant, St Andrews, Scotland, 14 August

1999-

264

Notes to pages 14-22

11 J.K. Galbraith, The Scotch (Toronto: Macmillan, 1964), 144. 12 Register of Births, Lambton County, Ontario, 23 November 1901, entry 02112. 13 Galbraith, The Scotch, 55. 14 W. Stanford Reid, The Scottish Protestant Tradition,' in The Scottish Tradition in Canada, ed. W. Stanford Reid (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1976), 132. 15 Reid, 'Scottish Protestant Tradition,' 128, 131. 16 Maclean's, 15 November 1942. 17 Chatelaine, February 1943. 18 New York Times Magazine, 11 April 1943. 19 Country Gentleman, October 1943; Current Biography (1944). 20 Interview with John McGeachy, 14 May 1999, Kingston. 21 Ibid. 22 Jessie Macleod to McGeachy, 3 October 1952, NAC, McG/ES, R 9369, Vol. 12, file 7. 23 Ernest Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism: British and American Millenarianism 1800-1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), 136-45. 24 J.W. Grant, A Profusion of Spires: Religion in Nineteenth Century Ontario (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), 161-2, 214-17. I thank Ian Rennie for his help on this topic. 25 Brian Clarke, 'English-Speaking Canada from 1854,' in A Concise History of Christianity in Canada, ed. Terrence Murphy (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1996), 323. 26 Interview with John McGeachy, 14 May 1999, Kingston. 27 Ibid. 28 Brian Cunnington, 14 September 1998. 29 Interview with Wendy McDonald, 2 August 1999, Edmonton. 30 Interview with John McGeachy, 14 May 1999, Kingston. 31 Ibid. 32 New York Times Magazine, 11 April 1943. 33 Interview with Anne Macdonald, 11 November 1998, Saskatoon. 34 Interview with John McGeachy, 14 May 1999, Kingston. 35 Interview with Iverach McDonald, agjuly 1999, Oxford. 36 David Stokes, 17 July 1999. 37 New York Times Magazine, 11 April 1943. 38 Mary McGeachy, Application, 3 September 1920, University of Toronto Archives, Mary McGeachy file. 39 Maclean's, 15 November 1942.

Notes to pages 23-32 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

265

Sarnia Collegiate Institute Yearbook, 1919Sarnia Collegiate Institute Yearbook, 1920. Sarnia Collegiate Institute Yearbook, 1920, 1921. Province of Ontario, Report of the Minister of Education (1914), 540. Sarnia Colltgiate Institute Yearbook, 1917. Sarnia Collegiate Institute Yearbook, 1919. Sarnia Collegiate Institute Yearbook, 1920. Ibid. Ibid.

2. Student Days 1 Jonathan Vance, Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning, and the First World War (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997), 266; Margaret Macmillan, Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World (New York: Random House, 2002). 2 Norman Rose, The Cliveden Set (London: Jonathan Cape, 2000), 3; John E. Kendle, The Round Table Movement and Imperial Union (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975). 3 John Hilliker, The Early Years, 7909-7946, Vol. i of Canada's Department of External Affairs (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1990), 138. 4 Alvin Finkel and Margaret Conrad, with Veronica Strong-Boag, History of the Canadian Peoples, Volume II: i86j to the Present (Toronto: Copp Clark Pitman, 1993), 297. 5 Torontonensis, 1924, University of Toronto Archives (hereafter UTA). 6 Interview with Donald Page, 14 May 1999, Kingston. 7 Ernest A. Dale, Twenty-One Years A-Building: A Short Account of the Student Christian Movement of Canada, 1920-1941 (Toronto: Student Christian Movement of Canada, 1941), 4-5. 8 A Brief History of the Student Christian Movement in Canada (Toronto: SCM, 1974), 73-84, Victoria University Archives, Toronto (hereafter VUA), Student Christian Movement (hereafter SCM). 9 Some Canadian Questions: Studies in Preparation for the First Canadian National Student Conference December 2 8 - January 2, 1923 (Toronto: SCM, 1922), 3, VUA, SCM. i o Building the City of God: Addresses Delivered at the First National Conference of Canadian Students, Toronto, 28 December 1922 - 2 January 1923 (Toronto: SCM, 1923), VUA, SCM. 11 Michael Clark, a Progressive MP from Alberta, quoted in Robert Bothwell,

266

Notes to pages 32-8

Ian Drummond, and John English, Canada, 1900-7945 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987), 230. 12 Building the City of God, xix.

13 Richard Veatch, Canada and the League of Nations (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 11,38, 186, 187. 14 David Bercuson, True Patriot: The Life of Brooke Claxton, 1898-1960 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 50. 15 Susan Ware, Still Missing: Amelia Earhart and the Search for Modern Feminism (New York: Norton, 1993), 175, 25, 26.

16 Blanche Wiesen Cook, Eleanor Roosevelt (London: Bloomsbury, 2000). 17 Edna St Vincent Millay, Selected Poems, The Centenary Edition, ed. and introd. Colin Falck (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 19. 18 Nancy Milford, Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St Vincent Millay (New York: Random House, 2001); McGeachy to Wendell Macleod, 30 May 1926, Peter Macleod collection (hereafter PM). 19 Elizabeth Anderson, 'Women in the Student Christian Movement of Canada, 1921-1949,' unpublished paper (1980), 8, 4, 6, VUA, SCM. 20 A Group of Friends, This One Thing: A Tribute to Henry Burton Sharman (Toronto: Student Christian Movement in Canada, 1959), 11. 21 Canadian Student, February 1920, p. 6. 22 Ibid., January 1921, p. 5. 23 For instance, Varsity, 8 January 1923, UTA. 24 Catherine Gidney, 'Poisoning the Student Mind? The Student Christian Movement and the University of Toronto, 1920-1965, 'Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 8(1998): 151. 25 Varsity, 2 November 1923, UTA. 26 Anderson, 'Women in the Student Christian Movement of Canada,' 12-14. 27 Canadian Student, March 1924.

28 Robert Bothwell, Laying the Foundation: A Century of History at the University of Toronto (Toronto: Department of History, University of Toronto, 1991), 52. 29 University College Literary Women's Society, 4 October 1922, 10 October 1923, UTA. 30 Ibid., 4 December 1923. 31 Ibid., I4january 1924. 32 Ibid., 22 November 1923. 33 Varsity, September 1923, UTA. 34 Washington Post, 13 October 1942. 35 Torontonensis, 1923, p. 336, UTA. 36 History of Hart House (Toronto: Board of Governors, University of Toronto, 1921). 37 Torontonensis, 1924, p. 306, UTA.

Notes to pages 39-42

267

38 A.B. McKillop, Matters of Mind: The University in Ontario, 1791-1957 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994), 421, 435, 465-7, 471-82. 39 Bothwell, Laying the Foundation, 51, 58, 61, 64, 68. 40 John English, Shadow of Heaven: The Life of Lester Pearson, Volume i: iScjj1948 (Toronto: Lester and Orpen Dennys, 1989), 101, 99. 41 Mary McGeachy, Registration, Ontario College of Education, 1924, UTA. 42 Alison Prentice, 'Laying Seige to the History Professoriate,' in Creating Historical Memory: English-Canadian Women and the Work of History, ed. Beverly Boutilier and Alison Prentice (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997), 212. 43 Alison Prentice, 'Bluestockings, Feminists or Women Workers? A Preliminary Look at Women's Early Employment at the University of Toronto,' Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 2 (1991): 231-61. 44 SCM Annual General Meeting, 25-7 September 1924, Minutes, VUA, SCM. 45 Canadian Student, March 1924, pp. 175-6. 46 Ibid., October 1924, p. 21. 47 Hamilton-Wentworth School Board, Minutes, 4 June 1925, p. 126. 48 Susan Gelman, 'The "Feminization" of the High Schools? Women Secondary School Teachers in Toronto 1871-1930,' Historical Studies in Education 2.1 (Spring 1990): 139. 49 Ibid., i 26, i 29. 50 Hamilton-Wentworth School Board, Minutes, 1923, p. 76. 51 Ibid., 1925, pp. 125-7. 52 'Faculty 1927,' Vox Lycei, Confederation Number 1887-1927, Christmas 1927, Hamilton-Wentworth School Board. I thank Karyn Hogan for her help. 53 Report of the Internal Management Committee, 4 June 1925, p. 40, Hamilton-Wentworth School Board. 54 Margaret Conrad, '"Not a Feminist, but ...": The Political Career of Ellen Louks Fairclough, Canada's First Female Federal Cabinet Minister,' Journal of Canadian Studies 31.2 (Summer 1996): 5-28. 55 Ellen Louks Fairclough, Saturday's Child: Memoirs of Canada's First Female Cabinet Minister, introd. Margaret Conrad (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995), 16, 18, 20. 56 Hamilton-Wentworth School Board, Minutes, 4june 1925. 57 McGeachy to Wendell Macleod, 23 November 1926, PM. 58 McGeachy to the secretary, Intellectual Co-operation Section, n.d. [March 1928], League of Nations Archives (hereafter LONA), McGeachy personnel file. 59 McGeachy to Wendell Macleod, 30 May 1926, PM. 60 Ibid., 23 November 1926. 61 Ibid., 12 January 1927.

268 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75

76

77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87

Notes to pages 42-50

Ibid., 30 May 1926. Ibid., 30 May 1926. Ibid., 23 November 1926. Ibid., 23 May 1927. Hamilton-Wentworth School Board, Minutes, 2 June 1927. McGeachy to Wendell Macleod, 23 May 1927, PM. McGeachy to the secretary, Intellectual Co-operation Section, accompanying her application of 7 May 1928, LONA, McGeachy personnel file. Canadian Student, June 1927. World Student Christian Federation, Minutes, 17 August 1927, p. 10, Harvard Divinity School, World Student Christian Federation. McGeachy to Wendell Macleod, 23 December 1927, PM. Canadian Student, November 1927. McGeachy to Wendell Macleod, 30 May 1926, PM. Matthew 7:15-20. Hugh MacMillan to McGeachy, 13 November 1942, National Archives of Canada, Mary Agnes Craig McGeachy and Erwin Schuller fonds, R 9369, Vol. 11, file 8. Milford, Savage Beauty, 251. See also Jane Stanbrough, 'Edna St Vincent Millay and the Language of Vulnerability,' in Critical Essays on Edna St Vincent Millay, ed. William B. Thesing (New York: G.K. Hall & Co., 1993), 213-14. Vox Studentium 5.2 (November 1927): 16. Ibid., 5.3 (December 1927): 1-2. Ibid., 5.4 (January 1928): i. Ibid., 5.4 (January 1928): 20. Ibid., 5.5 (February-March 1928): 17-19. Ibid., 5.6 (April 1928): 17. Ibid., 5.7 (May 1928): 14. Ibid., 5.7 (May 1928): 8-9. Ibid., 5.8-9 (June-July 1928): i. Ibid., 5.5 (February-March 1928): i. Ibid., 5.8-9 (June-July 1928): 24.

j. Geneva i H.R. Cummings to McGeachy, 12 June 1928, National Archives of Canada (hereafter NAC), Mary Agnes Craig McGeachy and Erwin Schuller fonds (hereafter McG/ES), R 9369, Vol. 3, file 10.

Notes to pages 50-6

269

2 McGeachy to the secretary, Intellectual Co-operation Section, n.d. [March 1928], League of Nations Archives (hereafter LONA), McGeachy personnel file. 3 'AHK' to Miss Craig McGeachy, 23 March 1928, LONA, McGeachy personnel file. 4 Pierre Comert to the under-secretary-general in charge of internal affairs, i4june 1928, LONA, McGeachy personnel file. 5 Frank Moorhouse, 'A League of Her Own,' Sydney Morning Herald, 4 September 1993. 6 Ibid. 7 Richard Veatch, Canada, and the League of Nations (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975), 3-6; McGeachy toJ.W. Dafoe, 22 August 1932, J.W. Dafoe papers, University of Manitoba Archives (hereafter UMA). 8 Veatch, Canada and the League, 71. 9 Ibid., 24-5. 10 John Hilliker, The Early Years 1909-1946, Vol. i of Canada's Department of External Affairs (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1990), 164. 11 Ibid., 176. 12 Interview with Iverach McDonald, 5 July 2000, Oxford. 13 A. Pelt to Bureau de personnel, 29 June 1935, LONA, McGeachy personnel file. 14 McGeachy to Dafoe, 12 December 1930, Dafoe papers, UMA. 15 Ibid., 14 February 1932. 16 Ibid., 13 November 1934. 17 Dafoe to McGeachy, 12 July 1933, Dafoe papers, UMA. 18 Ibid., 31 December 1934. 19 McGeachy to Dafoe, 5 October 1935. 20 Ibid., 17 October 1935. 21 Ibid., 16 May 1936. 22 Ibid., 15 March 1940. 23 McGeachy to Mrs Dafoe, 4 February 1940, J.W. Dafoe papers, UMA. 24 McGeachy to Dafoe, 19 February 1940. 25 Carol Miller, 'Lobbying the League: Women's International Organizations and the League of Nations' (D.Phil, diss., Oxford, 1992), 87. 26 Ibid., 77. 27 F.P. Walters, A History of the League of Nations (London: Oxford University Press, 1952), 78. 28 Miller, 'Lobbying the League,' 85. 29 Ibid., 78, 80, 83-4, 93-5, 97. 30 Egon F. Ranshofen-Wertheimer, The International Secretariat: A Great

270

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

41

42

43

Notes to pages 56-60

Experiment in International Administration (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1945), 201, 203-4, 2°8McGeachy to Dafoe, 12 December 1930, Dafoe papers, UMA. Evening Standard, 4 November 1940. Sean Lester to Miss McGeachy, 7 December 1940, Frank Moorhouse collection (hereafter FM). Preface, Catalogue of the League of Nations Archives. Under-secretary-general to McGeachy, 20 November 1928, LONA, McGeachy personnel file. Pierre Comert to the under-secretary-general in charge of internal administration, 28 May 1929, LONA, McGeachy personnel file. McGeachy to Dafoe, 12 December 1930, Dafoe papers, UMA. Catalogue index cards, Princess Radziwill, LONA; Miller, 'Lobbying the League,' 307. League of Nations, Official Journal (hereafter Of) 1929, p. 1407; 0/1934, p. 1344; 0/1939, p. 465. Leila J. Rupp, Worlds of Women: The Making of an International Women's Movement (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997); Rebecca L. Sherrick, 'Toward Universal Sisterhood,' Women's Studies International Forum 5.6 (1982): 655; Brian Harrison, Prudent Revolutionaries: Portraits of British Feminists between the Wars (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 193; Miller, 'Lobbying the League,' 25. For maternalism, see Linda Kealey, 'Introduction,' in A Not Unreasonable Claim: Women and Reform in Canada, iSSos-icjzos, ed. Linda Kealey (Toronto: Women's Press, 1979), 7-10; Giselda Bock and Pat Thane, eds, Maternity and Gender Policies: Women and the Rise of the European Welfare States, iSSos-icjjos (London: Routledge, 1991); Seth Koven and Sonya Michel, eds, Mothers of a New World: Maternalist Politics and the Origins of Welfare States (New York: Routledge, 1993); Molly Ladd-Taylor, Mother-Work: Women, Child Welfare and the State, 1890-1930 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994); Robin Muncy, Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890*935 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991). The name was formally changed in 1926 to the International Alliance of Women for Suffrage and Equal Citizenship. In 1945 the name was modified to the International Alliance of Women - Equal Rights - Equal Responsibilities. See Arnold Whittick, Woman into Citizen (London: Frederick Muller, 1979), 100. Adele Schreiber and Margaret Mathieson,/ourn