Sharing the Good Times: A History of Prairie Women's Joys and Pleasures

Patricia Whitney, former coordinator of the Women’s Studies Program at
the University of Prince Edward Island, is the Bank of Montreal Visiting
Scholar in Women’s Studies at the University of Ottawa.

Faye Reineberg Holt has positioned Sharing the Good Times astutely
between the rigors of scholarly history and the often engaging work of
the amateur historian. Holt’s introduction demonstrates her knowledge
of prairie women’s history and demarcates the boundaries of the book
in a smooth prose style, while maintaining her right to tell the story
of pioneer prairie women with an eye to the general reader.

The author is aware that all lives include times of sorrow, but she has
chosen to pursue the joyous. She presents women enjoying sport: a
snowshoe club, dressed in matching hats and white duffel coats, poses in
Winnipeg’s snowy Kildonan Park in the 1920s; a climber stands atop
Needle Peak at Lake Louise; and cowgirls and barnstormers entertain at
rodeos, fairs, and agricultural exhibitions. A Manitoba ball player,
Olive Bend Little, played in the United States for a time with the
Rockford Peaches, which inspired the popular film A League of Their Own.


Women’s homes were central to their lives. Many dreamt of a solid,
two-storey house with nicely landscaped yard in which to raise their
children. (A popular song in the early years of the 20th century was
“The West, a Nest and You.”) The T. Eaton Company obliged with
publications such as the Eaton’s Plan Book of Ideal Homes. Holt
provides a touching photograph of a woman sewing in her sod house, the
walls made attractive with building paper and pictures.

As women grew older and saw their children leave the cherished family
home, some became maternal feminists interested in the work of Nellie
McClung and other western leaders in the women’s movement.

Whether women self-identified as feminists or not, many were actively
involved in improving their society. The Women Grain Growers sought to
establish libraries, keep young people on the family farm, found and
equip meeting halls—all this in addition to making their homes and
community schools places of culture, beauty, and learning.

Sharing the Good Times is both a tonic to the soul and a valuable
addition to Canadian women’s history.