In the early 1950s, Phyllis’s oldest brother, Clifford, said to Phyllis and her husband Ken, “Why not try the Unitarian Church?” It was a fellowship in those days, Dick Morton was there, and despite her Anglican background and Ken’s Baptist one, it worked! As a young teen, Phyllis had asked her Anglican minister questions about religion and his “I don’t know” answers set her up for Unitarianism.

Phyllis had been born in Langenburg, Saskatchewan in 1919, where her father owned the general store. Her mother stayed at home with her two girls and three boys, three of whom ended up as Unitarians in Edmonton -- Clifford Patrick, Freeman (Pat) Patrick (Ruth Patrick’s husband), and Phyllis. Phyllis’s third brother told Phyllis, “I don’t go to church. I’m a scientist.” At 90, Phyllis, the second youngest, is the only one of the five left.

At 18 years of age, Phyllis sat holding her 59-year-old dad’s hand as he died.

The year after, she attended the Qu’Appelle Diocesan School, a private Anglican girls’ school, for a year before leaving for training at Toronto General Hospital to become a nurse. In those days, the hospital held dances, and friends and relatives of the probationary nurses came to the dance. There, Phyllis met Ken and a year later he went down on his knees at a university park bench to propose. She was not allowed to wear her engagement ring while on the nursing wards, but her head nurse had heard about her engagement ring and asked to see it. (Fortunately, she had it in the pocket of her uniform.)

One main reason for Phyllis and Ken ending up in the Unitarian Church was solving the question of “what to do with the children”. They wanted their children to go to a Sunday School, and Audrey Patterson and her father knew about Unitarianism and Dick Morton. In those days, Unitarians met in the Odd Fellows Hall -- Phyllis’s son still remembers the lions on the wall there.

Phyllis and Ken had four children. Keith, born in 1946, became an Edmonton corporate lawyer. Margaret, born in 1949, taught physical education for five years and then graduated in law. Jim, born in 1951, became a gastroenterologist. Their last child, Roderick, was born in 1955 and is a Calgary corporate lawyer. Phyllis has eight grandchildren. None of her children ended up as Unitarians, and Phyllis sagely allowed that she will not “go after them to go to church -- I had enough of that myself, ” referring to her strict Anglican beginnings. Two of her children, however, were married in the Unitarian Church.

When Phyllis and Ken noticed the former Westmount Presbyterian Church at 12524 110th Avenue was for sale in 1956, a committee got together. The church had $6,000 and another $6,000 given to Ken by an oilman he met on the street who wanted a proper Unitarian church! As church treasurer from those early years, Ken helped make the decision to buy the church. The members used it as is for a while, until an architect joined the church and drew up plans for a new building. Interestingly, the architect who bought the church in 2003 knew the first architect. And, the original church had an “indoor” garden but without a roof.

Rev. Charles Eddis became the UCE minister in 1954. Phyllis still remembers Charles’s exuberance. He was “just like a kid”, she said. Both Phyllis and Ken loved the Unitarian philosophy of accepting a diversity of beliefs and cultures. Ken’s father had died when he was seven, and his mother was a strict Baptist. That upbringing put Ken off traditional religion. UUism helped Phyllis and Ken bring up their children, teaching them not to shun others, and that people don’t have to have all the same ideas, but do need to listen to each other.

Charles Eddis, too, loved to exchange ideas with differing religions. “He would never,” Phyllis remembered, “make absolute statements or say, I’m this! I’m that!” He was friends with the imam of the oldest mosque in Canada. And so, when the Beth Shalom Congregation took an interest in UUs, Ken and Phyllis took their children to Beth Shalom at Rabbi Louis Sacks’s invitation. Later, the rabbi was invited to speak at the Unitarian Church.

Phyllis and Ken were an integral part of the church. Ken, a chartered accountant for the federal government, was the church’s treasurer until a few days before he died. Bernie Keeler learned from Ken, and together they did the UCE auditing. Ken gave Charles Eddis advice on when it was time for Charles to move on because his salary in Edmonton “was tiny”.

Phyllis’s contributions to the church began with teaching in the church school and helping in the kitchen. The Montessori School, which rented space in the church, used to make the church untidy, and when Phyllis and Ken lived on 126th Street, they would clean it up. They also worked to get water out of the church basement when they regularly had water seeping in. (I’m sure that people in the church in 2009 will nod their heads to Phyllis’s comment: “People don’t realize that others are doing the dirty work!”)

Phyllis’s main Unitarian commitment, however, was her 25 years working with the Unitarian Service Committee of Canada. (Annabelle and Maurice Bourgoin also worked with USC). She remembers USC director Dr. Hitschmanova as “all work, work, work!”  They worked over at the armories, washing and mending clothes for others.

In November 1967, an Edmonton Journal article described how Phyllis was awarded a certificate of honour (with three others) by Dr. Lotta Hitschmanova for her outstanding contribution to USC. The women operated the USC packing depot and sorted and packed 18,000 pounds of clothing for shipment to Korea over two years. In 1969, Dr. Hitschmanova wrote to Phyllis to tell her she was coming to Edmonton to award her the USC Gold Pin:

Dear Mrs Ferguson,
You are one of those silent Volunteers of whom the Unitarian Service Committee has all too few. Over the years you have helped us in many ways bravely, self-effacingly, always with a smile on your face. In order to show you the immense gratitude of the Unitarian Service Committee for your noble efforts, the Committee on Recognitions has recommended that you be awarded the USC Gold Pin.

The last time Ken and Phyllis were with her, Dr. Hitschmanova had Alhzeimer’s and had forgotten their names. Even now, the USC and Dr. Lotta is important to Phyllis. Pulling out the 2009 Annual Report, “In Women’s Hands”, during our conversation, she reiterated Dr. Hitschmanova’s thesis: “She put all her faith in women.”  Then she repeated it, quietly and with conviction.

In the 1980s, Phyllis worked on spring and Christmas teas and organized seniors’ luncheons. On May 8, 2009, in her 90th year, Phyllis attended the Retired and Semi-Retired Spring Friendship Luncheon at the Unitarian Church of Edmonton. She doesn’t go often now to church because of her health. Phyllis has had two heart attacks and open heart surgery. (Ken died in 1996, after 53 years of marriage.)

At age 88, Phyllis and her daughter Margaret took a spring getaway in Victoria, BC. Phyllis took her walker and walked every day. Margaret made her mother a glorious scrapbook of that time together. She also created family history photograph and scrapbook collections, lovingly and conscientiously compiled.

In June 2009, all four of Phyllis’s children and 7 of her 8 grandchildren came for a 90th birthday celebration. Son Keith brought “The Clarinet Choir” as he and a group of 7 others play clarinets together. Phyllis loved the dinner party at the Manor and the playing of “Danny Boy”.

Phyllis’s humour is revealed in her personal scrapbook pages. A good historian, she has saved several special UCE orders of service. A March 20, 1955 one had handwritten church accounting notes on the back that Ken had written.  Phyllis wrote on a label, “Ken was Treasurer of the Church for many years. Was his mind on money matters even during church services?”

She has also saved the order of service for the Installation Service for Charles Wilton Eddis, November 21, 1954, and Edmonton Journal clippings , “Demolition Clears Site for Unitarians” (August 15, 1964) and undated “Church Dedication Sunday”. The latter includes a picture of the inside of the new church with the familiar ceiling treatment and tells about the purchase of the old First Presbyterian Church in 1956 and the construction that began in August 1964. The church cost $105,000. These treasures are a testament to Phyllis’s lifelong attachment to UCE.

On a card to his mother on one of her birthdays, Phyllis’s son had written, “Mother, there has always been a gentle strength about you”. As writer of this history, I saw that gentle strength in Phyllis.

[Interviewed in 2009]
Photo courtesy: Collection of P. Ferguson