Eulogy
Donald Walter Thomson
Peter A. Ludwig, B.Com., LL.B., M.B.A., LL.M., C.A.
Barrister and Solicitor
10 Parkglen Drive
Ottawa, ON K2G 3G9
Tel: 613-225-4385
E-mail: paludwig_ca@yahoo.com
January 18, 2001
Eulogy to Donald Walter Thomson, LL.B., LL.D., F.R.G.S. (1906 - 2001)
Memorial Service - January 18, 2001
Parkdale United Church
429 Parkdale Avenue
Ottawa, ON K1Y 1H3 Canada
Mrs. Thomson, Dr. Bailey, Commander Little, Ms. Foss, Ms. Annas, Dr. Ritchie, and Honoured Guests :
I feel privileged to be with everyone here to commemorate the life of Donald Walter Thomson.
There was no doubt that Donald Thomson would lead an extraordinary life through law, through public service, through serving on the personal staffs of three federal cabinet ministers all from the West (Hon. J.G. Gardiner, Hon. James A. MacKinnon and Hon. George Prudham), through writing the official history of the mapping and surveying of Canada, through poetry and writing, and through membership in many organizations including the Canadian Authors Association, the Canadian Writers Foundation and Parkdale United Church.
Dr. Thomson touched each of us with his own unique style and always demonstrating wit, charm and wisdom, and as many know, his canny ability to come up with a timely pun.
I first met him when he was concerned about the equal appointment of men and women to the Senate of Canada. Judge Emily Murphy and Nellie McClung of the Alberta Five and for whom a statue is now placed on Parliament Hill, were together members when Dr. Thomson was President of the Edmonton Branch of the Canadian Authors Association.
He led an interesting life, always looking to the future with anticipation and joy.
When I came to visit and knocked on his apartment door, I would be greeted by a booming voice from inside, asking "Is that you Peter?", and I would be severely scolded if I was a second late! We shared many things in common, and time passed quickly at his home shared with Wanda.
His four pillars were his family and Wanda, his writing and poetry, his public service and Parkdale United Church.
His predisposition to serving his country and leaving a permanent legacy can be discerned from his early upbringing. Born in Old Strathcona on January 18, 1906, the story of his family expresses the interrelationship of widely separated parts of Canada. His grandfather was "Mountain Jack Thomson", a legendary figure in the Ottawa River Valley as a timber cruiser. Dr. Thomson was proud of his relation to this folklore hero.
His mother Annie McCrae was born in Alexandria, Ontario and father George Thomson Sr. at Portage du Fort on the Quebec side of the Ottawa River. Early pioneers to Alberta, his father was the first qualified druggist to set up business in Edmonton, and later became Postmaster of Strathcona a position which led to a 25 year career in the postal service. The Thomson family grew up in the "white house in Old Strathcona" at the corner of 85th Avenue and 100th Street, directly opposite the original King Edward School. Donald was third oldest of seven children and is lovingly remembered by his two living sisters, Norma Paradis and Betty Thomson, of Edmonton. He was predeceased by Theresa Emily Thomson (Meeres).
Dr. Thomson's early grades in public school reflect the direction his career would take. His Grade XII high school diploma lists grades of 91% in English Language and History of Literature and 88% in History. On the other hand, I don't believe Dr. Thomson would wish disclosure of his grade in Trigonometry! (48%). His love for the English language and history was carried forward to his Bachelor of Law's degree where he joined the third graduating class from the Faculty of Law, University of Alberta and where he distinguished himself as the youngest person to be certified for admission to the Alberta Bar in November 1927.
This was also the turning point that would take him to Ottawa and the start of a brilliant career in Canada and on the international scene and one that would leave his mark on Canada and, in many ways, on the world.
We are here to honour Donald Thomson, a person who would probably be the last one of us present to say that he should be honoured. Dr. Thomson with his strong ability to express himself in the fewest and best possible words in the best possible order has contributed a lasting legacy to Canada, and to its balance and its substance.
He would agree that without some record, the import of the human spirit would be lost forever, and that material wealth and technology all dim and fade, and that the lasting monuments of the human spirit are the great works of art and of literature, architecture, the wisdom of the laws handed down, the development of civil liberties, tolerance and compassion and the evolution of wiser systems of government.
Dr. Thomson lived a busy life possessing a great sense of humor and representing the old-fashioned values of truth, honesty and decency. I would like to share some insights of the mark he left on Canada and the world.
Historian of Mapping and Surveying
The impact of Dr. Thomson's contributions to recording the official history of surveying and mapping and aerial photography of Canada will be a permanent legacy. His three volume series Men and Meridians (1966, 1967, and 1969) and Skyview Canada (1975) record the most essential aspects of Canada's nation-building and national identity, and his offering expertise to governments serve to provide the teachings and experience to secure peace and develop potentialities.
It is best for others to describe the service he rendered, and to this end I quote the following comments:
MEN AND MERIDIANS: VOLUME ONE
" I have just finished reading your remarkable contributions to the history of American cartography. Yours is indeed a scholarly professional accomplishment and I feel confident it will rank with the very best for a long time to come. The illustrations are superb, especially those in color. The bibliography and notes are gems that should serve each reader as a large fund of additional information. Don, you have a pattern and established a goal that is going to be difficult for any of us to match."
Herman R. Friis, Author and Senior Specialist in Cartographic Archives,
U.S. Archives, Washington , D.C.
"...a superb piece of writing. You have done a very great thing for surveying because in gaining a wide audience much will be done to put surveying back into its proper perspective...Not only do you seem to have had an infallible instinct for picking out and preserving the essential material but you have succeeded in injecting into it such vitality by the quality of your writing that the reader finds it extremely difficult to put your book down."
Dr. L.E. Hewlett, Director, Division of Applied Physics,
National Research Council, Ottawa
"I have enjoyed reading the first volume of MEAN AND MERIDIANS and I find it a most impressive achievement...I have found your work includes a great wealth of material which supplements my own research. I shall look forward with interest to reading Volume II".
Silvio A. Bedini
Assistant Director
Museum of History and Technology
Smithsonian Institution, United States National Museum
Washington, D.C.
In 1999, Men and Meridians was followed by a fourth volume "Mapping a Northern Land, The Survey of Canada, 1947 - 1994, edited by Professor Gerald McGrath and Louis M. Sebert. Dr. Thomson wrote the foreward to this sequel and noted the changing world. Even at the advanced age of 93, his mind was keen and sharp and embracing change. More importantly he held firm to his lifetime convictions. I note his comment: "True, I would have preferred to have this new volume entitled Men and Meridians, Volume 4. But the world has changed greatly during the last half of the twentieth century. So many women, for example, are now engaged in nearly every aspect of surveying and mapping in Canada that a different title is required."
Dr. Thomson's modesty and keen sense of humour is illustrated in a very personal way with Men and Meridians. During one of his autographing sessions involving volumes of the MEN AND MERIDIAN SERIES, he was having particular difficulty with a woman who told him she was from Australia and who spoke with a distinctive Australian accent. He got his autographing pen all ready for action, asking her name. He was sure that she said, "Emma Chissett." Looking over his shoulder as he wrote carefully " Emma C-h-i=s=s-e-t-t" she asked, "What are your writing there?" "Well, isn't that your name?" "No, no" she exclaimed, "I just asked you, how much is it?" That book, he added later, was a complete write-off!
He displayed his wit at another occasion in front of a service club that he was addressing, At age 82 he told his audience that "I am delighted to be here. As a matter of fact, at my age, I'm delighted to be anywhere!" And later he told the same audience, that "In his youth, some 60 years ago, I was known as a reckless young blood. Today, I'm just a bloodless old wreck".
It was no wonder that he was a frequent guest speaker at universities and service groups!
Dr. Thomson's legacy extends to his poetry. He was a member of poetry groups and once stated to members of the Ottawa Poetry Craft Group: "Let me listen to your poetry and then I can better understand you as a person". His verse was crystal clear, and used language that was most universal and most communicable. The Globe and Mail wrote "Seldom do we find a husband-wife team writing poetry and more seldom do we find both showing promise so satisfying from a literary and poetical standpoint". Here is one example of his work written in 1981:
HOMEWARD BOUND (by Don Thomson)
Hold my hands while I steer my craft
O Master Navigator
and in the long, quiet swing
of the middle watch
when the soft cadence of the sea soothes
and the stars seem pluckable spangles;
keep me alert to hidden dangers:
and when the fierce winds mount
and moan with menace in the rigging;
when the sails rip from savage gusts
and the rudder twists in the angry foam-
guide me, then, to the haven of all steersmen,
to landfall and their homing place,
peaceful beneath the orbit of the dog-star,
cradled in the Island of the Blessed.
Dr. Thomson's legacy will also be measured by his dedication and service on behalf of authors and poets to the venerable Canadian Authors Association and Canadian Writers Foundation having been involved for over 70 years. During his very long involvement, he fostered a shared sense of personal relationship with fellow writers from across Canada as well as outside its borders.
As many here know, Her Excellency The Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, Governor General of Canada holds and her former predecessors have held the position of Patron, and the Canadian Authors Association was instrumental in the 1930s in advising the Governor General to establish Canadian literary awards.
Dr. Thomson's efforts were tireless on behalf of both organizations and he held various positions in each including Honorary National President , Canadian Authors Association (1990 to 2001) and Honorary National President, Canadian Writers Foundation (1976 - 1998). For many years, he and Theresa Thomson carried the CWF from their home at 90 Kenilworth Ave., OTTAWA. His long-time colleague and friend Commander Charles Little, and current National President of the CWF, on noting Dr. Thomson's legacy stated:
"Dr. Thomson and his first wife were instrumental in the formation of the Foundation, and he has been a dedicated supporter for his life time of the cause of writing in Canada...and (I) can attest to the great influence he has had on the national scene."
Dr. Thomson's lasting contributions extended to many areas including championing authors' rights and looking into how and whether to pay Canadian authors for public use of their books. This led to the establishment of federal policies and laws for the protection of intellectual property for authors.
In 1961, the Secretary to the Right Hon. George Diefenbaker wrote: "On behalf of the Prime Minister I acknowledge receipt of your letter of February 27, and assure you of Mr. Diefenbaker's appreciation for placing before him the representations of the Canadian Authors Association urging the introduction of a Copyright Bill".
In 1990, the CAA awarded Dr. Thomson the Declaration of Service Award to National Presidents, for advancement of literary efforts in Canada. The citation reads:
"In gratitude for devoted leadership and for useful service voluntarily rendered in the advancement of literary efforts in Canada...and in the encouragement of young writers as well as in the promotion of the high aims and growth of the Canadian Authors Association".
Equality
His accomplishments in law, journalism, politics and civic duty have enriched human affairs and will benefit future generations. I wish to return to a theme mentioned previously. Throughout his life, Dr. Thomson was secure in himself and supported the goals of Judge Emily Murphy and the equality of men and women. In 1933, at the time of Emily Murphy's death, he was quoted in The Edmonton Journal that " her passing leaves a blank, especially in the field of women's work and in all humanitarian activities, which it will be difficult to fill". In his life with Wanda Thomson, his legacy showed that each could develop freely without one doing so at the expense of the other.
In his four books of poetry written jointly with Theresa Thomson, their names were published with hers first followed by his own. In 1996, at the 75th anniversary at the Stephen Leacock celebrations at McGill University marking the founding of the Canadian Authors Association, he noted the long standing traditions of bilingualism and equality. He noted the large number of women national presidents including his friend Mary E. Dawe of Edmonton.
He gave support to the Human Rights Institute of Canada, OTTAWA, for equality of appointment of men and women to the Senate of Canada and the hanging of portraits of the Alberta Five in the Senate Lobby. In 1998, he stated: "I strongly support the present movement that men and women be admitted to the Senate on an equal basis".
INTERNATIONAL SCENE
Dr. Thomson's lifetime contributions were felt in the international scene. His work as secretary in the late 1940s to the Hon. James MacKinnon, M.P., Minister of Trade and Commerce took him to Central America, South Africa, Belgian Congo, Southern Rhodesia, and Europe, and in the 1950s he traveled the world with the Hon. George Prudam, M.P., Minister of Mines and Technical Surveys. In no small part, the success of these Missions was owed to the loyalty and work carried on by Dr. Thomson.
And in 1967, during Canada's Centennial Year, Theresa Thomson and Dr. Thomson gave a recital of poems to the (British) Poetry Society, London. He also delivered the key-note address marking Canada's Centennial Year to the Royal Geographical Society, in London.
In 1974, The Right Honourable Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Prime Minister, acknowledged his appreciation. Mr. Trudeau wrote:
"I wish to thank you for the assistance that you gave to my office in the composition of the presentational address placed in the frontispiece of the National Atlas of Canada which I left with President Ford during my recent visit to the Untied States. I know the pride that you take in the quality of your written work and I wish you to know that I share that pride with you.
His role as an historic author also leaves a legacy. In his Window On The Third World, he describes Canada's contributions in mapping and surveying of developing countries for major development projects. These projects hinged on Canada's surveyors. Dr. Thomson's dedication of the Canada Atlas & Gazetteer to Canadian mapmakers is inscribed in bronze in French and English at the entrance to the federal government building located at 615 Booth Street, OTTAWA.
Through his death, Dr. Thomson may leave a further mark. His lifetime of influence and contribution to the whole of Canada was the reason why I nominated him for the Order of Canada on November 6, 2000. I also believed that his appointment would bring great credit and prestige to the Order of Canada itself. However, the honour escaped him during his lifetime due to his death. I am hopeful that a solution will be found to this problem for Dr. Thomson and others, and that he will be recognized in time to celebrate the 80th Anniversary of the Canadian Authors Association meetings in Halifax in June 2001.
Dr. Thomson was a remarkable man. His is a story few of us can duplicate. However, it is our turn to carry the torch onward that this distinguished Canadian has handed us.
To Wanda , his partner of twenty-five years and to her son Richard, to Commander Little, Honourary National President of the Canadian Writers Foundation, to Gill Foss, National President, Canadian Authors Association, to Canadian mapmakers and surveyors, and to all of us that he touched, may we pause for a moment and remember Donald Walter Thomson, LL.B., LL.D., F.R.G.S. with the words inscribed around the rim of the largest bell in the Peace Tower in front of the House of Commons in Ottawa where he started his public service career in the Legal Branch: "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace, goodwill toward men".
Donald Walter Thomson (January 18, 1906 - January 9, 2001)
TRUE COPY OF:
Eulogy given at the memorial service on January 18, 2001
Donald Walter Thomson, LL.B., LL.D., F.R.G.S. (1906 - 2001)
By Peter Ludwig, B.COM., LL.B., M.B.A., LL.M., C.A.
(New York - Ontario Bars)
January 18, 2001
