Lois Wilson

Senator, human rights advocate and United Church minister Lois Wilson died in Fredericton, NB, on Sept. 13, at the age of 97. She was concluding her much-anticipated summer tour visiting all her four children. Family was very important to her and she rejoiced every time she officiated as a minister at one of her 12 grand children’s weddings. It was a good way to conclude such a meaningful life. Being a Peace Magazinepaton was only
one of Wilson’s comity, disarmament, Indigenous reparation, social housing, education, literature or music.
Well into her 90s Wilson was most concerned with the increasing inequality and precarity of the life of so many Canadians.

She became intimately involved with the campaign asking the federal government to create a permanent “guaranteed livable income,” adopting and learning from the successful examples in Canada and around the world of emergency programs.

Her life and works munity involvements and long term contributions to Canada. In February of this year CBC’s Ideas program paid tribute, and introduced her with these words: “She’s a United Church minister, a community organizer, the first female moderator of the United Church of Canada, a president of the World Council of Churches, a staunch human rights advocate who visited South Africa, South Korea, and Argentina — all in one year, and a former independent member of the Senate of Canada who found common cause with both left and right.” There is no facet of human concern that Wilson was indifferent to and to which she did not add her vision, her wisdom, her humor, and her universality. In her words, she was guided by these two questions: “what’s happening in the community? and “what can I do about it?”.

She was a vibrant and wise presence at Christie Gardens for “Whether people do or don’t have faith, the question is, what can we do together.” more than a decade, and sharing lunch with her was always a treat. The stimulating conversations flowed easily on matters of kayaking and canoeing, garden naturalization, local, national and international social and cultural issues — such as national security- were the subject of a book, For the Sake of the Common Good: Essays in Honor of Lois Wilson, published by McGill-Queen’s University Press and written by people who worked with her.

At the book launch, she said with characteristic modesty, “I hope that this helps unite us and spurs us on to do some things together. It is obvious that I didn’t do anything on my own. It was always with other people. And you won’t get anywhere if you’re on your own… we need to remember that.” Words that were part of her lifetime philosophy and legacy.

By Bruna Nota, a past resident of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom