Content area
Full Text
On a prairie spring day in 1930, a young man boarded an eastward-bound train from the small town of Carberry, Manitoba. Soon to turn twenty-two years old, six-foot tall, slender with blue eyes and round, blackrimmed glasses, he was looking forward to the three hour train ride to Winnipeg. He felt tired but content, having just enjoyed a turkey dinner provided by his Aunt Ida and still savouring his splendid graduation from Brandon College just four days prior. Some of his train time was used to write a long, newsy letter to his father, step-mother, and brother who lived in Los Angeles. "(I am) bound for my field in the city," he declared. "To describe the feelings at a breakup such as ours is impossible," he continued, specifying the recent commencement ceremonies and the dispersion of his classmates. "All in all I am deeply grateful, wouldn't choose other than Brandon (College) if I had it to do over again, and only hope that all I feel it has meant to me may emerge in a more useful life."'
On arriving in Winnipeg, Stanley Knowles made his way from the train station to the downtown campus of the United Colleges. Over the next few years, he took room and board in Wesley Hall, attended classes, wrote papers and examinations, and worked as a student minister. After receiving a theological diploma in 1933, he was ordained in the United Church of Canada. He worked as a minister for the remainder of the decade. In 1942 he was elected to the House of Commons. Knowles was to spend nearly the next forty years in political office. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the mid-1940s, he still worked long hours. He never really retired, even after suffering a deliberating stroke in 1981.2 When he died in June of 1997, tributes poured in from across Canada. He was uplifted by friend and foe alike as a parliamentarian par excellence. Never part of a majority government, Knowles provided unflagging loyal opposition, first as a member of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and then as a formative member of the New Democratic Party.3 At one memorial service, the Rev. Bill Blaikie, political colleague and protege, upheld Knowles as the "parliamentary incarnation of the Social...