Calgary 1914: Oil has just been discovered in Turner Valley the population is pushing 50000 and the Great War has broken out in Europe.
Centenaries marking the start of the First World War are taking place across the world this fall and the Lougheed House is remembering the anniversary through the lens of one of Calgary’s founding families. “Senator Lougheed and Lady Lougheed both had significant roles to play during World War I” says Kirstin Evenden Lougheed House’s executive director. “We wanted to remember and commemorate that anniversary in a unique and personal way because the family experienced things both on the public level and on the private level.”
A Family at War: Calgary the Lougheeds and the First World War is a historic exhibition featuring 60 items from Lougheed House’s collection — from Senator Lougheed’s top hat cane and diaries to Lady Lougheed’s sterling silver tea set which was a fixture at her fundraising teas during the war effort. Two of the Lougheeds’ sons Clarence and Edgar fought in Europe and you’ll see some of the trench art that came back from the front including a box made from shell casings.
Evenden hopes that visitors will take away “a heightened awareness of the role that this particular family and Calgarians played at this significant time in the country’s history.” For example Senator Lougheed was president of the Military Hospitals Commission which led to a knighthood in 1916 but more importantly supported Canada’s wounded and widowed as the war progressed. He was also the minister of Soldiers’ Civil Re-establishment known today as Veterans Affairs. “We played a role in the development of Canada as a nation within this very city from its very beginning” notes Evenden.
Lady Lougheed for her part supported the war from the home front leading important social initiatives like the National Council of Women in Canada and the Victorian Order of Nurses.
The exhibit isn’t entirely about the Lougheeds though: it’s about Calgary too and allows us to imagine the city in its adolescence. Curator Mary-Beth Laviolette offers some perspective explaining that the Lougheeds “both arrived in Calgary at a time when it was still a fort and if you wanted to live anywhere you needed to live in the tent village.” But a few decades later the city had changed: “They built a pretty magnificent home… and this city [was] growing up all around them.”
The first part of the 20th century was a period of rapid growth for Calgary not unlike the booms we’ve seen since; for example the population increased tenfold between 1900 and the start of the war in 1914 from about 4500 people to roughly 50000. Many significant establishments were born shortly before 1914 including Calgary’s first public library City Hall The Grand Theatre and the Calgary Stampede.
“Even though the city was a very very young place it was a city that had a lot of ambition and a lot of drive” says Laviolette. “Calgary was a much more sophisticated place than people might assume.”
A testament to that sophistication is Lougheed House itself a sandstone mansion built in 1891 and expanded in 1907. “When you work in a historic site you’re actually working right in the history you’re inside it all the time” says Evenden. “You’re where these people lived laughed cried ate — and I think that’s also special to be able to share that here.”
The exhibit itself is located in what was once the Lougheeds’ ballroom where the exposed heating pipes overhead were a status symbol of the time.
If you want to hear more about the exhibit — the family era or house — Laviolette and co-curator Ian Rogan will be available at the free opening reception on Friday October 17 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
A Family at War: Calgary the Lougheeds and the First World War runs until January 18 at the Lougheed House.
