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In a recent opinion piece in the Edmonton Journal, I was quoted regarding the University of Alberta’s proposal to demolish/sell the Ring Houses, and now I wish to speak for myself.
I view the stories embedded in the four remaining Ring House homes as the U of A’s DNA. And, as the first university in the province, the U of A belongs to the entire province, and to U of A graduates and their families. The U of A is imprinted on all of us.
I am a double U of A grad and spent 32 years working on campus with senior administration and hundreds of professors, students and staff. Between 2006 and today, four of my books about the U of A have been published and each has stories about the Ring Houses. Here are a few:
Ring House 1 was the home of mathematician and scientist Henry Marshall Tory, (Marsh) and his wife Annie. Marsh was a whirlwind mind, and he set the frontier U of A on a path to a Nobel Prize.
Tory, the “human dynamo,” as described by students and staff, had a vision for the U of A that he pursued with vigour. He identified himself with any enterprise he undertook, and by his energy and drive usually dominated it. For instance, he talked down the first academic council, which wanted local talent as the first four professors. Tory won the day, hiring professors from Berkeley, Harvard, Columbia and McGill.
Tory also established the then-department of extension, sending our best out to teach in small towns. They ploughed in snow so deep that they all had to get out of the car, and pull it out of the ruts onto the rough trail. At their arrival, they were met with stone boats to transport their lantern slides to a church or other gathering space. This was Tory’s vision: that the university was meant for the uplifting of the whole people.
Marsh and Annie were part of a neighbourhood of 10 homes, which Tory had built from 1911-1914 as there was little housing in those early days in Strathcona, which was largely — mud. Tory’s home, Ring House 1, has long been the unrecognized oldest presidential residence in Canada.
Ring House 2 was the home of Muir Edwards, the first professor of engineering and son of Henrietta Muir Edwards of the Famous Five. Muir chaired the first SU meeting; laid out the first football field and taught students to play rugby football and basketball, beginning an astounding history of sport.
In 1910, Muir found the source of the typhoid epidemic, which had killed hundreds and closed the university. The city recently named a day for him. In 1918, when the “Spanish” Flu hit, Muir was the admitting officer to Pembina Hall, nursing students and others. This meant dealing with the blood and pus that accumulated in the lungs of the sick. Muir contracted the flu and died on his 39th birthday, leaving his wife Evelyn and their three children. Decades later, I met Muir’s youngest, Joyce, when she was 99. She was in assisted living and I was advised by her son, Dr. Hugh Scully, that she might not understand what I was saying. Joyce sat down in a cushy chair and I was at her footstool, telling her stories about the dad she never knew. When I was done, Joyce repeated each story I had told her — in the same order. This was the young girl whose dad had been lost and was now found.
More recently, the four Ring Houses have been home to a number of academic units including museums and collections, UAlberta North and the University of Alberta Press.
Realizing that there are competing priorities when the university budget is cut, and that the Ring Houses sit on prime land, I ask the university administration to recognize the DNA embedded in these homes and restore them. I will be first in line to donate. Many would follow, I am sure.
Ellen Schoeck is former director of the University Secretariat, former executive director of the U of A Graduate Students’ Association; Author of I Was There: A Century of Alumni Stories about the U of A 1906-2006, The U of A: A Century of Campus Maps, The History of the Faculty of Engineering 1906-2019 and “Taking Care:” Alumni Stories about the Original Residences and Lister Hall.
