HELPING OTHERS WAS ADA FLORENCE KINTON'S THANKSGIVING

BY TED CURRIE

The brightly colored leaves of the hardwoods, that wreath the tall pines, and so nicely frame the wavering field grasses and sea of cattails down in The Bog, adjacent to our home, remind me now of Ada Florence Kinton's many vibrant paint boards, she created while staying in Muskoka, back in the late 1800's.

Although it was a scene out of Victorian times, and the locale was Huntsville, in north Muskoka, I can so easily imagine the young artist wandering these forest paths, and finding this place, at Birch Hollow, bathed in October's sunlight, a perfect place to sketch and watch sky and forest, wee creatures and the tiny crystalline waterfalls you can see tumbling down amidst the mounds of matted grasses. I can see her silhouetted against this harvest landscape, sitting on a fallen log, enamored with the diverse vista in front.

At this time of the year however, Ada would have gladly surrendered her artistic interests, to help the less fortunate, at a soup kitchen on the streets of Toronto, working on behalf of the Salvation Army. While she could have spent her life painting, selling her work, and being paid well to teach others, she opted instead to dedicate herself to helping mankind cope with distress. I think she would have approved of this year-long series of columns, being dedicated to the Salvation Army Food Bank, here in Gravenhurst, and food banks generally across the country. The pioneer artist, missionary, went on through her short life, believing in the unfaltering power of faith, and the healing capability of compassion. It was visible in her art work, and profoundly evident in her writing, both eventually being published in many issues of the Salvation Army's "War Cry," during the late 1800's.

One poignant reminiscence of Miss Kinton's dedication, comes from her longtime friend, and Canadian novelist, Agnes Maule Machar, who in 1907 wrote of sacrifice, the art career that ceased suddenly and unnecessarily. Miss Machar wrote of her friend, "The final step was not, however, taken without the sacrifice of many natural feelings and preferences. She used to say that her resolve was made during a particularly dull sermon and an uninspiring service. Her fist intimation of her decision, to the writer, was contained in a letter countermanding a request she had made about the sending of two small watercolor drawings to the Exhibition of the Ontario Society of Artists. After asking that they be 'not sent', she added, 'This is what I am going to do,' and in a few words stated her determination to enter into the work of the Salvation Army, relinquishing a competent salary and prestige (in the art community) for a humble niche in what she felt to be a great work, with a bare livelihood. and she had counted the cost."

"In the external features of the organization she entered, there were some things which were repellant to her naturally refined taste for dainty and beautiful surroundings, but where her conscience and judgement approved the general method - where her mind was fully and worthily occupied and her heart found full scope. She could dispense with adventitious advantages, and be happy in the simple life of the Army," penned her writer friend. "She was convinced that in it she found work more worthy of her highest capacities than in that of 'helping a number of young people to draw a little better than they otherwise might,' as she put it. Of this she was satisfied to the end - whether that work was found in its most self-denying form, in the humble 'Rescue Home,' for intemperate women (where she willingly submitted to much that was naturally painful and repelling), in the overflowing compassion which their hard case inspired her; or in the 'Refuge for Neglected City Waifs,' whose starved and stunted childhood was sad to see."

Miss Machar suggested candidly, "Few really appreciated either the rewards or the privations of her work; and her sensitive heart could not feel the unavoidable isolation from many former inmates (colleagues in art). From ordinary social intercourse, as well as from the gratification of some most innocent tastes, she was in a great measure, debarred, both by her engrossing occupations and by the necessity of wearing her uniform, which she would never discard except when on a country holiday. And a well-worn uniform it often was." This talented artist simply turned and walked away, feeling unworthy to belong to such a group any longer. Although we can conclude, from our vantage point, that she should have mustered the courage to participate, it was her character to concentrate on the interests so keenly felt, and that was, simply stated, the continuation of her relief work; not selfishly pursuing what, at the time, she mistakenly believed was frivolous art, that was helping no one but herself.

As an example, one of the most compelling and unfortunate circumstances in Ada Kinton's transformation, from art career to the work of a missionary, was summed up by Machar. "On one occasion, when she desired to hear a friend read a paper before a Women's Art Association meeting, in Toronto, she ventured as far as the door of the place of the meeting, but on catching sight of the fashionably attired assemblage within, her fastidious sense of the fitness of things overcame her courage, and she precipitately confessed without some natural tears. 'It seemed,' she said, 'as if I had caught a glimpse of a charming world, to which I once belonged, but in which I could no long claim a place'." Machar footnoted this quotation, by writing, "She said she felt like a 'speckled bird' when she did venture into such society."

Her eventual placement with the "War Cry," suited her very well, because she could adorn her feature articles, with art work of her own creation. It was the merging of all her talents, and her sense of humanity, and the voyeur of her life and accomplishment, feels some consolation that the talented artist, who felt she didn't belong side by side her artist peers, felt comfortable in her final years, expressing what had been for so long suppressed by her stalwart mission to help others.

"If you stood, on a summer night, somewhere among our lovely woods and lakes, in the softness and the hush of tender sundown, you would hear such melodious tumult from the throats of our countless song-birds, you might almost fancy that they had met in earnest consultation upon some question of burning interest but that their council had been broken up in confusion, with no agreement but to disagree, for each one to argue out his own ideas to himself, whilst the cat-bird, like some laughing yahoo, throws in a derisive 'mi-au.' But above all their sweet jangle, some persistent bird asserts himself, ever repeating, in accents of unutterable plaintiveness, his own clear phrase, whilst far through the echoing forest his wistful mate replies, in praise (so people say) of Canada. 'What is it that it sings?' the sun-browned children ask. 'Sweet - sweet - Canada,' thinks many a mother, with her cheek upon her baby's curls, as she listens in the doorway of her fragrant wooden cottage, on the margin of forest, where the graceful maples rest their branches on the shingled roof." "Sweet, sweet Canada, Canada, Canada, Canada." This was penned by Ada Kinton, shortly before her death, published in The War Cry.

As this series of columns on pioneer artist Ada Kinton, has been dedicated in her memory, to the Salvation Army Food Bank, here in Gravenhurst, please consider making a donation to a food bank in your own community, to help out at this festive time of the year. It will be greatly appreciated.

From our family, here at Birch Hollow, in Gravenhurst, Ontario, please accept our best wishes for a happy and contenting Thanksgiving holiday.