Queen of the Hurricanes awarded 2015 OHS Alison Prentice Award!!

I am happy to announce that Queen of the Hurricanes was awarded this year's Ontario Historical Society's Alison Prentice Award for Best Book in Women's History!  It is a wonderful honour which is very humbling knowing the great work of the OHS and Dr. Alison Prentice.

As many of you know the production of a book is a labour of love, and this has definitely been the case with Queen of the Hurricanes.  The passion and determination with which Elsie MacGill lived her life, and her desire to effect positive social change in the world inspired my work towards this book.  This award will help me my colleagues at the Feminist History Society and Second Story Press to continue contributing to the Ontario Historical Society's mission of 'preserving, promoting, and protecting Ontario's history'. 

The journey towards this book's completion could not have been achieved without the incredible help and support of many people including Constance Backhouse, Ruby Heap, Diana Majury, Jennifer Penny and the incredible women within The Feminist History Society, and the dynamic team at Second Story Press.  I owe a debt of gratitude as well to all of my professors and colleagues at Lakehead University and the University of Ottawa who made history come alive for me and encouraged my work over the years.  I am also indebted to the incredible support of my husband Teva Vidal who believed in this book every step of the way.   

Thank you very much,

Crystal Sissons   

An engaging time at the CAHS!

Last weekend I attended the Canadian Aviation Historical Society annual conference.  It was a very engaging event with high quality presentations on so many topics.  There were a wide range of exciting papers from the  re-interpretation of a primary source on Canadian aviation heroes from the First World War to a presentation on the considerations between replicating, refurburshing and re-creating a vintage aircraft.

I learned a lot, and I was able to share Elsie's story with the CAHS members.  

On Sunday, we had a chance to visit the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum.  It was incredible to see so many of the planes and learn about them from the experts working to either restore them or to maintain them - in some cases to flight worthy status.  I had the chance to visit and explore the interior of the only public;y accessible and flight worthy Lancaster (Elsie worked on Lancasters during her post-war career).  It was incredible.  The Lancaster was so much larger than I anticipated!  Someday, I hope to go up for a spin!

While I didn't go up that day, I did get a chance to imagine flying in a CF-100 fighter jet!

 It was a great day and conference overall!  

To all CAHS members - may your flights be safe and enriching until we meet again!  

Crystal
 

 

Queen of the Hurricanes Sited at Congress 2015

Each year during the Congress for the Social Sciences and Humanities an impressive book fair is included.  Last year, pre-publication notices were available for Queen of the Hurricanes, this year it was amazing to see it on the shelves! 

 

Incredible times with BPW Ontario

Already a week has flown by since the BPW Ontario Conference hosted by BPW Barrie!  It was an excellent conference!  I sincerely enjoyed seeing old friends and meeting new ones.

The conference also provided me with an excellent opportunity to share Queen of the Hurricanes with the Ontario Clubs.  When Elsie Gregory MacGill was active in BPW Ontario, 1950s-1980, she rarely missed a BPW Ontario Conference.  So, it was wonderful to bring her story to her BPW sisters in 2015!  Some of the women present still remember Elsie and others told me they were excited to learn more about her.

Thank you BPW Ontario for all the incredible support since 2006 and for your interest Queen of the Hurricanes!  BPW Toronto, Elsie's home club, called here "Our Elise" and it is true!  

Cheers,
Crystal

Queen of the Hurricanes' flight plan has been checked out for the CAHS!

On June 20th, 2015, The Queen of the Hurricanes will be landing in Hamilton, Ontario!  I will be giving a presentation about Elsie, and  later that day selling copies of my book before the gala dinner.

I am really looking forward to this exciting venture!

Cheers! 

Upcoming Book Sale!

On May 20th, 2015, I will be participating in the Business and Professional Women's (BPW's) Ontario Provincial Conference.  It is taking place at the beautiful Nottawasaga Inn Resort & Conference Centre and hosted by BPW Barrie.

There will be a marketplace for participants to share their talents and sell their products.  The Queen of the Hurricanes will be available for purchase and signing!  Elsie was a prominent member of BPW Ontario and in a sense she will have a chance to participate in another provincial conference - as she rarely missed these engaging events.

Cheers!
Crystal 

And the APEO Gold Medal goes to...

Winning a gold medal is often considered the ultimate achievement of an individual.  In sports individuals and teams earning this honour are held up as heroes and champions - they have aspired to reach this elusive merit and they have succeeded. 

In 1979, Elsie Gregory MacGill was awarded a gold medal - the Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario (APEO)'s Gold Medal.  This was not an award she had sat down and devised a training plan for consciously, but it was an award that recognized years of dedicated service and training - years of commitment and service to her both her engineering colleagues and Canadian society as a whole.  In fact, the person selected was considered to have given "outstanding service to the country". (Queen of the Hurricanes, 208)

Elsie's colleagues had chosen her for this honour.  They had recognized the degree of dedication with which she undertook her engineering projects and service duties to the profession while still finding time to contribute to various non-engineering organizations (most notably the Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs).

Elsie admitted that the honour was such that she went "soaring into the wild blue yonder" as she considered that her name was added to the list of twenty accomplished engineers to have held the gold medal including C.D. Howe who held the first one. (Queen of the Hurricanes, 208)  Ever one to joke - Elsie's famous humour lightened the mood at the awards ceremony where she spoke about cracks in aircraft.

Elsie Gregory MacGill was a dedicated professional engineer.  As national engineering month comes to a close I hope that some of these reflections have given you insight into the world of engineering.  If you are an engineer, I hope that these historical reflections have added to your existing knowledge base, if you are not, I hope that they have you curious to know more about this creative and dynamic profession.