By Sarah York (M.A. student)
When
I started research for my thesis three months ago, I was mistaken. I believed I was in charge. The truth is I’m only partly in charge.
It
first struck me while I was speaking with a librarian on the telephone. I was
trying to arrange a date to visit his library’s archive when he explained,
“We’re a small library with only a handful of staff. Since it is the summer
most of our staff is away on holidays. You can try to come do research but I
can’t guarantee anyone will be able to retrieve anything for you.” Since this
library is in a community several hours away, I was not going to show up and
hope someone could help me.
I
watched helplessly as the days I planned to do ‘out-of-town’ research passed
by. I kept myself busy reading newspapers on microfilm and visiting local
archives. But then I hit a roadblock. I was running out of sources and I did
not know where to look for new ones.
My
supervisor suggested I e-mail James Gray’s daughter, Patricia Fennell. James
Gray’s book Red Lights on the Prairies
is the first investigation of the early sex trade in Canada’s Prairie
Provinces. I coveted Gray’s sources. Not only did he use newspaper articles and
police reports, he had access to first-hand accounts of the early sex trade –
sources that were impossible for me to acquire today. I learned from Patricia
that Gray had destroyed these accounts to protect his informants. However,
Patricia’s husband, Bill Fennell, had some information he wanted to share with me.
Bill
is the great-nephew of Walter Johnson, a name I immediately recognized. Johnson
was the Police Chief and subsequent mayor of Moose Jaw during my period of
study. Bill wrote:
When he [Johnson] was Police Chief, he
used to park his vehicle in front of the Police Station with one of the windows
rolled down a bit. Every Friday afternoon, weather permitting, the Ladies of
the Night would stroll by and, somehow, they would drop a few envelopes into
Chief Johnson's vehicle through the window, containing their political
contributions to his cause.
Moose
Jaw’s sex trade workers wanted to see Johnson become Mayor.
Bill’s
family history was the human element I was searching for. But I came across it
in an unexpected and serendipitous way. Our e-mail ‘conversation’ showed me
again how much I am not in charge. I’ve
learned to cope with this disconcerting fact by surrendering to it and by recognizing
that sometimes relying on other people isn’t so bad.
