Frances Blythe: A UCE Matriarch
By Christine Mowat
Interviewed 2010
Frances Blythe’s family is central to the history of our church. I
interviewed her by phone and then in her seniors’ residence in
Abbotsford, B.C.
For a start, at 85, she is the second of six generations of her
family connected to the Unitarian Church in Edmonton. The first
generation, Frances’s mother and father, Berneice and John L.
Hollinshead, were two of the 75 original Unitarian members. And
her son, Lyndon, is still a UCE member. In fact, her four children
attended UCE. It is fascinating that they are the only family that
spans six generations in the Edmonton Unitarian church, including her great-grandson.
Frances’s parents, first generation Unitarians
Frances’s father, John Hollinshead, was the son of Lincolnshire, England parents who went first
to the U.S.A., and then moved to Botha, Alberta in 1906 and homesteaded. Frances’s father
was brought up in a very religious family and signed a pledge never to smoke or drink. In the
end, her grandfather ran the hardware store in Botha that still has the Hollinshead name on it.
After serving time as a prisoner of war, her father, John, came back from overseas in 1919 and
studied Education at University of Alberta. As a well spoken and outspoken student, he was on
the Students’ Council. On graduation, he continued teaching. In 1922, John married Berneice
(Hegler), a Home Economics student from a prominent family. His first school after university
was in Stony Plain, then at a residential school in St. Albert, and finally as principal of a school in
Jasper. In a letter that Frances still has, her father wrote to his mother about Frances’s 1925
birth and about going out stooking grain to make extra money!
In Jasper, John Hollinshead started the Jasper/Edson Signal newspaper. At that time there were
no roads and he had to use the train for transportation. He was unable to support the family
with the newspaper work, so quit and returned to teaching.
Berneice was an extraordinary woman herself. In the Alberta Provincial Archives are six tapes of
interviews she did about the 1907 (when she moved to Edmonton at age 5) to 1975 era. The
CBC also interviewed Berneice on an afternoon talk show about euthanasia.
In a telephone conversation on July 9, 2010, Ruth Patrick said Frances’s mother, Berneice, was a
fascinating woman. Ruth was obviously close to Frances and, in later years, they went on some
trips together. Ruth Patrick presented Frances’s father with the W.H. Alexander Award and, as
chaplain, conducted the memorial service for her mother. Frances describes her parents as “top
notch”! When the UCE started a chapter of the UU Women’s Federation, the women honoured
Berneice Hollinshead by naming their chapter after her. She also became a trustee in the
church in 1954 and, in the 1950s, her father was in charge of Church School education and an
unofficial greeter.
Both Frances’s grandparents lived to age 90 and 96 and are buried in the Botha cemetery.
Frances’s mother and father are buried in an Edmonton cemetery.
Frances’s life in the Unitarian Church
Frances has some colourful memories of going to Sunday School in the mid-1930s by streetcar.
The tickets were 10 for 25 cents and they had to walk home over the High Level Bridge because
her parents couldn’t afford two tickets per child on one day. Carl Storm was the minister then,
and Frances remembers going to visit W.H. Alexander on Saskatchewan Drive and playing with
a young girl from Spain.
Frances was treasurer of the UCE Church School and her mother, Berneice, kept the money in
her purse. Their home was robbed and her purse was stolen: both the money and her diamond
ring were stolen. They found the empty purse four blocks away. When she was 13, 14, and 15,
Frances’s father played Penny, Penny, Who has the Penny? with his children on Saturday
evenings. The child who won gave the pennies as collection at the United Church. His advice to
his children was, “Go, listen, but don’t believe everything you hear.”
In 1939, the first Unitarian church closed its doors. On July 26, 1947, Frances and George Evans
were married in Central United Church at 99th Street and 106th Avenue.
Even at 85 (and still nearly six feet tall), Frances enthuses about being a Unitarian. She still
sends her pledge every year, and said that there were Unitarian fellowships in Abbotsford and
Chilliwack when she first went there — though they have “dwindled away”. But UCE still means
a lot to her: “It has been part of my life for over 70 years.” She was on the Board of Trustees in
1971-1972 and her son Bob was chair of the UCE Board in the eighties, the youngest board
chair in the church at that stage.
Her beliefs include the axiom to “Be yourself”, and she remembers her father, the atheist,
strongly influencing her. Frances herself is agnostic. Her father influenced her to join the army
at a time when women usually stayed home.
With four young children when her husband, George Evans, died, Frances started working for
the federal government. She worked for National Defence for four years.
Her life is the story of a strong, independent woman and single mother. The Alberta provincial
government offered her a job with more money to work as a Correctional Officer at the Alberta
Institution for Girls. But they wanted her to work nights and, as a single mother of four children,
she said no. She remembered receiving Mother’s Allowance for only two years. Later she
worked with Old Age Security when the Guaranteed Income Supplement became a program.
Between 1967 and 1985, Frances worked for Health and Welfare Canada.
She received a 25-year employee recognition certificate signed by Prime Minister Trudeau and
a 26-year Retirement Scroll, signed by Prime Minister Mulroney.
Frances has fond memories of many people in UCE. She mentioned Ruth and Freeman Patrick,
Bernie and Dorothy Keeler, Don and Elaine Royer, Bill and Elizabeth Brown, and Phyllis and Ken
Ferguson. She remembered when, early on, Ruth and Freeman Patrick went with them to Rev.
Charles Eddis’s home on Sunday evenings for lessons on Unitarianism. Ruth and Frances were
pregnant at the same time with Bill Patrick and Lyndon Evans, and they all went for memorable
family picnics together.
Frances’s memory at this age of 85 is amazingly acute, and she loved recounting church and
family narratives. Even today in her seniors’ home in Abbotsford, Frances carries out the job of
proofreading a newsletter.
I liked Frances’s humour and her appreciation of a church with no bibles, where she could say “I
like Her sing instead of Hymn Sing!”
Born: 1925, Edmonton
Places lived: Edmonton, Calgary, Sidney, Vancouver, North Vancouver, Chilliwack, Abbotsford
Husbands: Frances married George Evans in 1947, a charter member when church was formed,
and he died at 35 in 1959. Frances married John Blythe in 1984. She had known him in 1944 and
met him 40 years later. He died in 1991.
Children:
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Bob Evans: UCE president in 1980s; he died at 47 in 1995.
Lyndon Evans: a longtime UCE member.
Larry Evans: lives in St. Albert.
Rhonda.