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Annie Elizabeth Scott lived a life which was not uncommon for rural women in colonial Canada.  Born in 1857 in Nova Scotia, she was the eldest in the family of Jane Hunter Dill and David Scott - a family of eight children. During her seventy-nine years in Ste. Croix,  a farming village near the Annapolis Valley,  she and her younger sister Alice Sterling Scott (1862-1945)  would see a world transformed.  Their father a Liberal and friend of Hon. Joseph Howe while active politically on the local level would eventually disagree with the Nova Scotia leader's views on Confederation with Canada in 1867 and the Premier's carriage that turned in from the post road running through their farm would stop no more.  The guest bed where a father of Confederation had slept would become an antique and Premier Howe would carry on in his travels to Windsor or returning to Halifax.

Possibly their father has reasons to question the promoters of confederation in the political pressure cooker that Nova Scotia had become over the issue.  Like many of the city merchants he may have favoured free trade with the American states for a semi-independent Nova Scotia as the better option.  His own brief venture as merchant operating Ste Croix House on Sackville St. in Halifax had failed. The family with six girls and two boys, had settled back on their home farm, operating a store on their farm property.

Annie would see the old post road widened as the first cars arrived,  and it would  lead her brothers and sisters to new opportunities.  Ada would marry and move to the South Shore of Nova Scotia,  Alexander would go to California in search of opportunity - find it there and stay.  He was credited with officially naming the town of Novato - not after his native province but after early Mexican names used in the region.

While some would leave for opportunities, other would also depart from hearth and home.  Disaster struck the heart of the family and claimed the lives of three sisters what we call Tuberculosis and they called Consumption would strike the deadly winter of 1889.  Annie was 32 when the younger ones started dying,  first Belle in February then Jessie age 15 died in March and finally Minnie in 1891.  Life would never be the same - yet life would go on.

A school teacher - Annie discovered that her personal road would not lead her to the adventures of California or a husband and home of her own.  Elm Farm, the two hundred acre property which was her birthplace, would be her lifetime home.  Along with her sister Alice known as "Sis" and brother John A. Scott they would become the cement that held a farm, and a family together for another generation.

After several years of teaching, Annie was worn out and returned to the life of a farm woman. With no income she remained in her brother's home with all its limitations. Without the outlet of a career or the money to travel,  she dealt with housework and cultivated her interests in literature and art.  Appreciating education and creativity she read widely and collected  excerpts of her readings in a bound volume she called Miscellanea. The hand written document survives and through these quotations and six known pieces of her art we can catch a glimpse into the lives of women like Annie and Sis who were alive with ideas yet confined to the daily work of a relative's home without economic independence.

While a kindly and caring manner is said to have prevailed,  the economic imbalance was real and Annie and Sis were cast in the role of maiden aunts, the characters that neighbourhood children might call "old maids" behind their backs.  Like the card game of the same name, women who found themselves in such a situation,  had very few options and could only hope that they might be better appreciated than the belittled character in the card game.

Despite being cast in this role and exhausted from teaching, Annie also had an enthusiasm for learning and she used this to became a force within the lives of her nephews Jack (John R.) and Fred. This role eventually became that of a substitute mother after her sister-in-law, Lillian (Harvey) Scott, the rightful matriarch of the clan suffered a massive stroke, making her an invalid.  Lillian had trained as a nurse in Boston, and became the local midwife in the village. After the stroke she was a shadow of her former self. Jack and Fred followed their Aunt Annie's interest in education and soon were travelling to the county capital of Windsor to complete high school.  Raised in a family where talking politics was the final course of every meal, the boys quickly learned to appreciate that books and education were the way to understand a world where imperialism was collapsing and nationalism and corporate strength was continuing to rise.  When unbridled capitalism produced the Great Depression, they like young minds everywhere, knew there had to be a better way.

Sis, having never left home was a fixture for the farm and household operations shouldering more responsibilities as older members of the family aged.  In an era where everyone had assigned duties and every portion of the cream separator had to be meticulously hand washed twice a day,  she was a key part of the farm operation.  She is fondly remembered as the matriarch of the family despite the fact she had no husband or children of her own.

It was in kitchens similar to that of Annie and Sis across a young nation the social conscience of Canada was gradually being born.  While all political parties would claim paternity,  the concept of a social conscience, was born through a generation of men and women seeing destitute widows and homeless drifters, believing in the ability to bring about social change though individual actions.  Annie's kitchen would produce two young recruits ready to shape a new order, in a growing nation and a changing world.

Fred quickly joined study group, a weekly gathering within the village comprised of individuals who shared their ideas about democratic socialism,  co-operatives and politics, as part of the Antigonish Movement.  Eventually Fred like most of his group were drawn to the vision of J.S. Woodsworth and like him moved from theory into political action. In Nova Scotia they formed a branch of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) which grew from similar farmer groups in 1932 and which became the New Democratic Party (NDP) in 1961. 

Never wavering from a belief that individuals co-operatively could change the world, Fred became a leading NDP campaigner in Nova Scotia. Working along with Lloyd Shaw, an industrialist turned social reformer,  Lloyd would eventually become the first National Researcher for the party in Ottawa.  When Fred and his wife Leola were recognized in 1988 for their decades of service to the community and their party,  it would be Lloyd Shaw who was the guest speaker.  Knowing the Canadian social conscience has taken generations to develop, Fred took great pride watching Lloyd Shaw's daughter, Alexa McDonough, firmly grasp the helm as leader of the national NDP party, the same party the old friends had worked hard to build, one kitchen table and one community hall at a time.

Providing service to the Credit Union, the Co-op and eldership in the United Church of Canada were early means for Fred to put his dreams to work, but his vision was broader than the first co-operatively owned "club tractor" in the village. Fred entered municipal politics and served on Hants County Municipal Council.  A bit too premature for the fledgling NDP to see Fred's strong local support transfer to provincial politics, never the less he ran a solid campaign.  Fearless to the discrimination he faced for views which challenged the status quo,  he discovered that the electorate was not ready for change yet, and rather than taking his views on improving things to the floor of the Nova Scotia Legislature they would remain in local halls and meetings. He now takes pride is seeing his successors, decades later,  providing effective an opposition role, in holding governments accountable.

Fred's older brother raised in that kitchen of ideas would also rise to the occasion attending Acadia University, and graduating with a gold medal in Economics, lead his debating team to victory over American universities in intercollegiate debates and being elected Valedictorian in 1930. Nova Scotia newspapers of his day, impressed with a farm boy beating out the Ivy League Americans, called him a "natural orator".

In the midst of the Great Depression after two years teaching school in Quebec,  Jack Scott embraced the Christian ministry.  His Acadia friend Harvey Miller, raised in neighbouring Brooklyn,  conceded his blessing on the career choice only because the church was a potential force for bringing real social change to the economic order.  Like many of his counterparts who would preach the Social Gospel during the 1930's, 40's and 50's Jack Scott knew that through his work with people he had an opportunity to help in real ways.  Social reformers like Nova Scotia's Father Moses M. Coady each tried to bridge the delicate gap between politicizing the church and turning a blind eye to the suffering that their congregations faced in the 1920's and 1930's.  Jack's sermons appear to have balanced his concern for community and the spiritual welfare of his congregations,  and appears to have placed his priority on his congregations ahead of any political organizations.

When Annie Elizabeth Scott died in 1936 she and Alice had seen the ordination of Jack and welcomed Fred's decision to carry on her home farm along with his growing role in community action.  Like many maiden aunts they conveyed to a new generation the value of education and within their kitchen of ideas, they saw two young men develop who were prepared to play a role in developing the social values of their communities.  Perhaps the influence they had can best be summarized  by the quotations that moved Annie Elizabeth Scott to inscribe in her collection:

"What one asks from education is ‘Give me myself; give me myself awakened, strengthened made generally available.' "

"Yet teachers have the reward of a rare purity of conscience, to them is committed the care of forming the taste and intellect."

"It [this book] is the brilliant product of a cultivated mind.  He belongs to that class of authors who by prudence and composure seems to show that the mind is capable of producing its own happiness or its own woe. -- --- Literary culture is the direct means of preserving mental and physical health."

"She did very much to elevate and wisely direct public opinion upon many vital questions."

"As a preacher he charmed his listeners by the clearness and precision of this thought and simplicity of his method, the fluency and polish of his style and the grace of a natural and musical delivery."