On Wednesday, Nov. 15, Pender Harbour author Edith Iglauer Daly White was awarded the degree of doctor of laws, honoris causa, at a formal convocation at the University of Victoria (UVic), a distinction that caps a lifetime of journalistic achievement.
In an introduction to the ceremony, the university's Professor Lynne Van Luven said that Edith Iglauer had travelled the world pursuing a career that is the stuff of movies. After earning her degree in political science from Wellesley in 1938 and studying journalism at Columbia University, Iglauer covered the activities of U.S. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and in 1945 worked as a war correspondent in the Mediterranean for The Cleveland News. She moved to New York City, where she covered the beginning of the United Nations for Harper's magazine. Her byline has appeared in major North American magazines, including McCall's, The Christian Science Monitor, Atlantic Monthly and Maclean's. She began working for The New Yorker in 1961, where she wrote for the great editor William Shawn. Also in 1961, she travelled to Canada's North for the first time and wrote about it. In 1974, she moved permanently to Canada and now lives in Garden Bay. Her early experiences on the Coast are described in a Canadian best seller, Fishing with John (Harbour Publishing). (See Coast Reporter article July 7, 2006.)When reached at her home this week, Iglauer said she was thrilled with the honour.
"Receiving the honourary degree of doctor of laws from the University of Victoria is miraculous to me, like marriage, the birth of my two wonderful sons and the arrival of my enchanting grandsons, my first published piece in The New Yorker magazine and the publication of my books. It tells me that my writing is valued in Canada in a manner I would never imagine," she said.
She was astonished by the nomination. When Iglauer received a letter last May from David Turpin, UVic president, inviting her to receive the degree, she first thought someone was playing a joke on her, until she took a second look, and had (husband) Frank White read it too, to see if it was real.
The formal ceremony was attended by Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons, Ida Chong, Minister of Com-munity Services and Minister responsible for Seniors' and Women's Issues and Chancellor Lou-Poy of the University of Victoria. Iglauer went out on stage in a wheelchair, a result of back surgery last summer, to make the experience easier."The highlight may have been when the handsome satin, red and purple scarf was slipped over my head and I was pronounced to be Dr. Edith Iglauer," she says. "I am still amazed."
She and her husband Frank set out on Tuesday, the day before a fierce windstorm, to attend the chancellor's reception and discovered that their car would not start. Iglauer's publisher Howard White (Frank White's son) came to their rescue. On the day of the ceremony, the winds blew, ferries were cancelled, and many of her friends and editors she had worked with over the years couldn't travel. Son Jay Hamburger, daughter-in-law Atty Gell and grandson Sylvan did attend.
Her speech to the assembled audience covered her writing life, focusing on how her career was groundbreaking for women at that time. In an excerpt from the speech, she says, "I began working at the point in my life when most married women almost automatically made the choice that husband and children came first. Any career was sandwiched in between their needs and demands, so I set my alarm and got up at 4 a.m. to write. That gave me three hours alone, and after my children were dispatched to school, I continued working until they came home about three. In the evenings I accompanied my husband, whose social and professional life centred on The New Yorker. For a year and a half right after [son] Jay was born, [husband] Phil was its music critic. Every night we went to a different musical event, sometimes two, and I slept through the most beautiful concerts and operas imaginable."
Perhaps one of the highlights of her career, she suggested during her speech, was that her writing had contributed to mutual understanding between Canada and the United States. "I am still amazed at what happened to my article entitled "Canadians: The Strangers Next Door," published in 1973 in The Atlantic Monthly," she wrote. "For about 10 years thereafter the National War College of the United States government annually sought and received my permission to reproduce it for the faculty and students."
But Iglauer was clear she does not support the current policies in the U.S. Her speech closed with: "We need the universities and creative journalism to provide historical perspective, so we never repeat the horrifying mistakes of the odious Bush administrations. I think of creative journalism as making true stories readable. The still small voice of truth is what I hear when I am writing."
