1960 Fredericton Convocation
Ross, Phyllis Gregory
Doctor of Laws (LL.D.)
Orator: Cattley, Robert E.D.
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L to R: Colin B. Mackay, Lord Beaverbrook, Phyllis Gregory Ross
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Source: UA PC-5 no.3b(5)
Citation:
CONVOCATION, OCTOBER, 1960
PHYLLIS GREGORY ROSS
to be Doctor of Laws
We are about to honour one of Canada's most remarkable women, to whom no orator, whether male or female, is capable of doing justice. For if the orator be a woman she will not believe -- or at least openly admit -- what she envies; and if a man, his admiration is likely to outstrip his vocabulary.
Phyllis Gregory was endowed at birth with brains, beauty, and a woman's instinct for economics (which is only the Greek for good housekeeping). These endowments she has employed severally, or as one invincible battery, whenever crisis, tragedy, or fortune has come her way.
Born and schooled in British Columbia, she won first-class Honours in Economics and Political Science at her Provincial University, and a Fellowship at Bryn Mawr.
Widowed in 1931 and with two children to support and educate, she put her training to work for the Dominion Government, to such effect that, when war struck, her experience and untiring efforts averted a crisis in the sugar industry. This was the threshold of her greatest national service. Appointed Administrator of two commodities, which it is neither chivalrous nor prudent to associate with the fair sex -- Oils and Fats -- she organized, conserved, and co-ordinated the supply of a vast range thereof, from lard to printer's ink, and from beeswax to turpentine. She was the only woman to hold the position of Administrator in wartime, and hers was a splendid administration.
Since then she has given back her soul and her talents to British Columbia, and, along with both, her hand to Frank Ross, the recently retiring Governor.
In Government house overlooking the straits of Juan de Fuca the Rosses, those fabulous hosts, have entertained distinguished guests and ordinary citizens in a glittering succession, reminiscent of "the golden prime of good Haroun Al Raschid" and the Arabian Nights.
They have welcomed beneath their roof the Queen and Prince Philip, and other royalties by the dozen. But, as has been so sagely remembered, their guests have been mainly the ordinary Johns and Marys -- an estimated 14,000 of them in the last year alone.
Of Phyllis Ross it may be indisputably claimed that she is Canada's hostess par excellence, for she has known how to "walk with kings nor lose the common touch".
For eleven-twelfths of the year she is in her native Province, but the twelfth she gives to New Brunswick. And in these Atlantic realms, where the Sun God himself cannot vanquish the fogs of Fundy, a certain ethereal and rosy glow suffuses St. Andrews, N.B., when this Persephone of the West leaves those brighter shores and brings to our winter-bound coasts the one true month of summer.
From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.
PHYLLIS GREGORY ROSS
to be Doctor of Laws
We are about to honour one of Canada's most remarkable women, to whom no orator, whether male or female, is capable of doing justice. For if the orator be a woman she will not believe -- or at least openly admit -- what she envies; and if a man, his admiration is likely to outstrip his vocabulary.
Phyllis Gregory was endowed at birth with brains, beauty, and a woman's instinct for economics (which is only the Greek for good housekeeping). These endowments she has employed severally, or as one invincible battery, whenever crisis, tragedy, or fortune has come her way.
Born and schooled in British Columbia, she won first-class Honours in Economics and Political Science at her Provincial University, and a Fellowship at Bryn Mawr.
Widowed in 1931 and with two children to support and educate, she put her training to work for the Dominion Government, to such effect that, when war struck, her experience and untiring efforts averted a crisis in the sugar industry. This was the threshold of her greatest national service. Appointed Administrator of two commodities, which it is neither chivalrous nor prudent to associate with the fair sex -- Oils and Fats -- she organized, conserved, and co-ordinated the supply of a vast range thereof, from lard to printer's ink, and from beeswax to turpentine. She was the only woman to hold the position of Administrator in wartime, and hers was a splendid administration.
Since then she has given back her soul and her talents to British Columbia, and, along with both, her hand to Frank Ross, the recently retiring Governor.
In Government house overlooking the straits of Juan de Fuca the Rosses, those fabulous hosts, have entertained distinguished guests and ordinary citizens in a glittering succession, reminiscent of "the golden prime of good Haroun Al Raschid" and the Arabian Nights.
They have welcomed beneath their roof the Queen and Prince Philip, and other royalties by the dozen. But, as has been so sagely remembered, their guests have been mainly the ordinary Johns and Marys -- an estimated 14,000 of them in the last year alone.
Of Phyllis Ross it may be indisputably claimed that she is Canada's hostess par excellence, for she has known how to "walk with kings nor lose the common touch".
For eleven-twelfths of the year she is in her native Province, but the twelfth she gives to New Brunswick. And in these Atlantic realms, where the Sun God himself cannot vanquish the fogs of Fundy, a certain ethereal and rosy glow suffuses St. Andrews, N.B., when this Persephone of the West leaves those brighter shores and brings to our winter-bound coasts the one true month of summer.
From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.
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