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"Unfeigned faith which dwelt first in thy grandmother and in thy mother." (II Timothy 1,5)

It's odd that feminists who go on abut Mother Earth should snicker against motherhood. We have been given life by, been loved and nurtured by, mothers of whom we are not worthy, to whom we are insufficiently grateful. All over the former British Empire there is affection for the Queen Mother. Our reigning Queen of Canada is herself a mother figure. Christians go on about Mother Church. Above all, Christians revere the Mother of Christ our Lord and God. If in Africa members of the Mothers Union sing the hymn, Shall we not Love Thee Mother dear, we in Canada love to sing Father Palmer's hymn, Sing of Mary Pure and Lowly (blue 807), for which there's a selection of tunes more vigorous than the insipid tune for the African hymn. Mothering Sunday, Lent IV, is a popular observance among Anglicans. Even non Christians keep a Mothers Day in May. It was therefore with the intention of paying Mrs. Woolcock the greatest of compliments that Father Palmer said to her, "We shall call You Mother Woolcock", and it is with the greatest affection and respect that we repeat Father Palmer's words.

Eleanor Henry was born and raised in Pictou, Nova Scotia, the province which she still regards as God's own country, a fact to please our Father Lewis How. She trained as a registered nurse but didn't have long to practise her profession, for she was soon captured by a handsome dark haired young Cornishman newly arrived in Canada. In due course she would learn that Cornwall is not part of England, that this royal duchy is an ancient place with its own language and its intriguing legends about visits from St. Joseph of Arimathea, St. Mary Magdalene, and even our Lord Himself. When Father Alfred Woolcock had spent a few years as an assistant curate and as an incumbent in rural Nova Scotia, the Woolcocks went on to the diocese of Worcester in England to widen their experience. After a short time as an assistant in Tardebigge, Alfred was appointed vicar of Catshill. Then came the Second World War. Alfred was commissioned as a padre to the Royal Hampshire Regiment, with whom he saw action in North Africa under Monty, action at Sicily and at Monte Cassino in Italy, travels in Poland and Austria.

Meanwhile back at the large and freezing vicarage with its stone floors, Eleanor had to keep the home fires burning. Mothers and their children, refugees from the bombing of Birmingham, were billeted on her. A young curate unfit for military service was posted to the parish during her husband's four year absence. There was much for Mrs. Woolcock to supervise. After Vicar Woolcock's demobilization, he and his family returned to Canada. The wife of a priest is like the wife of a sailor or soldier. Life is a case of pack and follow.

Eleanor got to see a fair bit of Canada. There was the farming parish of Englehart in the diocese of Algoma, Northern Ontario. There was the suburban parish of Port Dalhousie on the edge of St. Catharine's in the diocese of Niagara. There were five years of Indian work in the diocese of Saskatchewan, with Archdeacon Woolcock based in Prince Albert but travelling, travelling all the time, through snow in winter, through mud in summer. I have seen a photograph of Eleanor looking calm and elegant as she stands beside a car bogged down. I have heard her story about the time the car gave out in subzero temperatures, with the family huddled together for warmth in a deserted hut. There was the new parish of St. Mark to be founded in Oshawa, the motor capital of Canada, in the diocese of Toronto. There were the more comfortable years in the affluent parish of St. George, Oshawa, after her husband had "retired" for the first time and joined its staff as associate rector. Then came all our Anglican troubles.

Her husband "retired" for the second time, to found our parish of the Good Shepherd. Now there was to be plenty of pack and follow, with services in homes and classrooms, with books and vessels to cart about, with coffee hours to organize here, there and everywhere. To add to her peregrinations, Father Palmer persuaded her husband that our diocese needed him as Bishop de Catanzaro's successor, since when she's been seeing even more of Canada, from sea to sea, to say nothing of excursions to the U.S.A. and the U.K To the clergy and people of the diocese she has indeed been "a mother in Israel" (Judges 5,7). We could tell much about her loving hospitality (I Timothy 3,1), about care packages, about presents of sheets and towels. Once when I tried to help with the dishes she said, "In my 60 years of marriage no visitor has ever washed up at my sink", and I knew from the tone of her voice that she spake true.

Our matriarchs, Sarah, Rebekah and Rachel, were not only great mothers, they were also great travellers, and our own Mother Woolcock is heir to this fine tradition. We children rise up and call them blessed (Proverbs 31,28).

+Robert Mercer, CR