Gladys Maria Marguerite Arnold was born in Macoun, Saskatchewan in 1905. She taught in various rural schools before joining the Regina Leader-Post in April 1930. Arnold began as an editorial assistant but was soon writing editorials, feature articles, and news stories that were picked up by other newspapers.
Seeking adventure, Arnold left her job in 1935 and traveled to Europe. Arnold began submitting freelance pieces to the Canadian Press (CP) and shortly was hired as their full-time Paris correspondent. In the next four years she reported from France, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Italy and from the Spanish border during the Spanish civil war.
Gladys Arnold was the sole Canadian correspondent in France at the outbreak of the Second World War and she covered the early days of the conflict, the so-called “phoney war”, until the German occupation of Paris in June 1940. Returning to Canada, Arnold served with the CP Bureau in Ottawa until 1941 when she left CP to help set up the Free French Information Service in Canada. After the war this service was attached to the French Embassy in Ottawa and Arnold served as its Director until her retirement in 1971.
In 1987 Arnold published her memoirs about her wartime experiences, One Woman's War: A Canadian Reporter with the Free French (Toronto: J. Lorimer, 1987). For her service to France she was named Honorary Brigadier in the French Free Forces in 1940, and Chevalier de la legion d'honneur in 1975. In 1988 the University of Regina presented her with an honorary Doctor of Laws.
Gladys Arnold died in Regina in 2002.
John H. Archer was born on July 11, 1914, near Broadview, Saskatchewan. He was a teacher in rural districts between 1933 and 1940, and during World War II served with the Royal Canadian Artillery in the United Kingdom, North Africa and Italy. After the war he enrolled at the University of Saskatchewan where he earned a Bachelor’s degree and a Master of Arts degree in history and then a Bachelor’s Degree in Library Science from McGill University.
From 1951 to 1964 he served as Saskatchewan’s legislative librarian, was assistant clerk of the Legislature from 1956 to 1961, and the provincial archivist from 1957 to 1962. In 1964 Archer became director of libraries at McGill University where he worked until 1967. At Queen’s University he was archivist and an associate professor of history – while earning a Doctoral degree in history. Archer returned to his home province and to the new University of Saskatchewan, Regina Campus in 1969, and was installed in 1970 as the Principal and in 1974 became the first President of the new University of Regina, a position he held until his retirement in 1976.
Archer served on several boards, advisory councils and Royal Commissions, he is the author of Land of Promise (1969), Saskatchewan: A History (1980), Honoured with the Burden (1987), and edited the memoirs of John Diefenbaker in One Canada (1975 - 78).
John Archer received the Order of Canada and the Saskatchewan Order of Merit, the main library of the University of Regina campus is named for him. He passed away on April 5, 2004.
Gladys Bethel Angley was born in Radisson, Saskatchewan in 1912 and moved to Regina in 1916 when her father, Frank B. Angley, became manager of Regina Pharmacy. She received her early academic and musical training at Model School, Central Collegiate, Qu'Appelle Diocesan Girls' School and at Regina College. She studied piano with Sister Agnes, S.S.J.D., William M. Buckley and Dr. Lyell Gustin, theory with George Coutts, and Fred Killmaster and vocals with W. Francis. Gladys received an Associate degree from the Toronto Conservatory of Music in 1931 and a Licentiate diploma from the Royal Schools of Music in London England in 1932.
She began teaching piano in public schools from 1931 to 1933, and taught piano in the Qu’Appelle Diocesan from 1933 to 1941, the Regina Conservatory of Music from 1941 to 1958 and the University of Regina from 1958 to 1980 when complications, due to rheumatoid arthritis in 1955, began to hinder her public performances.
Public performances between 1931 and 1956 included solo recitals, performing as a guest artist and as an ensemble member of the Buckley Piano Quartet. By local radio Angley entertained listeners on the Prairie Network and the Canadian Broadcasting System, know now as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (C.B.C.).
Fred W. Anderson was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan on April 20, 1920 to Edward and Leila (Woodley) Anderson. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree as well as a Master of Arts degree from the University of Saskatchewan and did post-graduate work at the London School of Economics. In 1951 he joined the University of Saskatchewan, Regina College as a special lecturer in Economics and Political Science. Anderson held several posts throughout his career including an appointment as associate Dean of Arts and Sciences (Social Sciences) from 1969-1975. He was also co-ordinator of the Canadian Plains Study program from 1977 until his retirement in 1983.
From 1959 to 1961, he was the Secretary and Research Director to the (Canadian) Royal Commission on Transportation, under Murdoch MacPherson. The MacPherson Commission report advocated increased freedom for railways to eliminate uneconomic passenger service and branch lines, called for increased subsidies for grain handling responsibilities which had been imposed by Parliament, and also included a critique of the Canadian air transport system. Anderson’s focus within the report was a criticism of the lack of consistency and inclusiveness in Canadian air transport policy with regards to distant and scattered settlements, and as well as a criticism of the lack of a clear policy to address whether air services would be offered apart from market considerations.
In 1962 Anderson advised the Saskatchewan Farmers’ Union on a rational approach to follow in the abandonment of unprofitable branch rail-lines, based on the main tenets of the MacPherseon report.
Including the MacPherson Commission in the 1960’s, a number of other federally initiated commissions were established to investigate the grain handling situation, among them the Hall Commission on Grain Handling and Transportation (1975 to 1977); and the Snavely Commission on railway costing (1975 to 1977). From 1973 to 1975, Anderson organized and launched the Western Transportation Advisory Council and later became the Chairman of the Prairie Rail Action Committee (1977 to 1978) which was created to establish the fate of rail lines left undecided in the Hall Commission on Grain Handling and Transportation.
In 1968 Anderson was invited, along with nine fellow experts from several countries, to be part of a committee established by the Asian Development Bank which would lay the foundations for transportation system development in South East Asia.
In 1980 Anderson was appointed by joint request of the Railway Association of Canada and eight shopcraft unions to a one-man commission which inquired into the level and structure of railway shopcraft employees’ compensation.