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the First Maple Leaf Flag

11/18/2014

6 Comments

 
There was a story in the weekend paper that I found fascinating. A part of our flag's history, but something I never knew. Most Americans know about the origins of their flag - how the first one, consisting of thirteen stars and stripes, was made by Betsy Ross for George Washington - but I doubt many Canadians know that we had our own 'Betsy Ross".   Her name is Joan O'Malley.
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    *The following is copied from the Toronto Star, November 22, 2014 

      50 years later, woman recognized for sewing first Maple Leaf flag 
by Terry Pedwell, the Canadian Press
       When most Canadians contemplate their national flag, their thoughts might naturally turn to Canada Day, July 1.Historians and others may think about February 15, the day in 1965 when the modern Canadian flag - bearing the familiar hallmark symbol, the Maple Leaf - was first raised on Parliament hill.
      For Joan O"Malley, November 6, 1964, will forever be the birthday of Canada's iconic red-and-white banner, the day her father asked her to do an impromptu sewing job that she will never forget.
      "For Me, it's my 50th anniversary," O'Malley told a small gathering of friends, family and political dignitaries Friday on Parliament Hill, where she was presented with the flag that flew from the Peace Tower on November 6 this year.
      With her original Singer sewing machine on display, O'Malley described the night her father approached her to ask whether she could sew the three prototypes that had been chosen as the finalists to become Canada's new emblem.
      A November snowstorm had fallen over the capital and O'Malley was just home from work with her husband Brian and expecting to spend the evening indoors.
      But O'Malley's father, Ken Donovan, an assistant purchasing director with the Canadian Government Exhibition Commission, called his then-20-year-old daughter with an urgent request.
      That afternoon, Lester B. Pearson had asked that the three flag prototypes that were under consideration be delivered to 24 Sussex Drive so he could see them hoisted on poles at the prime minister's Harrington Lake retreat the next day.
     Pearson had come to office with a minority government under a promise made in 1963 that under his leadership, Canada would have a new flag. The final three designs had been picked from a list of entires that totalled more than 3,500.
      Pearson's preference was a flag with three red maple leaves on a white background and blue on either side, a design that became known as the Pearson Pennant. But O'Malley said she knew her favourite right away as she saw the prototypes sprawled across a makeshift table of plywood on top of two sawhorses.
      "I remember when they first put our flag on my sewing table. I said, 'That's the one that would get my vote,'" she said, "It was nice, clean looking."
      The flag she liked most was, in fact, one designed by historian George Stanley and submitted at the last minute.
      The debate over which emblem to choose was a raucous one, pitting Pearson and his design team against the Conservatives. In the end Pearson's Liberals voted unanimously with the Conservatives in favour of Stanley's now-familiar red-and-white design.
      At the time, O'Malley didn't give much thought to the significance of what she was sewing.
      "I didn't think it was history in the making at all," she said. "I just knew that they had to have it done and I needed to help my dad out."
      Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poilievre said he's not yet sure where O'Malley's now-famous sewing machine will be put on display, but promised that it would be retained by the federal government as a historical artifact.
      "It will be preserved as a national treasure," Poilievre said before presenting O'Malley with the Peace Tower flag.
      Unlike Betsy Ross, who was paid to produce flags and, as legend has it, sewed the first American Stars and Stripes banner, O'Malley didn't receive a cent for Canada's original flag. Receiving recognition for her efforts 50 years later, was thanks enough, she said.
      "Now I think I'm paid in full," O'Malley said tearfully as she received a standing ovation.
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6 Comments
Donna
11/18/2014 06:16:39 am

Thank you for posting this bit of history! It's nice to know who made our first flag. Back in 1968 I visited the little factory in Erin, ON where they made our flags, but hadn't heard the story of the very first one.

Love your girls having a Canada Day celebration :o)

Reply
Martha
11/18/2014 09:00:27 am

I never knew this either. I can just imagine this young woman working late into the night sewing the three samples so the Prime Minister could see how they would look in real life, hanging on a flag pole. I thought it was fascinating that he had the foresight to give them all a "test flutter". I also found it interesting that he ended up not supporting the design he originally liked best. I guess it didn't look nearly as impressive on a flag pole after all.

Reply
Jane
11/18/2014 09:09:47 am

Thank you!
I learn so much playing with dolls!

Reply
Barbie
11/19/2014 12:50:10 am

Really good to know. Never knew it was that young of a flag though.

Actually the myth of Betsy Ross isn't true. She never made the first American Flag.

The origin of the stars and stripes design is inadequately documented. The apocryphal story credits Betsy Ross for sewing the first flag from a pencil sketch handed to her by George Washington. No evidence for this exists; indeed, nearly a century had passed before Ross' grandson, William Canby, first publicly suggested it.[15] Another woman, Rebecca Young, has also been credited as having made the first flag by later generations of her family. Young's daughter was Mary Pickersgill, who made the Star Spangled Banner Flag.[16][17] According to rumor, the Washington family coat of arms, shown in a 15th-century window of Selby Abbey, was the origin of the stars and stripes.[18]

Francis Hopkinson of New Jersey, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, designed the 1777 flag[19] while he was the Chairman of the Continental Navy Board's Middle Department, sometime between his appointment to that position in November 1776 and the time that the flag resolution was adopted in June 1777. Hopkinson was the only person to have made such a claim during his own lifetime, when he sent a bill to Congress for his work. He asked for a "Quarter Cask of the Public Wine" as payment initially. The payment was not made, however, because it was determined he had already received a salary as a member of Congress.[20] This contradicts the legend of the Betsy Ross flag, which suggests that she sewed the first Stars and Stripes flag by request of the government in the Spring of 1776.[21][22]

I'm not sure how the myth of her came to be.

Reply
Martha
11/19/2014 04:47:31 am

I guess the Betsy Ross legend just made for a good story.

At least our flag came about in modern times, so it's well documented. Canada is also a much younger country. The first few years we just flew the British flag, then changed to the Red Ensign, a version of which was flown by many of the countries in the British Commonwealth. In 1922, the Canadian coat of arms replaced the earlier symbol on the Red Ensign, and that became the temporary Canadian flag, until Feb 1965 when the current Maple Leaf became our official flag.

Reply
Barbie
11/20/2014 12:51:56 am

It's better to know the truth behind it than to develop a myth. I think it's totally cool that Canada can honestly say when and by whom their flag was made.




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    Martha Boers is an award-winning Canadian doll maker and costumer specializing in fantasy and historical-style costumes.
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