Homebodies: Lessons to learn
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- Published on Saturday, March 14, 2015
By Rita Friesen
The Banner
The Reader’s Digest was the magazine of choice in our farm home. Chock full of information on a wide variety of topics, it became a mini library in a farm home. Some humour, some faith, some economics and strong personalities filled the pages. One article that jumps to my memory is one written, in all sincerity, back in the ‘50s, debating whether black people could be as intelligent as white. We have, thankfully, come a long way.
Reading carefully the info page of a current copy, there is no mention of the original founders, DeWitt and Lila Wallace. Lila, born December 25, 1889, in Virden, Manitoba, was a daughter of a Presbyterian minister. When she was a young girl the family moved to the American Midwest and developed an interest in the Young Women’s Christian Association. YWCA. She met DeWitt, a man with a dream. DeWitt Wallace had spent four months in a hospital in France, recovering from wounds inflicted by WWI. He spent that time reading American magazines, and on his return to his home in America, he spent the next six months in a public library, researching a variety of topics and condensing the information into articles that the average citizen could digest. The couple married and began publishing the magazine from their home, carefully developing a mailing list.
The publication grew to include condensed books, allowing those in isolated communities to get a glimpse of the upcoming great authors. Then music. Isolated LPs, collections of genre music and CDs. It grew to be published in countries all over the world, in many languages. Before Lila Wallace died in 1984 she had contributed over $60 million to charities.
In 2009 the company filed for bankruptcy and was bought out by the lenders.
The magazine has changed in format. There are many more articles on health and food than I recall from the days of my childhood. Less humour, still strong personality highlights and political information. In 2013 they ran a series of articles, “RD Classics”. The April edition featured ‘Sight Unseen’, from March, 1933, What Helen Keller would do if she had three days to see. Thought provoking, the article reminded me of how very much I take for granted. The first day she would look closely at the faces of all her dear friends. The second, observe the daybreak, the museum, the art gallery and a movie. The third, absorb the bustle of the present- opening her eyes to both happiness and misery “So that I may add to my understanding of how men and women work and live.”
Lessons to learn.
