Kin Canada

Kinette history

a legacy begins...  

Kinsmen sponsorship of the Kinettes began in 1942, the year they were given official recognition in the National Bylaws of the Association and duly certified as an auxiliary organization.

Long before this, however, Kinsmen’s wives were organizing little groups of their own in various parts of the country.

Clubs formed in the 1930s were tagged with such names as ‘Kinsmen Wives,’ ‘Kinsmen Ladies Club’ and ‘Kinsmenettes.’

The latter name was quite popular and used by several clubs.

Prior to the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, wives of Kinsmen had formed groups in centres scattered across the country such as Edmonton, Toronto, Hamilton, Brandon, Nelson, Ottawa, Glace Bay and others. There is some dispute between the cities of Ottawa and Toronto as to who formed the first club to use the Kinette name.

But it was the Kinsmen Ladies’ Club of Hamilton that organized in the fall of 1932 and there is a considerable amount of evidence at hand to suggest that this group in the birthplace of Kinsmanship was the first to function as a properly organized club, with a name and a regular schedule of meetings.

Nine wives of Hamilton Kinsmen made up the initial membership. The club’s first president was Jean Harbinson, wife of the late Gordon Harbinson, a past national president and a dedicated Kinsman.

The Hamilton Ladies’ Club started out as a purely social affair but it was not long beforre its members became involved in a variety of community projects. One of their first undertakings as a group was sewing and knitting for the Well-Baby Clinic. They supplied clothes to the Lynwood Hall Girls’ Home, sponored girls at summer camps and entertained them at Christmas parties.

Money from these projects was raised through afternoon teas, raffles and rummage sales. Prizes for the raffles consisted of such toothsome items as pickles, jams, jellies, cakes and cookies.

Hamilton Kinsmen, impressed by the girls’ success raffling off pickles and cookies, recruited their services to sell peanuts when the men’s club inaugurated Peanut Day Oct. 31, 1936.

Thanks to the effort put forth by the Ladies’ Club, Peanut Day was a signal success and it alerted Kinsmen to the fact that they had a valuable ally in these distaff groups. And this might be considered the beginning of what was to be a harmonious and rewarding partnership of Kinsmen and Kinettes.

The outbreak of the Second World War in the fall of 1939 imposed upon the women’s clubs heavier tasks and responsibilities and they rose to the occasion and performed nobly. Military service depleted the ranks of the Kinsmen clubs and the girls stepped into the breach to continue their husbands’ service work on the home front.

Kin’s resources were mainly directed to helping the war effort in these years and the women’s clubs devoted much of their time to the Milk-for-Britain’ project and packing food parcels for the fighting forces overseas.

It was this fine record of wartime service as much as anything that prevailed upon the Kinsmen Association to recognize the ladies as a full-fledged auxiliary in 1942 and to formalize this status in Article 16, Section 1 of the National Constitution. (The Cross and the Square, the Kinsmen Story 1920-1970 by Robert Tyre).

With restrictions on membership (only the wives of Kinsmen were eligible for admission) each passing year brought the women closer to independent status.

In 1985-86, then National President Howard Phee, raised the question of permitting women to join Kinsmen as full members, arguing that the new Charter of Rights and Freedoms would not permit the continuation of male-only membership. His supporters contended that the time was right for a truly inclusive association. (Only in Canada Kinsmen & Kinettes by Ken Coates & Fred McGuinness).

And in 1988, his vision was realized when the Kinsmen voted to open membership in Kinettes to all women between the ages of 21 and 45; to become equal partners and to work as parallel clubs ‘Serving the Community’s Greatest Need.’

Twenty years later, with 191 Kinette clubs across the country, we continue to celebrate the contributions Kinettes make to Canadian communities every day.

– taken from KIN Magazine February 2008