Ma Murray
The Story of Canada's Crusty Queen of Publishing
AUTHOR: Stan Sauerwein
FORMAT: 5.5 x 8.5 pb / 144 pages
ISBN-10: 1-55153-979-9
ISBN-13: 9781551539799
Ma Murray was the foster mother to millions of Canadians - hard on humbug, spanking politicians in public - a voice in the wilderness who became the best-loved scold in the land. British Columbia's first and most memorable female publisher, she taught Canada that an honest opinion, salted with commonsense, can shake governments and help shape a nation.
Prologue
The Cathay was a little too sporty for Margaret and George. Riding the elevator on the morning they moved, Margaret chatted with another guest. The two women were much alike. Neither had a problem finding words to describe the horrific squalor just a few feet from the hotel door.
The American navy would soon be spiriting away her lift companion, Eleanor Roosevelt, from the clawing sea of refugees swarming into Shanghai. Margaret was facing a longer sentence. Her husband, a British Columbia MLA, was on a trade mission. They had planned a visit talking with government and industry leaders that could last months.
When she met the U.S. president's wife, Margaret was in the process of moving the Murray belongings to the Metropole three blocks away. The room cost half as much but the view from the terrace was twice as unsettling. Alleys around her new hotel were glutted with refugees. The streets were so clogged with the frightened and displaced that a beater had to cut a swath through the crowds with a cane.
"I can't say which is weakening most, my hands or my thumping heart," she wrote afterwards. To their dismay, Shanghai had become a war zone the day they decided to move. On August 14, 1937, two Chinese planes swooped below the heavy cloud cover over Shanghai. Intending to bomb the battleship Idzuma, the pilots accidentally dropped their charges on the streets of Shanghai - only a few hundred yards from the Cathay.
Margaret, who witnessed the devastation from her balcony, wretched on the stench of cordite and feverishly tried to record what she saw for her newspaper back home. "We'll sleep in the closet till morning. If there is a morning," she wrote. "The water and power are off. Every word impressed on these keys is a prayer, but now I can't see. George has the flashlight out and the Bible turned to the fourteenth Chapter of John...."
About the Author
Stan Sauerwein lives and writes in Westbank, British Columbia. A freelance writer for two decades, his articles have appeared in a variety of Canadian and U.S. magazines and newspapers. Specializing in business subjects, he has written for both corporations and governments.
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