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| Saugeen Times Photo |
Margaret Joan Sinclair Trudeau Kemper was a surprise visitor to a public school in Southampton on Thursday. "So what's the big deal?", you may well ask.
If I just said "Margaret Trudeau", however, your reaction would more than likely be quite different, particularly if you are in my age group.
Quite by accident, I happened to drive past G. C. Huston Public School where a large group of students on the sidewalk engulfed the strikingly attractive figure of a woman carrying a bouquet of flowers and gesturing enthusiastically.
I couldn't believe it...I immediately recognized Margaret Trudeau, a woman who I secretly admired when she was the child bride of a much older Canadian Prime Minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau.
Come to find out, she was in the area as a guest of Bruce Power in her role of advocate for mental health during Mental Health Awareness Week and was staying in Southampton at the B&B, 'Watch Hill'.
At the school, she was presented with flowers and a special school 'Hawks' T-shirt with the Indigenous seven grandfather teachings inscribed on the back. Trudeau read out the teachings of honesty, bravery, respect, truth, humility, love and wisdom and said "These are words to live by!"
Principal Dan Russell asked Trudeau to pass on to her son, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, that everyone at the school is proud to be Canadian and appreciative of the work that he is doing. He also told her of the upcoming dedication celebration of the bridge spanning the Saugeen River. "This bridge joins the two communities of Saugeen First Nation and Saugeen Shores, and we will be renaming it this summer 'Zgaa-biig-ni-gan', which means 'we are connected'.
Trudeau in turn presented an autographed copy of her recent book, 'Changing My Mind' to Russell.
Now 70, Margaret remains unabashedly and organically herself. She was a Flower Child and Earth Mother before they were trendy. She once cavorted with the Rolling Stones. Ever since she hauled a jug across Vancouver's Jericho Beach during the Habitat Forum in 1976, she’s been raising awareness about the need for clean water. She opened dialogue about mental health issues when others only whispered about them. Her four books were instant bestsellers. She delivers 20 to 30 speeches a year on clean water, mental health and women’s issues, and she always kills.
After visiting the Southampton school Thursday afternoon, she spoke in the evening at the Pavilion in Kincarden to a full-house event sponsored by Bruce Power.
A long-time outspoken mental health advocate, Trudeau has struggled in the past with depression and bipolar disorders. She travels extensively telling her own life story of how postpartum depression developed into an extensive and intensive bout of deep depression.
She told her Kincarden audience of feeling overwhelmed, while at the same time having no practical role to play, as the wife of the Prime Minister. Growing up in Vancouver, B.C., she was one of five daughters and says that bipolar should not be identified in a child too early as it tends to manifest itself in teenage years. She said she had a healthy childhood with a strict mother who believed in three things - getting enough sleep, eating nutritional food and being active out-of-doors for at least 40 minutes a day.
"Mother was ahead of her time with her idea of no sugar and playing outside no matter the weather, which was good parenting," she said, "it's a good footstool for a health body and healthy mind."
As a child of the 1960s, she honestly admitted to using marijuana. "I had a racing mind and found that marijuana slowed me down and, honestly, it was the thing to do in those days as a teen. Finally, the medical community realized that mental health and addiction are the same thing. Drugs and alcohol changes your mind, changes you perception, changes relationships and changes everything."
She and Pierre Trudeau eventually divorced and she married real-estate developer Fried Kemper. When the Trudeaus' youngest son, Michel, was killed in a Rocky Mountains avalanche, Margaret again fell into a deep depression that led to her second divorce.
She was at Pierre Trudeau's bedside when he died of cancer in 2000.
Now the grandmother of eight, Trudeau is Honourary Patron of the Canadian Mental Health Association. She is also the honorary President of WaterAid Canada, a company dedicated to helping developing countries build sustainable water supplies and sanitation services. She also holds an honourary degree of Doctor of Laws from the University of Western Ontario.
"When does a speaker get the most applause?” asks Martin Perelmuter, president of Speakers Spotlight, Trudeau’s agency of nearly two decades. “Margaret gets a standing ovation when she arrives, but she gets a bigger one when she finishes.”
The folks who were introduced to Margret Trudeau in our community this past week are still applauding her. I'm glad that I got to see her too, albeit quite by accident!
Come to find out, she was in the area as a guest of Bruce Power in her role of advocate for mental health during Mental Health Awareness Week and was staying in Southampton at the B&B, 'Watch Hill'.
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| Margaret Trudeau receiving flowers from school principal Dan Russell. |
Trudeau in turn presented an autographed copy of her recent book, 'Changing My Mind' to Russell.
Now 70, Margaret remains unabashedly and organically herself. She was a Flower Child and Earth Mother before they were trendy. She once cavorted with the Rolling Stones. Ever since she hauled a jug across Vancouver's Jericho Beach during the Habitat Forum in 1976, she’s been raising awareness about the need for clean water. She opened dialogue about mental health issues when others only whispered about them. Her four books were instant bestsellers. She delivers 20 to 30 speeches a year on clean water, mental health and women’s issues, and she always kills.
After visiting the Southampton school Thursday afternoon, she spoke in the evening at the Pavilion in Kincarden to a full-house event sponsored by Bruce Power.
A long-time outspoken mental health advocate, Trudeau has struggled in the past with depression and bipolar disorders. She travels extensively telling her own life story of how postpartum depression developed into an extensive and intensive bout of deep depression.
She told her Kincarden audience of feeling overwhelmed, while at the same time having no practical role to play, as the wife of the Prime Minister. Growing up in Vancouver, B.C., she was one of five daughters and says that bipolar should not be identified in a child too early as it tends to manifest itself in teenage years. She said she had a healthy childhood with a strict mother who believed in three things - getting enough sleep, eating nutritional food and being active out-of-doors for at least 40 minutes a day.
"Mother was ahead of her time with her idea of no sugar and playing outside no matter the weather, which was good parenting," she said, "it's a good footstool for a health body and healthy mind."
As a child of the 1960s, she honestly admitted to using marijuana. "I had a racing mind and found that marijuana slowed me down and, honestly, it was the thing to do in those days as a teen. Finally, the medical community realized that mental health and addiction are the same thing. Drugs and alcohol changes your mind, changes you perception, changes relationships and changes everything."
She and Pierre Trudeau eventually divorced and she married real-estate developer Fried Kemper. When the Trudeaus' youngest son, Michel, was killed in a Rocky Mountains avalanche, Margaret again fell into a deep depression that led to her second divorce.
She was at Pierre Trudeau's bedside when he died of cancer in 2000.
Now the grandmother of eight, Trudeau is Honourary Patron of the Canadian Mental Health Association. She is also the honorary President of WaterAid Canada, a company dedicated to helping developing countries build sustainable water supplies and sanitation services. She also holds an honourary degree of Doctor of Laws from the University of Western Ontario.
"When does a speaker get the most applause?” asks Martin Perelmuter, president of Speakers Spotlight, Trudeau’s agency of nearly two decades. “Margaret gets a standing ovation when she arrives, but she gets a bigger one when she finishes.”
The folks who were introduced to Margret Trudeau in our community this past week are still applauding her. I'm glad that I got to see her too, albeit quite by accident!
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