Hilda Alice Hellaby (1898 - 1983)
Hilda Hellaby was born in Cressing, Essex, England and came to Vancouver as a child with her widowed mother and older sister to be near an uncle. Hilda and sister Mabel were taught by their mother. She later attended King Edward High School in Vancouver and took a short course at business school. She helped in a kindergarten for young Chinese children and developed a taste for missionary work. In 1920, Hilda joined the staff of the Provincial Board of Missions to Orientals and for the next thirty years worked among the Chinese people of Vancouver and Vernon. She also took classes at the Anglican Theological College, the first woman student to attend. She graduated in 1930 with her Licentiate in Theology and won many of the special prizes for that year. She was ordained a deaconess in Christ Church Cathedral in Vancouver in 1928.1)
As a deacon, Hellaby conducted services, administered the chalice, and conducted other duties such as baptizing, marrying, and burying. In the 1930s, she adopted a two-year old Chinese girl named Felicity. When the depression worsened, she started a soup kitchen.2) The government was providing meals and bed-tickets to those in the Chinese Mission were physically able to work. Hellaby was fluent in Cantonese and she interpreted, assisted by the Chinese cooks, when people in need went to the Welfare Office. It was not until 1943, with World War Two well under way, that jobs were found for all of the employable. Many Chinese brought to Canada to work on the railway were old and destitute by that time. Hellaby went back to parish duties and was, for short periods, on loan to Vernon, British Columbia where the rector was ill.3)
In 1951, Hellaby went to Dawson to look after St. Paul’s Hostel when the couple looking after the place went outside on leave.4) She was accompanied by her adopted daughter who married and settled in Keno. Hellaby’s month long assignment stretched from the summer of 1950 to 1952.5)
Yukon Bishop Greenwood then asked Miss Hellaby to take over from the minister at Mayo after he drowned while out fishing. She re-opened the Indian Day School at the Old Village and then, in 1952, helped to integrate the First Nation children into the Mayo School when the people from Old Village moved into Mayo.6) In the 1950s and 1960s, the Canadian government started to develop schools in the communities and the residential schools were phased out.
Hellaby was nine years in Mayo and then she moved to the vacant parish at Carmacks, and also served the congregation members that moved from Minto to Pelly Crossing. She supervised the construction of the log church at Pelly [the Church of St. James, the Brother of Jesus].7) It was built of by the First Nation parishioners with local logs squared by broad-axe and was a good example of old-time log work. The church furniture came from Fort Selkirk where the Pelly people used to live.8)
Bishop Marsh left the Yukon in 1967 and asked Hellaby to look after the Synod office in Whitehorse until the new bishop, John T. Frame, arrived. Bishop Frame asked her to remain as his secretary and Hellaby sold her retirement cabin in Mayo and moved south to Whitehorse.9) She functioned efficiently as Synod Secretary, and Yukon delegate to the Senate of the Vancouver School of Theology at the University of British Columbia. In 1964, that university gave her the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity, the first woman to receive it from that institution.10)
Dr. Hilda Hellaby was invested into the Order of Canada on April 11, 1973 by Governor-General Roland Michener. She as the first Yukoner to receive the order.11) Hellaby was honoured for her long and devoted service as a deaconess in the Anglican Church in British Columbia and Yukon.12) In 1967 she received the Centennial Medal, and in 1977 she received the Queen's Silver Jubilee Medal. The Whitehorse Kiwanis Club made her Citizen of the Year in 1980 and she was one of five Canadian women to receive the Persons Award in 1982. The parish hall at Christ Church Cathedral was named for her at the official dedication by Bishop Ron Ferris. Members of the Skookum Jim Friendship Centre presented her with a life membership and a plaque to appreciate her membership on the board since its inception. In March 1983, she received the Yukon Commissioner's award.13)
Dr. Hilda Hellaby has served on many boards, including the Yukon Council on Aging, and been on many committees including the Anglican Postulants for Ordination. The choir at Christ's Church Cathedral occasionally sings a hymn with words by Hellaby but they have never been published. Some of her poems have been published in Canadian anthologies and a little volume of them was produced by friends: The Living Current Flows. Proceeds from the sale were dedicated to Anglican Outreach for Missions Abroad.14)