Storydello: The Last Word

Phyllis Laura Knight

Phyllis Knight and Jean Royce continued to live in the small house at 140 Stuart Street until Jean's death in 1982. Phyllis moved to a nursing home and died there eighteen months later. She was 94 years old.

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Hugo

Today, a popular Queen's mascot stands in the medical library on campus. It's a small bronze ape in a pose similar to that of Rodin's The Thinker.

The ape's name is "Hugo," and he originally belonged to Archie Knight. Phyllis gave him to the library around the time the Knight family home was demolished. The theme of the statue is Darwin's Origin of Species. Archie recalled reading that book in his early days as a theology student at Queen's, and arguing passionately with his roommate:

"when that subject was broached there could be nothing expected but bad temper and red hot discussion. The conclusions...upset all our previous religious training and left us almost hopelessly stranded. I should never like to pass through those days a second time." [1]

Archie's roommate, Malcolm MacGillivray, went on to become a prominent clergyman in Kingston, and moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada.

Archie gave up his theological studies and became a professor of professor of animal biology and physiology. He boldly argued in favour of Darwin's work, and wrote an essay that was "the first full-blown exposition of doctrinaire Darwinian evolution in the Queen's records." [2]

On the main floor of Bracken Library, just down the street from the spot where the Knight family home stood, Hugo is now bolted to his pedestal. (Library staff discovered that he had been spending too many nights out on the town with students.)  He still dresses up for various holidays, and his head is shiny from being "rubbed for luck." Thanks to Phyllis Knight, he stands both as a reminder of big ideas that shaped the university, and of the wit, intelligence and generosity that were her father's legacy.

Many thanks to Queen's University librarian Elizabeth MacDonald-Pratt for drawing my attention to the "Hugo" statue and generously sharing her research about him.

The Last Word

This is the last entry in the Storydello series 52 Queen's Crescent, about the Knight family in Kingston, Ontario. Thank you so much for following along!  Next up: Rogues and Royals, a 16-generation trip back through my Dad's line of descent. Please stay tuned!

Learn More about Hugo

"Hugo Rheinhold and his Philosophizing Monkey," by Axel Schmetzke [webpage] University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point website (https://library.uwsp.edu/aschmetz/Rheinhold's_Monkey/Rheinhold's_Monkey_Page.htm : accessed 20 February 2017).

"Hugo Rheinhold" [wiki article, 21 October 2016] Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Rheinhold : accessed 20 February 2017).

Notes

[1] Excerpt from 1933-09-02 Autobiography of Archibald Patterson KNIGHT b1849. Typescript by his son Cyril Workman Knight. Original typescript in the possession of Mary Elizabeth KNIGHT Clark, Cobourg, Ontario. Scanned by John Carew in June 2014. Copy in possession of Jo Stanbridge, Kingston, 2016.

[2] "A Gladiatorial Professor", by B.N. Smallwood, H.M. Good and A.S. West, Kingston Whig-Standard, magazine section, Saturday 25 January 1992; excerpt from the book Queen's Biology: An Academic History of Innocence Lost at Fame Gained, 1858-1965. Kingston : Queen's University Press, 1992.

Posted yesterday on Storydello.

Storydello: Time Marches On

Stirling Hall now stands where Archie and Corrie raised their family. They watched Queen's University grow up around them, and played a vital role in the university community--they lived, studied and worked on campus.

Archie held positions in the biology department, the medical faculty, and the school of mining. He helped to design and equip the "New Medical Building" that opened in 1907. Ironically, it is now the home of Queen's University Archives.

When Phyllis's house was torn down, she saved and organized Archie's papers and donated them to the archives. His letters and notebooks are now preserved in the building he helped to design. These blog entries could not have been written without them.

Posted two days ago on Storydello.

Storydello: Phyllis Relents

In 1961, when Phyllis said "no" to the property developer, the university principal stepped in. He negotiated the deal himself. He invited Phyllis for tea, and they discussed the matter quietly. Faced with the inevitable, Phyllis relented. Her home would be torn down.

Jean and Phyllis moved to a smaller house just two blocks away, at 140 Stuart Street. As in the old house, each had her own apartment, where they lived quite happily for fifteen more years.

Posted yesterday on Storydello.

Storydello: Phyllis's House

The house was two-and-a-half storeys tall, made of brick with wood floors, big closets, a dining room with a built-in china cabinet, and a fireplace. It was from this house that Phyllis's siblings started their marriages and careers, and moved away. This was also the house where her niece (Muriel's daughter) came in 1903 as a toddler, grew up and married, and emigrated to England. And it was in this house that both of Phyllis's parents had grown old and died in 1935 and 1936.

Phyllis continued to live in the house for many years afterward, making her living as a music teacher, giving lessons and even holding recitals in the living room. To boost her income, she converted the second floor into apartments, and rented one of these to the famous university registrar, Jean Isobel Royce. The two women became fast friends.

Sources

Storydello: Phyllis's Fight

A controversy erupted at Queen's University in 1961, twenty-six years after the death of Archibald Patterson Knight.

As a scientist, Professor Emeritus, and former member of the university's Board of Trustees, AP might have been in favour of the plan for a new physics building on the Queen's University campus. But the Board had chosen a site that would destroy the last large green space on campus. Students and faculty protested, demonstrations were held, and the Board was forced to change its decision.

An alternative site was chosen on Queen's Crescent, where most of the property owners had agreed to sell. Just one person held out. It was Archie and Cordelia's daughter, Phyllis Knight, who had lived at 52 Queen's Crescent for nearly 70 years.

Posted 3 days ago on Storydello.

Alphadello: Z is for Zone-Tailed Hawk

While we were walking down the bed of the stream we were delighted to see a zone-tailed hawk fly from the leafy top of a tall cottonwood...The hawk began screaming and was soon joined by its mate; both birds circled about in the vicinity as long as we were there.

The text is from "Zone-Tailed Hawk," Life Histories of North American Birds of Prey, by Arthur Cleveland Bent (1887). Click here to read the book online, or download it free, from the Internet Archive.

Bonus:  check out this beautiful Picture Alphabet of Birds published by Thomas Nelson Company in 1874. Some of their choices were similar to mine, and some different!

Posted yesterday in "ABC of Birds" on Alphadello.

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Please stay tuned for a NEW Alphadello alphabet--coming soon!
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Alphadello: Y is for Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker

...a rapid drumming on a tree behind me made me turn in that direction to discover a big, red-headed woodpecker. On going nearer it proved to be a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker busy on a thrifty tree extracting sap.

The text is from an untitled article by Nellie H. Hunt, The Wilson Bulletin (1902). Click here to read the article online, or download it free, from the Internet Archive.

Posted yesterday in the ABC of Birds on Alphadello.

Alphadello: X is for Xenops

A very extraordinary and not inelegant little creature, having a bill totally different from any other bird...Inhabits Brazil, but is rare.

The text is from the book Zoological Illustrations : Or Original Figures and Descriptions of New, Rare, or Interesting Animals, by William Swainson (1821). Click here to read the book online, or download it free, from the Internet Archive.

Posted yesterday in the ABC of Birds on Alphadello.