Lady Laurier was in a giving mood on this date in 1920 and the beneficiary of her thoughtfulness was her late husband’s successor, Mackenzie King. I’ll let Mr. King tell the story himself, via the pages of his famous personal diary.
“Called on Lady Laurier between five and six p.m. and received from her Lincoln’s Life and Letters by (John) Hay in two volumes with Sir Wilfrid’s autograph and bookplate,” he wrote on December 27, 1920. “She said she wished it to be given to me as Sir Wilfrid’s successor, and said she hoped I would be as successful as he was, that once I got in, I would stay there, but the trouble was the getting in. She said (Laurier) would be pleased with the success thus far. She was exceedingly kindly in all she said.”
A year later, almost to the day, King would indeed become Prime Minister.
Arthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist. He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy. A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.