Personal Reflections
Ruth Gorman wore many hats. As other collections in the Ruth Gorman Curated Archive illustrate, she was a highly respected lawyer who successfully leveraged her legal expertise to fight for Indigenous Rights on the national stage; a passionate and outspoken proponent of western Canadian interests through her work with the Western Canada Concept Party of Alberta (WCC); and a widely prolific writer, authoring articles, opinion letters, and other written works that were self-published through My Golden West, as well as numerous pieces featured in news outlets such as the Calgary Herald and the Toronto Sun. However, in addition to her public-facing personas, Gorman held other identities: she was also a woman, a mother, a wife, a poet.
In an early draft of a poem entitled “Ah Woman!” Gorman writes, “in your small soft bones, your silken hair, there lays an unsolved mystery — you lady are life itself!” This collection of Gorman’s writings provides clues into the “unsolved mystery” of her personal life, including correspondences, essays, poems, and other works that encompass her many interests. Although much of the content is still political in nature, the records in this collection capture a more intimate side of Gorman’s work, such as her contemplations about femininity, motherhood, and other less-explored facets of her identity.
