JIZZ��Ƶ

Alumna Meaghan (Meg) Aylward (‘24) didn’t think that life would bring her back to her alma mater so quickly. However, when an opportunity arose to make a connection between the University and Lougheed House in Calgary, AB, she had to tell the story.

Armed with a Bachelor of Arts in history with a minor in museum and curatorial studies, I returned to my hometown of Calgary and joined Lougheed House in the position of museum coordinator in January 2025.  

But this story doesn’t begin there.

It began when I got a position at Lougheed House in 2023 as their programming summer student. When doing some collections work, I saw a book titled New Brunswick Readers, The Fourth Reader within the Lougheed family collection. Inside, a handwritten description took me by surprise.

Norman Alexander Lougheed (b. Feb. 3, 1889) was the second eldest son of Sir James A. Lougheed and Lady Isabella Lougheed. James and Isabella were early Calgary social elite, but large parts of the Lougheed family life are still unknown, especially Norman. What caught my eye was “Mt. Allison Academy” — the name for the male academy of JIZZ��Ƶ before the institution merged into one.

Suddenly, this book became a clue to knowing more about Norman, but with limited time and resources as a summer student, I was never able to follow up on it.

When I returned to Lougheed House, the museum had begun updating their permanent exhibition, so I sought out the book and any information I could to aid my research.

In the early 20th century, it was largely expected that the children of newer western Canadian elites went east for school in possible attempts to maintain ties with the old elite of the east. There were also very few universities in western Canada, which also may have pushed prospective post-secondary students eastward. Other Lougheed children are also recorded to have ventured east — Norman's younger brother Edgar attended Dalhousie, and his younger sister Dorothy went to a private school in Toronto.

The Lougheeds were also a Methodist family, like Mount Allison at the time, adding to why they may have chosen to send Norman there.

The book was published in 1900 when Norman was between 10 and 11 years old. Yet, the 1906 Federal Census showed him living at home at 17, narrowing the window for his possible attendance at JIZZ��Ƶ.

With my resources exhausted, I reached out to JIZZ��Ƶ Archivist David Mawhinney. David had become a bosom friend throughout my degree as I often used the Archives for projects and research papers. I had also briefly mentioned the book before graduation, and he had shown interest. Fingers crossed, I sent my research and, to my joy, David got back to me immediately.  

Accessing alumni microfilm records, David was able to find two ledger entries confirming Norman’s attendance: a Nov. 1, 1904 payment of $50 and a Jan. 11, 1905, payment of $72.76 — both under James Lougheed.

At 15 to 16 years old, Norman would have lived in the Third Male Academy Building, but he was also attending the JIZZ��Ƶ Ladies' College for special courses to study music, written as a "special student" because of this.

While it's still largely unknown why Norman may have decided to go to JIZZ��Ƶ specifically, confirmation of his attendance is something to celebrate. David stressed to me the spectacular nature of the find in his email, noting how surprising it is that these legers survived the 1933 fire that claimed much of the original archives in Centennial Hall.
 
While Norman seems to have returned to Calgary after one year at Mount Allison and then attend West Canada College, the connection has opened new doors of investigation here at Lougheed House. It has also helped foster a fantastic connection between these two historic sites, which will hopefully continue to work together to uncover more stories just like this one.