Bread and Roses: Sonja Davies, Her Story

New Zealand activist and politician Sonja Davies’s autobiography, Bread and Roses: Sonja Davies, Her Story (1984), roughly covers the first sixty years of her life, from her difficult childhood through a series of personal tragedies and finally her political triumphs as a trade unionist and peace activist.

Born on November 11, 1923, in a suburb of New Zealand's Wellington metropolitan district, Davies experienced a tumultuous childhood. Until the age of twenty, she never knew the identity of her father. After discovering that he was Irish Army General Gerald Dempsey, she never sought him out or contacted him. Meanwhile, her mother, Gwladys Ilma Vile, was a nurse and a descendant of the conservative New Zealand Member of Parliament Job Vile. After being shuffled between no less than four different foster homes, Davies ended up living at her maternal grandparents' house in Oamaru, located on the South Island of New Zealand. Around the time Davies turned seven, her mother remarried and invited her daughter to move back to Wellington to live with her and her new stepfather.

As Davies grew into a teenager, she became more politically aware. She was particularly inspired by the New Zealand pacifist Ormond Burton. Burton had fought valiantly on behalf of New Zealand and the Allied Powers during World War I, receiving the Military Medal for "acts of gallantry and devotion to duty under fire." However, his experiences during the war deeply traumatized and disillusioned him, and by the late 1930s, he was a vocal opponent to joining World War II. Burton's devotion to pacifism was such that he was imprisoned multiple times and even excommunicated from the Methodist Church. Davies was also drawn to the speeches of the religious pacifist Archibald Barrington, who said that "[Christianity] involved not only repudiation of all war and violence, but active work for peace, for the 'Good Society.'"



Unfortunately, Davies's political views created a serious rift between her and her parents. So deep was this rift, Davies left home and dropped out of school at the age of sixteen to join the workforce. During this period, she mostly worked at bookstores before enrolling in nursing school. Around this time, she married Lindsay Nathan. A couple of years later, however, she had an affair with Red Brinson, an American marine, that resulted in pregnancy. Not long after, Brinson died in battle in the Pacific campaign of World War II. In 1944, Davies gave birth to his daughter, Penny. Shortly after giving birth, Davies was diagnosed with tuberculosis, a disease she would battle for years to come.

In 1946, Davies divorced Nathan and married trade unionist Charlie Davies, a man she had met before the war. They moved to the city of Nelson where she first became directly involved in political, community action. One of the first community projects she became closely involved with was the 1953 effort to prevent the closure of the government-owned railway line between Nelson and Glenhope in New Zealand's Tasman district. Davies was one of 5,000 New Zealanders who gathered in Nelson to protest the closure and attempt to convince the government to make good on its promises to connect this section of the railway to the coast in order to increase commerce in the area. The protest was successful, for a time at least, in prompting the government to grant a reprieve to the community, keeping the railway line open.

Three years later, Davies won her first race for office after being elected to the Nelson Hospital Board. Five years later in 1961, Nelson won election to the Nelson City Council.



In part because of the influence of her husband Charlie, Davies became an activist on behalf of trade unions and the working class. She worked tirelessly to support the rights of workers, in particular, women and the underprivileged, campaigning for better working conditions for New Zealand's most vulnerable people. She helped found the Women's Working Council, and in 1974, she became the first female vice president of the New Zealand Federation of Labor. She would also go on to become a Member of the New Zealand Parliament, but this isn't covered in the book as it occurred in 1987, after the book was written. Nevertheless, it is an important point to note in order to understand the broader arc of Davies's political career.

Aside from her political achievements, much of Bread and Roses is devoted to the various personal tragedies she experienced throughout her life and how she worked to overcome them on her way to ever-greater achievements in her professional life. For example, in 1971, her husband Charlie died. Tragedy struck again, in 1978, when her son Mark, fathered by Charlie, perished in a tunneling accident. Bread and Roses is an overwhelmingly somber read. Nevertheless, these tragedies also speak to the staggering resilience of this amazing woman.