Victoria’s Read

Born December 16, 1907..  Gadsby, Alberta. Died Palm Desert, California October 13, 2011

Barbara and her family moved from Alberta to California when she was a teenager. In 1925, she won the Miss Hollywood Beauty pageant. She has been described as gorgeous, full-figured and baby faced, exactly what  movie studios were looking for! Even though she had never acted previously, she was signed up by Universal Studios. The studio gave her a few brief acting lessons before she made her debut as the only woman in the western ‘Prowlers of the Night’, batting her eyelashes as she nursed the wounded sheriff back to health.

In the landmark 1926 film ‘Flesh and the Devil’,  the lovelorn Kent displayed her broken heart in an Oscar-worthy supporting performance. She starred in ‘Lonesome’, the last great silent American film in 1928 and in ‘The Shakedown’, a transition film which was mostly silent but some scenes had sound as a “special effect”. Kent’s natural voice was a bit too “tinny”. Her career in “the talkies” was in doubt. Determined to overcome the problem, she took voice lessons. Her career peaked when she played superstar Harold Lloyd’s love interest in his first two talkies, ‘Welcome Danger’ and ‘Feet First’. At 27, she was still believable as a high school student and appeared a youthful star in numerous films but her star was already fading.

In 1932, she married  Harry Edington, a longtime Hollywood producer whose credits stretch back to the silent epic Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. He tried to revive his wife’s career in the late 1930s, but her roles became smaller and her films less prestigious. Her last film was ‘Guard That Girl’ in 1935.

After her husband died in 1949, Barbara retired from show business. She retreated from public view refusing all demands for photographs and interviews. She married a second time to engineer Jack Monroe who died in 1998. She had been living in a retirement home in Sun Valley, Idaho, for many years where even her Idaho neighbors are said to be unaware that she had once graced the silver screen as an actress.  At the age of 103 she was one of the last surviving silent screen actors.

By: Dawn Monroe. famouscanadianwomen.com

Dame Cicely Mary Saunders was a prominent Anglican, nurse, physician and writer. She helped the dying and terminally ill end their lives in the most comfortable ways possible.

She is best known for her role in the birth of the hospice movement, emphasizing the importance of palliative care in modern medicine. At the time hospices were sanctuaries provided by religious orders for the dying poor. They offered food, clothing, shelter as well as minimal medical care.

In the late 1940s, Saunders began working part-time at St Luke’s Home for the Dying Poor in Bayswater, and it was partly this which, in 1951, led her to begin study at St Thomas’s College to become a physician in 1957.

A year later, she began working at the Roman Catholic St Joseph’s Hospice in Hackney where for seven years, she researched pain control.

In 1967, St Christopher’s Hospice, the world’s first purpose-built hospice, was established. The hospice was founded on the principles of combining teaching and clinical research, expert pain and symptom relief with holistic care to meet the physical, social, psychological and spiritual needs of its patients and those of their family and friends.

In 1979, Queen Elizabeth II honoured Cicely Saunders with the title Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Dame Cicely would be awarded many more prizes in her lifetime and in 2001 she received the world’s largest humanitarian award - the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize.

In 2002 she co-founded a new charity - Cicely Saunders International. The charity’s mission is to promote research to improve the care and treatment of all patients with progressive illness and to make high-quality palliative care available to everyone who needs it - be it in hospice, hospital or home. The charity has co-created the world’s first purpose built Institute of Palliative Care - the Cicely Saunders Institute, and supported research to improve the management of symptoms such as breathlessness, action to meet more closely patient and family choice in palliative care, and better support for older people.

Dame Cicely died of cancer at the age of 87 in 2005, at St Christopher’s Hospice, the hospice she herself had founded.

Eulalie Durocher (Mother Marie-Rose)  Born Saint-Antoine-sur-Richelieu, Lower Canada (now Quebec) October 6,1811. Died October 6, 1849.

She was one of ten children. Her mother had been educated by the Ursuline Sisters of Quebec and instilled in her children the love and respect of learning and love of their religion.

When Eulalie originally decided to follow a religious life she was turned down as a novitiate because of her frail health.  From 1831 through 1843 she facilitated pastoral activities visiting the destitute and teaching the children.

With the arrival of the Oblates of Mary Immaculacy in 1841, Eulalie was even more certain of her desire to serve. She supported the work of the Oblates and founded the Association of Children of Mary, the first organization of its kind in Canada. Her enthusiasm and natural charismatic personality attracted many young women to offer time and energies to provide good works in their communities. She once again looked forward to entering a religious order but the group did not make it from France.

In 1843, seeing her disappointment and her dedication to serve, Bishop Ignace Bourget asked her to establish her own Order.  Moving to Longeuil, at the request of the Bishop, in 1843 the new convent was to have its birth. On December 8, 1844 she and her friends, Mélodie Dufresne and Henriette Cére made their religious profession in the Church of Longeuil. Eulalie took the name of Mother Marie-Rose and became the first Superior of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary of Canada with their founding house in Longueil in what is now the Province of Quebec.

Within her lifetime, Mother Marie Rose saw the establishment of houses/convents each of which had a school attached. Their work had become firmly established about the province of Quebec offering a well rounded religious education to the young women of the area.

On May 23, 1982 Pope John Paul ll proclaimed Marie-Rose Durocher “Blessed”, one of the first steps in the process of being declared a Saint. Mother Marie Rose died  at only 38 years of age.

The Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary are celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of their beloved founder on October 6, 2011.

Submitted by Dawn Monroe. famouscanadianwomen.com

Gladys Marie Margerite Arnold was born in Macoun, Saskatchewan on Oct 2, 1905. She died Sept 29, 2002. After high school Gladys began teaching but by 1930 she found herself working at the Regina Leader-Post newspaper. She started as a secretary, a respectable position for women of that era and  soon began writing articles that eventually were accepted.

Gladys was on tour in France when World War ll broke out. Her happenstance allowed her, as the only Canadian journalist on site, to post freelance articles for the Canadian Press. In 1936 she became officially named Paris Correspondent, reporting first hand on the European conflict. In 1941 she was forced to become a refugee and fled from Germany to England.

She then dedicated herself to the plight of France. Co-founding the Free the French Association in Canada, she traveled throughout North America with her compassionate plea. In 1941, France asked her to return to report on war life. Her work in France garnered her the order of Chevalier de a Légion d’Honeur, the highest distinction given to non French citizens. Returning to Canada after the War, she was head of the Information Service of the French Embassy in Ottawa until retirement in 1971.

A member of the prestigious Canadian Women’s Press Club she was an active member of the organization. In 1948 and 1949 she was elected as president of the Canadian Women’s Press Club. She would become the subject of a History Television documentary called Eyewitness to War. In her 80’s, her reports from France became the base for her book: One Woman’s War.

With her adventuresome spirit she never stopped looking for a good story. During her lifetime she visited and reported to Canadians from 60 difference countries.

Submitted by Dawn Monroe. famouscanadianwomen.com

The Canadian Women’s Army Corps (CWAC) was authorized on August 13, 1941, in response to a shortage of personnel caused by the increase in the size of Canada’s navy, army and air force. At first the organisation was called the Canadian Women’s Auxiliary Corps and was not an official part of the armed forces. On March 13, 1942 the women were inducted into the Canadian Army and became the Canadian Women’s Army Corps. They wore a cap badge of three maple leaves, and collar badges of the goddess Athena.

A February 1943 CWAC advertisement in the Edmonton Journal noted that prospective recruits had to be in excellent health, at least five feet tall and 105 pounds (or within 10 pounds above or below the standard of weight laid down in medical tables for different heights), with no dependants, a minimum of Grade 8 education, aged 18 to 45, and a British subject, as Canadians were at that time. Since women were not allowed to enter in combat of any kind the CWACs worked as secretaries, clerks, canteen workers, vehicle drivers and many other non-combat military jobs. They were only paid 2/3 of what the men were paid in the same occupation (this figure later became 4/5).

CWACs served overseas, first in 1942 in Washington DC and then with the Canadian Army in the UK. In 1944 CWACs served in Italy and in 1945 in north-west Europe, usually as clerks in headquarters establishments. After VE Day, more served with Canadian occupation forces in Germany. In all, approximately 3000 served Canada overseas. While no members of the CWAC were killed due to enemy action, four were wounded in a German V-2 missile attack on Antwerp in 1945. By the end of the war 21,624 CWACs had served in the ranks. In August 1946 the CWACs were disbanded. The Canadian Women’s Army Corps was redesignated The Canadian Women’s Army Corps on 22 Mar 1948. The Canadian Women’s Army Corps reverted to the Canadian Women’s Army Corps on 18 Apr 1955.

The CWACS were disbanded for good in 1964.

http://en.wikipedia.org

Part of a Royal Canadian Air Force Women’s Division recruiting poster.

The Royal Canadian Air Force Women’s Division was an element of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) which was active during the Second World War.

The Women’s Division was originally called the Canadian Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (CWAAF), which formed in July 1941. The CWAAF was modelled on and structured like the Royal Air Force Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). The name change to Royal Canadian Air Force Women’s Division occurred in February 1942. Women’s Division personnel were commonly known as WDs.

At the beginning of the war, the RCAF was experiencing a shortage of personnel. Men were needed for combat duties overseas and for training duties at British Commonwealth Air Training Plan schools across Canada. To allow as many men as possible to contribute to wartime operational duties, WDs took over many responsibilities once held by men. The original 1941 order-in-council authorized “the formation of a component of the Royal Canadian Air Force to be known as the Canadian Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, its function being to release to heavier duties those members of the RCAF employed in administrative, clerical and other comparable types of service employment.”

Duties expanded as the war progressed. Among the many jobs carried out by WD personnel, they became clerks, drivers, fabric workers, hairdressers, hospital assistants, instrument mechanics, parachute riggers, photographers, air photo interpreters, intelligence officers, instructors, weather observers, pharmacists, wireless operators and Service Police. RCAF regulations at the time precluded women who possessed flying licences from flight instructing or front-line duty. Most WDs were located at British Commonwealth Air Training Plan training stations across Canada; many served overseas with RCAF Overseas Headquarters and No. 6 (bomber) Group.

Over 17,400 women served with the Women’s Division before it was discontinued in December 1946. Thirty WDs died during the war.

“Kit Coleman” was the nom de plume of the Canadian newspaper columnist Catherine Ferguson. She was born Kathleen Blake at Castle Blakeny in May 1864 near Galway, Ireland and died in 1915 at Hamilton, Ontario.

She was educated in Dublin and Belgium. After marrying at sixteen, she emigrated to Canada in 1884. She became a journalist in 1890.

Kit of the Mail was the first female journalist to be in charge of her own section of a Canadian newspaper. In the 1890s and early 1900s, she ran a seven-column page in the Toronto Mail. Called “Woman’s Kingdom,” it came out once a week and was so outspoken that it attracted a wide following.

She was a special correspondent for Toronto Mail during the World’s Fair, Chicago, 1893; the Mid-winter Fair, San Francisco, 1894; British West Indies, 1894; Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, London, 1897, and the Cuban war, 1898. She was the first woman war correspondent in the world. Mrs. Coleman was a poet and published books of poetry. She tackled anything that interested her: political commentary and theatre criticism, as well as fashion notes and recipes.

In one of her most popular features she gave the first advice to the lovelorn.Coleman was cynical about love, for her parents had married her off at 16 to an elderly Irishman. Widowed at 20, she migrated to Canada in 1884 and worked as a secretary until she married her boss, Edward Watkins.

When Watkins died in 1889, she turned to journalism to support their two children. She worked for the Mail until 1911. Meanwhile, she married a third husband, Theobald Coleman.

Kit became the first woman in the world to be a war correspondent. This was in 1898 when she went to Cuba to report on the Spanish-American War.

After 1911 she sold “Kit’s Column” to dozens of newspapers across the country.

Coleman also served as the first president of the Canadian Women’s Press Club, an organization of women journalists who  used journalism as a means of promoting social reform to gain legal rights for women and children.

Canadian Women’s Press Club was founded in June 1904.

Source: www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com

Muriel McQueen was born on 26 May 1899 in Shediac, New Brunswick. She was educated at Shediac High School, Mount Allison Ladies College and Mount Allison University from which she received a B.A. in 1921. Following her graduation she read law in her father’s law office and was admitted to the bar of New Brunswick in 1925. She practiced law briefly before her marriage in 1926 to another young lawyer, Aubrey Fergusson.

For ten years she led the life of a traditional housewife, occupying her spare time with running a tearoom, forming the Grand Falls Literary Group and gardening.

When her husband became ill in 1936, she returned to the practice of law. She gradually took over his legal practice and assumed his duties as Judge of the Probate Court, Clerk of the County Court and town solicitor of Grand Falls. After the death of her husband in 1942 she was confirmed in these positions becoming the first woman to hold them.

In 1944, she became the only woman to serve as enforcement counsel for the Wartime Prices and Trade Board. She applied for the job of regional director of Family Allowances and Old Age Security, a position for which she was well-qualified but was denied because the competition was open to men only. She challenged this dictum successfully and served as regional director from 1947 to 1953.

In the meantime, she led another fight to win acceptance of women as aldermen on the City Council of Fredericton. She ran and was elected the first woman alderman in 1950. Two years later she was acclaimed alderman, so impressing her colleagues on the Council that she was chosen Deputy Mayor in 1953. Her period as Deputy Mayor, however, was short-lived for on 19 May 1953 she was summoned to the Senate.

As a Senator, Muriel Fergusson continued her fight for women’s rights and she also worked tirelessly on issues concerning the poor, pensioners and the elderly.

On 14 December 1972 Senator Fergusson became the Speaker of the Senate. She resigned from the Senate on 23 May 1975.

In recognition of her many contributions, Senator Fergusson was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1976.

She lived in retirement in Fredericton, New Brunswick where she continued to be very active in local affairs.

Muriel Fergusson died on 11 April 1997.

Source: www2.parl.gc.ca

The suffrage movement in Canada was established in 1878. Dr Emily Stowe launched an aggressive campaign seeking the same provincial and federal electoral rights as men.

Women in early Canada fought long and hard in seeking equal voting rights. A tireless campaign spearheaded by Dr. Emily Stowe crossed over four decades before Manitoba passed legislation allowing women to vote. It took twenty-four more years before all women across Canada had the right to vote both federally and provincially.

Voting was not always a right, not even for men. After Confederation, the provinces maintained authority as to who was entitled to vote. Each province had its own criteria. The federal government took over this power in 1885, yet returned it to the provinces in 1898. Women property owners had the right to vote prior to Confederation but thereafter were excluded.

Public debates took place among members of the Toronto Women’s Literary Club (founded in 1876 by Dr. Stowe). The group was a screen for suffrage activities. In 1883, this group became The Canadian Women’s Suffrage Association. Shortly after, campaigns started across Canada to educate women on importance to advocate for their right to vote. Many educated and articulate women rose to the forefront of this historical movement. They were referred to as being “suffragettes” pejoratively, but grew into this label with pride.

Dr. Emily Stowe passed away in 1903 but her daughter, Augusta, continued in the political trenches fighting for change.

Dates When Women Gained the Right to Vote
January 28, 1916 Manitoba
March 14, 1916 Saskatchewan
April 19, 1916 Alberta
April 5, 1917 British Columbia
April 12, 1917 Ontario
April 26, 1918 Nova Scotia
May 24, 1918 Canada
April 17, 1919 New Brunswick
May 20, 1919 Yukon
May 3, 1922 Prince Edward Island
April 3, 1925 Newfoundland and Labrador
April 25, 1940 Quebec
June 12, 1951 Northwest Territories

Charlotte Whitton was born on March 8, 1896 in Renfrew, Ontario. Born in family of rather modest means, Whitton grew to become the first female mayor of the City of Ottawa, a tireless defender of the less fortunate and a relentless crusader for professional standards of juvenile immigrants and neglected children. She was the driving force behind the Canadian Council on Child Welfare and was in high demand, across North America, as a lecturer on social programs.

Whitton was a study in the modern woman. She attended Queen’s University, where she studied for a Master of Arts and played hockey.

In November 1950, she entered Ottawa municipal politics winning a seat on the Board of Control. The newly elected Mayor of Ottawa died in office and Whitton was appointed to succeed him for the remaining 14 months of the mandate. She was elected mayor in 1952, 1954, 1960 and 1964 and later served as an alderman until 1972.

While Whitton was a power house in social welfare and politics she is best known for her immortal quote: “Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.”  

She was also the author of  great quotes such as: “Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.” “When one must, one can.” and “It’s how you deal with failure that determines how you achieve success.” 

Whitton did not shy away from controversy. During the Flag Debate in 1964 she confronted Lester Pearson over his choice of three maple leafs for the flag. For Whitton, the Red Ensign, with its Union Jack and coat of arms containing symbols of England, Scotland, Ireland and France would be a stronger embodiment of the Canadian achievement in peace and war. She lost the battle but made her mark.

During her time as Mayor she pioneered the communications of city politics by hosting her own TV program and writing a column in the local paper.

Never married, Whitton lived for 32 years with her companion, Margaret Grier. She died in 1947 at the age of 55 years.

Charlotte Whitton died on January 25, 1975 and was laid to rest in the Thompson Hill Cemetery in Renfrew.

www.mysteriesofcanada.com