The Stories behind the Famous Canadian Women Match Game

Manon Rhéaume. Born February 2, 1972. She was the first girl to play in the annual Quebec peewee hockey tournament. She was the first female goaltender to play professionally and the first in the National Hockey League. She played for the Tampa Bay Lightning. She has written a book "Manon: alone in front of the net." If the book is not at your own library, just request an interlibrary loan from your librarian.

Jeanne-Mathilde (Benoit) Sauvé. Born at Prud'homme, Saskatchewan April 26, 1922 studied in Ottawa and in Paris. She married in 1948 and began a brilliant career as a free-lance journalist in print, radio and Television. In 1972 she was elected to the House of Commons and was a Member of Parliament for Montreal until the 1980's. She was the first female French Canadian Member of Cabinet as Minister of State for Science and Technology, Minister of the Environment and Minister of Communications. She was the first woman Speaker of the House of Commons in Parliament. In 1984 she was the first woman appointed as Governor General. As head of state, she was a rallying point for her compatriots, a dignified representative of Canada abroad and a symbol of Canadian unity.

Lady Mary Pellatt. (née Dodgson) Born Toronto, Ontario 1858. The first Commissioner of the Girl Guides of Canada lived in a Castle! Lady Mary often invited Girl Guides to have rallies at Casa Loma in Toronto. She was warranted as Commissioner of the Dominion of Canada Girl Guides on July 24, 1912. When she was too ill to attend events she enjoyed watching the girls from her bedroom window. When Lady Pellatt died in April 1924, she was buried in her Girl Guide uniform and the Girl Guides formed a Guard of Honour at the funeral service. Check out the Girl Guide Fact Sheet at: http://www.girlguides.ca/media/pdfs/14-3/14.3.1.8.pdf

Roberta Lynn Bondar was the first Canadian woman to go into space. A dedicated scientist, who enjoys flying and photography in her spare time, has fond memories of being a member of Guiding in her youth. When she was allowed to bring some special food into space she took with her favorite "Girl Guide Cookies"! She is currently a research professor and traveling lecturer working out of the University of Western Ontario, London Ontario.

Jenny (Kidd) Trout was born at Kelso, Scotland in April 1841 but grew up near Stratford, Ontario. After she was married in 1865, to Toronto publisher Edward Trout, she decided to become a doctor. There were no Canadian medical schools that admitted women, so she enrolled at the Women's Medical College at Pennsylvania and graduated in 1875. She passed the Ontario registration exam for doctors and became the first Canadian woman licensed to practice medicine in Canada. She promoted women in medicine all her life and she helped endow the Women's Medical College, Kingston Ontario in 1883. Have you seen the stamp with her picture on it?

Margaret Marshall Saunders was the first Canadian author to sell 1,000,000 copies of a book. Her book "Beautiful Joe" is the story of an abused dog written for an American Humane Society competition. It won 1st prize and became a world best seller translated into more than 14 languages. It reached one million sales in 1894! Margaret Saunders was a woman of charm and humour, and her animal stories were sentimental and gracefully written to be truly entertaining.

Agnes Campbell Macphail. Born in Ontario in 1890, Agnes was the only woman elected to the Canadian Parliament in 1921. That was the fist Canadian federal election that allowed women to vote. Later she would become one of the first of two women to be elected to the Ontario Provincial Legislature. She was also the first woman appointed to the Canadian delegation to the League of Nations (now the United Nations)
 

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