Return to the
Introduction

ISBN: 0-9736246-0-4

Sharon Acker. 
Born April 2, 1935, Toronto, Ontario. Died March 16, 2023, Toronto. She made her television debut in the made for TV movie Anne of Green Gables. She joined the Stratford Theatre and travelled to England remaining there making her film debut in Lucky Jim in 1957 before returning to Canada with her husband Ron MacDonald to raise a family of two daughters.  In Canada she returned to acting on television. She also did modeling to bring in some funds. By 1967 she was appearing in American films as well as in Canadian productions. In 1969 she was presented with the 1st 'Star of Tomorrow Award' from the Motion Picture Exhibitors of Canada. She is perhaps best remembered for her role as secretary Della Street in the New Perry Mason television series. 1973-1974.In 1973 he married a second time to Peter J. Elkington (died 2001).  She retired in 1992 from acting.

Ayako 'Irene' Uchida.
Born April 4, 1917, Vancouver, British Columbia. Died July 30, 2013, Toronto, Ontario. Her childhood piano teacher could not pronounce her given name and called her Irene. The name stuck. She began her studies at the University of British Columbia. With the onslaught of World War ll and the war against Japan, Irene was swept up with 20,000 Japanese Canadians and placed in internment camps. Here she would become the principal of a grade school with 500 students. After the release from the camp and with the help of the United Church of Canada she studied at the University of Toronto. She had to work at such jobs as dishwasher to live. She graduated in 1946 and pursued further studies of the human chromosomes. She graduated with a PhD in Zoology in 1951. She worked at the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children until 1959. After a short fellowship in Wisconsin, U.S.A. she started the 1st National Cytogenetics Lab in Canada at the Winnipeg Children’s Hospital. Here in the 1960’s she was the first person to link radiation exposure in women throughout their lives to Downs Syndrome births of the women’s children. The practice of medicine was forever changed. By 1970 she was in the international spotlight. She was awarded the Woman of the Century from the Manitoba National Council of Jewish Women and the Founder Award from the Canadian College of Medical Geneticists. She worked briefly as a visiting scientist at the University of London, England and returned to Canada in 1969 to work at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario for the next twenty years. She was awarded the Order of Canada in 1993. She retired in 1995 from Oshawa General Hospital. Sources: Canadian Encyclopedia online; Obituary by Olesia Plokhii, The Globe and Mail, September 14, 2013:  Book, Seeing the invisible: the story of Dr. Uchida by Terry Watada. Suggestion submitted by June Coxon, Ottawa Ontario.

Hilda Mary Slater.
Born April 5, 1882, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Died April 2, 1965, Norris Castle, England. Hilda left home in 1902 to pursue training in voice in Italy and England. However a performing career was not to be her calling. She  changed her life direction when she met Harry Reginald Dunbar Lacon of British Columbia, and  the couple decided to marry. In order to return to Canada with her wedding gown and trousseau (valued at some $7000.00 at the time), Hilda booked passage on the Titanic in April 1912 as a second class passenger. Originally when the Titanic struck an iceberg, she was told to go back to bed as there was no danger. A half hour later the order to don lifejackets was raised. She was pushed down the corridor to the ship side where she was placed in lifeboat number 13. It was one of the last life boats to be lowered. She later provided touching eyewitness accounts as husbands and wives were separated and of children being handed over to the life boats by parents who stayed on board the sinking ship. In lifeboat 13 there were eight women, a husband and wife, and a ten month old baby, and more than 40 men stokers, men who had manned the furnaces in the bowels of the ship. In total 63 were people huddled in the life boat on the becalmed sea watching the mighty ship sink. The life boat was eventually saved by the ship, Carpathia, and Titanic survivors were taken to New York. Hilda continued her trip to British Columbia where she was married in June 1912. The couple had one son who served with distinction in the Royal Canadian Navy. Hilda is buried in her family plot in Nova Scotia. Rosalee Peppard, a maritime Canadian musical Oral Historian,  commemorated the 100th anniversary with a new show – Living Titanic – the musical memoir of Nova Scotia Survivor Hilda Mary Slayter Sources: Brave musicians of ship meet fate trying to drown cries…Worcester Evening Gazette, April 20, 1912. Online (accessed March 2012): Titanic Remembered: The Unsinkable Ship and Halifax by Alan Ruffman. Titanic, the Canadian Story. by Alan Hustak, Vehicule Press, 1999; Rosalee.ca/titanic (accessed March 2012)

Maria Campbell. 
Born April 6,1940, near Athlone, Edmonton, Alberta. In Edmonton Maria assisted in founding a halfway house for women and a women's emergency shelter. She began writing in 1973 because she was upset that so few people knew about historic and contemporary Native Cultures. Her 1st book was a memoir, Halfbreed which is used in schools across Canada continuing to inspire indigenous women. She herself is fluent in 4 languages: Cree, Michif, Saulteaux and English. Her books have been translated into German, Chinese, French and Italian. Her 1st professionally produced play, Flight, was the 1st all Aboriginal theatre production in modern CanadaShe has written screenplays and books. In 1986 she was presented with the Dora Mavor Award and the Chalmers Award for Best New Play. .In 1992 she earned the Gabriel Dumont Institute Medal of Merit She has written and/or directed films by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), including My Partners My People, which aired on CTV for 3 years. She is coordinator and member of Sage Ensemble, a community theatre group for Aboriginal elders, and is actively associated with the Saskatchewan Native Theatre Company in Saskatoon. Maria is also a volunteer, activist and advocate for Aboriginal rights and the rights of women. She sits as an Elder on the Saskatchewan Aboriginal Justice Commission and is a member of the Grandmothers for Justice Society. Her writings and her efforts for justice have been recognized in 1994 with the Saskatchewan Achievement Award and in 1996 with the National Aboriginal Achievement Award In 2006 she was honoured with the Saskatchewan Order of Merit. In 2008 she was inducted as an Officer of the Order of Canada. Over the years she has also served as Writer In Residence for the University of Alberta, Regina Public Library, Prince Albert Public Library, Whitehorse Public Library, the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Winnipeg.

Harriet Irene Dunlop-Prenter.
née Dunlop. Born April 7, 1866, Eurkva, Russia. Died July 16, 1939, Belleville, Ontario. On September 8, 1992 Harriet  married Hector Henry Weir Prenter (1860-1945). She believed in peace and followed her beliefs when she by became secretary of the Canadian section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and which became the Women’s Peace Party founded in the U.S. in January 1915. Many women did not like the pacifist movement and chose instead to support the war. Harriet was also a strong suffragette and a member of the Political Equality League in Toronto. Harriet wrote about her beliefs and her stands in the Canadian Forward, the White Ribbon Bulletin and Women’s Century. In 1918 she and Lucy MacGregor formed the Women's Labour League in Toronto. In 1920 she started a woman’s page in the Industrial Banner where she discussed money value of women’s work in the home and paid wages. After Canadian women gained the right to vote in 1917 Harriet remained interested in politics and the advancement of equality for women. She joined the Independent Labour Party and in December 6, 1921 federal election she was a candidate for Toronto West. Although Unlike fellow candidate Agnes MacPhail (1890-1954) Harriet was unsuccessful in the election it still stands that she was one of the 1st women to run as a candidate in a Canadian federal election. In 1922 she became a member of the Worker’s Party of Canada and helped with communist campaigns. In 1924 she was with the Women’s Labour League celebrating the 1st Canadian International Women’s Day. (2022) 

Mary Pickford.  
née Gladys Louise Smith. Born April 8, 1892, Toronto, Ontario. Died May 29, 1979, Santa Monica, California, U.S.A. Gladys Smith become seriously ill with diphtheria and is baptized by a Catholic priest and has her middle name changed to Marie. In 1900 her mother, having been left alone to raise her three children,  suggests her daughters Gladys and Lottie be cast in a play. January 8, 1900 'Baby Gladys Smith' makes her stage debut at the Princess Theatre, Toronto in the play The Silver King. By 1905 Gladys is in Manhattan, New York, U.S.A. sharing a room with future film star,  Lillian Gish (1893-1993) and her family. In 1907 Gladys take the name Mary Pickford. She began her screen career in the silent films in 1909 with the Biograph Film Studio in New York City, U.S.A. The following year she becomes the company's second 'Biograph Girl' after fellow Canadian Florence Lawrence (1886-1938) leaves. January 7, 1911 she married, in a secret ceremony, Owen Moore but it was a strained marriage. She would divorce him to marry Douglas Fairbanks on March 28, 1920 when they were know as the King and Queen of Hollywood. As an actress she stands above the rest of her era and earned herself a Best Actress Academy Award (1929) at the second annual event. She was the 1st Canadian Born woman to have won an Academy award.  Her sweet girlish looks and her long ringlets endeared her to the the fans who knew her as "America's Sweetheart". Her dedication to realism in her work sometimes meant getting down into real mud! Her talents went beyond her sincerity and heart melting appearance. She entered the film industry and became Hollywood's 1st female businesswoman "movie mogul" creating with her colleagues United Artists Studios. She was the 1st woman to make $1,000,000.00 a year in the U.S. Movie business!!! Mary and Douglas Fairbanks marriage did not survive the constant making of movies and being constantly in the limelight. The divorced in 1936. The following year Mary married actor and banc leader Charles 'Buddy' Rogers (1904-1999).  and they adopted two children. She remained to the end of her life, proud of her Canadian heritage. The Toronto Sick Kids Hospital is build on the site of her birthplace and around the corner there is an historic plaque and a monument. In 1999 she received a star on Canada's Walk of Fame, Toronto. Catherdral City, California, U.S.A. has a Mary Pickford Theatre established in 2001, build complete with a bell tower and three-story lobby. In 2006 Canada Post issued a Canadian Postage Stamp in her honour. February 2011 the Spadina Museum, Toronto, staged performances of Sweetheart: The Mary Pickford Story, a one woman musical based on Mary's life. On August 20, 2019 the Toronto International Film Festival presented the first Mary Pickford Award. (2021)

Adele Ward.
née Hartman. Born April 9, 1932, Sudbury, Ontario. Died November 12, 2014. At 16 Adele moved from northern Ontario to Toronto where she met and married G. Kingsley (d. 2014) in 1959. The couple would have 2 children. Adele worked at the Toronto radio station CHUM hosting as ‘Aunt Susan’ a children’s radio show. Several years later she moved to CBC television writing for the popular children’s TV show Mr. Dressup. She worked 17 years helping Ernie Coombs, Mr. Dressup himself helping young viewers be educated. She would also edit and published 4 books that were written by her husband including, Letters of a Businessman to His Son which was translated into 28 languages. When her mother suffered a stroke she began a business manufacturing mobility chairs, ‘Go Chairs’ to help people with disabilities. She enjoyed music and composed her own music. With John Hartman she co-composed music for the poem In Flanders Fields. On top of all this creativity she was an accomplished portrait and landscape artist. Source: Obituaries, Globe and Mail, November 22, 2014. Suggestion submitted by June Coxon, Ottawa Ontario.

Esther Wheelwright. 
Born April 10, 1696, Wells Massachusetts (now Maine), U.S.A.  Died November 28, 1780.  Born to a Congregationalist protestant family, she would be re-baptized as Marie-Joseph dit L'Enfant-Jésus when she became a nun in Quebec. She was kidnapped by the Indian allies of the French who were at war against the British. The French missionaries introduced her to the Catholic Faith. Her family tried to obtain her return home but there were too many barriers and the girl was placed in a school run by the Ursuline Sisters. She decided to become an nun and refused to return to her home. She would become the Mother Superior and maintain good relations between the Ursuline and the new British authorities after the fall of Quebec. She helped her religious community to become strong through 20 of its most difficult years. Source: D C B

Margaret O'Hara.
Born April 11, 1855, Port Elmsley, Canada West (now Ontario). Died August 28, 1940, Smith's Falls, Ontario. In 1891 Margaret graduated from the Women's Medical College, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario.  She arrived in Bombay, India to begin missionary work in December 1891. She worked for 36 years as a hospital in Dhar, India. She was presented with the Kaiser-i-Hind Medal for her devotion and dedication. She wrote the book,  Leaf of the Lotus. Source: Female Physicians ...Women's Medical College, Queen's University by Dr. Donald Brearley. 2017. online (accessed 2021)

Agnes Dennis.
née Miller. Born April 11, 1859, Truro, Nova Scotia. Died April 21, 1949. President of the Victoria Order of Nurses from 1901 to 1946 and the Halifax Council of Women in Nova Scotia from 1906 to1920.  She mobilized women in World War I for the Red Cross for which she was also President at the provincial level from 1914 to1920. She helped co-ordinate relief efforts for the Halifax Explosion of 1917. Even with all this work she found time to raise ten children of her own!

Helen Maude Dallas.
Born April 12, 1898, Hastings, England. Died May 26, 1993, Winnipeg, Manitoba. She arrived in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1919.  She studied music at Wesley College and began musical career that spanned six decades. In 1920 she married Joseph Dallas and the couple had 2 children. She performed regularly with various choirs and  on local stages ranging from the Walker Theatre to Rainbow Stage. During the depression of the 1930’s she often sang for causes to help the homeless and unemployed.  In the 1940s she hosted a radio show on C K Y. During world War ll she regularly performed for troops and continued doing weekly recitals at Deer Lodge Hospital well into her eighties. Later in life she became a green space activist in her Omand’s Creek neighbourhood. Source: Manitoba Lives: Helen Dallas, West End Dumplings, Online Blog of Christian Cassidy (accessed February 2014)

Margaret Marshall Saunders. 
Born April 13,1861, Milton, Nova Scotia. Died February 15, 1947 Toronto, Ontario. At 15 she attended boarding school in Edinburgh, Scotland before studying French in France. Back home in Canada she taught school for a short period. Margaret originally wrote under the name Marshall Saunders to hide her female identity. While it was just becoming somewhat respectable for women to be writers when Margaret was publishing her works, writings by women were not best sellers. Her 1st novel, appeared in 1889. In 1894 she wrote Beautiful Joe, a story of an abused dog, for a competition sponsored by the American Humane Society. This book, Beautiful Joe, won 1st prize of $200.00! Beautiful Joe would  became the 1st Canadian book to sell more than 1,000,000 copies and by the 1930' it has sold over seven million copies world wide. It was translated into more than 14 different languages. She went on to write more than twenty stories and traveled throughout North America telling her animal stories often inserting the stories into the areas she visited. She wrote on issues of the day in the Halifax Morning Chronicle and the the Toronto Globe and Mail. In 1927 she published her favourite novel, a romance called Ester de Warren which was based on her time in Scotland. In 1947 she was inducted as a Commander in the Order of the British Empire. In 1994 the Beautiful Joe Heritage Society was formed and a park was dedicated to Beautiful Joe in Meaford, Ontario.

Lydia Longley. 
Born April 13, 1674, Groton, Massachusetts, U.S.A.  Died July 20, 1758, Ville Marie (now Montreal0, New France (now Quebec). When Lydia was 20 she was captured by the Abenaki, who were Indian allies of the French during the war against the British. She was taken to Ville Marie (Modern Montreal) where she became accustomed so much to life in New France that she refused to return to the US when captives were exchanged at the end of the war. She embraced the religion of her new home and entered life as a nun in 1695 as Sister Sainte-Madeleine. In a romantic novel, author Helen A. McCarthy called her "the First American Nun". 

Catherine Parker Austin.
née Dunn. Born April 14, 1841, Dublin, Ireland. Died October 28, 1890, Vancouver, British Columbia. By 1860 she was in England where she met Samuel Parker (d 1873) and where their 1st two daughters were born. The family immigrated to British Columbia and ran a store in Douglas where another daughter and son were born. Moving to Barkerville during the Cariboo gold rush in June 1867 they opened the Broadway House with a grand ball. The coupe became involved in the Cariboo Dramatic Association where they sang and performed in dramatic presentations. After the fire of 1868 destroyed their hotel the Association gave a benefit for Mrs. Parker. A new large 10 bedroom boarding house was built. In 1872 the saloon and boarding house was auctioned off and the couple followed the gold rush opening the Stanley Hotel on Lightening Creek. Widowed early 1873, Catherine married John Austin on August 3, 1873 and the couple soon had a daughter. By 1875 Catherine was Madame to four ladies of entertainment known as ‘Hurdies’. The family relocated one more to Richfield to run the Austin Hotel and by 1891 they took over the Barkerville Hotel. Later that decade they  moved to Vancouver. In 2009 the Barkerville Theatre Royal presented Firestorm, a play featuring a pregnant Catherine Austin during the fire of 1868.

Mina Hubbard-Ellis. 
née Benson. Born April 15, 1870, Bewdley, Ontario. Died May 4, 1956, Coulston, United Kingdom. Mina began her working career as a teacher but soon found herself studying to be an nurse at Brooklyn Training School for Nurses, New York State, U.S.A. graduating in 1899. She worked at a small hospital in Staten Island, New York. It was while caring for a young journalist that she found romance with Leonidas Hubbard Jr., assistant editor of the U.S. magazine Outing, who married his nurse January 31, 1901. In July 1903 Leonidas and a colleague became lost in the backwoods of what was then part of Quebec and he died of starvation. Mina took over the idea of her husbands exploration and on June 27, 1905 she set out in her husband's footsteps. She would write about her two months exploit in her book, A woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador. During her trip she recorded maps which were accepted by the American Geographical Society and the Geographical Society of Great Britain. She named the source of the George River, Lake Hubbard, after her husband. Her mapping work provided details of Labrador and gave insight into the massive Caribou migrations. She eventually remarried to businessman, Harold Ellis and settled in England to raise their three children. After her divorce from Ellis she returned to Canada in 1936 to accompany George Elson on a canoe trip down the Moose River in northern Ontario. Some of her personal papers are maintained  in the Archives at the University of Ottawa. In 2018 Mina Hubbard-Ellis was designated a National Historic Person by the National Sites and Monuments Board of Canada (2021)

Fifi D’Orsay. 
Born April 16, 1904, Montreal, Quebec.  Died December 2, 1983. Could you guess that this is a stage name? Her real name is Marie-Rose Angelina Yvonne Lussier.  After several successful acts in Vaudeville,  she began her Hollywood movie career in 1929. She was in movies and television as well as live stage for 40 years and worked with famous male stars like Will Rogers. Billed as a French bombshell from Paris, she never even traveled outside of North America. Her life story was featured on the TV show This is your life.

Marguerite Bourgeoys. 
Born April 17, 1620 Troyes, France.  Died January 12, 1700, Ville Marie (now Montreal), New France, (now Quebec). Marguerite came to Canada as a nun to work in the colony of New France. She would founded the Congregation de Notre-Dame de Montreal to encourage young women to work for their community with Devine guidance. She is credited with developing one of the first uncloistered religious communities in the Catholic Church. The Order taught and set up schools in New France. In 1683 she stepped down but stayed on as the figurehead of the Congregation until 1693.  Over the decades the bishop of New France attempted to make the Congregation cloistered part of the Ursulines Sisters but never succeeded. On July 1, 1698 the congregation was canonically accepted as a community. In 1878 she was declared venerable (first step to sainthood) by Pope Leo Xlll. She was beatified (a step to become a Saint) on November 12, 1950. May 30 1975 Canada Post issued a commemorative stamp of Marguerite Bourgeoys. She was canonized October 31, 1982 as the first female Canadian Saint. Today the order has several thousand members and has expanded their work to the USA and Japan. (2024)                                             

Dayal Kaur Khalsa.
née Marcia Schonfeld.  Born April 17, 1943, Queen’s, New York, U.S.A.  Died July 1989, Vancouver, British Columbia. Dayal attended the Arts Students League 1964-1965 and graduated from City College of New York.  In 1970 she moved to Canada with her partner Brian Grison and stayed in Canada when their relationship ended. In 1974 she settled in Millbrook, Ontario to live on a farm. The following year she was in Toronto and joined a women’s health collective. In time she adopted the Sikh lifestyle and received her new name meaning princess of kindness and purity. She began promoting the Ashram she lived in which led to interest with a graphic design studio. In the 1980’s she relocated to Montreal, Quebec. In 1982 she brought illustrations to show Tundra Books who liked the strong colour sense. She first worked on board books for babies and this was followed by books for older children. In 1986 she made the New York Times Notable Children’s Book list and New York Public Library Award for Best Children’s Book for Tales of a Gambling Grandma. The following year she was awarded the Canada Council Children’s Literature Prize Honourable Mention for Illustration and was a finalist for the Amelia Frances Howard Gibbon Illustrator’s Award. In 1988 she won the Governor General’s Award for Book Illustration for Sleepers. This book also wan the Parent’s Choice Award for Illustration in 1988. 

Claire Martin Faucher.
née Montreuil. Born April 18, 1914, Quebec. Died June 18, 2014, Quebec. Using the surname Martin, Claire worked as a secretary and then a host on CKCV Radio in Québec and Radio Canada in Montréal. In 1945 she married Roland Faucher and the couple settled in Ottawa where Claire became a full time writer. In 1958 Claire won the: Prix du Cercle du livre de France for her work Avec ou sans amour. By 1966 she earned the Governor General’s Award in Literature and the Prix Conecours littéraire du Québec for Dans un gant de fer. This book also won the Prix Jean-Hamelin. In 1967 she became a member of the Royal society of Canada. In 1984 she was inducted as a Member of the Order of Canada and became a Companion of the Order of Canada in 2001. In 1999 she won a medal from the  l'Académie des lettres du Québec. In 2007 she was inducted as an Officer of the National Order of Québec. In 2009 she became a member of the Académie des Grands Québécois followed and in 2010 she became an Officer in the Order of Arts and Letters.

Gertrude 'True' Davidson.
Born April 19, 1901, Hudson, Quebec. Died September 18, 1978, East York (Toronto) Ontario. True graduated from the University of Toronto and like so many women of the era of limited professions she attended the Regina Normal School and became a teacher in the prairie provinces. In 1923 she returned to university to earn her Master degree and taught in Toronto. She went on to write children’s books and wrote for the Globe and Mail and various Canadian Magazines. Living in East York, near Toronto, she served 10 years on the East York school board from 1947-1957.She became an elected alderman serving ten years becoming reeve and then mayor. When East York merged with Leaside she was elected mayor retiring in 1972. Originally a member of the Commonwealth Cooperative Federation political party it was with the Liberal party that she ran unsuccessfully for provincial parliament in 1971. In 1973 she was inducted as a Member of the Order of Canada. After politics she took on a weekly column with the Toronto Sun newspaper. She also authored several books including a brief history of East York. In 1977 she was presented with the Queen’s Jubilee Medal. After her death the True Davidson Collection of Literature was established after she had enrolled as a PhD student at the institution. In 1997 the East York council names its meeting place the True Davidson Chamber , along with a housing development, a city park and the local Meals-on-Wheels program.

Sharon Pollock. 
Born April 19, 1936, Fredericton, New Brunswick. Her birth name was Mary Sharon Chalmers. Her first published play, A compulsory Option, won the 1971 Alberta Playwriting Competition. After teaching at several western Canadian institutions she became, in 1984, the first woman artistic director of a major western Canadian theatre.  She has written several plays of children as well as TV and radio scripts. Her play DOC earned her the 1984 Governor General's Award.  In 1988 she was awarded the Canada-Australia Literary Prize.

Mildred Amanda Gottfriedson.
Born April 20, 1918, Kamloops Indian Reserve. Died November 18, 1989, British Columbia. Mildred was a leading member of the Kamloops Indian Reserve who helped with revival of dances, legends, songs, and crafts of her people and encouraged others to follow her lead.  In 1963 she helped start the Secwepemc Dance Troupe which would travel to perform even arriving on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. She was a founding member in 1968 and former president of the British Columbia Native Women’s Society. This group fought against the Indian Act which discriminated against status aboriginal women who lost their status and that of their children if they married non-status men. She married Gus Gottfriedson and raised 13 children and fostered over 30 additional children and was awarded Mother of the year in 1963 by British Columbia and the following year she became Canadian Mother of the year. She was a founding member in 1968 and former president of the British Columbia Native Women’s Society. This group fought against the Indian Act which discriminated against status aboriginal women who lost their status and that of their children if they married non-status men. She was also an experience horseman and marksman but she never bragged or showed off. She became the 1st First Nations individual to be awarded the Order of Canada on July 11, 1977. (2020)

Jenny /Jennie Kidd Trout.  
née Gowanlock. Born April 21, 1841, Kelso, Scotland. Died November 10, 1921, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. Jenny came with her parents to Canada in 1847. The family settled near Stratford, Ontario. Like many young girls of her generation she earned a teaching certificate and taught school prior to her marriage. After her marriage in 1865 to Edward Trout the couple settled in Toronto and Jenny decided to become a medical doctor. She studied Medicine at the University of Toronto as one of the 1st women admitted to the Toronto School of Medicine.  She completed her medical studies at the Women's Medical College in Pennsylvania, U.S.A.  March 11,1875, on passing the Ontario registration exam, she became the 1st Canadian woman licensed to practice medicine in Canada. Dr. Jenny opened the Therapeutic and Electrical Institute in Toronto and also ran a free dispensary for the poor from her offices. The Institute would expand with branches in Brantford and Hamilton, Ontario. Poor health forced her to retire in 1882 to Palma Sola, Florida, U.S.A. She was instrumental in establishing the medical school for women at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario. Prior to her death relocated to California. In 1991 Canada Post issued a postage stamp to commemorate her as the 1st licensed woman doctor to practice Medicine in Canada. (2022) Image Canada Post used with permission.

Jean Matheson.
Born April 23, 1874, Clinton, Ontario. Died April 22, 1938, Winnipeg, Manitoba. In 1899 she and her family relocated to Manitoba. Jean graduated from the Winnipeg General Hospital (WGH) School of Nursing in 1899. After graduation Jean did some private nursing and  worked as the Superintendent of Nurses at the Regina General Hospital, Saskatchewan- From 1901 through 1906 she was Matron of the Royal Island Hospital, Kamloops, British Columbia. The following year she took a position as first Lady Superintendent of the new provincial Tuberculosis Sanitorium in Tranquille, British Columbia. By 1912 she was home in Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan for a short  time prior to becoming Superintendent of Nurses at the Queen Victoria Hospital  Revelstoke, British Columbia where she opened a school of nursing in 1914. On September 14, 1915 she enlisted with the Canadian Army Medical Corps and was assigned at Matron with No. 5, Canadian General Hospital Salonika, Greece for two years. Later she took charge of the clearing hospital, Kirkdale, Liverpool, England. She also served at the Duchess of Connaught's Red Cross Hospital in England. She received the Mons Medal, the Royal Red Cross Medal, the Victory Medal and later the King George Jubilee Medal in recognition of her war time service. Returning to Canada in 1919 she was posted as the second Matron of the Shaughnessy Military Hospital, Vancouver, British Columbia where she worked until retirement in August 1937 when she returned to Winnipeg. In 1946 the Jean Matheson Pavilion was built at Shaughnessy Hospital. Source: Health Sciences Centre Archives, Winnipeg, Class of 1899. online (accessed 2021); B C Nursing History. Jean Matheson Memorial Pavilion. online (accessed 2021)

Margaret Avison. 
Born April 23, 1918, Galt, Ontario. Died July 31, 2007, Toronto, Ontario. When Margaret was two the family relocated to Regina, Saskatchewan and then to Calgary, Alberta before finally settling in 1930 in Toronto. She attended Alma College in  St. Thomas, Ontario in the mid 1930's. She went on to earn her Bachelor of Arts in 1940 from the University of Toronto. During her university studies she had poems published in the Canadian Poetry Magazine and the college magazine Acta Victoriana. She worked as a file clerk, a proofreader, and an editor as well as at the Library at UofT. She would also work as a social worker at the Presbyterian Church Mission in Toronto. These jobs allowed her to live and write. In 1951 a junior high textbook, History of Ontario, was published. In 1956 she earned a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Grant and attended classes at the University of Chicago and the University of Indiana in the United States.  Her first book of poetry Winter son was published in 1960 and earned her a Governor Generals Award in Literature. Moved by the Hungarian Uprising of the mid 1950's she translated Hungarian poems. In 1965 she completed her Master's of Arts at the UofT. She began work on studies towards a Doctorate but did not complete these studies. In 1966 another book of poetry, Dumbfounding was published describing her conversion from agnosticism to Christianity. She was a teacher at the UofT and was writer-in-residence at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario in 1973. She went on to work in the Archives of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (C B C) and in 1978 she joined the Mustard Seed Mission in Toronto serving as secretary. In 1984 she became an Officer in the Order of Canada and retired two years later. In 1990 she produced her forth volume of poems winning her second Governor General's Award. In 2003 her publication, Concrete and Wild Carrot won the Griffin Poetry Prize. The University of Manitoba Archives and Special Collections holds the Margaret Avison Fonds of textual records, photographs, audio-cassettes, compact discs, and CD-ROM's. (2023)

Diane Mary Loomer.
née Kolander. Born April 23, 1940, St Paul, Minnesota, U.S.A. Died December 10, 2012, Vancouver, British Columbia. In 1962 Diane earned her Bachelor of Arts from Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, Minnesota, U.S.A. She married Richard Loomer in 1963 and the couple had one son. She worked as a high school teacher in Denver, Colorado, U.S.A. for three years. The young couple moved to Vancouver, British Columbia so that Richard could intern for his Medical degree. Once Richard’s studies were complete, Diane returned to studies in music earning her B.A. at the University of British Columbia in 1982. She conducted a choir at  the University  of British Columbia  and studies under well established conductors. She also founded the Douglas Collage Children’s Choir and became assistant director of the Vancouver Bach Choir. In 1987 she co-founded the Elektra Women’s Choir which became recognized internationally. In 1991 she formed Cypress Choral Music Publishing with her husband. In 1992 she founded Chor Leoni Men’s Choir which became one of Canada’s leading male choirs. She composed and arranged numerous spirituals for her choirs. In 1999 her work garnered her recognition with the Order of Canada. In 2002 she received the Queen Elizabeth Golden Jubilee medal. In 2007 she founded En Chor and auditioned 40 voice mixed voice choir for singers over 55 years of age. In 2009 she became conductor emeriti for her choirs. Source: “Choral conductor had a gift for getting the best from her singers” by Suzanne A Hearne, The Globe and Mail, January 9, 2013.  (2021)

Violet Louise Archer.  
née Balestreri. Born April 24, 1913, Montreal, Quebec. Died February 21, 2000, Ottawa, Ontario. Violet studied music with the best of her era. In 1936 Violet graduated with a Bachelor of Music degree from McGill University. The family would change their name to Archer, the English translation of their name, in 1940. From 1940 through 1947 she was a percussionist with the Montreal Women's Symphony Orchestra.  She would also work as a piano teacher and was organist at various Montreal churches. Violet would make her forma debut as an orchestral composer with her work Scherzo Sinfonico performed by the Montreal Orchestra in 1940.  In 1942 she was studying in New York City, U.S.A. where she was introduced to Hungarian folk tunes. From 1944 to 1947 she taught at the McGill Conservatory, Montreal. In the last years of this decade she studied at Yale University, Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.A. earning a Bachelor of Music in 1948 and her Master's Music the following year. She spend time as Composer -in-residence at the University of North Texas, Denton, Texas, U.S.A.  From Texas she went on to the University of Oklahoma, U.S.A. where she taught until 1961. Violet returned to Canada in the early 1960's and earned her doctorate at the University of Toronto. Next she joined the faculty of Music at the University of Alberta in Edmonton where she remained until her retirement in 1978. As a composer she  produced a wide variety of scores for voice, instrumentals, films and even a comic opera and performed in over 30 countries. She was named Composer of the Year in Canada. In 1977 she received the Queen's Silver Jubilee Medal and in 1982 she received the Canada 125 Award. In 1983 she was inducted as a Member of the Order of Canada and her home province presented her the Alberta Life Achievement Award. In 1985 became  the 1st North American woman composer to be honoured with a festival of her own works. The Canadian Music Centre Library, located in Calgary, Alberta was named in her honour in 2007. Violet was known for both tradition and contemporary music techniques and she had a strong belief of the importance of creating 20th century music for youngsters as indicated by the fact that there is  an indie rock band The Violet Archers. (2020).

Georgina Binnie-Clark.
Born April 25, 1871, Dorset, England. Died London, England April 22, 1947. A journalist perhaps in search of a story, she decided to  came to visit her brother’s farm in Saskatchewan and fell in love with the area. She also felt that she would be a better farmer than her brother. In 1905 she purchased land in the Qu’Appelle Valley in Southern Saskatchewan. As a woman she was not eligible to apply for or receive the free land offered in Western Canada. She sold her grain in the open market and was a critic of privately controlled grain-marketing systems.  She would go to Ottawa in 1908 and protest for equality for women farmers. It was not until 1930 when the federal government handed land control over to the prairie provinces would single women farmers get their demands. Meanwhile in 1910,  Georgina opened her farm to train other single women wishing to learn farming. She also continued her writings and left behind a rich detailed account of social life and daily farm life in the settlement of the Canadian prairies. During World War l, the British Government appointed Georgina and 6others to train women to work the land. Her own personal war effort was a children’s book from which proceeds were used to help wounded solders and their horses. She began ladies dress making business in London to stabilize her finances while still managing her Canadian Farm. Her ashes were spread on her lands in Saskatchewan. Source: 100 more Canadian Heroines by Merna Forster (Dundurn 2011)

Melissa 'Millie' Hayden.
(real name Mildred Herman). (real name Mildred 'Millie' Herman). Born April 25, 1923, Toronto, Ontario. Died August 9, 2006, Toronto, Ontario. Died August 9, 2006, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, U.S.A. In the 1940's she relocated to New York City in order to become a member of the ballet corps of Radio City Music Hall. From 1945 for two years she was with the American Ballet Theatre prior to joining the New York City Ballet. In 1952 she performed as a double for the actress Clair Bloom in the film Limelight. She married Donald Colemen, a lawyer and businessman and the couple had two children.  In 1955 she became their principal dancer and was often a guest on the Kate Smith Show and the Ed Sullivan Show on television. In 1965 she performed as a Sugar Plum Fairy in the television presentation of The Nutcracker. She remained with the New York City Ballet until she retired in 1973. Upon retirement she became head of the ballet department at Skidmore College, Saratoga Spring, New York, U.S.A. This ballerina who trained as a young girl in Toronto, became an internationally known dancer. She danced with the New York City Ballet. Upon retiring as a dancer she opened her own teaching studio in New York City. She also taught at the School of Pacific Northwest Ballet, Seattle, Washington, U.S.A. and in New York City where she had her own school. Just prior to her death she was teaching at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem. Her biography was written by Rasa Gustaitis and published in 1967. (2023)

Edith MacTavish Rogers.
Born April 26, 1876, Norway House, Rupert’s Land (now Manitoba). Died April 19, 1947, Colborne, Ontario. Edith was a Métis born into a family of Hudson Bay Company Officers, Edith spent her youth living in Montreal. She attended Sacred Heart School of Montreal and the Trafalgar School for Girls. Moving back to her home in Manitoba she married businessman Rupert Rogers on June 1, 1898. The couple have 4 children. During World War l she played a leadership role in Winnipeg’s efforts on behalf of soldiers’ families with needs. She continued her efforts at the end of the war helping families of returning soldiers. In 1920 she was the 1st woman elected to the Manitoba Provincial Legislature. She was a member of the Liberal Party and elected to her seat in the legislature three times before she retired in 1932. She was an advocate for reforming the Child Welfare Act of Manitoba making it easier for women to access financial support to care for their children. She was also the 1st female member of the Board of the Winnipeg General Hospital. Edith moved to Colborne, Ontario in 1942.

Jeanne Mathilde Sauvé. 
née Benoit. Born April 26, 1922, Howell, Saskatchewan. Died January 26, 1993, Montreal, Quebec. The Benoit family moved to Ottawa when Jeanne was just a toddler. She attended the University of Ottawa earning her tuition by working as a government translator. While working in Montreal  Jeanne met Maurice Sauvé. The two were married on September 24, 1948. The couple would have one son. The young newly weds headed first to London England and then to Paris where Jeanne worked at the Youth Secretariat of UNESCO. In 1951 she attended university at the Sorbonne earning a degree in French Civilization. In 1952, while living in St Hyacinthe, Quebec Jeanne helped found the Institute of Political Research and began working as a broadcast journalist for the CBC. She earned a position in the male bastion of political journalism and from 1956-1963 she hosted her own television show, Opinions. In 1972 she ran for a seat in the House of Commons and became the 1st Quebec woman in a federal cabinet with the position of Minister of State for Science and Technology. She would later serve in cabinet positions in the environment and Communications. On April 14, 1980 she was appointed as 1st woman to be Speaker to the House of Commons. When television camera first came to record proceedings of the house, Sauvé was asked to put some blue colouring in her dazzling white hair which was too bright for television filming. Her time as Speaker was known for its cuts in expenses and for starting the 1st daycare for Parliament Hill. On May 14, 1984 Jeanne Sauvé was sworn in as the 23rd Governor General of Canada since confederation. She was the 1st woman to receive this position. She served in this position until 1993 fostering youth peace programs, creating the Governor General’s Award for Safety in the workplace and supporting nationalism. Upon retirement she established the Sauvé Foundation where she worked until her death. The Jeanne Sauvé Trophy is presented in World Cup Women’s Field Hockey. In 1994 Canada Post issued a postage stamp in her honour.

Ruth Wilson.
Born April 27, 1919, Calgary, Alberta. Died 2001, Vancouver, British Columbia. Her family moved to British Columbia where the youth was encouraged by her mother to play tennis. Winning the provincial doubles, mixed doubles and Pacific Northwest Doubles championships did not however keep her interest in the sport. She attended the University of British Columbia and went on to earn her Masters in education at Western Washington State College. She enjoyed varsity basketball and went on to play on 5 national championship basketball teams in the 1940”s. As a coach in the sport she founded the Eilers and the team won the 1950-51 senior “A” title. In 1967 she was the coach of the Pan Am Games Team that won Canada’s first medal, a bronze. In 1973 her Buzz Bomb team were also national title holders. In total her basketball coaching career spanned 35 years. She also enjoyed softball and played in two women’s world  series. As a golfer she played on eight Interprovincial teams and won the Canadian title four times as well as playing internationally. She has been inducted into the UBC and the British Columbia Sports halls of Fame. She is considered British Columbia’s greatest all round female athlete.

Janis G. Johnson. 
Born April 27, 1946, Winnipeg, Manitoba. In 1968 Janis graduated from the University of Manitoba with a Bachelor of Arts in Political science. She received the Velia Stern Outstanding Student Award when she graduated. After university she worked in the office of the Hon. Roberts Stanfield and was a political organizer in Ontario, western Canada and Newfoundland & Labrador for the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. In 1973 she married Frank Moores the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador. The couple had 1 son.  In 1977 her volunteer efforts were recognized with the Queen's Jubilee Medal. By 1979 she was back in Manitoba where she was a businesswoman as head of Janis Johnson and Associates a public policy and communications group in Winnipeg. In 1981 she was a founding member of the Manitoba Special Olympics and went on to serve as Director of Special Olympics Canada. From 1986-1991 she was the 1st woman to be appointed to the Canadian National (C N)  Board of Directors and helped establish the 1st onsite child care facility within a Canadian Crown Corporation. She also served in 1984 as the 1st woman as National Director of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada. She also served and the advisory Board of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, the Prairie Theatre Exchange of Winnipeg and the Winnipeg Art Gallery. On September 27, 1990 she was appointed to the Senate of Canada. In 1993 she received the Canada 125 Medal and in 1995 she received the Business and Professional Women’s Award. In 1994 the Special Olympics presented her with its Volunteer Award.  In 2000 she was a founding member and chair of the Gimli Film Festival and the country of Iceland presented her with the Order of the Falcon for working promoting Canadian-Icelandic relations.  In 2003 she received the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal  and in 2009 she was the Outstanding Alumni of the University of Manitoba. In 2012 she was recipient of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Award.

Ethel Catherwood. 
Born April 28, 1908, Hannah, North Dakota, U.S.A. Died September 26, 1987, Grass Valley California, U.S.A. When she was an infant the family moved to Canada settling in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in 1910. Growing up she excelled in sports enjoying both baseball and track and field. Her prowess in the high jump took her to Toronto.  Ethel was on the 1928 Canadian Olympic team in Amsterdam, the first Olympic Games to allow women to compete. She won a gold medal for Canada in the high jump when she cleared 5 feet 2 inches (1.588m). She was dubbed the 'Saskatoon Lily' by the press who were quite taken not only by her efforts on the track but also by her beauty. In an era when it was commonly accepted that young women should be ladylike and not excel in sports she persevered. She retired from competitive sports in 1930.  While she had offers from Hollywood to appear in movies she turned down the silver screen for a course in business and studies in piano. She would marry marry and mover to California never to compete in sports again. In 1955 she was inducted into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame. In 1966 she was inducted into the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame and the Saskatoon Sorts Hall of Fame in 1986. She was the subject of a graphic novel by David Collier, The Ethel Catherwood Story.  Updated October 12, 2008. Updated information was supplied by K. V. Booth., a relative of Ethel. (2021)                                                                                                             

Helena Jane Coleman. 
Born April 28,1860, Newcastle, Upper Canada (Now Ontario).  Died December 7, 1953.  She graduated from the Ontario Ladies College, Whitby, Ontario with the Gold Medal in Music. She was Head of the Music Department from 1880 through 1892. She would take a year to do post graduate studies in Berlin, Germany. A poet and journalist who, for a long period, contributed poems anonymously to a large number of Canadian and American journals. She did not use her real name until 1906 when she published her first book “Songs and sonnets”. Her pseudonyms (pen names) included Caleb Black, Catherine G. Brown, H. C., Helen Gray Cone, Hollis Cattwin, L. D.  Clark, Winifred/Winnifred Cotter, A. T. Cottingham, Winnifred Ford, C. H., Mrs. R. H. Hudson, Hollis Hume, Shadwell Jones, Annie Lloyd, M. D. Merrivale, Helen Saxon, Emily A. Sykes and Gwendolyn Woodworth. With a list of pen names as long as she had it is no surprise to learn that she contributed to some 60 North American magazines. She would publish two additional books of poetry: Marching Men, 1917 and Songs, 1937.

Frances Shelley Wees.
Born April 29, 1902, Gresham, Oregon, U.S.A. Died November 27, 1982, Denman Island, British Columbia. Moving to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Frances graduated from Normal School (Teacher's College) and began teaching at seventeen. She then attended the University of Alberta to earn her Bachelor of Arts. It was while she was at university she wrote her first novel which she never published. In the 1920's she was director for Chautauquas in Canada. This was an adult educational and social movement. In 1924 she married Wilfred Wees and the couple had two children. One of her early handwritten manuscripts was found by her husband he typed it and sent it to a New York Publisher. Frances would go on to write more than two dozen mystery and romance novels including The Maestro murders in 1931. In the 1930's she worked in Toronto in public relations. During the second world war she led the national clothing drive for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.  She also wrote serial fiction, poems and articles which were published in various magazines of the day as well ad publishing readers for primary school. She moved from her home in Stouffville, Ontario to Denman Island, British Columbia in 1981.

Pauline 'Paula' Cecilia Isobel Teresa Ross.  
Born April 29, 1941, Vancouver, British Columbia. Her real name is Pauline Cecilia Isobel Teresa Campbell.  Paula began to study ballet at five years of age. At 15 she left home to join a traveling performing group from Montreal. By the early 1960's she had returned to western Canada and had become a principal dancer in a Vancouver company.  In 1965 she opened her own Paula Ross Dance Company.  The Company, although well presented in western Canada and the United States, dissolved due to financial problems in 1987. Paula was known for her dance creativity and continues to work in Canada, Japan, and France. 

Edith Margaret Fowke.
née Fulton. Born April 30, 1913, Lumsdon, Saskatchewan. Died March 28, 1996. She Attended the University of Saskatchewan. and in 1938 she married Frank Folk who encouraged her search for folk music.  Working for the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) she hosed the radio program Folk Song Time from 1950 through 1963. This folklorist, collector, writer, and teacher was interested in Canadian folklore. She would publish some 15 books including Folk Songs of Canada  and More Folk Songs of Canada and released recordings of many of these songs. She was a founding member of the Canadian Folk Music Society and editor of the society's journal. She was also a founder of the famous Mariposa Folk Festival. She is included in the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame and was inducted into the Order of Canada. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada she was the 2000 recipient of the Folk Alliance International Lifetime Achievement Award.