Famous Canadian Women's Famous Firsts

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The names appearing below are just a fraction of the Canadian women of accomplishment. Check out The Famous Canadian Women 's section ON THE JOB which contains mini profiles of 1000 Canadian Women of Achievement.

Miscellaneous

Sheila NaGiera (Magella or MaGeila?) Is she real? Only the undiscovered foggy history of Newfoundland knows for sure. As oral history tells it, she may have been an O’Connor, the daughter of a claimant to the Irish Throne of Connaught. Oral traditions abound in tales of Newfoundland’s early Irish Princess. She is reputed to have come to Newfoundland in the early 1600’s and married one Gilbert Pike. The couple became planters and small business people in nearby Carbonnear Island in 1611. Were they indeed the first European couple to settle Newfoundland’s shores??? Check out The Beaver, February / March 2005 pages 44-45 at your Public Library.

Francoise Marie Jacqueline de la Tour is the first European woman to make a home in Acadia.

Mrs. Sargeant, wife of the Governor of the Hudson Bay Company, her companion, Mrs. Maurice, and a maidservant are the first English women to come to James Bay in 1683.

*Marie Rollet. Born France, circ 1580. Died May 27, 1649. In 1617 she arrived in New France with her husband and young children. Her husband would be known as Canada’s first farmer. He was also an apothecary and Marie befriended the local natives to whom her husband administered. She is* Canada’s first farmer’s wife. Their farm was on Cape Diamond which is located in the heart of the modern city of Quebec. She may also be considered Canada’s first teacher as records show she enjoyed teaching the local native population. After the death of her husband in 1627 she remained in her new homeland. She would marry a second time to a settler by the name of Hubot and they would raise an adopted native daughter.

*Esther Brandeau. Born approximately 1718. She was the first person of the Jewish faith to set foot in* New France. Disguised as a boy and using the name of Jacques La Farque she sailed to Quebec in 1738. Once her disguise was discovered she told a tale of having been the only family member to have survived a shipwreck and having survived as a cabin boy and baker’s boy in a Christian community. She was unwilling to accept the Catholic teachings of the Nuns of Quebec and after being deported back to France she disappears from written history.

Elizabeth Bushell. Born Boston (?) USA. She moved from Boston to Halifax with her father in the 1750’s. In 1751 he set up Canada’s first printing shop. Little is known about Elizabeth’s life but there is some documentation that indicates that she worked in the print shop from 1752 until the death of her father in 1761. On March 23, 1752 John Bushell, with the help of his daughter, launched the Halifax Gazette. The press and Elizabeth were responsible for printing of government documents as well as print jobs for local businesses. She shares a place with her father in our history as establishing the first printing office and the first newspaper in Canada. She may have returned to the United States after the death of her father. It is known that her brother ran a printing business in Boston until his death in 1797. She may have worked with her brother.

*Marie-Anne Lagemodiére.* Born Maskinongé, Quebec August 2, 1780. Died December 14, 1875. Marie-Anne traveled with her fur trading husband and in 1806 was one of the first white women to visit such outposts as Red River and Fort Edmonton. Her daughter, Reine, was the first legitimate white child to be born in the Canadian west in 1807. Marie-Anne was also the grandmother of Louis Riel.

Frances Ramsay Simpson. Born London, England March 28, 1812. Died March 21, 1853. (Lady Simpson) She married her cousin, George Simpson, February 24 1830. His career a Governor with the Hudson Bay Company would bring her to Canada. She and her companion, Catherine Turner, wife of another HBC employee, were the first white women to travel to remote Hudson Bay Company areas. After a visit to Rainey Lake ( in modern Ontario) the settlement was named Fort Frances in her honour. Living in Red River she became homesick and lonely and remained semi invalided after the birth and death of her first child. Eventually the family settled permanently in Lachine Quebec in 1845 where they raised their five Canadian born Children. Her diaries of her life travelling in the Canadian west with her husband have left a written testament of her pioneering adventures.	Public Domain

*Annette, Emilie, Yvonne, Cécile, and Marie Dionne* all share the same birthday in Corbeil, Ontario May 28, 1934. They were the only known-surviving quintuplets in the world at the time of their birth. Emilie died in August 1954. Marie died February 1970. While they were young they were wards of the provincial government of Ontario. Most of their youth they were exploited. People came from all over to see the tiny tots play in their back yard. They were even taken to Hollywood where they would do commercials for products. In 1965 the remaining four sisters published their story in the book We were five. Three of the sisters would marry but their marriages did not survive and they returned to living with one another in Montreal.

*Elizabeth McDougall* (née Boyd) Born Grey County Canada West (Ontario), 1853. Died March 31, 1941. As the wife of a Methodist missionary husband she accompanied her husband to his postings. She took the trek across the early plains to become the first white woman in the Alberta foothills. For some 25 years she and her husband worked to share their faith at the Stoney reserve. She managed to travel with her husband by all of the traditional conveyance of the time including canoe, wagon and dog sled. She would raise her six children in the foothills. In 1898 she retired to Calgary where she became president of the Southern Alberta Pioneer Women and Old Timer’s Association. She held the strong belief that it was the presence of the frontier women who allowed the frontier families to survive. She pointed out the large number of bachelors who found it necessary to leave prairie life when they did not have the emotional and physical support in their work from a loving, energetic and sympathetic woman.

*Molly Kool.* Born Alma, New Brunswick February 23, 1916. She would learn and take to the ways of the sea from her father. She learned quickly and could repair an engine, run the winch, handle the lines and set sails as well as cook and sew canvas! She was a woman who became accomplished in a man's profession with courage and tenacity. She received a telegram on April 19, 1939 from Navigation School...she passed. She was the frist registered woman sea captain in North America and second ( to a woman in Russia) in the world! She would sail as a Sea Captain for five years before she married in 1944 and while she enjoyed sailing for pleasure she never worked for pay at sea again.

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