
Copyright © 1998-2021 Dawn E. Monroe. All rights
reserved
|
ISBN: 0-9736246-0-4 |
|
Jean Petrona Angus |
Born February 22, 1923, Summerland, British Columbia. Died
April 22, 2013, Vancouver, British Columbia. Jean attended Victoria Normal
School to train as a teacher in 1943. She taught school on Salt Spring
Island and in Penticton. Her beau was killed service overseas during World
War ll. Jean relocated to Toronto to attend the United Church Training
School with the intention of serving with the Women's Missionary Service.
Jean switched her studies to earn a Bachelor degree from the University of
Toronto taking additional additional courses from the United Church Training
School (UCTS) at the same time. She also did summer field work with the UCTS
until she received her diploma as a Deaconess in 1952. Returning west Jean
worked with the Religious Education Council of Alberta. |
Addie Aylestock
Black minister |
Born September 8, 1909, Glenallen, Ontario. Died July 12, 1998,
Toronto, Ontario. Addie's was from one of the many Black farming communities
in Ontario. During the Great Depression of the 1930's Addie moved to Toronto
and worked as a servant and then as a dressmaker. While working she attended
night classes at Central Technical School. Addie also attended the medical
Missionary College and the Toronto Bible College graduating in 1945.In 1944
she became a deaconess with the British Methodist Episcopal Church as was
assigned to serve in Africville, Nova Scotia. She would also serve in
Halifax, Montreal, and Toronto. In
1951 She became
the 1st ordained Black
woman in Canada. She served in North Buxton, St Catherines, Fort Erie and
Niagara Falls, Ontario. The Ontario Black History Society awards annually
the Rev. Addie Aylestock Award during Black History Month.
Source:
Addie Aylestock . David Spencer Educational Pages (accessed December
2011);
The Black History in Canada, Historica; Canadian Encyclopedia, online.
(2020) |
Sarla Bedi |
née Kapila.
Born April 4, 1924,Sahnewal, India. Died November 15, 2013, Toronto,
Ontario. Sarla's family moved to British Kenya where they lived in the
segregated Indian community. The family could not afford to send Sarla to
England to go to ,University as she wanted so she became a teacher in Nairobi,
Kenya. While teaching she cared for her parents and her brothers. In 1946
she married Gobind Bedi. The couple were married over 60 years and had four
children. In 1972, seeking to escape unrest in East Africa, the family
immigrated to Canada and settled in Toronto. In 1976 Sarla became the 1st
woman to be registered as an Hindu priest in Ontario. She enjoyed serving
her Hindu faith community. Proud of her new home and new life, she
refused to move to the U.S.A. with her son in her later years, preferring to
stay at home in Toronto.
Source: Lives
Lived: Sarla Bedi by Nilam Bedi. Globe and Mail May 7, 2014.
Suggestion submitted by June Coxon, Ottawa, Ontario. (2020) |
Sister Louise Bellavance |
Born 1943 Rimouski, Quebec. Louise is a a member of the
Sisters of Charity of Quebec. In 1975 she began a career as a psychosocial
worker for the Social Services Centre of Quebec where she worked with
children and deaf adults. In 1979 she earned her BA in Social Work from the
Université de Sherbrooke. That same year she helped found the Charlesbourg
Institute of the Deaf and Hani A (now Centre Signes d'Espoire) the only
community centre in Quebec for deaf adults with disabilities. In 1986 she
founded Auberge de Sourds, a home for deaf people with multiple
disabilities. She also helped found the Regional Interpretation Service of
Eastern Quebec. To help fund these homes she wrote the book, Des
gestes pour le dire in 1995. Returning to university in 191 she earned her
Master's degree from Université Laval. In 2000 she was make a member of the
Order of Canada and i2002 she was presented with the Queen Elizabeth ll
Golden Jubilee Medal. In 2005 she became a Chevaliere of the Ordre national
du Québec and the Université Laval presented her with the
Médaille
Gloire de l'Escolle.
In 2010 she became a member of the Académie des
Grands Québécois (2019) |
Charlotte Selina 'Nina/ Lina' Bompas |
née Cox.
Born February 24, 1830, London, England. Died January 21, 1917, Montreal,
Quebec. As a young woman she had lived with her family in Italy where she
became fluent in the Iranian language. She married the Anglican minister
Rev. William Carpenter Bompas on May 7, 1874 and the couple arrived at Fort
Simpson in the Canadian north in September 1874. He was the new Anglican
Bishop of Athabasca. It was no doubt a shock to live in a log cabin. She
“Carried on” at home while her husband was forced to travel for long periods
of time throughout the Canadian Northwest. She learned the local language
and took interest in local native women. In 1876 she traveled to Fort
Chipewyan, Alberta to help establish a new mission. She taught music to the
children and organized youth choirs. She also adopted 3 children but
unfortunately 2 died at an early are. She was concerned with health of the
people and supported homeopathic remedies. Ill health took her to England in
1883. She used her time in England to fundraise for her northern Canadian
missions. She also befriended and inspired the unmarried Anglican church
women missionaries and missionary wives providing support wherever she
could. Back in the northwest in 1886/7 she was forced again with ill health
to recuperate in Montreal until 1892 when she joined her husband at Forty
Mile on the Yukon River. After a trip to England to help a sick sister she
returned to embrace the miners of the Klondike gold rush into her fold. In
1901 the couple moved to permanent headquarters at Caribou Crossing (now
Carcross). In 1904 she undertook a tour of Southern Ontario and Quebec
raising funds to build a new church. After the death of her husband in June
1906 she retired to Montreal where she was often inspiring others about
mission work. Extracts of her letters and journals were published in London
in 1929.
Source:
Df C B Vol. Xiv Online (accessed
2013) |
Linda Bond |
Born June 22,
1946, Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. She earned her bachelor of arts in religious
studies and a Master’s degree in Theological Studies. On June 21, 1969 she
was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Salvation Army after she had
completed officer training for two years. As a Captain she taught at the
College for Officer Training in Toronto. Promoted to the level of a
Commanding officer she worked at the Kitchener Corps and earned the Rank of
Major. From Kitchener she went to serve at the Officer Training College in
St John’s Newfoundland as Assistant Training Principal. In 1991 she served
as divisional secretary of the Maritime Division and in 1993 she became
Commander of the Maritime Division. In 1995 she earned the rank of
Lieutenant and was posted to London, England at International Salvation Army
Headquarters. By 1998 she was Divisional Commander of the Central North
Division of England. On November 1, 1999 as a new colonel she was back in
Canada where she worked as Chief Secretary for the Canada and Bermuda
Territory. In July 2002 she was promoted to Commissioner of U.S.A., Western
Territory. As Territorial Commissioner she was also Commander and
Territorial President of Women’s Ministries. In 2005 she was appointed to
International as Secretary for Life and Development and International
External Relations. In May 2008 she was off to Australia to take over the
Eastern Territory. On January 31, 2011 she was elected as General of the
Salvation Army.
Source: The Salvation Army. online (accessed May 2013) |
Marguerite Bourgeoys |
Born
April 17, 1620 Troyes, France. Died January 12, 1700. She 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. The Sisters taught and set up schools
in New France. Today the order has several thousand members and has
expanded their work to the USA and Japan. Mother Marguerite Bourgeoys was
canonized ( declared a Saint in the Roman Catholic Church) in October 1982. |
Susan Mellett Bowen
Anglican Missionary in Canada |
Born 1870, Ireland. Died 1962. In 1893 she was the 1st unmarried
woman Anglican Missionary sent to the Canadian Yukon. She arrived from
Ireland in 1893 and went directly to Forty Mile Creek, Yukon. She would
marry Reverend R.J. Bowen who arrived in the Yukon in 1895. In 1897 the
couple were recalled from Alaska to go to Dawson City, Yukon Territory. Here
they built the 1st log church, St. Paul’s. In 1899 Rev. Bowen
became ill with typhoid fever and had to return to England to recover. On
August 1, 1900 he was back, this time serving in Whitehorse, Yukon. He held
services in a tent until a new log church was built in October. The original
log church is now a museum. By May 1903 he became ill again forcing the
couple to leave the far north, serving instead in Nanaimo and Ladysmith,
British Columbia. They finally settled in London, Ontario.
Source: Five Pioneer
woman of the Anglican Church in the Yukon. Anglican Church of Canada,
Women’s Auxiliary Yukon Diocesan Board, 1964. ; I wish the men were half
as good. Gender constrictions in the Canadian North-Western Mission Field
1860-1940 by Myra Rutherdale. Online (accessed December 2013) |
Jeanne Lydia Branda
Sister Marie Thomas d'Aquin
|
Born August
13, 1877 Saint-Ramain-la-Virvé, France. Died March 17, 1963, Ottawa,
Ontario. She taught in France and Italy and 1904 she sailed to Massachusetts
in North America. In 1906, taking her final vows in her Dominical Order, she
took the name Sister Marie Thomas d’Aquin. In 1914 she arrived in Ottawa to
serve at l’ Institute Jeanne D’arc. Setting up a school or young girls. She
founded the congregation of Sisters of Jeanne d‘Arc. She became
Mother Superior until 1942. An accomplished poet she published books in
1924, 1928 and 1945. She was a member of the Society of Authors and Poets.
IN 1932 she received la Médaille de Vermeil de l’institut de France. In 1956
she received La Croix de la Legion d'Honeur from her home country of France.
Source:
‘Jeanne Lydia Branda dite Mère Marie Thomas D’Aquin’. Ottawa Raconte-Moi
Online (accessed July 2015) |
Elizabeth Bruyère |
Born March 19, 1818 L'Assomption, Lower Canada. Died April 5, 1876. In the 1840s Bytown (Now Ottawa) was a rough and
tumble timber town with little or no social services and no schools for its
large French-Canadian Population. It was Sister Elisabeth who, in 1845,
answered the call for service. In 1839 she entered the Sisters of Charity of
the Hôpital Général de Montréal. The sisters were commonly known as the Grey
Nuns. By March 3, 1845 one of the first bilingual schools in Upper Canada
was inaugurated. By May 10 a 10 bed hospital was operating. By June there
was organized care for the poor and sick. When an epidemic came in 1847 the
services handled over 600 patients and later organized an orphanage to help
the some 15 children left destitute. In 1856 the Sisters of Charity of
Bytown became independent of the Montreal mother house and by 1876 they had
opened some 25 houses to serve in Ontario, Quebec and New York State in the
U.S.A. |
Elsie Burnstein
Sister
Ethelberta |
née Elsie Burnstein. Born
September 16, 1900 Frankfurt, Germany. Died
March 2, 1988. She took her religious vows in 1923 with the Sisters of Precious
Blood. She served her 1st years in The Netherlands. In 1951 she led her
order to
Canada
and founded St Bernard’s
Convalescent
Hospital in North York, Ontario. In 1958 the hospital went public and Sister
Ethelberta served as hospital administrator until she retired in 1982. |
Charlotte Sarah Canham
Anglican missionary in Canada |
née French.
Born January 30, 1846, Monivea, Galway, Ireland. Died November 30, 1921. In
1885 she traveled to the Canadian far north Fort McPherson to meet her
fiancé, the Rev. Thomas Henry Canham (1852-1947). The famous Riel Rebellion
would delay her trip for a whole year. In 1888 the young missionaries were
transferred to the area that would become the Yukon Territories. They
crossed the rocky mountains by dogsled, open skin boats and barge towed by a
river steamer. They would work here in the Yukon for 30 years. The built a
schoolhouse in 1892, the oldest known standing structure remaining in Fort
Selkirk. Mail came once a year, if weather allowed. The cold was so severe
they could not sit for even a meal. Charlotte’s health became poor and the
couple eventually retired to Toronto, Ontario.
Source:
Herstory, the Canadian woman’s Calendar 2008. (Coteau Books, 2007)
Suggested reading: Five Pioneer women of the Anglican Church in the
Yukon. Anglican Church of Canada Women’s Auxiliary Yukon Diocesan Board,
1964. |
Aurelie Caouette
Catherine-Aurelie Du Preecieux-Sang |
Born July 11, 1833, Saint-Hyacinthe, Lower Canada (now
Quebec). Died July 6, 1905, Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec. In 1845 Aurelie
attended boarding school for five years. Returning home she led a virtually
cloistered life, spent in prayer and physical suffering that had no obvious
cause. Later she pronounced a vow of chastity and took a vow of obedience
even though she continued to live in the regular world. In 1859 she was
advised by a Bishop of the Catholic church to found a community of women to
adore the Precious Blood. The congregation of the Sisters Adorers of
the Precious Blood on September 14, 1861. This was Canada's first
contemplative community. By 1863 the nuns had their won convent with
Catherine-Aurelie du Precieux-Sang as Superior. Convents were later founded
in Toronto, Ottawa, Trois-Rivières, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A., Portland,
Oregon, U.S.A., Sherbrooke, Nicolet, Manchester, New Hampshire, U.S.A. and
Havana, Cuba. Mother Catherine became Superior General for life, by papal
privilege. November 20, 1984 the cause for her beautification ( a step
towards sainthood in the Catholic Church) was opened. December 2016 she was
declared Venerable, another step towards sainthood.
(2020) |
Ina Caton
Anglican missionary |
Born 1914,
Toronto, Ontario. Died 2004, Toronto, Ontario. Both her parents died when
she was young and she was raised by her uncle and found herself drawn to her
Anglican religious community. She trained to become a Deaconess in the
church and did mission work in areas of rural Saskatchewan. When attending
Synod area meeting she was so shy she asked male colleagues to ask questions
or make a point on her behalf. While National Synod passed the idea of
accepting women as priests the diocese of Rupert’s Land was not do inclined
and refused to ordain women. It was not until 1971 that the path was cleared
for Ina to become the 1st woman in Saskatchewan to be ordained as
a deacon and 5 years later she was called to the Priesthood. In the early
1980’s she retired to live in Toronto where she as an Honorary Assistant at
Little Trinity Anglican Church until her death.
Source: Herstory; The Canadian Women’s Calendar 2010. |
Matilda Moore Churchill |
née Faulkner.
Born October/November 1840, Stewiacke, Nova Scotia. Died August 12, 1924,
Toronto, Ontario. Like many of her time she attended Normal School
(Teacher’s Collage), Truro, Nova Scotia. She taught locally and was one of
the 1st trained graduate teachers at Model School, a high school
in Truro. She volunteer teaching the poor Black residence of the area. As a
single woman she was discouraged from following her dream to become a
foreign missionary. In 1871 a Baptist minister, George Churchill (d 1908)
asked her to marry him and accompany him to do missionary work in Asia. She
attended the Women’s Medical College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. and
on September 16, 1873 the couple were married in Truro. They joined a
missionary group originally headed for Burma but ended up serving in India.
By 1879 the couple had set up their own mission at Bobbili. By 1880 she had
established Caste Girl’s School. In 1916 she published with the help of a
friend Letters From My Home in India which showed her determination in her
missionary life. She remained with her missionary work in India until she
retired in February 1921 when she returned to live with her one surviving
child, a daughter, in Toronto.
Source:
Wendy L. Thorpe, “FAULKNER, MATILDA MOORE (Churchill),” in
Dictionary of
Canadian Biography, vol. 15, University of Toronto/Université
Laval, 2003–, accessed February 9, 2016, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/faulkner_matilda_moore_15E.html. |
Lavina Clarke
Methodist missionary in Canada
* Note Medical Missionaries are listed in MEDICAL category |
Born 1864, Prince Edward Island. Died October 18, 1905, Charlottetown,
Prince Edward Island. Lavina was a member of the Methodist Women’s
Missionary Society in which she chose to work and serve. In 1890 she
relocated to British Columbia and worked as Matron of Coqualeetza Missionary
School at Sardis in the Fraser Valley. About a year after she became Matron
the school was destroyed by fire. She remained to care for students while
the new school was opened in 1894 under the name of the Coqualeetza
Industrial Institute. In 1895 she was back in her home province of Prince
Edward Island where she worked at the Crosby Girl’s School Home. In 1896
through 1902 she was in Port Simpson, British Columbia at a residential
school for Aboriginal children. Her goal was to train good Christians and
home makers saving the children from what she viewed as an unhealthy
indigenous culture. In this era there was no consideration given to the
beliefs of aboriginals. Lavina wrote of her work in various Methodist
publications.
Source: DCB (accessed April 2014)
|
Sarah Hannah Roberta Grier- Coome |
SEE - Medical - Nurses |
Kathleen "Kit" Adeline Martin Cowaret |
née Martin.
Born July 11, 1887, Manitoba. Died October 2, 1958, Minto, Yukon. Kathleen
trained as a teacher in Manitoba. As a young
woman she moved to Vancouver, British Columbia where she found office work.
She applied and fought to be accepted as an Anglican Church missionary.
Single woman were not easily accepted for such positions. In 1916 she moved
to Fort Selkirk to teach only to find just two students! In 1929 she married
Alexander Coward, a local trader and trapper. She detested the last name so
she used the name Cowaret. She traveled to camps tending the sick and as a
licensed lay reader to minister to all who would listen. She worked with the
local aboriginal population endearing herself to them by learning their
language. In 1955 she was elected as the Yukon Diocese representative to the
Anglican General Synod. In 1958 she received a Dominion Life membership in the Anglican
Women’s Auxiliary and accompanied Bishop and Mrs. Greenwood to England. She
became ill on returning to Canada and went directly to hospital. During her
time in Fort Selkirk she made films of the area. These films have been
deposited the National Archives of Canada.
Her gravestone is engraved with the name Kathleen Coward.
Sources: Five Pioneer Women of the Anglican Church in the Yukon. Anglican
Church of Canada, Women’s Auxiliary, Yukon Diocesan Board 1962; A
Guide to Who Lives Beneath Whitehorse Cemeteries. Online (accessed 20190.
|
Marianne Creedon
Mother Mary Francis |
Born 1811, Ireland. Died July 15, 1855. Marianne entered the
order of the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy and in 1840 she received
her habit and took the name Sister Mary Francis. May 2, 1842 she and two
other sisters left Ireland and landed in Newfoundland in June 1843. They
ladies began caring for the sick in their community and by 1843 they had
opened a school. By November 1843 she was appointed Mother superior of the
Newfoundland mission. She devoted her life to education of the community
children and careing for the sick. She was left alone when the two sisters
of her order who had come to Newfoundland with her returned to Ireland and
she continued her devotion to her order and ser vice to her community.
Source: D C B (2019) |
Sister Ellen Mary Cullen |
Born Ellen
Mary Monica Cullen, Hope River, Prince Edward Island. May 4, 1898. Died
September 29, 1994. Like many young women of her province she attended
Prince of Wales College. And became a teacher. By 1921 she heard a call from
God and became Sister Frances Loyola of the Congregation of St. Martha of
Prince Edward Island. ( later this order would allow members to use given
names) At 23 she became Superior General of her convent and was known as
Mother Loyola. By 1944 she had returned to school and earned her BSc in
home Economics at St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia. She returned
to her beloved PEI and became a teacher at Charlottetown Hospital School of
Nursing. Once retired she turned her energies to other services for her home
area. She served on the provincial and national Canadian Councils for the
Aging in 1966 as well as serving on local senior organizations. In
retirement she also found time to write and became involved with writing
local history including a chapter on the history of the Catholic Church on
the Island. The University of Prince Edward Island offers an academic Award
in her honour. In 2006 she was awarded the PEI Heritage Award for a book she
wrote with Sister Bernice Cullen.
Source:
Outstanding women of Prince Edward Island Compiled by the Zonta Club of
Charlottetown, 1981. |
Mary Teresa Dease |
Born May 7, 1820, Dublin, Ireland. Died July 1, 1889. She was
sent by her religious order to Canada in 1847. She became Superior-General
of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary in America. She was the founder
of the Institute in Toronto and later in her position as Superior-General
she would oversee its growth in Ontario and New York State. |
Marguerite Thérèse Lemoine Depins
|
Born Boucherville, New France (Quebec) March 23, 1722. Died
June 6, 1792. She was the 1st regular novice to join the Grey Nuns on July
2, 1751. It was her inheritance that allowed the Grey Nuns to purchase the seigneury of Chateauguay. Upon the death of the founding Mother d'Youville,
she became the second Mother Superior of the order. |
Catherine de Hueck Doherty |
Born Ekaterine Fyodorovna Kolyschkine August 15, 1896, Nizhni Novgorod,
Russia. Died December 14, 1985, Combermere, Ontario. She was schooled abroad
while her father traveled for work and the family settled in St Petersburg,
Russia in 1910 where she attended the Princess Obolensky Academy. At 15 she
married her 1st cousin Baron Boris de Hueck. During World War l
she was a nurse on the front Lines. After the war the couple escaped the
Russian Revolution going 1st to Finland and then to England
before landing in Canada. The couple had one son. Divorcing her 1st
husband she married again in 1943 to Edward ‘Eddie’ J Doherty
(1890-1975),
a well known reporter. By May 17, 1949, the couple moved to Cumbermere to a
new rural apostolate they called Madonna House. By 2000 there was a staff of
200 and over 125 associate priests, deacons, and Bishops. Catherine has
authored numerous books of religious thought.
(2020) |
Marie-Charlotte de Ramezay |
Born July 31,
1697, Trois Rivières, New France. Died November 15, 1767, Quebec. Marie–Charlotte was one of the
five daughters of the Governor of Trois Rivières. She
was educated with the Ursuline sisters in Quebec. On November 8, 1716 she
entered the convent of the Hôpital Général
of Québec and made her final vows in 1718. Acute at business, was her
businesswoman sister Louise de Ramezay (1705-1776), Marie-Charlotte held
the office of depositary (Bursar), a position she worked at for 26 years.
While she did not site with the British and their takeover of New France she
did care for British wounded at the hospital winning the admiration and
promise of protection for the Hospital by the British General James Wolfe
(1727-1759)
Source: D C B (2021) |
Marie Louise Dorval |
Born June 7, 1794. Died August 1, 1866. Marie Louise joined the religious
order of Saint Elizabeth Congregation of Notre Dame. She was a teacher of
repute. In 1849 she became Mother Superior of her order. 27 missions were
under her management and she opened five more. Source:
D C B , (accessed March 2015),
|
Marie Vitaline Dudemaine
Sister Mary Anastase |
Born 1865 Quebec. Died1933 Lacombe House, Alberta. Marie joined the order of the Sisters
of Providence and took the name Sister Mary Anastase. She worked 1st
in Quebec catering to the sick. In 1900 she left for the fa north west of
Alberta with three other sisters to open a boarding school for Aboriginal
girls in Fort Vermillion, Alberta. The settlement established in 1788 is one
of the oldest European settlements in the province which began as a trading
community for the North West Company and was taken over by the Hudson Bay
Company in 1921. It is located some 780 kilometers from Edmonton, Alberta.
In 1911 she moved slightly further south to work for Father Albert Lacombe
(1827-1916) at Lacombe House, Alberta. The Lacombe Home was the last
project of the pioneer Father Lacombe. It was a substantial facility to
accommodate orphans, the aged, and the poor. Father Lacombe managed to
convince the Sisters of Charity of Providence to operate the facility. The
Lacombe Home was officially opened in 1910. The priest considered the Home
the culmination of a life dedicated to ministering to the most vulnerable in
western Canada, the home was likely the first of its kind in Alberta.
Sources: Kay
Saunderson, 200 Remarkable Alberta Women, (Famous Five Foundation,
1999); |
Eulalie Durocher
Mother Marie-Rose |
Baptized Melanie. Born October 6, 1811,
Saint-Antoine-sur-Richelieu, Lower Canada (now Quebec). Died October 6,
1849, Longueil, Lower Canada. Eulalie and her sister along with her three
brothers all chose religious lives. Eulalie was educated at home by her
paternal grandfather. until his death in 1821. At that time she attended
boarding school at the convent run by the Congregation of Notre Dame in
Saint Denis-sur-Richelieu. By 1827 she was boarding with the Congregation of
Notre Dame in Montreal intending on entering religious service. She was
prevented from entering the convent by poor health. After the death of her
mother in 1830 she managed the family home. She became of the need for
accessible education for rural children. In 1841 she enrolled as a novice
with the Soeurs des Saints-Noms de Jésus et de Marie of Marseilles from
France when they were asked to help teach in the Quebec countryside. Rather
than send sisters from France it was decided to set up a fledgling religious
community with Eulalie and her friends Melodie Dufresne, and Henriette Cere
under the guidance of the Oblates. February 28, 1844 she took her vows
becoming Sister Marie-Rose of the Soeurs de Saints-Noms de Jésus de Marie of
Marseilles. She was to serve as superior of the group. At the time of
her death the community had grown to 30 teachers, seven novices, seven
postulants, and 448 students in for convents. On May 23, 1982 Pope John Paul
ll proclaimed her as blessed, the first step towards becoming a saint.
Source: D C B (2020) |
Marie-Marguerite d'Youville |
née Dufrost
de Lajemerais. Born October 15, 1701, Varennes, Quebec. Died December 23, 1771. She was a daughter of one of the great
families of New France. At eleven she attended the Ursuline convent in Quebec
City for two years and then returned home to teach her siblings. She was married in 1712
to Francois d'Youville, a bootlegger who sold illegal liquor to Indigenous
peoples. Four of her six children died in infancy
and she became widowed in 1730. In 1737 she and three other women founded a
religious association to provide a home to the poor in Montreal. By 1742 both sons had become priests an d Marguerite'
and by 1744 he association had become a Catholic religious order that was
granted a charter to operate the
Hôpital Générale
of Montreal in 1747. The group of tireless workers
were officially as the Sisters of Charity of
Montreal but more commonly called the Grey Nuns. Marguerite was
described as a remarkable woman who was courageous and processed remarkable
exceptional administrative
talent. Marguerite was also a slave owner with the Grey Nuns using enslaved
workers in to work in the hospital.
Many were English slaves which were purchased from the Indians.
In 1959 she was beatified, the first step to being a saint, and was called
the Mother of Universal Charity. Canonized by the Roman Catholic Church
December 9, 1990. She is the first native-born Canadian to be declared a saint.
Her Feast Day is October 16. A permanent exhibit is dedicate to
her in her birthplace of Varennes. Buffalo, New York, U.S.A. is home
of D'Youville College one of many institutions named in her honour.
September 21, 1978, issued a postage stamp in her honour. |
Elizabeth Dart-Eynon
Methodist Church preacher |
née Dart. Born April 1792, Marhamchurch, United Kingdom. Died
January 13, 1857, Little Britain, Upper Canada (now Ontario) Elizabeth at 19
joined the Wesleyan Methodist Church and four years later was one of the
founders of the Bible Christian Church. She became an itinerant preacher,
preaching to street mobs and was often pelted with eggs and assorted rotten
vegetables. She spread the news of the church in Devon, Cornwall, and Wales
in the United Kingdom. In 1835 she married John Hicks Eynon and the couple
were posted to Upper Canada. The pair covered together and often separately
a 200 mile circuit with often walking between destinations. She preached in
Coburg, Bowmanville and Peterborough. In 1848 they returned to England to
recover from exhaustion. She would return to preach in Coburg until her
death. Her journals and letters were published during her lifetime in the
Bible Christian Magazine from 1833-1857. There reports later appeared as a
biography in The Observer in the spring and summer of 1883. While there
seems to have bee some recorded reluctance and prejudice against woman
preachers such as Elizabeth and Ann Robins (1799/1800-1853) the women
persevered and helped pave the way for 20th century church women
professionals. Source: DCB (2020) |
Henrietta Feller |
née Odin.
Born April 22, 1800, Mortaque, Switzerland. Died March 29, 1868, Quebec.
Henriette was a staunch believer in helping and serving people. As a youth
she visited hospitals to help wherever she could. In 1822 she married Louis
Feller a 51 year old widower and became step mother to his children. Her own
daughter died at the age of three and shortly after Henriette became a
widow. Financed with the monies left to her by her husband Henriette sailed
to North America in 1835 and settled in Canada where within a year she
established the Feller Institute, a one room school that today is a museum.
She was a protestant and was determined to save French – Canadians from the
perils of the Catholic Church. There was some set back in the early days of
her teaching and she took refuge in the United States for a short period
before returning to Quebec to continue her mission to provide protestant
education. She founded the French Canadian Protestant mission at
Grande-Ligne about 30 miles outside of Montreal. Additional financial
resources were raised through the Baptists and 10 protestant churches and
several missions were found against the forces of the Catholic Church in
Quebec. and the Feller institute would successfully survive until its
closure in 1967.
Source:
D C B (accessed January 2015). |
Lucia Fidelia Gillette
Universalist (Baptist) minister |
née
Woolley. Born April 8, 1827, Nelson, New York, U.S.A. Died October 14, 1905,
Pennsylvania, U.S. A. Fidelia's father was a Universalist minister who was
tough when it came to her education. While still a teenager she was
publishing poetry using various pen names, Lyra, Carrie Russell, Ruth
Dinsmore as well as her won name. By 1947 the family was living in
Birmingham, Michigan, U.S.A. where Fidelia was a teacher. December 23, 1850
she married Hartson Gillette (1816-1886) and the couple raised one daughter.
In 1855 she published a memoir of her father, Rev. Edward Mott Woolley.
August 21, 1873 she obtained a licence to preach and was ordained in 1873.
In 1888 she may have been the first woman to be
ordained in Canada where she served a Universalist congregation
in Bloomington, Prince Edward County, Ontario in 1888 and 1889. Fidelia was
also know to have written hymns and was a staunch supporter of women's
suffrage. (2020) |
Alexandra 'Sandy' Ferguson-Johnson |
née Ferguson
Born July 19, 1939 Indianapolis, Indiana. Attending the University of
Toronto she earned her B.A. in 1961, her M.A. in 1962 and a Ph. In 1964. She
began her teaching career at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario and then
moved back to teach English and drama at the University of Toronto, Victoria
College. She has written The York Records, Records of Early English Drama
in 2 volumes in 1979. From 1986 through 1992 she served with the
International Society for Medieval Theatre and was also President of the
Medieval and Renaissance Drama Society. She has also served as Chairman of
the Board of Ministry, Presbyterian Church in Canada in 1981-1984. She has
held the position of President of the Canadian Council of Churches starting
in 1994 and in 1992 was a member of Unit ll Life Education and Mission, with
the World Council of Churches.
Source: The Canadian Who’s who,
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997) |
Marie Joseph/Geneviève Fisbach/Fitzbach/Fisbacht
Sister Marie du Sacré-Coeur |
Born October 16, 1806, Saint-Vallier, Lower Canada (now
Quebec). Died September 1, 1885, Quebec. Marie's family was very poor and
while still very young she began to work with the family of Francois-Xavier
Roy (died 1833). The two were married April 17, 1828 with Marie becoming his
second wife and mother to two step children. The couple had three daughters.
Left impoverished yet again with the death of her husband Marie began
working at the presbytery of Saints-Gervais et Protais to ensure the well
being of her daughters. After the death of one of her children and after the
two surviving girls entered the order of the Grey Nuns, Marie lived with her
daughters. In the winter of 1850 Marie and Mary Keogh set up the Asile
Sainte-Madeleine to help women rehabilitate from prison. Out of this
organization, on May 30, 1855, the Asylum of the Good Shepherd of Quebec was
founded and the following year the Congregation of the Sisters, Servants of
the Immaculate Heart of Mary was established under direction of Marie
Fisbach now called Sister Marie du Sacré-Coeur. The sisters were known to
the public as the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. Recognized in 1867 by Rome
the new community received final approval in 1921. The Sisters visited women
prisoners and provided shelter to former prisoners. The founded a number of
reformatory houses and after 1874 they opened their doors to unmarried
women, children slated for adoption, children for nursery school, and
seniors in need of help. Their 'homes' were established throughout the North
America and internationally. Later in life Sister Marie renounced elective
office in her order and lived in solitude. Source: D C B
(2020) |
Albine Gadbois |
Born January 22, 1830.
Died October 31, 1874, Montreal, Quebec. . When she entered religious orders
she took the name Sister Marie d Bonsecoues. She was the founder and
director of the Institution des sourdes-muettes de Montreal. She devoted her
life to helping educated deaf and dumb girls.
Source:
AD C B (accessed March 2015) |
Marie-Eléonore
Malvina Gagné
|
Born November 6, 1837 Saint-Michel, Quebec. Died December 29, 1920 Roberval,
Quebec. As a young child she often spent time in the summers at her uncle’s
farm where she became interested in agriculture. At 15 years of age she was
a teacher on Ile d’Orléans.
On August 15, 1861 she entered the Ursuline monastery, Quebec City and took
the name Mother Saint Raphael. She became a graduate at the normal school
(teacher’s college) run by the Ursines. In 1878 she became mistress of
novitiate in Chatham, Ontario but was back in Quebec by 1880 preparing for a
new mission at Lac-Saint-Jean in 1882. Here, she founded a monastery in
Roberval to foster religious training and education of girls in the region.
She is credited with establishing the 1st domestic science and
agricultural school in the country which prepared young girls to be wives of
farmers. The program enabled graduates to take examinations with the
Catholic Central Board of Examiners which led to teaching certificates.
Mother Rafael dealt with debt and destruction of the convent and school by
fire. In 1893 her school was recognized by the government and could now
receive financial grants. She worked closely with agronomists of the
Department of Agriculture and Colonization and was recognized with the Order
of Agricultural Merit in 1892 and 1895. In 1900 she was elected superior of
the monastery for six years and began construction of a new boarding school
and chapel. After retiring as superior she taught at the school and in 1909
worked to create a new school of household science at Université
de Laval. |
Léocadie-Romaine
Gascoin
|
Born March 1, 1818 Montenay, France. Died January 29, 1900 Le Mans, France.
In 1841 she worked founding the Marianite Sisters of Holy Cross, Le Mans,
France. She was given the name Marie des Sept-Douleurs. In 1843 members of
this group were sent to Indiana, U.S.A. and in 1847 to Lower Canada. Marie
des Sept-Douleurs became superior general of the Marianite Sisters of Lower
Canada and arrived in 1849 where the community consisted of 19 sisters 13 of
whom were Canadian. Within ten years there were four convents with boarding
facilities for children. However the legal status of the Marianite Sisters
remained uncertain. In 1857 Marie des Sept-Douleurs was appointed superior
general of the entire congregation of Marianite Sisters of the Holy cross in
France, the United States and Lower Canada. She was recalled to the mother
house in Le Mans in 1863. In 1867 the Marianite Sisters received approval of
the Holy See (high government of the church). On December 3, 1882 the
Canadian sisters set up a new religious congregation of their own as Sisters
of the Holy Cross and Sept Douleurs. |
Marie Angèle Gauthier |
Born
February 9, 1828. Died May 25, 1898. A hardworking farmer's daughter she
joined the order of the Sisters of St Anne as Sister Marie Angèle. She
traveled as one of the first group of religious orders of women to open
schools on Vancouver Island. The adventures of her trip to Victoria, British
Columbia, were published in 1859. Perhaps more of a legacy than her writings
was her teaching. She taught native children many skills including knitting.
This skill would be used in Duncan B.C. to make the famous Cowichan
sweaters. |
Philomene Gendron |
Born July 17,
1840, Sainte-Rosalie, Upper Canada (Now Ontario). Died October 20, 1921,
Montreal, Quebec. On February 9 1863 she entered into religious life with
the Religious Hospitallers of St Joseph at Hôtel-Dieu in Montreal. On July
8, 1865 she took her formal vows. From 1871-1881 she served as Bursar to the
Hospital and later as bursar for her religious community. In 1888 she was
appointed Superior of a mission in Campbelton, New Brunswick. She and two
sisters arrived August 13, 1888 to teach and to run a hospital. By October
1888 they had 50 students and their 1st hospital patient. The
conditions were primitive and very cold. Sister Gendron worked to plan new
accommodations which came two years later. She served as mistress to novices
until 1897 when she move back to Montreal to serve as Chief Hospitaller. In
1900 she returned to Campbelton as Superior and Administrator. In 1905
expansion was past due and she began working on plans for a new hospital
which would be opened in 1909. In 1906 she returned to Montreal and once
again served as Bursar.
Source: D
C B (accessed February 2016) |
Florence Rosalind Goforth |
née Bell-Smith. Born May 6, 1864, London, England. Died May
31, 1942, Toronto, Ontario. When she was just three her family immigrated to Montreal,
Quebec. Rosalind graduated in May 1885 from the Toronto School of Art. She
intended to travel to England to pursue her art when she met a young
divinity student, Jonathan Goforth (1859-1936) in Toronto. They were married
in 1887 and the following year they set off to North Hanan, China as
the 1st Presbyterian Missionaries to the far
east. The couple would have 11 children but only six would
live to be adults. The family were forced to flee their mission in 1900 with
the violence of the Boxer Rebellion. They returned to Canada but by 1901
they were one again in China. Rosalind published her 1st book : How I Know
God Answers Prayers in 1920. In 1925 the United Church of Canada had the
couple serving in Manchuria for ten years. Jonathans sight became poor
and the couple retired back home to Canada to live with their son who was a
minister. After her husband's death in 1936 Rosalind published Goforth in
China followed in 1940 with her autobiography,
Climbing Memories of a Missionary Wife. (2020) |
Lydia Emélie Gruchy |
Born September 5, 1894, Paris, France Died April 9,
1992 White Rock, British Columbia. After the death of Lydia's mother when
she was just eight years old, Lydia and her sisters were sent to boarding
school. After completing a grade 12 business course Lydia
worked in the
British civil service in 1913. It was that year that her father and
her sisters immigrated to Saskatchewan where 4 of her brothers had settled.
Her brother was studying for the ministry when he was killed in World War l.
Lydia had earned a teaching certificate and was teaching when she decided to
continue her education receiving a
BA from the University of Saskatchewan. She decided to study for the
ministry graduating in 1923 with top honours
from the Presbyterian Theology Collage (now St Andrew's College), Saskatoon. She worked as a minister's assistant
and a lay practitioner as women were not allowed to be full ministers. In
1926 she requested ordination and was refused. She would repeat her request
every two years. Once the United Church decided to allow female ministers,
Lydia was ordained at St Andrew's Church, Moose Jaw,
Saskatchewan on November 4, 1936,
becoming the 1st woman in Canada to be a minister in the
United Church of Canada. In 1953 she became the 1st woman to
receive a Doctor of Divinity from St Andrews College. She continued her work
in the church until she retired in 1962. In 1994 St Andrews College
dedicated a commemorative plaque in her honour. in 1996 on the 60th
anniversary of the ordination of women in the United Church St Andrews
College established the Lydia Gruchy chair of Pastoral Theology in her
honour. In 2003 St Andrews United Church, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan named a
chapel in her honour. |
Marie Guyant |
SEE - Marie de L'Incarnation |
Lydia Elizabeth 'Eliza' or 'Lyda' Hall |
Born 1864
Eramosa Township, Upper Canada. (Now Ontario). Died May 15, 1916, Guelph,
Ontario. After the death of her father her mother married George
Wigglesworth and the family first settled in Georgetown and then finally in
Guelph. Lydia and her sister Margaret worked as milliners. In April 1885 an
evangelist the Reverend David Savage at the family’s Methodist Church and
Lydia became a follower. In 1886 she worked with him on one of his religious
teams and in 1887 she and Sarah (Sadie) Williams of Tottenham worked as a
team. When Sadie left to go out on her own Lyda Sister Anne ‘Annie’ Jane
Hall joined to form an evangelistic team. According to written newspaper
accounts Lydia was a gifted preacher, earnest and intelligent. As their
reputation grew the sisters were working with a strenuous schedule. In the
spring of 1895 they were invited to conduct services in their home
congregation in Guelph. The Methodist Church of Canada did not ordain women
to its ministry so evangelists like Lyda had no official status. They were
invited by ministers to come and help with services. The sisters worked
together until 1907 when Lyda was stricken with paralysis. Annie remained
home helping with her sister’s care. At the end of the 19th
century and the beginning of the 20th century a handful of lady
evangelists such as Lyda and Annie labored to bring the word to the people
and left a mark on the hearts of the people.
Source: D C B
(accessed 2002.) |
Joanna Harrington
Sister Mary Benedicta |
Born August
15, 1845 Chatham, New Brunswick. Died February 12, 1895, Halifax, Nova
Scotia. She entered the congregation of the Sisters of Charity, Halifax,
Nova Scotia on March 19, 1865 and in June of that year she took the name of
Sister Mary Benedicta. In 1867 she too her 1st teaching
assignment in the north end of Halifax. In the fall of 1870 she returned to
a small convent in St Joseph’s parish where she came into close contact with
orphan children and she experienced the work that was her greatest love. In
1878 she was at St Anne’s Convent at Eel Brook> It was a dark time with the
convent facing persecution of a local pastor. The final decision came in
favour of the convent in 1880 from Rome and in June 1881 Mary Benedicta
became mother superior. She opened new missions in Nova Scotia and took
steps to pen St Patrick’s Girls High School in Halifax in 1884. By 1894 her
health was frail.
Source:
Dictionary of Canadian Biography Vol. 12. Accessed December 2001. |
Barbara Heck |
née Ruckle. Born 1734, Ballingrane, Ireland 1734. Died August
17, 1804 Augusta, Upper Canada (Ontario). The Ruckle family were members of a
community of German refugees known as the Palatines who settled in Ireland
in 1709. Barbara married Paul Heck in Ireland in 1760. The couple
would have 7 children. She and her husband originally emigrated to the colony of New York in
1760 where she was paramount in establishing the new Methodist religion,
including organizing the First Methodist Church in New York City. Loyalists
in the American Revolution the family fled to the sanctuary of the colonies
in Canada where once again Mrs. Heck worked to establishing the
foundations of her Methodist church in the Bay of Quinte area of Upper
Canada (Ontario) and is considered a founder of the Methodist church in
Canada.
Source: Dictionary of Canadian Biography. . |
Katherine Boehner Hockin |
Born August 19, 1910, China. Died April 24, 1993. Katherine was raised for
her early childhood in China where her parents were missionaries. She
returned to Canada for her higher education. She earned her BA in 1934 and
went on to earn her MA, her degree in education and then earned a Bachelor
of Divinity as well as a PhD in divinity. She was one of the 1st
female students at Emmanuel College in Toronto. She was sponsored by the
Women’s Missionary Society of the United Church to study for her doctorate
in theology in India. She served as Dean of Studies and Librarian at the
Canadian School for Missions and Ecumenical Institute. She wrote Servants
of God in People’s China in 1962. Her portrait hangs in the Memorial
Room of Trinity St Paul’s United Church on Bloor St., Toronto and the lane
that runs behind this church has been named in her honour.
Sources: Lois M. Wilson, I want to be in that number: Cool Saints I Have
Known, Published by the author, 2014. ; Mary Rose Donnelly,
Katherine: Katherine Boehner Hockin, a Biography, Winfield, B.C.; Wood
Lake Books, 1992.
|
Alia Hogben |
Ali has worked with the provincial government of Ontario's
Ministry of Community and Social Services supervising various social service
agencies in South East Ontario. She worked in services for children and
abused women
as well as for adults with developmental disabilities. Alia writes a regular
column for the Kingston Whig Standard newspaper on issues of Canadian
Muslim woman. She Is the Director of the Canadian Council of Muslim
Women. The Council has goals to affirm Canadian Muslim women's identities
and to promote an understanding of lived experiences. In
2912 she became the second Canadian woman to be inducted into the Order of
Canada for her work on women's rights and promotion of interfaith dialogue.
She champions Islam's message of inclusively. In 2014 Maclean's
magazine listed her as one of the fifty most powerful people in Canada.
|
Norah Louise Hughes |
Born 1905, Portsmouth, England. Died July 28, 1989 British Columbia. In 1921
she and her family immigrated to Canada and settled in Abbotsford area of
British Columbia. Norah attended the University of British Columbia where
she earned and Bachelor of Science degree in Microbiology. In 1937 she
became a candidate for the ministry in the United Church of Canada. In 1940
she earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Union College and went on to
earn her PhD from the University of Chicago in the U.S.A. In 1962 she was
elected as the 1st woman to be head of a Conference in the United
Church representing the geographical area of British Columbia.
Source: British Columbia Conference of the United Church of Canada. Rev. Dr.
Norah Louise Hughes Accessed February 20 2017.
|
Marie Catherine Huot
Sister Sainte-Madeleine |
Born April 30, 1791, Québec. Died January 7, 1869. She answered the
calling to become a nun in the order of the Congregation of Norte Dame in
September 1809 . She would be appointed as the Superior of the order three
times at a time of great expansion for the order itself. The order held
education in high regard and expanded the knowledge of teaching. The sisters
were well known as well trained teachers at a time when education of
teachers was not strong nor a priority of the community.
Suggested resource: The Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Toronto;
University of Toronto ) Volume IX Pg 402-403. |
Marie-Rosalie Cadron Jetté |
Born January 27, 1794 Lavaltrie, Lower Canada. Died April 5,
1864 Montreal, Canada East. On October 7, 1811 she married Jean Marie Jetté
(died 1832). The couple had 11 children. As a widow Rosalie opened her home
in Montreal as a refuge for unwed mothers, a cause well ahead of her time.
In the spring or 1845 she went against her children's wishes and moved to a
small house on Rue Saint-Simon to continue her charity work. On January 16,
1848 she and her colleagues made their religious profession and she became
Sister Marie of the Nativity, the widow Jetté. She preferred to work in the
background refusing all positions of authority. She received penitents,
cared for new born babies and attended the sick. During her life of service
to the community she provided a safe haven for 2,300 unwed mothers.
Source; DCB. |
Jeanne Francoise Juchereau De La Ferté
Mother Saint-Ignace |
Born May 1, 1650, Quebec. Died January 14, 1723, Quebec. As a
six year old child Jeanne's aunt, a nun, Mother Marie-Francoise Giffard dite
Marie de Saint Ignace, impresses on Jeanne-Francoise the need for her to
enter religious orders to take her aunt's place. She entered a convent April
22, 1662 as a boarder and two years later became a novice in the religious
Hospitallers of the Hotel Dieu with the name Saint-Ignace she became a
trustee of the Alms for the Poo of the entire community in 1673. On December
19, 1680 she was elected superior of her convent, a post she held for 24
years. In March 1702 she was elected leader of her monastery. She oversaw
worked during epidemics of influenza, measles in the late 1680's, and again
in 1703 and 1711. In 1713 she was elected to her eighth term as Superior at
the Hotel Dieu bus she became ill and was paralyzed. During this time she
authored a history of the Hotel Dieu published for the 1st time in 1752. She
was the 1st Canadian born Superior of her order. |
Ada Florence Kinton
Salvation Army
|
See - Writers - Poets |
Mary Letitia Lamb |
Born 1879, St
Andrew’s East, Quebec. Died St Andrew’s East, Quebec 1960. As a child
she expressed her desire to become a missionary and took extra Mission Study
Courses at school She interrupted her studies at McGill University in
Montreal in 1905 and returned home to take care of her ill mother. She
stayed at home for 16 years. When she was 40 in 1920 she set sail for China
fulfilling her childhood dream of being a missionary. She worked as a Matron
at the Canadian School for Missionaries under the Women’s Missionary Society
of the Methodist Church (now the United Church of Canada) After a furlough
in 1933 she returned to China for a second posting to work in Changqing
City, China’s wartime capitol. She wrote home of her exploits to family and
friend as well as providing generous reports to the WMS. Her writings give a
view of China from the perspective of a more mature missionary, at a time of
great change in the country. This area of Chinese history is just opening up
to the interests of historians and her writings provide first hand accounts
of life in an emerging China. She retired in 1940 and returned home to St
Andrew’s East to care for an ailing family member.
Sources:
From the pages of three ladies: Canadian women missionaries in Republican
China. By Deborah Shulman (MA Thesis, Concordia University, 1996) ; |
Jeanne Le Ber
|
Born
Montreal, Quebec January 4, 1662. Died October 3, 1714. As a young girl she
had a dowry of 50,000 écrus and was the most eligible girl in New France.
However, Jeanne decided to live a secluded life for 5 years. On the 24 of
June 1685 she took a vow of perpetual seclusion, chastity, and poverty.
Because of her social rank she retained an attendant. She gave large
financial assistance to the building of a new church and a three floor
apartment directly behind the alter became her living quarters. She has been
studied and her life used as a character in a modern mystery novel Death
du jour.(1998). |
Sister Zoe Leblanc - Emery
|
Born 1826.
Died 1885, St. Albert, Alberta. She was a member of the order of Sisters of
Charity known as the Grey Nuns. She was trained in nursing prior to leading
a party of two other members of the order, Sister Lamy and Sister Alpnonse,
to the Canadian Northwest. On September 24, 1859 the party arrived after an
arduous journey at the Métis community of Lac St. Anne, Northwest of Fort
Edmonton. In 1863 they relocated to St. Albert where a convent was built for
the sisters. They in turn established what may have been the 1st
hospital in Alberta where Sister Emery was the doctor, surgeon and dentist
for the community. The Sisters also established an orphanage and school.
Source:
Sanderson, Kay. 200 Remarkable Women of Alberta. (s.l., s.d.) online
(Accessed September 2014)
|
Rose-de-Lima Lefebre
Sister Vincent |
Born 1862.
Died 1919. Sister Vincent entered the Providence novitiate in the early
1890’s in Montreal, Quebec. In 1894 she was in Northern Alberta with 5 other
members of her order. Here they established St. Berrard Mission on Lesser
Slave Lake under primitive and isolated conditions. The settlement of
Grouard, named after Bishop Emile Grouard in 1909, grew around the Mission.
In 1905 she was living at the St Augustine Mission at Peace River, Alberta.
She died during an influenza epidemic.
Kay
Saunderson, 200 Remarkable Alberta Women, (Famous Five Foundation,
1999). Online (Accessed September 2015) |
Marie LeGallo
Marie de Sainte Elisabeth |
Born December 21, 1857, Quistinic , France. Died March 26,
1939, Plumelin, France. As a child her early education came from lay members
of a religious order. She then attended convent school in 1868 run by
Daughters of Jesus in Kermaria. May 15, 1877 she became a novitiate of
Daughters of Jesus in Kermaria and tool her final vows becoming Marie de
Sainte-Elisabeth two years later. She taught in France for almost 20 years.
She was posted to Belgium for a short time prior to being posted to North
America to seek out places to establish school. She traveled across North
America from New York to Montana in the U.S.A. via Canada. Starting in 1903
she opened schools in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and set up an orphanage
in Sydney, Nova Scotia. Moving on to Quebec she established Province House
for her order in Trois Rivières and opened schools. She also opened schools
and a hospital in the Canadian Northwest. The North American section of the
order became the second most active and the order was well established with
new Canadian sisters. She returned to France in 1911. From June 1928
through 1931 she served as the eighth Superior General of her order.
Source: DCB |
Florence Li Tim-Oi |
Born May 5, 1907, Hong Kong. Died February 26, 1992, Toronto,
Ontario. Florence wanted to answer the call for women to come forth and live
a life in the ministry of the Anglican Church. She attended Canton Union
Theological College and returned to Hong Kong in 1938 to work at All
Saints Church in Kowloon helping refugees. May 22, 1941 she was ordained in
Hong Kong as a deaconess. Given permission to give the sacraments to
Anglicans she set off for Hsinxing where Anglican Priests could not
travel. On January 25, 1944 she was ordained as
an Anglican Priest, the first woman to be ordained in the Anglican Church
which still had not recognized the ordination of women. The
Communist Chinese government closed churches from 1958 through 1974 and
Florence worked on a farm and then in a factory. She fled to the mountains
attempting to avoid persecution. In 1971 tow other women became Anglican
Priests and Florence was recognized in the diocese in Hong Kong. In 1983 it
was arranged that she should emigrate to the safety of Canada. She was
appoined as a honorary assistand at St. John's Chinese congregation and St.
Mathew's Parish in Toronto. In 1984, the 4oth anniversary of her ordination
in Hong Kong, she was recognized in Canada and reinstated as a priest. She
would win the greatest respect for herself and increasing support for other
women wishing to be ordained. In 2003 the church fixed January 24 as her
feast day. In 2007 the Anglican Communion celebrated the centennial of her
birth. In 2018 she was made a permanent part of the Episcopal Church's
Calendar of saints. The Anglican Church of Canada set her feast day as
February 26. Her papers are held in the Lusi Wong Library, Renison
University College, University of Waterloo, Ontario.
(2020) |
Marie de l'Incarnation. |
née Marie Guyant. Born October 28, 1599,
Tours, France. Died April 30, 1672, Quebec City, New France (now Quebec). In
1617 she married Claude Martin who died after two years into the marriage.
Marie was a widow with a six month old son. For awhile she helped her
brother in his business. In 1631 she decided to enter the Ursuline
convent inn Tours assuming her religious name Marie de L'Incarnation and she
took her final vows in 1633. She read about Canada in the famous Jesuit
Relations, which were reports sent back to France by Jesuit Priests serving
in Canada, and decided it was the place for her. She would arrive
August 1, 1639 and here she found
the Ursuline Order of Canada. She became an expert in several native languages
and translated several religious books for her native students. In 1980 she
was officially declared 'Blessed' which is a step towards canonization.
April 3, 2014 she was declared a Saint with Pope Frances using a
process known as equivalent canonization which does not require the
verification of miracles made through the saint's intervention. The
canonization was celebrated October 12, 2014. Sources: J. Marshall editor, Word from New
France: The Selected Letters of Marie de L'Incarnation, 1967. |
Lydia Longley. |
Born Groton, Massachusetts, U.S.A. April 13,
1674. Died July 20, 1758. When she 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". Suggested Source: Dictionary of Canadian
Biography (Toronto; University of Toronto Press) Vol. ll |
Elaine MacInnis |
Born 1924,
Moncton, New Brunswick. As a child she learned to love music and leaned to
play piano and violin. As a youth she would play with the Calgary and
Edmonton symphony orchestras. When she was 30 years old she entered Our
Lady’s Missionaries and became a sister. In 1961 she was missioned to Japan.
Here she started to learn and practice Zen meditation, achieving the rank of
a Master. In 1976 she was missioned to Manila, Philippines and there she
opened a Zen Center for her Catholic Church. Against many doubts she visited
a prison weekly to teach prisoners to turn from their anger to effective
people. In England in 1992 she was a director of the Prison Phoenix Trust
devoted to helping prisoners with meditation teachings. Back home in Canada
in 1999 she formed a group to continue teaching called Feeling the Human
Spirit.
Source: Herstory 2008: The Canadian Women’s Calendar (Coteau Books, 2007)
|
Rosanna McCann
Sister Mary Basilia |
Born 1811, Ireland. Died October 27, 1870. Sister Mary Basilia of
the Sisters of Charity arrived in Halifax in 1849to open the St Mary’s Girls
School with 200 girls registered for free education. In 1850 the Board of
School Commissions for the area recorded 500 students at the School. Sister
Mary Basilia was also concerned with the adult illiteracy rate and
established night classes for adults. At the same time she also cared for 20
orphans of immigrants who had died of ship fever during the strenuous ocean
crossing. By 1854 St Mary’s Orphan Asylum had 16 youth under its care. She
would become the first Mother Superior of the Canadian headquarters of the
Sisters of Charity which was the only English speaking congregation of
religious sisters in Canada. Today over 1400 sisters continue to serve
across Canada.
Source: Dictionary of Canadian Biography Vol. X p
476-77. |
Teresa Margaret McDonnell |
Born February 29, 1835. Died November 4, 1917 St Boniface,
Manitoba. Her mother died when she was an infant and she was brought up by
her father and her and in St Andrew, Ontario. Her father took her to the
Grey nuns in Ottawa so she would have an education. On January 31, 1851 she
took her vows becoming Sister Therese. In 1855 she was serving in St
Boniface, Manitoba in the area of the Red River Settlement. She became the
pharmacist visiting the sick in the huts and teepees and was equivalent to a
country doctor known as Sueur Doctor. In 1859 she was recalled to Ottawa but
on the trip back she was kidnapped by some of her loyal followers and she
returned to St Boniface where she was reinstalled. On August 5, 1871, with
Sister Royal Sister Therese installed beds on the top floor of the laundry
area to help the sick. By 1877 a regular hospital was established and St
Boniface General hospital had its roots. She also founded St Mary's Academy.
|
Myrtle MacKinnon |
Born November 8, 1889, Sturgeon, Prince Edward Island. Died
January 8, 1981, Prince Edward Island. As a young person she read books far
advance for her years and she enjoyed designing gowns and hats for her
dolls. As a teen in Charlottetown, P.E.I. she became an millinery apprentice
and soon opened her own shoppe called 'The Hat Box'. Wanting to do more
service work she entered the Presbyterian Missionary and became a deaconess.
She relocated ato Toronto, Ontario to work at a Presbyterian Home for
unmarried mothers. When the matron died Miss MacKinnon to over the Home. Her
live was one of untiring devotion to over 1,000 girls. Retiring from
the Home she was rehired to visit the women and girls at Toronto Hospitals.
Retiring a second time she returned to her home in P.E.I.
(2020) |
Marjory McLaren |
née Laing.
Born 1830 or 1831), Scotland. Died March 15, 1910, Elmira, New
York, U.S.A. In 1843 her family immigrated to Canada and by 1845 they had
settled in Milborne, Lower Canada (now Quebec Province). On February 20,1854
she married William McLaren, a Presbyterian Minister. The couple moved
throughout what is now southern Ontario and Upper New York State in the U.S.
In Belleville, Ontario she established the local Women’s Missionary Society
in 1868. In February 1876 the couple had settled in Toronto where Marjory
was a founder of the of the Women’s Foreign Mission Society, Western
Division. She served as president from 1876 to 1881 and again in 1897 to
1899. The group served under the Presbyterian Church of Canada’s Foreign
Mission Committee, which was an all male committee. Her work in the
Missionary Society of her Presbyterian Church was considered as important as
the work of any of the missionaries who served in foreign areas.
Source: Dictionary of Canadian Biography Vol. Xlll 1901-1910 Online
(Accessed April 2014) |
Catherine McLellan |
née Morton.
Born 1837, Penobsquis, New Brunswick. Died August 18, 1892, Victoria,
British Columbia. In 1865 she married businessman Alexander James McLellan
and the couple settled on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. As superintendant of Trail, Railroad and Bridges for the Pacific Railway
Alexander traveled extensively and from all accounts Catherine often
accompanied her husband on trips throughout British Columbia, the Canadian
North-West and down into California. At home in Victoria she was serving on
the executive on various women’s organizations. She served on the Women’s
Christian Temperance Union and was a welcome lecturer in the area. She wan
an active member and served as president of the Women’s Missionary Society
of the Methodist Church of Canada. The local group supported foreign, North
– West Canada and local mission work such as: the Crosby Girl’s Home in Port
Simpson, British Columbia and the Oriental Rescue Home in Victoria which
provided for Asian women immigrants.
Source: The Dictionary of Canadian Biography Vol. Xll (1891-1900).
Online (Accessed April 2014.) |
Marie Louise McLoughlin |
Born August
28, 1780. Died July 4, 1846.. When Marie-Louise entered the Ursuline order
of nuns she took the name Sister de Saint Henri. She was a teacher in the
order and became Mother superior. She was in fact a teacher ahead of her
time. She established written teaching regulations which were the 1st
of their kind for the order.
Source:
Suzanne Prince, “McLOUGHLIN, MARIE-LOUISE, de Saint-Henri,” in
EN:UNDEF:public_citation_publication, vol. 7, University of
Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed March 20, 2015,
http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/mcloughlin_marie_louise_7E.html. |
Elalie Durocher
Mother Marie-Rose
|
Elalie Durocher. Born October 6, 1811. Died October 6, 1849. She was the founder of a local community of the Sisters of
the Holy Name of Jesus and Mary which is a teaching order that served in rural
Lower Canada (now Quebec) In 1982 Pope John Paul II Beatified Mother
Marie-Rose, one of the steps to having someone declared a Saint.
|
Katherine Meagher |
Born 1915?. Died December 26, 2000, Kelowna, British
Columbia. Katherine joined the order of the Roman Catholic Sisters of
Charity of St. Vincent de Paul in Halifax in the spring of 1938. Sr.
Katherine completed her Master's Degree and her doctorate in cannon
law at St. Paul's University in Ottawa, Ontario. In 1976 She served various
ministries in Vancouver, Kelowna in British Columbia and in Edmonton ,
Alberta. She was a professor and became head of the business department at
Mount St Vincent University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. She also taught in New
York and Massachusetts in the U.S.A. In 1976 Bishop Emmett Doyle (1913-2003)
appointed her as the first female chancellor of a Canadian diocese.
(2020) |
Belinda Molony
Sister Mary Xavier |
Born August 1781, Ireland.
Died October 8, 1865, Saint John’s, Newfoundland. In 1825 Belinda became
Sister Mary Xavier of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Galway,
Ireland. In 1833 she and for other sisters, were the 1st nuns to
arrive in Newfoundland. The sisters had as a goal to open a school for
orphan and poor girls. By 1844 the school had grown from 950 students to
1200 girls. Later boys would be allowed to attend classes as well. In
December 1844 a convent was build for the school but was destroyed by a fie
in June 1846. In 1850 a new convent and school was opened in Cathedral
Square, Saint John’s. In 1853 Sister Mary Xavier was appointed Superior of
the convent of Harbour Main.
Source:
Barbara J. Eddy, “MOLONY, BELINDA,” in
Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 9, University of
Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed January 30, 2015,
|
Althea Moody
Anglican Sister & Missionary |
Born June 1, 1865, Fredericton, New Brunswick. Died 1930,
Norfolk, England. Althea's father worked for the Canadian Pacific Railway
and no doubt helped her gain the railroads support for Althea to be one of a
number of artists and journalists to travel across Canada. Althea painted a
number of striking watercolours which were collected in an album, Across the
Bright Continent. Althea worked at All Hallows Canadian School, an Anglican
Church Mission school in Yale, British Columbia where she taught white and
indigenous students painting and drawing. She also engaged in missionary
work. She wrote articles for the school journal, All Hallows in the West.
She would learn from her students as well and translated parts of the Common
Service of the Church of England. In the early 1900's she took vows as an
Anglican nun becoming Sister Althea. Sometime around 1911 she left All
Hallows' Canadian School to go to the home community of her order in
England. Source: ECWW |
Dorothy Moore |
SEE - Academics & Librarians - Educators |
Marie Morin. |
Born March
19, 1649 Quebec City, New France. . Buried April 8,1730 Montreal,
New France (Now Quebec). At the age of 13 she became an novitiate of a
convent in Montreal. She took her vows as a nun with the Religious
Hospitallers of Ville, Marie, Montreal. on
October 27, 1671. She was the 1st
Canadian born woman to become a religious sister. She would become
bursar and superior of the Hospitalièrs of Montreal.
In 1693 through 1698 she was the 1st Canadian
born superior of the
Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal.
Sister Morin oversaw the rebuilding of the Hotel Dieu beginning in 1689 and
again when the new structure burned on February 24 1695. She served a second
time as superior of her order from 1708 to 1711. She was also
one of the 1st women writers in New France. She wrote the annals
of the Hotel Dieu (1697-1725) and her own memoirs. She was a heroic
woman, a true product of the early days of New France. |
Jessie Knox Munro |
Born January 9, 1861 Peterborough, Upper Canada (now
Ontario). Died March 23, 1923 Peterborough, Ontario. At 14 Jessie formally
dedicated her life to Christ at a church revival at George Street Methodist
Church in her hometown. Her parent refused to let her become a missionary at
such a young age so Jessie became attended Normal School (teacher's College)
in Ottawa graduating in 1882. It was while at school that she became fluent
in German. Jessie tught school in Lakefield, Goderich, and Brighton Ontario
prior to applying to the Women's Missionary Society to teach in Japan
arriving there in 1888. Ill health forced her to return to Canada in 1899.
By 1904 she was sent to the mission field in Pakan, Alberta to help
assimilate Ukrainian immigrants by establishing a mission to women and
children. She and nurse Retta Edmonds lived in a tent conducting Sunday
School and supervising construction of the mission station at Wahstao. Once
construction was completed the pair opened a day school, a dispensary and a
clinic to help the Ukrainian women and children and instill manners
and morals of the Protestant Anglo-Canadian home. She took a two year
furlough from the project when she became ill but by 1908 she was
establishing a Home for Ruthenian Girls In Edmonton, Alberta. In 1909 she
retired from her mission work and lived with relative in Ontario until her
death. (2019)
Source: DCB |
Joan O'Sullivan |
SEE - Medical Professionals - Nurses |
Mother Marie Anne Paquet |
Born Quebec September 27, 1755. Died
January 25, 1831. She took the name de Saint Olivier when she entered the
novitiate of the Ursuline sisters on March 12, 1772. She would serve three
terms as Superior. During one of her terms an 1806 fire destroyed the
convent. She remained on site until she had gained enough support to have
the convent rebuild. During her tenure the sisters opened boarding schools,
day schools and hospitals for the insane. They also expanded to Boston and
New Orleans in the United States. |
Mother Marie-Léone Elodie/Alodie-Virginie Paradis |
Mother Marie-Léone
Elodie/Alodie-Virginie Paradis. Sister Marie-de-Saint-Léon.
Born May 12, 1840, L'Acadie,
Lower Canada (now Quebec). Died May 3, 1912,
Sherbrooke, Quebec. Marie-Léone was actually baptized Alodie-Virginie. In 1854, at the age
of 14, she presented herself at a convent near
Montreal. the Marianite Sisters of Holy
Cross. In August 1857 she took her vows under the name of Sister
Marie-de-Saint-Léon. She served in Quebec, and in the USA in New York state
and Michigan. In 1870 she joined the American branch of the order ant taught
French in Indiana. She soon found herself in the Canadian Maritimes in
Acadia,
where in 1874 she was chosen to direct a group of novices in New Brunswick.
The Holy Cross Fathers in the region were desperate for help to educate the
Acadians of the region. They could not afford to pay lay teachers. This
energetic and devoted woman is credited with infusing energies and saving
the Acadian
culture in the region. Returning to Quebec in 1895 she sought support and
recognition for her order of Poor/Little Sisters of the Holy Family, which
would help priests with educational needs. On October 5, 1895 Mother
Marie-Léonie returned to Quebec and in January 1896 official church
recognition of the order. During her lifetime she had oversee 28
establishments in her home province of Quebec New Brunswick, Ontario and in
the U.S.A. Elodie Paradis was beautified in
Montreal
on September 11, 1984, by Pope John Paul ll during his Canadian Visit.
She was the 1st Canadian Woman to be
beautified (the first step
in the process to becoming a saint in the Roman Catholic Church)
on Canadian soil.
Pope John Paul ll made the declaration during his Canadian
visit. Sources: DCB
(2020) |
Mother Joseph (Esther) Pariseau |
Born Saint-Martin (Laval) Lower Canada
(Quebec) April 16, 1823. Died January 1902. In December 1843 she entered the
Sisters of Providence in Montreal and volunteered with for others to be a
missionary in the Washington and Canada western territories. She would be
the power behind the establishment of some 10 schools, 2 orphanages, 15
hospitals, an asylum and home for the aged. In 1866 she was in charge of
building and financing missions in the Canadian and American West. She would
set on on "begging tours" in the Canadian and American west to finance the
institutions that the order would build. Because of her contribution in
designing and building institutions she is considered to be one of the first
architects in the northwest and is also recognized as an early artisan who
used native northwest woods. The state of Washington gave her national
prominence in 1980 when her statue was placed in Statuary Hall in Washington
D.C., as an historic leader of Washington State. She is the fifth woman and
the first Catholic sister represented in the United States gallery of "first
citizens." |
Edna Lenora Perry
Anglican minister |
née Martens. Born June 30, 1923, Winnipeg, Manitoba. Died
January 15, 2020, Saint Paul, Manitoba. During the second world war Edna
taught on a letter of permit (usually women who did not hold formal teaching
diploma's) in Manitoba. She met a young member of the Royal Air Force she
was Service Flight Trainings School. On March 31, 1945 the couple were
married in Devon, England. They settled in Manitoba a raised three sons. She
returned to school and earned degrees in Education and Theology. in the
1970's and 1980's she worked as a school principal. She
was co-founder of the Manitoba Outdoor Education Association. She pioneered
women as clergy in the Anglican Church and was minister to several in
Manitoba and chaplain of the Transcona Legion and Mothers' Union. In 1989
she lost her sight but it did not stop her from continuing her work in
ministry. She welcomed the ordination of women and gay men in the Anglican
Church. In 1992 she received the 125th Anniversary of Canadian
Confederation Medal. Retirement from the pulpit left her time to write her
memoir A Prairie Girls Life; The Story of Reverend Edna Lenora Perry
published in 2014. Edna Perry Way in Transcona is named in her honour.
Sources: Memorable Manitobans, online (accessed
2021); Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press January 18, 2020 online
(accessed 2021) |
Sara Riel
Sister Marguerite-Marie of Alacoque |
Born October 11, 1848 Red River, Manitoba. . Died December
27, 1883. She is perhaps best known for being the sister of Métis Leader
Louis Riel (1844-1995). As a youth she was educated by the Sisters of
Charity in St. Boniface, Manitoba.. She took her vows as a nun in 1868 the
1st Métis of Red River to become a nun. . As a Grey Nun she taught at
the sisters boarding school and then became a missionary. With the area
active with rebellion in 1869 Sister Sara Riel was moved several time for
her protection. In 1871 she became the 1st Métis missionary for Red River to
serve at Ile-a-la-Cross in Northern Saskatchewan. In 1872, After a vision,
she took the name of Sister Marguerite-Marie of Alacoque. The Grey Nuns of
Manitoba Created the Sara Riel Inc., a charitable organization offering a
variety of mental health services to adults. |
Susanna 'Susie' Rijnhart Moyes |
née Carson. Born 1868?. Chatham, Ontario. Died February 7,
1908, Newbury, Ontario. Susie was active in the Methodist churches in
southwest Ontario . As a child she was inspired by foreign missionaries. Her
father supported the idea of a medical school for women in Canada both Susie
and her sister Jennie would attend the Women's Medical College, Toronto.
Susie graduated in 1888. After their father's death in 1889 both sisters
returned to Strathroy to practice medicine. In 1894 Susie married Petrus
Rijnhart, who was somewhat of a nondenominational Missionary with the China
Inland Mission (CIM). In 1893 he left the CIM when they found him to be an
imposter. A few weeks after their marriage the couple set out as
missionaries to Tibet. They were sponsored by the Disciples of Christ,
Toronto. They settled at Lusar, Tibet and then Tankar. May 1898 they set out
with their infant son for Lhasa. Sadly her infant son died during the trip.
In September Petrus went to a nomad camp to seek help and was never seen
again. After searching for her husband unsuccessfully for two years Susie
returned to Chatham Ontario in 1900. She wrote and published her Tibetan
escapades in the book With the Tibetans In Tent and Temple. By 1902
she was back in Tibet to found a Disciples of Christ mission. In 1905 she
married James Moyes. Her health began to fail and the couple moved to
Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, China and by 1907 were in Canada where
Susie died a two months after the birth of their child. The Disciples
mission folded after their departure leaving little memory of her foreign
missionary work. Source. D C B (2020) |
Ann Vickery Robins
Methodist Church |
Born 1799/1800 Cornwall, England. Died September 18, 1853,
Bowmanville, Canada East( now Ontario) In 1819 Ann converted to the Bible
Christian Church, an Methodist group in Luxulion, Cornwall, England
and served as an itinerate preacher. In 1826 she was posted to London. She
married fellow preacher Paul Robins in 1831. By 1846 the couple were
appointed to the Peterborough area where they settled and serving
churches in Upper Canada. By her own choice she did all her own housework
and caring for her two children. She helped out at her church, visited the
sick and preached the gospel In 1849 the family settled in Bowmanville.
While there seems to have been some recorded reluctance and prejudice
against women preachers these women like ann and Elizabeth Dart Eynon
(1792-1857) persevered and helped to pave the way for 20th century church
women professionals. |
Mary Ann Taylor Robins
Methodist Church |
Born 1804, England. Died 1892 Darlington Township, Ontario.
Mary Ann for 32 years was an itinerate preacher prior to becoming the second
wife of a fellow preacher Paul Robinson in 1854 when Paul was in England
after the death of his 1st wife Ann Vickery Robins (1800-1853) . |
Joyce Sasse
United Church of Canada |
Joyce decided when she was just seven years old that she
would become a minister. Joyce went to the University of Saskatchewan
for her undergraduate degree and then attended St Andrew's Theological
College, Saskatoon to become an ordained minister in the United Church of
Canada. In 1967 she left Canada to do missionary work in Korea. After
attending Korean language school she worked for a boy's school in central
Korea. She also taught English at the YMCA. In 1971 Always a Guest
which is an autobiographical account of her time in Chongju, Korea.
Returning to Canada in 1972 Joyce took positions in rural prairie churches.
She would help organize Canadian Rural Church Network which connects lay
people online providing information and support for their rural churches.
In1997 she published The Country Preacher's NotebooK ll. She continues to
write for the Canadian Rural Church Network and the United Church
Observer. (2019) |
Aimee Elizabeth
Semple McPherson
Sister Aimee or
Sister |
née
Kennedy. Born October 9, 1890, Ingersoll, Ontario.
Died September 27, 1944, Oakland
California, U.S.A. Her mother volunteered with the Salvation Army and Aimee
would gather a congregation of her dolls to give a sermon. As a teen
she
wrote to the Canadian newspaper, Family Herald and Weekly Star,
questioning why taxpayer-funded public schools had courses, such as
evolution, which undermined Christianity.
In 1907 she met
Robert Semple
and
converted to being a
Pentecostal and began a life long crusade against the concept of evolution.
They Married April 12, 1908 and soon moved to Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
where joining the Full Gospel Assembly and Aimee soon learned of her ability
to preach. She was an evangelist.
The couple both contracted malaria in China while on tour and Robert died in
Hong Kong shortly after the birth of their daughter. On the ship sailing
back to America Aimee held Sunday School classed and held services with
almost all passengers attending. Back home she worked once again with the
Salvation Army. While in New York City she met Harold Stewart McPherson and
they married May 5, 1912 settling in Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A. The
couple had one son. She felt she had the calling to preach and in 1915 she
took the children her husband. She invited him a few months later to join
her in her evangelism. After several successful revival tent tours in 1917
she started her own magazine Bridal Call, boosting
Pentecostalism into an ongoing American Religious presence. The following
year her faith healings became part of the attraction to crowds attending
her events. Moving to Los Angeles where her followers built her family
a home. Crowds soared in numbers to over 500,000 people by 1921. By
1921 she was divorced. She opened, in the U.S.A., the Angelus Temple of the Four Square Gospel
for 1.25 million
dollars! That was a lot of money in 1918! In her day, she was the most publicized revivalist
in the world. She was a pioneer in the use of modern media using weekly radio to
present her faith leading to form one of the 1st megachurches in North
America. In 1926 her reported kidnapping and escape caused a frenzy in
the national media. She wrote several books about her teachings and her
faith and in 1927 she published In the Service of the King: The Story of
My Life. During World War ll the Temple became a visible symbol of home
front sacrifice for the war effort. with the building used as an air raid
shelter. On September 26, 1944 her son found her in her hotel rook
unconscious with pills and a bottle of capsules half empty nearby. The
verdict was accidental overdose. Her son Rolf McPerson would lead
Foursquare Gospel Church for the next 44 years. In 2012 a Broadway
musical was produced called; Scandalous: The Life and Trials of Aimee
McPherson is one of numerous plays, many of which were loosely based on
her life, which have been written over the years.
(2020)
|
Mary Ann Soper
Methodist preacher |
Born December 30, 1796, Stoke Climsland, Cornwall, England.
Died May 7, 1862, Smithfield, Canada East (now Ontario) Mary was an iterate
preacher from 1819 to 1823 with the Bible Christian Church. On June 16, 1823
she married a fellow preacher William Lyle (died 1873). The couple left the
Bible Christians joining the Primitive Methodists in 1826. By the summer of
1833 the couple were missionary preachers in Upper Canada. The couple had
four children. They worked together as circuit Methodists preachers.
According to her son-in-law she was led by the belief that God does
sometimes call women as well as men to engage in the ministry of the word.
Mary Ann's story was published in Petticoats in the
Pulpit: the Story of Early Nineteenth Century Methodist Women Preachers in
Upper Canada. |
Anne Marguerite Squire |
nee
Park. Born October 17, 1920 Amherstburg, Ontario. Died April 24, 2017
Ottawa, Ontario. Anne taught school prior to marring Bill Squire ( _2016)
in 1943. The couple had 3 daughters. In 1972 she received the Carleton
University Senate Medal. In 1975 she earned her Master’s in religion from
Carleton University, Ottawa and taught Religious Studies and Womens’ Studies
programs. In 1977 through 1980 she was appointed as Chair of Project
Ministry striving for a ministry of the whole people. From 1980 for 5 years
she provided leadership at Queen’s Theological College serving on the Board
of Managers. In 1982 she became secretary of the United Church Division of
Ministry and Personnel and Education. And Chair of the
Interchurch/Interfaith Committee from 1988 through 1992. In 1985 she
received her Doctor of Divinity from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario.
In 1986 she became the 1st woman lay Moderator elected to the
highest position in the United Church of Canada serving through 1988. During
her term as Moderator she took the brunt negative feedback when she
announced that gay and lesbian people were eligible to be ordained and
commissioned ministers. From 1993 to 1998 she chaired the Service Advisory
Committee of the Ottawa Carleton Palliative Care Association . Anne was also
a founding member of the Ottawa Muslim/Christian Dialogue Group and a
staunch patron of the Multifaith Housing Initiative. In 2005 she was still
an advocate for equality of marriages and expressed her views to an Ottawa
legislative committee. She represented the United Church of Canada as a
witness in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission proceedings. |
Florence Storgoff |
Born 1908, Canora, Saskatchewan. Died
September 11, 1964. She married and moved a bride to a Doukabor Colony In
British Columbia. The Doukabor's were a religions sect who believe in a form
of communal living and whose founders in Canada had emigrated from
persecution in Russia. Storgoff became an active religious protestor against
what she perceived as offensive government regulations. Both she and her
husband were sent to a special Doukabor living compound on Pier's Island
near Victoria, British Columbia. The Canadian government had set up the
living compound as a result of the Doukabor protests which were considered a
danger not only to the group themselves but to the Canadian public in
general. Florence soon became an acknowledged leader of the Sons of Freedom
Doukabor group. For what she believed to be her religious beliefs, she would
be arrested, charged and sentenced and spend three years in the Kingston
penitentiary for women for arson. In 1963 she led some 900 followers to the
Lower British Columbia mainland. 400 of the protestors camped out at Agassiz
Mountain Prison, protesting the arrest of fellow Doukabors. |
Sara "Sadie" Ann Stringer |
(née
Alexander) Born April 8, 1869, Greenock Township, Ontario. Died April 10,
1955 Selkirk, Manitoba. Sadie had some training in nursing and was trained
as a missionary at the Church of England Deaconess House in Toronto,
Ontario. On March 10, 1896 she married her school sweetheart, an Anglican
Church minister, Isaac Stringer (1866-1934) The couple served the Anglican
Church in Canada’s far northwest right from the beginning of their marriage.
They would have 5 children. From 1896 through 1901 they served on Herschel
Island off the north coast of the Yukon in the Beaufort Sea. The Island was
a winter station for whaling vessels and sailors became their flock during
the iced in winter months. The long nights allowed the international group
of sailors to learn to speak and write English in classed provided by Isaac
and Sadie. During this time Sadie rarely saw another white woman. In 1905
he became the Bishop of Selkirk and the family moved to the more civilized
Dawson City, Yukon. In 1914 the couple traveled to England on a fundraising
tour when King George V asked to meet the. Sadie herself was a speaker well
in demand although she felt her own experiences were much less inspiring
than those of her husband. In 1931 he was promoted and elected Archbishop of
Rupert’s Land and the family moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba. A grandson,
Richard, a cinematographer by trade had done a movie :The Bishop who ate
his boots, based on his grandfathers experiences. Bishop Stringer
himself left behind movies, still photos and detailed diaries of life in
Canada’s northwest.
Source:
Five pioneer women of the Anglican Church in the Yukon. Anglican Church of
Canada, Women’s Auxiliary, Yukon Diocesan Board, 1964: Leaders of
the Canadian Church. Chapter Vll Isaac O. Stringer. By A.H. Soverign.
Ryerson, 1943. online (accessed January 2014) |
Saint Kateri Tekawitha.
Lily of the Mohawks |
Born 1656 Ossemenon (now Auriesville, New York U.S.A.) .
Died April 17, 1680. She was Baptized in the Roman Catholic Church as
Catherine. Her family died during a smallpox epidemic in 1661-1663 and her
face was left scared and feeble sighted. During her life with remaining
family She refused to marry and finally the women of the tribe gave up on
finding her a husband. At nineteen she embraced the Catholic religion on
Easter Sunday April 18, 1676. Kateri was the Mohawk form of Catherine.
The following year she relocated a Jesuit mission , Kahnawake south of
Montreal, New France. Priests of the area described her as being extremely
pious and of course wrote of her virginity. Kateri believed in the value of
offered suffering. She ate very little and lie upon a mat with thorns. She
joined with a group of other young women to practice their faith. She burned
herself in penance. Upon her death it was written that her smallpox scares
disappeared and she became beautiful. Weeks after her death she purportedly
appeared to three people including a priest. A chapel was built near her
grave and by 1684 pilgrimages to the site had begun.
She was the 4th Native American to be venerated in the Roman Catholic
Church and the 1st to be canonized (to become a saint) on October 21, 2012.
A statue of Tekawitha is installed outside the
Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré in
Quebec, Canada. Another is installed at the Cathedral Basilica of St.
Francis of Assisi in
Santa Fe, New Mexico. Since these 1st
statues many more have appeared in religious structure through out North
America. Miracles of healing have been attributed to Kateri aiding her
veneration. Several churches and many schools have been named in her honour
through out North America. |
Mary Lyle Tucker |
Born 1797, England. Died July 13, 1885, Columbus, Ontario.
Mary was an itinerate preacher in 1818-1818. She resigned her commission
just prior to ther marriage on February 22, 1819 to Joseph Tucker
(1785-1868) in Cornwall, England. In the early 1830's the couple emigrated
to Canada and settled in Columbus, Upper Canada (now Ontario). The couple
had one son who would become a Bible Christian minister. Mary also preached
in ther new home area throughout her lifetime. Source:
My United Methodist online (accessed 2020). |
Marie Louse Amanda Viger
Sister Saint Jean-de-Goto |
Born July 27,
1845, Boucherville, Lower Canada (now Quebec). Died May 8, 1906, Arthabaska,
Quebec. After being educated at a convent on September 8, 1860 this teenager
joined the Religious Hospitallers of St Joseph at the Hôtel-Dieu in
Montreal, Quebec. On February 3, 1863 she took her final vows and accepted
the name Sister Saint-Jean-de-Goto. When she was 23 she was part of a group
of 6 she went to Tracaidie to work with lepers. Here she set up a pharmacy.
In 1875 she was elected Superior of Tracaidie. Although there was no formal
demand for a school the sisters taught orphans in the surrounding area.
Sister Saint-Jean-de-Goto began collecting funds and in 1898 an orphanage
and hospital was completed. In 1899 she had completed her 5th
term as Superior at Tracaidie and she would leave a strong foundation for
her order with Acadian sisters she had trained. In 1902 she was elected
Superior of Hôtel-Dieu at Arthabaskaville, Quebec where she strived to have
built a new five story wing before her death.
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Esther Wheelwright |
Born Wells Massachusetts (now Maine), U.S.A.
April 10, 1696. Died November 28, 1780. Born to a Congregationalist
protestant family, she would be re-baptized as Marie-Joseph dite
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. |
Lois Miriam Wilson
United Church of Canada |
née
Freeman. Born April 8, 1927, Winnipeg, Manitoba. After 15 years as a homemaker she
became an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada. In 1976 she
became first woman president of the Canadian Council of Churches, and in
1980 she was appointed the 1st woman to the top position of Moderator of
the United Church. She has authored several books. She is a member of the Order of Canada and has received
the Pearson Peace Prize and the World Federalist Peace Award. |
Marie-Marguerite d'Youville
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See - d'youville |
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