On the Job - Miscellaneous


Miscellaneous
Mary Abbott Wife of a Prime Minister	née Bethune Born 1823. Died 1898. She married a young lawyer John Joseph Caldwell Abbott in 1949. They would have eight children together. Raising four daughters and four sons no doubt kept this young woman completely occupied. She had no love of politics but supported her husband in his political career. He would become Canada's third Prime Minister. No doubt Mary was satisfied that his term in office was somewhat short lasting from June 1891 until November 1892. She is the most obscure wife of any Prime Minister in Canadian history.
Frances Elaine Aboud Professor	Born Toronto, Ontario February 7, 1947. She earned her BA at the University of Toronto and her M.A. and PhD at McGill University in Quebec. She has been a professor at the Department of Psychology at McGill University since 1975. She has also held positions at the Centre for Cross-Cultural Research at Western Washington University and has done research and teaching in Ethiopia as part of the McGill-Ethiopia Community Health Project with various visits between 1988 through 1994. She has written a book : Children and Prejudice (1988).
Karen Diane Baldwin Miss Universe	Born London, Ontario 1963. In 1981 she was crowned Miss London in a city beauty pageant but she was destined for more. July 26, 1982 she was crowned Miss Universe at the pageant held in Peru. She was the first Canadian to become Miss Universe. For awhile, back in Canada, she hosed a Canadian fashion and lifestyle TV program called The New You. She married and is mother of two children. The family have settled in Los Angeles.
Elizabeth Jane "Eliza" Barns "The Witch of Plum Hallow" Clairvoyant	Born Ireland 1800?. Died 1893. She ran away from home as a young girl and was not long before she was married. She emigrated to Canada and settled in Eastern Ontario in the area of Plum Hollow in 1843. Married a second time to a David Barnes they would have 9 children. In her old age she became known as Granny Barnes, the witch of Plum Hollow. She was described as an amazing clairvoyant. She helped local farmers find missing livestock and her physic powers helped solve a murder resulting in the execution of Edgar Doxtater was executed. Her fame spread when she began to tell fortunes. The fame earned income to help the family and led to her becoming a legend. Source: Legends Told in Canada By Edith Fowke (1994)
Marie-Jeanne Bartleman Political wife	Née Rosillon. Born Luluabourg, Belgian Congo 1948. She moved with her family to Belgium in 1958 where she studied at secondary school and university. In Brussels she would meet and in 1985 marry Canadian diplomat James Bartleman. She has been a full partner to her husband in his position as head of Canadian Missions to the European Economic Union, Australia and Brussels, and his appointment as Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. She is the Honorary President of the provincial chapter of the Independent Order of the Daughters of the Empire (IODE), an honorary member of the University Women's Club, Toronto and was appointed an Officer in the Order of St John and an Honorary Detective in the Toronto Police Service. She received the Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal.
Laura Borden Wife of a Prime Minister	née Bond. Born 1862. Died September 7, 1940. The wife of Prime Minister Robert Laird Borden , she would be in the spotlight of Canada all during his term of office from the fall of 1911 through to July 10, 1920. She is described as the perfect wife for a Prime Minister. She had sophistication and charm and used both of these talents to be a gracious hostess for Canada. The Progressive Conservative political party recognized her role in the achievement of their popularity when they presented her with the gift of a car.
Elizabeth Bushell Printer	Born Boston (?) USA. She moved from Boston to Halifax with her father in the 1750’s. In 1751 he set up Canada’s first printing shop. Little is known about Elizabeth’s life but there is some documentation that indicates that she worked in the print shop from 1752 until the death of her father in 1761. On March 23, 1752 John Bushell, with the help of his daughter, launched the Halifax Gazette. The press and Elizabeth were responsible for printing of government documents as well as print jobs for local businesses. She shares a place with her father in our history as establishing the first printing office and the first newspaper in Canada. She may have returned to the United States after the death of her father. It is known that her brother ran a printing business in Boston until his death in 1797. She may have worked with her brother.
Agnes Deans Cameron Adventurer	Born Victoria, British Columbia December 20. 1863. Died May 14, 1912. This educator was also a real life adventurer who would successfully write about her explorations. In 1906 she was an elected school trustee in her home in Victoria, British Columbia. In 1908 she made a 10,000 mile journey from Chicago to the Artic Ocean including travelling the famed Mackenzie River. In 1909 she published her record of her experiences in "the New North" She would continue to write articles and toured in a lecture circuit throughout North America with accounts of her incredible northern journey.
Marie-Josephite Corriveau. Legend	Born Saint-Vallier, Quebec May 14, 1733. Died on the gallows April 18(?) 1763. She has become simply known as La Corriveau. After two trials she was condemned to death for murdering her second husband Louis Dodier in January 1763. She was, as the law provided, hung and her body exposed in chains. Her body was exposed for about a month in an iron cage, The cage would be found in a graveyard in 1850. Writings over the years drew on the story as a base. These stories never quite separated facts and fiction. Legends grew and are still recounted as fantastic tales.
Helen Mary Creighton Folklorist	Born Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. September 5, 1899. Died 1989. She studied music at McGill University in Montreal in 1915 and attended the Halifax Ladies College in 1916. During WW1 she worked as a military chauffeur. After the war she worked as a journalist and a children’s radio show host in Halifax and then took off on an adventure to teach in Mexico. In 1928 she became interested in stories and songs of the early days. By 1940 she was working in the National Museum in Ottawa as a recognized folklorist. During her career she would collect and in many cases record the folktales, songs and stories of the Canadian Maritimes leaving a legacy of some 4000 records. She would publish several books of the stories and songs that she had located. In 1976 she became a member of the Order of Canada.
Viola Desmond Racial Activist	Born Halifax, Nova Scotia July 6, 1914. Died 1965. A successful Halifax beautician and businesswoman, she would become embroiled in in one of the most publicized incidents of racial discrimination in Canadian history. On November 8, 1946, while visiting New Glasgow, Nova Scotia she attended a movie at the Roseland Theatre. She chose to sit downstairs in the racially segregated theatre instead of upstairs in the balcony where Blacks were forced to sit. She was arrested and thrown into jail overnight. She had refused to pay the once cent amusement tax difference charged to clients sitting downstairs instead of the balcony. She refused to pay more than white customers at the show. At trial she was sentenced to a fine of $20.00. Later she, and newspaper editor Carrie best would encourage a lobby group to force the Nova Scotia government to finally repeal the law of segregation in 1954.
Annette, Emilie, Yvonne, Cécile, and Marie Dionne Quintuplets	all share the same birthday in Corbeil, Ontario May 28, 1934. They were the only known-surviving quintuplets in the world at the time of their birth. Emilie died in August 1954. Marie died February 1970. While they were young they were wards of the provincial government of Ontario. Most of their youth they were exploited. People came from all over to see the tiny tots play in their back yard. They were even taken to Hollywood where they would do commercials for products. In 1965 the remaining four sisters published their story in the book We were five. Three of the sisters would marry but their marriages did not survive and they returned to living with one another in Montreal.
Winnifred Blair Drummie Miss Canada	née Blair. Born Saint John, New Brunswick 1903. Died May 23, 1983. She was working as a stenographer when she was encouraged to enter a contest in Saint John searching for a representative young woman for a proposed pageant at the Winter Carnival in Montreal. The contestants skated before the judges and partied on the evening of the event itself. On February 10, 1923 the first Miss Canada Winnifred Blair was announced. The new Miss Canada followed a round of social engagements at hospitals, schools, plays, teas and she did drop pucks at hockey games. On March 8, 1923 she attended the opening of the New Brunswick Legislature and became the first woman allowed to sit on the 'floor' of a Canadian Parliament. She also tried a screen test for the movies in New York City, but she decided that it was not for her. With little financial support for attending special events she soon searched out a job as stenographer at the Power Commission at the City of Saint John. She continued to work until she married a young lawyer, Harold Drummie in 1930. She became a housewife and soon mother of 2 sons.
Lorrie Alfreda Dunnington-Grubb Town Planner/Gardner	Born England 1877 Died January 17,1945. She could perhaps be called a child of the British Empire as she grew up in India, South Africa and Australia. She studied garden design at Swanley Horticultural College in England and applied her trade throughout the Empire. After her marriage she and her husband emigrated to Canada in 1911. The two would work as individuals and at times as partners designing public gardens, town planning and suburban design in the Toronto area. She had a talent for encouraging other artists, such as sculptors, to include their works in public areas. She lectured at the University of Toronto on town planning and housing and she was a prolific writer on the subject of garden design. She is considered a true and extremely successful pioneer of the professional field of landscape architecture.
Diane Dupuy Famous People Players	Born Hamilton, Ontario 1948. As a youth she herself was a high schools drop out who has been labeled as a "slow learner" in 1974 she founded the Famous People Players, a professional black light theatre company that combines music with the size characters that pay tribute to the music and artistry of Famous people. The actors are developmentally challenged youth. The group was discovered by the famous entertainer Liberache who took them to Las Vegas to perform. They have been performing around the world ever since. Diane's artistic and humanitarian works have earned her numerous awards including several honorary degrees from universities, the 1981 Woman of the Year from the B'Nai B'rith Women, the Vanier Award and and appointment to the Order of Canada in 1982.Married and a mother of two daughters she is also the first Canadian to receive the Library of Congress Award. She has written to books, Throw your heart over the fence and Dare to dream: the story of the Famous People Players. (1988)
Sarah Emma Evelyn Edmonds Civil War Soldier	née Edmonson Born Magaguadavic, New Brunswick December 1841. Died September 4, 1898. As a youth she fled from her family home to escape an abusive father and an unwanted arranged marriage. To avoid detection she cut her hair wore pants to disguise herself as a man. Her ruse was so successful that she took the name of Franklin (Frank) Thompson and retained her ...err...his identity. After have earned a living as a Bible salesman in 1865 Frank joined the Union Army and was assigned as a nurse with the 2nd Michigan volunteers. Frank volunteered to be a spy for the Union army and with silver nitrate painted skin penetrated the enemy lines as a slave and sometimes a women. Injured after falling off a horse Frank chose to disappear to recover. Once healthy it was discovered Frank was considered a deserter so Sarah Emma Edmonds entered the war as a woman nurse. She would become one of the most famous and recognizable women to fight in the American Civil War. She would write her story in Nurse and spy in the Union Army (1865). In 1867 she married L. H. Seeye, a Canadian mechanic and eventually settled in La Porte, Texas to raise three children. She eventually sought and won a full army pension for both her identities. In 2004 the History Channel broadcast The Unsexing of Emma Edmonds.
Marjorie Fehr Inventor	Born Saskatoon, Saskatchewan 1961. She was forced to quite school after grade eight to help support her family. This did not stop her from learning and education herself. She started working as a chambermaid and has even worked as a butcher. She learned and then taught ballroom dancing. She is currently and inventor and is skilled in product development, production, marketing and sales. She has invented and developed an aroma therapy training for dogs. (see www.inventivewomen.com accessed September 20,2007.)
Rose Fortune Law Enforcement	Born Virginia, U.S.A. 1774 Died February 20, 1864. The daughter of a loyalist slave family they all immigrated to Nova Scotia in the 1780's. To ear money she worked as a baggage carrier, using a wheelbarrow to move luggage from the docks. Soon she expanded her business and covered the entire town and added a "wake Up' service so that clients would not miss their next ship. Eventually she appointed herself as a police officer in the town of Annapolis Royal. She imposed and enforced curfews and kept the wharves under control. She was the first woman to be a police officer in Canada. Today her descendants work in the trucking and hauling business.
Cynthia Adelaide Foster Social woman	née Davis. Born Hamilton, Ontario April 14, 1844. Died September 19, 1919. Her first marriage to a man who became the Mayor of Hamilton and a Member of Parliament ended when he deserted her. She moved herself to Ottawa where , while running a boarding house, she met and married George E. Foster, a temperance advocate and Conservative Member of Parliament. She was also a devoted temperance worker as was president of the Ontario Woman's Temperance Union from 1882-1888. and publisher of the WCTU Women's Journal for the Ottawa area. A devoted and hard worker for the causes she embraced she was first president of the Ottawa district board of management of the Victoria Order of Nurses. During the second world war she worked with the Womens Canadian Club of Ottawa and the Ottawa Valley Branch of the Canadian Red Cross. When she had spare time she enjoyed membership in the Humane Society, the Women's Historical Society, was president of the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire. There is no doubt that she also put energies into the political career of her husband who was Knighted in 1914 giving her the title of Lady Foster.
Ibola Szalai Grossman Holocaust Survivor	Born Hungary, December 10, 1916. Ibi is a self described ordinary woman. She is also a survivor. She survived attempts on her life. She survived the physical and mental horrors of the Hungarian Holocaust, she survived to escape to the “west”, she survived the obstacles of being a European immigrant Jew and she survived the chant to a new and foreign culture and way of life in Immigration to Canada. She did all of this after her husband, her mother, her father and her sisters died in the death camps. She survived to raise her son alone in Canada. She survived to tell her story in the hopes that the horrors will not happen again. Read her story in “Great Dames” [Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1997.]
Violet Irene Guymer Funeral Director	Born 1885. Died 1955. At the age of 33 with a family of 5 children to support she took over the undertaking business that had been started by her late husband in a small community in Manitoba. In August 1919 she received her Diploma in studies as a Funeral Director and Embalmer. January 16, 1922 she received her Manitoba Embalmers License and became the first Canadian woman Funeral Director.
Madeline Hinchey Researcher	née Tiennet. Born Toronto 1922 Died January 5, 2005. She had a successful career the the government of Canada in the National Research Council of Canada. She was the first woman to hold a number of senior management positions in the council including chairing the selection committee for Canada's first astronauts. She retired in 1984 as Secretary General to the National Research Council.
Dora Ridout Hood Book Dealer	Born Toronto, Ontario January 23, 1885. As a young widow with two children Dora supported herself by opening a small reading room in her house. She was one of the first book dealers in Toronto to specialize in 'out-of–print' Canadian books. The Dora Hood Book Room received royal warrant from Buckingham Palace to acquire Canadiana! She developed precise and profitable catalogue of Canadian books. After retiring from the Book Room she became an author herself producing two books
Mina Hubbard Adventurer / Explorer	née Benton. Born Bewdley, Ontario 1870. Died May 4, 1956. She began her working career as a teacher but soon found herself studying to be an nurse in New York State, U.S.A. It was while caring for a young journalist that she found romance Leonidas Hubbard Jr., assistant editor of the U.S. magazine Outing, married his nurse in 1901. In July 1903 Leonidas and a colleague became lost in the backwoods of what was then part of Quebec and he died of starvation. Mina took over the idea of her husbands exploration and on June 27, 1905 she set out in her husband's footsteps. She would write about her two months exploit in her book A woman's way through unknown Labrador. During her trip she recorded maps which were accepted by the American Geographical Society and the Geographical Society of Great Britain. Her mapping work provided details of Labrador and gave insight into the massive Caribou migrations. She eventually remarried and settled in England to raise her three children.
Clementina Fessenden	née Trenholme Born Kingsley Township, Lower Canada (Quebec) May 4, 1843. Died September 14, 1918. Shortly after her marriage in 1867 she was left a widow. She turned her loyalty for the British Empire into her work as organizing secretary of the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire. It was largely due to her efforts that May 24, originally celebrated as EMPIRE DAY was established as a holiday in Canada. It would have a change of name to Victoria Day. She wrote about this holiday in a pamphlet entitled. Our Union Jack: the genesis of Empire Day.
Molly Kool Sea Captain	Born Alma, New Brunswick February 23, 1916. She would learn and take to the ways of the sea from her father. She learned quickly and could repair an engine, run the winch, handle the lines and set sails as well as cook and sew canvas! She was a woman who became accomplished in a man's profession with courage and tenacity. She received a telegram on April 19, 1939 from Navigation School...she passed. She was the frist registered woman sea captain in North America and second ( to a woman in Russia) in the world! She would sail as a Sea Captain for five years before she married in 1944 and while she enjoyed sailing for pleasure she never worked for pay at sea again.
Olga Alexandrova Kulikovsky Russian Royality	(née Romanof) Born June 14, 1882. Died November 24, 1960.Grand Duchess of Russia and sister to Czar Nicholas. She was saved from being executed with the rest of the Russian Royal family in 1917 because she had decided to become a nurse and was working with the wounded. She and her husband narrowly escaped, first living in exile in Denmark, England and finally in 1948 they immigrated to Canada. Here she was a farmer's wife leading a very ordinary life compared to the lavish upbringing she had a young girl. She enjoyed painting and actually had a showing in of her art works in Toronto in the 1950's.
Jeannette Vivian Lavell Social/legal activist	(née Corbiere) Born Wikwemikong, Ontario June 21, 1942. A person "dedicated to the causes of native women for more than a quarter of a century, ...she is a courageous woman who fought to improve their plight and proved that one person's voice can make a difference" You can read about her fight for native women to retain their birth right of legal Native Status on the web site "Celebrating Women's Achievements" from the National Library of Canada.
Flores (Florence) Le Due Rodeo Star	née Grace Maude Bensell. Born Montevideo, Minnesota 1883. Died 1951. Imagine following your dream and running away to join the circus! She took the professional name of Flores La Due and never looked back! She had grown up on ranches in Minnesota and South Dakota and she knew how to ride horses. She joined a wild west show as a trick rider and roper. In 1909 she married a handsome cowboy, Guy Weadick, and the young couple performed and toured together throughout North America and Europe. She became World Champion Trick and Fancy Roper ( three times actually) at the first Calgary Stampede in 1912, which was produced by her husband. The couple eventually became semi retired ranchers , performing the circuit for part of the year and running their ranch in the Alberta foothills. She performed for some 31 years in total. In 2001 she was inducted into the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth , Texas, the only Canadian resident to date to receive this honour.
Susan Agnes Macdonald Wife of a Prime Minister	née Bernard. Baroness Macdonald of Earnscliffe. Born Jamaica August 24,1836. Died September 5, 1920. Brought up in Jamaica and England she came to Canada with her mother to live with her brother. It was through her brother, Hewitt, that she met the Canadian politician, Sir John A. Macdonald. The would marry on February 16, 1867. Canada's first "First Lady" was intelligent and curious about life but she had little patience for the social graces and duties of the wife of a Canadian Prime Minister. In 1886, following the completion of the Canadian pacific Railway the Macdonald's set of on a transcontinental rail trip. Consumed by the beauty of the Canadian Rockies, the 50 year old woman raised concerns from the crew when she enjoyed part of the trip wrapped in blankets and perched atop a candle box on the locomotive's cow catcher! The diaries she wrote, now preserved in Canada's National Archives, provide a fascinating view of the early years of Canadian Confederation. She and Sir John had one daughter.
Jane Mackenzie. Wife of a Prime Minister	(née Syms) Born March 22, 1825. Died March 30, 1893. She would become the second wife of Alexander Mackenzie, second Prime Minister of Canada. The Toronto Globe newspaper described her as "the best-known woman of Canada...and one of the most admired and respected." It was a role she did not really enjoy but she supported her husband and entertained all of Ottawa's politicians.
Marie-Joseph-Angélique. Slave	Born circa 1710 Baptized June 28, 1730. She was a black slave who had the misfortune to fall in love with a white man, Claude Thibault. They fled from Canada to New England. To mask their escape she set fire to her master's house. The fire burnt out of control and 46 homes were destroyed along with the famous Hotel Dieu. She was captured and sentenced to have her hand cut off and be burned alive. The sentence was changed to handing before her body was burned. Her ashes were scattered to the wind.
Mikak	Born Labrador circa 1740. Died 1795, A daughter of an Inuit Chief, Mikak lived with her husband and son in a small British fishing station when the settlement was raided and her husband was killed. The young widow learned to speak English from a British solder, Francis Lucas. She and her son went to England with Lucas. Here she was treated like the Inuit Princess that she was. She and her son had their portrait painted by the famous artist John Russell. In London she met Jens Haver, a Moravarian Missionary. She helped the missionary raise funds for a mission and in the summer of 1768 she returned to Labrador with Francis Lucas. When Jans Haven arrived in 1769 she helped establish the mission for which she had helped to raise funds from the British. She remarried to an Inuit hunter, Tugavina, and settled with her family in her homeland.
Letitia Munson Slave/healer	Born North Carolina, U.S.A. ca 1820 Died Ca 1882. Born a slave she was sent by her master to learn the art of healing to help other slaves and protect the investment of the master. By 1861 she had gained her freedom and was settled in Woodstock in Canada West. By 1870 she was a well established herbalist and fortune teller and her home was the place that many unwed women visited when they became pregnant. She became involved in a scandalous legal case where she was accused but acquitted of performing abortions. In her day orphanages did not accept illegitimate children and many women felt their choice was limited to visiting her home.
Sheila NaGiera Legendary pioneer	(Magella or MaGeila?) Is she real? Only the undiscovered foggy history of Newfoundland knows for sure. As oral history tells it, she may have been an O’Connor, the daughter of a claimant to the Irish Throne of Connaught. Oral traditions abound in tales of Newfoundland’s early Irish Princess. She is reputed to have come to Newfoundland in the early 1600’s and married one Gilbert Pike. The couple became planters and small business people in nearby Carbonnear Island in 1611. Were they indeed the first European couple to settle Newfoundland’s shores??? Check out The Beaver, February / March 2005 pages 44-45 at your Public Library.
Angelina Napolitano Convicted murderer.	Born near Naples, Italy 1883(?) Died after 1924. In 1909, Angelina and her husband emigrated to Canada fro Ital via New York City. The settled in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario. On April 16, 1911 she hugged her children good bye and went to jail. She had waited for the police. She had killed her abusive husband. In 1910 she had been disfigured when stabbed by her abusive husband. She saw no other way out for the safety of her children. He had tried to force her to prostitute herself to earn money to build a family house. She was convicted and sentenced to hang after the birth of the child she was expecting. A protest erupted following the conviction. Organizations from across North America and Britain. Feminist groups screamed 'self Defence'. On July 14, 1911 her sentence was commuted to life in prison. December 30, 1924 she was granted parole. She had kept in touch with her children but it is not known what happened after 1924. Her case was the beginning of recognition of a major problem of western civilization. Was she guilty. Yes, but in the modern millennium law and society would have provided at least alternative solution to her situation.
Laura Rose	Born Ontario. Born and raised in Ontario she was a school teacher who had experienced pioneer farm life while keeping house on her brother's farm in North Dakota. She was an honours graduate and then lecturer at the Farm Dairy School of the Ontario Agricultural School in Guelph. She conducted a traveling dairy in Nova Scotia and participated as judge of butter, bread, jam, fruit and fancy work at many rural fairs. She wrote and edited articles for farm publications. Her 300 page book Farm Dairying was used as a text in agricultural colleges. Shortly after the formation of the first Women's Institute, the Ontario Department of Agriculture engaged her as a lecturer and organizer of Women's Institutes. It was under her guidance that the British Columbia Women's institute began with the formation of the first fifteen institutes from Gorden Head on Vancouver Island to Cranbrook in the Kootenays in 1909. Her report to the B.C. Farmers' Institutes in 1910 indicates that her duties for the department had been to tour the province explaining to the women the aims and benefits of Institute association and then to help them with initial organization and election of officers. She returned to Ontario Department of Agriculture and by 1913 had married F. W. Stephen.
Anna Haining Swan. Tallest Woman	Born Mill Brook, Nova Scotia August 7, 1846. Died August 5, 1888. Standing some 228 cm (7’6”) Anna earned an amazing 1000.00$ a month working in the P. T. Barnum American Museum in New York. The giantess was a star attraction. When the Museum burned in 1865 it took 15 men with a block and tackle to rescue her. (She weighted 352 lbs.) She married Martin Bates a
Tookoolito Inuit guide and translator	Born Cumberland Sound Baffin Island 1838. Died December 31, 1876. She was recorded in history with several names: Hannah, Taqulittuq, Tackritow. She made contact with some artic explorers/adventurers and became a teacher and interpreter both of Inuit languages and of a way of life and survival. She became fluent in the English language and could also read and write in English. She embraced Christianity adding it to the guidance of her Inuit beliefs and teachings. She and her husband Ipirvik, also known as Joe, would sail to England on a whaler and there, be presented to Queen Victoria. They would live for several months on a couple of occasions in the U S A where they would help raise funds with the explorer/adventurer, Charles Hall to continue his explorations in search of the lost Franklin expedition and the North Pole. In October 15, 1872 she, her husband, adopted daughter Punny and sixteen others fro the Polaris Expedition became separated from their ship. They would spend 6 1/2 months on a large ice floe surviving a 1,500 mile journey in Artic waters until rescued on April 30, 1873 near the coast of Labrador. In 1981, Canada's Historic Sites and Monuments Board, designated Tookoolito and Ipirvik, National Historic Persons.
Katherine MacLean Wood. Air Traffic Controller	Born Dunbarton, Scotland 1911. Died December 27, 2004. She emigrated to Canada with her family in 1930. She would become Canada's firs female Air Traffic Controller.
Rachel Zimmerman Inventor	Born London, Ontario 1972. This inventor began her career when she was only twelve year old. She was a Girl Guide who loved science and did well in school. She was challenged by the idea of entering a project in the School Science Fair. Her mother , who owned a computer software company, had taught Rachel about computer programming. She developed a computer program which uses Blissymbols. These are the symbols which allow people who have disabilities and cannot speak to communicate by pointing to specific symbols on a pare or board. Using a touch-sensitive board connected to a computer the the Bliss symbols are recognized and the message is translated and shown on the computer monitor. Rachel and he project won not only at her school but at the District Science Fair and she represented Canada at the 1985 World Exhibition of Achievement of Young Inventors in Bulgaria!! She is also the winner of a YTV Achievement Award for Innovation. The system can now be used in many different languages and voice output has been added. After high school Rachel studied at Brandeis University in the United States and at the International Apace University in France. She has worked for both the Canadian Space Agency and for NASA. She is currently following a career in education at Caltech in California. In 2002 she married Scott Brachman and the couple live in California.

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