Hilda Gwendolyn (Gwandolepie) Strike - Sisson. 
Born September 1, 1910, Montreal, Quebec. Died March 9, 1989 Ottawa, Ontario. An avid participant in almost every sport at high school Hilda was encouraged to join the Canadian Ladies Athletic Club. In February 1930, Hilda Strike took part in a track and field meet at the Coliseum in Toronto. In company with Myrtle Cook (1902-1985), Louise Jeffreys and Lillian May, Hilda was part of the 1st Québec women's team in a domestic Canadian track and field championship. Between 1929 and 1932 she earned a total of 30 medals in various North American competitions.  In July 1932 she participated in the Canadian track and field championships in Hamilton, Ontario. For the 1st time in Canadian history, all provinces sent female delegates to this event whose results would determine the composition of the national Olympic team in Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.  At the Olympic Games, on August 2, 1932,  she won Olympic silver in a photo finish with another athlete, Stanislawa Walasiewicz, a Polish athlete also known as Stella Walsh (1911-1980). Upon the death of Walsh, an autopsy showed that Walsh had male genitalia and was intersex, a relatively rare but normal for of human biology. Many argued that the gold medal should have been awarded to Hilda. On August 7, 1932 Hilda won silver as part of the relay team with Mildred Frizzell, Mary Frizzell and Lillian Palmer. Hilda was named Canada’s top female athlete by the Women’s Amateur Athletic Federation of Canada and in December 1932 Hilda became the 1st woman selected for the Norton H. Crowe Memorial.  In 1933 she and former Olympian Myrtle Cook-McGowan (1902-1985) founded the Mercury Athletic Club of Montreal and began her training for the British Empire Games. That year she was second behind golfer Ada Mackenzie (1891-1973) in the 1st ever Canadian Press vote for Canada’s female athlete of the year (now the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award). At the 1934 British Empire Games she won the silver medal in the 100 yard event and was a member of the relay team with Aileen Meagher (1910-1987) and Audrey Dearnley (1910-1987) , winning the silver medal in the 110-220-110 yards event.  The following year she married Frederick Sisson and retired from competition. In 1964 she was inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame and in 1972 Hilda became a member of the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame.

Margaret Yvonne De Carlo. 
née Middleton. Born September 1,1922 West Point Grey (now Vancouver), British Columbia. Died January 8, 2007, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.. Her mother was Marie De Carlo who was an aspiring actor. Her father abandoned the family when Yvonne was Three years old and she went to live with her grandparents. At ten she and her mother were in Hollywood, California, U.S.A. and she began dance school until their visas expired and they returned to Vancouver. Mother and daughter made many trips to Los Angeles where Yvonne entered beauty pageants.  In 1941 with dancer and showman Nils Granlund pledging his sponsorship and offer of steady work Yvonne was back in the U.S.A. Within the year she quite dancing and landed her 1st movie role in Harvard, Here I Come. She never looked back and had sang, danced, and acted her way through 95 movie roles during her career. Television roles were also numerous on westerns Bonanza and The Virginian, but she perhaps left her most distinctive mark as Lily on the TV hit show The Munsters. In 1957 she earned a Box Office Blue Ribbon Award for her role in the Ten Commandments and again in 1964 for McLintock. In 1960 she was awarded two stars, one for movies and one for TV, on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Yvonne had a daughter from her 1st marriage and she married for a second time Bruce Ross in 1955. The couple had two sons, they divorced in 1974. In 1987 she won the Fantafestival Award as Best Actress in American Gothic.

Gwendolyn MacEwen.  
Born September 1, 1941 Toronto, Ontario. Died November 29, 1987 Toronto, Ontario. Gwendolyn had her 1st poem published in the Canadian Forum magazine when she was just 17 years old and at 18 she had written her 1st novel Julian the Magician. At 20 she produced her 1st complete book of poetry, The Drunken Clock. Along with poetry and novels she also wrote numerous radio docudramas for the CBC. In 1969 her poetry book, The Shadow Maker, won the Governor General's Award.  In 1972 she opened a coffee house with her 2nd husband Nikos Tsingos and in 1973 she won the A. J. M. Smith Poetry Award. In 1983 she won the Borestone Mountain Poetry Award, the CBC Literary Competition, and the Du Maurier Awards gold and silver for poetry.  In 1985 she became Writer-In-Residence at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario and went on to the University of Toronto as Writer-In-Residence for 1986-1987. That same year she won her second Governor General’s Award posthumously. An accomplished linguist she taught herself to read Hebrew, Arabic, Greek, and French using her skills to translate writers from each of these languages. Her own original works have been translated into numerous foreign languages including French, German, and Italian. In 1995 Rosemary Sullivan published, Shadow Maker: the Life of Gwendolyn MacEwen which won the Governor General’s Award for non-fiction. In 1994 the former Walmer Road Park in the Annex neighbourhood of Toronto was renamed Gwendolyn MacEwen Park in her honor and in September 2006 a bronze bust of the writer by sculptor John McCombe Reynolds was unveiled in the park. A one-woman play by Linda Griffiths, Alien Creature: A Visitation from Gwendolyn MacEwen, won the Dora Mavor Moore Award and the Chalmers Award in 2000. Sources: The Canadian Encyclopedia Online

Dorothy Stevens. 
Born Toronto, Ontario September 2, 1888. Died June 5, 1966 Toronto, Ontario. This portrait and figure painter studied in London, England in 1904 and Paris, France at the Académie Colarossi and the Académie de la grand Chaumére. Dorothy returned to Canada in 1911 to begin her art career. She joined the Chicago Society of Etchers.  Her early works were etchings and later she was known for her oils and pastel portraits of women in Toronto, Mexico, and the West Indies. She is also known for prints of factory workers during World War l 1914-1918. The prints were sold to raise money for the war effort. She taught children’s art classes for 15 years in Toronto but, may have been better remembered as throwing the best parties in the city of Toronto! During world War ll 1939-1945 she  arranged dances for soldiers to raise money for the war effort. In 1949 she was elected as a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. Dorothy had shows of her works throughout North America, the United Kingdom and Paris France. Some of her works are held at the Art Gallery of Alberta, the Art Gallery of Ontario and the National Gallery of Canada. (2019)

Isabel Constance Mary Stanley.
Lady Stanley. Born September 2, 1875, United Kingdom. Died December 30 1963, London United Kingdom. Isabel was the daughter of Lord Stanley, Governor General to Canada, the gentleman of the Stanley Cup fame. The family saw a game of ice hockey in Quebec and Isobel became enthusiastic about the sport. She helped popularize hockey in Canada. She is one of the first women to be photographed with a hockey stick and puck in the 1890’s. The first recorded women’s hockey game was on March 8, 1899. The game was reported in the Ottawa Evening Journal as being between the Government House team and the Rideau Ladies team. The women found their longer skirts handy in stopping the puck! In 1898 Isobel married Sir John Francis Gathome-Hardy and the couple had on daughter, Elizabeth (1904-1958) In hockey the Isobel Gathome-Hardy Award is presented to an active player whose values, leadership and personal traits represent the best of the female athletes. At one time Isobel held the office of Woman of the Bedchamber to Her Majesty Queen Mary. She was invested as Dame Commander, Royal Victorian Order (D. C. V. O.). Sources: The peerage online .(accessed June 2011); Women in Ottawa: Mentors and milestones (accessed June 2011).

Norma Ford - Walker.
née Ford. Born September 3, 1893, St Thomas, Ontario. Died August 9, 1968, Toronto, Ontario. In 1914 Norma entered the University of Toronto and by 1923 she had earned her PhD. She was an instructor at the University of Toronto and became a full professor of Human Genetics. After her marriage in 1943 to Dr. Edmond Merton Walker she she remained dedicated to her career.  In 1947 she was the founder and Director of the Department of Genetics a the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. She forged a research tradition that served as the basis for further developments in medical genetics in Toronto and educated a generation of students, many of whom were women, who  went on to populate and then institutionalize the growing science and practice of medical genetics in Canada. She was a charter member of both the Genetics Society of Canada and  the American Society of Human Genetics. She was trustee of the Queen Elizabeth Fund for Research in Children's Diseases. In 1958 she was elected Fellow, Royal Society of Canada. online has  a biography of this great Canadian.  Source: Canadian encyclopedia online. (2020)

Amanda Lynn Mayhew.  
Born Manitouwadge, Ontario September 3 1974. As a youth, Amanda had a thyroid condition that resulted in looking like a bean pole and then her condition switched and resulted in excessive weight gain. To combat her health issues she become motivated not only to keep fit herself but to help others to keep fit and healthy. She turned to establishing a web site to answer all the questions she was receiving. With a few years she founded Fytness Fanatk magazine that runs with no commercial advertising and uses real people and real stories. Her career as an editor of the magazine run concurrent with her career as a successful model. She lives with her husband and three sons in Waterloo, Ontario.  

Isabella Preston. 
Born September 4, 1881 Lancaster, England. Died January 31, 1965 Georgetown, Ontario. Isabella immigrated to Ontario in 1912 where the following year she enrolled in the Ontario Agricultural College. She soon left the classroom to conduct practical work with Professor J. W. Crow. By 1916 she was the 1st woman professional hybridist in Canada and had produced the new ‘George C. Creelman’ Lily. Creelman (1869-1929) was an educator at Guelph Ontario Agricultural College, and a staunch supporter of education for women. In 1920 she had joined the staff of the Central Experimental Farm (CEF) in Ottawa in its Horticultural Division. She remained with the CEF until her retirement in 1946. She is credited with originating some 200 hybrids, mainly lilacs, roses, Siberian iris and lilies. She authored numerous horticultural articles and her 1st book Garden Lilies appeared in 1929. Her colleagues acknowledged her as the “Dean of Canadian Hybridists.” She earned the Veitch Memorial Medal in Gold from the Royal Horticultural Society, London, England in 1938. In 1947 she was awarded the Jackson Dawson Medal from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, U.S.A.  In 1950 she once again obtain an awarded the Lytell Cup, from the Lilly Committee of the Royal Horticultural Society.  In 1961 she was presented with the E. H. Wilson Memorial Award from the North American Society.  She also held numerous awards from various Canadian Horticultural societies across the country. In 1956, the North American Lily Society established the “Isabella Preston Trophy”, still awarded for best stalk in the show. In 1982 the CEF was presented with an award from the International Lilac Society for developing lilac cultivars and educating the public on the beauty and use of Lilacs no doubt this is yet another part of the living legacy of Isabella Preston. An excursion to see the lilacs at the C E F is part of a spring ritual for many who live in Ottawa. Sources: The Canadian Encyclopedia online ; ‘Isabella Preston’, Friends of the Farm Online.

Catherine Bennett. 
Born September 4, 1920, Regina Saskatchewan. Catherine enjoyed playing baseball and was scouted for the All American Girls Baseball League (AAGPBL) in 1942. She played with the Kenosha Comets in 1943 and in 1944 for the South Bend Blue Sox. The AAGPBL women were coached on and off the ball field. Charm school was a part of spring training camp. They wore a one piece short skirted uniform with knee socks, baseball shoes and caps during a grueling playing schedule. In 1988 the AAGBL was inducted into the Cooperstown Baseball Hall of Fame. In 1992, director, Penny Marshall, told their story in the film A League of Their Own. In 1998 the women were inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. Source: AAGPBL online (accessed February 2014); Obituary 2018.

May Cutler.
née Ebbitt. Born September 4, 1923, Montreal, Quebec. Died March 3, 2011, Montreal, Quebec. May graduated with a Bachelor of Arts then a Master of Arts from McGill University, Montreal.  After she earned a second master's degree in journalism from Columbia University, New York City, U.S.A. she worked for the United Nations in New York. Returning to Canada she became a reporter for the Montreal Herald and also wrote for the Montreal Standard. She was the second woman hired by the Canadian Press news agency.  In 1953 May married labour lawyer Phil Cutler (died 1987) and the couple had four sons. She joined the faculty of McGill University and founded the three year program for journalism. In 1967, using money from her biographical novella The Last Noble Savage, she founded Tundra Books in her home becoming the first Canadian woman publisher of children's books. She would own and operate Tundra books for almost three decades publishing works of writers and artists she sought to produce children's books. Some of her own works were published under her maiden name.She penned a musical, two theatrical plays and the biography of William Kurelek called Breaking Free.  In 1987 she ran for a position of mayor in Westmount  and became the first woman mayor of the city. She did not run for re-election in 1991. In 1998 she sold Tundra Books to McClelland and Stewart Publishing. In 2020 she took her dream trip traveling to Antarctica. Source: May Cutler, Founder of Tundra Books, Dies at 87. Toronto Star March 4, 2011 online (accessed 2022)

Lydia Emilie 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.

Francoise Aubut-Platte. 
née Aubut. Born September 5, 1922, St-Jérome, Quebec. Died October 8, 1984, Montreal, Quebec. A renowned organist and educator, Francoise began to learn piano when she was about 6 years old. She gave her 1st recital on August 23, 1936 at St-Stanislas Church, Montreal, Quebec. That same year she was awarded an organ diploma from the Schola cantorum, playing from memory Bach's six trio sonatas. She studied at the New England Conservatory, Boston, U.S.A., Conservatoire national de Montréal and at the Paris Conservatory in France. During World War ll she was interned in Besancon following the Battle for France  where she was the 1st North American to win the Grand Premier Prix in Music. After the war she returned to Canada and performed many recitals winning respect as an interpreter and improviser in her music. From 1955 through 1965 she took part in numerous seminars and conferences in Europe including performing at the Brussels Worlds Fair in 1958. In 1961 she also received the Prix de Musique Calixa Lavallée. In 1967 she performed at Canada’s Expo ‘67 held in Montreal. She taught at the Université de Montréal, the Conservatoire de Musique et d’art dramatique du Québec and the Ecole Vincent-d’Indy. Sources: The Encyclopedia of Canada. (Hurtig, 1986)  

Juliette Kang.  
Born September 6, 1975, Edmonton, Alberta. Juliette began studying the violin at the age of 4! As a child prodigy she was a student of James Keene, a concertmaster of the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and she made her concerto debut in Montreal at the age of seven! At age nine, she was accepted as a violin student on scholarship at the Curtis Institute and became a student of Jascha Brodsky. By age 11, Juliette had garnered international attention, winning top prizes at the 1986 Beijing International Youth Violin Competition in China. In 1989, at age 13, Kang became the youngest artist to win the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York. She attended university and holds a masters degree from the famous Julliard School of Music, New York City, U.S.A. in 1993. She was a winner of the 1989 Young Concert Artists Auditions, and she subsequently received 1st prize at the Menuhin Violin Competition of Paris in 1992. She has played with the most prestigious orchestras of Europe and North America. A CD was made of her Carnegie Hall recital in 1996. She joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra and then moved to the Philadelphia Orchestra where she as served as assistant concertmaster from 2003-2005 after which she held the position of 1st associate concertmaster. She is married and has two daughters.  Sources: The Canadian Encyclopedia. Online (Accessed 2005): The Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra. Online Accessed 2005)

Martha Gardner-Billes. 
Born September 7. She studied sciences at the University of Toronto but had more of an interest in business. She has worked her way to become the Chief Executive Officer of Canadian Tire. She is also married and has one son. In 1996 she was the Entrepreneur of the Year. In 1997 she bought out her two brothers from the family business. She envisions future beyond her native Canada with perhaps expansion to China and South America. She received an honourary doctorate from Ryerson University in 2002.  Dr. Billes has striven for the creation of, and is the Chairman of, the Canadian Tire Foundation for Families, an organization that is dedicated to helping families in times of crisis. She is a trustee of the Calgary Emergency Women’s Shelter Endowment Fund and has also served as a member of Sunnybrook Medical Centre Foundation. She has served on the boards of several other public corporations. Dr. Billes is the Honourary Consul Emeritus, Southern Alberta region, for the Republic of Chile. A firm believer in encouraging entrepreneurship and in 1996 through 1998 she has been a judge, Entrepreneur of the Year, Prairie Region; in 2001, Ontario Region; and in 1998, a National Judge, Entrepreneur of the Year. When she is not working, Dr. Billes enjoys theatre, gardening and bicycling. Not unexpectedly, she is also an accomplished handyman.

Beverly McLachlin. 
née Gietz. Born September 7, 1943 at Pincher Creek, Alberta. She studied philosophy and law at the University of Alberta where she earned the Gold Medal as top student. She was called to the Bar in 1969 in Alberta and in 1971 in British Columbia. She also taught at the University of British Columbia from1974-1981 and became the 1st woman judge in the B.C. County Court. Beverly was appointed to the Supreme Court of British Columbia in 1981 and became Chief Justice of the province in 1988. Shortly thereafter  in March 1989 she was appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada. She became the 1st woman and 17th Chief Justice of the Canadian Supreme Court on January 7, 2000. She is the official Deputy Governor General. She is also Chairperson of the Advisory Council for the Order of Canada and a member of the Privy Council of Canada. She and her husband Roderick had one son. Widowed in 1988, and remarried Frank McCerdle in 1992. She has taken strong stand on free speech and established a reputation for independent thinking. Image Canadian Famous Canadian Women

Barbara Frum. 
née Roseberg. Born September 8, 1937, Niagara Falls, New York, U.S.A. Died March 26, 1992, Toronto, Ontario.  Barbara grew up in Niagara Falls, Ontario where her father had his business. She married Murray Frum, a dentist and later a real estate developer in 1957 while she was studying at University. She graduated with a degree in history from the University of Toronto in 1959. She and Murray would have two children and adopted a son during the 1960’s. She worked as a freelance journalist with her writings being accepted by the Toronto Star, the Toronto Globe and Mail and Saturday Night Magazine. In 1971 she began work as an on air journalist with the CBC Radio. For ten years, ending in 1981, she provided interviews with international personalities on the popular radio newsmagazine show As It Happens. In 1975 she was presented with the National Press Club of Canada Award for outstanding contribution to Canadian Journalism. On December 17, 1979 she was inducted into the Order of Canada. From 1982 until her death she hosted CBC television’s The Journal, a nightly current-affairs program. She was the inspiration for Canadian Sesame Street character, Barbara Plumb and she ever portrayed herself as the reporter Barbara LaFrum on the Canadian cartoon show The Raccoons. You know that you have made it when you have become a puppet, a cartoon character, and when you have been parodies on the Canadian TV show CODCO! She died for m chronic leukemia which although it had been diagnosed in the 1970’s had been kept a secret even from her children until the final years. After her death there were numerous tributes. In 1993 the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television awarded her the John Drainie Award for Distinguished Contributions to Broadcasting and that same year the new CBC building, in downtown Toronto, dedicated the Barbara Frum Atrium. The Toronto Public Libraries dedicated a branch library which contains a commemorative sculpture of Barbara. There is also an annual Barbara Frum Lecture co-sponsored by the Department of History, University of Toronto and the CBC. In 1996, her daughter Linda Frum, published Barbara Frum: a Daughter’s Memoir. In 1999 Canada Post issued a commemorative stamp in her honour in the Canada Millennium series. Stamp image used with permission from Canada Post

Carmen Campagne. 
Born September 8, 1959, Willow Bunch, Saskatchewan. Died July 4, 2018, Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, Quebec. Carmen was a singer and children's entertainer. She loved working with children and chose to be a kindergarten teacher prior to being a folk singer and composer. In the 1970’s she was a member of the folk music band Folle Avoine. She relocated to Quebec and releases several French-language albums. She, along with her sister-in-law, Connie Kaldor, received a Juno Award at the 1989 in the category Best Children's Album for Lullaby Berceuse. Her use of own compositions and traditional folk songs encouraged young Francophone to discover their heritage, and helped young Anglophones to learn the French language. She would also win four Felix Awards and a Parents' Choice Award in the United States. Along with her brother and sisters and her former bandmates she continued to entertain with the folk band Hart-Rouge. In 2003 she returned to her home province to be closer to her family. In 2013, she was made a Member of the Order of Canada "for her contributions as a singer, songwriter and composer enhancing music for young children and using music in French-language education". She had taken some time off from entertaining when she once again taught kindergarten. In 2014 she returned to performing.

Margaret-Ann Armour. 
Born September 6, 1939 Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom. Died May 25, 2019, Edmonton, Alberta. Margaret-Ann earned her Bachelor and Masters Degrees from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. She worked for five years as a research chemist in the papermaking industry prior to attending the University of Alberta where she earned her Doctorate in 1970. In 1979 she was hired as an assistant Chair of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Alberta. She was one of only a few women instructors at the Faculty of Science at the university. In 1982 she worked on a committee to increase the number of women in Sciences. She became the co-founder of Women in Scholarship, Engineering, Science, and Technology.  and spent decades as an ambassador for women in the sciences. She helped launched STEM which encourages women in roles in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. She endeared herself to hundreds of students during her career. She was inducted into the order of Canada in 2006. She was a #M teaching Fellow, earned the Governor General's Award in Commemoration of the People's Case, and the Chemical Institute of Canada Medal. In 2007 she was named Champion of Public Education by the Learning Partnership and earned the Alberta Science and Technical Leadership Awards Foundation Award. In September 2016 the 600 student Dr. Margaret Ann Armour School opened in Edmonton, Alberta. In 2017 she was an ambassador for Canada 15.

Alison Sydor. 
Born September 9, 1966, Edmonton, Alberta. A graduate of the University of Victoria in British Columbia she has also found time for her love of sport, especially riding her mountain bike. She is considered one of Canada's most accomplished women mountain biker and a tough competitive athlete. Alison has dominated her sport both at the national and international level with gold medals in World championships in 1994, 1995, and 2002. She places second at the world level championships in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2003. In 1996 she won silver at the Olympics as was the Canadian Press Female Athlete of the Year and World Cyclist of the year from the Velo News. In 1998 she ran the last part of a race with her broken bicycle on her back to cross the finish line! Today she works for her sport through a kids ride program in North Vancouver.

Madeleine Rachelle 'Mimi' Matte. 
née Matte. Born September 10, 1929 Regina, Saskatchewan. Died October 2012 Toronto, Ontario  She married James 'Jim' Packham (1930-2003) in 1952, a little less than a year after she had received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from McGill University in Montreal. The couple had two daughters. A commercial artist, Mimi began exhibiting her works only in 1974. She has had group and solo showing across North America. Several renowned collections house her works including: Imperial Oil: Shell Oil: Marcil Trust: and Westin Hotels. The incentive for her works comes from anywhere, even an over heard snippet of conversations. She applies bright colours and provides a distinctive presentation of her ideas and subjects. Source: Canadian who’s who (Toronto:  University of Toronto Press, 2005) 

Margaret Joan Trudeau. 
née Sinclair. Born September 10,1948 Vancouver, British Columbia. She studied English literature at Simon Fraser University. At 18, while vacationing in Tahiti she met the then Justice Minister of Canada, Pierre Elliott Trudeau (1919-2000). She barley took notice of the encounter but Pierre Trudeau had noticed. Much to the surprise of the entire nation the couple were married in a private ceremony on March 4, 1971. He was serving, at this time, as the 15th Prime Minister of Canada (1968-1979 & 1980-1984).  Margaret declared “I want to be more than a rose in my husband’s lapel.” The couple would live in a tightly scrutinized bubble. They had three children together but there were problems on the home front. In 1977 the couple separated and Margaret with her jet setting ways became an embarrassment and a liability. She gave many "tell-all" interviews to Canadian and American magazines and appeared in two motion pictures. She was reported to have had affairs with celebrities and danced in a New York City club the night her husband lost an election. In 1984 the couple divorced with Pierre retaining custody of their three sons. Shortly after the divorce Margaret married Fried Kempler in 1984 and the couple had two children. While she lived a quiet life she did become Honorary President of WaterCan, an Ottawa-based organization dedicated to helping the poorest communities in developing countries build sustainable water supply and sanitation services. In November 1998 Michael Trudeau, the youngest of the Trudeau boys died in an avalanche near Kokanee Lake, British Columbia. The following year her second marriage had failed and she became divorced. In 2000 she was at Pierre’s side when he died. Even though they were divorced the love had remained. The shock of these last events close to one another caused a breakdown for Margaret. In 2006. She announced that she had been suffering from bipolar disorder. Since then, she has advocated for reduced stigma of mental illness — bipolar disorder in particular — with speaking engagements across North America. She wrote Changing My Mind, a book about her personal experience having bipolar disorder, published by HarperCollins Canada in 2010.

Daphne Odjig. 
Born September 11, 1919, Wikwemikong, Manitoulin Island, Ontario.  Died October 1, 2016, Kelowna, British Columbia. This artist draws on her Potawatomi native heritage for her inner artistic strength and credits her grandfather Jonas for nurturing her spirit as a child. Daphne moved to Ottawa for formal art training and continued her education in Sweden. During World War II, she relocated to Toronto for work and there she met her first husband, Paul Somerville (d 1962) . Paul was moved to the West Coast for military duty and this is where Daphne raised their two sons. It was only once her sons where in school that Daphne found time to devote to painting. In the 1960’s her sister encouraged her to paint scenes from Manitoulin Island mythology and Daphne produced several childrens books based on Ojibwa culture. In 1962 she married Chester Beavon and the couple settled in northern Manitoba. In 1972 exhibited her works in Winnipeg, the 1st time that Native artists were featured in an Art Gallery.  Her own works have been exhibited in Europe, Israel, and Japan. She painted a large mural at the national Arts Center in Ottawa. In 1973 she was a founding member of the Professional Native Indian Artists Association. In 1987 she was made a Member of the Order of Canada and two years later she was elected to the Royal Academy of Art. In 1992 she received the Commemorative Medal for the 125th Anniversary of Confederation. In 1998 she won a National Aboriginal Achievement Award. She has also published her memoirs Paintbrush in My Hand published in 1993. One of her paintings was used for Canada's Christmas stamp in 2002. In 2007 she received the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts and was made a Member of the Order of British Columbia. In February 2011 Canada Post again chose some of her art works to appear on Canadian Stamps. Sources: The Canadian Encyclopedia Online. Accessed 2002) Updated 2015. Daphne Odjig: The Art History Archive. Online (accessed October 2015)  photograph Canada Post Corporation. Used with permission

Hilda Ranscombe. 
Born September 11, 1913, Doon, Ontario (now Kitchener-Waterloo) Died August 25, 1998 /1999, Cambridge, Ontario. Hilda and her sister loved to participate in sports. They played softball, tennis and in winter, hockey. Hilda played for the Preston Rivulettes women hockey team. The team played on the frozen grand river. She and her sister Nellie where among the 1st members of the team and Hilda was the team captain.  The team had a record of 350 to 2 recorded games. They won 6 Dominion championships and 10 Ontario and Quebec titles. In the 1930’s they were described as the greatest female hockey players in the world. As an adult she sold real estate for a career. In 1996 she was inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame. Before her death she donated all of her equipment to the Hockey Hall of Fame. In 1997 she was inducted into the Cambridge Hall of Fame, Ontario. In May 1998 she was inducted into the World’s Women’s Hockey Hall of Fame in the pioneer player category as well as the Cambridge Sports Hall of Fame, Cambridge, Ontario. In 1999 she was named female athlete of the 20th Century by the Cambridge Hall of Fame. In 2015 Tracey Power penned the play Glory depicting the Rivulettes team in action December 2017 the Government of Canada placed an historic plaques in honour of the accomplishments of the Rivulettes Preston’s main arena. The team’s story is told by Carly Adams in Queens of the ice lanes: the Preston Rivulettes and women’s hockey in Canada 1931-1940. 

Rose Marie Reid. 
née Yancey. Born September 12, 1906 Cardston, Alberta. Died November 18, 1978 Provo, Utah, U.S.A. November 30, 1935 she married Jack Crossman Reid. The couple had three children. This mother and homemaker was asked by her husband in the 1930’s to make him a new swim suit that was not itchy like the regular woolen suits of the day. Rose Marie cut an outfit from an old water resistant coat and provided a lace for a snug fit. Everyone wanted one! Mr. Reid soon approached a local department store and the reluctant Rose Marie began a lifetime entrepreneurial journey. Her swimwear designing business opened in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1936 under the name Reid’s Holiday Togs. Her marriage turned abusive and she divorced Jack in April 1946 and relocated her family to California. September 20, 1946, Rose Marie launched her American business and lived in her factory until she was able to purchase a home in 1949. She entered the fashion world of women’s bathing suits changing women’s swim gear on an international scale. She was the 1st designer to incorporate foundation garments into her swimsuits. Hollywood embraced her designs and it is said the Marilyn Monroe credited Reid’s designs for her success as a pin up girl. In 1958, she was awarded the Sporting Look of the Year Award by Sports Illustrated  and in 1955 she was named one of the Ten Women of the Year by the Los Angeles Times. While she didn't win, she was also nominated for Designer of the Year in 1956 by Sports Illustrated. Rose Marie kept personally in touch with the designing of her swim suit lines until the business was taken over in 1968. By then the bikini was taking on the ladies swimsuit fashion and the small two piece suits were not of her liking. Rose Marie was the 1st woman in the U.S.A. to log 500,000 flight miles while visiting her sales offices across the country and overseas.  Her legacy of changing the fashions for several decades still remains and her name line still continues to sell among modest bathers. Rose Marie also helped with many fundraising efforts for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, including fundraising for the construction of church buildings and the Los Angeles Temple in 1954. She was also a very generous benefactor to Brigham Young University and served on the National Advisory Council. Source: Julie Gedeon, Succeeding in swimwear, The Beaver August/September 2007pg. 13;  Carole Reid Bar, Rose Marie Reid: an Extraordinary Life Story ( American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications, 1995;

Florence Daly Thompson. 
née Lucas. Born September 13, 1865, Hitchin, England. Died August 4, 1915, Winnipeg, Manitoba. The oldest of ten children Florence emigrated from England with her family in 1892. Well educated, she was also an accomplished artist. She married William Henry in 1892 but continued to work for pay outside the home. Before World War 1 (1914-1918) it was quite unusual for women to work for salary after they were married. She was a successful and published science researcher and in 1905 was appointed as a founding librarian at the University of Manitoba. In the summer of 1910 she attended library school at McGill University to improve her professional skills. Her pay as a librarian was under $900.00 per annum. Her immediate replacement after her death had the status of an assistant professor and he was paid $2000.00 per annum! In addition to her job she was a busy lecturer in the local arts community of Winnipeg, a charter member of the Women's Canadian Club and an honourary member of the University Women's Club. (D C B)

Reva Potashin.
Born September 13, 1921, Toronto, Ontario. Died September 15, 2013, Vancouver, British Columbia. Reva excelled at school recalling receiving two jellybeans for her reading in grade 1. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Toronto in 1943 followed by her Master's degree in 1944 and a PhD in 1951. In 1951 she taught for a year at the University of Saskatchewan and published a book Personality and Sociometric Status while working on her PhD. From 1952 through to retirement in 1986 she taught at the University of British Columbia (UBC). She was a pioneer in the area of children’s group dynamics. She found that children with friends were more readily accepted at school than those without friends.  She was outspoken on the inequality between women and men who were professors and waited many years to see the pay become equal. Upon retirement in 1986 she became Professor Emerita at UBC. Source: Laurin Joly , Obituary Vancouver Sun, September 18, 2013. (2020)

Marjorie Lowry Christie Picktall. 
Born September 14, 1883, Gunnersburg, London, England. Died April 19, 1922, Vancouver, British Columbia. Marjorie started writing poems at the age of seven. She knew from this early age that she wanted to be a writer and illustrator of books. In 1890 her family relocated to Toronto, Ontario. In 1898 she was attending Bishop Strachan School. That same year she sold her 1st story, Two Ears, to the newspaper the Toronto Globe for $3.00. The story won for her a writing competition sponsored by the newspaper the Toronto Mail and Empire, newspaper. She would continue to contribute to both newspapers as well as various Canadian magazines and journals. In 1900 she once again won the Mail and Empire’s writing contest with the poem O keep the World for Ever at the Dawn. By 1905 she had hired a New York Agent and was having her writings published in U.S. magazines. With the death of her mother in 1910 she worked at the library at Victoria College, University of Toronto to help with the family finances. She was forced to leave her job due to ill health in 1912. Travelling to England she wrote an historical novel she called Poursuite Joyeuse which would be published in 1915 under the English title Little Hearts. While in England she wanted to contribute to the World War l effort by training as an automobile mechanic but she was not accepted for the job and accepted a position as secretary and assistant librarian. On May 22, 1920 she sailed back to Canada to settle in British Columbia. She worked on a collection of poetry and short stories which were published after her death. She had during her career written over 200 short stories and 100 poems, three novels and three children’s books. Submitted by Jeanne Ouellette, Ottawa, Ontario. (2020)

Cecile Elaine Eustance Smith-Hedstrom. 
Born September 14, 1908 Toronto, Ontario. Died November 9, 1997 Toronto, Ontario. Cecile learned to ice skate at the Toronto Skating Club. In 1923 she placed second in the Ladies Singles in Canada. That same event she and partner Melville Roger (1899-1973) placed third in the pairs event At 15 she represented Canada at the 1924 Olympic Games becoming the 1st Canadian woman to participate in the Olympic Games. She placed 6th in the ladies singles and in the pairs she placed seventh. She went on to win the Canadian Ladies titles in 1925 and 1926. She placed second in the national events in 1927, 1929, 1931 and 1933. Again representing Canada in the 1928 Olympic Games she placed fifth. In 1930 she placed 2nd at the Women’s World Championship in New York City, U.S.A. making her the 1st Canadian woman to place in a top position in international figure skating competition. After retiring from competition she married and the couple had one son. She coached figure skating in the U.S.A. and Canada. In 1991 she was inducted into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame.

Vina Fay Wray. 
Born September 15, 1907 Cardston, Alberta. Died August 8, 2004, Manhattan, New York, U.S.A. . She and her family relocated to Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.A. in 1912 and then to Hollywood where Fay attended high school. At 16 she appeared in her 1st movie, which wasa short historical film sponsored by a local newspaper. She went on in movies having unaccredited bit parts until 1926 when she became one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars, a group for up and coming starlettes. She came under contract to Universal Studios and had parts in low budget westerns. In 1927 she was with Paramount Pictures where she had her 1st lead role in the Wedding March. She remained with Paramount as Hollywood entered the era of the ‘Talkies”. Leaving Paramount she worked for numerous companies including RKO Radio Pictures where she found her most famous role in the movie King Kong. She became a naturalized Citizen of the U.S.A. in 1933. While she continued to star in various films through to the 1940’s. She retired in 1942 but with financial constraints returned to acting in films and television in bit parts. She played in individual episodes of the show Perry Mason, Playhouse 90, Alfred Hitchcock presents and 77 Sunset Strip to name a few. In 1988 she published her biography entitled On The Other Hand; a Life Story. She married three times to John Monk Saunders (1897-1940), with whom she had a daughter, Robert Riskin (1897-1955) with whom she had a daughter and a son and she had 3 children and Dr. Sanford Rothenberg (1919-1991). She was a special guest at the 70th Academy Awards, where she was introduced as the "Beauty who charmed the Beast". She was the only 1920s Hollywood actress in attendance that evening. In 1991 she was a special guest at the 60th anniversary of the Empire State Building. Two days after her death, the lights of the Empire State Building were extinguished for 15 minutes in her memory. Along with numerous other awards she received a posthumous star on the Canadian Walk of Fame in 2005. A small park in the city of Cardston, Alberta has been named in her honour. In May 2006, Wray became one of the 1st four entertainers to ever be honored by Canada Post by being featured on a Canadian postage stamp.  Sources: Fay Wray, IMDB Online (Accessed 2005); Adam Bernstein, ‘Fay Wray Dies at Age 96’, Washington Post, Online (accessed 2004); Fay Wray, Canada’s Walk of Fame Online (accessed 2005)

Marjorie Harris. 
Born September 15, 1937, Shaunavon, Saskatchewan. In 1959 Marjorie graduated with her Bachelor of Arts from McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario. Her 1st marriage was with television producer and musician, Barry Harris. The couple had two children. Marjorie later married writer Jack Batten blending a family of four children. Her career as editor-in-chief of Gardening Life Magazine has not kept this energetic author from publishing some 20 books, many of which are on her love of gardening. She has written articles for all the major Canadian magazines and appears regularly on both CBC and CTV radio and television. She was featured in Toronto Life magazine with a biographical sketch. She is already researching another book on the social and anecdotal history of native plants in North America. Have an interesting gardening anecdote to pass on about plants in your area? Be sure to contact Marjorie    (2019)

Ursula Martius Franklin.  
Born September 16, 1921 Munich, Germany. During the Nazi regime in Germany in World War ll Ursula was separated from her parents and sent to a forced labour camp and fortunately were reunited in Berlin after the war. In 1948 she earned her Ph.D. in experimental physics from the Technical University of Berlin. Offered a post doctoral fellowship at the University of Toronto she moved to Canada becoming a senior scientist at the Ontario Research Station from 1952-1967. An expert in metallurgy and materials science she was the 1st woman to become a professor at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Toronto. She authored some 100 research papers and reports and is an acclaimed contributor to books on the structure and properties of metals and alloys. She contributor to the 1977 report : Canada as a Conserver Society which recommended steps to reduce wasteful consumption and environmental problems it causes. She was active in the Voice for Women (VOW) and called for the U.S. military withdrawal from Vietnam. She fought for the right to refuse military service on the grounds of conscience to be extended to the right to refuse to pay taxes for war preparations. The case was refused by The Supreme Court of Canada. In 1982 she was named as an officer of the Order of Canada and this was upgrade to Companion of the Order of Canada in 1992. In 1987 she was presented the Elsie Gregory McGill Memorial Award for her contributions to education, science and technology.  In 1989 she was the author of the Real World of Technology based on her 1989 Massey lectures for CBC Radio. In 1990 she was inducted into the Order of Ontario. After her retirement she was part of a group of women she fought for pay equality from the University of Toronto. The university made a pay equity settlement to some 60 retired women faculty. In 1991 she received the Governor General’s Award in Commemoration of the Person’s Case for advancing the equality of girls and women in Canada. In 1995 the Ursula Franklin Academy, a high school in Toronto was founded. In 2006 the Ursula Franklin Reader included her articles and speeches on pacifism, feminism, technology and teaching. In 2012 Ursula was inducted into the Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame. In April 2013, Franklin donated her extensive collection of writings devoted to Chinese culture and history to the Confucius Institute at Seneca College in Toronto. Sources: Ursula Franklin, Quakers in the world, Online (Accessed September 2009) ; Dr. Ursula M. Franklin, United Nations Association in Canada. Online (accessed 2009)

Jennifer Ellen Tilly. 
née Chan. Born September 16 1958, Harbour City, California, U.S.A. Her parents divorced when she was 5 and she moved with her mother to Texada Island, British Columbia. At 16 they were living in Victoria, British Columbia. She studied for her B.A. in Theatre at Stephens College, Missouri, U.S.A. By 1883 she had roles in TV series such as Hill Street Blues, Cheers and Frasier. In 1984 she married Sam Simon, producer of The Simpson’s. The couple separated in 1991. Her breakthrough in movies was in the Fabulous Baker Boys. She has worked with Richard Dreyfuss, Woody Allen, Alec Baldwin, and Jim Carey.  In 2001 she portrayed gossip columnist Louella Parsons in The Cat’s Meow. And starred in the Broadway revival of The Women. In other theatre she has won the Theater World Award for the off-Broadway play One Shoe Off. She is a popular choice for voice over for animated features such as Family Guy, Monsters, Inc., Stuart Little and others. In 2004 she became life partner with Phil Laak. In 2005 she won the World Series of Poker and later that same year she won the World Poker Tour Ladies Invitational Tournament. After the series Out of Practice in which she appeared was cancelled in 2006 she began only to return to TV in 2008 dividing her time between films and professional poker. In 2005 she won the World Series of Poker and later that same year she won the World Poker Tour Ladies Invitational Tournament. In 2006 she began dividing her time between films and professional poker. She has appeared in several online TV poker events. In 2008 she retired from her poker career with the idea of treating it more like a hobby. In 2012, she returned to Broadway in Don't Dress for Dinner and the following year she appeared on the London stage in Grasses of a Thousand Colors. Among the awards she has won  she has earned the Golden Gate Award – GLAAD Media Award for media professionals who increase the understanding of the LGBT community.

Eunice Kanenstenhawi Williams. 
Born September 17, 1694, Deerfield, Massachusetts U.S.A.  Died November 26, 1785, Kahnawake, Quebec. She was also known by the names Marie, Maria, Margueritte, Marguarett, Gannenstenhawt (meaning she who brings in the corn), Ouangote, Aongote (meaning they took her and placed her as a member of the tribe). Eunice was captured by Indians in her home in Deerfield, in the colony of  Massachusetts in 1703 or 1704. She was taken with 100 other prisoners to Canada. Her father spent many years trying to trade or exchange his daughter and bring her home. The tribe she lived with became very fond of the child and she learned their ways. Eventually she married a brave. She would keep in touch with her family and often visited her brothers with her own husband and children. Her children took their mother's name as is the native tradition. One of her grandsons became a chief of Sault-Saint-Louis. Her descendants may be found living in this same area today. 

Nancy Margaret Reid. 
Born September 17, 1952, St Catharines, Ontario.. Starting out in computer studies Nancy soon learned that she preferred statistics. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from The University of Waterloo in Ontario, her masters' from the University of British Columbia and her Doctorate (PhD) from Stanford University ,U.S.A. in 1979. A Professor of Statistics at the University of Toronto she  taught since 1986 and served as Chair of the department from 1997-2002. An elected member of several distinguished societies and associations in her field she was the winner of the President's Award of the Committee of Statistical Societies in 1992. The award recognized outstanding contribution to the profession of statistics. She was the first woman to hold a Canada Research chair in statistics. From 1995  to 1997 she was the Editor-in Chief of the Canadian Journal of Statistics.  In 1995 she was the 1st recipient of the Krieger-Nelson Prize Lectureship for distinguished research by a woman in mathematics. In 1996-1997 she served as president of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and in 2004 -2005 she was president of the Statistical Society of Canada. Her efforts led to the creation of the Canadian Institute for Statistical Sciences in 2012 where she has served as Director since 2015.  In 2018 she became Editor-in-Chief for the Annual Review of Statistics and its Application. She has produced over 50 journal publications in statistics as well as three major books in the field. All of this while being an mother of two children!.

Ella Cora Hind.  
Born September 18, 1861, Toronto, Ontario. Died October 6, 1942. Cora’s mother died when she was very young and her father took the children to live with their grandparents on a farm in Ontario where grandfather taught her about farming. She was educated at home by her aunt until she was 11 and the family built a school. She lived in Orillia with her Uncle George to complete her high school. Moving west to Manitoba in the hopes of landing a teaching position, Cora learned that she had failed the algebra portion of her teaching exams. Not deterred she decided to become a journalist. The Manitoba Free Press did not want an inexperienced woman writer so Cora worked as a typist until 1893 when she opened her own business as a stenographer becoming the 1st public typewriter in the province. Cora joined the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). Along with Dr. Amelia Yeomans (1842-1913) she formed the Manitoba Equal Suffrage Club. Cora also joined the Canadian Women’s Press Club that had been formed in 1904. She never gave up writing and with her knowledge of farming she was soon a regular reporter and became the commercial and agricultural editor for the Manitoba Free Press. She would become renowned for her accurate analysis of crop yields and livestock news and became the western correspondent for several eastern newspapers. Still wanting votes for women she formed the Political Equality League with Lillian Beynon Thomas (1884-1961) and Nellie McClung (1873-1953) in 1912. Women earned the right to vote in 1916. She became a regular columnist with the Winnipeg Free Press and at 75 she travelled around the world to observe agricultural methods, writing her observations in 1937 in the book, Seeing for Myself and My Travels and Findings, 1939. After her death the United Grain Growers created the Cora Hind Fellowship for research in agriculture, and the Free Press created the Cora Hind Scholarship in home economics. Sources: Gordon Goldsborough, Ella Cora Hind Memorable Manitobans (accessed 2002); Carlotta Hacker, E. Cora Hind, 1979.

Bertha Wilson. 
née Wernham. Born September 18, 1923, Kirkcaldy, Scotland.  Died April 28, 2007, Ottawa, Ontario. She graduated with a Master of Arts from the University of Aberdeen in 1944. In 1945 she married John Wilson, a Presbyterian minister, who served as minister to the United Church in Renfrew, Ontario. When John became a naval chaplain during the Korean War she was working as a dental receptionist in Ottawa. In she settled with John who had been posted to Halifax, Nova Scotia. In 1954 she entered Dalhousie Law School, Halifax and was called to the nova Scotia Bar in 1957. Relocating to Toronto, she was called to the Bar in Ontario in 1959 and specialized in legal research and opinion writing for other lawyers. She was the 1st woman appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal in 1975 where she became known for her “imaginative and humane decisions”. In 1982 she was the 1st woman appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada. In 1988 she was appointed a commissioner on the Reasmus-Dussault Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. In 1991 she was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and in 1992 she was named to the Order of Canada. Sources: Bertha Wilson biography, Supreme Court of Canada Accessed 2008; Obituary, the Globe and Mail April 30, 2007. (accessed 2008)

Catherine Mary Wisnicki. 
née Chard. Born September 19, 1919, Winnipeg, Manitoba. Died October 21, 2014, British Columbia. In 1939 Catherine earned a bachelor of arts from McGill University in Montreal.  In 1943 Catherine became the 1st woman to graduate from the prestigious School of Architecture at McGill University. In 1945 she registered with the Ontario Association of Architects becoming the fourth woman to be accepted. Relocating to Vancouver, British Columbia in 1946 an became a senior designer with the firm Sharp, Berwick, Pratt. She became the second woman in the province to register with the Architectural Institute of British Columbia. She would leave her architectural mark with modern designs in the post World War II era on Canada’s west coast. She began to teach architecture at the University of British Columbia in 1963 and retired in 1986. Upon retiring she and her husband, Paul Wisnicki, settled in Naramata British Columbia where they designed and build an innovative passive solar house. (2019)

Sylvia Tyson. 
née Fricker. Born September 19, 1940, Chatam, Ontario. At age 15 Sylvia knew she would be a folk singer. She moved to Toronto where she met Ian Tyson. The duo became full time singers with their 1st recording in 1961. They were among the leaders of the 1960’s North American fold music boom. Sylvia wrote songs such as “You Were On My Mind”.  In 1970 they had the their own TV show “Nashville North”. In the 1970’s Sylvia headed out on a solo career. She hosed a CBC Radio show, recorded albums, and formed her own company “Salt Records”. In 1987 she was nominated for the first of seven times for a Juno Award as Country Female Vocalist of the year. In 1992 Ian and Sylvia were inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. In 1995 she became a Member of the Order of Canada. She has teamed up only three times with Ian to do special performances, preferring to concentrate on her solo efforts. The couple reunited to sing their signature song, Four Strong Winds, for the 50th anniversary of the Mariposa Folk Festival in 2010. In 2011 she published her first novel, Joyner's Dream. In July 2019 she and Ian were individually inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. On November 3, 2023 at the age of 83 she released what she has said is her last album entitled At the End of the Day. (2024)

Ida Joséphine Phoebe Eva Gauthier.  
Born September 20, 1885, Ottawa, Ontario. Died December 26, 1958, New York, U.S.A.  As a child she took piano lessons and at 13 she began voice lessons. As a mezzo-soprano she made her Ottawa debut in 1902 as a contralto voice at the Ottawa Basilica participating in a service commemorating the death of Queen Victoria. Sir Wilfrid and Lady Laurier assisted her to leave for Europe in July 1902. She studied at the Paris Conservatoire with an interruption in her studies when she had an operation for nodules on her vocal cords. In 1905-6 she toured the British Isles and Canada with Dame Emma Albani (1847-1930). 1907-8 was spent in study in Italy with her stage debut at Pavia in the role of Michaela in Carmen. She performed with orchestras in Holland and Belgium, including a concert with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1910 she performed with an orchestra at the Royal Palace in Copenhagen. It was about this time that she gave up the stage to devote herself to the more intimate art of recital and concert. On a tour of the Orient she married Franz Knoote, who worked as a plantation manager in Java. She toured throughout Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. Divorced in 1911 she continued touring. During World War 1 she returned to America where she made her New York recital in May 1915. On November 1, 1923 in New York she sang music of Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, and George Gershwin with none other than Gershwin himself at the piano to accompany her. This performance is considered historically significant as she would continue to help introduce more than 700 new songs in concerts or recitals after this event. In 1927 for the celebration of Canada’s 60th Anniversary since Confederation she performed in Ottawa. After the 1936 season in New York and Boston in the U.S. she devoted herself to teaching giving master classes and serving on juries for important competitions. She was a founding member of the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA). In 1949, received a citation from the Campion Society of San Francisco, California, U.S.A. for her contribution as an interpreter and teacher. Her library and her personal documents were acquired by the New York Public Library, New York City, U.S.A.  Additional documents and photographs are held in the National Library of Canada. It is fortunate that recordings as early as 1914 have been preserved and have been featured in retrospectives of Canadian performers.

Kathleen Parlow. 
Born September 20, 1890, Fort Calgary, Alberta. Died August 19, 1963, Oakville, Ontario. When Kathleen was just four her mother, Minnie, took her to live in San Francisco, California, U.S.A. and made sure Kathleen received violin lessons. Her 1st teacher labeled her a child prodigy. Kathleen made her professional debut in 1907 in Berlin Germany. Known as ‘the Lady of the Golden Bow’ she toured Europe, Russia, North America, and Asia. On January 1, 1905 the 14 year old Kathleen arrived in England to perform with the London Symphony Orchestra and from there she became the 1st foreign student at the St Petersburg Conservatory in Russia. At 17 she was doing solo recitals on a very tight living budget tour of Europe. While in Norway she gained a patron and received a violin a Guarnerius del Gesù created in 1735, which remained her primary instrument. During her 3rd North American tour she recorded several pieces for Columbia Records. She also toured Hawaii, the Far East, China, and Japan. At 40 she turned more and more to teaching to ensure an income. Her 1st faculty appointment was to the music department of Mills College in Oakland, California. Kathleen also organized a string quartet. In 1933, Mills College, Oakland, California, U.S.A. awarded her an honorary Master of Arts degree and by the summer of 1935, she had formed the South Mountain Parlow Quartet in Massachusetts, U.S.A. In 1936 she took an appointment at the prestigious Juilliard School of Music in New York City, U.S.A.  By 1940 she had returned to Canada where in 1941 the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto engaged her for a series of lecture-recitals. In Toronto she formed The Canadian Trio. In 1942, she formed her 3rd string quartet, entitled simply The Parlow String Quartet. This group, for 15 years, performed only in Canada and for the CBC. From financial necessity, Parlow continued performing, giving a concert series in Toronto in January 1958. As her career wound down she had no pension and by 1959, for not the 1st time in her career, she relied on the generosity of others her friends, established a fund for her support. In October 1959, friends arranged for the 70-year-old violinist to be appointed head of strings at the College of Music of the University of Western Ontario.  Source: Kathleen Parlow, Violinist and teacher (1890-1963) Collections Canada National Library of Canada. (accessed 2000)

Judith Claire Francesca Marie Bernadette Thompson. 
Born September 20, 1954, Montreal, Quebec. After graduating from Queen’s University, Kingston, 1976 and the National Theatre School, Montreal, 1979 she turned to writing plays as her form of expression.  In 1987  the play I Am Yours won her a 2nd Governor General’s Award and also the Chalmers Canadian Play Award. Additional recognition includes the Order of Canada in 2005 and being the 1st Canadian to win the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, 2008. Her plays have been performed in both official languages across Canada as well as worldwide. She has expanded into radio, screenplays, and plays for youth. Her plays depict a graphic darker side of modern life but also provide hope. She is currently teaching at the University of Guelph, Ontario and enjoys life in Toronto with her husband and five children.  Source: Judith Thompson by Anne Nothof, Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia online ( accessed May 2008) :

Anne Cochran Wilkinson. 
née Gibbons. Born September 21, 1910, Toronto, Ontario  Died May 10, 1961, Toronto, Ontario. Chiefly a poet, her works appear in various anthologies and were published in several small magazines.  She was the founding editor of the magazine the Tamarack Review. She also published a family history of the famous Canadian Osler family, Lions in the Way in 1956. Anne also wrote a Children's story, Swan and Daphne, published in 1960.  In 1989 her works were put to music by Oskar Morawetz in Elegy, Voice and Piano. In 1992 the Poetry of Anne Wilkinson and a Prose Memoir was published. Her work had a revival in 2003 in the Heresies: the Complete Poems of Anne Wilkinson. In 2014 the Essential Anne Wilkinson - poems was published in 2014 show the longevity of her legacy.

Kerrin Lee-Gartner. 
Born September 21, 1966, Trail, British Columbia. Kerrin grew up in Rossland B.C. and became a member of the elite group of skiers to hold an Olympic Gold medal.  Kerrin began skiing with the Canadian Women’s Ski Team in 1982. She had several knee operations and has had two complete reconstructions of her knees. Her 1st World Cup in December 1990 she made the podium. In 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France she took the gold medal becoming the 1st in history for a Canadian (male or female) on the downhill event in an Olympic games. That same year she was inducted into the Order of British Columbia. Kerrin finished 8th in super –G at the Olympic Games in Norway and retired from international completion at the end of the 1994 World Cup Season.  She had worked with CBC television as a sports broadcaster and has assisted the BBC with coverage in the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games. Kerrin and her husband Max Gartner volunteer at the Fernie Alpine Ski club, where both their daughters ski. Max coaches, while Kerrin does whatever is required, from gate-keeping to setting up safety nets. Kerrin also raises funds for Project Safety, a program she founded that examines all safety elements of ski racing. Sources: The Canadian Encyclopedia Online (accessed 2007); The Canadian Ski Museum (accessed October 2010) ; Mathew Sekeres, Where are they now? Kerrin Lee-Gartner. The Globe and Mail June 8, 2009.

Catherine Jérémie de Lamontagne. 
née Jérémie. Baptized 1664, Quebec. Buried July 1, 1744, Montreal. In 1681 she married Jacques Aubuchon and the couple had one daughter. In the 1880's she married a second time to Michel Lepailleur de Laferté (d1733) and the couple had 10 or 11 children. By 1702 the family had settled in Montreal. In her era would become a well known midwife and amateur botanist. She collected plants and sent them back to France for study. Her shipments were made more valuable by the descriptive notes she included  with explanations of the properties and effects of the medical herbs. It was in this time period that French naturalists were trying to learn about medicinal and practical properties of the flora of the colony in Canada.

Louise Crummy McKinney. 
Born September 22, 1868, Frankville, Ontario. Died July 10, 1931, Claresholm, Alberta. Like many young women of her era Louise attended Normal School (Teacher’s College) in Ottawa. She taught for 7 years in Ontario and then in North Dakota, U.S.A. In 1895 she married James McKinney.  By 1903 the couple and their son settled in Claresholm, Alberta.  She had joined the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (W. C. T. U.) while in the U.S. and founded a local chapter when she arrived in Claresholm. She played a prominent role at the local, provincial and national levels of the W. C. T. U. for the next 20 years. In 1931 she became acting national president and vice-president at the international level.  She was also active in the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire (I.O.D.E.). She was the first women to be sworn into the Alberta Legislative Assembly. Louise and Roberta Adams (1880-1959) were the 1st women elected to a legislature in the British Empire and on June 7, 1917 Louise was sworn in before Roberta  to became the 1st woman to take her seat in the legislature. She fought for laws to aid immigrants, widows, and separated women.  Active in her Methodist Church she was the only woman from Western Canada and 1 of only 4 across Canada to sign the Basis of Union of the United Church of Canada in 1925. She was the 2nd woman to sign the famous “Persons” act which lead to women in Canada being able to be considered “persons” She is one of the group now called “The Famous Five”. In 1939 she was recognized as a Person of National Historic Significance by the Canadian government. In 2009 the Senate of Canada voted to name the Famous Five as Canada’s 1st honorary senators. A plaque commemorating this in found at the Post Office, Highway 4 south at the Canada-United States border, Claresholm, Alberta and there is an Alberta Post Secondary Scholarship offered in her honour. Sources: Louise Crummy McKinney, Collections Canada, Library and Archives Canada Online (Accessed for update 2010); The life of Louise McKinney, St Thomas University. Online (accessed 2010))

Gail Diane Bowen. 
née Bartholomew.  Born September 22, 1942, Toronto, Ontario. Gail graduated in 1964 the University of Toronto and went on to earn her Master’s Degree from the University of Waterloo and then she attended the University of Saskatchewan. She taught English in Saskatchewan and was an associate professor of English at First Nations University of Canada. The author of several novels, she has set her mystery stories in the province of Saskatchewan. Her book character, Joanne Kilbourn, is an amateur sleuth who also is the mother of three teenagers. Many of her writings have been adapted as Canadian movies for TV. Gail is also an accomplished playwright with her plays produced at the Globe Theatre in Regina, Saskatchewan. In 2006 the CBC broadcast her radio play Dr. Doolittle and in 2007 the CBC broadcast the World According to Charlie D. Charlie D was successful and was followed up within the year with another episode and was part of the WorldPlay series broadcast on public radio networks in six English speaking countries In 2009 she was writer-in–residence for the Toronto Reference Library in Ontario  and Calgary’s Memorial Park Library in Alberta in 2010. By 2010 Charlie D was appearing in published mystery novellas. Gail was writer-in-residence for the Regina Public Library in in Saskatchewan in 2014-2015. Sources: The Canadian Encyclopedia Online (Accessed 2006; mini biography updated October 2014. Regina Public Library.

Elsie Wingrove Earl.
née Wingrove. Born September 26, 1923, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Died July 13, 2016, Estevan, Saskatchewan. Elsie enjoyed playing baseball with her brothers, her sister and their father. There always seemed to be a game on Sunday afternoon when neighbours would drop by the farm. At nine she was playing on an adult team. In high school she enjoyed ice hockey, curling, 5 pin bowling and fast pitch softball. She worked at a bank to pay her way through school at the Saskatchewan Technical College where she played softball for the school’s team, The Pats. While playing she was seen by a scout from the All American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL). In 1946 she played with the Grand Rapids Chicks and for awhile was loaned out to the Fort Wayne Daisies. In 1947, back in Grand Rapids, the Chicks were the League Champions. The women in the AAGPBL wore one piece short skirted uniforms with knee socks, baseball shoes and caps. They played a gruelling schedule to keep baseball going while the men served during World War ll. In 1948 she returned home to marry immigration officer, Russell Earl. The couple had two sons. She and her husband coached Little League Baseball and junior girls fast pitch softball. In 1988 the AAGPBL was included in the Cooperstown National Baseball Hall of Fame. In 1992, director, Penny Marshal told their story in the film A League of Their Own. In 1998 the AAGPBL Canadian members were inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame. Source: AAGPBL Online (accessed February 2014) (2020)

Anne Wheeler.  
Born September 23, 1946, Edmonton, Alberta. During high school she taught piano and became interested in drama touring in summers with a children’s theatre group. Anne graduated from the University of Alberta having studied mathematics. While at university she had also continued music studies and after graduation she became a high School music teacher. She worked for a short time as a computer programmer and then decided to travel the world for two years going to Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.  She was inspired to become a storyteller and upon returning to Canada she joined friends to for a film collective, Filmwest. From 1975 to 1985 she had a position in Edmonton with the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) and in 1981 she was able to make her 1st feature film A War Story. Still living in Edmonton, Alberta and caring for her two sons, she completed her 1st film outside of the N F B came was Loyalties in 1986. Her film “Bye Bye Blues” (1990) earned three Genie Awards. In 1990 the family relocated to Salt Spring Island, British Columbia. Her work took her back to the prairies she directed the adaptation of Margaret Lawrence’s The Diviners which was a 2 hour TV movie which won a Genier for Best M. O. W. in Canada. Other Women’s Children garnered a Cable Ace Award for Performance and was shown in both Canada and the U.S. The War Between Us garnered several international awards including the Special Jury Prize from the Houston Film Festival, the Red Cross Award for Humanity, the Critic's Choice Award at both Monte Carlo and the Charleston Festival in West Virginia, and a Cable Ace Award for Best Foreign Programming in the U.S. In 1995 she was inducted into the Order of Canada and the following she settled in Vancouver, British Columbia. in February of 1997 and for the second year in a row, her work won the Cable Ace Award for Best International Programming. In 1998 she directed for the TV show DaVinci’s Inquest. After doing a series of movies she returned to Canadian literature and adapted the short story, A Wilderness Station by Alice Munro. It is now called on DVD, as Edge of Madness. She keeps herself busy with multiple projects and has no plans for retirement. In 2012 she received the Queen Elizabeth ll Diamond Jubilee Medal. Source: Anne Wheeler Writer, Director, Producer, Biography. online (accessed 2013)  (2024)

Nancy Ellen Garapick.  
Born September 24, 1961, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Nancy began swimming when she was seven years old. A swimmer who did well in butterfly, free style and individual medley events she had the most success in the backstroke event.  She set the world record on April 27, 1975 in the 200 meter backstroke and in the same year was named Canada’s Female Athlete of the Year.  She was just 14 years old! In the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal she won two bronze medals and set a new Olympic record for 100 meter backstroke. In 1978 she won bronze in the 4X100 meter freestyle relay at the 1978 World Championships with Gail Amundrud, Wendy Quirk and Susan Sloan. The following year at the Pan American Games, she brought  home 5 medals: silver in the 200 meter individual medley and the 4x100 meter freestyle relay with Gail Amundrud, Cheryl Gibson, and Anne Gagnon and bronze in the 100 and 200 metre butterfly and the 400 metre individual medley. In 1980 she gained a spot on the Canadian swim team for the 1980 Olympics which were held in Moscow, U.S.S.R. and boycotted by Canada. She attended the University of Southern California and spent several years on their swim team. In 1983 she retired from competitive swimming after having won 17 Canadian national titles. She ten began a career as a teacher in the Yukon. Nancy became a member of the Nova Scotia Sports Hall of Fame in 1986 and in 2000 she was selected as Nova Scotia's Top Female Athlete of the Past 100 Years. In 2008 she was inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame. Sources: Canadian Encyclopedias Online (accessed 2009); Nancy Garapick, Sports Reference Olympic Sports. Online (accessed 2010)

Patricia 'Trish' Ann Monture-Angus. 
née Monture. Born September 24, 1958, London, Ontario. Died November 17, 2010, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She was orphaned at 9 and by the time she was a teenager in high school she had been victim of rape and knew life on the streets. Taking some university courses, she surprised herself when she scored well and realized that she was not just a ‘stupid Indian.’ She earned her B.A. from the University of Western Ontario, London in 1983 and followed it with a law degree from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario. By 1998 she had completed her studies in law at Osgood Hall, Toronto. Right out of school she proved to be a strong willed fighter for people’s rights when she filed action against the Attorney General of Ontario to avoid taking the oath of allegiance to the Queen. It was nothing personal she insisted but she was a member of a Soverign people, the Mohawk Nation. By 1992 the oath became optional. Trish went on to teach law first at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia and later at Ottawa University in Ontario before settling at the University of Saskatchewan in the Department of Native Studies. She married Denis Angus of Thunderchild First Nation Cree Nation of Treaty 6. The couple had three sons and adopted 4 children to round out their family. In 2004 Trish switched to a full professorship in the Department of Sociology at U of S. She wrote two books and co-edited a third book on aboriginal women. She served on numerous boards and committees including the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 1993-1994 and the Federal Task Force on Administrative segregation which made recommendations on the use of solitary confinement in Canadian prisons. She played a key role in which Canadian prisons agreed to accept aboriginal ceremonies and healing circles. In 2007 she was presented with the Sarah Shorten Award from the Canadian Association of University Teachers in recognition of her work for the advancement of women at universities. Her Mohawk name was Aywahande – the one who starts things with words. Source: Csillag, Ron ‘Aboriginal , indigenous, native? She preferred Haudenosaunee or people of the Longhouse.’ In Globe and Mail, December 2, 2010. Suggestion submitted by Marian Crow, Cochrane, Ontario

Mary 'Polly' Scovil/Scovill.  
née Barber. Born September 25, 1803. Died February 23, 1898, Scottsmore, Quebec. As a young woman she was a teacher. Mary worked in Sutton Township, Lower Canada (now Quebec) in 1834 for her room and board and a salary of $1.00 a week! She married a farmer, Stephen Scovill. At 44 she was pregnant, a widow, and already a mother of three older children. She worked harder than ever with her farm. Against the sentiment of her own era, she worked herself into the position of a prosperous farmer. At the time of her death the Widow Scovill was eulogized as the most prosperous farmer in the area. A strong minded individual she left her estate to her family assuring that her daughters inheritance could not become part of the estate of their husbands!

Tracy Wilson. 
Born September 25, 1961, Lachine, Quebec. Tracy grew up in British Columbia. As a child she enjoyed all sports including swimming in summer and skating in winter. At fifteen she entered her 1st ice dance competition. In 1980 she and partner Mark Stokes won the Canadian Junior Dance title. The following year she teamed up with Rob McCall (1958-1991) training at the Elgin Barrow Arena in Richmond Hill, Ontario. This pair won the Canadian Championships seven times between 1982 and 1988. They won the Skate Canada International competition in 1983 and 1987. The pair took bronze medals three times from 1986 to 1988. They competed in the  Olympic Games in 1984 and in 1988 where they won a bronze medal the 1st medal in Olympic ice dance for Canada.  In 1987 she married Brad Kinsella but professionally retained her maiden name.  The couple has three children. After the 1988 World Championships Tracy turned professional and in 1988 the couple won the World Professional Championships. Even after being diagnosed with AIDS in 1990 the couple continued to skate in ice dance skating in the 1990 World Professional Championships. In 1991 she stopped skating to have a family and retired from competition after the death of Rob McCall. On November 21 1992 she skated a solo performance while pregnant, at a tribute to her former partner. She coaches at the Toronto Cricket Curling Club and works at special events as a colour commentator for her sport with the CBC.

Alice Jones. 
Born September 26, 1853, Halifax, Nova Scotia. Died February 27, 1933, Menton, France. As a young woman Alice studied languages in France and Italy. Back in Canada she wrote for the Toronto Week and also published a serial story, A Hazard of Hearts for the Frank Leslie Monthly. This author wrote using several pseudonyms such as Alix John, and Isobel Broderick. In 1903 she was considered a leading woman novelist in Canada. She would leave Canada in 1905 to live in France but would continue to include Canadian characters and setting in her novels.  (2019)

Irene Pearl Courtice - Lambert.
née Courtice. Born September 26, 1887, Bethany, Ontario. Died August 17, 1963, Toronto, Ontario. After attending Albert College Irene Pearl attended Normal School (teacher's college) and taught school in Fortescue, Ontario. By 1913 she had graduated from the Toronto General Hospital School of Nursing. April 7, 1915 she enlisted as a Nursing Sister with the Canadian Army Medical Corps (CAMC) just a few weeks after her brother Dr. John Thomas Courtice had enlisted. Overseas she was posted to No. 4 Canadian General Hospital, Shorncliffe, England and later in France and Salonika, Greece. She also served on transport duty in 1918 on the H. M. H. S. Araguaya.  She became Matron at the Whitby Military Convalescent Hospital in Ontario. March 30, 1920 she married Rev. Sidney Lambert who became president of the Amputee Association of the Great War (War Amps). Source: Nurses of World War 1 by Donald Brearley, 2018 online (accessed 2021)  

Gladys Elizabeth Matheson Crim. 
née Matheson. Born September 27, 1892, St Barnabas Mission, Onion Lake, Died 1968, Winnipeg, Manitoba. Gladys was the daughter of Dr. Elizabeth Scott Matheson (1866-1958) who was the 1st woman licensed Doctor in the area. From 1906 through 1909 she attended Kilborn Sister’s School at Dunham Ladies College, Ottawa, Ontario. She returned home to work at her parent’s mission for 2 years before she began training as a nurse at Memorial Hospital in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.  Again she returned home to work. She taught at the mission school for 3 years while helping in her mother’s hospital. In 1914 she went to Winnipeg General Hospital to complete her nurses training. In 1916 both her father and her fiancé died but she continued her studies graduating in 1917. She worked at Tuxedo Military Hospital in Winnipeg prior to enlisting on May 25, 1917 for overseas war service as a lieutenant nursing sister at the Eastborne, England hospital for Canadian soldiers. On May 6, 1918 Gladys was ordered to serve at # three Canadian General Hospital in Boulogne, France which was a series of huts near the front line of the war. In May 1919 she was back serving at the Winnipeg Tuxedo Military Hospital. In 1920 she was worn out and went to Vancouver, British Columbia for three months. In 1926 she married U.S. infantry officer Stirling Crim (1891-1980) in Hawaii, U.S.A. The couple settled in San Antonio, Texas, U.S.A.. After the death of her husband she returned to live in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Source: The Story behind the Statue, Saskatchewan Registered Nurses Association. Online (accessed June 2014)

Clara Hughes.  
Born September 27, 1972, Winnipeg, Manitoba. She was inspired watching Canadian Speed skater Gaetan Boucher at the 1888 Olympics to get into sports. By 1990 she began competing in cycling and by 2015 had been 18 times Canadian National Cycling champion.. She has silver and bronze medals from the 1991 and 1995 Pan American Games; a silver medal from the 1994 Commonwealth Games; a silver medal from the 1995 World Championships. In the 1996 Olympics she won 2 bronze medals which were Canada's first cycling medals in 100 years! She holds 6 Olympic medals in the sports of cycling and speed skating making her the 1st athlete in history to win multiple medals in both Summer and Winter Olympic Games. She felt privileged to carry the Canadian flag for the 2010 Canada Olympic Games.  She has also given personally to her causes. After winning Gold in 2006 Games she donated $10,000 to the Right to Play programs challenging Canadians to support the cause. In 2010 she again donated $10,000 personally to the Vancouver inner city school program, ‘Take a Hike’ which gives youth at risk a better direction in life. She became the National Spokesperson for Bell Canada’s Mental Health initiative and the Let’s Talk campaign. She shared her personal battles with depression to help break down the stigma associated with mental illness. She has been appointed to the Order of Manitoba and the Order of Canada. She was awarded the International Olympic Committees Sport and the Community award for her efforts promoting the values of sport and play around the globe. Since 2013 she has initiated annual bike rides across Canada in order to raise awareness for mental health. In 2001 Clara married Peter Guzman and in 2014 he cycled the annual cross country ride with his wife. Clara also has a Star on Canada’s Walk of Fame in Toronto. Sources: Clara Hughes, Olympian, Humanitarian, Motivator, Clara Hughes Website Online (accessed 2011) ; Gayle Macdonald, ‘On the eve of her cross-country bike tour, Clara Hughes speaks out about depression’, The Globe and Mail March 13, 2014.

Angella Taylor - Issajenko. 
née Taylor. Born September 28, 1958, Jamaica.  Known in her sports career as Angella Taylor, she is one of Canada’s outstanding sprinters. She holds international medals from the Pan-American Games 1978, the 1982 & 1986 Commonwealth Games, and the 1984 Olympic Games. From 1979 through 1992 she held the Canadian National 100 Meter champion title as well as being 8 times Canada’s National 200 meters Champion.  She has received in 1980 &1982 the Velma Springstead Trophy for Female Athlete of the Year. She has also earned in 1982 the Phil Edwards Memorial Award as Top Field Athlete from the Canadian Federation of Track and Field. in 1983 she received the Sport Excellence Award. She has been female athlete of the year and holds 7 Canadian Championship titles. Angella Married Tony Snow and in 1985 she became a Member of the Order of Canada and that same year she gave birth to the 1st of her 4 children. After the Ben Johnson drug scandal in 1988 she gave detailed testimony at the Dubin Inquiry and was banned from competition and later reinstated only to be placed on probation again.  She works with learning-disabled elementary students and is also a coach at the Toronto Track and Field Center at York University. Source: Canadian Encyclopedia Online (accessed 2004)

Catherine Robbin.  
Born September 28,1950, Toronto, Ontario. This mezzo-soprano studied in Toronto, Vancouver, London, Paris and New York City. She made her debut as a singer in 1972 in Messiah with the St Catharines Niagara Symphony in Ontario. She won the Caplet Award in 1978 at the Concours international de chant in Paris, France and won a silver medal that same year at the Geneva Concours International in Switzerland. The following year she took the Gold Award at the Benson & Hedges International Competition for Concert Singers. Her rich voice is in demand throughout North America and Europe. She has made several classical recordings that have brought her acclaim. It was in 1978 that she began to perform in a trio with John Dodington, bass and Jane Coop on piano. In March 1981 she made her New York recital debut. In 1982 she was performing in the Stratford Festival production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, in Stratford, Ontario. She has appeared in recital with major Canadaian Orchestras and has sung with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Nation Symphony Orchestra and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra in the U.S.A. She has been heard on the BBC, the CBC and Radio France and has produced many recordings. Upon retirement in May 11, 2003 she dedicated her time to teaching privately and most especially as Director of Vocal Studies at York University. She is President of the Canadian Aldeburgh Foundation, an organization that supports young Canadian Artists studying and performing in the Britten- Pears Young Artists programme in the UK. She holds the Order of Canada. Source: The Canadian Encyclopedia

Constance 'Connie' Elvia  Brummel Crook. 
Born September 29, 1930, Ameliasburg, Ontario. She attended Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario on writing scholarships for her BA and completed graduated studies at Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois, U.S.A. She then studied for her diploma in education from the University of Toronto in 1955. July 7, 1956 she married clergyman F. Reginald Brown (Died 1961) and the couple had two daughters. Connie resumed her teaching career upon the death of her husband. She remarried a second time on July 12, 1969 to Albert W. Cook. a farmer. She taught English and Latin for 30 years in high schools throughout Ontario. She also was a teacher of developmental reading and English as a second language. When she retired for teaching she finally had time to devote to her writing. She enjoys writing novels with Canadian historical settings for young readers. Many of her stories are based on her own family history. This retired teacher and grandmother is perhaps best known by her pen name, Connie Brummel Crook. She has written Laura's Choice (1993), Nellie L (1994) and Meyers Creek (1995) to name a few of her works. She has earned the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People and the Canadian Children’s Book Center Choice designation in 1995. In 1998 she earned the Storytelling World Award Honours Title for Tellable Stories for Ages 13-17 and the Canadian Children’s Book Center Choice designation for Maple Moon, her 1st child’s picture book.  On July 15, 2000, Connie was one of the honourable inductees for the year into Peterborough’s Pathway of Fame.  In 2002 she earned the Word Guild Novel Award for The Hungry Year and in 2004 was co-recipient of the Word Guild Award for The Perilous Year. Some of her writings have been translated into Braille and have been adapted as sound recordings. On June 11, 2008, Connie received the Leslie K. Tarr Award for Outstanding Career Achievement. Source: Connie Brummel Cook website Online (accessed September 2012)

Thérése Gouin Decarie. 
Born September 30, 1923, Westmount, Quebec. Dr. Décarie, a Professor at the Départment de Psychologie at the Université de Montréal and a mother of four children has maintained a full career in child psychology that includes being the author of several renowned texts in her field of research. Her work is acclaimed internationally. She devoted her professional life to providing understanding of the social, emotional and intellectual development of babies and young children. She was one of the 1st to study intelligence and affectivity in children with birth defects from the drug thalidomide. Her writings have been published in French, English and Italian and have been awarded recognition such as the Médaille Inis-Gérin de la Societé Royale du Canada. She was appointed to the Order of Canada in 1977. The Association francophone pour le savoir (A C F A S) renamed an award October 8, 2013 which it presents annually in her honour.  Sources: Pioneers in Early Childhood Development, Mrs. Thérèse Gouin-Décarie, online (accessed 2013)

Donna Margaret Louise Blight. 
née Crosland. Born September 30, 1936, Calgary, Alberta.  Died February 5, 2008, Winnipeg, Manitoba. Donna graduated from the Calgary General Hospital, and went on to earn a Bachelor of Nursing Science Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario and  a Master's Degree from University of Manitoba Winnipeg. While nursing in Saskatoon, she met her husband, William J. Blight. The couple moved to Winnipeg Donna worked briefly for the VON (Victorian Order of Nurses) prior to raising the couple’s two sons.  She returned to work as a nursing instructor and registrar at the St. Boniface Hospital School of Nursing and as registrar with the Manitoba Association of Registered Nurses. She was a long time member of the Alpine Club of Canada, and she served as a member of the Manitoba Environmental Council. She was actively involved with the University Women's Club of Winnipeg and the Provincial Council of Women of Manitoba, serving on a variety of committees and as president of both organizations. The latter organization honoured her in 2007 at its first Celebration of Women. Sources: Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 9 February 2008; Memorable Manitobans. Online (accessed December 2011)