Heroines - While all of the women on these pages are heroines there are some who just stand out that much more!!!
Abigail Becker	née Jackson Born Frontinac County, Upper Canada (Ontario) March 14, 1830 Died March 21, 1905. She settled as a young wife on Long Point Island Lake Erie with her trapper husband. In November 1854, She engineered the rescue the master and six men of the crew of the floundering schooner Vonductor. After the death of her husband she married a second time in 1869. Mrs. Rohrer moved to Walsingham Centre, Ontario and settled into a new life. Her heroic rescue was written up in the Atlantic Monthly Magazine by John G. Whittier in 1869 and a biography by R. Calvert, The story of Abigail Becker was published in Toronto in 1899.
Marie-Madelaine Jarret de Verchères.	Born Verchères, Quebec March 3, 1678. Died August 8, 1747. The young Madelaine would become one of Canada's first youth heroes when she, with only a handful of helpers would successfully defend the family fort against attack. Her exploits have been written up in several books including HerStory by Susan Merritt. Her entire life story is recorded in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Volume III). Be sure to check out the true life adventure at your library.
Mary Dohey	Born St Bride's, Newfoundland 1933. A trained Registered Nurse, she chose to have a career as a stewardess Air Canada. On a flight from Calgary Alberta on November 12, 1971, which started out to be routine, Mary would show that she had the 'right stuff'. A hijacker, with a hood over his head threatened the passengers and crew with a gun.  This brave stewardess spoke  gently to the armed man and managed to persuade the hijacker to allow the passengers and some of the crew to depart when the aircraft was diverted to Great Falls, Montana, U.S.A.  Even thought the hijacker was allowing her to leave she was concerned for the remaining crew and remained to do what she could to calm the aggressor until the drama was brought safely to an end when a fellow crew member overpowered the gunman.  On February 16, 1976 she was awarded the Cross of Valour, the first living person to receive Canada's highest award for bravery.
Ibola Szalai Grossman.	Born December 10, 1916.  "Ibi" is a self-described “ordinary woman”. She is also a survivor.  She survived the physical and mental horrors of the Hungarian Holocaust. She survived to escape to the west. She survived the obstacles of being a European immigrant Jew. She survived the change to a new and foreign culture and way of life in immigrating to Canada.  She did all of this after her husband, her mother, father, and her sisters died in the death camps.  She survived to raise her son alone in Canada. She survived to write her story in the hopes that the horrors will not happen again.
Ann Harvey	Born 1811. Died 1860. Ann Harvey was the daughter of a Newfoundland fisherman who had settled his family near Isle des Mortes in 1822. In 1828 the teen girl insisted on accompanying her father and younger brother in a small boat in an attempt to save people from the sinking brig, the Dispatch. With the help of their dog a safety rope was attached to the ship and some 163 people were saved before the ship went down in the storm. The family shared their small provisions with the survivors. King George VII of England presented Ann with an engraved medal, w00 gold sovereigns and a personally written letter. Two years later Ann married Charles Gillam and settled at Port aux Basques where they had a family of six children. In 1838 she again risked her life in a daring rescue of some 25 passengers of the ship the Rankin.
Mary Isabella Macleod.	(née Drever) Born Red River, Manitoba October 11, 1852  Died April 15 1933.  During the famous Red River Rebellion (1869-70) a 17-year-old Mary successfully avoided detection and delivered an important dispatch to Colonel Woolsey.  She married James Macleod of the Northwest Mounted Police and frequently accompanied her husband on his tours of duty.
Eliza Ann Elizabeth Howard Parker	She and her husband were staunch supports of the Underground Railroad that secretly spirited runaway slaves from the United States to safety in Canada. More than once she had risked her life transporting escaping slaves. Besieged by slave catchers in Christiana, Pennsylvania she fought along side the men. She was arrested and along with fire other women stood trial for treason when the Christiana Riots were considered as an act of war against the United States. The results of the trial brought about changes in Pennsylvania's laws which prevented the slave catchers from taking runaways in this state and the lives of the rioters were saved. In 1852 she and her husband, William, arrived in Raleigh Township in Canada where they settled and raised their family. Today students of Black History make their way to her graveside to give homage to this valiant heroine of the Christiana Riots.
Mona Parsons. (See also Medical professionals - nurses)	Born February 17,1901. Died 1976. She pursued life on stage until her mother became ill. After taking care of her ill  mother she turned to nursing as a profession. In 1938 she married Willem Leonhardt, a Dutch businessman. During WW ll their home in The Netherlands was used as a refuge by escaping allied airmen. In 1941 they were arrested and imprisoned in separate prisons. Reunited after the liberation, Mona nursed Willem returning to Canada only after his death in 1956. Mona was presented with citations from General Eisenhower and Air Chief Marshal Tedder of the Royal Air Force for helping allied airmen evade enemy capture.
Abigail Becker Rohrer.	(née Jackson) Born Mach 14, 1830. Died 1905.  At eight she married a widower who was a trapper by profession and lived at Long Point Island, Lake Erie. In November 1854 she became a heroine when she was instrumental in saving the lives of the master and the six crew members of the schooner, Conductor, which was wrecked off of Long Point Island.  The story of her heroism was reported in the Atlantic Monthly in 1869 and in 1899 a book entitled The story of Abigail Becker was published.  Since the turn of the 20th century her story seems to have been forgotten by most.
Kay Snelgrove	Born Montreal, Quebec 1921. Died April 25, 2001. Growing up she brushed shoulders with lives from history. Her father's friend, William Lyon Mackenzie was 'Uncle Mac'. Growing up in Montreal, she called her fried Elliott but his full name was Pierre Elliott Trudeau. When the family moved to New Brunswick, the children played base ball with the children of K. S. Irving. As a student at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. she attended dance class with the great grandson of Davey Crocket. It was while she was at Emerson, taking trips home to visit family in New Brunswick that she knew William Stevenson, who would later be uncovered as one of Canada's most successful spies. She helped deliver covert messages from the British war Office that made their way to President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the U.S.A. She had the help of Boston cabbies who accepted the code 'take me to my dorm'. She never knew the information she carried. She had taken an oath of secrecy and she did not even tell her family! And she would keep quiet until Stevenson's best selling book, A man called INTREPID was published in 1976. Later, after Pearl Harbour brought the Americans into the war, her work as a code runner was so vital she was protected by the RCMP. Decades later she would take therapy to overcome the recurring nightmares of the job. After World War ll she settled down to be Mrs Mom and working as a receptionist at the Brampton Daily Times. When she retired in 1986 she was head of Classified Advertisements. According to her children, she never considered herself a heroine, but rather she did her 'duty'. She never did write her memoirs, she had been trained to keep secrets after all.