100 More Canadian Heroines

by Merna Forster

  Georgina assisted some families and continued to solicit funds for the UJFS until 1937, but by then she was back living in London and had joined the Lyceum Club for female writers and artists. She died in her flat on Cheyne Walk in 1947; her sister, Ethel, scattered her ashes on the Fort Qu’Appelle farm that she had loved.

  Quote:

  “If I’d wanted to be dictated to by a man, I’d have married one and let him keep me.”[6]

  Quest for Freedom

  Lucie Blackburn

  circa 1804–1895

  The Blackburns’ landmark case set a precedent, establishing Upper Canada as a safe refuge for fugitive slaves.

  She was once a slave girl named Ruthie,[1] who worked as a nursemaid for two young children of merchant George Backus and his wife, Charlotte, in Louisville, Kentucky.

  Of mixed black and white parentage, Ruthie — later known as Lucie Blackburn — was born in the West Indies about 1804. She was perhaps bought at auction in New Orleans by the Backus family. Her beauty and fair skin saved her from hard labour in the cotton fields and the heavy chores of a cook or housemaid. As the only slave to live in the Backus’s home, she was treated with a certain amount of respect and even had her own tiny room in the attic. When she married fellow slave Thornton Blackburn, Ruthie had probably received the black silk wedding dress as a gift from Charlotte Backus. This fine dress would play an important role in Ruthie’s great escape.

  In June 1831, Mr. and Mrs. Backus and their daughter died unexpectedly; Ruthie was sold to a slave trader for $300. The Blackburns feared that she would soon be sold in the Deep South: an attractive “yellow girl” would likely end up a sex slave for a master or in a brothel. They also worried that they would never see each other again.

  Toronto about 1838, showing the fish market, Front and Wellington Streets.

  From a drawing by William Henry Bartlett, c. 1840

  Within two weeks the young couple was standing on the Louisville dock dressed in their finest attire, audaciously posing as free blacks. “The woman was a fine looking mulatto, handsomely dressed and was called the wife of the man. She was dressed in a superior piece of black silk goods,”[2] recalled one of the men duped by the masquerade.

  Armed with forged papers documenting their status as free African Americans, the Blackburns managed to board a Cincinnati-bound steamship and continue by stagecoach to Detroit. Feeling fairly safe in the Michigan Territory, where slavery was outlawed, Ruthie and her husband settled in the city and Thornton found work as a stonemason. But after two years of freedom, a white clerk from Kentucky recognized Thornton. Because of the Fugitive Slave Act, the Blackburns were thrown in jail in mid-June 1833. They were sentenced to be returned to their owners.

  Ruthie got lucky. A female visitor switched places with her, enabling the runaway slave to slip out of jail and cross the Detroit River to Upper Canada. A crowd staged a riot outside the Detroit prison and forcibly rescued Thornton. He also fled to safety across the river. Though fugitive slaves were officially welcomed in Upper Canada, the Blackburns were imprisoned in Sandwich when their owners demanded their return.

  The Fugitive Offenders Act protected slaves who reached Upper Canada, but the Blackburns’ owners demanded extradition on the grounds that they were escaping justice for their crimes in the jail escapes and riots. In this first test of the law, Lieutenant Governor Sir John Colborne ordered Ruthie and Thornton released after a month in prison. Their courageous defiance of slavery, and the resulting case, established that fugitive slaves would not be returned if they hadn’t committed crimes punishable as capital offences under Canadian law. This important legal precedent affected all future slave extradition cases until the American Civil War ended slavery in the United States.[3] It also influenced Canada’s current policy regarding conditions for extradition of immigrants.[4]

  After Ruthie and Thornton Blackburn were released in late July 1833, they spent about a year with friends in Amherstburg before moving to Toronto. Mrs. Blackburn (she would never have been accorded that honorific while a slave) celebrated her freedom by discarding the name she bore as a slave and calling herself Lucie. She was about thirty years old when they settled in Toronto, and Thornton was twenty-two.

  The Blackburns spent the remainder of their lives in Toronto. Miraculously, they had reunited with Thornton’s brother Alfred (who was working as a carpenter). Thornton also brought his mother, Sibby, to join them; he risked his life to rescue her. Thornton worked as a waiter in the dining room at Osgoode Hall before he and Lucie established Upper Canada’s first cab company in 1837. They had a specially built horse-drawn carriage. Though Lucie was an excellent money manager and Thornton was an enterprising man, they were both illiterate. They remained childless.

  In 1848, the Blackburns were able to purchase the large double lot they’d been renting on South Park Street. They constructed an 800-square-foot bungalow, a classic African-American “shotgun house.”[5] These structures were common in southern cities and originated in West Africa and the Caribbean: a long, narrow house with three rooms in a row, and a short, gabled end. Theirs faced Lake Ontario. Though they lived a modest lifestyle, Lucie and Thornton were successful entrepreneurs who profited from their cab company.

  The Blackburns also assisted newly arrived fugitive slaves by housing them at nominal rates in rental properties and sometimes in their own home. They helped improve conditions for the new arrivals by creating jobs and contributing funds for settlements, such as the Buxton Mission, established near Chatham in 1849. Thornton was one of four men, including newspaper publisher George Brown, who contributed a total of £750 to create mills there. While there is little information about Lucie’s involvement in anti-slavery activities, she did attend the Convention of Coloured Freemen in Toronto in 1851.

  Thornton retired from the cab business after the Civil War. The affluent couple lived on their savings and investment income for three decades. Thornton died in 1890 and was buried in the Toronto Necropolis in the family’s plot. Lucie inherited their home, six rental properties, and cash for a total estate of $18,000. By the time she died in 1895, the onetime slave was a prosperous moneylender, earning 6 to 7 percent on the mortgages she held. Lucie Thornton was buried beside her husband. One of the city’s most prominent physicians, Dr. Frederick Lemoine Grassett, signed her death certificate.

  In 2002, a Quest for Freedom celebration marked Lucie and Thorton Blackburn’s harrowing escape. The joint American-Canadian project commemorated their journey from Louisville, Kentucky, to Toronto, Ontario, by installing historic markers in both cities. The Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada recognized the couple as persons of national historic significance, and erected a plaque at the site of their longtime home in Toronto.

  This site was excavated by archaeologist and historian Karolyn Smardz Frost in 1985, sparking her nearly twenty-year quest to piece together the story of the couple, runaway slaves who left no written records nor any descendants to preserve their memory. Karolyn Smardz Frost’s award-winning book, I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land, is the result of her research, and a poignant tribute to them: “Every American slave who found refuge in Canada before the Civil War had reason to be thankful to Thornton and Lucie Blackburn.”[6]

  Quote:

  [I am a] “full blooded Creole from the West Indies.”[7]

  Fern Blodgett.

  Sparks on the Lucky Mosdale

  Fern Blodgett

  1918–1991

  Determined to fight the Germans in the Second World War, she served at sea during the Battle of the Atlantic.

  Fern Blodgett was the first Canadian woman to become a wartime wireless radio operator, and the first to serve at sea with the merchant marines during the Second World War. She jumped at the opportunity to work on a foreign vessel since females were forbidden from serving on Canadian ships. The idea horrified Canadian officials: “Good God no, we have enough trouble on ships now without having women on board!”[1]

  Fern was bor
n in Regina but grew up in Cobourg, Ontario. She loved watching the steamships on Lake Ontario and dreamed of becoming a sailor. After the outbreak of the Second World War, she thought there might be a slim chance of going to sea and helping the war effort if she became a wireless operator — or “Sparks,” named after the spark-gap radios used to transmit Morse code. While working as a stenographer in Toronto she found a school that trained women as wireless operators. Fern received her second-class wireless operator’s licence after about eighteen months of attending night school while working her day job.

  Opportunity knocked on her graduation day: June 13, 1941. Knowing that Fern wanted to work on a ship, her principal phoned with the news that there was an urgent need for a Sparks on a Norwegian Merchant Navy vessel, the Mosdale, sailing out of Montreal. She caught the train that night. The ship’s master wasn’t expecting F. Blodgett to be a woman. After days of delay waiting for a qualified radio operator, Captain Gerner Sunde was desperate to depart so he accepted Fern for the job. (They married a year later.)

  The Mosdale was a modern, 3,000-ton ship carrying a crew of thirty-five and twelve passengers. During the war, it played a vital role in transporting provisions across the Atlantic to England. It also carried passengers, such as servicemen, correspondents, and seamen who’d been torpedoed. The Mosdale was a fast ship, capable of 15 knots, and often travelled alone since it could usually outrun submarines. Despite the hazards of crossing the Atlantic during the Second World War, the Mosdale miraculously made ninety-eight wartime crossings, with Fern in charge of radio communications for seventy-eight. Of the half-dozen Norwegian fruit carriers operating during the Battle of the Atlantic, only the Mosdale survived.

  Fern’s expertise was essential for the vessel’s safety. From the first day she sailed on the Mosdale, the newly minted Sparks was in charge of the Telefunken radio station; later, she had an English 2nd and a Norwegian 3rd to assist. From the moment the ship hit open seas, Fern became violently seasick, but as the only operator she stuck to her duties with a bucket beside her. She often witnessed the horrors of lost ships and crews after torpedo attacks, and guided the Mosdale through many close calls, escaping enemy subs, German bombers, or uncharted minefields. Fern quickly earned the respect and admiration of the ship’s captain and crew, and a secret letter from the Admiralty commended the Mosdale for its exemplary use of wireless instructions to escape dangers.

  After the Mosdale’s fifty-first Atlantic crossing, in 1942, crew members were honoured by a visit from Norway’s King Haakon and Crown Prince Olav. The king presented an award to Captain Sunde and the Norwegian War Medal to his wife, Fern, for her wartime service as the chief wireless operator. She was the first woman to ever receive this decoration. Fern continued to serve on the Mosdale for the duration of the war. She admitted that “there was always the threat of danger and toward the end of the war our nerves got pretty frayed.”[2]

  Fern remained on the ship for six months after the war before leaving to start a family with Captain Sunde in Norway. His sudden death from a heart attack left her with two young daughters to raise on her own. She remained in her adopted homeland for the remainder of her life, earning a medal from the city of Farsund in 1988 for the distinction she brought to it. The courageous Canadian heroine died in 1991.

  Fern Blodgett’s role as a Sparks in the Second World War seems virtually unknown in Canada. Groups such as the Radio Amateurs of Canada, YLRadio, and the Canadian Ladies Amateur Radio Association are trying to ensure that the contributions of early women radio operators are not forgotten. The Norwegian book Lykkelige Mosdale (Lucky Mosdale) by Eiliv Odde Hauge includes Fern’s story.

  Quote:

  “Why should I not risk my life when millions of men are risking theirs. Is a woman’s life more precious than a man’s?”[3]

  An imaginary portrait of Esther Brandeau, by artist Julia Bell.

  Secret Identities

  Esther Brandeau

  circa 1718–unknown

  The key to remaining in Canada was simple: become a Catholic. Yet she refused.

  The schooner St. Michel sailed into the port of Quebec in mid-September 1738 following a long journey across the Atlantic from La Rochelle in France. When a young sailor, Jacques La Farge, aroused suspicion, authorities in New France arrested the well-mannered and comely fellow claiming to seek work in the colony. Under interrogation by the marine commissioner, Jacques revealed that he was actually a she: twenty-year-old Esther Brandeau. She had successfully hidden her sex for five years.

  Esther was the daughter of Jewish refugees who’d fled the Portuguese Inquisition. She was born in Bayonne, France, where her father, David Brandeau, was a merchant in Saint-Esprit. Shipwrecked at age fifteen en route to visit her aunt and older brother in Amsterdam, the girl was taken in by a kindly woman in Biarritz on the French coast. Esther soon decided to see some of the world.

  Esther shocked colonial authorities with the tales of her subsequent adventures. She had disguised herself as a boy, calling herself Pierre Alansiette, to work as a ship’s cook in Bordeaux. The freedom-loving girl then posed as a man with a string of different names to explore France, working as errand boy for a tailor, messenger in a convent, baker’s helper, and footman for an ex-infantry captain. After being mistaken for a thief and spending a miserable twenty-four hours in jail, Esther signed on as a ship’s boy on the Saint-Michel.

  The presence of a young Jew in New France presented Intendant Hocquart with a big problem. Adherence to Catholicism was strictly enforced in the French colony and he could make no exceptions. There was a dire shortage of young, marriageable women in New France, so authorities decided to let Esther stay on one condition: she had to become a Catholic. But she stubbornly refused to abandon her own religion and learn about Catholicism.

  The embarrassing case required consultation with the highest officials in France, including Hocquart’s cousin the king. After a year in the colony, Esther still resisted all efforts to persuade her to convert. The intendant advised the minister in France about the lack of progress: “Her conduct has not been wholly bad, but she is so frivolous that at different times she has been both obedient and obstinate with regard to the instruction the priests desired to give her. I have no other alternative than to send her back.”[1]

  Esther was the first Jewish immigrant to Canada[2] — and the first to be deported. On direct orders from King Louis XVI, colonial authorities shipped the young immigrant back to France in the autumn of 1739; the French government paid for her passage. Esther’s fate is unknown, but the incredible story of this heroic woman continues to be remembered in Canada. Though details of her life are scanty, the intriguing adventures of Esther Brandeau have been depicted in a multitude of history books, as well as a novel for young adults and a performance installation by Heather Hermant.[3]

  Quote:

  “[the woman in Biarritz] made her eat pork and other kinds of meat that were forbidden to the Jews, and she resolved in due course never to return to the house of her father and mother, in order to enjoy the same liberty as the Christians.”[4] — Esther’s explanation of why she concealed her sex, 1738. Excerpt from interrogation report of the marine commissioner.

  Rosemary Brown, 1990.

  Barbara Woodley/Labatt Breweries of Canada/National Archives of Canada/PA-186871

  Brown is Beautiful[1]

  Rosemary Brown

  1930–2003

  She challenged oppression and prejudice throughout her life, changing the face of Canada by shattering colour and gender barriers.

  “To be Black and female in a society which is both racist and sexist is to be in the unique position of having nowhere to go but up,”[2] Rosemary Brown quipped in a 1973 speech. The other strikes against her were being an immigrant and a socialist living in a capitalist country. Despite these obstacles, this passionate feminist became the first black woman to win a seat in a provincial legislature.

  Rosemary Brown (née Wedderburn) was born in Jamaica in
1930. She grew up in the home of her grandmother — a prosperous woman whose shrewdness in real estate ensured the family’s financial stability. Rosemary was surrounded by high-achievers, including her Uncle Karl (one of Jamaica’s leading surgeons), and a multitude of strong, well-educated, independent women who were all politically active.

  These accomplished female elders both terrified and inspired the young Rosemary. These religious women served the community as volunteers and activists; they set high standards and had great expectations for Rosemary. While some of her relatives had attended universities overseas, they feared that racism in both the United States and England made those countries too dangerous for her to continue her studies. The family decided to send Rosemary to McGill University in Canada.

  When the eager student arrived in Montreal, she faced the ugliness of racial prejudice for the first time in her life. Most of the other students shunned her and white girls refused to share a dorm room with her. Landlords wouldn’t rent to her and potential employers wouldn’t hire her. She joined the West Indian Society where she met an American student named Bill Brown. The couple wed in 1955 after Rosemary completed her bachelor’s degree. The Browns moved to Vancouver.

  Rosemary worked and raised their three children while Bill trained as a psychiatrist. The couple became active members of the British Columbia Association for the Advancement of Coloured Peoples, fighting racism in the province.