100 More Canadian Heroines

by Merna Forster

  Quote:

  “I lost my two children: one I kissed goodbye to at the age of six as he left for Canada, and the other, by the whims of fate, at a few months past eighteen years of age, became the victim of such circumstances as makes it very, very hard for me to talk about.”[5]

  Clara Brett Martin.

  Types of Canadian Women, 1903

  A Toppled Legal Heroine

  Clara Brett Martin

  1874–1923

  She accomplished something no other woman in the British Empire had done. Become a lawyer.

  Clara Brett Martin’s achievement was exceptional for a time when doctors claimed that higher education was hazardous to the less robust sex. Physicians cautioned that serious study could even weaken the wombs of these frail creatures.

  Clara didn’t fall for those ideas, nor did her parents. The Martins believed in university education when fewer than one in 100 Canadians pursued post-secondary training: all twelve of their children spent at least some time in university. Clara signed up at Trinity College in Toronto in 1888, three years after women were admitted. She majored in mathematics and graduated with an honours B.A. at sixteen.

  Clara dared to aspire to be a lawyer in the all-male legal system, when women couldn’t yet vote or sit in provincial or federal legislatures. In 1891, she applied to the Law Society of Upper Canada, but was refused admission. When she took legal action to obtain access to the profession for women, some men opposed legislation became it would be “disastrous to the best interests of women.”[1] Opposition leader William Ralph Meredith also doubted that women would want to wear the unfashionable official robes worn by male litigators.

  Due to the involvement of influential supporters such as suffragist Dr. Emily Stowe and Premier Sir Oliver Mowat, a law was passed in 1892 in Ontario permitting women to become solicitors. There was still grumbling in the Law Society, but members eventually allowed Clara to study law in 1893. She continued to face hostility and abuse — from the male lecturers who tried to embarrass her with sexual references, to fellow students who hissed when she entered the classroom. When Clara began articling, she switched firms after being treated miserably. But she persevered and placed first in her exams.

  Clara was a solicitor but wanted to be a barrister as well. The legendary Lady Aberdeen, the National Council of Women, and the International Council of Women lobbied on her behalf. After MPP Bruce Wood introduced a motion to allow women to become barristers, there was vociferous debate about the dangers to homes and womanhood, but the bill eventually passed. The Law Society still refused to accept Clara.

  The society gave in only after being pressured by Sir Oliver Mowat and some wealthy clients. At twenty-three, Clara was admitted to the Law Society as a barrister and solicitor on February 2, 1897. She was the first woman in the British Empire to become a full-fledged lawyer. Earning her Bachelor of Civil Law in 1897, she received her LL.B. in 1899.

  Clara joined a Toronto firm and became a partner in 1901. In 1906, she established her own office, focusing on family law, wills, and real estate. She built a successful practice but seldom appeared in court because of the commotion her presence created. Clara owned her own home in a pleasant residential area of Toronto, plus seven row houses in Cabbagetown that she rented out.

  Clara lectured frequently to women’s groups and supported legal equality for married women. She lobbied for female suffrage, fundraising for day nurseries,[2] and the creation of a special court for women. A member of the Toronto Collegiate Institute Board and the Public School Board, Clara fought for a variety of causes, including meals for impoverished children. The energetic reformer never married.

  Clara Brett Martin died suddenly from a heart attack in 1923, at forty-nine. Toronto newspapers praised her and she was later widely recognized for her accomplishments. The Canadian Encyclopedia continues to credit her as a heroic trailblazer. In 1989, the new building housing the Ministry of the Attorney General in Toronto was named in her honour. At the reception that followed, a dramatic re-creation of her struggles brought many in the audience of 600 to tears.

  In July 1990, an Ontario law professor published a letter that Clara had written in 1915 claiming that Jews were exclusively responsible for unethical real-estate practices in Toronto. Clara asked for legislative action. Though such racial prejudice was common at the time and Clara employed a Jewish woman as a secretary and bookkeeper, the lawyer’s anti-Semitic beliefs quickly pushed her from her pedestal. She was vilified after the startling revelations were made public. The Ontario government removed Clara’s name from the building that honoured her, the University of Toronto quickly cut references to the legal pioneer from its “Clara Brett Martin Workshop Series,” and Osgoode Hall Law School abandoned its plans to name a new feminist institute after her.

  Assessing Clara’s change in status, legal historian Constance Backhouse suggested that we had been holding her “to a model of purity which will be met by very few — perhaps none in her own time, or today. This conception of a heroine as perfect and omniscient is binding, restrictive, and remarkably rigid.”[3]

  Jewish radical-lesbian feminist Lynne Pearlman, a lawyer who admired Clara Brett Martin’s struggle, came to the difficult decision that she could not forgive her nor could she give her up as a role model: “I refuse to make a choice…. I feel as strongly about her struggle being honoured, not jettisoned, as I do about her anti-Semitism being exposed and denounced.”[4]

  Quote:

  “If it were not that I set out to open the way to the bar for others of my sex, I would have given up the effort long ago.”[5]

  Dr. McGill in her laboratory.

  R.C.M.P. Quarterly, 1946

  The Sherlock Holmes of Saskat-

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  Frances Gertrude McGill

  1877–1959

  A brilliant forensic pathologist and one of the country’s leading criminologists, she had a genius for solving mysteries.

  The RCMP thought they had their man, until Dr. McGill investigated. After a young farmer was found shot in the head, the police arrested a neighbour. Dr. McGill’s analysis eventually determined that despite the fact that the victim was shot with the accused’s shotgun, and that the accused was covered in blood, the dead man had actually committed suicide by shooting himself and hiding the gun before dying. She also proved that the supposedly incriminating blood stains were not human, but from a wounded farm animal.

  Dr. Frances Gertrude McGill was a pioneer in many ways. Born and raised on a family farm in Minnedosa, Manitoba, she taught school for several years to finance her university studies. She initially studied law, but switched to medicine and graduated at thirty-seven. Frances was a brilliant student, receiving the Dean’s Prize and the Hutchinson Gold Medal for highest marks as well as a surgery prize.

  After serving as the provincial bacteriologist in Saskatchewan, Dr. McGill accepted a job as provincial pathologist. In 1922, she became the director of the provincial laboratory, where she focused on investigating suspicious deaths. The RCMP did not establish a crime lab until 1937, so Dr. McGill conducted all the forensic autopsies and related analyses for police forces and the RCMP in Saskatchewan. Frances had found her calling as a shrewd investigator with a talent for crime detection. Many called her the Sherlock Holmes of Saskatchewan.

  Dr. McGill travelled thousands of kilometres to crime scenes across the province in all kind of weather. In 1934 alone, she made forty-three trips to investigate crimes. On one case she ventured as far north as the Arctic Circle. She was robust and strong, a woman who considered service to the RCMP her number one priority. Her male colleagues admired her “unboundless energy and invincible determination,”[1] and the fact that she would work to the point of exhaustion. Nobody ever doubted her dedication or that she could face the grisliest crime scene. In addition to her scientific expertise and investigative skills, Dr. McGill was admired for being a gifted communicator with a great sense of humour and a skilled horseback rider.
<
br />   Dr. McGill successfully combined her knowledge of law and medicine in search of the truth, earning widespread renown for her meticulous investigations, shrewd detective work, and her unshakeable testimony as an expert witness in murder cases. She was difficult to cross-examine, and pointed in her remarks. “Ask sensible questions and I will answer them,”[2] she told one lawyer.

  Though she retired as provincial pathologist in 1942, Dr. McGill continued to practise medicine. When the director of the newly created RCMP Crime Lab in Regina died in a plane crash the following year, she quickly stepped in to manage the lab temporarily. Dr. McGill lectured at the police college in Regina, teaching forensic medicine to a new generation of crime stoppers.

  In 1946, the RCMP named Dr. Frances McGill the Honorary Surgeon to the RCMP, recognizing her dedication to the force. Well-known across Canada and highly esteemed, she contributed to the development of scientific analysis in crime cases.[3] She was an outstanding criminologist and forensic pathologist who demonstrated the importance of forensic medicine in criminal investigations.

  Dr. Frances McGill died in Winnipeg in 1959, at eighty-one. Saskatchewan named McGill Lake, north of Lake Athabasca, in her memory.

  Quote:

  “Think like a man, act like a lady and work like a dog.”[4]

  Dorothea Mitchell at Silver Mountain, pre-1921.

  Courtesy of the personal collection of Michel S. Beaulieu

  The Lumberjack Who Made Movies

  Dorothea Mitchell

  1877–1976

  The first single woman to be granted a homestead in Ontario, this indomitable pioneer reinvented herself time and time again.

  Funny how childhood lessons and experiences mould an individual. Dorothea Mitchell’s mother taught her two daughters to be fearless and independent. Mrs. Mitchell allowed them to ride half-wild ponies, swim in murky waters, climb cliffs, and learn carpentry from an undertaker. She taught the girls to dance and how to write stories. When Dorothea was twenty-seven she immigrated to Canada, confident that she was equipped with the abilities to “stay on top”[1] in even the most trying circumstances.

  Dorothea Mitchell was born in Lancaster County, England, but grew up in Bombay, India. Her father travelled extensively, overseeing railway construction in the British Empire, and decided to have his family join him in the British Raj in the early 1880s. Dorothea enjoyed the luxurious lifestyle and freedom, becoming an adventurous spirit during the years in India. In1894, the girls moved back to England because of Mrs. Mitchell’s ill health. Three years later they received tragic news: Mr. Mitchell had died suddenly in India.

  Dorothea and her sister, Vera, immediately became the breadwinners of the family, working as governesses. After years of drudgery, Dorothea decided to establish herself in Canada and then bring over her mother and sister. The solitary settler soon found employment in Toronto as an assistant manager in a hotel. She bought a rooming house, and earned extra money by teaching dancing and swimming. When it became clear that her mother was still not well enough to move to Canada, the adventurous Dorothea headed for the bush.

  In 1909, Dorothea travelled about 1,400 kilometres west to Silver Mountain, Ontario, where she had accepted a job to be a companion to the wife of a superintendent in a mining camp. The tall, attractive redhead got a lot of attention as the only woman in the area between sixteen and forty. The mine closed, but Dorothea decided to stay on. Resourceful as always, she juggled jobs as station master on the Port Arthur–Duluth railway, postmaster, and manager of her own general store. In late 1910, Dorothea petitioned the Ontario government to be granted a free homestead.

  After initial delays, the government claimed that unmarried women, weren’t entitled to land grants. Dorothea refused to take no for an answer. After more than a year of letter-writing, appeals to the deputy minister of Lands and Forests, and the resubmission of her application when the first one mysteriously disappeared, the government reversed its decision. On July 29, 1911, Dorothea became the first single woman to be granted a homestead in Ontario.

  The victory was bittersweet. The province refused to grant her the standard allotment of 160 acres; Dorothea recieved just seventy-nine. When she dared appeal the judgment, the government said that “not being a married women you are not strictly entitled to a free grant.”[2] But at least thirty-four-year-old Dorothea was the proud owner of a homestead. By the time her mother and sister joined her, some land had been cleared and a hewed-log house awaited them.

  Dorothea bought a sawmill in 1914 and hired some men to work for her. She managed an efficient operation and was actively involved in every aspect of the business, from scrambling up mountainsides in deep snow to filling in as engineer for three months and stoking the firebox with a cord and a half of wood per day. It was such hard work that she lost thirteen pounds in the first two weeks. The workers knew that Miss Mitchell could handle any of the jobs in the mill and dubbed her the “lady lumberjack.”[3]

  Dorothea decided to retire from lumbering in 1921, moving to Port Arthur to join her sister. At forty-four she got involved in a variety of different business ventures. After enrolling in business college, she was soon teaching there and working as an accountant, eventually opening her own firm and selling real estate. She also starred in a play at the Lyceum Theatre in Port Arthur.

  In 1929, Dorothea and her friends Fred Cooper and Harold Harcourt formed the Port Arthur Cinema Society after Fred bought a movie camera. Working out of Dorothea’s office, the threesome created a silent movie called A Race for Ties — the first Canadian-made amateur feature-length film. She wrote the script, served as production manager, editor, actor, wardrobe manager, and director. The film’s local popularity encouraged the friends to develop a second film, but their third production (a murder mystery entitled The Fatal Flower) had to be abandoned in 1930 due to lack of funds.

  By 1930 both Dorothea’s sister and mother had died. Dorothea, always eager for new challenges, bought an insurance agency, managed a volunteer agency during the Second World War, and signed up with the Red Cross overseas at sixty-three. Too old to ship out, Dorothea served with the organization in Canada and helped locate suitable homes for British Child Guests during the war.

  In 1944, Dorothea began a new life in Victoria, British Columbia, where she became an active member of the Canadian Authors Association and the Victoria Amateur Movie Club. She put her considerable writing skills to good use by penning an autobiography. At ninety-two, Dorothea published Lady Lumberjack. She died in Victoria in 1976 after nearly 100 years of adventure.

  Thanks to Lakehead University’s Michael S. Beaulieu and Ronald N. Harpelle, Dorothea’s remarkable autobiography was republished. A group of Thunder Bay film buffs went to considerable effort to complete the silent picture she was unable to finish so long ago. Seventy years after she worked on The Fatal Flower, the film was shown to an enthusiastic crowd.

  Dorothea Mitchell (centre, with a black wig) on the set of A Race for Ties, 1929.

  Courtesy of the personal collection of Michel S. Beaulieu

  Quote:

  “I, a mere female, was able to survive in what was certainly a man’s world long before an executive in skirts had come to be a phenomenon that was accepted as only slightly unusual.”[4]

  Fort Steele Park interpreter Wynn Rower-Towers in the role of Sophie Morigeau.

  Courtesy of photographer Sally Passey

  The Trader

  Sophie Morigeau

  circa 1836–1916

  She proved a woman’s place could be on the trails of the rugged Rockies, thriving as a free trader.

  Sophie Morigeau was tough. So tough that she amputated her protruding rib after an accident with a runaway horse and buggy — and hung up the piece in her cabin with a pink bow.

  Sophie’s career choice was as unusual as she was. Running a pack train in the borderlands of northwestern North American was risky business, but the fearless Métis was up to the challenge. Travelling alone in the mountains,
fording raging rivers, camping in all kinds of weather, and confronting rival traders were familiar to Sophie, a child of the fur trade.

  Catholic priest Father Modeste Demers baptized Sophie at the Jasper House trading post in 1838. She was raised in a large extended family of trappers and fur traders, primarily free traders. Her mother was Elizabeth Taylor, daughter of a Scotchman who settled in Red River and a Métis woman. Sophie’s biological father was probably Patrick Finley, son of the famous Jocko Finlay who helped David Thompson set up trading posts. By the time Sophie was baptized, her mother was living with a Montreal-born trader named François Baptiste Morigeau. Sophie grew accustomed to an itinerant lifestyle as her family moved from place to place when trading opportunities changed. She spent much of her childhood in the Upper Columbia area of the Kootenays, where her step-father was a free trader.

  With increasing settlement and diminishing returns in fur trading, the Morigeaus moved to Fort Colville, where they could obtain free land. Sophie may have attended a mission school for a few years, though it seems she could not write. At sixteen, she wed trader Jean Baptiste Chabotte in a Catholic ceremony. For a mixed-blood girl it would have been considered a good match to marry a white man. By 1860, the marriage fizzled and Sophie was single again.