Audrey Alexandra Brown (1904-1998)

The things you find when dancing about the internet…

I’m adding some missing references to our entries, and came upon a 1934 collection of essays by Martin Burrell that includes a biography of Audrey Alexandra Brown. Our entry for her is not as well fleshed out as it could be, so I know what this afternoon’s task will be…

But I thought you might like to have the whole essay to read, as she is a little known but quite interesting poet from Victoria, back when the Victoria and Islands branch of the Canadian Authors Association was highly active and populated with great talent.

Burrell, Martin. “Audrey Alexandra Brown.” Crumbs are Also Bread (Toronto: Macmillan, 1934): 313-327.

Brown AA – bio in BurrellDownload

Ellen H. Gregsten (1831 – 1923)

I received a request for information about Ellen Gregsten from Christine Campana. Sadly, I was absolutely no help, but she did send the link to the FindaGrave page for the author. There, we are told that

Ellen was one of six children of John Robinson, a printer (from Omagh, County Tyrone Northern Ireland), and Mary Turner or Sarah (Maiden Name Unknown) … an orphan, raised in Liverpool … Ellen married William Gregsten on 29 February 1860 in Liverpool, England, at St. Bride’s church. At the time, William lived there on Clayton Square, and Ellen lived on Falkner Street. Soon after their marriage, some time in 1860, they left England and moved to London, Middlesex County, Ontario, Canada. Although William died there in 1869, Ellen chose to remain in Canada for the rest of her life.

The FindaGrave entry also includes a photo, and a few pages of Gregsten’s chapbook, My Secret: A Story in Rhyme; a second chapbook/pamphlet, My February Wish, has no date.

If anyone has any information about this author, please contact us, and we will pass the information forward to Christine Campana.

Lydia Frances Williamson (“Richard Scrace”)

I love connection to community…

I while ago, Ed Butts, of Guelph, Ontario, sent an email asking if we had a better copy of our photo of Lydia Frances Williamson for an article he was writing. The original is from John W. Garvin, ed. Canadian Poets, 2nd ed. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1926), so it was easy to provide. His article has come out today in the Guelph Today news.

Butts, Ed. “Get to Know Two of Guelph’s Lesser-known Composers and Poets.” Guelph Today (26 April 2021). Web.

Hearing More Voices: English-Canadian Women in Print and on the Air, 1914-1960 (2020), by Carole Gerson and Peggy Kelly, a review by Phyllis Reeve

How dare the 1970s Children’s Literature community reject Anne of Green Gables as a “classic,” because the success of LM Montgomery‘s novels was “viewed as symptomatic of their lack of serious value”?

Like Phyllis Reeve, the reviewer of Carole Gerson and Peggy Kelly’s Hearing More Voices: English-Canadian Women in Print and on the Air, 1914-1960, I was appalled to learn of such an opinion. I’m sure that readers of my generation (interestingly, those who would have encountered Anne in the early 1970s) absolutely considered Anne of Green Gables already to be a classic. Another favourite of the reviewer is children’s author and radio presenter Mary Grannan (“Just Mary”). This is undoubtedly why she opens her review with a foray into her childhood reading, but in addition to children’s authors, Hearing More Voices presents more broadly “aspects of the lives and works of Canadian female writers and broadcasters within a tumultuous period during our socio-economic and political history: 1914-1960.” Like our CEWW project, the authors focus on lesser known writers who are all very well worth reading about.

“Easter,” by Lily Crawley

Crawley, Lily. “Easter.” Winnipeg Free Press (8 April 1939): 6.

Acadian Summers (1954), by Ellen M. Fulton

Fulton, Ellne M. Acadian Summers (Penobscot, ME: Tampa UP, 1954).

Long ago, I posted a digital edition of Ellen M. Fulton’s Along the Northumberland Strait. After promising then to scan in her second book of verse, which Anne Sproull lent to me then, I have finally managed to complete the task.

 

“Rhymes in a 10-Cent Scribbler” (1952), by Janice Tyrwhitt, an interview with Edna Jaques,

Tyrwhitt, Janice. “Rhymes in a Ten-Cent Scribbler”. Maclean’s (1 September 1952), 14-15, 42-44.

In honour of International Women’s Day 2021, SFU ran a Wikipedia “Edit-a-thon,” with the focus on building the Wikipedia corpus to include more women, especially strong, entrepreneurial women who are working these days to make our world a better place. Well, given that most (all at this point I believe) of our authors are no  longer living, that wasn’t going to work. But Edna Jaque, called “The Poet Laureate of the West,” was missing. So I fixed that.

In doing my online research, I found this 1952 interview with Enda Jaques, published in Maclean’s magazine. I really enjoyed the immediacy of the author’s voice coupled with the interviewer’s talent, and thought I would share it here, even though this is a digital copy from Maclean’s online archives.

 

“Brother O’Mine,” by Margueretta M.S. Taylor

Annette Fulford, who writes the Canadian War Brides of the First World War blog, has introduced me to another blogger who shares our mutual interests: Lucy London, who writes the Female Poets of the First World War blog.

“In the Land of the Tsar,” by Rosamond Kershaw

Kershaw, Rosamond. “Five Days in the Land of the Tsar.” Canada Monthly 17.4 (February 1915), 222-226; 17.5 (March 1915), 102+

Only three years after this article, despite Tzar Nicholas’s willingness to abdicate, the Russian Imperial family was taken from their home, imprisoned in Aleksandr Palace, then removed to Siberia, where they were shot and bayoneted on the order of Vladimir Lenin on 17 July 1918. The article below notes that St. Petersburg is “now Petrograd,” a sign of the changing times already in Russia.

Ralph Gustafson’s Little Anthology of Canadian Poetry

It is indeed little, and out of fifteen poets, only two are women: Kay Smith and P.K. Page.

Gustafson, Ralph. A Little Anthology of Canadian Poetry (Norfolk, CT: New Directions, 1943).