Remarkable Women, Then and Now Portraits by Jo Napier Stories by Joanne Wise Many remarkable women contributed to this project. Thanks especially to Etta Moffatt at Communications Nova Scotia for her vision and guidance, and to Crystal Sutherland at the Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of Women for the magic that librarians do. © Crown copyright, Province of Nova Scotia, 2014 Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Wise, Joanne. All rights reserved. This book may be cited as follows: The Nova Scotia nine : remarkable women, then and Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of now / by Joanne Wise ; portraits by Jo Ann Napier. Women. The Nova Scotia Nine: Remarkable women, then -- Halifax, NS. : Published for the Advisory Council on and now (Portraits by Jo Napier; Stories by Joanne the Status of Women by Communications Nova Scotia, Wise). Halifax: Province of Nova Scotia, 2014. 2014. Project Coordinator: Crystal Sutherland 72 p. : col. ports. CNS Publishing Coordinator: Etta Moffatt Artist: Jo Napier Contents: Marie-Henriette LeJeune (Granny) Ross – Writer: Joanne Wise Anna Leonowens – Edith Jessie Archibald – Mabel Bell Editor: Diane Macgregor – Margaret Marshall Saunders – Muriel Duckworth – Designer: Kathy Kaulbach, Touchstone Design House Aileen Meagher – Viola Desmond – Rita Joe. Produced and published through ISBN: 978-1-55457-570-1 Communications Nova Scotia for 1. Women--Nova Scotia--Biography. 2. Napier, Jo Ann., 1958- I. Nova Scotia. Communications Nova Scotia. II. Title. 920.72’9716–dc23 2014 Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of Women 6169 Quinpool Road, Suite 202, Halifax NS B3J 2T3 Phone: 902-424-8662 E-mail: [email protected] Web: women.novascotia.ca This book is available online at https://women.novascotia.ca/publications- resources/nova-scotia-nine Contents About the Nova Scotia Nine \ 1 Timeline \ 2 Marie-Henriette LeJeune (Granny) Ross \ 5 Anna Leonowens \ 11 Edith Jessie Archibald \ 17 Mabel Bell \ 23 Margaret Marshall Saunders \ 31 Muriel Duckworth \ 39 Aileen Meagher \ 47 Viola Desmond \ 53 Rita Joe \ 61 And now ... \ 67 THE NOVA SCOTIA NINE About the Nova Scotia Nine 1 Halifax painter Jo Napier created the Jo is a Halifax native who studied at Vancouver’s Nova Scotia Nine portrait series that inspired Emily Carr Institute of Art + Design and this book. The Nova Scotia Nine is a collection the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. A of large-scale, contemporary paintings of former columnist for The Globe and Mail, The women who lived extraordinary lives and Halifax Herald, and The Ottawa Citizen, her made a difference here in Nova Scotia. paintings can now be found in private and corporate collections on Canada’s East Coast. “The Nova Scotia Nine portraits grew out of She is co-author of Technology With Curves: a desire to teach my young daughter, Julia, Women reshaping the digital landscape; writer what women can do,” says Jo. “When I tried of an award-winning documentary, Bronwyn to think of stories about great women of Nova and Yaffa, for the National Film Board Scotia, not many came to mind. No great (NFB); and associate producer of shows and stories bubbled up.” documentaries on digital life for the Public Jo wanted her daughter—and any young Broadcasting System (PBS). woman—to be able to “look up at a large, Jo lives in Halifax with her husband, Greg, beautiful painting and discover a female face” and daughter Julia. The paintings are now and a powerful story. “The idea was pretty owned by the RBC Art Collection and live in simple: paint women who made a difference the 14th-floor boardroom of RBC Dominion in the world. And show other young women Securities at Purdy’s Wharf, Halifax. they could do the same.” “Until I started researching them, I never knew Remarkable women, then and now what Aileen Meagher, or Rita Joe, or Viola The nine women featured in this collection have passed into Desmond, or Margaret Marshall Saunders did. history, but their legacies continue. In the stories gathered here, What I found were stories of very different you will meet a current generation of women who are, in various women who followed their hearts, stepped ways, following in the footsteps of the Nova Scotia Nine and beyond boundaries, and ultimately did some blazing their own remarkable trails. good in the world. And they did it here in Nova Scotia.” THE NOVA SCOTIA NINE 2 Timeline 1760 1770 1780 1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 Marie-Henriette LeJeune Ross Anna Leonowens Edith Jessie Archibald Mabel Bell Margaret Marshall Saunders THE NOVA SCOTIA NINE 3 1760 1770 1780 1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 Edith Jessie Archibald Mabel Bell Margaret Marshall Saunders Muriel Duckworth Aileen Meagher Viola Desmond Rita Joe REMARKABLE WOMEN, THEN AND NOW Marie-Henriette LeJeune “My own grandfather was at her funeral, (Granny) Ross and it was from his lips that I first heard the tremendous story of his great-grandmother.”1 Marie-Henriette LeJeune 5 (Granny) Ross 1762-1860 More than a century and a half after The LeJeune family longed for the life they 1 \ Local historian Elva her fabled life and final breath, Granny had loved in Acadia. They returned when E. Jackson, in Cape Breton’s Magazine, Issue Ross inspires admiration and competition Marie-Henriette was a child, only to be 37, 1984, 41. for bragging rights. Midwife, healer, fierce deported back to France a few years later. homesteading pioneer—she’s the kind of Undaunted, they made the transatlantic 2 \ For a history of the LeJeunes in woman you want your great-great-great+ journey again in 1784 when Marie-Henriette Acadia, see Roland F. grandmother to be. was a young married woman. Surette’s Métis/Acadian Heritage 1604 to 2004, Most of what we know about this medical According to legend, she brought with Nova Scotia: Eastern trailblazer has been passed down through her from France a sharp knife and a vial Woodland Métis family stories and Cape Breton folklore. The containing a serum she would later use to save Nation, 2004. facts are fuzzy and some tall tales have been her community from an epidemic of smallpox. told. We know that her parents were Acadian. Whether or not this is true, she undoubtedly Her ancestors were probably both French and carried an instinct for survival and a capacity Mi’kmaq.2 For a time, she was thought to have for healing. been born on Acadian soil (now Nova Scotia) Marie-Henriette was twice widowed before before the legendary fall of Louisbourg, the age of 26. Her first husband, a much older making her 117 years old when she died. widower with children, died in a drowning In fact, she was born in Rochefort, France, in accident. Her second husband, a cousin, 1762—a tiny political refugee. Her ancestors drowned as well. Her third marriage was to had been among the first French colonists to James Ross, a sturdy Irish-Scotsman. It was an inhabit the new world in the turbulent century improbable union of opposing forces: Marie- before her birth. Her Acadian parents were Henriette LeJeune was devoutly Catholic deported back to France after the Fortress of and proudly Acadian; James Ross was an Louisbourg fell to the British in 1758, four English-speaking Protestant who had served years before she was born. in the British army. Remarkably the marriage worked. They agreed that their sons would be THE NOVA SCOTIA NINE | Marie-Henriette LeJeune (Granny) Ross 6 According to legend, she brought with her from France a sharp knife and a vial containing a serum she would later use to save her community from an epidemic of smallpox. raised Protestant and their daughters Roman A smallpox outbreak tested her skills and Catholic. Marie-Henriette may have given the trust of her patients. Smallpox is almost birth to as many as 11 children. Some sources unheard of today, thanks to modern vaccines. name only four. Two children are known to But in centuries past it was a highly feared have survived; a son and a daughter. disease. Victims would become tired and feverish, then break out in blisters over their The LeJeune-Ross family lived on 200 acres entire body. The clear fluid of the blisters of land at Little Bras d’Or for several years, would turn to pus, a grim warning to those farming and trading with their French, Gaelic, who were not yet infected. People were often English, and Mi’kmaw neighbours. This is too frightened to tend to the sick. where Marie-Henriette first distinguished herself as a medical miracle-worker. It is Marie-Henriette rose to the challenge. She thought that she learned many of her healing swiftly organized a tight community program, skills from a Mi’kmaw grandmother, and isolating victims in a log cabin and vaccinating The roots and leaves that she combined traditional medicine with the healthy. She might have used the serum of the pitcher plant European practices. But she went further— she is said to have carried from France; or she have been used in experimenting with what she found in the might have made her own, taking a scraping traditional medicine fields and forests. She gathered natural of pus from a victim then transferring it into for centuries. ingredients to make teas, poultices, and a healthy person through a scratch lanced other cures—sometimes walking dozens of into an arm or shoulder. It is likely that she kilometres on rough trails to find what she was immune to the smallpox virus, possibly needed.